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Showing results for tags 'repair'.
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Hi All, I am new on here as I have just rescued my old TI99/4a from my Mum & Dads loft and fired it up but does not seem to be working properly. Kinda gutted as I was looking forward to seeing all my programs I created when I was an imaginative teenager. Do you know where I could get this repaired or any advice on how I could repair it myself? I live in the UK. The computer switches on but the screen display is not right as you can see by the attached photo. Many Thanks. Steve
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I've got a Halo edition Xbox where the hard drive finally conked out on me a little while ago. I'm interested in resurrecting the machine even though it seems likely I'm out of luck on recovering any of my old data, but I'm not sure what the steps are for this scenario, and Google has been kind of confusing. I've got an Xecuter 2.6 chip to install on the board, and a new compatible HDD is on my shopping list - I just don't know what to do from there once I've got the chip and hard drive in place. Ideally I want to be able to boot up the original dashboard along with a homebrew one by pushing different buttons (to maintain some semblance of original hardware), I don't know if there's a process to setting that up with a fresh HDD? -
Hi there everybody, I have the following Issue with a Lynx I. Left on the D-pad is not working. After closer examination of the PCB it is clear what happened: The trace of the left D-pad button runs through the center of the 4 D-pad, exactly where the central tilting axis of the D-pad rests on the PCB. Due to heavy use, the part of PCB directly underneath the D-pad axis has started deteriorating, severing the trace of the D-pad left button. I tried repairing it using conducting ink, but it was for me impossible to only expose the copper of the trace and the trace is very fine. The result was no connection or a shortcut with the surrounding ground, resulting in continues left-input. So I cleaned it up again. I attached a foto of how it looks now. Has anyone experience with repairing this issue or similar PCB damage? I have already been looking into repair using copper or silver wire and using insulating arcylic or silicon based conformal coatings, but I am still a novice at this. Any tips on good PCB repair tools products for hobbyists are welcome. Is it me, or is running this trace directly underneath the area, where the tilt-axis touches the PCB a design fault or not? Thanks advance!
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So a friend of mine sent me a TRS-80 Model III that her dad owned, along with a handful of software. It's a 48k model with two disk drives, so it was the high-end Model III that Radio Shack sold. It arrived a few days ago, and I've been checking it out to make sure everything works, and for the most part, it appears to be in pretty good condition. It's seen little use over the years, and has spent a large amount of its time in storage. Unfortunately, it does seem to have developed some issues over the years, and I wanted to check with the community to get some advice on what I need to do to repair these things, and if I need parts, where I can get those. Here are the issues I've found thus far: The brightness and contrast pots are both seized up. My guess is due to oxidation over the years, possibly from being in storage and not really being used a lot. Neither of the two disk drives seem to be getting any power. The computer will turn on and boots up with the "CASS?" message in the upper-left corner. The disk drives do not spin when switched on. I'm suspecting the power board that controls the disk drives, and my guess is one or more capacitors have failed. I did a quick glance at the board last night and didn't see any that looked like they had been physically burned or anything like that, but I can supply photos later tonight if that would be of help. One of the disk drives has a broken latch. The latch can still operate and will still hold the disk down, but one of the plastic bits has broken off, and sometimes when you set the latch, the drive mechanism inside pops loose and goes back up. It's a minor issue, and shouldn't affect anything so long as I slowly set the latch and make sure it's secured down. This is the least of the issues I've found, and one I can easily fix later. The most pressing of the issues, of course, is the power board, because the brightness and contrast are already set at a comfortable level. It's just that at some point I'd like to fix that as well so I can make adjustments as needed later.
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I just purchased an Atari Space Age Joystick, but the red trigger fire button doesn't work. Everything else works fine, and is super smooth, but only button won't work. Can anyone make any suggestions as to how to fix it cause I'm at a loss as it is very different from a standard joystick.
