Finally got AV mod onto my atari

[flammingcowz]

I have tried a lot of times to get composite video on my atari and always fail. Today I finally tried connecting the ground of the video wire to ground and it worked (how dumb was I?)

 

So now I finally have a clean picture and yellow/white cables coming out of it instead of the RF chord.

 

If anyone wants to know how to make it, I made it only out of parts I took from a broken atari, and a PS1 video chord.

[mtshark7]

Thats awesome! I'm thinking about doing the same thing to my L.6-SW model since the RF is complete crap and I only get good picture when my Atari 2600 wants to, lol.

 

Any guide/pointers would be great! :-)

[Rex Dart]

Pretty cool. What game is that?

I modded a couple of 7800's not too long ago with a nice simple mod (only about $10 of parts for the two of 'em) and the result is definitely worth it.

[SlowCoder]

If anyone wants to know how to make it, I made it only out of parts I took from a broken atari, and a PS1 video chord.

Yes, please share your knowledge.

[horseboy]

If anyone wants to know how to make it, I made it only out of parts I took from a broken atari, and a PS1 video chord.

Yes, please share your knowledge.

 

Chords are very rare, so it might not help many people out.

[dwane413]

Pretty cool. What game is that?

Radar Lock

[flammingcowz]

I used this as a guide:

 

but didn't have the potentiometers, or enough parts for ben hecks 2nd mod.

 

So instead of using the 22 ohm resistor and potentiometers, do this.

 

tia pin 5: 360 ohm resistor from broken atari

tia pin 7: 100 ohm resistor ^

tia pin 8: 1k resistor from same place

 

Then trace chroma back from pin 9 of TIA because the spots all guides said to use didn't work. Hook all of them up to a video chord and MAKE SURE TO GROUND VIDEO! This has been my problem for a year now.

[SlowCoder]

If anyone wants to know how to make it, I made it only out of parts I took from a broken atari, and a PS1 video chord.

Yes, please share your knowledge.

 

Chords are very rare, so it might not help many people out.

I doubt the cord is important. Probably any a/v RCA cable will do.

[flammingcowz]

I doubt the cord is important. Probably any a/v RCA cable will do.

 

That's true, I only used a playstation video chord because they are not loose and I have like 5 PS chords

[horseboy]

I am sorry, but you just can't find chords of any kind around here.

[SlowCoder]

I am sorry, but you just can't find chords of any kind around here.

I think I get it now. You're making fun of the spelling.

[flammingcowz]

Saddam hussein is making fun of my spelling?

[roberto]

Brilliant! I need to do something like this too!

[horseboy]

Saddam hussein is making fun of my spelling?

 

That is Rosey O'Donnell's face on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's body. Yes, I was making fun of your spelling. All in good fun.

[SlowCoder]

@Flammingcowz

Looks like you basically followed Ben Heck's mod here: http://benheck.com/book/support/Atari2600VidMod.htm

Did you remove the resistors/diodes as in BH's page, or leave them in place?

 

I'd love to be able to mod my 2600 in such a way as I could use either composite or RF.

[flammingcowz]

@Flammingcowz

Looks like you basically followed Ben Heck's mod here: http://benheck.com/book/support/Atari2600VidMod.htm

Did you remove the resistors/diodes as in BH's page, or leave them in place?

 

I'd love to be able to mod my 2600 in such a way as I could use either composite or RF.

 

Yes I removed them, in order to let everything stay in place right. As soon as you solder anything to one of the points though, RF dies until you remove it. I don't know why, but because of that you can't have both RF and composite.

[Schizophretard]

Saddam hussein is making fun of my spelling?

 

That is Rosey O'Donnell's face on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's body. Yes, I was making fun of your spelling. All in good fun.

 

I get Rosey O'Donnell, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Saddam Hussein mixed up all the time.

[Schizophretard]

@Flammingcowz

Looks like you basically followed Ben Heck's mod here: http://benheck.com/book/support/Atari2600VidMod.htm

Did you remove the resistors/diodes as in BH's page, or leave them in place?

 

I'd love to be able to mod my 2600 in such a way as I could use either composite or RF.

 

Yes I removed them, in order to let everything stay in place right. As soon as you solder anything to one of the points though, RF dies until you remove it. I don't know why, but because of that you can't have both RF and composite.

 

Good job and congrats.

 

I've been trying to have both(kinda). I had my Atari hooked into my VCR's coaxial, the VCR into my Archer Video Processor's composite, and my Archer Video Processor into my Radio Shack A/V switcher with s-video out to TV. I adjust the video enhance on my Archer Video Processor and it cleans it up okay. Now I want to see what I can do with my S-VHS VCR because it has an s-video out. I could skip the composite part. I would like to see if I could hook it into an s-video to component video converter into TV.

 

I'm just experimenting with different ways to hook it up to see how close I can come to an A/V mod without one. It's kind of fun even if I fail. I think the hard part will be filtering out the RF interference. I wonder if a surge protector with EMI/RFI filters for clean energy and hook ups for coax will help. If they work as advertised then all the energy going into my Atari power adaptor should be cleaner and then if I hook the RF adaptor back into the surge protector's coax it will filter it again. It would filter in and out. The TV, VCR/s, and everything else will be hooked into it too. If it helps the picture that will be cool but if not at least I will buy a good surge protector to protect my electronics. I also need better shielded cables.

