Laser for DTL-H1200?

Post a topic about yourself to let others know your skills, hobbies, etc.
Post Reply
Schlussel
What is PSXDEV?
What is PSXDEV?
Posts: 1
Joined: Oct 22, 2020

Laser for DTL-H1200?

Post by Schlussel » October 22nd, 2020, 3:12 pm

Hello all!

I currently have the ability to purchase a DTL-H1200 Debug unit for next to nothing, however the laser is shot. I was curious if anyone would know if these early units used the same lasers as the launch SCPH-100X consoles? This unit has the same laser case positioning, etc. I have a done a couple repairs before and know about how the PsOne laser can also be added to the SCPH-100X units, I presume this would apply to the DTL-H1200 too.

If anyone could help confirm this it would be greatly appreciated it.

Thank you very, very, much!

samspin
Curious PSXDEV User
Curious PSXDEV User
Posts: 13
Joined: Oct 14, 2014
I am a: Tinkerer, gamer, solderer
PlayStation Model: DTL-H1202

Post by samspin » November 1st, 2020, 8:11 pm

Short answer: yes. Any SCPH-100x laser can be swapped in, as well as the PSOne laser if you swap the plastic assembly too.
Long answer and background:
The debug units were designed by Sony to be as close as possible to retail units applicable to the regions they were intended for. The *only* difference is the CD-ROM sub CPU located on the bottom, where the region/copy protection is neutralised (for technical details see this post, although it is worth noting that the Japanese H1200 version always return SCEI in response to the GetID command, due to the extra territory check in the main BIOS).
It might be worth noting that because the DTL-H1200 always has the later Japanese BIOS with the additional territory check, it will not boot any disc that does not have a Japanese boot sector. It will keep looking for it in a loop, causing the disc to speed up, slow down indefinitely until you turn the unit off. The ways around this are:
Inject a Japanese boot sector before burning your CD.
Plug a cheat cartridge into the back of the unit to bypass the BIOS. Then choose to start from there.
Replace IC102 (the main BIOS chip) with one that does not have the territory check. Since the DTL-H1200 is an NTSC unit, a US BIOS chip would be a good candidate here- you'd have to swap one from an SCPH-1001 unit. This way it will happily play both US and Japanese games. If you want to play EU games with correct timings (and colour if not using RGB video), you will need to solder an additional oscillator in place. The DTL-H1200, which always has a late PU-8 mainboard, always has an empty space to fit this here.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 10 guests