Retrofixes CV Mod

[polyex]

Installed the Retrofixes Colecovision Mod and I am getting distortion on the top of the screen. The problem is only with certain games like Bump N Jump, and Arctic Adventure among others. I have ordered some new cables hoping that will clear it up. Anyone else had this problem?

 

 

 

[towmater]

Probably a corny suggestion, but have you tried a longer RCA cable to see if attenuating the signal slightly effects the tearing?

[polyex]

Probably a corny suggestion, but have you tried a longer RCA cable to see if attenuating the signal slightly effects the tearing?

Yes, I tried a couple cables I had laying around with lengths of between 6 and 15 feet.

[Swami]

Did you try a different TV? I have seen some AV mods do weird things to CRT screens. I had an RCA CRT that played my ColecoVision AV mod fine but got scrambled signal (but good sound) with my Atari 2600 junior AV mod. On my other CRTs: pasasonic 29" and sharp 27", the CV AV mod also played fine but Atari Junior mod had this blocky black border around it, but had otherwise good signal and sound. Both were fine on the Vizio 32" LCD.

[imstarryeyed]

That picture looks like a classic SYNC issue. Screens on my arcade games look that way when the sync wires are not connected correctly. I am not sure how this little board works but if it uses sync then I would imagine that it uses either CSYNC which is composite sync or just composite signal with SYNC.

 

I can only guess but I think it looks like this version needs CSYNC which can be stripped out of the Composite signal. Many many arcade games and consoles games need CSYNC but some can live with Composite, others need just Composite sync without the composite signal.

 

If you are tech enough you can get a Sync stripper chip and wire it up and strip out the composite. This of course is just a suggestion based on a screenshot. If I get some more time I will look up that board you bought and how it works and see if I can make heads or tails of it.

 

Hope this gives you at least a lead to lookup some stuff..

[Bmack36]

What points did you use to connect your wires to?

Edited September 28, 2017 by Bmack36

[polyex]

What points did you use to connect your wires to?

It was 12volt , video and ground from the rf "board"

[polyex]

Did you try a different TV? I have seen some AV mods do weird things to CRT screens. I had an RCA CRT that played my ColecoVision AV mod fine but got scrambled signal (but good sound) with my Atari 2600 junior AV mod. On my other CRTs: pasasonic 29" and sharp 27", the CV AV mod also played fine but Atari Junior mod had this blocky black border around it, but had otherwise good signal and sound. Both were fine on the Vizio 32" LCD.

 

I picked up another CRT ($5, can't have too many), and it looks ok on that TV.

[Swami]

 

I picked up another CRT ($5, can't have too many), and it looks ok on that TV.

Just curious. Was the second crt smaller than the first one that you had the problems with? Heard dubious theories it may have to do with higher resolution in larger TVs and the AV mod transmits a fixed resolution or the TV has some kind of processing at the edges to give crisper edges and it warps the picture.

[polyex]

Just curious. Was the second crt smaller than the first one that you had the problems with? Heard dubious theories it may have to do with higher resolution in larger TVs and the AV mod transmits a fixed resolution or the TV has some kind of processing at the edges to give crisper edges and it warps the picture.

No, the larger screen (both Emerson) worked.