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Hey guys! I've been playing with my CV a lot lately and recently got the game Nova Blast off of eBay. I cleaned and repaired everything on the CV a while ago including the controllers but just now found out that the ASTERISK (*) button on one of them doesn't seem to work. Nova Blast needs this button pressed to start the game. My question is, everything else (as far as I can tell) works on the keypad (even the # key) except the * button. Is there something I can do to locate the cause of the malfunction? In other words, I am not sure how 12 buttons on the keypad are translated into 1 or 2 wires that feed into the CV but it seems to me if all the buttons except this one work the problem may be with the ribbon cable? If so, is this something that can be repaired easily? Thanks, Larry
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I just picked up a pristine looking 2600 heavy sixer but when I turn it on, i'm getting blue lines usually across the screen (or other colors) and the occasional high pitched whine. It's so damn clean i'm really hoping to fix it. I'm new to Atari repair , so before I crack into it I was wondering what I should look for and if this is a fairly common problem? Appreciate any help.
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Does anyone have any tips/tricks for taking apart cartridges that don't screw together? I have a Popeye cart that looks like someone buried it in the dirt for safe keeping, and I'd like to take it apart for a full cleaning.
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Picked up an Atari 1040 STe with a SC1224 Color monitor used (craigslist) for a good price. It has been working all fine and dandy except a couple odd issues. The volume knob is Glitchy in that it only sometimes works and the sound will cut out and after about 20 minutes of usage.. The thing just REEKS!!! as in the entire apartment smells like "stale burnt popcorn" as someone in the chat room so eloquently suggested. This really makes me sad the monitor is a cute little thing and I wanted to enjoy it for long periods of time without worry. The smell is so strong that even after opening a window with a fan on the highest setting blowing on it, it is still lingering there. I'm getting worried the damn thing might even explode so it can't be too safe to use plus the smell is causing me migraine headaches. -
Well I saved the Saturn and below I did the video on how I went about replacing the laser. I did not go into too much troubleshooting info since I did swap assemblies with another unit. I had to justify the failed laser but just in case anyone encounters similar problems maybe this will help out. Comments are welcome. SAVE THE SATURN! -
I have an Indus GT and it works fine, but sounds like hell. I very seldom use it, but has been bugging me that it's in need of TLC. Took it apart and as I figured the belt is more than fairly worn. Anyone know of a good place to order one (part number?)? I still have a handful of old floppies I need to copy and don't think the current belt will make it! (though, so far so good) I Use a SIDE2 and SIO2SD, so after I finish my transfers may trade or sell (prefer to trade) but haven't decided yet. Thanks!
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My Atari 2600 Jr which I've had since my youth has recently began having troubles. I hadn't used it for decades but then pulled it out a couple years ago to start playing with the kids. It had been working great until recently. Basically it will work for a good bit of time without issue (maybe 10 or 15 minutes or so) and then in the middle of gameplay will suddenly go to a black screen of death. After that happens it will do that almost right away with games until the unit has "cooled down". I know I could probably find another used system on ebay but if I could find a reasonably price repair service, I would prefer that. Any one provide such service? Thanks!
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Upon getting back into my Intellivisions this past week, I have been noticing a common problem with the model 1 units. Now, the controllers on both my Sears units have excellent flex circuits left in them and are very responsive. Well, except the controller with the bad cord. My original model 1 I bought years back for $5 has always had problems with the disk on the left controller, so I decided to investigate. The circuit under the disks seem to be prone to not only wearing through the plastic, but also the ink or whatever they used start to look burned and flakes off! The controllers on my mostly dead Tandyvision showed similar issues, but one was good enough to act as a donor for my model 1 for now. Now, here's some questions: Is there a way to slow this issue and even extend the life of the controllers? The Intellivision seems to be a solid console, with my Tandyvision being the only unit I have so far to get a major problem. Also, is there a way to repair the controllers? I am wondering if one can carefully apply an adhesive tape to repair the split plastic, then maybe paint the circuit back on with conductive ink?
