DreamPSU: the ‘cool’ mod that could help save your Dreamcast from PSU-death
Meet the tiny replacement Dreamcast Power supply that "reduces heat in your console and more" (apparently)
You’ve got to love the Dreamcast modders, coming up with some great ideas that are not only cool, but often help to keep the Dreamcast scene alive out there! Even better is when the modders are able to provide a service to those ‘less able’ folk, like myself, who don’t know a soldering iron from a screwdriver (ok, yeah I do know the difference, but I definitely couldn’t make most Dreamcast mods out there).
Anyway, a new IndieGoGo campaign has been setup by a chap called Chris Moon, called ‘DreamPSU’ – which promises to make a smaller, more powerful PSU (power supply unit) for your Dreamcast. What’s the point in that? You might ask. Well, here’s what Chris had to say:
“Last year I noticed my Dreamcast getting unusually hot around the power supply, Not long after, I got myself a GDEMU (not required for the DreamPSU, but awesome anyway), and the heat further increased, after doing some research I realized the culprit was the 12v line on the power supply, when it isn’t used it actually reaches 14v and produces a lot of heat, Not wanting to modify the existing power supply for when I wanted to use my GDRom disc drive, I thought, OK, I’ll make myself a new power supply.
“I recently spoke to a friend of mine and he explained how the Dreamcast power supplies will eventually die and people have to find other Dreamcasts to replace the PSU. Because of the age of the Dreamcast the original PSU’s will die and as time goes on there will be less and less original Dreamcast PSUs out there.”
There tend to be two problems associated with Dreamcast’s dying, one of them is the GD laser burning out and the other, as Chris points out, is due to the power supply board either frying or just not connecting properly – causing the Dreamcast to continuously reset.
Ultimately, if DreamPSU is able to do what Chris says it can, it should help to ensure longer life for many Dreamcasts out there, plus it’s size is ideal for any other modifications you might want to make to your precious console.
The IndieGoGo campaign is looking for $5,500 (USD), which sounds pretty reasonable to me for a project like this. You can find full details, including costings and timeline of planned work, plus what you get for your money on the IndieGoGo page.
