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Dreamcast LED turns on when console is switched off

valippo

New member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2020
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So, this is weird, my Dreamcast LED turns on as soon as I put a new CR2032 battery in. I tried two brand new batteries. I tested both, one is 3,1Volts, the other one 3,28v.
The rechargeable ML2032 that I wanted to replace was around 0,8 volts and I never noticed this issue before.

It turns on even if the board is not connected to the dreamcast, this means that the battery is powering up the led.
I dont' know if this is due to the controller board being defective or me trying to mod it by adding a reset fuse and a diode to prevent the battery from charging.
I added the battery holder years ago, it always worked perfectly.

I'm not a professional but I mod all my consoles, never had any issues,.
Both are very easy mods and I have no idea how they could have affected the board. The fuse is still there, you can see it in the pictures and the board works great.
I removed the diode just in case , but the LED still turns on.

The picture below shows my dreamcast disconnected from power. For those of you wondering, the power switch is off and I power cycled the console several times.
The red wires have been there for years, I have a 4wire mod chip installed and two wires are for region mod.

As I said, the led turns on even if I remove and completely unplug the board from the console.

Any ideas?
20200821_173212.jpg
 

valippo

New member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2020
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I'll leave this here just because I didn't know it so it might help other people.

I disassembled it again and looked once more for bridges. I counldn't see anything like that but I noticed a little residue of flux between two pins, one from the battery, the other one going to the led. I just cleaned the flux residue and fixed the problem.

I had no idea that flux residues could be conductive.
 

la-li-lu-le-lo

Well-known member
Registered
Jun 13, 2019
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AGName
la-li-lu-le-lo
AG Join Date
2-8-2006
You shouldn’t use a CR2032 with a Dreamcast; the system will try to recharge it, which a CR2032 can’t do. You should only use an ML2032 - you can easily find them on Amazon, eBay, etc.
 
Oct 9, 2019
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I'll leave this here just because I didn't know it so it might help other people.

I disassembled it again and looked once more for bridges. I counldn't see anything like that but I noticed a little residue of flux between two pins, one from the battery, the other one going to the led. I just cleaned the flux residue and fixed the problem.

I had no idea that flux residues could be conductive.
yeah flux can be remarkably conductive, not so much as the solder itself but enough to do stuff like that, its why things like no-clean flux exist, and are just wonderful things
 

valippo

New member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2020
3
2
3
yeah, I just threw it away and ordered some no-clean flux! :)

p.s. my Dreamcast is not recharging the battery, that's what the diode is for.
 

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