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Topics - Remzi

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16
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / Internal Battery Pack Mod for C64C
« on: December 16, 2018, 11:50:31 AM »



Correction to the video!!! +12V DC is taken from the third pin from left on the userport output and connected to DC to DC step down voltage regulator.



This is how it looks like once it's finished.



First thing you have to do for this project is disconnecting one of the legs of the resistor at the R19.
This is very important as it overheats when we are running on DC only.
Remove the fuse as it's useless and also if you plug in the regular power supply by accident,removed fuse will save your C64C.



I salvaged 6 Li-ion 18650 batteries from an old laptop battery pack.I recharged them using a li-ion charger and made sure they are all at close capacity before making a 3S pack.
This is the battery protection board that I used for this project.



Other side of the board.



That is where I soldered the +12V out from the battery pack.



Also (-) from the battery pack soldered to ground.



We also need 5V to run our C64.For this I used a Step Down Voltage Regulator.
As it is adjustable,you need to set it to 5V before connecting it to your C64 board.



In the image above,you can see how I connected the voltage regulator to the board.




I used an old router power supply for this project.It provides 12V at 1A.
It can charge the battery pack in about 1,5 hours and gives me up to 2 hours play time.
If you want to charge while using your C64,you should get an at least  1.5A rated power supply.



This is the diagram,how you need to wire up the power connector.



This is the 2.4Ghz AV transmitter module.If you want to buy a ready made one,follow this link.


For the TOD clock signal generator,take a look at Pasi Lassila's Blog Entry.

I ordered a NE555 Adjustable Module for the TOD generator.Once I recieved it,I will update this tutorial.

Check out this video.

17
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / External Battery Pack Mod
« on: December 16, 2018, 10:30:27 AM »
This is an experimental project.Try at your own risk

Board no 250469 (short board) the 10 ohm resistor at the R19 overheats.Needs to be disconnected before using DC only power.

I am not sure about long boards.I will test them out.

Running the C64 on DC only is not a new thing.It's been tried many times.Check out Ilker's Project.

The only thing doesn't work with the C64 is TOD chip.Which is used by very few software.It is possible to do a small modification on the motherboard by adding a 555 timer to overcome this problem.I haven't tried it myself yet so I can't say much about it just yet.

Here is the finished Battery pack,



(That 3.5mm jack is used for powering my SD2IEC so I don't have to use the cassette port.)

This is a regular power bank with standart USB 5V and 9V/12V/15V adjustable power outputs.

Idea is feeding 12V or 15V DC (depending on the C64) to AC rail on the userport output.And of course 5V DC to 5V rail.

5V output of this power bank is useless as under load it drops down to 4.5V.C64 still works with this voltage but SD2IEC is not really happy about it.

That's the reason I had to use a step down converter to get a solid 5V output from the power bank.



The photo above shows the edge connector,power switch and the converter module installed to the front panel.






I soldered the GND and the 12/15V wires to the DC socket.This power bank came with a small push switch on it's side.I couldn't find any info about the purpose of this switch,I tried everything.I came to a conclusion that this switch is useless so i converted to the reset switch for the C64.



I cut the trace on the board,soldered the reset line on the other leg.

There are a couple of issues with this battery pack.

1.Datasette doesn't work.It seems like it's not powerful enough to supply enough current.I'm testing out larger power banks.

2.You can charge the battery pack with a regular 5V 2A USB charger while you are using your C64 but power bank gets really hot after half an hour.Culprit is the inductor right next to the micro USB connector.Some sort of a heatsink or cooling fan might be an option.Or I can use a different power bank charged with a 12V power source.


18
Wireless Audio Video Solutions / 2.4Ghz AV Transmitter,Receiver Kit
« on: December 15, 2018, 01:45:42 PM »
Price (Including postage,paypal fees) and delivery time
£15 to UK,2nd Class large letter,2-5 days
£18 to Europe,Airmail (non tracked) 3-10 days
£20 to rest of the world,Airmail (non tracked) 3-15 days

Buy It Now





Do you want to place your C64 on your coffee table and enjoy retro gaming in your living room on a massive TV set without running a cable from the C64 and the TV? This is it,what you've been waiting for.Make your beloved C64 portable.

It runs on 2.4Ghz frequency which is not that crowded as it used to be.Most internet modem routers are running on 5.8Ghz these days.
Your only enemy is bluetooth devices like phones,headsets even computer mice.If you turn them all of,you should get no interference.Unless you live in flats and your neighbours are using 2.4Ghz WI FI  >:(

The main problem we have with our 64's is,composite video out is non standart.Which leads to some TV's and monitors giving very good result,some are ok but not that good,bit of colour leak,dot crawl,shadowing and some are not working at all.

If you want to use this wireless kit,you have to try the wired composite cable with your screen first and find out if your TV can give good results.

If you get good result with the wired cable,you will get the exact same result with this wireless kit.

If not,please don't buy it.I am not accepting returns on this product.



Transmitter is powered by the pin 8 of the C64's AV port.Most C64C's have the 5V connected to the pin 8.But some breadbins with the very early boards are not connected.This is the reason before buying this kit,you have to make sure you have 5 volts on your AV port.

You will need a multimeter and have to stick 2 cables into the port while it is switched on.Be very careful,don't short it.



Black (Ground) to Pin2, Red (Positive) to pin 8

If you get 0V means it is not connected to live 5V.You need to modify the motherboard which requires some soldering skills and equipment.

If you get less than 4.7V or more than 5.2 volts,your PSU is on it's way out,replace it.

If you have any questions,please post it under this topic.



