Sega Saturn – Keeping The Lid Closed

So I decided out of sheer boredom, to see if I could fix my beloved modded Sega Saturn that I purchased many years ago off eBay (shady right? Lol). It has a mod chip soldered/installed inside that allows me to play burned copy’s of any Saturn game from any region (best Saturn console purchase I ever made)! I’m not a supporter of piracy, but we can’t all afford those high end priced Saturn games (Damn you Panzer Dragoon Saga!).

Sadly a couple years ago, the disc tray lid developed a serious issue……it stopped knowing if it was closed or not. I tinkered, I took apart, I put back together, I taped down the lid sensor……nothing worked. So I gave up. If the console thinks the lid is open at boot up, it won’t read any disc’s. Legit games or copies.
This morning though I found a (very cheap and kinda ghetto) fix online that simply involves you sticking a coin in the gap of the lid when closed, to apply pressure and presto! It’s fixed! Here’s the thing though……I didn’t get to try it out to see if that works. With coin in hand, I accidentally hit the power button and hadn’t inserted the coin yet. So I said what the hell, let’s see what happens. And would you believe it? The Saturn lid issue was suddenly gone! The copied game loaded right up! This Saturn has been stored away for years and it suddenly just now works again?

I’m not complaining. I’m very happy! But now I wonder if I’ll get the error again one day as it’s fairly common for the Model 1 Sega Saturn. I guess if that happens, I’ll have a coin ready lol. In the meantime, I’m going to try to play ‘Akumajou Dracula X ~Gekka no Yasoukyoku~’. The Japanese version of what we knew in the states as ‘Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night’. Let’s see how long this lasts!

Alas, it was too good to be true. I decided to show my kids what Sonic Jam was all about, and in the middle of showing the kids the game, the system went back to its main system menu. It thought the lid was open. Sigh…… so I tried the coin trick.

That worked for a minute but wasn’t stable enough. So I decided to take the console apart.

Once inside, I noticed that at one point I used duct tape to hold down the mod chip. That tape was now brittle. So I decided to replace it with something much stronger. Carpet tape! That should do lol!

Anyways, I then looked at the tower clip that when pinched closed makes the system think the lid is closed. Then it hit me. Maybe I could (as permanently as possible) tape it as well so I wouldn’t have this stupid problem anymore!

The only way to test this theory was to mess with the tower while the system was apart and powered. This is probably a really bad idea lol. It took several attempts and a few pieces of carpet tape, but it worked!

I first tested a game with the system still apart, and had success!

Then I put it back together and again success! As you can see, the Sonic game is running with the lid wide open!

Now it’s just a matter of how long the tape will hold……

That’s all for now.

Cheers and Game On!

– TheMaltyGamer