2600 connected to car battery.. (odd questions..)

[Clint Thompson]

So something has recently sparked my interest to put a modified 2600 in my car (possibly) sometime in the future (again, possibly).

 

Question is: How long would a 2600 run on a car battery? (as in... how long can I leave it on without it draining the cars battery as to where it would not start up again?)

 

Any guesstimations / ideas?

 

Thanks....

[Mr.FoodMonster]

You would need a Power Inverter. I dont know if you could go the cheap route and get one that runs through a cig. lighter, or get one of the heavier duty ones that you need to connect directly to the battery, mainly because I dont know any numbers off the top of my head.

[Clint Thompson]

Also could someone point me to some demos/etc. that use gradient colors of text on the 2600 and other screensaver like effects?

[+batari]

You would need a Power Inverter. I dont know if you could go the cheap route and get one that runs through a cig. lighter, or get one of the heavier duty ones that you need to connect directly to the battery, mainly because I dont know any numbers off the top of my head.

896812[/snapback]

No power inverter needed. It will run on 12v direct from the battery since it has the 7805 regulator inside. A 2600 doesn't consume a great deal of wattage... A television consumes probably 2-3x more. There are plenty of little AC/DC televisions out there that plug into the cig lighter. Given both together, I would venture to guess that you'd have 4 hours of play with 2600+TV.

 

You could use a power inverter if you prefer, but the conversion will draw additional power than one directly connected to the battery. However, most do square wave output which often adds interference to televisions, so the AC/DC televisions will look better.

[supercat]

Question is: How long would a 2600 run on a car battery? (as in... how long can I leave it on without it draining the cars battery as to where it would not start up again?)

 

First of all, while you might get away for a little while with connecting the 2600 directly to the car's 12 volt supply, doing so would likely overheat the 7805 regulator and would also expose the Atari to some really nasty voltage transients. It might even cause the main supply cap in the Atari to spew nasty electrolyte stuff all over the 2600's internal circuitry. Not what you want to have happen.

 

If you use a plug-in adapter to convert the 12 volts to 7.5 regulated, then you'd be drawing somewhere between 100-500mA, depending upon the efficiency of the adapter and your choice of cartridge. This would probably represent a load roughly comparable to leaving your dome light on (depending upon the dome light). You could get quite a few hours of service, but not unlimitted.

 

Note that a switching-power-supply based voltage converter would almost certainly be a fair bit better than using an inverter and a 9 volt wall brick; even a linear supply would almost certainly be no worse.

[Clint Thompson]

Well crap. Maybe I should resort to a gameboy color then... ?

(ick... not a good choice) but the color screen is there as well and it would all run for about 12 hours probably?)

 

Probably just have to end up changing the design for power on only use... but then I'm worried that when starting the car it'll cause the 2600 to glitch up instantly....

[+batari]

Question is: How long would a 2600 run on a car battery? (as in... how long can I leave it on without it draining the cars battery as to where it would not start up again?)

 

First of all, while you might get away for a little while with connecting the 2600 directly to the car's 12 volt supply, doing so would likely overheat the 7805 regulator and would also expose the Atari to some really nasty voltage transients. It might even cause the main supply cap in the Atari to spew nasty electrolyte stuff all over the 2600's internal circuitry. Not what you want to have happen.

 

If you use a plug-in adapter to convert the 12 volts to 7.5 regulated, then you'd be drawing somewhere between 100-500mA, depending upon the efficiency of the adapter and your choice of cartridge. This would probably represent a load roughly comparable to leaving your dome light on (depending upon the dome light). You could get quite a few hours of service, but not unlimitted.

 

Note that a switching-power-supply based voltage converter would almost certainly be a fair bit better than using an inverter and a 9 volt wall brick; even a linear supply would almost certainly be no worse.

896837[/snapback]

I used to have a 2600 in my car, and it worked fine - and I used to play for a couple of hours at a stretch. I can't imagine that there could be voltage transients from a 12v lead-acid battery, so I assume you mean they will come from the alternator when the car is running.

 

That said, the Atari worked with the engine running too, but I didn't play it this way because there was noticeable interference, maybe this is a result of the transients?

 

The 7805 may have gotten hot on 12v - I don't know... but it did continue to work. But if you're worried about this, simply attaching a good heat sink to it should prevent overheating in any case. And while you're inside, swap the filter cap out for a higher-voltage-rated, 105 degree one.

[Luigi301]

Don't have it on when starting the car. It lags the voltage, and can cause weird things to happen. My Gamecube resets when I start the car, I'd hate to see what happens to a 2600.

Edited July 23, 2005 by Luigi301

[Clint Thompson]

Don't have it on when starting the car. It lags the voltage, and can cause weird things to happen. My Gamecube resets when I start the car, I'd hate to see what happens to a 2600.

