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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 19, 2018 8:58:08 GMT -5
Hi Vectrex enthusiasts!
I recently went through all of my collection of game consoles and computers to see if they still work and one of the casualties of time seem to be my Vectrex. In all honesty, it has been slightly problematic for several years but now the screen is unresponsive. I can hear the built-in game running in the background and can hear the responses from button presses (shooting, thrust, death and so on) but the screen is a complete darkness.
I'm pretty sure it's not the infamous 'white dot' problem so what else could it be and might it be possible to fix it? I have a trusty multi meter so just tell me what to check.
Thanks in advance!
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 23, 2018 3:58:22 GMT -5
Welcome to the Vectorgaming forum and thank you for registering, macrossvf1. Just to make sure: Have you tried out changing the brightness (knob at the back of the unit)?
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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 23, 2018 17:44:30 GMT -5
Nope, it's not the brightness. However I've done some more research into the subject and I'm currently planning to replace all capacitors inside the machine.
Something I haven't been able to figure out yet is where on the circuit boards I can find which revision of the Vectrex I have. It's either supposed to be 2GE or 3GE right?
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Post by vtk on Nov 23, 2018 18:54:37 GMT -5
at the rear of the tube neck, where you have some glass, can you see glowing orange light through that glass?
ps. if you have a multimeter and can test voltages, that would be useful
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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 24, 2018 5:20:51 GMT -5
I'm assuming the orange light you are talking about is only visible with the unit turned on, right?
Also, I do very much have a multi meter, I just need to know where to put the probes in order to take the correct measurements. Wouldn't want to cause a short circuit.
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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 24, 2018 5:34:34 GMT -5
When reading through the list of caps needed I find one that's marked as BP (C409 .47uF 50v (BP)).
Is that a bi-polar cap or is it something else?
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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 24, 2018 14:43:28 GMT -5
Sometimes you have to go all the way. I was originally only trying to find which revision I got but one thing led to another and I ended up with this. And despite all this work I still don't know the revision! At least it will be easy to replace all capacitors now, as well as cleaning it. Unfortunately I broke a tiny wire going into the speaker during the teardown process so I will likely have to replace it.
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Post by chopperthedog on Nov 27, 2018 17:05:00 GMT -5
What does the little white sticker on the bottom of the back shell say? I think I see the same sticker on the angled part of the logic pcb good day.
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Post by macrossvf1 on Nov 28, 2018 16:02:12 GMT -5
Nope, that sticker is just a string of numbers that have no meaning to me, it doesn't at all say 2GE or 3GE. However I did figure out a solution: I counted the two types of polystyrene capacitors the motherboard has.
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