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Colecovision Champ Adaptor 2 Button Modification


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Greetings folks,

 

I wanted to spend today trying to make my Colecovision Champ Controller adaptors (1 button) into a 2 button model so I can modify a Genesis gamepad.

 

As silly as this sounds it took me all day to figure this out, ugh.. but in the end just one wire was necessary to add to the adaptor board to make it work with the other colecovision button on the controller.

 

If anyone else has a Champ adaptor 1 button I hope you find this helpful and not spend time trying to figure it out.

 

If you solder a small wire from pin 1 on the board to the yellow wire you should be in business.

 

Since pin 1 and pin 5 can look the same depending on your point of view here is a pic I took after my mod.

 

One silly little wire and I was able to use both buttons on my colecovision controller in Cosmic Avenger.

 

In any case I hope this helps out someone.

 

Thank you..

post-6621-0-27796800-1373239535_thumb.jpg

Edited by imstarryeyed
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My pleasure I was so wondering if the one button version could be fixed so I just tried to make it happen today, I am just happy it was so easy.

 

In addition it looks like if your membrane keypad is old and brittle you can use a membrane keypad from a Colecovision controller. I have not tried this but the pinout looks identical, I have not measured it with a meter yet but I am pretty confident it would work.

 

With a new membrane (I need to change one of my out as its brittle) and the two wire mod these little Champ adaptors are pretty nice.

 

If any of you try this out can you post back your results? I am interested to see if there are other wire colors in other adaptors people should be aware of. (e.g. the wire colors are not the same as the ones I have.. etc)

Edited by imstarryeyed
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I had a question to anyone who has modded a Sega Genesis or any gamepad for that matter to work as a 2 button controller for Colecovision. Has anyone been able to get both of their fire buttons to work at the same time? My modded Genesis pad works and both the left and right fire buttons work as separate fire buttons but dont work at all when I push both of them together.

 

I know some games like Nova Blast, Cosmic Avenger to name a few support both buttons working at once but it is not critical to play the game. Games like Ninja princess actually do a completely different function when both buttons are pressed at once (she uses disappear ninja arts).

 

If anyone has had any luck getting both buttons to work at the same time, please let us know as that is the last thing to accomplish for better Coleco controller modifying.

 

Thank you!!

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No worries I figured it out.. its the diodes. Once I installed diodes onto the two fire buttons I was able to get both buttons to work at the same time. My pad is configured as a 3 button Genesis gamepad with A and C being button 2 or the Right Trigger Fire and B is button 1 or the Left Trigger fire.

 

I set it up that way so the main button is in the middle between the button 2's so if I want to switch from A and B or from B and C depending on how the game plays. This is useful when you dont agree that the fire and bomb buttons are what they are and you wish they were reversed.

 

I will tell you all that wiring up the diodes is not hard for the buttons but since the buttons share a gound trace it was bothersome cutting the ground trace and isolating it and then resoldering it again without getting in the way of the silicone switches.

 

It would be soooo much easier to take an arcade stick with independant gounds to modify it to work on a colecovision.

 

The overall feel of the controller I have is clunky but that might be the plastics. I did notice that going in two directions at once is not graceful. I think the diodes in the coleco for the directions and fire buttons allow for up-right down-right up-left down-left directions with ease and without them it feels stiff and clunky.

 

I have a few more tests to run before I feel comfortable with modding controllers for Colecovision. In any case I will get this figured out haha..

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought an adaptor off Ebay specifically to do this mod. I have had three in the past (all one button) and I end up trading or selling them in the hopes of getting a two-button. Well, the one I got ($33 buy it now) to mod is a two-button model :-).

Congrats on acquiring a two button version finally... it's really a crapshot seeing as most seller don't know there are two different versions, don't test them and never specify what version they have for sale.

 

BTW, didn't you buy a one button version from me a couple years ago? With full disclosure on my part! :P

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Why not go for the gold and get all four buttons from the Super Action Controller to work on a Genesis joypad? (Not saying I have the mad skillz for a mod like this, but it'd be pretty cool!)

 

Speaking of that, does the dial on the Super Action Controller do anything? Which games support it? Does it use the same input as the X-axis of the CV trackball?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Picture in port 1, shows pin 5 on the db9 port male port connected to the yellow wire pin 5 on the db9 cable. Pin 5 is the select / common wire.

 

Keypad buttons, don't quite map right with 7800 controller connected :(

 

with tac-2 (single button controller) all keypad buttons work fine.

 

with Atari 7800 controller:

keypad 4 = keypad 0

keypad 8 = goes between keypad 5 and 9

keypad # = keypad 2

 

strange stuff

Edited by grips03
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The atari 7800 controllers dont work well with this quick mod . I get different results with different controllers and also with different games . For instance some of the 7800 controllers wouldnt go in a certain direction very easily and it seemed like I was pushing really hard in that direction to get it to go which ever way . And if I remember correctly sometimes the buttons would have different results for instance if I pressed fire it would fire off 2 quick shots or it would hardly fire at all and a couple fired normally . And if I remember correctly my modded nes pad had just a couple issues but it has been quite a while since I have used this modded champs adaptor .

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champ color code / pinout

 

pin 1 / white / up

pin 2 / blue / down

pin 3 / green / left

pin 4 / brown / right

pin 5 / yellow / select/common

pin 6 / orange / fire

pin 7 - no connection

pin 8 / black / gnd

pin 9 - no connection

 

Champ adapter has 27 diodes for keypad and left action button

Champ joystick has 1 diode, cathode (line) towards right action button that is connected to pin 5. Anode towards pin 6.

Standard Colecovision controller has 28 diodes

Colecovision Super Action Controller has 34 (six diodes are used for actions buttons 3 and 4)

Champ adapter wires up, down, left, right, left action button switches behind a diode just like the standard controller works.

 

thanks to boxpressed for the photos.

post-27883-0-92558100-1394734085_thumb.jpg

post-27883-0-00990800-1394734135_thumb.jpg

Edited by grips03
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  • 1 month later...

Hi, I just received a champ adapter off EBay, I tested it with my 1 button slik stick that I use on my Commodore 64 and it worked fine.

Has anybody done this mod and if so what controllers are they currently using with the modded Champ Adapter. I am currently

waiting for an Atari 7800 CX78 Control Pad to be delivered but I see someone mentioned that the regular 7800 controller has issues.

 

Can anybody give me a link to the y-cable, thanks

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I don't recall anyone listing a Y-Cable or even a Reverse Y-Cable in their retro shops, but they do show up on eBay quite a bit and usually as part of system lots that are being sold/auctioned. I would recommend checking the AtariAge store as well as Atari2600.com as a good first step as well as searching on eBay seeing as some NOS CIBs have come up fo auction of late.

 

I had originally acquired mine loose as part of large lot purchases, but over time, I did come across NOS CIBs and then sold the loose ones that I had previously acquired.

Edited by NIAD
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I recently tried Atari 7800 CX78 Control Pad with the Colecovision and it seemed to work. I connected the Control Pad directly to the console and both buttons worked as I tested them out on Cosmic Avenger. However when I connected my Atari 7800 CX78 Control Pad to my Champ Adapter I could only launch missiles but could not shoot the forward gun. I think even both buttons launched missiles. Can anybody advise me if this 2 button mod on the Champ adapter will work, thanks

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