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Atari Lynx II General Maintenance

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Lynx II main board C104471-001 Rev. A with the RF shield removed

Routine care for the Atari Lynx II. Inside the case are the main board, the LCD and backlight assembly, the button membrane on its controller assembly, the speaker and the battery compartment, joined by two ribbon cables and two small connectors.[1] Fault-finding is on the Atari Lynx II Troubleshooting Guide; the original model is covered by Atari Lynx General Maintenance.

Atari's care instructions

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The 1991 owner's manual asks owners to:[2]

  • insert a game card before switching on, and switch off before changing cards;
  • replace all six AA batteries together, never mix old cells with new ones, and never leave weak batteries in the console, where they may leak;
  • keep the battery compartment door shut, and not switch the console on with the door open;
  • keep the Lynx between 40 °F and 120 °F (about 4 °C and 49 °C) and dry, and clean it without harsh chemicals, solvents or strong detergents;
  • not twist or drop it.

If cells have leaked into the battery compartment, see Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage.

Opening the case

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The Atari Lynx Vault's procedure:[1]

  1. Remove the batteries and the battery door.
  2. Lift the rubber hand grips with a plastic spudger or a small flat screwdriver. The adhesive is strong, but once the first few millimetres come up the rest follows. Keep the grips clean so they can be stuck back down.[3]
  3. Remove the four Phillips screws that were under the grips.
  4. Separate the case halves. They clip together as well as being screwed; start at the battery compartment and work round the sides with a little twisting.
  5. Remove the single screw holding the battery compartment and lift the compartment out, raising the board slightly so the spring terminal clears.
  6. Unplug the speaker (two-pin) and backlight (three-pin) connectors. Unlock the button-membrane and LCD ribbon sockets by pulling the top of each socket away from the board, and pull the ribbons out.
  7. Lift out the main board. The screen is held by four screws and the controller assembly by six; the buttons and membrane come out with the controller assembly.

Some boards have a full-size RF shield on the back. The Vault notes that it has to be cut around the cartridge connector to come off, which ruins it.[1]

Lynx II screws (Atari Lynx Vault)
Location Quantity Notes
Case 4 Flat end, 2 mm head
Battery compartment 1 Flat end, 2 mm head
Screen 4 Flat end, 1.65 mm head
Controller assembly 6 Self-tapping, 2 mm head

All fifteen are Phillips screws of 3 mm diameter, between 7.35 mm and 11.85 mm long.[1]

Buttons and membrane

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The Lynx II's buttons press carbon-loaded rubber pads onto a printed membrane, which plugs into the main board through a 14-pin ribbon.[4][5] The Atari Lynx Vault's advice:[4]

  • If some buttons do not respond, look at the fingers at the ribbon end. Where the printed surface has worn through, the ribbon can be trimmed by up to about 3 mm to reach good contact, then pushed fully home in its socket.
  • If buttons trigger on their own, take the membrane out, remove the rubber pads and clean dirt or sticky residue from inside them with isopropyl alcohol. Do not scrub the printed carbon contacts off.
  • Hardened pads can be revived by rubbing the black contact face gently on clean white paper until it leaves a black trail.

Replacement membranes and pads are made today.[4]

Power jack

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The pin inside the DC jack can break where it meets the board. Retro Isle advises a dab of hot-melt glue on each side of the jack to stop it moving, and gives Best Electronics part CB102242 as the replacement jack for the Lynx II.[6]

Power circuit

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The Atari Lynx Vault recommends replacing the MOSFET Q12 and the zener D13 on any Lynx before it is first switched on, because their failure puts 9 V into the processor; the 2N3906 transistors Q7 and Q8 are worth doing at the same time.[7][8] On the Lynx II the zener is a surface-mount part; a through-hole replacement is bent to fit the pads with its stripe towards the RF shield and R74.[7] The procedure is on the Atari Lynx II Troubleshooting Guide.

Capacitors

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The Lynx II board has about twenty electrolytic capacitors. The largest are C41 (470 µF 10 V) on the +5 V output and C39 (100 µF) on the regulator input.[9][10] See the Atari Lynx II Capacitor Replacement Guide.

Speaker

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The Lynx II uses a 40 mm, 16 Ω speaker.[9][6] Igor Kromin replaced a failed one with a 40 mm 8 Ω, 0.5 W speaker, which fitted the original mounting and played louder.[11]

Things that are not faults

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  • The Lynx II will not switch on without a cartridge. Game cards connect cartridge pin 31, which feeds the soft-power inverter, to the supply pin 33.[5]
  • A dark screen with the power light on usually means the backlight has been switched off with its button. The owner's manual gives this as the first check.[2]
  • The picture looks dim from any angle other than the one the brightness wheel was set for.[2]
  • The 1991 manual describes an automatic switch-off after five minutes on batteries, but the slip packed with it says Atari removed this feature.[2]
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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Atari Lynx Vault, "Lynx 2 disassembly steps and Screw size chart" (changed 15 April 2024). Community source.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Atari Corporation, Lynx Portable Color Entertainment System Owner's Manual, 1991: controls (pp. 2-6), batteries (pp. 7-10), precautions (pp. 12-13) and troubleshooting (pp. 14-15), with the "We've made your Atari Lynx even better" slip. Hosted here as File:Atari Lynx II Owner's Manual (1991).pdf.
  3. ↑ Igor Kromin, "Atari Lynx repair - Part 1 - introduction and case disassembly", 11 September 2017. Personal repair log.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Atari Lynx Vault, "Troubleshooting Lynx Model 2 buttons and D-pad" (changed 5 October 2023). Community source.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Atari Lynx Vault, "Atari Lynx Hardware Notes" (changed 3 October 2023), cartridge and button pinouts, reproduced with permission from Osman Celimli. Community source.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Retro Isle, "Lynx Repair Info": DC power jack, no sound. Community source.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Atari Lynx Vault, "Replacing the MOSFET and zener diodes in an Atari Lynx" (changed 4 October 2023). Community source.
  8. ↑ Atari Lynx Vault, "Replacing the 3906 transistors on an Atari Lynx" (changed 5 October 2023). Community source.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Atari Corporation, Schematic Diagram, Lynx II (Hayato), drawing C104247 Rev. 1 (engineering issue), 29 June 1990. Hosted here as File:Atari Lynx II schematic C104247 Rev 1.png.
  10. ↑ Atari Lynx Vault, "Atari Lynx Capacitor Maps" (changed 4 October 2023). Vendor-published community source.
  11. ↑ Igor Kromin, "Atari Lynx repair - Part 3 - broken speaker replacement", 13 September 2017. Personal repair log.


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