Dionoid Posted October 10 Share Posted October 10 (edited) While I was testing out my PAL 2600 cartridges on the Atari 2600+, I found two games that would not load, while the 2600+ keeps displaying "No Game Detected". On my original 2600, they work fine. These two games are Fire Birds and Laser Base from publisher ITT Family Games - this company mainly sold in Germany. My other carts from ITT Family Games work fine on the 2600+, so only these two games have issues. And yes, I cleaned the contacts thoroughly, but that didn't help. After doing a little trial & error, I found that these cartridges suddenly started working when I used a separate 3.0A AC adapter for my 2600+. Normally I use the USB port from my TV to draw power to my 2600+, which I think is only 0.5A. This is weird, right? Is there anyone who has the same cartridges and can verify this? I opened both cartridges and found that they use a fairly large capacitor. Is that normal? Maybe I should recap them? Edited October 10 by Dionoid 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted October 10 Share Posted October 10 3 hours ago, Dionoid said: While I was testing out my PAL 2600 cartridges on the Atari 2600+, I found two games that would not load, while the 2600+ keeps displaying "No Game Detected". On my original 2600, they work fine. These two games are Fire Birds and Laser Base from publisher ITT Family Games - this company mainly sold in Germany. My other carts from ITT Family Games work fine on the 2600+, so only these two games have issues. And yes, I cleaned the contacts thoroughly, but that didn't help. After doing a little trial & error, I found that these cartridges suddenly started working when I used a separate 3.0A AC adapter for my 2600+. Normally I use the USB port from my TV to draw power to my 2600+, which I think is only 0.5A. This is weird, right? Is there anyone who has the same cartridges and can verify this? I opened both cartridges and found that they use a fairly large capacitor. Is that normal? Maybe I should recap them? Interesting🤔 The Taiwan hacks seem to work... Save electricity, save money 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted October 10 Share Posted October 10 Wow, cut that thing off. It's totally not needed. 0.1uF is all you need for a cart like that. I've seen some with 1uF as well, but there should be no need for more than that. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted October 11 Author Share Posted October 11 9 hours ago, batari said: Wow, cut that thing off. It's totally not needed. 0.1uF is all you need for a cart like that. I've seen some with 1uF as well, but there should be no need for more than that. I cut off these capacitors and now both games work fine on my 2600+, while using my TV's USB as power. Thanks for the solution, Fred! I now understand that these kind of capacitors (connecting the +5V and ground together) buffer the voltage inside the cartridge. But as the cartridges work fine without these, what was the point of having them in the first place? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 I wonder how many other carts might have the requirement for more power? Maybe this requirement should be mentioned in the 2600+ documentation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 While playing with my Raspberry Pico based Otaku-flash cart I noticed that 2600 games usually worked with the power available through the 2600+ cart connector. For all 7800 games I needed extra power for the Pico from my powerbank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 (edited) I posted about using 3.0A early on, I believe it might have been in one of the Beta threads. I would have to go back and check. But I mentioned I only use 3.0A. I have a raspberry pie the power adapter that was packaged with it was lower. I had issues with the raspberry pie slowing down after it was on for a while. After switching to a 3.0A adapter I haven’t had an issue since and that’s been about four years now. I purchased a 3.0A power brick for my Atari 2600+. That’s all I use. I’m not saying you need a 3.0A for the 2600+. This is my preference to eliminate any potential issues. Edited October 11 by MrChickenz 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 3 hours ago, Dionoid said: I cut off these capacitors and now both games work fine on my 2600+, while using my TV's USB as power. Thanks for the solution, Fred! I now understand that these kind of capacitors (connecting the +5V and ground together) buffer the voltage inside the cartridge. But as the cartridges work fine without these, what was the point of having them in the first place? Maybe if your your power socket had some "noise" on the wires or the voltage/frequency wasn't stable, they add this to filter peaks on 5V source? I can remember to put a little ceramic capacitor in parallel of the 5V of TTL chips, as some peaks could let them fail but I would not have expected such a big capacitor to be used in a cart🤔 1 hour ago, MrChickenz said: I posted about using 3.0A early on, I believe it might have been in one of the Beta threads. I would have to go back and check. But I mentioned I only use 3.0A. I have a raspberry pie the power adapter that was packaged with it was lower. I had issues with the raspberry pie slowing down after it was on for a while. After switching to a 3.0A adapter I haven’t had an issue since and that’s been about four years now. I purchased a 3.0A power brick for my Atari 2600+. That’s all I use. I’m not saying you need a 3.0A for the 2600+. This is my preference to eliminate any potential issues. My Raspi3 is tricky too. I bought a raspberry power brick as other bricks for charging didn't do the job, even labeled 3.0A. Maybe they have some charging logic which does not make sense for the raspi. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 11 Share Posted October 11 How do these carts work on a normal 2600? IIRC its power supply is quite weak (450 or 500mA). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted October 13 Author Share Posted October 13 On 10/11/2024 at 2:13 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said: How do these carts work on a normal 2600? IIRC its power supply is quite weak (450 or 500mA). I'm not sure, but I'm using an original power supply of 500mA. Probably the 2600+ uses more power than an original 2600? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted October 13 Share Posted October 13 The power supply for the original 2600 is only 500 ma, but it is also 9 volts. USBc plugged into the TV or using a Rpi pw supply may have more amps, but it’s only 4.6/5 volts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted October 13 Author Share Posted October 13 (edited) 1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said: The power supply for the original 2600 is only 500 ma, but it is also 9 volts. USBc plugged into the TV or using a Rpi pw supply may have more amps, but it’s only 4.6/5 volts. Good point. So the original 2600 power supply has 9V x 0.5A = 4.5 Watts. The USB port of my TV (an old Sony Bravia) only has 0.5A, so that's 5V x 0.5A = 2.5 Watts. So maybe loading these carts on my 2600+ also would have worked if I had used an external USBc power supply of 1.0A, because 5V x 1.0A = 5 Watts ( > 4.5 Watts of original PU ) Edited October 13 by Dionoid 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted October 13 Share Posted October 13 (edited) On 10/10/2024 at 10:43 AM, Dionoid said: ...This is weird, right? Is there anyone who has the same cartridges and can verify this? Glad snipping the caps solved the problem, but to answer your question, it isn't weird. You are correct that 3A is enough current to overcome the caps charging. The .5A is not. Those were pretty big for the application. Edited October 13 by Zonie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted October 13 Share Posted October 13 15 minutes ago, Zonie said: Glad snipping the caps solved the problem, but to answer your question, it isn't weird. You are correct that 3A is enough current to overcome the caps charging. The .5A is not. Those were pretty big for the application. The carts will still work without the cap on real 2600? I would think so as it should only act as a filter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted October 14 Author Share Posted October 14 (edited) 8 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said: The carts will still work without the cap on real 2600? I would think so as it should only act as a filter? Yes, after snipping the caps, these carts still worked fine on my original 2600. I guess ITT put in these 470uF caps as a filter, but it is just way to high. Is there anyone else with these specific carts who can confirm the issue? Edited October 14 by Dionoid 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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