pretty sure I killed it...

Soooo yeah I'm brand new to the forums, and also new to modding. I'm pretty technically skilled so I figured I give a go at adding led's and a fresh paint job to my SNES (gen 1). I wired the first light into the power switch, soldered and heat shrink, kicked on power to see if it would work, light came on great, so I continued on with wiring the second light, now I know when I say this a lot of people will say I'm an idiot, I daisy chained the second light into the wiring of the first. kick on power to check and I get nothing, no lights at all. I attempted some basic trouble shooting by removing all the wiring and led's and half way put everything back together and it it doesn't do anything now... I don't currently have a volt meter so I can't actually check to see if it's still getting power. my question is this, has anyone had a similar issue like this, and what should I check to to see if I'm still getting power or is the board fried? also where do I need to go to see where the best locations are to attach my power and grounds next time? thanks in advance for any help, I have another SNES on the way already. :confused:
 
Really no body can help me lol, I did get some advice from a guy I work with, I pulled too many amps when I connected the second light, but now the million dollar question is what did I fry on the board, I'm assuming the fuse, any takers?
 
To see if it still works, can you connect a RCA lead to the composite output to check if video works? If you don't have a multimeter that would be easiest. Sounds like you just killed the LEDs. The board is probably fine. I don't really get how you would have fried anything apart from the LEDs. If thats not the case, the first place you should check are the fuses.
 
I have to agree with Bush here. Unless you bypassed components or brought your power directly onto the board, I doubt you ruined the board doing what you did. Even an accidental bridge would be such a huge mess, I doubt you would've missed it.

I'm not real familiar with the "power path" on an SNES board, so I can't tell you exactly what happened, but if I were you, I'd take some real nice pictures of your board and post them. If you're ever going to get help here, that is your best chance.

And for Christ's sake, get a multimeter! It is your best friend and they aren't very expensive. You don't need a great one. A very basic one will do! Sorry I can't be more helpful! Good luck!
 
Multi-meter is on the way lol! Snagged one off of eBay, anyways I wired it directly to the power switch, and nothing looks burnt on the board, but I did try hooking it up to the TV (After removing my added wiring)and it doesn't work, I don't even get the factory led up front, where exactly would the fuse be located? And does anyone have advice on the best way to run two LEDs? After this screw up I'm thinking its best to not run them in series, of course its occurred to me that the voltage required for the LEDs I have is 3.7, and the voyage output from the switch is only 5v, which means two wouldn't be able to run anyways.. This is my first real time jumping to something like this, I'm pretty technically skilled, but I'm light on knowledge when it comes to stuff like this, thanks for the help!
 
You'll be looking for a surface mount fuse if I had to guess. I'm not sure what they look like, probably like smt capacitors but glass I think? I would Google to verify and while you're at it I'm sure you can find the location of the fuses for the snes. If it is blown, you can bridge the connections on either end and restore the flow of electricity.
 
I personally run my LEDs in parallel. You lose voltage too quickly in series and your lights won't be the same intensity. Use a calculator to see what resistors you need. There are many out there.

Like I said, snap a few pictures and let us see what you have. I'm not familiar with the SNES board, but a board is a board. Maybe I can be more help, or someone else can help out.
 
TankerEasy said:
Would it be safe to remove the fuse and bridge the gap? That wouldn't cause any issues would it?

Well, remember that a blown fuse is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. If you are sure that you fixed what blew the fuse, then it will do for now until you get a replacement. I would never do it to my stuff, though. Fuses are cheap enough that the risk to other components isn't worth it to me. It might not cause a problem, but something caused a good fuse to break. That fuse is protecting something past it. Keep that in mind!
 
It's hard to see from your pics, but is that blue thing that you're pointing to where you drew your power from? If so, that's your problem. That's a capacitor and you don't want to draw power from that. If you wired your LEDs to that capacitor, you will need to replace it.
 
No I wired mine directly to leads on the bottom of the power switch, I was just pointing at that with assumption it was a fuse, good to know its not though
 
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I circled the fuse to check in red. You can buy a new fuse for really cheap. I would wait until you get your meter to test it to be sure, but if you blew a fuse, that would be the one.
 
It's a 1.5a pico fuse. I'm in the US and they sell them on Amazon, Ebay, and lots of electronic shops.

There is an alternative method, if you're interested. It's a way to use regular glass fuses which are cheaper and easier to find in case this happens again. It is detailed here: http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/blown-snes-fuse-repair/
All you need is basic soldering skills.

It looks like the SNES has to be manually discharged before you can solder on its board. To do this, after unplugging from the wall, switch the power on to the console and that should discharge all built up energy. It seems like you got lucky with the first LED that you connected, but the second one must have blown that fuse.

Hopefully this should have you back up and running soon! Good luck and don't forget to discharge after powering up your machine!
 
new fuse is on its way! thanks again guys for all the help, hopefully i can get this up and running (fingers crossed it was just the fuse) ill upload pics once i get it all back together and hopyfully running
 
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