My 7800 quit working!

[7800fan]

A quick troubleshooting shows the adapter has died. It is putting out only 1.7v DC and no AC so I think the transformer coil has burned out winding or something. It is sealed and doesn't look like it's made to be fixed.

 

My 7800 itself is working when I hooked my bench supply to it but it didn't like the 7800 because it's capped at 600mA and the 7800 needs a bit more than that. Anyway a quick check on eBay shows replacement adapter (both original and generic with 7800 end) is a tad pricey, I could have a huge sushi boat at a local sushi bar for the same price!

 

Do I:

1. get another 7800 adapter? (and no sushi for a while)
2. snip the cord and splice it on a new 9v dc adapter?
3. replace the crappy non-standard jack with something a bit more common?

 

I am also going to replace the original 5v regulator with an efficient replacement switching regulator. It's worked for my Lynx without the usual heat that classic 7805 puts out.

[Schizophretard]

I vote for a mixture of 2 and 3 by putting something more common on the other end of the cord so that you can use a new 9v dc adapter, use a new one again if the problem happens again, and not have to modify your 7800. In other words, create a small wire that at one end you can plug in a new 9v dc adapter and the other end plugs into your 7800.

[Stephen Moss]

Which option you take depends on how much of a "purist" you are...

a real purist would go for option 1

someone who is a purist in regards to the console only would go for option 2 (put a socket on the original cable so you can just plug the new PSU into it)

a non purist would go for option 3 as it makes things simpler if the PSU fails again.

 

As you are looking to replace the 7805 I would assume you fall into the non purist so why not go for option 3, personally I an not sure replacing the 7805 with a switching regulator would be of any benefit and it may even cause problems of the switching noise is not correctly dealt with as energy efficiency is not as much of an issue due to the use of a PSU unlike running the Lynx off batteries.

[7800fan]

Not much of a puritan, I'd like to keep outside looking original but inside can be anything as long as it runs regular 2600 and 7800 games. I ended up splicing the power cord from 7800 adapter onto a common Sega power brick that was rated for 9v 1a. I left plenty of original 7800 cord so if that one dies, I still have enough to re-splice onto another brick.

 

I also replaced the stock 7805 with a new one, it booted up just fine. Best part, no heat so no need for the ugly heat sink plate. Not r785 as I wanted as I couldn't find it but had a different drop in replacement. http://www.ezsbc.com/index.php/psu2-5.html#.VsToZ_IrKhcis what I used.

 

Now I got a complaint. This is probably 30 years too late but Atari: your cart slot design sucks. I needed to use Herculean force to remove Centipede cart and the shroud cracked in 2 places when I finally got it out. Centipede was Atari cart, not 3rd party cart so it shouldn't have been so hard to remove. I guess the plastic got warped over time. Anyone know of a replacement source of shroud that is not as tight as a virgin girl and not as expensive as a virgin hooker?

[Barakandl]

I got out my Atari's recently. One atari branded 9v power wall wart i had was a dead short across the leads. It started smoking and getting really hot after a few moments.

 

For now i hard soldered a different wall wart right to the MPU. I am going to get a standard round pin style connector and do it neatly. The original power connector atari used sucks, i would replace it with a standard sized fitting unless you are a purist.