Atari 2600 CleanComp Composite Mod - Feedback & Testing

[radventure]

STILL waiting for fleaBay to deliver my recently purchased (gouged) NTSC Jr. Fingers crossed it's NOT a 1 chip, unlikely, but knowing my luck - that would be disappointing for this application. I've got a v2 board to test. I'm a bit keen on hopefully smoother install as there's also a light 6'er I've been wiring up for a UAV.... and it's spaghetti central.

[Atari Dogs]

Do you just put the board on the back of the Atari and solder the connections, or do you need to put Kapton tape on the rest of the board?

[retrosix]

Just a quick update will follow up tomorrow with full write up. 

 

NTSC consoles are inherently faulty and the TIA itself is worse than PAL due to location of LUMA to COL and phase pins, as well as bad routing decisions causing vertical jailbars. 

 

Fixed and will post solution tomorrow and on wiki. 

 

 

[+mksmith]

After my recent order I put one into my PAL lighter sixer - very impressed with the picture on my Sony CRT. Such a nice and simple process. Well done 👍

[retrosix]

So confirmed on 2 units so far, that NTSC consoles have the jailbar issue, nothing related to CleanComp, it is just that CleanComp makes the image that clean you can see the issue.

 

Fix is here Jailbars Fix (Atari 2600) - RetroSix Wiki

 

I'll probably do a separate post on here for good reference for others to find it.

 

 

 

Before

 

 

[Atari Dogs]

Do you offer the option of buying the resistors with the CleanComp?  I have a light sixer I want to mod.

[+Yurkie]

On 10/21/2023 at 4:56 PM, retrosix said:

Just a quick update will follow up tomorrow with full write up. 

 

NTSC consoles are inherently faulty and the TIA itself is worse than PAL due to location of LUMA to COL and phase pins, as well as bad routing decisions causing vertical jailbars. 

 

Fixed and will post solution tomorrow and on wiki. 

 

 

This is incredible work!

[retrosix]

On 10/30/2023 at 12:13 AM, Atari Dogs said:

Do you offer the option of buying the resistors with the CleanComp?  I have a light sixer I want to mod.

Just leave a note on your order "please include jailbar resistors" and I will chuck them in free. Next batch I'll include them as standard

[OldPAL]

I just ordered one to test it on my PAL clone with UM6526P1 TIA chip. We'll see how it goes. 

[ILAH]

Is there a source to buy one in EU / Germany.

[OldPAL]

I received the board today (white version). It has been a while since I did soldering so it is highly possible I did a terrible job. I am getting some video with some sort of noise. This is on a 6526P1 TIA chip in a PAL clone console. 5V measures fine, what else can I test with a multimeter? I feel like the chip legs weren't long enough.

[OldPAL]

I checked the pins they seem to be making contact with the solder. Color adjustment pot was turned  all the way to the clock wise, I turned to CCW a bit. While.this got rid of some noise the picture and the colors look very dark. See direct captures below. First one was captured  from an external RF-Composite converter. Second one with the very dark red spaceship was captured from the Clean Comp's A/V output. 

[tmop69]

@retrosix  I've just installed the cleancomp mod on a PAL 2600jr and now it looks really great! 😄 I'm using the composite output on a Philips CM8833 monitor. Not tested the s-video, since I do not have any TV with that input.

 

One feedback. I have ordered the cable with composite and s-video and it would be great to add on the pcb one additional pad for ground, to solder each cable on a separate pad, without having to twist two grounds together. The wires are really small and I've spent more time to twist and solder them in a decent way than installing the rest of the board. 🙂 

 

[shane857]

Is Gorf (PAL) playable with this mod? I have a composite (PAL) modded light sixer and the game is unplayable. Goes black screen then shows,then black screen again. Does this game have issues with a composite modded 2600? 🤔

[Gamemoose]

I just installed this on Sunday (white version). I'm glad I'm not a surgeon as my hands were shaky!  My iron is also a Radio Shack special so the heat wasn't consistant.

 

After install my issue was the screen was dark. While holding to mainboard and flexing it, the screen brightened to normal. I poked some more and found my AV board probably had a bad solder spot (as it was not great). I went back at it, cleaned up my spots and tried again. My hands were better (I had an audience earlier with two of them young kids that are calamity magnets, so maybe nerves last time) and my solder points also improved.  After that, the image was bright and clean!