ColecoVision + Intellivision repair Brisbane - Australia

[namastepat]

Hey guys, so I created an accout here on the advice of a few guys who said this was a great forum and might be able to assist me with my issues.

 

Recently, I managed to grab a dirt cheap, untested Coleco + Intellivision stash off ebay. The whole lot was 50 bucks and I managed to get a fair bit of cool stuff. Picture of the haul can be seen below.

 

http://imgur.com/ASP6G

 

Anyway, I didn't expect much to work, due to the age of the consoles, and funnily enough, nothing really works Well, not nothing, as I will explain below.

 

So, The ColecoVision turns on, but does not show the ColecoVision logo with no cart in the slot, which I was informed should be happening. I gave the Frogger cart a good clean, threw it in and tried a crapload of times to make it work. The best I could get out of the thing was for the Coleco to show a black screen and play a single monotone noise. Sometimes the monotone noise changed from being high pitched to low pitched between turn ons. Without a cart in the slot, it generally shows a black screen, however, every now and then I could jiggle the power switch and make it display some random vertical lines and emit a high pitched buzzing. So, it appears the PSU of the console is fine, and I was reading all about the switch contact issues ColecoVisions face and was thinking this could be my issue.

 

To add some more fuel to the fire, the cool thing is that the Expansion Pack #1 that makes it compatibile with Atari 2600 games works fine. I know that it is totally independent from the Coleco itself, aside from drawing power from it, but I was pretty happy that it works, as the auction came with 20 + Atari games, including a few gems like River Raid and Double Dragon.

 

Anyway, I have 0 experience with electronics, and by 0, I literally mean 0. I pulled the Coleco apart, cleaned out what I could (which was very little) and when I tried to remove the RF shielding I was defeated by the fact that it was soldered to the board in one loaction and I do not even own a soldering iron. This is how bad I am with electronics

 

So, I put the thing back together and for the moment have to be content with simply using it as an Atari 2600. To be honest, I REALLY want that Coleco working. It came with Donkey Kong, Frogger, Turbo and Zaxxon which would be four great games to play on it.

 

Now, for the Intellivsion, as far as I can tell, the thing does not even power on. I really have no way of knowing this, aside from the fact I could not tune it into the TV. As it has no Power LED, I just assume it is not turning on. The Intellivison is of less importance than the Coleco for me at the moment.

 

So, onto the question. I am an Aussie, living in Brisbane and would love to find someone who can fix the Coleco. I am willing to pay someone to do this of course, but I am actually of a mind that I want to stand over their shoulder and learn a few things about it as well. I am really into retro arcade games + consoles and I think it is high time I started learing a bit about fixing the things. Does anyone know of any Aussies who repair retro consoles? Brisbane would be preferable, but I guess I could ship the Coleco to somewhere in Australia if I found someone who could genuinely offer a reputable repair service.

 

Thanks for your help if anyone can assist. If I can get the ColecoVision working I will have a console that was made the same year I was born (1982) and I think that is pretty damn cool

Edited May 3, 2011 by namastepat

[retroillucid]

Contact Yurkie

 

I'm sure he will be able to help you

He's member here known for his fabulous refurbishing services

[namastepat]

Contact Yurkie

 

I'm sure he will be able to help you

He's member here known for his fabulous refurbishing services

 

Already read about him on the forums a great deal, his refurb services seem fantastic. Unfortunately I do not live in the US and it would cost a small fortune to ship the console to the states My aim is to try to find someone in Australia, but the odds don't look good unfortunately.

 

Thanks for the reply though.