Sunday, December 18, 2016

A/V modding a Magnavox Odyssey 400 (and also 100, 200 & 500)

Audio/Video (A/V) modding vintage game console can be easy to hard depending on how the video signal is processed, and for audio, it's usually very easy.

Today is how to make an A/V output from a Magnavox Odyssey 400 (and this also can be done on any Odyssey 100, 200 and 500) as this (and the others Odyssey) is very easy to mod as you don't need any electronic components, just a simple A/V cable (and a soldering iron, etc..).

First, you need to open up the console by turning the only screw in the back and after the back panel removed, you should see this:

After that, remove the cardboard so it's easier to solder the wires.

Ok, now find the inscription: "COMP. VIDEO" (it's near the RF section and channel select switch)


Once you found the "COMP. VIDEO" trace (see yellow line), you can solder a video cable on any of the solder on the (yellow) line and solder the ground cable on the RF shield. (i myself solder the video cable on the last solder point and soldered the ground next to the last solder point - see next 3 pictures). Oh and don't forget to cut the RF cable!




And now for the Audio part, find the PIEZO speaker (upper left - up to the SOUND ON/OFF Switch) and solder the audio cable where the "engraved A (note that it's not there originally)" and the ground beside it - see next 3 pictures):




By soldering to this specific solder point, you can either use the audio out or both audio out and piezo speaker. I put the sound switch to OFF and by doing this, the piezo doesn't "chirp" and the audio out makes a "thund" sound. Now it's up to you if you only want to hear a "thund" sound only or "thund & chirp" sounds (OR...only chirp sound if you unplug the audio out cable).

Now before closing everything up, test your mod and you should get a clean picture (on the TV) like this:



Voila! So now your Odyssey 400 (or 100, 200 or 500) is ready to be played on any recent TV's!

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not responsible to any damage that you may inflict or cause on any game console you (or someone else) by trying to modify, use these information at your own risk.




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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 3, 2018 at 7:09 PM

    Thank you very much! This worked great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sly DCMay 26, 2018 at 8:04 PM

    Another modder satisfied! LOL!! Glad this helped you out! =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gabriel DeBettencourtDecember 31, 2020 at 7:34 AM

    Do you have a picture of the entire motherboard after you completed the mod? It would help me perform this mod as well since I'm kind of confused about the ground.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sly DCDecember 31, 2020 at 8:12 AM

    Hi Gabriel, picture #2 is a picture of the whole motherboard (back) but the front has only the components (resistors, capacitors, etc). If you want an easy place to get the ground, check on the same picture (#2) and in the upper-right corner there is a rectangle metal plate: that plate is grounded as it is the RF shield. Sorry, i didn't took a picture of the entire board with all the wires soldered.

    If you known electronics or can read schematics, i have put online all the service manuals of every Magnavox Odyssey console (except the Odyssey2) here: https://archive.org/details/MagnavoxOdyssey

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gabriel DeBettencourtJanuary 6, 2021 at 12:48 PM

      I understand the part of ground on the RF shield, but where do I connect the other end to? I also noticed that you have a video of this on YouTube with alligator clips. I assume the yellow and white clips are connected to the video and audio jacks, but as for ground, you seem to have two alligator clips going to different places.

      Delete
  5. AD169November 10, 2021 at 10:35 AM

    Hello,

    I did this mod and it seems to work (with some picture distortion still present). My question may be dumb and totally unrelated, but the console now seems to always display the double "W"s as in your first image.

    I only played around with it a few times on RF, but I thought these only appeared when you scored enough points. I can't seem to get them to go away. Any tips? It's hard to find info on these units online. I can't think of how the video cables could affect this, but with such a purely analog console, who knows... I did desolder the RF cable from its pads. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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