RickO2 Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I'm wondering where our resident repair/moder's learned their trade? I know nothing about electronics but I'm really interested in learning so I can repair or mod my own systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 No specific knowledge about video games, but electronics was first a hobby. Then I got a college degree in the field. Now it's back to mainly being a hobby. I haven't seen much yet on these old video games that an understanding of digital electronics and general deductive reasoning skills wouldn't be able to address. And patience. And help from the knowledgeable people on the forums here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Everything I know about electronics I learned myself - from reading manuals and schematics and taking things apart. I've been tinkering with electronics for years. I collect obsolete computers, old video games, and other interesting old technology (think vacuum tubes...). And to me, half the fun of this stuff is the tecnical side of it. I can't just leave well enough alone - I want to know how it works - why it works. And, compared some of these old computer systems, the Atari is dead simple. -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I pretty much taught myself everything that I do with trial and error, google if I haven't worked on it yet, patience, and a few beers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 (edited) I'm with Ian. Self taught on most everything tech related. It's my fun time. If I were you, I would get some simple electronics kits, build them, then mod them. This gets you some basic skills. How to solder (and do get an iron that has variable temp --I'm needing one myself. Old stuff is touchy. Found that out the last coupla weekends!), how to read a schematic, what components are what, and what they do. Simple electricity theory can be learned by dealing with the kits, reading their theories of operation, and though lots and lots of electronics related books, online articles. You name it. The designer of the Propeller Chip I'm facinated with right now is completely self taught all the way down to building his own silicon. (and that makes it a cool chip because it's really different and well thought out) Subscribe to things like MAKE (Google "make blog" for a running list of things people are making), instructables, hack a day, etc... Are you interested because you want the systems a specific way, or is the interest part of a latent "electronics seems fun" kind of thing? If it's the former, you can get the skills you need rather quickly by building kits, doing mods and asking questions. Any questions! Just ask them. For me, I think I know a fair number of things, and still ask really silly, basic stuff! Why struggle when others can lend a hand and have a good time at it? Anyway, tooling up to do mods isn't a big deal, in my view anyway. If it's the latter, just start down the road. Hit the thrifties for stuff to work with. This weekend I scored a kitchen TV with a really great 4" NTSC screen! The plan with that is to take it apart, and build a portable Propeller gaming and programming rig. Why? Because I can, it's fun, and the darn thing was $3, so if I hose it up, I've absolutely no worries! At some point, going down that road you will be limited by not having any gear. I'm there right now. PITA really. (moving, marriage, kids and other things saw it all go away) On my list to score is a good meter that does volts, amps, capacitance, resistance, transistor check, oscilloscope, adjustable power supply, and some good bread / proto board stuff. Obtaining any one of those things will open the door for a lot more projects. Once you reach the point where you are building and modding, you can get lots of components cheap though scrounging devices before they are thrown away, or component grab bag deals. (I used to do the latter and am about to do it again!) Sorting your stuff, is a great use for your meter, BTW. Whatever you do, just have fun. That is the key, and it's why I never actually entertained it professionally. I like the fun part, preferring to have my work be tech related, but not this kind of tech. Ian is spot on too. Deductive reasoning is a very key skill. Once you begin applying it, you basically start down the road to knowing lots of stuff. And for mods, it's important in that older / different revision gear often just isn't like the picture. That happened to be the case for the little simple video mod I did last weekend. A little trip through the net to get schematics and some eyeballing of the PC board to trace what went where told me what I needed to know. Was just fun! Sorry for the longer post. I thought maybe you might enjoy a picture of how some people see this stuff. Enjoy the ride! Fair warning though: This is a bug that bites like music does. I was away from it for YEARS. Didn't matter. The moment I saw some stuff that tickled that bug, here I am, looking for some gear and tinkering with stuff. Never, ever goes away. I love that. For each person, it's different too. The bug bites when the desire to do something just keeps nagging at you. As a kid, it was wanting control of that video display beam, and to make sounds. MY sounds. Got an old 400 computer and started after it. For you, maybe it's fixing that special thing that you