5200 services?

[bonaccorsi2]

When I finally got a controller with replaced gold parts from Best Electronics, my 4-port 5200 console died suddenly. Now I have 2 broken 4-port consoles, 2 power adapters, cables, and a couple of controllers (just the gold one was working fine).

 

I am looking for someone who can repair my consoles / controllers. And maybe do some modifications, to make this system more reliable. 

 

Or maybe I can buy a 2-port console (I really don't like the 4-port switch box with power).

 

Or a trade-in, I can ship all my 5200 stuff, as part of payment, in exchange for a working console.

 

I just need a reliable console and controllers... 

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[+DrVenkman]

Where are you located? Shipping costs may play into whatever you ultimately decide to do. I don’t personally like to work on systems except my own and those of personal local friends in the retro-community, but I think @-^CrossBow^- does a good amount of work on 5200’s in particular. I don’t recall where he lives, however.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

Where are you located? Shipping costs may play into whatever you ultimately decide to do. I don’t personally like to work on systems except my own and those of personal local friends in the retro-community, but I think @-^CrossBow^- does a good amount of work on 5200’s in particular. I don’t recall where he lives, however.

I'm located in the central US.

 

[bonaccorsi2]

On 5/8/2020 at 10:25 AM, DrVenkman said:

Where are you located? Shipping costs may play into whatever you ultimately decide to do. I don’t personally like to work on systems except my own and those of personal local friends in the retro-community, but I think @-^CrossBow^- does a good amount of work on 5200’s in particular. I don’t recall where he lives, however.

DrVenkman, thanks for your reply. I think I heard very good things about your 5200 controller. Please, let me know if you still have these available for sale.

[bonaccorsi2]

On 5/8/2020 at 12:15 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

I'm located in the central US.

 

Hey -^Crossbow^- I am located in Florida, it's not too far, maybe the shipping cost will not bankruptcy me  Let me know how we can do this.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Shoot me a PM and we can discuss more in detail what you are wanting or needing done?

[+sramirez2008]

@bonaccorsi2 Buy with confidence. @-^CrossBow^-has modded/repaired a couple consoles for me and I’ve purchased a couple of @DrVenkman 5200 controllers. Both gentlemen are a pleasure to work with.?

[bonaccorsi2]

20 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

@bonaccorsi2 Buy with confidence. @-^CrossBow^-has modded/repaired a couple consoles for me and I’ve purchased a couple of @DrVenkman 5200 controllers. Both gentlemen are a pleasure to work with.?

sramirez2008, thank you for the kind message!

[+DrVenkman]

 

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

... and I’ve purchased a couple of @DrVenkman 5200 controllers. Both gentlemen are a pleasure to work with.?

 

Thank you for your kind remarks. It was a pleasure doing business with you.

2 hours ago, bonaccorsi2 said:

DrVenkman, thanks for your reply. I think I heard very good things about your 5200 controller. Please, let me know if you still have these available for sale.

 

 

I appreciate your interest. My friend @MakerMatrix and I enjoyed building them and making them available to the community; however, after the holiday sales crush passed and our backlog got worked down, we were faced with the need to either make another large purchase of parts for another run of indeterminate size or wrap things up. At the moment we are no longer building controllers; we were in discussions and making some preliminary plans for an enhanced version with some new features, but nothing concrete had come to pass before the worldwide pandemic put a complete kibosh on all our plans. Perhaps later in the year or next year we might be able to get back to normal and pick the project back up, but time will tell. 

[bonaccorsi2]

3 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I appreciate your interest. My friend @MakerMatrix and I enjoyed building them and making them available to the community; however, after the holiday sales crush passed and our backlog got worked down, we were faced with the need to either make another large purchase of parts for another run of indeterminate size or wrap things up. At the moment we are no longer building controllers; we were in discussions and making some preliminary plans for an enhanced version with some new features, but nothing concrete had come to pass before the worldwide pandemic put a complete kibosh on all our plans. Perhaps later in the year or next year we might be able to get back to normal and pick the project back up, but time will tell. 

