Stunt Cycle SC-450 teardown

[Rob Mitchell]

This afternoon I took the Stunt Cycle down to its bits for a complete cleaning .. I did everything but take the rubber grips off the plastic shafts .. I’ll clean the pot with deoxit to keep it working smoothly .. and the switches too.

 

The pot is 100k Ohm .. nice clean spring to make the grip return to rest.

 

I am thinking of adding a port to the back of the unit so that I can connect it to other consoles .. like the Vectrex.

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Rob Mitchell

[Rob Mitchell]

Back together again with a new shorter RF cable.  I shined up the switches with a dremel tool brush.

 

note:  the spring return pot cannot be used for the Vectrex or Lunar Lander thruster  .. yes I tried to make it work with both.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Rob Mitchell

[+Stephen]

Nice.  Unfortunately, the metal trim piece on mine is partially delaminated and curved.  I'd love to fix that at some point.

[chas10e]

To properly open one of these you need to remove the left handle grip ( hair dryer to heat and expand it slightly as it is quite difficult the first time )

 

Yeah it's a regular potentiometer, the spring for the throttle is wrapped around the shaft for the right handle. Did yours go back together ok ?

 

I'd still like to know a source for the Vectrex potentiometers

 

[Rob Mitchell]

I chose not to take the rubber hand grips off their shafts because I was just cleaning things up and investigating the pot.   It went back together just fine.

 

Problem with Stunt Cycle is that the mechanism limits the range of the pot which on the Vectrex registered from 1/2 UP to full UP when I tested it.  Adding resistors changed nothing.

 

Some variable joysticks can be modified to work with the Vectrex with the addition of resistors to the outside tabs of the pots.

[Kokovec69]

On 4/13/2020 at 5:13 PM, chas10e said:

I'd still like to know a source for the Vectrex potentiometers

 

The Vec uses three resistors in series (10K joy, 10K pot, 4.7K resistor) that are connected across +/-5V rails.
The 10K pot is adjusted to swing between +/-2.5V (from what I remember).
The output of the pots are sent through an ADC (successive approximation) so the +/-2.5V swing is critical to getting an accurate reading of the joystick.

[chas10e]

not trying to thread-jack:

 

On 9/25/2020 at 3:32 PM, Kokovec69 said:

The Vec uses three resistors in series (10K joy, 10K pot, 4.7K resistor) that are connected across +/-5V rails.
The 10K pot is adjusted to swing between +/-2.5V (from what I remember).
The output of the pots are sent through an ADC (successive approximation) so the +/-2.5V swing is critical to getting an accurate reading of the joystick.

 

it was the physical potentiometer with the auto centering spring inside I was looking for. I did fix one with a broken spring using an atari cart spring and that worked pretty ok.

 

 

[Kokovec69]

That's a really clever fix.
Vectrex controllers are getting harder to find.
That's why I decided to build an adapter.
You can build your own if you like: https://github.com/Kokovec/Vectrex-Playstation-2-Controller-Adapter

 

[Richlb]

I have a system that doesn't produce any sound from the unit. Are the speakers notorious for breaking? Or is it more likely a problem with another component?