just know is gonna kick some ass, or maybe it's the craftsmanship of it. Nothing like taking a 30 year old piece of tech, modding it, then playing it on your new HDTV. (and that's what I did this weekend!) You are not too old --ever. Again, as a kid, I was mentored by somebody in their 60's, still tinkering, building learning. Was kind of awesome really. I never forgot that. Edited March 2, 2009 by potatohead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 And I'm with potatohead Also, I'd like to add - that another important thing to have when learning and tinkering with electronics - more useful than any piece of test equipment - is patience. Don't get frustrated and give up. Don't always look for the easy way out. Yeah, you can fix that Atari by replacing the board. But you won't learn anything that way. Fix the old board. Apply your skills and your curiosity at every chance. When something breaks around the house - take it apart and figure it out. Even if you can't fix it - at least you'll know know what's inside it. Taking apart junk - even if you have no intention or desire to fix it - is also an important skill. Simply getting the feeling for how devices are put together is very important. Think about it logically, don't resort to prying and banging. It went together somehow - it also comes apart. (OK, there are exceptions to this, but still...). Importantly, have fun with it. Don't be afraid to sit down and try to figure something out. Not everything will be spoon-fed to you with pictures and guides. There will be a lot of things you'll just have to figure out. And we all get stumped sometimes - so don't be afraid to ask for help. And if things like this don't sound like fun, then you probably won't enjoy electronic tinkering. Also - you don't need expensive equipment. I've been doing this for many years, and I like to think I know what I'm doing most of the time. But even I don't even have a temperature controlled soldering station. I use a Radio Shack 30watt pencil iron. I'm really good with it though. I've gone through countless tips and several irons (they're cheaply made, and don't last all that long...). It's not the tools that make the tinkerer. It's practice, it's patience, and it's experience. A 'scope is a nice tool - but useless if you don't know how to use it. The most valuable tool for the tinkerer, IMHO, is the multimeter. Get an autoranging one if you can, you want one that does AC and DC volts, resistance, and has an audible continuity test. Current is a nice feature, but you don't use it nearly as much - you can get a cheap manual ranging meter for that later. The capacitance readings on cheap meters are OK, but again, you probably won't use it much - and it's utterly useless for checking electrolytics. Quick word of warning - be careful around TV sets. Never unhook the anode lead of a TV (that big scary red wire with the suction cup that attaches to the tube) unless you know what you're doing. The tube can store quite a charge, and can zap the bejeezus (technical term) out of you. It'll hurt like hell. So be careful -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickO2 Posted March 2, 2009 Author Share Posted March 2, 2009 (edited) I can't thank you guys enough. I appreciate the encouraging words. My Dad was an electrician, working on HUGE presses at an auto plant, and he has given me some of his tools (a cool digital multi-meter and some other odds and ends). Unfortunately he's not much help when it comes to things that take less than 440 Volts . I know the principles are the same but he has a hard time working on small items due to some health problems. I have recently started checking into the Instructables website, very cool stuff, and I checkout a few magazines whenever I'm at Barnes and Noble. My interest is two-fold. One; I'm tired of counting on others to fix my equipment. Two; I would love to be able to modd things and make my own creations using old videogame systems. I own Ben Heckendorns book on modding systems into portables but I haven't taken the leap yet. I have picked up a couple of Sony lcd's for future projects. A dream of mine is to complete an Odyssey2 laptop. I'm not sure it will ever happen but it seems like the perfect system to make into a laptop. It has a keyboard (membraine). The tricky part is changing the video signal. First I'm going to get my feet wet doing some simple projects. I like the idea of playing around with a kit. Where would I find something like that? I know soldering can be tricky so I want to practice before I fry a system. Thanks again! Edited March 2, 2009 by RickO2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 A dream of mine is to complete an Odyssey2 laptop. I'm not sure it will ever happen but it seems like the perfect system to make into a laptop. It has a keyboard (membraine). The tricky part is changing the video signal. First I'm going to get my feet wet doing some simple projects. I like the idea of playing around with a kit. Where would I find something like that? I know soldering can be tricky so I want to practice before I fry a system.Thanks again! Believe it or not, composite video on an Odyssey2 is one of the easiest modifications to do... But get some practice soldering first. Get some piece of junk with fairly large traces to practice on. A PC power supply is a good choice. It's a simple, single