Long time since last real update, been some neat vectrex things in the last year. Still enjoy gaming on mine in some fashion at least a couple times a week.
CTDE overlays are still being produced and sold, around the 50 sold mark I found a material set that was the same quality as the 7 but had 2 more colors (tint and teal). So I transferred over to the 9 color set without raising price or updating sale thread. :p
The tint one is nice, gives the unit a clean look.
There's a guy on the twittergrambooks named Laurence that does some cool UV overlays, nabbed a couple from him and I came up with a small light hood to use them vertical or horizontal. Added some thin metal strips to the inside of the vectrex case where the light hood snaps into place with the magnets.
Last winter stumbled upon this neat project
http://www.razmasynth.com/io/VectrexControl.html, reminded me of the old Heathkits I watched dad build as a young lad. Has some cool features and works well as a pass through auto fire unit. Great as a bench remote to get through test cart screens while setting up unit.
Funny thing, original plan was for #1 and #15 to be my 2 controllers, but once #14 was built I never did #15 but all the finished the parts were in a box and I finally assembled #15 for myself late this July. :p Sometimes I can get real lazy with things, nice to get something off the todo pile.
There's a 3D print file for a vectrex in horizontal mode, had PL1 print me one, his print was great, the stand design was... ummmm, borderline pathetic. Came up with this mdf and 1x2 stand last winter with some specs in mind. When playing in vert or horiz the center of the screen is at same height, pitched back nicely and unit was secure. 3D design offered non of these considerations.
Kept thinking about a design that would be fold-able, minimal, have a small footprint and be safe. With some aluminum angle and threaded rod I came up with something pretty cool. Place stand on side of unit, hold in place with one hand, lift unit with 2 hands and set unit on its side. When tube is aligned in front of you you see no skewed lines from stand, slope compensation is handled on back legs, also all legs are a different length so that tube is perfectly level when playing.
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During the summer I nabbed a filthy working unit off CL locally for $200, already had the controller overlay on hand. Full tear down, cleaning, full recap/ integrator caps/ voltage regs/ calibration to service manual specs and LM386 sound amp board as the much cheaper "obtanium buzzoff" option.
Cleaned and ready for many years of action.
For those that know the vecmulti, it only offers one level of menu sorting. Came up with an idea to use a microSD extension cable and a dual microSD switcher so that's there's some separation of game types that can be switched on fly. Was able to lend backup unit with modded vecmulti to a coworker and there was no confusion of what they were playing vs. a super long list of stuff in alphabetical order.
Upcoming vecfever update will include the entire CCPU (pretty f'ing amazing) game collection in static binary translation glory. Been testing it for Thomas almost all summer pretty much and wanted some custom overlays for the games that had them. Used mah little cutter and pieced them together on backside with some good trans tape. Battlezone was one that I came up with using the same method last winter, so it was easy to figure out the CCPU stuff for myself.
GCE overlay collection is complete and the number of "other" overlays has grown to a total of 48 and they all needed a larger and more appropriate home.
Always fun stuff....
good day.
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Topic: Got me a Vectrex. (Read 66067 times)
