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Maraakate

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About Maraakate

  • Birthday 04/06/1988

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    Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

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  1. Great thread. I've always hoped someone would reverse engineer this eventually. If it gets to a point where a server can be properly assembled and ran I'd be OK with trying to setup a VoIP node as a volunteer/donation project. I'm a programmer myself, but only in C-type languages. I can do a bit of ASM, but not a lot. So hats off to everyone here making progress.
  2. Guess it was either cleaning the PCBs or that audio line touching the metal case sometimes. In any case, it's been a couple of days and been using it every day seems fine.
  3. Hi Andrew, Awesome work. If you plan on making the bare boards available with a mouser or digikey parts list I'd be interested in one. Would be nice just for the simple fact that you could have a new PCB that could be upgraded to 1% tolerance resistors in an effort to reduce colour drift during warmup and for long term reliability. The 6-switcher (and probably pre-jr, yes?) PCBs are difficult to desolder and replace components on. Almost as difficult as the vectrex.
  4. Small update. I took some IPA and a tooth brush and cleaned up the boards. While I was at it I noticed the audio line that goes into the power board was touching on the metal case. I don't think this was exactly the problem, but doesn't hurt to fix it. So I've fixed that. So far, so good. The ultimate test will be bringing it over to the GFs house and hooking it up to their LCD and seeing how it holds up on first boot.
  5. Well it appears the problem now instead manifests itself from a cold boot. I've noticed if I leave the machine off and come back to it a couple of hours later then the problem exists for quite some time then magically fixes itself. This morning I powered it up, same problems. So I tried wiggling things around, no change. Took out the heat gun and ran it all over the logic board and switch board. No change, except for the colour drift which is to be expected. A couple of seconds on the mod board and then it popped right into place and was perfect. So I'm not entirely sure it could be the mod board only because the video was wonky on Pin 12. And yes, +5V is good going into that board. However, I'd have to take a peek at the schematic. Maybe something is intermittently ground on that mod board and/or changing amount of draw from being tapped to that mod board? I'll reflow solder on it just to be sure. Only thing I can think of after this is to get a can of freon and spray the boards once the screen is GOOD and see where it immediately gets hay wire after spraying and if that doesn't find it then it's time to bust out the scope.
  6. Well of course, couldn't be that easy! 😄 I got bored of waiting, tried taking a heat gun at progressively hotter settings on the boards and no change. Played the game for quite some time and realized I've been playing it for over 30 minutes. So, put it back together (minus the top) quickly and been playing for another 30 minutes. Got 5664 in Kaboom!, a personal best (normally I peak at 3300-3500). Maybe it's magically fixed itself or the heatgun knocked something into place or a solder blob fell off the board (already checked for solder blobs before...). No idea, but I'll keep playing and keeping an eye on it. If it crops up again I'll start testing around the TIA with the scope and by the 4050.
  7. I suppose you are right. It says on Console5 that it can cause no trigger from joystick or no sync on 6 switch models. Still waiting on the unit to act up (funny it's been acting up this entire time until now!)
  8. Also, sorry I think I missed part of your post earlier with the diagram. Right now, for no real reason, the A26 is cooperating so I have the scope on the 5V going into the mod PCB. So far it is stable, waiting to see if it changes when the screen starts acting up.
  9. By static image, yes I think this is possible with the start screen of Kaboom!. I noticed when the problem isn't happening the output on Pin 12 is stable.
  10. Sorry, what is UAV? Do you mean like "Ultra A/V mod" or something like that? Because, this board is basically a rehash of the old Ben Heck mod with an extra transistor to boost output so it didn't rely on attaching itself to that.
  11. So the 4050 is part of what mixes it? I don't know if I'll be able to swap it for a week unless I happen to find a socket and IC from spare vectrex parts. Might be difficult as I moved a couple of years ago and haven't had to open up a vectrex in a long time *knock on wood*. I'm willing to check different signals off the TIA. They should be stable and not moving up and down (showing wild voltage changes) on a static screen. That to me would indicate the TIA itself is likely fine. What pins are good ones to check in the mean time?
  12. The 4050 is not in a socket. I might, MAYBE, I have a spare from stuff when I worked on my Vectrex units but it's a tossup if I can find it. I thought the 4050 was part of the joystick input or no? Do you know of a way to test if mine is bad without blind replacement?
  13. Yes, I desoldered the entire RF unit. The only initial problem I had with the board (besides it's crud supplied wiring) was that it has you remove a transistor on the logic board. Well, they have you snip it. I desoldered it and found out that this wasn't completing the vias and had to use some wrapping wire to fix this in order to get video again. I suspected that this was not holding up, and I checked that area today after the 7805, etc. replacement but I can try and look harder again. I'm really perplexed, because usually for intermittent solder joint stuff, I have found that flexing the boards usually triggers some kind of change but this does not.
  14. Thanks for the reply, I can check the 5V on the composite mod board, but considering it's happening before that it must be a bad component or dry solder joint somewhere on the logic board. Do you still want me to test that? I know how to use the scope to see waveforms and the like, but diagnosing further gets a bit beyond me at times. I'm guessing what I should be able to do is trace back pin 12 to the next thing and check the waveform before and after those components? I would guess, that at some point in the chain it should be a stable waveform and the component after that would be the bad one or bad solder joint, yes? Where is the actual output on the TIA for video? I could also probe here with the scope and see if it's correct.
  15. Here's a video showing the scope with TV so you can see it's happening from OUT of Pin 12 on the logic board. This eliminates the possibility that it has anything to do with my TV, RCA cables, or the switch board:
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