5 Pin Din monitor output (Atari 800XL) to Composite cable build question...

[Solomon_Man]

All,

I bought one finished cable (comparison) and decided to try my hand at building some....

 

My first attempt ended up in the trash....I learned a lot but those din Pins and soldering and holding things is not as easy as the guy in the video showed...LoL!

 

Anyways my second attempt went well... The solder looked good and everything went together clean...I plugged it in and I get a picture and clear sound but the screen color is a light gray....The puirchased finished cable is clean as a whistle and right colors.....What did I do wrong?

 

Is this something that can happen with inferior products (cable/connectors/solder) or did I get a weak connection somewhere....

 

Are there better 5 pin Dins...The ones I bought were like 5 for 3 bucks shipped......Cable I had laying around...probably cheap stuff as well.

 

Thanks for the help,

Chris

[+DrVenkman]

Anyways my second attempt went well... The solder looked good and everything went together clean...I plugged it in and I get a picture and clear sound but the screen color is a light gray....The puirchased finished cable is clean as a whistle and right colors.....What did I do wrong?

 

 

Depends on what kind of monitor you're using and possibly what kind of machine. NTSC 800XL's don't generally have the Chroma signal connected to the monitor jack - why Atari left this trace off when they have the circuitry and the jack is beyond me. That means S-video connections won't work properly unless you run a wire to connect the Chroma signal to the jack (pin 5, IIRC). You'll get a gray/white signal because all that's connected is the Luma (brightness) signal, without color. So if that's what's happening, your cable might be fine but the jack in the Atari needs a tweak.

 

Now, if you're trying to run a Composite signal into the Composite input on the TV or monitor and all you see if gray, chances are you've run the Luma signal to the Composite pin on the jack, so that when you plug in the TV it's expecting the Composite video (which contains the combined Chroma/Luma signals mixed internally by your Atari) but what it's receiving is the Luma signal alone.

 

Hope this helps, and good luck sorting it out.

[Solomon_Man]

DrVenkman,

Thanks for the help!...

 

From your description and looking at the youtube video I tried again;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwomI7iGD3w

 

I believe I did the latter scenario....I will take a look and see if reversing helps,

 

Thanks Again,

Chris

[Solomon_Man]

DrVenkman/All,

 

I had the Luma signal to the Composite wrong....I have included the below image for clarity;

 

 

Atari 5 Pin connector:

This is Looking at the back of male connector-where you solder the wires (Above Figure). 3 is Audio, 2 Ground, 4 is Composite.

 

Wired three sets up and all work like a charm.

 

Thanks everyone for the help.

 

Chris