Help my Heavy Sixer

[ApolloBoy]

Well, I pulled my Heavy Sixer out of storage recently just to check up on it, then after about 5 minutes of playing it, I remembered why I put it in storage in the first place. After about 5 minutes of play, all the colors go out except for yellow. I took apart the system and cleaned the color pot, but it still didn't do anything. I tweaked the pot while the 2600 was on, and when the colors went out I found that I could get the colors back by adjusting the pot by about a quarter turn or so. So what's causing it to do this? Is the color pot just bad, or is it the 7805 or TIA?

Edited March 20, 2007 by ApolloBoy

[A.J. Franzman]

Could be any of those items, or the power switch, or one of a few other increasingly unlikely items.

 

Can you check the voltage at the power jack, and both sides of the voltage regulator, while the colors are misbehaving?

[chadtower]

Sounds like something is failing once it hits a certain temperature.

[ApolloBoy]

Sounds like something is failing once it hits a certain temperature.

 

Then I'm definitely betting it's the 7805 in that case. How do you remove the 7805 anyway? The heat sink it's attached to is glued to the switchboard and I want to avoid damaging the heat sink or switchboard.

Edited March 20, 2007 by ApolloBoy

[Urchlay]

If it's failing when it gets too hot, you can figure out which component is bad... get some "Dust Off" or other compressed gas (I think Dust Off is butane, not 100% sure. Don't know if it'll work with actual compressed air, either). That stuff is freezing cold when it comes out of the can... let the console run until it fails, then spray the stuff on the suspected bad component, which will cool it off. If you guessed right, the Atari's picture should clear right up.

 

It might turn out to be something other than the hard-to-remove part you were talking about, so it's worth finding out if possible.

[A.J. Franzman]

If you'll provide the voltage readings I asked about, I can tell you if it's the regulator. You might not need to mess with it at all if the problem is the power switch, one of the capacitors, or the color pot.

Edited March 20, 2007 by A.J. Franzman