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shoestring

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Posts posted by shoestring


  1.  

    You can select Bruce Lee flesh color: C64 yellow or A8 brown (or select bare upper body or iconic yellow jumpsuit, as developers wrote).

     

    Yes, nice little touch. I always hated the yellow flesh colour.

     

    The new music is an improvement too.

    • Like 1

  2. I think a 1.5a fuse should do it then, I just don't have any on hand right now besides these 3a ones. I don't have a lot of upgrades. Just the Antonia board in the 600XL which is fantastic and a couple of other bits and pieces.

     

    The stock breadbin c64 draws a little more than the Atari with the same 5v circuit and even more with the Ultimate-II+ cartridge ( that thing sucks a lot of juice ) , so I'm definitely going to get myself a bunch of heat sinks for these.


  3. I like it when it doesn't go past 5.2 to 5.29 v (depending on the meter) on the actual output under load to the computer. Never lost a component with those limits and nothing gets starved.

    what does output look like up until it kicks in?

     

    It really does limit damage to a machine when you do this, really nice to see it employed. I always add a scrap piece of metal as a heat sink on the regulators. Nothing exciting or large just a helper to keep is slightly more happy.

     

    I haven't put it on the scope yet but I suspect the DMM might be a bit off. So far I've only tested the circuit on the bench supply which can provide 5a and is happily blowing 3a fuses. I'm not sure about the transformer in the Atari supply pictured in the first post. It's rated at 1.5a but that might be based on 7805 itself. Will have to try a bunch of fuses in steps and activate the clamp to see which one is going to be suitable. The datasheet claims it can provide 3a with heatsink but I am sceptical. A fully decked out machine will draw over 1.5a so I might need something around there or slightly higher.

     

    I'm struggling to find heat sinks that will fit that small place. I don't fancy cutting any down to size..


  4. I have a 1200XL with a UAV and I also have one with the SuperVideo 2.1 upgrade and I can't see any difference in video quality. The UAV does require much less time even though it also costs more.

    Ive done the same super video 2.1 upgrade in my 600xl and 800xl. I dont have my UAV yet but Ive also installed the SCCC in the 800 which uses the same circuit borrowed from Bryan. The 800 has a slightly better picture on my PVM but its hard to notice the difference on the 1084. Maybe Ill take some comparison shots. I was really impressed with the video quality in the 800 and I cant wait to get the UAV installed in my 65XE.


  5. Hey Phoenix.. this might explain it.

     

    http://www.ferret.com.au/c/tekmark-australia/tekmark-supply-the-australian-defence-force-with-tektronix-digital-phosphor-oscilloscopes-n1830793

     

    I bought it second hand from an auction. Mine is not the C model though but still damn good for what I paid. Only powered up ~20 times when I got it so it was virtually unused. My guess is that their budget is large enough to updating this stuff to the latest tech.

    • Like 3

  6.  

     

    In my 35 years of electronics I haven't found one 78XX go bad like that. You might be confusing this with other Atari power supplies which do NOT use 78XX's but other voltage regulators instead. These control a power transistor and THOSE DO go bad and can short input to output.....like the famous Ingot does....

     

    https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/179233/making-lm78xx-fail-safe-against-short-open-reverese-bias-flyback-etc


  7. .....and now you can pray this will run 35 years just like the original power supplies have....

     

     

    I'll never change them to cheap Chinese switching stuff....78XX's may not be the most efficient, they are VERY reliable and IF they die, they die peacefully by lowering their output voltage to something safe. Switching PSU's can die in much worse ways.....killing your machine.

    You’ve only described one of its failure modes. They can fail quite spectacularly as well, when they short v_input to v_output. Bye bye Atari...


  8. 1.5 isn't really, if fully decked and you run a couple of sio2sd's etc.. they already struggle at 1.5 and a decked out (with old memory upgrade etc) machines

     

    I have the same module in my c64 PSU. It runs a little hotter than the PSU powering the stock 65XE when I have Ultimate-II+ cartridge and a USB device connected to the back of the c64. The 600XL has an Antonia upgrade and the PS barely gets hot.

     

    I'm going to run some tests and see how much they draw. But according to the datasheet it should be able to deliver 3a without problems as long as there is a heatsink, without a heatsink it's guaranteed to provide 2a. I'm assuming the thermal protection will kick in if its delivering more than 2a without adequate dissipation of the heat.


