mojoatomic

On a personal note... were your parents Ann Rand fans?

After 40 years, the electrolytic won't be. Since the voltage regulator smoked and was replaced but the snubber caps don't appear to have been, I'd imagine that they opened up and were the root cause of the failure. They've got their coss hairs on the new VR now. What has led you to believe they are still in spec, when all of the evidence suggests otherwise?

Pm sent

This Jackass has some... :-)

What does it do if you power it up without a cart in the slot? When you power it on and see the lines, do you hear a sound?

You beat me to it - that would be my guess a s well :-)

Can you post pics of the rear side of the boards? Almost forgot, can you set your meter to the lowest DC range above 9v that's available, or set it to autorange, lowest setting above 9v? Then touch the negative probe to the RF modulator shield, and the positive tip to the 3 legs (one at a time) of the voltage regulator. The voltage reading is critical, including if it's a little higher or lower than 5v.

OK, on the left one... Bars are probably coming from C242 near the A203 voltage regulator & C241 right next to the power input near the rear of the board. Snowy/bright spots in the picture is most likely from C214 (4.7uf cap) & the rolling line in the horizontal is from the big cap, C243 right above the voltage regulator. To find the revision level, have a look right under the power connector, right joystick port and see if the rev level is printed there in the copper. Also, flip the board over and have a look at the upper right hand side, which will be the underside of the left joystick port. Just saw your pics - it's rev 13 & 14 Pics are talking to us now :-) someone's been in there before, that voltage regulator is not original and there's WAY to much heat sink compound, it won't cool properly when it gets hot. The Nikon cap is original and old, they fail with extremely high ESR values. This is for the rev 13 board. Rev 14 - caps are original as well - Looks like you might be in need of a new player 1 difficulty switch. Adding the 820ohm resistor should also help straighten your colors out quite a bit.

Won't be so bad, just a few screws on the the H6'er Are your colors floating around when the unit warms up? Is there increased static after awhile, or just wonky colors?

Glad you like it, hope it helps folks out :-)

Pitfall separates the wheat from the chaff on video quality, doesn't it? :-) Nowhere for those pixels to hide behind those trees... Just as a guess - is the one on the left with the fat trees and two ropes a 4 switch unit? Is the board revision level less than 16? A few other questions - when you turned R213 (the large white turnpot), did you notice that the trees got thinner, but the color went wonky? Please perform these tests if you have a multimeter... check the output of A203 7805 voltage regulator and report it's output. Also, check the output of the Atari wallwart power supply and let's see what it's outputting - I'll bet it's higher than 9v If it is a 4 switch and less than ver 16, check to see if there is a resistor between pin 6 & 9 on the TIA chip (it will be the one closest to the edge on the bottom of the board), if not, - you'll have to remove the shield to check on the reverse side. I wouldn't touch the RF adjustment at the moment -

I think that is completely reasonable.

In all fairness, there's a bit more to it - Traco has been around for a long time and they're well trusted in the industry. They make top notch products and stand behind them. These units have a complete published data sheet with design notes, which is a big deal to guys like me, because I can do my own tests and verify their claims. They also carry a 3 year warranty. All I'm saying is, before you dismiss them out of hand, have a look at the data sheet and compare the long term value.

No - they are these....

Please show us a where to find TSR 1-2450's on Ebay for a couple of bucks, I'll buy all they have!

TSR 1-2450 - from tracopower; I got mine in a bulk order from Allied

Just got these in! If Atari had installed these originally, you wouldn't be needing one now :-) simply the highest grade, American Made Switchcraft jacks. There are none finer. $2.50 additional per.

In this circuit - nothing bad would happen. Lots of guys are trying to keep their units as original as practical, and I like to accommodate that. But it's a fair question. The heavy sixer does pull more current and will benefit from the .22uf caps, but lots of people can and do put .1uf in their place because it's conveinent to do so. In the long run, the ripple presented to the 2600 will be higher, but I see no percentage in empirical testing :-). There's just something about keeping it as close to original as practical that appeals to me, and a segment of others I believe. As as to difference in caps - it's really about the *best* material for the job, and the practicality of using that material in certain volume to create values. For example, ceramic or film for suppression. The 2600 has examples of several types employed for this task - poly for most revisions, but strangely not rev 8 boards... The vast majority of all caps on these are ceramic. They all work for a time, I just prefer poly for power supply suppression (close to supply) - they seem to work better, longer in this task. Polystyrene is generally accepted as defacto for audio circuits - and it is in fact warmer. The 2600 uses poly 820pf caps for audio, and it sounds great! The issue is they're hard to solder and damage very easily under heat. Not suited for much else really.

