Advice on moding Coleco Tabletop arcade games...

SHaMROCK73

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Hey everyone, I own four (Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaxian and Pac-Man) of the old Coleco Tabletop arcade games from the early 80s. A few years ago my intention was to eliminate the need for batteries by installing a plug in for an AC adapter in each of them, I removed the battery connectors on two od them and had the possitive and negative wires haging loose in the battery area. Then due to lack of knowledge on how to preceed the project got put on the back burners.

Recently I purchased Frogger from a fellow KLOVer (Les Manley) and it has brought this project back from the dead.

These games take 4 "C" batteries so I assume a 6V adapter would be what I'm after but I think there are other numbers to concider like the mA (milli-amp).

Just a few minutes ago I decided the try something, I had the power adapter from an old cell phone that was rated 5V - 550 mA. So I cut off the mini USB end and twisted the wires directly to the loose wires on Pac-Man. Well it worked great.

So knowing this power rating works should I still try a 6V adapter?

Can I but the mini USB female connectors I could perminatly install in these games?

I need advice and direction on where to find these types of things.

Thank you!!!
 
They did make a power adapter for those games. Here is what they looked like.
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/Perma.htm

You should be able to track one down cheap enough and then make your own copy.


Thank you, I am aware of the Perma Power adapters, I used to have them but have lost them. Does anyone still have one, and did it give the Volt and Amp or Milliamp rating on the plug?
 
I added an auction after you posted. I can't make out the label on the plug though. You could "ask the seller a question" and see if they could give you the info.

It's to bad they stopped making those games. They had samples of omega race and berzerk.
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/OmegaRace.htm

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/Berzerk.htm

Haha! I actually just did that on a different auction. I have zero intent on buying, the guy wants $90 for the adapter NIP WTF???
 
Haha! I actually just did that on a different auction. I have zero intent on buying, the guy wants $90 for the adapter NIP WTF???

Yeah $90 is a bit steep for a couple of fake batteries and a power adapter. Hopefully they will give you the information and you can track down the adapters cheap online. It would be nice to keep them semi original.
 
I bought a Parker Bros Q-bert and found that someone had hacked it up to take a standard AC adapter by wiring a DC jack for an AC adapter in parallel with the batteries. Few cents of hookup wire and a cheap DC jack. They'd drilled a hole for the DC jack in the back. Unfortunately the job was very badly soldered and there was a short, so the game made an awful burning smell the first time I put batteries in! Fixed up the wiring, and it works fine.

Ideally you'd want the battery compartment wired to a DC socket with a switch in it, so that when you plug in an AC adapter it disconnects the batteries.

The device should only draw as many amps as it needs, as long as you have 6V, and the power adapter is rated to provide enough amps (about 500mA-650mA should be enough?) it will work fine. Overvolting will eventually damage the unit.

- James
 
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I bought a Parker Bros Q-bert and found that someone had hacked it up to take a standard AC adapter by wiring a DC jack for an AC adapter in parallel with the batteries. Few cents of hookup wire and a cheap DC jack. They'd drilled a hole for the DC jack in the back. Unfortunately the job was very badly soldered and there was a short, so the game made an awful burning smell the first time I put batteries in! Fixed up the wiring, and it works fine.

Ideally you'd want the battery compartment wired to a DC socket with a switch in it, so that when you plug in an AC adapter it disconnects the batteries.

The device should only draw as many amps as it needs, as long as you have 6V, and the power adapter is rated to provide enough amps (about 500mA-650mA should be enough?) it will work fine. Overvolting will eventually damage the unit.

- James


OK, so since the Coleco tabletop games take 4 "C" batteries they are 6V. Like I mentioned I tried a 5V adapter from a old cell phone and it worked great. The 5V adapter was 550mA. On eBay I see many adapters 5V or 6V but the amp rating is always either 1A = 1000mA or 2A = 2000mA. From the sounds of what you are saying these will be fine as long as the volts are right. Right?
 
found out how much amps in total the C batteries put out and there is your answer.... too many amps and you burn stuff up....
 
I Googled it, it said 4 amps? Is that per battery? I'm so confused???

A high drain device for a battery is usually 500mA. A typical C cell battary has 8000mAh capacity at 1.5V, 4 C cells in series provide 8000mAh capacity at 6V. So you could do the math and see how long it takes to drain a set. Or you could stick an ammeter in there.

I would be surprised if the device needed more than 6V/300mA, 6V/500A at most.

The 5V adapter you have might be unregulated, which means it's actually providing the game with more than 5V if the game is drawing less amps than the adapter's rating. And the game itself probably has some tolerance to work on less than 6V, since the voltage from batteries drops as they drain (this is why the screen dims).

Overvolting the device will damage it, most likely burn out the screen. So I'd recommend getting a regulated adapter. The device will draw the current it needs up to the maximum rated mA capacity of the adapter.

I would say get a 6V 300mA regulated adapter. If it gets too hot, use a larger capacity one, eg 400mA or 500mA.

