Repair & Schematics
Atari Lynx
CleanPower Install (Atari Lynx)
8 min
the power circuit on the atari lynx is renowned for dying and taking the lynx with it the circuit unlike most other consoles is a common positive (not common ground) so it also adds a lot of confusion when it comes to diagnosing and repairing under load, or just with age, the original power circuit on the lynx when it fails increases the voltage to 9v (the battery voltage) and injects that clean into the rest of the system, often killing ram first, then the custom asics making the console a no fix for this reason, we designed the cleanpower for the lynx 1 and 2 completely replacing the common positive system for a modern common ground, boost buck, ultra low noise regulated circuit along with this there are various new features including usb c support, protection circuits, cleanjuice battery support, test buttons and power good led and more soldering is required to remove some components, cut a single trace, and solder in some wires features the cleanpower has many features to improve on the old original design common ground design, making the entire pcb simpler to debug and diagnose in future 2 5v to 12v input on battery springs or dc/usb port 2a output no need for game inserted to power on ultra low standby current (0 00005a = 50 100ua) gives 46,800 hours of standby which is over 5 years over temp / over voltage protection supports usb c port to replace dc jack supports cleanjuice (rechargeable batteries) with future upgrade installation start by removing the following components u6 d11, d18, d14, zd1 q4, q13, q11 bridge the left and center pin of the removed q11 footprint with all components removed and the bridge/cuts done, we want to make sure the console has no dead shorts use a multimeter to measure resistance between battery ground and the 5v rail which is now on the left pad of the removed d11 if the resistance is lower than 50 ohm you have a short that needs finding and fixing injecting 5v into the system using a bench power and looking for heat is one method if using a modern screen and the backlight power board is removed, stick it there, otherwise stick it in your desired location that fits best solder the following wires dc to d11 right pad 5v0 to d11 left pad com to q4 bottom pad (or u6 pin 13) gnd to top of c63 (or u6 pin 7) bat+ to red battery wire (instead of soldering battery wire to motherboard) now if you are using the stock dc jack , solder bat to the battery black solder pad along with the black battery wire if you are using the usb c port do not solder the bat wire of cleanpower remove the dc jack and c34 (not needed, and gets in the way) solder in the usb c port in its place expose the copper below the gnd pad so you can solder it to ground link the dc pad from the cleanpower to the usb c dc pad instead of d11 right link the !bat pad from the cleanpower to the usb c !bat pad todo picture of usb c install testing the cleanpower doesn't require a game inserted to power on and includes a power on led and test buttons for on and off, allowing you to very easily test the circuit ideally, use a bench power for testing, set to 5v and applied to the battery springs if you do not have a bench power just connect the batteries up if using dc jack, the outer two pins of the dc jack are shorted together when no dc jack inserted first measure with a multimeter than the outer 2 pins have continuity (otherwise there will be no connection from battery ground to system ground typically, i disconnect the 5v0 wire from d11 while testing so the lynx isn't powering on (in case it has shorts or faults) with multimeter in voltage mode, measure from any ground they are all common now cleanpower dc pad should be input voltage (so 5v from bench or around 9v using aas) if not, confirm dc jack is working and shorting to ground, and that you have 5v/aas voltage on springs 5vh should be 5v (permanent 5v) 5v0 should not be on yet until we press on current draw should be nothing (1ma or less depending on accuracy of measurement) press on button on cleanpower green led should light up measure 5v0 pad on cleanpower to see if we have 5v output (you should) disconnect power re connect 5v0 wire to lynx d11 left pad connect power again and press on, confirm led still comes on, 5v0 has 5v and lynx should boot