[e5frog]

So, been looking around for a while and ordered parts for the Longhorn mod, while waiting I thought I should do one of these quick ones. I have a rev 16 board in a "Vader", sound didn't work over RF but it's output from the TIA so no problem there. Only trouble now is that I can't get the video to work.

 

Ben Heck's quick one looked easy enough, two potentiometers and a fixed resistor. Problem is I don't know where they grab the signals and if any components on the original board should still be used. For the latest try I isolated all signals, composite sync, L0, L1, L2, /Blank and color, then set three pots to 100, 360 and 1k which is close to the values of Ben Heck mod 2 anyway, soldered in one end to the appropriate places.and attached sync directly after pots then color and added in a 820 Ohm resistor from /Blank to color as that's how it's hooked on the motherboard originally. The Longhorn mod has 680 Ohm but that's after the buffer. No components from sync on TIA and no components from color on TIA to the joint after the pots. No caps.

 

I guess these mods rely on some components still on the motherboard because I got a grey picture only, on the 1084 monitor I had a grey picture with something vague scrolling diagonally (not sure it does NTSC but there should be something clearly visible if it works). TV used on the latest try is NTSC compatible, tried AUTO, M. NTSC and NTSC - same grey picture but very nice sound.

 

So I wonder, if using no passive components from the motherboard what needs to be hooked up and how? Is the three component mod supposed to be done without removing or changing anything on the motherboard?

If anyone has complete instructions for a rev 16 board or schematic of some kind to clarify I'd be very happy to get that.

 

If I skip /Blank and Color I should get a B/W picture, right? With just CSYNC, L0, L1 and L2? Basically three resistors and the CSYNC added after that?

[e5frog]

Got it.

 

I didn't disconnect anything at all (except for audio) - so that works with the Rev 16 board at least.

Hooked up 100, 360 and 1k, Csync and Color - done, worked. Nice stable picture, don't know about colors, it's my first A2600 gaming ever.

I got Battlezone from a collector-friend for about $4 so that's what I've got until Harmony arrives.

Raw picture straight off the camera:

 

Does anyone have a link to a picture with the correct colors so I can turn that tint wheel.

There's not a very large area of the color tint potentiometer that is actually changing the color, less than half then there's basically no color at all.

 

Are perhaps these the right colors?

 

It's just a temporary solution until I get all parts for the Longhorn mod.

Edited June 9, 2013 by e5frog

[ApolloBoy]

Do you have a PAL 2600? The PAL TIA uses a different color palette, that would be why the colors look different than the screenshot you posted.

[e5frog]

No this is an NTSC machine, I turned the pot slightly and got more similar colors to that screenshot. Should be a multi-turn pot there.

I'm happy for now, had the Longhorn PCB made at work today, just need to wait for all components to arrive and I should get the luminance balanced correctly as well.

 

So is this screenshot with the red brown surface furthest away the correct one for an NTSC machine?

[e5frog]

Finished my Longhorn PCB, I changed some things, added a capacitor as it says in the datasheet of the FMS6400, increased trace width, added a surrounding ground plane on both sides and a little more, changed version number to 2.3.

Had to buy the FMS6400 from eBay (got five, four left) but the other stuff was available from the local electronics distributor. I had forgotten to order the 2N3904 but fortunately I had one - hope it works. I had the PCB made at work without the legend print (I work at a PCB factory, have two boards left). Holes for the transistor were annoyingly small so I increased those in the CAD drawing in case I need to make more It was fun trying out a new CAD program, it could have been faster to redraw it from the beginning in EagleCAD that I'm more used to.

 

I hope I haven't messed anything up and that it will work right away.

 

That's right, I was going to brag with a picture as well:

Edited July 12, 2013 by e5frog

[+iesposta]

Finished my Longhorn PCB, I changed some things, added a capacitor as it says in the datasheet of the FMS6400, increased trace width, added a surrounding ground plane on both sides and a little more, changed version number to 2.3.

 

BEAUTIFUL! I want one! (No, I really don't need one...)

Why didn't you go with the Batari design with the adjustable pots for color and whatnot? Especially for the 2600 as it has been reworked. Actually Batari said he's not satisfied and will restart the 2600 AV mod from scratch again.

 

The Longhorn board for the 7800 is still needed (and could use improvements if any improvements can be found) as both 2600 AV mods have nicer output than the 7800 AV mod. But I guess you don't have a 7800 so you don't need to make one.

 

This is what Battlezone should look like. Your 2nd picture is correct.

http://atariage.com/screenshot_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=22

Edited July 12, 2013 by iesposta

[e5frog]

Because Ben Heck told me the Longhorn mod was the best (when I couldn't get his fast hack to work at first).

 

What's this Batari hack you are talking about?

 

 

This is my first ever Atari console so I don't have a clue how things are supposed to look etc, it would be nice to have a multi-turn pot on the hue control in the console though, it was hard to make it look like various screenshots I found. I have been waiting to finish my modded Longhorn board before fiddling with it again.

 

This one will be fine, if I made it correctly.

 

I will probably offer the two boards and the IC:s for sale if anyone wants to make one for themselves. Longhorn has a finished shopping list for a certain distributor.

 

 

I wasn't planning to drill any holes, just cables out through already present hole/s (where RF comes out) and connectors there. Apart from plastic flakes everywhere it's a shame because it's an old machine. I'll add at least s-video and stereo sound, not sure about composite.