Colecovision Steering Wheel Mod?

[Petey5877]

Does anybody know how to make the steering wheel not use batteries? Or is it possible to wire it to the colecovision console itself?

Edited January 27, 2017 by Petey5877

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

As I just said in your status, you can track down the Coleco Perma power kit, this consists of four fake plastic batteries which connect to a power supply. Otherwise find a power adaptor with the correct voltage and wire it up to the terminals in the battery compartment. Or you can do a mod as shown here ,
http://www.colecovision.dk/turbomodule.htm

Edited January 27, 2017 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[NIAD]

You could repurpose a Roller Controller power adapter plug like AtariAge member Yurkie did a couple of years ago. It was a great looking mod of the Steering Wheel and eliminates the need for batteries... the power adapter plugs into the CV's power jack and then the power supply plugs into it (piggyback style like the Roller Controller).

[Crystallas]

http://lifehacker.com/build-fake-batteries-to-run-electronics-on-ac-power-541144160

 

Not sure if you could do a lm317 like here or a 7805 1A variant, but a 7806 would naturally do the job, just be mindful of the heat, use some kind of thermal solution, even the most basic heatsink on active power components. Heck, you could integrate that into your fake battery design.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Crystallas

[NIAD]

Here are the pics of the Yurkie mod that I mentioned a couple of posts up and some details of the mod that he shared:

 

I tested the cord powering the "Roller Controller" and it connects to the +5v line and the negative line on the power plug.

It is real simple all you need is a dead roller controller for a donor power cord and grommet.

Please wear safety glasses when soldering and cutting the notch for the grommet. It's not worth risking losing your eye sight.

The cable even has a white stripe on the positive lead. Solder the white striped lead to spot where the red wire coming from the battery terminal connects to the pcb. Solder the other wire ( the one without the white stripe to spot where the blue wire connects to the pcb. I don't understand why the negative wire is blue, it should be black, but oh well.

Cut a notch for the grommet in the top half of the steering wheel case. Put it back together and hook up the power like you would the "Roller Controller" power. Notch should be about .230" wide and .230" deep. And positioned about 4.8" from the left edge to the center of the grommet. This give the mod a clean look since the center of the controller cable is about 4.8" from the right edge.

I used calipers to measure the location and the size of the notch for the grommet.

Here are 2 pictures for reference.

First is the top half of the steering wheel module laying wheel down on my work bench.
Second pic shows the power cord coming out of the steering wheel housing.

I tested this for about an hour and a half of continuous Turbo gaming. I don't think there are any problems with this, but it is "at your own risk".

 

 

[+Yurkie]

Thanks for reminding me of this NIAD. It is a cool mod and a good use of a cord from a junk roller controller.