It's an itsy bitsy, teeny Weenie little switching power supply that replaces the 7805 voltage regulator giving you a near perfect ripple free 5v, under much broader conditions with less heat than the 7805 EVER thought about. As a bonus, it also gets you a divorce from much of the line noise for a much cleaner picture.

For 6 switch units to include the "Heavy" & "Light" sixer six switch units... Heavy Sixer Switchboard: Replace C103 & C104 with a .22uf 100v or better mylar cap - regardless of what you find there. Replace C106 with a 2200uf 16v or higher electrolytic cap Replace A101 with a 7805 Voltage Regulator Replace C105 with a 4.7uf 35v or higher electrolytic cap Mainboard: Replace C201 with a 4.7uf 35v or higher electrolytic cap Light Sixer Switchboard: Replace C103 with a .22uf 100v or better mylar cap - regardless of what you find there. Replace C106 with a 2200uf 16v or higher electrolytic cap Replace A101 with a 7805 Voltage Regulator Replace C105 with a 4.7uf 35v or higher electrolytic cap Mainboard: Replace C201 with a 4.7uf 35v or higher electrolytic cap 4 switch units - both woody and Vader variants rev 1-16 Replace C241 & 242 with a .1uf 100v or better mylar cap - regardless of what you find there. Versions 8's will almost always have ceramic disk... replace them with mylar. Replace C243 with a 2200uf 16v or higher electrolytic cap Replace A203 with a 7805 Voltage Regulator Replace C201 & C214 with a 4.7uf 35v or higher electrolytic cap IF you have a 4 switch unit AND your board revision level is LESS THAN version 16, install the 820ohm resistor between pins 6 & 9 of the TIA chip on the SOLDER SIDE of the circuit board.

BTW, these are for 4 switch kits - I had no idea there would be such demand for 6 switch kits... so - I've got the components on order to make that happen as well. Here's how the kits will work... 4 switch kit - this will work for all 4 switch woody and Vader models, regardless of revision level qty 2 .1uf caps for C241 (C242) qty 2 4.7uf caps radial qty 1 7805 voltage regulator qty 1 820ohm precision resistor for pin 6 & 9 of TIA - to apply the "blanking resistor" tech tip # 4 on pre revision level 16 2600A 4 switch models 6 switch kit - this will work for all 6 switch models, heavy and light sixers qty 2 .22uf caps for C103 & C104 (on the switchboard) qty 2 4.7uf caps radial qty 1 7805 voltage regulator resistor mod not required as it's already present from the factory In all cases, the 4.7uf caps will be radial. The supply for 4.7uf axial caps in the needed range is drying up, and the only ones I can find are nearly 10 year old stock or older - which makes them worthless. Rest assured, radials are electrically identical and work perfectly fine. Here's the deal of why 2 kits are needed - other suppliers are selling 1 kit for all machines, but they don't include the correct caps for heavy and light sixer models. The idea is that you replace the .22uf caps with .1uf caps in the heavy and light sixer models. You could - but why not complete a proper repair the correct parts to begin with? Bottom line is - the schematics were drawn with .22uf caps in those locations. I should have all parts to complete heavy and light sixer kits mid week -

The 7805's at Radio Shack are fine I'm sure - it's just that they're so proud of their stuff nowadays.

Bit of dyslexia there... I corrected to read LM7805

Thanks to all who took a chance on me this weekend with your orders. First for sale post on AtariAge! To to all those that did, I'm including something that's hard to find now and rather scarce. I hope you guys like it, and can use them. It means a lot to me, and I just want to say thank you.

Well, the adjustment procedure was meant to be done with a scope, but you could have an external pot for control. Truthfully, I have always found the adjustment finicky due to the narrow band of the pot, even with a scope. If any components in that circuit arn't tip top, the adjustment will drift when it heats up - but that tends to let you know what to replace to get it stable. I think what i'm getting at is, is there a underlying issue with your unit that necessitates making adjustments an the fly?