OK, if possible, add me to your list of interested customers! Thank you!

[bonaccorsi2]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

@bonaccorsi2 Buy with confidence. @-^CrossBow^-has modded/repaired a couple consoles for me and I’ve purchased a couple of @DrVenkman 5200 controllers. Both gentlemen are a pleasure to work with.?

sramirez2008, unfortunately DrVenkman's controllers are sold out due to the pandemic situation... If in the future you decide to sell one of your controllers, please, contact me, ok? Thanks in advance!

[Lectronimo]

I recently had my Sunnyvale 4-port 5200 modded by Crossbow. He is great to work with. The entire process was seamless. Great attention to detail and communication. The results are fantastic even with a basic RCA (Y,R,W) cable. But it looks even better running the S-Video out into a Retrotink Pro box and then into my AV receiver. The Retrotink does not seem to like the Atari audio, so running that directly from the 5200 into the AV receiver. Works and sounds great!

 

 

[bonaccorsi2]

1 hour ago, Lectronimo said:

I recently had my Sunnyvale 4-port 5200 modded by Crossbow. He is great to work with. The entire process was seamless. Great attention to detail and communication. The results are fantastic even with a basic RCA (Y,R,W) cable. But it looks even better running the S-Video out into a Retrotink Pro box and then into my AV receiver. The Retrotink does not seem to like the Atari audio, so running that directly from the 5200 into the AV receiver. Works and sounds great!

 

 

Crossbow already modded my 5200 console and it was an awesome experience, he is fantastic

[+DrVenkman]

4 hours ago, Lectronimo said:

Retrotink does not seem to like the Atari audio, so running that directly from the 5200 into the AV receiver. Works and sounds great!

Be sure to update your RetroTink firmware. There have been several revisions in the last few months. The most recent version is 1.4, from just a couple weeks ago.

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

Be sure to update your RetroTink firmware. There have been several revisions in the last few months. The most recent version is 1.4, from just a couple weeks ago.

 

 

Yeah this is the first I've heard of the Tink2x not liking the audio from the 5200? That seems odd to me since the only thing being done on the audio is to tap it off the top of R50, add another 1k6 - 2k resistor so it isn't so hot and add a cap in there for some DC filtering? Not too different from what is done with 7800s and far as I know those work fine through a Tink2x?

 

[+DrVenkman]

1 minute ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Yeah this is the first I've heard of the Tink2x not liking the audio from the 5200? That seems odd to me since the only thing being done on the audio is to tap it off the top of R50, add another 1k6 - 2k resistor so it isn't so hot and add a cap in there for some DC filtering? Not too different from what is done with 7800s and far as I know those work fine through a Tink2x?

 

I haven’t personally run into any problems with my 1088XEL A8-based system, my 5200 or my 7800, but I have heard from others that they have had issues - for instance, after some loud sound effects in one game or another, they would lose audio. I haven’t experienced that personally, but I see the firmware notes for at least one or two of the updates mention attempts to address audio issues. 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Interesting. Again I add the resistor to the audio line to reduce it from overdriving receivers etc... Most people just stick a cap off that line and wire it to the RCAs. Heck some people don't even bother with filtering it at all and just attach the wire straight off R50 to the RCA. Part of me thinks I should get a Tink2x for use in testing these things but I've not had a need to for one with my setup using an OSSC here.

 

[+DrVenkman]

10 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Interesting. Again I add the resistor to the audio line to reduce it from overdriving receivers etc... Most people just stick a cap off that line and wire it to the RCAs. Heck some people don't even bother with filtering it at all and just attach the wire straight off R50 to the RCA. Part of me thinks I should get a Tink2x for use in testing these things but I've not had a need to for one with my setup using an OSSC here.

 

I used a resistor to lower the signal level after I did my 5200 UAV install when I found the audio levels too hot for my liking. I didn’t do that for my 7800 or 4-switch 2600 UAVs, but none of these systems display any audio sync problems that I’ve seen in ordinary use, including playing stereo demos on my 1088XEL using line-level audio out of a dedicated 3.5mm stereo jack. But my RetroTink was updated to the 1.2 firmware as soon as I received it, and then to 1.4 whenever I noticed it had been released, so maybe non-updated ones with the original firmware have issues?

