Atari plastic

[HK-47]

Any idea how to chop up the plastic of the origional case the atari came in. Its 1/8" / 3mm thick. Im thinking dremel, but I dont have one. Anyone know any tricks or something. (Actually I might as well get a dremel for future projects...) Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

BTW, I might as well use this as a update to tell you how my project is going.
I have all my parts, and as you probably have guessed Im going to use the origional case for my customcase. Im gonna hack it up and make it look cool while stillhaving the vintage atari look. Im abot half done and as soon as I get my case done Ill put it togeather and Ill try and post some pics. For the screen Im going to use a gba sp av adaptor built into my atari. A gameboy sp battery lasts around 18 hours (or so I have been told) and assuming the atari circutry takes 500mah its going to have around 6 hour battery life (I have a 7.2v 3000mah rc battery that is going to be built in.) Over all I think this is a going to be a sweet system to have. And Im hoping to get a 512 i 1 cart from mindstien, or I might make one. Either way its gonna rock and I look foward to completing it.
If youve got this far thanks for reading. Anyway I should really work on it some more... I think Ill do some more later on today...

[mindstein]

Hi,
I wouldn't waste the time in cutting up your old atari case.

If you go and look at my photo log of my portable build you can see that I found some black plastic at my local plastic store (TAP Plastics)

It has the same texture as the black plastic that the atari and the atari joysticks are made out of.

It ran $2 a sqft. And I got some weird shaped pieces of scrap for $2 and they were almost 2ft square.

As you can see I made my entire case from the scrap abs plastic.
The cost of the plastic for the case was only $2

If you are determined to cut up your case use a dremel.
You will have to play with the speed setting untill you find one that cuts or grinds instead of melting the plastic.

[HK-47]

Thanks, I dont have much money ()enough for your cart though ) and I want to use stuff I have before I buy anything else. I just want to save money. Though thanks for the responce. Ill have to check around and look for store that has plastic. Thanks.

[mindstein]

If you have access to a table saw that would be best and will cut the straitest.

But with the funny shape of the atari it will be a bit dangerous so be very very carefull.
If you do use a table saw you will need a 60 tooth carbide blade so it wil not melt the plastic. More teeth on the blade the better. But to many teeth will also melt the plastic so stay away from a panel saw with 180 teeth.

Also it might be safer with a hac saw with a blade that has a low number of teeth.

Anyhow good luck and be very very carefull.
Playing your portable with 9 fingers will realy suck so be carefull.

[gannon]

A gamer's worst nightmare, losing a thumb!!

[HK-47]

A quote from the how-to on the old site:

I cannot be responsible for any injury if you don't handle the knife properly, and besides, if you gash yourself and go to the hospital BEFORE you finish your portable Atari, what are you gonna do while waiting in the emergency room?

I agree!

[JackFrost22]

A scrool or bandsaw might work

[A.J. Franzman]

(Yeah, I know this is an old thread...)

Hey HK-47, I think using the original case as raw material for building a VCSp case is a great idea! I thought of it last night only to come here and find out that I'm not the first...

Anyway, another thing I want to do to keep as much of the original "look" as possible (my only 2600 was a now long-gone "light six" unit) for nostalgic reasons is to use all 6 of the original switches, but recess them so they don't stick out and snag on stuff, so the unit will still be "pocketable" if I have big enough pockets. Ben says the easiest style to shrink is a 4-switch, so I'll need some extra switches - anyone want to donate some?

Also, I don't like the cartridge orientations of any of the VCS portables on Ben's site - sliding it down the back makes the whole thing too thick, and sticking out the top/front above the screen is just ugly. I think I'll go for a "landscape" orientation unit, but with the cartridge sticking straight out away from the player.

On an unrelated topic, I found that there are DC-DC switching regulator ICs of a type called "Buck/Boost", that can take in (for example) anything between 4 - 12 volts and output rock-steady 5VDC. Using one of these will be more efficient than a 7805 and allow one to get FULL use of the batteries' available capacity, using say 6 x NiMH AA cells for 7.2 volts initially.

[Sparkfist]

It sounds like you havent opened the atari yet. The sixers (or heavy sixers ) have a seperate board that is most of what we use the begin with so you dont need to cut, four switches are more prevelent so thats why most people use it.

As for the cart. The one that has it sticking out perpindicular form the case is what you get leaving the cart slot alone. The slid down the back is what you get tilting it 45*. These both alone the cart to remain secure thats why its almost the standard here.