19
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Using the adapter on LINUX
« on: October 01, 2018, 10:01:45 PM »


Thanks to Flavio web for making this video.

If you don't speak Italian,try the subtitles,works pretty well.

20
Other MODs / Unlock Your Datasette
« on: August 13, 2018, 03:09:27 PM »
If you don't want to mod your datasette,check out 1530USB Adapter also this USB Tape Interface.

This mod requires some soldering skills.

You will be able to load games to your C64 using a PC,phone,tablet or MP3 player.
You can backup your original cassette tapes to your PC.
You can record games to blank cassette tapes.



These instructions for the datasette with the board code HCT-4 94HB NP-090B
If you have a different board,post a picture of it.I will have a look if I have the same one.

LINE OUT



Line out mod is for backing up/dumping cassette tapes to your PC.You can save it as wav with Audacity or convert it to tap with Audiotap.
You need to plug this into your PC's microphone in port.If you have a Line-in instead you might need to lower the resistance.
You will need a 100nF capacitor and a 22K resistor.If you open up an old radio,PC speakers or any audio equipment,you can salvage these parts.

LINE IN for LOADING



Line in mod is for loading games to your C64 from an audio source.
You can plug in to your PC's speaker out and use the Audiotap or WAV-PRG  to load sotware to C64.

LINE IN for RECORDING



This mod is for recording games to cassette tapes.Straight solder on job.No components needed.
Plug this into your PC's speaker output port.

If you want all above mods on your datasette,there will be 3X3.5mm audio jacks coming out of it.
If you have a newish laptop with mic and speaker combined;



You can use a 4 pole 3.5mm connector for Line-out and Line-in for loading.But you still need another connector for the Line-in for recording.
A simple SPDT switch can be installed on the datasette marked as LOAD and RECORD.I will try to find other solutions to avoid drilling the datasette.



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Download Audiotap and WAV-PRG HERE.
Download Audacity HERE.
Download FinalTAP HERE.
Debian/Ubuntu users CLICK HERE

IMPORTANT !!! Use USB 2.0 port on your computer.This adapter is not fully compatible with USB 3.0 or USB Type C.

For the first time you plug the adapter to your PC,you will need to setup the settings below,

1.Press Windows Key and R to open RUN window and type mmsys.cpl



Or right click on the speaker icon and select recording devices.



2.Set the USB microphone as default and go to properties.Change the device name to "READ".
3.Custom tab,untick the AGC.
4.Set the recording level to 0 (We will adjust this setting later on.)
5.Advanced tab choose the 48000 Hz



Right click on the speaker icon and goto Playback devices.Find USB Speakers and click on the properties.



1.Change device name to "WRITE"
2.Set the volume level between 75 - 80.
3.Enhancements tab,tick the box says "Disable all enhancements"
4.Go to advanced and choose 48000 Hz
5.Spatial sound tab - set it to OFF and click on the OK below.

Adjusting the READ volume and backing up a cassette tape to PC:

Insert a good condition,original copy cassette game to the datasette and press play.

Start Audacity and click the RECORD button.

Find the microphone volume setting and slide it to the right untill it fills the screen.





After recording that side of tape save it as WAV.



You pressed the Play on the datasette,you clicked on that big red record button but you don't see any action on the Audacity?
Try singing to your computer.Built in microphone might be selected.Change it to USB.

Start Audiotap,click on "Create a tap file",tick "from an audio file",tick "Inverted waveform"

Click OK,choose the WAV file,OK,give the tap file a name.



Drag and drop the TAP file to Finaltap



If you get Recognized 99% you have done a perfect backup.Click on Repair & Optimize to clean it up.



After the cleanup.it should show all green and Recognized 100%



Click on the save as (disk icon) to save the clean tap.

Keep in mind,you don't get these results with all TAP files.It depends on the loader.You might try Tapclean program aswell.

Drag and drop the cleaned TAP to winvice emulator and check if it works.







Recording software to blank cassette tape:

TAP Files:



Start AudioTap.
Select "convert from a Tap file" and "to a sound" click OK and choose the TAP file you want to record.
Press Record and Play on the datasette.

There are very few games with super fast loader like The Evil Dead.
If you come across one of these games,you have to max out everything to be able to record to cassette tapes.
Increase the speaker volume to max.Increase frequency to 96000Hz as shown below.



Turbo LOAD T64,PRG,P00 Images

Browse through this website and download T64,PRG,P00 Images.
Unzip those files to a folder on your desktop.

Start WAV-PRG and choose "Convert a PRG,P00 or T64 file to a sound"



You don't need to change any settings.

Click on "Sound Card" and higlight the files,drag and drop it to WAV-PRG.



Press RECORD and PLAY on your datasette.

This is it.

Good luck.
 

23
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Share your results
« on: May 06, 2018, 12:35:32 PM »
How did you get on with this adapter?

Did it do what it says on the tin?

Please post your results here so we can all see if the adapter is doing what it supposed to.

24
General Discussion / Welcome to LOAD64 Support Forum
« on: May 06, 2018, 12:30:00 PM »
Welcome to home of homemade mods for C64.

If you have made a gadget for Commodore computers,please share it with us.

You can sell it on my frontpage for free.

I have some ongoing projects that never been done in Commodore history.Once they are completed,will be listed for sale.

At the moment I have only 1530USB adapter on sale,which actually is still under development.

If you have any problems with this adapter,I will try my best to solve it.

Also please post your results so I can see if I need to work more on this gadget.Otherwise I will start working on my next projects.

Re-welcome.

Remzi

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