Odyssey's "The Voice"

[lgallair]

Has anyone tried to embed "The Voice" circuitry inside an Odyssey2 console before? The reason I want to do this is because my shelving unit is to shallow to accommodate the Odyssey 2 console with The Voice installed; its' profile is too high.

 

I took apart The Voice module to have a look and my biggest concern is the extender board (the part that plugs into the Odyssey2 cartridge port) connects to a second cartridge port inside The Voice. At first glance it seems to be in parallel but upon further inspection, some pins are routed to The Voice circuitry. My idea was to eliminate The Voice's cartridge port all together and use the one in the Odyssey2 by soldering the wires to the appropriate pins. Where the pins don't run in parallel, I would cut the trace and re-wire accordingly. Does that make sense? Is this doable?

 

Also, the internal speaker has me thinking. Can I eliminate the speaker and connect the two wires to an RCA plug? My Odyssey2 is already modded for composite video and has both left and right audio jacks installed and tied together. Could I "untie" them and use one for The Voice (speaker) and one for the Odyssey2 sound? If it's possible to connect the two speaker wires directly to one of the RCA channels, can I also eliminate the volume slider switch since volume can be controlled through the TV?

 

Any help anyone can give would be appreciated. Thanks

Lorne

[Video]

You can wire the speaker direct to the coax, however it will give you a lot of feedback I'd imagine, you'd get a fuzzy picture, sound, or both.

 

If the main board between the connectors has no circuits on it, and just redirects through wiring to another board or chip, I see no reason you couldn't solder it to the cart port.

[DanBoris]

I just posed to my website schematics for the Voice that I put together a while back. According to these schematics the cartridge signals do pass directly through the module.

 

http://www.atarihq.com/danb/o2.shtml

 

I like the idea of building the voice directly into the base unit. Let us know if you get it working.

 

Dan

[lgallair]

Well, I was successful with embedding The Voice inside the Odyssey2 console. I can now play all Voice-Enhanced games on my Odyssey2 without the need to plug in the cumbersome Voice unit.

 

Here's how I did it...

 

The plan is to embed the PCB from The Voice inside the Odyssey2 thus eliminating the cartridge port inside The Voice. So when a cartridge is inserted into the console, it is actually being routed to The Voice's circuitry and then to the Odyssey2. From the 30-pin cartridge connector on The Voice, only 24 are straight pass-through (shown in BLUE). The remaining 6 pins (shown in RED and GREEN) are not. All 6 of these pins are wired to the circuitry inside The Voice but only the pins marked in GREEN output a signal to the Odyssey2.

 

 

First thing is to remove the PCB from the Voice unit. The speaker and the volume control inside The Voice can remain as they are no longer required. Sound generated from The Voice will be routed to the TV and volume can be controlled through that.

 

 

Using whatever tool you're most comfortable with, cut the traces at the points indicated in RED. I used a grinding bit with my Dremel tool to do the job.

 

 

Pins 2 and 3 on the Odyssey2 are tied together on the component side of the PCB. But on The Voice PCB they are not. We need to cut the trace between these two pins but since the trace is located under the connector, it makes it difficult to get at. The solution I came up with was to drill a hole between pins 2 and 3 on the solder side. Drill the hole deep enough to break through to the other side but not too deep as to damage the plastic connector casing. Once you are satisified that the trace has been severed, test it with a continuity meter.

 

 

From the pinout diagram above, the pins marked in RED do not pass-through to the Odyssey2 and therefore do not require anymore attention. However, the pins marked in GREEN route through The Voice circuitry before it outputs to the Odyssey2. Because of this, they need to be wired separately. Start by soldering 3 separate wires to the pins shown in GREEN. These wires will go to the spots marked A, B and C on the Odyssey2 (see next picture).

 

 

Solder the 3 wires to the Odyssey2 PCB in the areas shown by A,B and C.

 

 

Next, prepare 2 strips of ribbon cable about 8"-10" in length each containing 15 wires. Label them "REAR" and "FRONT". This will be used to tie The Voice's cartridge port to the Odyssey's cartridge port. Strip a bit of the insulation off the ends and tin them with some solder to allow for easier application.

 

 

Solder both ribbon cables to The Voice's cartridge port. I removed the cartridge connector from The Voice but you can leave it there and simply solder the ribbon cables to the underside of the PCB.

Also, snip away the red and white wires (30 of them) that connect to the pass-thru board. This piece is not required.

 

 

Solder the other ends of both ribbon cables to the cartridge port on the Odyssey2. Make sure to solder pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2, etc.

 

 

This step involves wiring the audio. Please note, I had previously modded mine for composite video so I already had the yellow and white RCA jacks. All I needed to do was to add a red RCA jack for The Voice's speaker. There are two connectors on the left side of The Voice's PCB. The top one controls the volume. The bottom is for the speaker. The first two pins on the volume connector need to be tied together. This enables the volume to be held at maximum. I simply used a jumper. For the speaker, connect the top pin to the center pole of the RCA jack and the bottom pin to the outer shield of the RCA jack. Use the existing wire from the speaker in The Voice but just cut away the speaker.

 

 

Mount The Voice's PCB in the area under the keyboard between the posts. There should be lots of room. I hot glued the PCB to the case at all four corners.

 

 

As an added touch, I removed the small plastic logo from The Voice's case and installed it on the Odyssey2 case. It was really easy to remove as it is held on only by a metal clip. After this metal clip is removed, it pops right off. Drill three corresponding holes in the Odyssey2 case where you think might be a nice spot. I chose to place it near the bottom left of the console.

 

 

And here it is. Looks like a regular Odyssey2 console but now it has its' own voice.

[Lendorien]

What a great mod! Thanks for sharing the how to!

[Video]

Cool, nice to see you got it working, and other than "the voice" logo, you wouldn't know from the outside that it was moded.