Making New Atari 800XL Power Supply

[TotalSellout]

Purchased my first Atari 800XL. The machine seems to be in decent condition. I havent tested it with power because it came with an Ingot. Im planning to salvage the cable end and mate it to an extra Raspberry Pi power cable I had. I was just going to solder the wires from the Atari cable to appropriate wires from the usb. Does this seem like a decent plan? Also are there any gotchas I should look out for?

[+DrVenkman]

The only gotcha is to confirm and double-check which pins are power and which are ground on the DIN so you don’t fry your 800XL when you power it up. You should be able to plug in and test the ingot (without connecting it to the computer) before you cut the cable to confirm the pins, and then confirm again after you’ve soldered it to the new wall-wart.

[TotalSellout]

Thanks. Is there anything wrong with my plan to solder the cables together in lieu of soldering the new cable directly to the DIN? Im hoping to maintain the length of the power as much as possible.

Edited April 28, 2019 by TotalSellout

[+Stephen]

Thanks. Is there anything wrong with my plan to solder the cables together in lieu of soldering the new cable directly to the DIN? Im hoping to maintain the length of the power as much as possible.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

[+Nezgar]

And 3amps you have there is great. the stock supply is 1.5A I believe, and if you upgrade the machine, the extra components bring it close to that.

 

Low amp modern supplies tend to introduce more high frequency ripple than the higher amp ones, due to more capacitor smoothing headroom.

 

But yes, triple check polarity. You can check polarity on the ingot lead' DIN before you cut.

[Urchlay]

But yes, triple check polarity. You can check polarity on the ingot lead' DIN before you cut.

Careful, warrior! I once had an ingot power supply that failed with

reverse polarity. The voltage was around -2V. I was given the "fried"

800XL and ingot supply, and discovered the computer was fine (the -2V

didn't damage it), which was surprising.

 

That said, you could find a pinout of the XL power jack, just make

sure you know whether you're looking at the male (plug end) or female

(jack) view.

 

I was going to include the "ascii art" pinout in this post but

unfortunately I don't know how to get the forum software to not mangle

the formatting, so have a look at the original page here:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/faq-atari-400-800-xl-xe-what-are-the-pinouts-for-the-various-connectors-on-the-atari_16.html

 

(search within page for "Power")

 

Just recently I made an adaptor out of a Netgear router power supply

and the cord from an ingot. I didn't connect pin 2 (shield) to anything,

which seems to work fine.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Urchlay

[TotalSellout]

Last night I finally had time to sort out the new power supply, and low and behold it booted up! This was huge for me since I had never soldered anything before last night. Up next is to reassemble and make sure everything else is working correctly. I had one more question about the keyboard. I noticed the wire from the cartridge lid to the keyboard is cut, is that some sort of grounding that’s necessary?

[+DrVenkman]

. I noticed the wire from the cartridge lid to the keyboard is cut, is that some sort of grounding that’s necessary?

It’s to reduce the risk of static discharge from contact with the metal XL cart doors. Not strictly necessary but easily fixed if you want to.

[TotalSellout]

It’s to reduce the risk of static discharge from contact with the metal XL cart doors. Not strictly necessary but easily fixed if you want to.

 

Good to know. I've looked around a bit and haven't been able to find more information about that. Is there a specific location it should be soldered to?

[+DrVenkman]

 

Good to know. I've looked around a bit and haven't been able to find more information about that. Is there a specific location it should be soldered to?

 

Any ground on the motherboard is fine. However, if there is a wire (not all 800XLs had them, BTW) attached at the cartridge door, there's usually a little clip type prong on the PCB that the wire would have attached to from the factory. I don't have one of my 800XLs handy but I'm sure there are pics on the forum here somewhere.