Vector-gasm... Cosmic Chasm!

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Xiaou2:
Just a heads up...

There is a guy that Ive seen on Youtube, that I believe has made new boards for Vector equipment.. and much more.

His Channel is called " Arcade Jason "

bobbyb13:
I've been keeping an eye on that guy but hadn't seen that video yet!
Appreciate the tip Xiaou2.

Jason has actually been helpful to me in getting this machine working.
I have been really interested in his Masteroids project, especially now that it appears that there is color capability added to that project.

One way ArcadeJason was massivley helpful was his video on yoke winding.
He speaks the truth- it is NOT really that hard to do.
I screwed up by winding my ferrites in opposite directions the first time around.
Man, did that ever make the HV chatter more like a shriek.

Second time around was much better.
He confirmed for me that the much lower value I wound up with for resistance/inductance was still ok, even though it was 30-40% lower than what I had read- from what I could find anyway.

And this time around I came up with an easy way to manage the spool of magnet wire while I was at it.

Clamp a huge screwdriver to your bench with a bit of tilt to it to keep the spool from falling off.

I still have no idea why Jason, Barry, Mario, Chad, et al aren't regulars in posting their work over here (where it would be appreciated!) instead of taking heat from all the grouchiest people in the klov crowd or having all of it reside in such a disheveled fashion over on fb.

The hobby as a whole would benefit greatly from a larger dissemination of their efforts- especially outside of social media crap like facefart.
This machine has taken so much more time to build just from me not being able to find important details without weeks of searching and finally getting lucky.
And it still isn't working properly.

So a fellow arcade nerd out here came over today to help me try and get this cabinet to behave and made a huge leap by getting my in game screen orientation fixed- by changing a setting that I had glossed over as having no bearing on the situation.
Thanks Chad!
Now everythying at least faces the way it supposed to.

Probably even more frustrating than that even is that although I have had spinner functionality straight through (I have a SpinTrak plugged directly into the Pi through USB) the device does NOT show up at all during game play.
The iPAC and the buttons I have connected to the Pi through USB do somewhat, but the spinner- no dice.

Extra frustrating since if this was a PC and GroovyMame I would have had it fixed immediately, but I have had no clue how to get this sorted in AdvanceMame as the configuration file setup is almost entirely different (and in Linux of course, in which I am pretty much entirely illiterate.)

Well, I discovered something accidentally today as regards in game adjustments on the Pi for AdvanceMame at least.
The whole time I have thought that the Tab key on my keyboards (I have tried 3) must be broken because I would hit Tab and get no pop-up menu for adjustments.
What I didn't know until today was that it was happening the whole time except that it ONLY shows up on the screen I have connected to the Pi via the HDMI 0 port and NOT on the vector display!
Yeesh.
That was somewhat helpful as I could map the control panel buttons the way I want them, but there is still no capacity to register the spinner there as the in game menu for AdvanceMame feels abbreviated in comparison to the one for GroovyMame that I have been working with on the other machines.

I DID find something about forcing the Pi to look for mouse inputs in AdvanceMame but even after trying to insert those lines still I got nothing.
The way that entering data lines goes in Linux gives me flashbacks of mainframe torture in college using Fortran77.

I still suck at it all.

javeryh:
The vectors look so cool. What software are you running on the pi? Any reason why you aren’t using a PC since you have the space in there? As you know I’ve been looking for a dead simple SBC solution for a while now and the pi4 worked out OK for my last 2 cabinets but if I was going to build one for myself I don’t think it would cut it (yet) because of the severe limitation on the games it ran at full speed.

Anyway, seeing this come together has inspired me to build… something. Not sure what yet but I cut 2 side panels this afternoon (58 degrees!) and routed the t-molding slots. I have no idea what I want to play yet but I’ll figure it out…

bobbyb13:
I like the adventure of just cutting some panels without a complete plan yet!

If you can find a consumer tube with a yoke that has 2.4 ohm or less resistance on the inner windings (red-blue wires) then I suggest you build yourself a vector machine.

