Maxflash Programmer + Adapter = fire hazard?

[Mr. Postman]

Ok, well I have some bad news and I’m rather upset right now at whomever manufactures and owns Atarimax Maxflash. 
 

I had already watched tutorials online for dumping Atari 2600 carts using the MaxFlash. Since I was ready to go and installed all the drivers, I proceeded to attach the 2600 Adapter and my rare undumped NTSC Lilly Adventure cartridge. About 10-20 seconds later I smelled burning plastic and at first didn’t know where the fire was in my home. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and was looking around frantically. I unplugged everything and the strong smell was coming from the 2600 Adapter. I touched the 2 chips and they were scalding hot!? This absolutely can’t be right and I could have lost my 1 of a kind game.

 

The Dump seems to be just a black screen. At this point I was terrified that I ruined my cart. It still seems to boot up, but I’m worried that there could be corruption now.
 

I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to do now but I’m genuinely disappointed that I attempted to do all of this for the community and someone would mail out such an obviously untested and dangerous product. Maybe there’s some bad soldering or something but I’ve been having a really bad time lately and nothing in life seems to be going right. 
 

Does everyone else’s MaxFlash 2600 Adapter or any of the other Adapters of theirs get as hot as a stovetop? That just seems like a product that isn’t ready for the market, especially people that have important games that would need to be dumped.

 

At this point in time I had nothing to

lose anymore so very quickly plugged in the MaxFlash, dumped a different common cart and the dumped binary also was just a black screen in Stella (and in the short seconds it took to do this it got extremely hot to the touch again). 
 

I won’t be using this product ever again, by any chance can anyone recommend a 2600 dumper that won’t ruin my games or potentially burn my house down?

Edited October 25, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[CPUWIZ]

Are you sure you plugged it in the right way?

[Mr. Postman]

5 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

Are you sure you plugged it in the right way?

Yes, label side up for both cartridges and chip side up for the adapter, same as others that have demonstrated it on YouTube.

 

 

look at this picture, am I seeing this right? Is this chip installed backwards?

[+Mitch]

I have use my AtariMax programmer to dump many games including 2600 games. It is easy to get things plugged in upside-down. I would test it with a common game to make sure you are plugging it in correctly.

 

Mitch

[CPUWIZ]

Yes, that chip is backwards, crazy to ship this out untested.

[+Mitch]

You must have posted while I was typing. Yes that chip is installed backwards.

Contact Steve at AtariMax and he will take care of it.

 

Mitch

[+groundtrooper]

I am curious about this. I just ordered one to dump a couple of 2600 carts and a 7800 just in case someplace down the road I stumble upon something I am prepared.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[+Andrew Davie]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Postman said:

 

 

O....M....G

 

[+Andrew Davie]

I guess there's also a lesson in this; when working with rare/unusual carts, make sure that the equipment you are using is tested on a common cartridge first!

[Mr. Postman]

14 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

I guess there's also a lesson in this; when working with rare/unusual carts, make sure that the equipment you are using is tested on a common cartridge first!

Well traditionally I would have tried a common cartridge first to make sure that I was plugging it in correctly and using the software properly, but I did all my homework in advance and was positive that I plugged everything in correctly and knew exactly how to use the software from watching tutorials/demonstrations. I assumed that a product like this was to be trusted. Nobody thinks that plugging an Atari cart into an “Atari cart device” is going to fry everything and start a fire.
 

 Atarimax is absolutely responsible to be personally testing out their own products before they ship and I assumed that they already are well aware that people are buying these to dump rare carts. I didn’t do anything wrong but purchase this product with my own money with the intent to share a rare game with the community. 
 

 This Steve gentleman needs to start testing EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT in his inventory before he ships anything out again. This is beyond unacceptable. Not only can irreplaceable vintage games get destroyed, he can actually be responsible for burning down people’s homes with improperly manufactured powered electronic devices. I think that’s a pretty big deal and they need to understand that they’re legally responsible for any such damage or fires caused by their product manufacturing.

 

Hopefully they get to their test bench and get started inspecting their products sooner rather than later.

[+Andrew Davie]

40 minutes ago, Mr. Postman said:

Well traditionally I would have tried a common cartridge first to make sure that I was plugging it in correctly and using the software properly, but I did all my homework in advance and was positive that I plugged everything in correctly and knew exactly how to use the software from watching tutorials/demonstrations. I assumed that a product like this was to be trusted. Nobody thinks that plugging an Atari cart into an “Atari cart device” is going to fry everything and start a fire.

 

No, they don't.

But still I'm reminded of the care that the guys restoring the Apollo Guidance Computer took with their rare and precious charge.

