2600 Mods

[keilbaca]

  *sniff* *sniff* *puppy dog eyes* Awwwwwwww-

 

1008882[/snapback]

 

Oh I'm not going to stop trying.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I think it's great that you are offering this service(even if it IS on hold at the moment). I don't suppose I could talk you into e-mailing me a pic of the battery mod? I'm rather strapped for cash at the moment, but have some 9v hook-ups laying around, and I'm not too bad with a soldering iron. If you've read my other messages posted, my Atari isn't working, and it could be a power supply problem. I'd like to test that theory, but I don't know where to wire it in at.

If not, that's cool. No hard feelings.

[A.J. Franzman]

If you have a standard 9V battery snap connector, the safest thing to do would be to wire it to a 2-conductor 1/8 inch phone plug, red wire to the tip. Then just plug it in where the adapter normally goes.

 

If you want to solder it to the circuit board, underneath the power jack the 3 terminals are connected to 2 circuit tracks. The track nearest the edge of the board is ground (black wire). You can follow the tracks to find more convenient connection points if you wish.

 

EDIT: The other track from the power jack, the one that isn't ground (it's +V in), is actually on the top side of most motherboards - on the bottom side it's just a small oval area that gets the solder.

Edited February 5, 2006 by A.J. Franzman

[keilbaca]

If you have a standard 9V battery snap connector, the safest thing to do would be to wire it to a 2-conductor 1/8 inch phone plug, red wire to the tip. Then just plug it in where the adapter normally goes.

 

If you want to solder it to the circuit board, underneath the power jack the 3 terminals are connected to 2 circuit tracks. The track nearest the edge of the board is ground (black wire). You can follow the tracks to find more convenient connection points if you wish.

1009699[/snapback]

 

That's exactly right. Not much more to say than that...

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Thanks a bunch, guys! I'll let you know how that goes(if it solves the problem or not).

[A_Username]

Can't you just offer different types of shiping like on Ebay. Or setup a UPS box or something.

 

Edited March 26, 2006 by A_Username

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!! IT'S AAAAAALLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!! (Insert evil laughter here).

 

Thanks a BUNCH guys! Works like a charm, now. Once I get a little cash together, I'll buy a new power supply so I won't be going through batteries like they are going out of style.

I did solder it to the board, I figured it'd be the easiest way(doing the plug thing would require finding my multimeter, and then not losing the cable when I get a new PS.)

 

Thanks again!

[keilbaca]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!! IT'S AAAAAALLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!  (Insert evil laughter here).

 

Thanks a BUNCH guys! Works like a charm, now. Once I get a little cash together, I'll buy a new power supply so I won't be going through batteries like they are going out of style.

I did solder it to the board, I figured it'd be the easiest way(doing the plug thing would require finding my multimeter, and then not losing the cable when I get a new PS.)

 

Thanks again!

1010319[/snapback]

 

It runs on a 9 volt for 4 hours, but when I use 8 AA's on it (Radio Shack has a 8 AA holder for a few dollars, and it connects using a 9 volt connector) I have played for hours and hours on the AA's and they never went dead.

[A_Username]

Can You Post a Pic of the 9v battery adapter thing?

[keilbaca]

Can You Post a Pic of the 9v battery adapter thing?  

1010325[/snapback]

 

its on the 1st post. But that's just a quick mod I did, that'll be mounted on the inside when I do the mod for others.

 

I promise, once I get a license and car, these will be up and running again. right now my main thing is transportation.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I think he meant a pic of where to solder it onto...but I could be wrong. Let me just say that it's VERY easy to do...and the directions given above are perfectly correct. I had it done in 2 minutes.

 

The only advice I'll give, is the wiring positioning. The way I did it, was that there is an unmodded contact on the bottom of the board, in between the two I soldered the wires to.

It doesn't matter which of the "lower" two you solder the wire to, they both connect to the same trace. I just wanted to give myself a little more room to work.

 

I can pull it back apart, and take a pic, if you really need me to, however.

[A_Username]

No I mean like a picture of the snap connector attached to the adapter. And whats this "tip" thing which wire goes to + and what goes to -. What's "tip"?

 

 

Crap sorry for being so IGNORANT!

:embarassed:

Edited March 26, 2006 by A_Username

[A_Username]

9v.htm1.gif

 

Is it like this?

 

Hope the Pic shows.

[A_Username]

right click: open in new window

 

shows Pic

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Ok.....about the power LED mod....Did you wire that to the underside of the power switch(bottom of board), or directly into the switch itself?

 

Don't worry, I'm not trying to take business away.....and I do appreciate your help. I think it would be usefull for when that battery is getting low, and when I get another power supply.

[keilbaca]

Ok.....about the power LED mod....Did you wire that to the underside of the power switch(bottom of board), or directly into the switch itself?

 

Don't worry, I'm not trying to take business away.....and I do appreciate your help. I think it would be usefull for when that battery is getting low, and when I get another power supply.