sided board. Practice desoldering components without lifting traces. Play with the multimeter and learn how to read resistors. Find a junk VCR and do the same. Take components off and solder them back in. Get a bit of perf-board from Radio Shack and play around. Start with simple projects - build a simple DC power supply using scavenged parts from a VCR or a clock radio. Actually, a DC power supply is a great place to start, since you can scavenge the parts, and you'll learn a bit about the theory. Do some searches on it. With a 7805 voltage regulator (might have to buy this, about fifty cents), you can make a simple little regulated 5v power supply for future projects. When soldering, remember, heat the work, not the solder. You want to heat up the connection point (pad on the board, and the component lead), then put the solder onto the hot parts, so it melts and flows. You're not heating the solder to squish onto the parts. Solder is not like a glue gun. Once you get some practice with the soldering iron, I'll tell you how to add composite video and audio output to your Odyssey2 -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDumbening Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Trial and error, my friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Here's a really simple, quick project for you. Go to Radio Shack and buy: -an 1/8" mono headphone plug, solder type - I think they come in packs of two -a 9v battery clip, these probably come in packs of more than one as well... -a 9v battery Unscrew the mono headphone plug. Look at the terminals inside, The outer one connects to the "ring" - the lower part of the connector. The middle one connects to the "tip" - the very end of the connector. Using an x-acto knife or similar, scratch and scrape on the solder terminals inside the plug - this makes the solder stick to them better. Thread the wires of the 9v battery snap through the plug's cover. Solder the red wire from the battery snap onto the center terminal. Solder the black wire to the outer terminal. To solder the wire, thread the bare end through the hole in the terminal. Heat the terminal and wire with the soldering iron, then feed a bit of solder onto the connection. It should melt and flow, and spread out on the terminal, and securely stick the wire to the terminal. Use a tiny bit of electrical tape to insulate the center terminal from the outer one - but not too much, otherwise you won't be able to screw the cover back on. Use the little strain relief tabs on the outer terminal to gently close around the wires - just enough to hold them, not enough to pinch through the insulation. Screw the cover back onto the plug. Use your meter to check that the two contacts on the plug are not shorted together, and that they're connected to the proper pins of the 9v battery snap. Connect the 9v battery to the battery snap. Use your meter - set it to DC volts, put the black lead on the outer "ring" of the connector, and the red lead on the "tip". You should get nine volts, give or take a bit, depending on how "fresh" the battery is. If you get negative nine volts, you have the polarity backwards! Unplug the power adapter from your Atari, and plug this in. Turn on your TV, and turn on your Atari. Ta-dah! Battery powered Atari! The battery should last about an hour before it runs flat. Granted, I really over-explained this - but it's a good practice project, and gets you used to using the soldering iron and the meter. Note that the plug might not fit into a heavy sixer, since the plastic housing is thicker and I think the socket is recessed a little farther - should work fine on all other models though. -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Everything I know about electronics I learned myself - from reading manuals and schematics and taking things apart. I've been tinkering with electronics for years. I collect obsolete computers, old video games, and other interesting old technology (think vacuum tubes...). And to me, half the fun of this stuff is the tecnical side of it. I can't just leave well enough alone - I want to know how it works - why it works. And, compared some of these old computer systems, the Atari is dead simple. -Ian Speaking of vacuum tubes...I just saw a piece of equipment in our scrap pile at work with a nixie tube display...must acquire that before it goes to the dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Speaking of vacuum tubes...I just saw a piece of equipment in our scrap pile at work with a nixie tube display...must acquire that before it goes to the dump. Definitely grab that. Nixie tubes are cool. I built a clock -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonner242 Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 (edited) I get affraid of tinker'n with my game electronics....give me a PC or Arcade cab anyday, I'll build you anything you want. Throw a Atari 7800 in front of me for a AV mod and I get nervous and run away. I guess I have a mental block that goes up when its my systems. Im pretty handy with paper & pen,wood, Metal & plastic...and I give all my credit to playing with LEGOs and old radios that I used to take apart and mod when I was younger. Here is my PC I built a year and a half ago. Heres what I remember... Intell Quad Core 2 4GB Corsair 1.5 TB HDD (2 internal) BGF 8800 GTX OC Video Card 1200 watt power supply 2 DVD burners (Memorex) 2 External DVD burners (Lite-On) 2 External HDD Win XP Pro 64 Too many fans and lights. I feels like a damn AC unit sitting next to it....Soooo COLD! Edited March 2, 2009 by nonner242 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonner242 Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Thats AWESOME! Thats the crap I like to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 BAD ASS Nixie setup there Ian! Well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CV Gus Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 "Getting Started In Electronics" is THE perfect book for beginners, and experienced alike. Everything I've been able to do, it's thanks to this book. Here it is: if you can find it, buy it. http://www.forrestmims.