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Good morning, everyone! I am trying to collect my materials for replacing the LEDs on a 1200XL in my collection, and the LED bulbs arrived yesterday. However, the packets are labeled anything from 2v to 2.7v and variances both between as well as outside of that range, depending on the color. The variations I expected, after reading up on LED lamps. However, the 2v-etc voltages of the lamps are making me anxious, because I thought they were supposed to be 5v (with variations related to color of lamp). As if that wasn't enough, I happened across a site explaining the myth of a 5v LED, as seen here: http://led.linear1.org/myth-of-the-5-volt-led/ The last thing I want to do is drop in one of these lamps (much less an entire header that needs replaced LEDs!), and plow 5v through bulbs that can only handle 2v-etc and watch the 1200XL light up in the space of a smoking VBLANK. Could somebody offer me some direction? Will it be okay? Are there any modifications I need to make with these bulbs so they'll work with the Atari's 5v system? Or am I being anxious over this thing called "forward voltage" when the lamps will be just fine? Thank you, in advance! Timothy Kline If anyone needs to know what I'm hoping to use, I purchased the LED lamps shown at the link below: http://r.ebay.com/xc1GZz
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Hey guys I'm going to try and make a long story short. back in Jaunary I got a broken Vectrex. I was told it had alignment issues. I trouble shooted and even replaced a few IC chips and got no results. Well today I repaired my Sega Mega Drive which got me motivated. So, here I am. The main problem is that the vectors displayed on my monitor don't connect and form what they should be. I shot a video to show exactly what I mean. Any help is appreciated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQU7EVS3rho&list=UU3dpEsu_UykWMc9nPHdHwIg
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Good evening, everyone! I'm so far behind the curve compared to everyone here that I will never be able to catch up-- but I'm enjoying things in the meantime. But as I try to figure out the limits of my repairing skills-- mostly involving soldering/desoldering and how my heart meds' side effects impact both (wow! my hands really shake THAT much?! lol)-- I'm curious about what methods you use when it comes to repairing/modding your system. For example, I am using a 1027 printer's mainboard as my starting point for desoldering, removing everything I can. But wow! There are two items that seem to be eluding my determination, including the capacitor I hope will replace the leaking cap in one of my 1200XLs. Obviously my desoldering iron w/ pump is hot enough for everything else that is small (resistors, diodes, yada yada), but that cap is soldered solid. Next, I'm going to try removing it using my 60w solder iron and desoldering wick which should arrive tomorrow-- and I'm hoping for a better outcome as far as that capacitor is concerned. Is there a "trick" to those capacitors and other components with a similar fat solder point? Do you use a wick for them? All suggestions and recommendations are more than welcome! Thank you, in advance! Timothy Kline -
I picked up my first Lynx and about 30 games at the weekend. It's a Lynx II in great condition, and with it came two other brand new and boxed but non-working Lynx IIs. They were dead on arrival when they were new, so even if I can't get them working they might be useful for spare parts. Dead Lynx A completely unresponsive: I tried with both fresh batteries and a Lynx PSU and there is no response when I press the 'on' button. I tried connecting the negative battery terminal to the negative (ground?) pin of the speaker jack (which I saw in a YouTube video) - when I did this the screen backlight comes on but there is still no response. Problem Lynx B works perfectly except for the screen display being fixed solid black. The backlight switches on and off, sound plays, buttons respond etc., but the 'brightness' setting does nothing. Again I tried both batteries and a PSU. I tried switching over the motherboards of these two machines, to see if Lynx B's problem is just with its screen, but there was still just a solid black image. I was wondering if I could swap a McWill screen into this machine, but I'm not sure if this problem would persist with that screen too- is there any way I can test whether that would work? Is there any other A/B testing I can do between these two machines to help identify the problem components? Are there any other standard things I can test for? Thanks in advance!
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Hey there Atari Age! Apologies for my very first post being a question but times are dire on my workbench. A friend handed me his childhood Pong console (C-100) that he had dug out of a closet and lamented that the video was weird on his TV. After lecturing him on the intricacies of "classic" video devices on new display hardware, I saw the issue he was actually having. The colors and signal attenuation were all wonky and the screen would often appear split into four quadrants. Even worse, there was no sound to be had from the speaker. In my head I immediately changed my opinion to RF output issues. Possibly a simple fix with some adjustments or in-line amplification. After trying both go these methods, the problem persists and in fact has gotten even worse with the display showing barely any output whatsoever. Since the problem is getting worse, I'm making the assumption that the electrolytic caps are probably done for and might need a replacement. My question to all of you is: anyone seen this or similar issue? What steps did you take to remedy? This is definitely the oldest console I've worked on and in principle the electronics are just plain ol' electronics (with really rough solder jobs sometimes... I just spent almost an hour trying to remove the main power conditioning cap) but there's probably a lot of quirks and intricacies that I don't know about. I'm much more familiar with the Nintendo/Sega 8-bit era and beyond. Any thoughts? Anecdotes? Well wishes? Glad to be here with you all. Cheers, Ian
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I've just bought a used working 1050 in preparation for the new BitWriter mod. On opening it up for cleaning I found what looks like a repair. The shielding was installed as normal, the bottom of the board is untouched and it works fine otherwise. I do have the spare chips removed from my Mega Speedy install. Thoughts?