1012287[/snapback]

 

I wired it directly to the 7805, hot to the 5V pin and ground to the ground pin. For the LED switches, how it works, is that for expert, its a ground connected to the middle ground in that position (basically, when you flip it to expert, the pin on the riot chip (I think) gets ungrounded, thus expert. Which means, having to spots for ground is unncessary. So, I took that into my advantage. I cut all traces of the end pin so its isolated, and wired the ground of the LED to that pin. When you flip to expert, the switch connects the middle and end pins, grounding the end pin, lighting the LED for expert.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Forgive me for not completely understanding... I don't see a 7805 in mine(labled differently?), and the "expert" lights aren't really necessary. I'm just looking to add the LED to indicate that it's getting power.

[keilbaca]

Forgive me for not completely understanding... I don't see a 7805 in mine(labled differently?), and the "expert" lights aren't really necessary. I'm just looking to add the LED to indicate that it's getting power.

1012793[/snapback]

 

The 7805 is this thing:

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

 

In that case....forgive me for being an idiot.

 

For some reason, I was thinking that was a chip deep down.

 

Thanks bunches!!

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Well, that took about an hour longer than it should have. I'll post some pics tomorrow...I've got it sealed back up now, with the LED sitting slightly above the outter case(through a small hole I drilled). Of course, I was going to take a pic of it hooked back up to the TV....but the 9v crapped out, and I don't have anymore around here.

 

Anyway, that mod was a pain, simply because the solder didn't want to stick, and the first wire I got to hold....was about an inch too short. *SIGH*

 

But, I've got it done, and it looks good on the outside....the inside leaves a little to be desired...but it works. I'm happy, at least as happy as I can be with a dead 9v battery.

 

Thanks again for the help!

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Actually, it seems the 9v didn't crap out.....I used a new one today, and the same thing happened. At first, I thought it was a short, but upon opening it back up, I could fit a small file between the areas I thought might have been jumped. The light comes on, but now the games don't work.

I used 18 guage wires...could they be too thick to allow the proper voltage to get through? I'll edit this message with pics....maybe we can track the problem down.

[A.J. Franzman]

Iggy*SJB,Sun Feb 5, 2006 8:24 AM]I used 18 guage wires...could they be too thick to allow the proper voltage to get through?

1013197[/snapback]

18 gauge for the LED? There's really no such thing as wiring being "too thick" when you're talking about something like this, although for purely convenience reasons, 18 gauge is huge for this application. Did you put a current-limiting resistor in series with the LED? If so, what color stripes are on it?

Edited February 6, 2006 by A.J. Franzman

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

No, I didn't. It's been, oh, 15 years since my last electronic's class, and I haven't really kept up with it. I do my own repairs and whatnot.....but not really much with hacking hardware.

 

I did unsolder one of the wires from the LED, and it worked for a minute or two....thent he battery crapped out. The one we got from "Good Stuff Cheap" didn't work at all.

I think I'm going to just buy a new power supply....even on sale Duracell's are $6 for a pair(that's roughly 8 hours worth of playtime)....I'm sure the PS will probably run about the same, and last much longer.

 

Oh, I only used the 18guage because I had just bought it, and don't really have anything else I can use.

 

As for the resister.....what kind would work? I'm sure I can find one at Radio Shack.

 

Thanks!

[A.J. Franzman]

Iggy*SJB,Sun Feb 5, 2006 5:37 PM]As for the resister.....what kind would work? I'm sure I can find one at Radio Shack.

 

Thanks!

1013493[/snapback]

First of all, if you ran a standard LED from 5 volts without a resistor, you've probably severely damaged it. I would toss that one. The reason the console wouldn't work is that the LED was hogging almost all of the current, trying to keep the volts down to its forward voltage drop of about 2 volts.

 

There are a few LEDs that have built-in resistors to operate from 5 or 12 volts, but if you don't know for sure that that's what you have, it's 99.99% likely that you don't.

 

If you use a regular LED, you'll need to calculate the resistor value based on the LED's specs. If you're using the 7805's output to power the LED, take [(5 V) - (LED forward voltage)] / [LED forward current]. For a typical 2 volt, 20 mA LED this is [5 - 2] / [0.020 A] = 150 ohms. This is a standard value but can be hard to find. Any of the next higher standard values (180, 200, or 220 ohms) will work too but not be as bright. Minimum power rating for the resistor is current^2 * R; in this case 0.0004 * 150 = 0.06 W, or just under 1/16 watt. A standard 1/4 watt resistor is plenty big enough.

Edited February 6, 2006 by A.J. Franzman

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Ok...sorry I took so long to get back to ya. Of course, Radio Shack sells them in pairs, and I bought a set of red and a set of green. They are 2.6VDC, 28mA, 10mcd(no clue what the last of that means)...

If you think a 1/4 watt resistor will work, I'll pick one up and wire it in the output line(I'm guessing this is where it goes?) I'm guessing, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it can go anywhere in the line(before the LED, of course)...or would it be best to just splice it early in the wire from the 7805?

 

Thanks much for the help!