896866[/snapback]

 

Well if I can't have it running all the time as planned (dont ask ) then I want it to come on automatically when I start the car... hmmm.... (it would be part function... for the Atari to come on when the car is started..)

 

Why oh why would anyone (besides me) want an onboard Atari 2600 computer (literally)... it's cheap, inexpensive and the results would be very functional.

 

No thanks to someone pointing out JetSpeak (or is it SpeakJet, ah whatever) to me for the Atari systems... mmm.. fun stuff to be had there! *the ideas are spinning*

Edited July 23, 2005 by Clint Thompson

[egdinger]

If you ran the audio through the stero in your car, you could use the remote turn on to turn on the atrai.

[Punisher5.0]

Playing a 2600 with the car running won't produce voltage spikes. One of the purposes of the battery is to smooth out voltage to prevent damage to the control modules. If I were you Clint I would piggyback power off of another circuit that has power when the key is in the on position. A radio is one choice. But you got to think if it's worth it with todays gas prices to have the engine running just to play a 2600. Depending on how much current your battery can put out it, it should be able to last at least an hour and still allow the car to start. What size screen are we talking here anyways? LCD?

[Bruce Tomlin]

12 volts may be a tad high for a 7805. Perhaps four or five hefty 500ma or better silicon diodes inline could provide the necessary voltage drop (at 0.7 volts each).

[A.J. Franzman]

12 volts may be a tad high for a 7805.  Perhaps four or five hefty 500ma or better silicon diodes inline could provide the necessary voltage drop (at 0.7 volts each).

897746[/snapback]

The maximum input voltage of the National Semiconductor LM7805 is 35 volts (other makes are similar). The real limiting factors are output current (1 amp or 1.5 amp, depending on exact model for the TO-220 package), and heat sinking vs. power dissipation - putting more volts in to get the same volts and current out will make the 7805 get hotter. For most cars, with engine running this will be nearly 14 volts in, which really isn't that much more than the 2600 wall wart gives (typically 10-12 volts in spite of its 9 volt rating). I wouldn't even worry about it. If you're paranoid, unscrew the 7805 from the 2600 circuit board, straighten its legs so it stands upright, and screw a real heatsink onto it - applying thermal compound first, of course. Edited July 25, 2005 by A.J. Franzman

[Video]

I don't know about hooking an Atari to a car batterie still in the car.

 

However, in 2000, we had a sevear Ice storm that knocked out power to this part of the country for upwards of a month (I'm not kidding, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and a couple of others were decleared national desasters that year)

 

Anyhow, I couldn't go without games for all that time, so I got a car batterie, and a 300 inverter (what is that supposed to be, 300 wats?, dunno) Anyhow, that's not the smallest, but it was big enough to run a console, and a TV, for around 6 hours befor the squeeler kicked in. It's just a thing that yelled when the power dropped to low for it to manage, and you could probably play for another hour or two if you could stand the noise, or kill it somehow. Anyhow, it would cut off after about 7-8 hours reguardless. But heres the thing. It (the battery) still had ample power to start a car. That's what's got me, to low to run a low power thing like that, but high enough to start a car. Anyhow, run the car for a minute with the battery hooked up, and it's good to go another 6 hours or so.

 

BTW, we were running a 27 inch TV, and I used PS2 and at several times, the 2600, as well as a few other systems during the time. Hey, there wasn't anything else to do.

 

Anyhow, I don't know about direct wiring, but I wouldn't worry about it to much. If your car, and batterie is good enough to run the dome light all night and still crank up in the morning (most are, unless there's other problems) you should be good to run a TV and an Atari off it till you got to go to work again.

[Ralph3]

Anyhow, I couldn't go without games for all that time, so I got a car batterie, and a 300 inverter (what is that supposed to be, 300 wats?, dunno)  Anyhow, that's not the smallest, but it was big enough to run a console, and a TV, for around 6 hours befor the squeeler kicked in.  It's just a thing that yelled when the power dropped to low for it to manage, and you could probably play for another hour or two if you could stand the noise, or kill it somehow.  Anyhow, it would cut off after about 7-8 hours reguardless.  But heres the thing.  It (the battery) still had ample power to start a car.  That's what's got me, to low to run a low power thing like that, but high enough to start a car.  Anyhow, run the car for a minute with the battery hooked up, and it's good to go another 6 hours or so.

898016[/snapback]

Most inverters have a built in battery protection circuitry and turns itself off if the voltage drops just low enough to start a car for some of those people who forget to turn off the inverter.

[gulag picture radio]

I just searched unsuccessfully for a web page that I remember from a few years back. There were details of how a guy installed an LCD TV and 2600 in his dashboard. It ended up looking really nice, almost like original equipment. I don't remember what kind of car it was, but I think that it was one appropriate to the Atari era.

 

If anyone remembers this, could they post the link here? THanks!

[Famicoman]

Just do waht so many others have done. MAke a portable.