I have been wanting to try a Pi build for a while now actually and making a Cosmic Chasm seemed like a good place to give it a shot.

One of the guys in the group making all this cool vector stuff built a Pi image that is pretty much a plugNplay thing to use with a vector monitor and a USB-DVG board to be able to run AdvanceMame and just play vector games.
Here's a helpful link for anybody who might want to give this a shot.
https://www.vectorheadarcade.com/post/usb-dvg-installation-guide
If you roam arou dthe site there is a pile of awesome stuff those guys are working on.

I need to open up this 24" consumer set I have and see what the yoke values are. For a few years now I have been saving it to build a horizontal vector machine but I really don't even know if the yoke is a good candidate for rewinding yet.

Maybe I should start on that tonight and document the entire thing here- start to finish.

bobbyb13:
As threatened, I am going to document hijacking an old school consumer CRT set for a vector monitor build.

Just like Arcade Jason has said (and he was the guy who inadvertantly caused me to sack up and try it) it is NOT that hard!

So, the magic really is finding yourself the right set to begin with.
I have been hoarding these things for a while because I refuse to play all these old games I love on LCD and there are so few monitors available out here (currently this reads as-none) that I knew I would be building these things from parts I can buy from the mainland

So I am ahead of the game here in that I have a stack to crack open and try.

My experience thus far has been the crappier the set, the better.
Sony sets (except maybe unless you can find a really early one that has a single focus flyback- and even that might not work) are out.

The thing I have been saving for this mayhem (and I have only seen one on the island this size) is this:

Like I said, the crappier the better, but this is actually what I would think was a good generic TV back in 1994.
And American built!

Straight outta Indiana!

This happens to be a steep angle tube like an original WG 6100 but this is actually irrelevant for our purposes.
The key is that you find something that has as LOW a resistance/impedance value on the horizontal windings as possible.
Original Wells Gardner 6100 yokes have values somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.6 for vertical windings (yellow and green wires) and 1.2 for horizontal (red-blue wires.)
This thing happens to look like nothing I have seen before- and I have had dozens of sets of various sizes open to look.
Typically the yoke wires are soldered on and the board side has connectors- but no.

For whatever reason this thing is reversed- but whatever.

And like I said ~about~ those values for the original ones.
I don't have a meter to read Henrys, so there you go.

The components that Barry Shilmover is now making EDIT for accuracy! (the reproduction Amplifone deflection board and HV units) are built better than the original parts and have enough adjustment on them that there is a broader range of yoke values that are acceptable and won't blow up your boards.

Anyway, the key to a yoke that will work is finding one that has as LOW a value on the horizontal/inner windings as possible, because the internal windings are wound saddle style and let me tell you, unless you are Buckaroo Banzai, you are NOT rewinding those things.

Find a TV with a yoke with a value of 2.4 or less and you will succeed.
I have rewound ones from horizontal resistance values of 2.4 to 2.0 and they have all worked.

When you rewind the ferrites for the outer/vertical part of the yoke you will probably wind up with a value somewhere between 0.6 and 1.0 for resistance- and that is where you want it to be.
Here's a link if you haven't seen this awesomeness from Arcade Jason yet.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=arcade+jason+yoke#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:47e66c5c,vid:Ci9qiGVMF7s

His youtube channel is a rabbit hole for me because his stuff is both informative and funny.
Set aside some time if you like a little comedy in your hobby.

The yoke in this thing is looking good thus far as regards resistance value.

But this is one weird yoke. I haven't seen one like this yet, and I'm not sure I can even get it off the neck because I am not seeing the standard screw collar here either.
yeesh.

Either I'm stoked or I'm boned. I'll need to dig into this thing a bit.
I have heard people rewinding the ferrite pieces without taking the yoke off the tube so that they don't need to mess with alignment/convergence but we'll see if I can do that here.
On the other one I had success just by marking how the yoke and rings were sitting to begin with and just lining them back up.

I'll post again after I have learned something!

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