More Ideas

By John Brown

Originally published in EUG #03

Please note: People considering having Slogger's Master RAM Board fitted should not attempt the below sound project as the jack socket may occupy the spot needed for the Master RAM Board's switch!

After the recent successful rebuild of an Electron, a few ideas were tried which may be of interest to others.

On the Electron we have three outputs of information:

  1. The RF output from the modulator
  2. The VIDEO output (black and white)
  3. RGB (R-ed), G-reen, B-lue) for monitors that need separate colour inputs. On this socket we also have the sync output

However, we can quite easily convert the video as in (2) to get colour signals out which some monitors will accept. This is shown in Fig 1.

Here we locate the place where Link 4 is shown. Solder a piece of wire across and Hey Presto! we can feed a colour monitor.

Naturally we have to remove the top keyboard cover and carefully remove the plug-in connector. Looking on the left-hand side, we locate the bunch of resistors, Q7 and we can see Link 4 marked on the main board. Link across the top two marked places. C17 is already connected to the PCpads.

Next, in EUG #1 it was suggested that leads be brought out to feed an outside source for better sound. I took this a little further by installing a 3.5mm socket and rewiring using two added wires. This is done quite easily and by plugging in an external jackplug we can feed via a shielded wire to an amplifier or larger speaker. By removing the jackplug we resort to the internal speaker automatically.

Locate the corner on the bottom case and drill a 0.25" hole in a suitable place so that a Plus 1/Rombox can still be fitted without interference. See Fig 2 and Fig 3. Both these jobs can be done without removing the main board if care is taken.