Back on April 30, TZMWX announced the open source availability of his WUXI Drive Switcher project to GitHub for free public use. WUXI is an optical drive channel switcher for Sega Saturn that can switch freely between the CD drive and optical drive emulators (ODE), such as Rhea, Phoebe, and various versions of Fenrir have been tested. It supports hot switching and is easy to install, with no soldering required.
WHO is this for & WHY should you care? TL:DR…
WUXI is ideal for folks who already own a FENRIR, PHOEBE or RHEA ODE and would like to retain their optical CD drive as well. This switcher is most appropriate for enthusiasts who want to get the most out of their Saturn, as FENRIR, RHEA & PHOEBE are still the only ODEs that allow full emulation of all things a SEGA Saturn is capable of with a CD-ROM drive, including support for: Audio CD images, CD+G images and VCD disc images (which may not matter to many folks, but DOES matter to some hardcore users).
WUXI Installation & Demo:
Fast forward, and this past weekend, Helder Silva of Helder’s Game Tech announced that WUXI boards and 3D printed enclosures are now available for sale through his shop!
With this mod, folks can keep their CD drive intact and switch between the two with a simple switch. Folks also can activate the CD drive by removing the SD card if they prefer not to use a switch, so there’s some flexibility in regard to the installation and usage.
The kit includes cables for the supported Fenrir and Phoebe ODEs in addition to support for 20-pin and 21-pin drives. The kit also includes a large switch in case folks prefer that over the small switch that comes pre-installed, though a small modification to the 3D printed enclosure is necessary.
The 3D printed PCB mount and enclosures have been redesigned from the original github files, with several tweaks having been made to allow for a better fit, as the original design was a very tight fit.
Silva also has added white lettering to make the switching options easier to see, and he’s provided the new tweaked 3D files for those who wish to print their own.
Installation Notes:
Installation is relatively simple, however, there are a few things to pay attention to in order to ensure proper installation:
- It’s important to orient all ribbon cables so that they connect in all three places correctly.
- 3D-printed parts come in two sizes due to different fitment between variations in the metal shields across Sega Saturn revisions.
- It’s necessary to solder jumpers on the WUXI board in order to leverage FENRIR’s open lid detection or RHEA/PHOEBE’s disc-swap feature.
- It’s also necessary to solder a wire on the RHEA/PHOEBE board to another point on the RHEA/PHOEBE board itself in order to preserve the above mentioned disc swap.
- Other than that, it’s a solderless solution. WUXI draws 5V power by sticking a “pin” into one of the power output slots on the PSU.
WUXI Demo:
This is great news! I had been trying for months to get a SaturnSwitcher fork Will’s Console Mods but it looks like he is out of that game. I ordered one of these new boards immediately.
I want to buy one but I don’t think they have their shipping to the UK sorted out yet?
It was costing me $999 ?