h.e.r.o Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 After 20 years of faithful service, one of the paddle controllers broke. I was playing "Star Wars: Jedi Arena" and the lightsaber wouldn't move anymore. I opened up the potentiometer inside and saw that the contact was in great shape, but the circular thing that looks like gold was pretty torn up. I went to Radio Shack and the guy measured something and said the pot was 1.24 Megahertz. What's that mean? He didn't have a potentiometer like that and I finally threw it away. The other paddle worked just fine. Darn. Any place I can get a new one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Radio Shack would be my first guess as well. You could have them order one in, or maybe a flea market. Pity that you threw the old one away, since it could have been repaired just by replacing the foil from a working pot. If you do manage to find a replacement, make sure you keep it in good repair by opening the case carefully as not to break off the tabs that hold the stem in place & clean out any gunk that may have built up (that is what causes it to get spastic)...taking care not to bend the thin metal foil "fingers" out of place. Anyway, what he was measuring was the electrical resistance. In all pots, there is a minimum and maximum current that will be able to complete the circuit...and this is filtered down on the darker contact you saw. Natually, a household light-dimmer pot would not be a suitable replacement since it is designed for much stronger current...and the current from your VCS would not even travel a millimeter before being filtered out completely. The foil part attached to the stem is just metal, and you could easily just use one from a similar pot regardless of it's resistance (since you wouldn't be replacing the darker circle). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Hero, quote...and said the pot was 1.24 Megahertz... Megahertz ? are you sure ? In fact, the atari 2600 paddles potentiometers are 1 Mega ohm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Hey Hero, u can swap the potentiometers inside your paddle controllers, u won't be able to play in 2 players mode, but if you swap the pots at least u will still be able to keep playing until you find new ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h.e.r.o Posted June 27, 2001 Author Share Posted June 27, 2001 Thanks, all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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