I've been Coleco'd

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie

:dualthumbup:

:bravo:

:D

[rubber_jonnie]

OK then.

Since getting my Colecovision its always bugged me more than a little that I only had a single controller. That particular annoyance is about to go away :)

I managed to pick up this motley crew of controllers:

Screenshot 2026-06-18 at 09.39.33.png

All are in need of some TLC but I'm hoping that I can make at least one, maybe 2 good controllers, and I'm interested to see why one has a 9v battery connector hanging out of it.

I suspect it's an autofire adapter, but lets wait and see. Hopefully they'll be here tomorrow.

[stephen_usher]

All are in need of some TLC but I'm hoping that I can make at least one, maybe 2 good controllers, and I'm interested to see why one has a 9v battery connector hanging out of it.

I suspect it's an autofire adapter, but lets wait and see. Hopefully they'll be here tomorrow.

Yeah, the switch is probably a hint.

[rubber_jonnie]

All are in need of some TLC but I'm hoping that I can make at least one, maybe 2 good controllers, and I'm interested to see why one has a 9v battery connector hanging out of it.

I suspect it's an autofire adapter, but lets wait and see. Hopefully they'll be here tomorrow.

Yeah, the switch is probably a hint.

Indeed it is :)

Interesting, they are at the delivery depot, so perhaps they'll even arrive today.

[rubber_jonnie]

So the 3 Coleco controllers arrived yesterday, which was nice, and I did a little testing this morning, and I'm happy to report 2 are fully functional and only the one missing the knob has any obvious issues, and that is that up doesn't work.

IMG20260619095142.jpg

I'm confident that I'll be able to get 2 controllers out of the batch and I may even be able to rustle up a 3rd with a bit of luck.

Bit of cleaning and further testing needed, but looking very positive, and I may even be able to get the autofire working too.

[HigashiJun]

Good news.

8-)

[rubber_jonnie]

Good news.

8-)

Definitely, especially since my original controller cost as much as all three of these :)

[rubber_jonnie]

This is the controller with the missing knob and I'm frankly surprised that ANY of the directions work...

IMG_20260619_114403.jpg

Lets get that solder touched up and see if it works any better.

[rubber_jonnie]

Aside from the bad soldering it seems somebody tried to repair it before and some of the solder was hiding damaged pads and there was also a crack in the PCB severing the other pads connection.

IMG20260619120140.jpg

Bodge wires now in place and it works just fine. I think I'll transfer the stick from the auto fire controller to this one and that'll be 2 good ones.

:girldance:

[rubber_jonnie]

Repair done with bodge wires, fibreglass tape and UV resin:

IMG20260619131423.jpg

All reassembled, so that is two controllers refurbed and working just fine:

IMG20260619133816.jpg

The one on the right is a little scruffy, but the left hand one has turned out really nice, so that'll be my 2nd controller for the Coleco.

So onto the last one now, and inside it's a fair bit different:

IMG20260619133831.jpg

There are extra switches:

IMG20260619133831.jpg

And an additional PCB installed below the main PCB:

IMG20260619133839.jpg

And a rats nest of wires!!!

IMG20260619134537.jpg

This one I'm just going to clean and reassemble as I don't have a 9v battery to test with, though I may hook it up to my bench PSU just to try.