No assumptions at all.  Everything tested before being allowed anywhere near the artefact.

 

 

[+batari]

1 hour ago, Andrew Davie said:

I guess there's also a lesson in this; when working with rare/unusual carts, make sure that the equipment you are using is tested on a common cartridge first!

I can see your point, but really, we do have basic expectations of quality, and I can see how the OP trusted that the product was tested before it went out. We sure don't expect something like this to go out the door completely untested and with a major flaw.

[+Andrew Davie]

3 minutes ago, batari said:

I can see your point, but really, we do have basic expectations of quality, and I can see how the OP trusted that the product was tested before it went out. We sure don't expect something like this to go out the door completely untested and with a major flaw.

No, we don't expect this.  I'm not arguing that point. I'm just using the whole episode as a cautionary tale when dealing with rare things.

[Mr. Postman]

48 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

 

No, they don't.

But still I'm reminded of the care that the guys restoring the Apollo Guidance Computer took with their rare and precious charge.

No assumptions at all.  Everything tested before being allowed anywhere near the artefact.

 

 

This is my real life not just a multibillion dollar NASA scenario where everyone is under pressure to test a vast amount of improbable situations. Atarimax messed this up. In your scenario they were the NASA employee responsible for testing the Atarimax equipment.

 

Well do you buy a baby crib from an *established* company that people already trust and test it out with someone else’s baby first? Do you have someone else taste your burger from a restaurant to make sure it isn’t poisoned? Both involve life and death, but people don’t do these things because nobody should have to.

There’s a million examples like this, and this is still completely on Atarimax. My only mistake was making an effort to dump an undumped game and using a product that’s been recommended by many in the community. I’m sorry but nobody says “I bought a new PlayStation 5,  I better test it out with a bad game in case it bursts into flames!”

 

There shouldn’t even have to be a lesson learned here...

(but unfortunately here we are and you have a good point as we now know that Atarimax literally doesn’t test their products before they ship)

 

This is an extremely unfortunate turn of events.

[+Andrew Davie]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Postman said:

This is my real life not just a multibillion dollar NASA scenario where everyone is under pressure to test a vast amount of improbable situations. Atarimax messed this up. In your scenario they were the NASA employee responsible for testing the Atarimax equipment.

 

Well do you buy a baby crib from an *established* company that people already trust and test it out with someone else’s baby first? Do you have someone else taste your burger from a restaurant to make sure it isn’t poisoned? Both involve life and death, but people don’t do these things because nobody should have to.

 

 

I understand you're upset, and rightly so. I would be too and definitely the fact it was dangerous is not your fault.

But I think you're misreading what I wrote, and certainly what you think I'm saying... is not what I meant.

 

[CPUWIZ]

Luckily these are easy to find TTL chips, I probably would have pulled some new ones from my inventory and just replaced both by now.

 

I wouldn't worry about TTL chips causing a fire from 5V, they'll just get hot and burn out.  In the electronics world it's called "Smoke Monster" sometimes.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said:

I wouldn't worry about TTL chips causing a fire from 5V, they'll just get hot and burn out. 

I smelled that more than once in my life. But usually the chips were packed into a case or something, so nothing easily inflammable could have been nearby.

 

But with an open board like this, I would be worried a bit too. How hot can they become?

[Mr. Postman]

13 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I smelled that more than once in my life. But usually the chips were packed into a case or something, so nothing easily inflammable could have been nearby.

 

But with an open board like this, I would be worried a bit too. How hot can they become?

I wasn’t expecting this situation at all. I didn’t even know the chip was upside down with the voltages and grounds in the wrong places when starting this thread.

 

 Unfortunately I can report that I’ve once experienced a warm feeling from a cracked & exposed USB iPhone cable broken closely near the lightning connector port (we’ve all experienced this). One day it was getting warm and randomly ignited a flame like a struck match while holding my phone near the base.

 

I no longer toy around with frayed 5v USB phone cables and instead toss them out, but I admit that never expected that ignition to happen in the first place. 
 

 

As far as this Adapter board with the flipped chip, the traces were very much hot enough that besides the overwhelming melting plastic smell in my home that I’m also certain that you could burn your skin on the metal contacts of the chip. Everything about this is unfortunate.

[Mr. Postman]

Atarimax said they’d replace the adapter. I figured that was a given. 
 

Wish it never happened in the first place. Nothing I can do about what happened but figured I’d update. Wish it never happened, this is why I can’t trust anyone or anything. Guess that’s all I can say. 
 

There’s some irony in buying a dumper for the sole purpose to preserve when it instead ends up being the cause of damage.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[zyzzle]

On 10/25/2020 at 1:42 AM, Mr. Postman said:

Atarimax said they’d replace the adapter. I figured that was a given. 
 

