RUNNER

Hi, Just to let u know that this guy pboland makes fantastic labels. I ordered 2 full sets of labels from him last year and the results are amazing. Absolutely indistinguishable from the originals. Perfect paper, gloss and glue. Activision labels and foil -imagic- are astonishing. I would recommend this guy with no doubt. Honestly I doubt it's even possible to do this work better.

What makes me think that it could be the TIA is that if you look at my first pictures I think I bridged r206 to the green resistor next to it with the audio cable and if I visually follow the board line coming out of r206 it leads down to the TIA...

I've cleaned the slot pins with a thin qtip and alcohol, yes and now for whatever the reasons the image is worse :-( now nothing turns up with most of the carts and on space invaders only a row of invaders at the bottom. Coincidence or a bad 24 pin slot? Btw how do u remove this? I tried and pushed back board tabs to get the plastic frame of the 24 pk slot but it won't come out. There's the black plastic frame around and the center black plastic where u insert the carts.

Hi, Do u still have one of these? Thanks

I'm coming to the conclusion that either the TIA or the cartridge slot are fried. Why the cartridge slot? Cause I've just realised that when putting a cart in the slot and slightly moving it towards the sides to make it fit better the image changes. Also when tapping the TIA with a finger the patterns on the image -numbers, ships, etc vary. Question of course is how yo determine which of them both is wrong and most importantly why did this happen? I don't want to buy another unit -standalone console- and make the same mistake. My guess is the yellow audio wire was initially bridging the resistor next to it -bad soldering- or one of the resistors on the mod board was broken and caused the TIA to get fried. Any ideas?

Amazingly I've found a thick solder drop on a rear TIA pin which probably fell down from soldering tool while soldering from the upper rear of the board. Just removed it but problem remains. The drop wasn't shortening or bridging anything so question is could this just have damaged the TIA chip by heating it for a second??

Nice remark. I'll check if I've dropped some solder on some other pins...

I checked this but it's not a crack/gap, it's just a bad shade in the picture. I don't know if you can see it better in the pictures below. I also resoldered all the joints carefully previously heating them and applying solder straight on them as you said. Solderings appear to be much neater now but still same result, weird video with out of place things. Take a look at other games I tested. Sent a message to Michael -the guy who sold me this- nice guy, he's looking into it.

You're absolutely right. As I said unfortunately my soldering skills are poor and I never heat up the pins before soldering but apply solder directly on the iron. Thanks for the advice. Will check on all these tomorrow and will post it. Thanks

Could it also be one of the small resistors or the black transistor on the mod board? Has anybody had problems with these small pieces on such a similar board??

Yes, I thought so. Something could have got fried. On the other hand I guess it could be the mod board itself so I'm letting the guy who sold me that know to see if he can send me another one. That was the only one I had left. As for the rf it's still there but pins and the small board on the left are gone so it'd need a lot of work to get it back to normal and my soldering skills are poor.

Games played perfectly yesterday before modding. Could it be audio/video shorting/interference? Problem is that I've rechecked all the solderings and none of them is touching the other so I don't know where to look.

Just removed and resoldered the yellow wire. Also checked on any other possible soldering bridges but not such thing. By switching it on/off several times I randomly get weird video only. Things appear to be mixed up in the games.

Will check on the bridge you're talking about. Yep, not big soldering skills here. Just removed R 209 but still the same.

Thanks for the info. I'll try after work and let u know. Cheers

I've already av modded 5 2600 so far in the past 2 years or so. All of them worked perfectly and were easy to install.I'm trying to install last one I have on a 2600A -four switch- and I don't know what I'm doing wrong as I can't make it to work. I've followed the schematics step by step and solderings seem to be fine but it's nor working, neither image nor sound. Things have been made same as other times. Black wire is ground, blue is video, yellow is audio and red is voltage. Not to mention I tested the console before modding and worked fine on rf.Any ideas. I'm enclosing some pics for you to have some idea of what I've done. Thanks all.

Mine is 63842N

Currently Demon Attack, Laser gates and solar storm

Just for some info about Atari in Spain. Games were really expensive at the time (beginning of 80's). Basically 2 prices 50 euros (taking into account inflation) for more popular games such as asteroids or space invaders and 30 euros for activision's and not so popular games such as air sea battle or circus. As for the console itself it cost 300 € at the time. All this lead to only a few people owning Atari. I was lucky at the time :-)

Sorted out! Used a voltimeter and found out the audio-yellow cable was cut off inside. I guess it was me when reclosing the bottom of the metal shield as the edge was coincident with the broken part. I soldered it back together and works fine.

I don't agree...yep I'm kind of new here cause I don't have that much spare time to post but I'm a fan since I was a child and that's close to 40 years now as I'm about to turn 50. I just simply keep on thinking that best games are the ones that most of us thought were the best and most popular at the time like invaders or asteroids. That happened because of a reason. These games were good, the best and still are in my view. I still play them a couple of times a week and I don't think they need any explanation, it'd sound a little dumb :-) All due respect for great brews of course like space rocks, galactopus or many more. Cheers

1. Space Invaders 2. Combat 3. Super Breakout 4. Missile Command 5. Asteroids 6. Demon Attack 7. Phoenix 8. Air Sea Battle 9. Atlantis 10. Freeway

Sorry the mainboards look identical, where the audio is, not the switchboards, I mistook.

Would make sense that the audio connection (yellow cable) was soldered on the wrong place but it's exactly where the instructions said (that werefor a light sixer btw although switchboards look identical)

Hope you finish rebuilding your collection Rich BTW. Same thing has happened to me. Just missing ten carts at the moment from the ones I already had.