- James
 
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OK so I found a site...

http://www.geekvintage.com/coleco-tabletop-donkey-kong-jr-perma-power.php

...that states the Coleco Perma Power battery eliminator outputs 9V - -700mA.

9V? Could that be safe for a device that only is 6V with batteries? Also as I said earlier a 5V 550mA adapter is working great?

But is it regulated, and is it actually providing 9V when the game is hooked up to it? That might just be the maximum volts, and maximum mA ratings. It might drop down to 2V to give 700mA. It might only give 9V if a low current is being drawn. It might mean it's regulated to 9V and gives up to 700mA.

9V would be a bit high for some games, other games might be fine. It depends on the game. And again it depends if the perma power is regulated (which I doubt it is). If the screen looks brighter than it should be, the game is probably getting too much voltage.

I have a Gakken Puck Monster which also takes 4x C cell, and the manual tells you to use a 6V 300mA adapter.

Then there's the Grandstand Universal Adapter (available in 240V countries) which outputs "6/9V - 1.5vA"... Probably means it was unregulated, but if the device was drawing 250mA, that would be at ~6V.

- James
 
ARRGH!!! So a seller finally got back to me and gave me contradictory information to what I had found yes on the net...


Good question, Input: 117V ac-60Hz 5W, output: 9V DC 100mA. If you any other questions, please ask, i will gladly answer and do my best to assist you. Thanks again, Matt.

...so, now it only outputs 100mA???????????
 
ARRGH!!! So a seller finally got back to me and gave me contradictory information to what I had found yes on the net...


Good question, Input: 117V ac-60Hz 5W, output: 9V DC 100mA. If you any other questions, please ask, i will gladly answer and do my best to assist you. Thanks again, Matt.

...so, now it only outputs 100mA???????????

That sounds more like it. I did think that 9V/700mA sounded too high for a battery eliminator... That's like 6.3W!

And that adapter will not necessarily give those exact numbers when you plug it into a device. That's a total power of 0.9W. If it's unregulated, the voltage will depend on load, and more load means more A being drawn. In which case, those numbers just means if a device pulls 100mA, it will be at 9V. If the device pulls more than 100mA, and a tabletop game should pull more than that, then the voltage will drop.

I still think that 6V/300mA regulated would do just fine.

- J
 
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Ideally you'd want the battery compartment wired to a DC socket with a switch in it, so that when you plug in an AC adapter it disconnects the batteries.

A disconnecting jack is mandatory if you don't remove the batteries. Otherwise you will be charging alkaline batteries, and that can cause bad things to happen...

found out how much amps in total the C batteries put out and there is your answer.... too many amps and you burn stuff up....

Not exactly correct. Voltage is "imposed" on the device, but power supplies and batteries amperage is rated in the ability to deliver. Devices draw current (amps) based on their design/need, but not more that that. i.e. You can put a 6V/100A power supply on there and it will work fine. If you put a 600V/1A supply on there you will see/smell magic smoke.

For the poster who asked about the 9V adapter. Many small electronic devices will run off a range of voltages ranging from 6-12V. As you found out sometimes 5V will work, sometimes it's not enough. Given that most of that unit is probably TTL, 5v should work just fine.
 
A disconnecting jack is mandatory if you don't remove the batteries. Otherwise you will be charging alkaline batteries, and that can cause bad things to happen...

Totally agreed... Which is why I said it's ideal that the jack disconnects the batteries (but neglected to say this is so you don't cause leaking/exploding batteries if you forget to take them out). But I probably wasn't obvious enough...

But as I said before, many cheap wall wart adapters aren't regulated, so depending on how much current is drawn from them, the voltage changes. A Pac-Man game probably draws more than 100mA, more like 200mA or more (remember how fast some of these things eat batteries?), so a 9V-100mA power supply will probably give you somewhat less than 9V when under load. The game probably has a tolerance to under voltage to cope with battery voltage drop as the batteries drain (just the screen will look a little dim), and will have tolerance to a certain amount of over voltage but probably not a lot (9V or 12V will make the screen look brighter, and over time may damage the screen).

Again maybe the tabletop game is advanced enough to have a voltage regulator in it, but I'd doubt it if it's designed to run on batteries.

- James
 
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I dont really care about the batteries. once I get the plug in part installed so the power adapter has something to plug into, I'm going to glue or screw the battery compartment door shut.

So, I've searched ebay and I have found a 6V 300mA adapter. I've also found a 9V 100mA adapter. Same sell I think?

Based on all the information we have what is the best choice.

We know that 4 "C" batteries is a total of 6V.

We know the original Perma Power adapter was 9V 100mA.

We know I have tried an old Motorola Razr cell phone adapter that is 5V 550mA that is working great.

I also tried a GameBoy Advance SP adaper yesterday that was 5.2V 320mA that work also.

I appreciate all the help, I really have some sort of mental block when it come to electricity, and Euchre for some reason???
 
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