  9. I've also sent a PM as I want one for my Atari 400.

     

    But I'm wondering also about a card that I've heard that improves the sound, but I don't know where to search for it.

     

    I think you're referring to the SCCC made by Jurgen. I don't use the audio amp on the card because I use the existing jack ( not an external one ) and the built in amp in my 800 is loud enough. Some say it improves the audio or is louder, frankly I can't tell the difference. But I am going through a PVM which doesn't have the best speaker!

     

    http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260646-new-hardware-atari-400800-super-color-cpu-card/


  10. finally a clean output from one of these things! Normally there is noise and ripple, how does it looks close up. does it have an open failure mode or would a crow bar protection be in order?

    It has thermal protection and current limit protection. With that in mind it shuts itself down.

     

    These are national semiconductor branded. I believe TI bought them out and probably still have a huge stockpile of these.

     

    I’ll take some close ups of it when I get home but you can probably find some pretty good ones online


  11. Just sharing some info that might help someone here.

     

    I'm a little particular when it comes to powering my precious 8 bit machines with old power supplies. The Atari power supply pictured below was one of the first types distributed with Atari machines in Australia during the early days. There is also an identical looking one that goes with the c64. The only good thing about these is that they're rebuildable. Besides there being no mains fuse anywhere they utilise a very simple circuit and a 7805 linear regulator which runs very hot ( even with a heatsink ) and is very inefficient.

     

     

    post-45355-0-01489300-1549081565_thumb.jpg

     

    Here is the schematic which almost matches this circuit for the original power supply I have.

     

    post-45355-0-74148900-1549082045_thumb.png

     

    I want to replace this with the more efficient switching regulator so I chose this DC-DC buck converter. I begin by doing some prep work and cut two wires to equal lengths.

     

    post-45355-0-79249100-1549082535_thumb.jpg

     

    All soldered up to the input and outputs.

     

    post-45355-0-71643100-1549082601_thumb.jpg

     

    I remove the cover of the power supply and the heatsink.

     

    post-45355-0-96978600-1549082719_thumb.jpg

     

    Two things have to go. The voltage divider ( two resistors ) and the voltage regulator. I also remove the large cap temporarily to test it before putting it back in. At the time of writing I realise that I don't need the smaller cap on the output so I'll remove this later once I get my fuses.

     

    post-45355-0-85551300-1549082994_thumb.jpg

     

    I power up the supply to locate 12v with my meter. This will be the left most pin ( input ) of where the 7805 used to be.

    post-45355-0-72757300-1549083095_thumb.jpg

     

     

    Diagram of the device from the front.

     

    post-45355-0-77041200-1549083480.png

     

    I solder the red wire to where the input used to be and the black wire ( ground ) to the ground pad of PCB then power it up. The module has a blue LED that lights up when it's powered on.

     

    post-45355-0-77972700-1549083594_thumb.jpg

     

     

    I connect my DMM to the output of the module to check the voltage which I'll need to turn down.

     

    post-45355-0-81188600-1549083752_thumb.jpg

     

    There is a little trimpot on the module. You'll need to turn it anti-clockwise quite a bit before the voltage starts to change. I adjust the voltage to just over 5v because I know it's going to drop under load slightly.

     

    post-45355-0-65877700-1549083809_thumb.jpg

     

    I now connect the other ground wire to the ground pad and the red wire ( positive ) to output of where the 7805 used to be.

     

    post-45355-0-26633900-1549085256_thumb.jpg

     

    With the Atari 65XE powered up the voltage only dropped by a hair.

     

    post-45355-0-58877000-1549083954_thumb.jpg

     

    Final adjustment to 5v

     

    post-45355-0-74356400-1549084071_thumb.jpg

     

    Optional step on the scope. Checking for a nice clean DC signal

     

    post-45355-0-74293600-1549084143_thumb.jpg

     

    Just making sure she pasts the hardware test.

     

    post-45355-0-35997700-1549084238_thumb.jpg

     

    I've been running this for a few hours now and the voltage and temperature is really stable. Even without a heatsink this barely gets warm. Not bad for a few bucks

     

     

    • Like 6

  12. Only ordered from him once and he was really pleasant, shipping was super fast to Australia.

     

    Got one of the last NOS 1050 power supplies from him for my NTSC 800, already had a 240v to 115v stepdown so that wasn't going to be a problem. Besides, those are impossible to find in Australia and it was cheaper to buy from the U.S than to build my own from scratch.

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