 

Honestly, the only issue I’ve encounter with the RetroTink is the one we’ve talked about before - certain out-of-spec 2600 titles use too many scanlines or have VSYNC in weird places in the kernel and result in an output signal from the RetroTink that my TV’s can’t parse through their HDMI inputs (tested with my 2013 Samsung LED and a 2018 Samsung 4K QLED though my Onkyo AV receiver). In both cases I get “Resolution Unsupported” messages from the TV (for instance, Activision Starmaster) or weird skipped frames and missed action without loss of video signal (such as Atari Battlezone). I’ve been in email contact with the guy behind RetroTink and given him detailed descriptions of that problem so hopefully he’ll try to address it in a future firmware update. 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

When I was talking about adding resistors on the 7800, I just meant replicating the original 6k8 and 18k that are used at R5 and R6 so you don't have to cut the audio from the RF modulator. But it is the same thing, taking the audio signal, routing it through a resistor and filtering it with a capacitor.

 

I might have to ask a few others if they have had issues. I haven't done nearly as many 5200s with UAV as I have the 7800. I've lost count on how many 7800s I've done now to be honest but yeah aside from the odd video issues through a Tink, I wasn't aware that audio was an issue at all.

 

[+Ryan Witmer]

Every time I see the title of this thread I think someone's trying to arrange a funeral for their 5200 and it makes me sad.

 

Stop making me sad!

[Lectronimo]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I will try the firmware update. I left it how it was out of the box (1.0 allegedly), but I should update it and try it again.

 

The manual does mention something about no sound but I believe it pertains more to a straight to TV hookup instead of going into an AV receiver like I'm doing. I'm going into a Denon AVR-X3500h.

 

From the manual...

Q: No sound is heard.

A: Double check to make sure the audio cables are connected correctly. Try another TV. The

off-spec video timing of some-retro consoles causes some displays to reject the audio stream

in the Digital Video connection. Alternatively, directly connect the audio output from your

console to your sound system and bypass the 2X.

 

BTW, does anyone else dislike the insanely bright white LED on the Retrotink 2x Pro? I ended up connecting both the retrotink and the 5200 power adapter to their own mini power strip that I can turn on and off because I can't deal with that glowing of the light!

[+DrVenkman]

6 hours ago, Lectronimo said:

BTW, does anyone else dislike the insanely bright white LED on the Retrotink 2x Pro? I ended up connecting both the retrotink and the 5200 power adapter to their own mini power strip that I can turn on and off because I can't deal with that glowing of the light!

My RetroTink is powered by a USB port on my TV.  I’ve plugged a little Raspberry Pi microUSB inline power button into the RetroTink, and then a USB cable from the TV to the power button. Somewhere around here I have some strips of strong Velcro. I plan to cut a small piece and stick the device up on the back of the TV and out of the way at some point but I haven’t done it yet. 

[bonaccorsi2]

7 hours ago, AverageSoftware said:

Every time I see the title of this thread I think someone's trying to arrange a funeral for their 5200 and it makes me sad.

 

Stop making me sad!

I am sorry, English is not my native language, and I didn't realize about the double meaning of "services"

[Qix Raiders]

On 6/24/2020 at 9:44 PM, Lectronimo said:

BTW, does anyone else dislike the insanely bright white LED on the Retrotink 2x Pro? I ended up connecting both the retrotink and the 5200 power adapter to their own mini power strip that I can turn on and off because I can't deal with that glowing of the light!

I am really sad that everything seems to have an ultra bright white LED on it these days.

Thankfully Sony TVs let you turn it off on the logo, but I really wish my PS4 would use the blue light when powered on instead of white.

I miss the days of red or orange for off or standby, green for on, and blue for disc state. Plus it didn't seem like LEDs were so blindingly bright. They were just bright enough to do the job without being distracting.