Jump to content
  • entries
    974
  • comments
    5,031
  • views
    1,231,355

The Sixer Fixer-upper: Part 3


And now... the conclusion of my 2600 repair blog thing!

 

Or rather, the conclusion of this particular 2600's repair. Oooo... foreshadowing!

 

If you're looking for Part 1 or Part 2, well, there are links to them around here somewhere. :roll: 

 

With the holes repaired, it was finally time to put everything back together. As with James' console, I wrapped the wires around the front of the board, and underneath it. Flat-taping them together, and using a little unshrunk heat-shrink tubing to keep things neat.

 

42-reinstalled-board.jpg

 

I then attached the base, loosely putting all of the screws in, before tightening anything down. I did this so that I could be sure the screws in the repaired holes were going to all line up perfectly, without having to drive a screw in from an angle.


43-reinstalled-shield.jpg

 

The wires neatly fit through a pre-existing gap in the shield cover:


44-closeup-wires.jpg

 

Next, I crimped pins onto the wires coming from the mod:


45-mod-wires-pinned.jpg

 

And inserted all of the pins into one half of a Molex connector:


46-mod-wires-molexed.jpg

 

Then I crimped sockets onto the audio and S-Video cable (I added some heat shrink tubing to help with color coding):

 

49-hookup-wires-pinned.jpg

 

And pressed those into the other half of the Molex connector. In hindsight, I should've stripped the wires further back, because I barely had enough space to maneuver the pins into the connector. Next time.


50-hookup-wires-molexed.jpg


When I installed the old S-Video cable, I had to slightly enlarged the factory hole that the RF cable had been fed through:


47-case-hole.jpg

 

By complete accident, the Molex connector fit through it without needing any further modifications.


48-lucky-fit.jpg

 

I attached the bottom of the case to the 2600's guts, and the screw seated into the newly repaired hole very solidly and reassuringly!


51-bottom-case-attached.jpg

 

With that, I only had to plug the Molex connector together to finish the wiring. The Molex connector allows much easier future disassembly of the console. Hopefully, having gone to all of this work, I'll never actually need to use it. ;) 


52-new-wiring-ready.jpg

 

Once connected, I fed the S-Video and audio cables through the wire guides inside the 2600 (where the RF cable had originally been). They fit just snug, without pinching. A perfect fit!


53-molex-connected.jpg

 

So at this point, I could fully test the rebuilt system. I plugged in Pac-Man and... there was no color! What happened?!?


54-test-pac-man-bw.jpg

 

Of course, it took about a second to realize that the TV Type switch was set to Black and White. :roll: Duhr.


55-test-pac-man-startup.jpg

 

Pac-Man loaded and played fine! Well, as much as it ever did.

 

Oddly enough, using Pac-Man for my test cartridge has actually given me a little kinder view of it in hindsight. It's not really a bad game. It is a bad port of Pac-Man. But taken on its own, it's not awful. Certainly not like Karate (or as I prefer to call it, "Dancing Diaper Stickmen").

 

56-test-pac-man.jpg

 

And with that, final assembly and testing! My Harmony cart works. My AtariVox works. My 2600 works without my AtariVox. It is, finally, after all these years, fully sorted.

 

57-final-assembly.jpg

 

After this, I moved it back into my living room, and hooked it back up to my AV receiver and TV.

 

It's nice to have that repair done!

 

 

 

But that doesn't mean I'm done repairing...


58-next-up-johns-consoles.jpg


59-next-up-my-consoles.jpg


60-next-up-mcallisters-shells.jpg


 

Spoiler

Top image: Two of John Champeau's consoles. One has a stuck joystick direction, the other has a scrambled picture as if no cartridge were plugged in. Both are also getting re-cap kits.

Middle image: My Vader, and my donor boards. Both are getting an Ultimate Atari Video Mod, and the donor is getting a new home!

Bottom image: Two dead consoles, generously donated to me by McCallister. The one on the left is the new home for my donor boards! And the Vader? Well... I'm planning something special for that... :ponder: 

 

 

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 2

1 Comment


Recommended Comments

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...