800XL Stereo Upgrade

After the sale of one of my two Atari's, the 65XE modded, I decide that should be “nursed appropriately”

the remain 800XL. I intend to do three upgrades.... Ultimate 1MB, VBXE2, and Stereo Upgrade.
Initially thought to make my own construction as in the past, based on Stereo Upgrade of C.P.U. Team.
http://raster.infos....eo/stereoen.htm

But after some search here and there on web, I saw a relatively new implementation that is based on the same design and have a good price also! This is from Lotharek or Lothar called from him Stereo Final.
http://www.lotharek....duct.php?pid=45

When the package finally arrived, I see cause together with the pcb was one gold plated 40pin dil socket, two gold plated female RCA connectors, and a 2 pos. 6 contact switch also included. In the past have used the same extra parts for mine stereo mod's, but this time I wanted something more old fashioned not so spoils the overall picture of the machine.
As the main criterion also had the entire conversion can be easily uninstalled. If for example in future something goes wrong and the machine needs repair.
Now for someone who likes my approach, then he need the above's parts and some skills and tools as to achieve it!

The photos seem Stereo Final PCB from Lothar, a second Pokey you can buy it from the same, 40 pin dill gold plated ic socket, one with 2-pin - two with 3-pin - one with 2-pin DuPont 2,54 female connectors, and respectively 2,54 header connectors angled with one and two rows of pins.
Last a slide “retro” switch 6 contacts / 2 positions, and female 3,5mm connector for chassis. Also multicolor ribbon cable 0.50mm, and headphone cable is necessary!

The first thing is to disassemble the Atari and remove the Pokey if it's soldered or the old ic socket from pcb.

After must solder the new machined gold plated dill socket on pcb.

Now some work with Stereo PCB itself. You must solder all four header connectors.

After place the two Pokeys on it and gently all together in new socket on Atari. As show in the photograph is a capacitor nearby which make short circuit with bottom contacts of Stereo pcb. For that reason I place a foam sticker on it.

A good reason get rid this old, heavy, and totally useless for the today's standard is this mod. As you can see plenty of space after its removal, and somewhat less consumtion.

In my case I was lucky enough to have a little plastic piece which close a "channel selector" switch port, because of no needed. Take out that and a perfect hole to place the new on-off switch appears.

As for the plastic tap can be cut its ears and drilled as to screw the 3,5mm earphone connector.

Next we make the DuPont connector as to have a complete edge to edge cable.

The same for slide switch but we must glue with epoxy one over the other the two 3-pin connectors as to make one 6-pin in two rows.

Then can glued on its final positions with epoxy, and connect the DuPont on Stereo PCB.

Don't forget to make also one more cable for the A4 and Bell signals and sold that as seen in the photos. Some hot melt glue no harm!

And the final result...... ;-)

Now for someone who want to go a little further, a led as on-off indication can be added. I preferred to put it below the Mains red led on the keyboard. To achieve this, keyboard must be disassembled in three parts. Upper brown cover, white upper case, and keyboard itself. Also very very gently :-o

remove the transparent plastic from the brown case.
A good place for the led because of very limited gap, is at the edge below the big Red led.
Nevertheless a slight modification at the bottom of white upper case is necessary. One more cable with a low brightness led, and 2-pin connector must has to be made, and voila.....