Wish it never happened in the first place. Nothing I can do about what happened but figured I’d update. Wish it never happened, this is why I can’t trust anyone or anything. Guess that’s all I can say. 
 

There’s some irony in buying a dumper for the sole purpose to preserve when it instead ends up being the cause of damage.

 

Not only should they replace the adapter, they should refund his purchase price in full, offer to reimburse him in full for his damaged (unique?) fried cartridge. Further. they should make entirely sure this doesn't happen to future customers, by including a note / warning to fully inspect the product, including COLOR PHOTOS of the chips in their CORRECT positions, for customer reference and use. Hell, I wouldn't know if that chip was installed the wrong direction or not. I should not be required to know this before purchasing the product.

 

Incidently, I absolutely will never purchase this "Maxflash programmer" now (out of fright), and this company is now sullied beyond redemption in my view... You've scared away another potential person who might have used your product to digitally preserve dumps of his 2600 carts. That's shameful.

[+groundtrooper]

So I received my AtariMax dumper earlier this week. I double checked my adapters for proper chip alignment and everything looked good. 

 

I installed the software and pulled the closest common cart to me, Activision Dragster. I plugged the adapter in the cart and plugged the Dragster into the adapter and plugged in the USB cable and started to dumping process. 

 

It worked like a champ with no issues. It is unfortunate that Mr. Postman had such negative experience. But I have no regrets with my purchase. 

[Mr. Postman]

3 hours ago, groundtrooper said:

So I received my AtariMax dumper earlier this week. I double checked my adapters for proper chip alignment and everything looked good. 

 

I installed the software and pulled the closest common cart to me, Activision Dragster. I plugged the adapter in the cart and plugged the Dragster into the adapter and plugged in the USB cable and started to dumping process. 

 

It worked like a champ with no issues. It is unfortunate that Mr. Postman had such negative experience. But I have no regrets with my purchase. 

I’m glad yours worked out great, it’s obvious that my issue stemmed from the chip that was installed backwards.

 

I don’t feel like there was malice or anything with what happened, but it was a both a big and very avoidable mistake.

 

AtariMax has both apparently shipped out a replacement & refunded my purchase price. Unfortunately I only care about my irreplaceable game cart, so I can only hope & pray that there’s no data corruption.

 

Everyone makes mistakes, I just really wasn’t prepared or expecting  for me to be the one time that it happened. While I don’t believe that my Atari 2600 Adaptor was tested before shipping because the chip burned out and stank on my watch within the first minute of using it, I would hope and imagine that all future shipments would be fully tested.
 

There’s not much else to say. He admitted that it was his fault & offered a replacement & refund. I hope that everyone continues having positive transactions with Atarimax or anyone else in this community. Take care all.

[Keatah]

On 10/24/2020 at 9:50 PM, Andrew Davie said:

I guess there's also a lesson in this; when working with rare/unusual carts, make sure that the equipment you are using is tested on a common cartridge first!

 

And be sure you know the ins and outs, procedures and idiosyncrasies, of the 'kwipment you're using.

[Mr. Postman]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

 

And be sure you know the ins and outs, procedures and idiosyncrasies, of the 'kwipment you're using.

I knew everything about it. I fully understood how to use the hardware and software. 
 

Just wasn’t expecting a dumper to have a chip soldered in backwards. the same as you wouldn’t expect a chip soldered in backwards in any of your atari games or consoles, and ***if*** said happened to you nobody would tell you that you should know the idiosyncrasies of how to use the hardware or software.
 

The guy that installed the chip upside down with voltage and ground swapped that sells hardware to the public is the one that needs to know. This isn’t a situation that many of you could have avoided. 
 

We all hope that an auto mechanic would know to definitely not install your car battery backwards, but I guess it could happen. It’s not really on you that it happened though.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[Keatah]

Right. Not implying it's your fault. And it sucks to think you've risked damage to a one-off cartridge through no direct fault of your own.

 

In preserving magnetic media and using a variety of disk drives - I quickly learned to test the drives before imaging prized disks. Learned to clean them in-between each capture. One would expect a drive to not need cleanings in-between reads. And, yet, that is what's required. At least your experience was with a rom that's not likely been damaged.

 

What's appalling here is the blatant quality-control failure on such a simple device. How many parts on that adapter? 5? 6? And the mfg can't even test it? That's just so bullshitty. It's not like these are made by the thousands or millions. They're in the tens or low hundreds and that means no excuse for any failure.

 

If they were made by the thousands I would clearly expect a small amount to be faulty.