As for powering the unit, yes a DC-DC converter is more effective than a 7805 regulator but the regulator is free. Also it about 20mA power lost (according to Ladyada's comment about the 7808 on the hip screen). The atari also only consumes about 350 (maybe less) mA an hour, something that takes that little power is hardly a conser about being really effective you get a decent run for the batteries.

[A.J. Franzman]

It sounds like you havent opened the atari yet. The sixers (or heavy sixers ) have a seperate board that is most of what we use the begin with so you dont need to cut, four switches are more prevelent so thats why most people use it.

Oh, no, it's much worse than that... not only have I never opened one, I currently don't even OWN a VCS/2600 of any kind! What I want to do, for nostalgia reasons, is to build a portable that is as small as possible but retains as much as possible the styling of a six-switch (probably light rather than heavy, since the one I used to own was a "light" six). But for miniaturization of the motherboard, it doesn't really matter which kind I get, so I thought I'd go with whatever's easiest. If a six switch is just as easy or only trivially more work to convert (but not any bigger after completed), then I will probably get a six-switch to convert, just so I'll have the 6 switches!

As for the cart. The one that has it sticking out perpindicular form the case is what you get leaving the cart slot alone. The slid down the back is what you get tilting it 45*. These both alone the cart to remain secure thats why its almost the standard here.

I don't really care about whether I have to extend the cart port on ribbon cable or not; I'm sure I can make it secure enough in the case. Or were you referring to the cartridges being secure in the slot? From memory, my old unit held cartridges very securely just by friction with the contacts. Is this often not so with heavily-used units? If so, I'll have to be careful to get one that's still tight.

As for powering the unit, yes a DC-DC converter is more effective than a 7805 regulator but the regulator is free. Also it about 20mA power lost (according to Ladyada's comment about the 7808 on the hip screen). The atari also only consumes about 350 (maybe less) mA an hour, something that takes that little power is hardly a conser about being really effective you get a decent run for the batteries.

I have more to say about this but it's off-topic in this thread, so I'm going to look for a more appropriate one, or start a new one.

[Sparkfist]

If your looking to just repackage the atari, try talking to Spongebuell. He's made what he calles an atari SP (semi-portable).

The thing about the cart slot is if you remove it from the board you have to find a place a to mount it. Well if you keep it attached to the board all you have to do is mount the board.

If you have questions that pertain to the project as a whole why not ask them here. As a popular forum guide put it "It is better to post in an exsisting thread than to make a new one".

And about the choices of heavy sixer, four switch and the Jounor. The four you'll find more info in this (the atari 2600) forum that talks about the four switch. Although if your interested, Ben, and a few other members are working on making a more compact atari board. In the end its your choice, though in my experiance you have more design freedom when the componits are small(er).

[SpongeBuell]

when you do buy it, get a 4-switch one. They can be cut down, unlike 6 switchers and juniors.

[A.J. Franzman]

If your looking to just repackage the atari, try talking to Spongebuell. He's made what he calles an atari SP (semi-portable).

No, I'm looking to make a full-on handheld portable. It will not be exactly the same shape as the console, but I would like to use the black "grille" material for the top, and the woodgrain front edge with the logo on it. The hump in back with the cart port and switches will not be there, the dimensions will be smaller (thickness might stay about the same), aspect ratio may be different, etc. But it must look like something Atari could have made at the same time, or soon after introduction of the VCS, using the same styling, if they had the small screen technology back then.

If you have questions that pertain to the project as a whole why not ask them here. As a popular forum guide put it "It is better to post in an exsisting thread than to make a new one".

I put my ramblings about voltage regulators in the topic "what switching power regulator Ben uses to replace the 7805". And I really like my discussions to relate to the original subject of a thread - it makes it more likely for others interested in the same things to find it.

And about the choices of heavy sixer, four switch and the Jounor. The four you'll find more info in this (the atari 2600) forum that talks about the four switch. Although if your interested, Ben, and a few other members are working on making a more compact atari board. In the end its your choice, though in my experiance you have more design freedom when the componits are small(er).

I saw where Kevin Horton bought the ICs from Best Electronics and made his own custom perfboard circuit that's bigger than a cut-down motherboard, but it fit well with the case he used. This method is not exactly cheap though - the ICs cost more than a full working unit from a thrift store!

I'm still waiting for one of those "10 games in a joystick" things to come out that's hackable to a full(ly compatible) 2600 implementation. It would be nice to have a teeny, power miser SMT or epoxy-blob-on-a-wafer for the brains!

[HK-47]

when you do buy it, get a 4-switch one. They can be cut down, unlike 6 switchers and juniors.

http://benheck.com/Games/Vag2k1.htm
Junior can be cut down, but theres no how to...

[JackFrost22]

a six can be cut down too