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I just found this youtube series of videos and I think they're quite interesting. It's from an old VHS, so the quality isn't very good, and I noticed a couple of inaccuracies about how the 6532 is wired to the joystick ports, but it's still very useful for someone learning how the VCS works and how to fix the most common problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc6CYLFjKoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eGJdNxFuXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rxuD4mxBZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb6FZ8rB5gU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBHKWYJAPyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBVjD84nwNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYGMrUJado https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvjdP79m4go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD1Ci9L1AuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdh4vt8UEtI
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I have an old US Colecovision power supply that game with my system, but I've been interested in replacing it for a while - it's been buzzing, and given the periodic graphical screwups I've been concerned that the issue is that power supply dying. I finally bit the bullet and bought a Canadian supply on ebay that was listed as tested and working, etc. Well when I got it and plugged it in, nothing happened. The game screen didn't pop up (though the static patterns on my tv changed slightly). I complained to the seller, who sent me another one he had available... same issue. Now one bad supply could happen, sure, but getting two seems a bit weird. Anyone have any idea what could be wrong, and how I could test that and fix it? The US supply still boots up the system, so I'm inclined to think it's related to the Canadian supplies themselves... unless there's an issue on the power jack's pins or something.
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Hi all, I am hoping someone on here with some experience repair an asteroids PCB can help me troubleshoot a minor issue I am having. My left rotate is sticking intermittently. I have replaced the buttons so I know it is a problem on the logic board but I don't know where to look. Every once in a way the ship gets stuck rotating left and then i can rotate right and it will eventually fix itself during game play. It only crops up once in a while. Any ideas?
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If no one on these forums has any of these, would appreciate being pointed in the right direction to find them (or instructions on how to navigate the Best Electronics site to actually BUY something (or even FIND CX10 parts)!) I am looking for: - Replacement springs (x5) for a CX10 Heavy Sixer (will take larger quantity if required) - Plastic board (not sure what it's called) that CX10 springs fit into and that covers the PCB to depress the metal domes. (x1) - Button springs (x2) for CX40 - Replacement posts ((white post with ring on bottom that slides inside the rubber sleeve (x4)) for CX40 And if someone has one for sale(ya right)... a beige (grey?) CX40 as released with the XE game console. Will require shipping to Canada.
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Hey guys, so a few weeks ago I purchased an "as-is" ColecoVision off eBay. The graphics were all garbled on the display, so I assumed it was either a power or video RAM problem. Being a very novice electronics tinkerer, I figured I could give a go at repairing the console. After replacing the power switch, verifying the power supply was providing the appropriate voltages, replacing the video RAM with the 5v RAM mod, and repairing some broken traces on the RAM bus I got functioning video! However, I am not getting any audio out of the Coleco. I next wired an RCA cord to Pins 7 and 8 on the audio chip and confirmed it is outputting audio. Suspecting a broken trace somewhere between the audio chip and the RF modulator (due to my experience with the memory bus) I used my multimeter to follow the signal from Pin 7 (audio out) along the various hops on the board. Confirming no break between pin 7 and the last point before entering the RF modulator, I removed the metal box from around the modulator, separated the daughterboard from the modulator, and reconnected the board with wires so I may explore inside it. I have found no broken trace or component between pin 7 and C88. The only symptoms I now have are the staticy audio (and no game audio as far as I know), and the video signal occassionaly gives out. I'm stumped as to what the possible issues could be. I've made a YouTube video of the issue in hopes of getting some interesting leads from those on this forum. That video may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME-nVOafMpA Thank you for any time and advice provided for this.
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Hello all, I work at a Disc Replay, I see games come in all the time, but these two games are causing me trouble. I have: Cleaned the pins with alcohol I have not: Tested with multi-meter Re-soldered chips Bought a donor cart for a possible switch? Cleaned with contact cleaner Knights of the Round and SMW + SMAS: http://i.imgur.com/l8b8pmW.jpg http://i.imgur.com/WcX2fKG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/hTulJc7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tTu0rHr.jpg Do you see something that I don't on these carts? Should I put more time and effort into getting these to work? Thanks.
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