Atari Shielding

[karlm]

Hi all.

I'm considering building a new case (yes building, not modifying) for my Falcon. Now, all the Atari's I own have a serious amount of shielding around them. My question is - how necessary is it? The case I'm considering building will be more of a skeleton rather than a typical 'case' so that cooling issues will not be a problem, and I can add a new power supply, DVD rom, etc.
Any hints?

Cheers

karlm.

[alexh]

Shielding is there to reduce the amount of stray electromagnetic radiation that the Falcon produces. There are laws regarding emissions so as not to interfere with other electronic (particularly RF) equipment. Atari had to meet or they would not be able to sell their product .

I think you can leave out the shielding on anything you do. Plus if you use a metal enclosure (such as a PC case) that will do the same job.

[karlm]

Cheers Alex. I was under the impression that it was there to reduce what it outputs, but wanted to make sure. As I stated in the post, the new 'case' will be more a skeleton, and as such I was wondering about the shielding, as skeleton frames have no shielding. I know the RF modulator needs to be shielded so as not to introduce any noise into the output signal, and was wondering if any other parts needed shielding, that's why the question.

So off to my old man's mig welder to build the new one now

cheers

[eeun]

Karlm, I hope you'll post some pictures once your re-case is underway.

I've picked up an STe board, and am currently re-casing it in a heat-damaged STf case. It'll have an Eiffel interface on the back of the case, and I've installed a CF card slot (attached to Popsel and Pera's IDE interface) where the mouse/joystick port was. The keyboard on the original case is covered in sheet styrene.
The case will have to stand vertically, and at some point I'll get around to cutting out some plexiglass for a stand.

No RF shielding on top, but I'm still likely to use the metal plate that goes under the board, just to give some extra support against flexing.

cfslot.jpg

nokeyboard.jpg

[Greenious]

I was under the impression that it was there to reduce what it outputs, but wanted to make sure.

Actually, that's not 100% accurate, the shielding also protects from the emissions from other equipment, not only reducing the emissions from the Atari.

If all other equipment in your room is properly shielded it will never become an issue.

And as alex says, if you build a new case in metal it will do the job aswell.