Vectrex taking a while to switch on

[garryg]

My Vectrex doesn't seem to do anything when it is first switched on. Then after around 30 seconds to a minute I hear sound, and a few mintes after that the screen just comes on. Once the screen is on the vectors are drawn out of alignment, but again after another few minutes the picture appears fine.

Any idea what would cause this? I've heard of on/off switch issues and recapping, but wouldn't want to do this myself and don't know if that would be the issue anyway.

Obviously this doesn't just sound like a power switch issue to me, but could leaky caps do this?


Also anybody know of anyone in Scotland that fixes Vectrex?

[D-Type]

Sounds exactly like a switch problem to me. From memory, there are two poles in the switch, one powers the game PCB, the other the monitor. With age, the grease in the switch goes sticky and the two poles take a while to connect, at different times.

The dodgy video at start up is could be temperature related, something has gone out of spec until it's warm. Might be a cap, I guess, but I wouldn't start with that. Someone who knows what they're doing (not me) could probably look at what the screen is doing and the circuit diagram and reasonably accurately pinpoint what's going on and what's causing it, as long as it's reasonably recognisable as the Vectrex display.

Good luck!

[minsoft]

I agree, power switch.

For the vectors out of alignment until warm...I have two Vectrexes and they both do this. One worse than the other, and the worst one has had the capacitors replaced. It is 'drift', but don't know which component(s) may be responsible. Personally, I just don't worry about it.

[garryg]

Thanks for the replies.
I've been playing around with this a bit more, and some things make sense from what you are saying, and some have got a bit weirder:

Now, even from cold, it seems to be playing sound around 10ish seconds after switch on, and the picture comes in around 30 to 40 seconds. Although it does appear to be running the cartridge even when there is no sound or screen display, as the cartridges come on to the game (or menu) screens and not the boot up screen. Although it does start to show the boot screen once it heats up, as it then shows sound and screen faster.

Thing is, until around the time it starts showing the bootup screen it looks like controller buttons are being pressed (I'm nowhere near the controller) as the games have started by the time screen comes alive, and I don't mean demo mode I mean started in player mode. It even does this with the multi cart, although not with my VecFlash. Once it starts booting up normal, this AutoStart appears to also go away.
Also seem to take a bit longer for the graphics to settle with homebrew that with the original games, although my prototype Trapped cartridge is one of the few that doesn't appear to auto start the game, and pressing any button should start that! So I've no idea that's going on!

Having said all that, to the best of my knowledge, this Vectrex has never been 'fixed' before and has been used over a lot of years! It's definitely usable once it warms up, so I'm not sure if 'fixing' it is the best course of action or not right now, or if something is getting ready to go bang!

I mostly used it before for debugging, to make sure things look ok on the real hardware, so can I trust the drift now?

Now that I've proven to myself that I can burn a ROM and make a cartridge, I was thinking about restarting my (lost) full sized game using the Trapped engine. That took just over 4K so what can I get in the full 32K of the eprom?

[minsoft]

I know some games auto-start, eg Mine Storm. Maybe the multi cart is meant to launch a game automatically after a while? Sometimes controller issues can be related to a bad sound chip, but if everything works ok when it's warmed up, that probably rules that out.

Some people recommend replacing all the electrolytic capacitors, for peace of mind. However it might make no difference to the issues. Personally I'd fix the power switch (or even bypass it which is very easy, as a temporary fix) and see how it goes from there.

As I say I replaced the caps in one of mine, and it still has quite noticeable drift when cold (sometimes worse than others). Just allow time for it to warm up if you want to check your game on it. Some homebrews are pushing the Vectrex more than the original games so it's common for the drift to be more noticeable on those.

I'm not familiar with your Trapped game, but I'm working on my first Vectrex game, and 32K is a decent amount to play with!

[garryg]

Jan 18, 2021 17:22:30 GMT -5 minsoft said:

.... Personally I'd fix the power switch (or even bypass it which is very easy, as a temporary fix) ...



Thanks, I may do that and see if it starts up faster, my thoughts were that the tube is going.
So a fsulty power switch is a better prospect!

I do have another controller (I was working on converting one of my games to duel control  a while back, but never finished it) so I can dig that out and see if it does the same thing.



Anybody know if these are separate issues or not?

[minsoft]

I had the exact same issue with the screen not coming on, as D-Type says one side of the switch works which powers up the logic board, the other doesn't which is why the screen doesn't come on. I'm pretty sure that's your problem there.


The controller problem will be something different, although not sure it is a problem at all if it works ok when the screen is on...