EPT*gallery at the bottom
As the only electrical engineering student working as an intern for Ohava Computers. My boss used me as an opportunity to fix the Commodore 64 that we had laying around the office. He did this by telling me one thing, "I know nothing about it, and I'll give you what ever you need, but just make it work."
So after looking through the box of stuff that came along with the old computer I found out we had everything that the C64 needed, except the power supply. So I could just buy one, but after reading about them I found out they sucked, and I could just make my own anyways.
After searching around I found that the C64 PSU is composed of two parts, a 9 volt Alternating current, and a 5 volt direct current power supply, which are then connect to the Computer via a 7 pin din connector. I could just simply solder the two parts to a din pin and plug it in.
So here is how I did it.
What you will need.
9 volt AC 1A plug
5 volt DC 1.5A plug
Male 7 pin din connector (I would get more than one, in case you mess up the soldering)
Solder
Soldering Iron
Heat shrink
Wire cutter
Wire stripper
Multimeter
Any wire holders you would want to use
Getting Started
Take your 9V AC and cut the adapter at the end off. Then pull the two wires apart, but only for a few centimeters running up the cable. Once the wires are pulled apart take your wire strippers and strip about one centimeter of the insulation off of the the wires. Once the wires are striped twist the wires so that they are tight and straight, it's important that the wires are still neat and not frayed, otherwise soldering would become very difficult. If you have frayed wires, its ok to keep cutting and stripping higher up the cable, you should have plenty to work with. After you wires are stripped slide one small heat shrink onto each wires, if you can try to make sure that they are the same color. Color coordinating is always appreciated.
For the 5V DC plug you will have to take one extra step. With the 9V AC plug, it doesn't matter which wire you put where since the current alternates. However, with the DC adapter you will have to pay attention to which wire you put where. You cannot mix up the negative and the positive potentials. The individual wires should be labeled so it will be easy to find out which one is negative and positive, if they aren't then you will have to use a multimeter to find out. The positive wire will be the wire with the striped white line running along it. Once you have figured out which wire is which just follow the same steps for the AC plug.
For the ground wires, I would advise cutting a wire about 6 cm long, and stripping off 1 cm from each end. If you could make each wire the same color that would be great.
Soldering.
To solder the wires onto the Din Pin, I made sure that all of the wires were spun tight and neat. I had to cut and strip some several times because of fraying. I took one wire at a time and slid it into the individual pin on the connector. Once the wire was fitted into the pin, I applied solder onto the wire and the pin to bind the two together. I applied as little solder as I could, there isn't a lot of room to work with around the pins, so using the solder sparingly will help a lot. After I applied the solder, I visually inspected it to make sure it didn't look terrible, and then I gently tugged on the wire to make sure the connection was secure. Once the connection was met with my approval, I slid the heat shrink down and I applied the soldering iron to the heat shrink to give it a tight wrap around the soldering join.
Do that for each of the wires, following the pin diagram.
DIN PIN diagram.
http://imgur.com/9mdTz
For the ground, I connected the ends of the wires that weren't attached to the pin to the metal eyelets that jut out of the pin connector. To do so, I simply looped the stripped wire through holes and soldered the wire onto itself.
*note, make sure you don't melt the plastic, I did, and I had to start over.
Once you have soldered on all the wires to the DIN PIN, it is time to plug it into the computer. When turning on the C64 make sure you turn on the computer last. This means turning on the monitor and any peripherals (ie floppy drives) first.
When I was ready to plug in the power supply and start the computer my two bosses were standing behind me overwhelmed with excitement, while I sat infront of them nervously making sure everything was right. I plugged the pin into the C64, turned the monitor on and then turned the C64 on, at first there was one solitary click, then after a brief second, the screen lit up blue. My bosses went crazy, I couldn't believe myself, hi-5s all around, cheering shouting etc, http://imgur.com/a/I38dh#33, coworkers looked in from the other room http://imgur.com/81vRC, feelsgood.jpeg (sorry I had to).
If there are any improvements that you can see feel free to comment on my documentation. Any improvements that can be made are greatly appreciated.
Gallery
http://imgur.com/a/wTIJt#0
Thanks for reading
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wQFPf.jpg)
