Saturn v1 region mod/power problems?

[Chupperson]

Hey guys,
I recently acquired a second Saturn and the disc drive wasn't working on it. When I opened the system, I found the ribbon cable was completely disconnected from the drive. It also had bug parts so I took the whole thing apart and cleaned all the parts. I decided I might as well region switch mod the thing while I was at it so I wouldn't have to disassemble it twice. However, when I got it all back together, it no longer powered on and instead had the blinking power LED problem, which I've read is a problem with the power supply board. Prior to my disassembly however, it powered on fine; it just didn't read discs.

My question is, do you think I could have caused the power board to short out if I connected the region switch wrong? The fuse looks fine. I'm hoping for the outside chance the power board just happened to go bad because from what I can see it's fairly easy just to buy a new one.

It's a model 1 Saturn, and I just installed the switch to go from USA to JP. Any help will be appreciated.

[dendawg]

Unless the fuse is one of those ones with a transparent window that you can tell it's blown just by looking at it, I wouldn't trust just looking at it. Try a continuity check on the fuse with a multimeter.

[Tokimemofan]

Is it an early model 1? The early ones have a top mounted power supply, the later ones are more like the model 2. I ask because the early ones don't give much workroom near the connector, maybe something on that end is damaged. BTW I have a spare model 1 power supply from a system that I gutted for the parts. Let me know if you end up needing it.

[Chupperson]

Fuse looks and tests good. (Without it I wouldn't be getting any power anyway.) When I power it on, I get about half the listed voltage on the pins connecting the power board to the main board, and they spike from ~0 to half listed in time with the LED flashes. I guess the next thing to do is make sure the region mod isn't somehow causing it. After that I guess I will see about getting a new power board.

[Chupperson]

Okay, the region switch was the culprit. I took it out and just hardwired the system to play Japanese games. Now it powers on fine.
However, the access light blinks constantly, which I'm assuming to be a spindle motor problem. I plugged the ribbon cable back in and the laser moves when the drive door sensor is closed, so I'm assuming the ribbon cable is good.
I guess my question now is, if the drive motor is bad, does anyone have another one?

[APE992]

A model 1 will have the light flash constantly because it is designed to do that.

[dendawg]

However, the access light blinks constantly

As APE said, this is normal behavior for a model 1, especially if the game you have in there has CD tracks for the background music. What you're seeing is the CD track being played.

[Chupperson]

I suppose I wasn't clear in the fact that it blinks and does not read anything. The drive doesn't spin.
However, that's mostly irrelevant now because another Saturn 1 (with a functional drive) basically fell into my lap.

In case anyone's interested, the information for the region mod on gamesx is not quite correct. I had to use the jumper info from the pictures that "only apply to the HiSaturn Navi" on my Saturn 1 to install the region switch successfully. So that jumper arrangement made it through to at least one American motherboard revision.