I've been Coleco'd

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie

[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 (3.48 MiB) Viewed 570 times

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 (317.52 KiB) Viewed 529 times

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.

[rubber_jonnie]

Good news.

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...

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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.

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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.

[rubber_jonnie]

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

IMG20260619131423.jpg (296.42 KiB) Viewed 512 times

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

IMG20260619133816.jpg (161.94 KiB) Viewed 512 times

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:

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There are extra switches:

IMG20260619133831.jpg (310.56 KiB) Viewed 512 times

And an additional PCB installed below the main PCB:

IMG20260619133839.jpg (242.39 KiB) Viewed 512 times

And a rats nest of wires!!!

IMG20260619134537.jpg (307.88 KiB) Viewed 512 times

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.