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nathanallan Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Most of what I know I have learned on my own, trial and error, books and got a lot of ideas to try thing from you guys here at atariage. Went to school for computering and networking, and that helped, too. Gave me an idea how to use a method when working with these things called video games. It's been fun the whole time, and that is a GREAT nixie tube clock!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 Useful Stuff: Multi-meter: Start here, gotta have it Temperature Controlled Soldering Iron: beats a pencil iron, cheap on ebay Oscilloscope: Once you get past simple circuits, it is simply invaluable Nice to have: LCR Meter: (if you MM doesn't do all this): inductance, capacitance, resistance, diode & transistor check Logic Analyzer (cheap USB 8 channel ones are under $150), godsend for digital stuff and PIC/AVR stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mirage Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 This was a really good question to ask.. thank you. I'll be getting some of this stuff you guys are suggesting. I'm sick of seeing all the cool mods and stuff on here and thinking "I wish I could do these myself". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 BAD ASS Nixie setup there Ian! Well done. Thanks! Yeah, that was a fun project. Took me a couple entire afternoons to build, but so worth it. The tubes are russian surplus I bought on eBay. The transformers were scavenged from HP DeskJet power packs, and wired back to back (isolation). Each digit is drivin by it's own transistor, and the timekeeping is standard CMOS logic, using AC line frequency as a timebase. Believe it or not, it's amazingly accurate. Yeah, I could have bought a kit, or pre-printed boards. But what's the fun in that? Speaking of which, on an Atari-related note, my very own copy of Beamrider: I couldn't find one, and it's such a great game, so I made my own. It started life as Pac-Man. Yeah, I could have bought one of the pre-fab boards from AtariAge store, but again - this is more fun And yes, that is a 2764 on that board, the additional four pins are folded over (they won't fit into the board, no holes), and I had to cut a groove into the cart plastic support because the EPROM sticks out more on the side. This only affects the internal part of the cartridge, you can't tell from outside. -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mirage Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 Holy cow, I just realized, I actually have the Forrest Mims book 1983 Radio Shack edition... cool. I had no idea it was well regarded... just figured it was a junk Rat Shack book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickO2 Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 I might have to purchase that book. It looks interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesk Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Forrest Mims is where I started, back when Radio shack was less into cell phones. Then the Air Force taught me a lot. Radio Shack used to sell the "Electronics Learning Lab", but it looks like it's gone http://www.radioshack.com/pwr/product-revi...arning-Lab.html It has two Forrest Mims books in it. One on Analog and one on Digital. Although expensive I like the book "Principles of Electric Circuits" by Floyd. There's lots of good websites like Make, Instructables, Sparkfun Electronics. Hams are a HUGE resource. Although they are mainly into radio communications, you will find many great websites by Hams on all sorts of electrical aspects. Dig in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesk Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Definitely grab that. Nixie tubes are cool. I built a clock -Ian That's a very nice clock Ian. I love working with tubes and I would love to do a Nixie project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace_1 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 It all started when I got 2 broken Front-Loader NESes and had my slim PlayStation 2 modchipped. I then wanted to solder, and when I got my soldering iron, the good old Internet was my friend. Thanks to the Internet, I now modify and repair: -Front-Loader NES -Top-Loader NES -TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine -Sega Master System -Sega Genesis/MegaDrive -Super NES Mini -Sega Saturn -Clones, more specifically the FC Twin and GN Twin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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