Atari Start Cone Buttons Tech

I believe if you look very closely at the terminals they should be marked.....it should be stamped in the metal.....if not if you can find an asteroids (or similar) manual online it should show a diagram of what goes where on them.

Its been a while since I replaced the LED's in mine, so I dont remmeber at the moment...


EDIT: Looked it up

1 - Common
2 - Normally Open
3 - Normally Closed
4 - LED +
5 - LED -
 
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It's not terribly hard...the switch itself is separate from the light portion of the unit. It's just a regular microswitch with G, NC and NO.

The LED, OTOH, you'll need to connect properly to get it to light. I can't remember if they're marked or not. If you're putting it in a game that supports it (eg Centipede) it won't blow anything if you get the leads backward - it just won't work.

If you do want to know 100%, you can use the diode test of your multimeter. Since they only read one way (if they're good) you can quickly figure out which is negative and which is not.
 
Hey Peale,

Do you know if those LEDs have current limiting resistors in them? If they don't then GuerreFroide will have to be careful if he's trying to put those in a game that doesn't drive the LEDs from the game board.

RJ
 
Hey Peale,

Do you know if those LEDs have current limiting resistors in them? If they don't then GuerreFroide will have to be careful if he's trying to put those in a game that doesn't drive the LEDs from the game board.

RJ

I don't know 100% - but if I had to guess, I doubt it.
 
I think the resistance for the led's comes from the PCB, I blew up one of these start buttons when I connected a 5v power source with no resistor in line.
 
I think the resistance for the led's comes from the PCB, I blew up one of these start buttons when I connected a 5v power source with no resistor in line.

Thanks,

I was afraid of that and wanted to have that info out in the open in case the Op wanted to connect those lit buttons directly to the power supply.

RJ
 
any fix? i think mine came blown in my dig dug

Yeah, I've replaced the LEDs in these. Drill out the aluminum rivets that hold the microswitch in place, then the LED and terminals soldered to it, come out. Solder new LED onto the terminals, and reinstall the microswitch with tiny hardware (I forget the size, #2 or #0 machine screws maybe).
 
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