Vector-gasm... Cosmic Chasm!

[bobbyb13]

For the sake of completeness, as I started working with this crazy consumer tube that I was hoping I could turn into a vector monitor, I will continue with details of that here- although this monitor will be going in a horizontal cabinet build.

Because I had never seen a bonded yoke before this thing freaked me out to begin with.
Not just that, but the pin protector/alignment socket glued to the neck was so long that I couldn't get the neckboard to seat all the way onto the pins.
I had been nervous that I was looking at something that also may not have the neck pinout that would match the Amplifone clone parts that Barry is now building.

Thankfully, we have tubular.

https://tubular.atomized.org/

If you are working with CRTs, be they legit arcade monitor tubes or neglected consumer crap you found on the side of the road, this site is awesome.

A gent over on klov built it and it is stunning how many tubes he has cross referenced on this thing.
You literally just type in the identifier from the sticker on your tube and if that one has been cataloged it will return a page with pretty much anything you need to know about what you have- including the original data sheet submitted to E.I.A.
Remarkable.

Even more remarkable is that this particular random tube was actually in there!
After digging though the numerous pages in there I found the pinout for the tube and found that it was correct for my needs.
Whew.

I carefully pried the plastic pin alignment piece off the neck (be careful so you don't crack the thing and let the atmosphere into your tube!) and cut 1/4" off the tip so that I could try to get my neckboard to seat properly- and, success.



I was ready to get the supplies wired up and connect everything and try this out.
Since I am working with a bonded yoke and had only removed the outer ferrites to erwind them here, I figured it prudent to give this setup a trial run before I started gluing/epoxying things back together, so I left the magnet wire as it was sitting and just connected the two clips to hold the ferrites together and keep them loosely in place on the yoke.

This deflection board I have here doesn't have a vga connector like the one in the Cosmic cabinet here does, so I needed to make a harness to go from the vga out on the DVG board to the .156 Molex kk connector on the deflection board.
In case you are doing this and wondered what the pinout was for building a harness, here you go:



Really straightforward, but it is so tight that I need glasses to actually get the thing soldered up.
Satisfying when you get it done though.  I'm nervous about things shorting so I pretty much always use heatshrink.



And then with everything connected and my seperate 24VDC supplies wired up to feed the board + and - power I fired it up and got...



More success.

It is important to note that as long as you have your deflection coil wires paired properly it doesn't matter if you guess properly on which is X and which is Y, because the menu on the DVG allows you to swap axes and flip the image to get what you want to see on the screen.

Of course that was yesterday.
When I tried to fire it up again, I got nothing- or only a little red dot in the middle of the screen and the spotkiller LED on the deflection board on- lit solid.

I saw lights on both HV unit and deflection boards so I wondered what happened- and then it occurred to me that I was missing an LED on the deflection board at the moment and then it hit me.
There isn't any power going to the negative side of the deflection board.
I had a light for the + side but the - side one was out.
And so I checked the fuse.



Whew- again.
Damn cheap ass fuses!

Gave it another whirl and was relieved to see this.



So it looks like this tube is going to work as a vector monitor.

One other fun thing I discovered in the wealth of info in that crazy datasheet from tubular.atomized

This is actually a 110 degree angle tube!

I'm stoked it works.  This is awesome.

Maybe I'll work on finding the correct coin door for a Cosmic Chasm cabinet now.

[pbj]

It’s really cool to see all this vector action around here lately.  I’m not sure what it says about me that I have that VGA pin out previously memorized.  I may still have the old radio shack hand tool you used to plug individual pins into those connectors.

So you’re doing Star Wars next…?

[bobbyb13]

It’s really cool to see all this vector action around here lately.  I’m not sure what it says about me that I have that VGA pin out previously memorized.  I may still have the old radio shack hand tool you used to plug individual pins into those connectors.

So you’re doing Star Wars next…?

Vector stuff is proving to be fun to learn too.
I wasn't aware that there was so much going on with reproducing vector happy hardware.
I can see that the guys doing it don't enjoy the environment on that OTHER sometimes less congenial arcade enthusiast site, but I've been surprised that they aren't promoting their stuff here.

This is the real venue for that sort of stuff, isn't it?!

I'm beginning to understand enough of this silly esoteric crap to actually know a few meaningful things here and there so it is gettingless scary and more fun.
And so what if I blow ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- up here and there occassionally?
 

So you saw this coming pbj?
I was actually working on getting the yoke functional last night.

In the grand scheme of arcade history it's not like it is an amazing game with a ton of depth to it comparatively these days, but Star Wars is a maximum arcade nostalgia one for me so it gets a panel for the horizontal machine to come for sure.

I think that will have two swappable panels to get all the games I want to play going and still not be a hideous mess of controls or something that I never change out.
Those panels will be the same size as the ones for the Missile Command MAME box too so that they can be shared between the two cabinets and therefore better utilized.

Even if I only swap them around once a year I'll feel good about it and it is another fun design challenge to get it to all work.

That cabinet is going to be a less iconic shape than the others I've built so far though, but still appropriate in that it suits a number of the games I want to play on it.

A design concession based on the desire to have the Star Wars yoke panel still work with another that is mostly buttons on the same machine.

Down the rabbit hole-

[Mike A]

Keep this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- coming.

[bobbyb13]

Open the sewer grate!
 

I should probably start a different thread for the Gravitar/Black Widow/Space Duel/all-the-other-games Atari stuffed into that shape cabinet build for this big now vector hijacked tube.

And clear your schedules and save the $$ for some ZapCon 9 next March y'all.

[Xiaou2]

You should try to make a Motion-Cabinet for Starwars.

 I heard that there was a fully functional prototype of such a cabinet version of the game.  Someone I knew had gotten lucky
enough to play it.. and he couldnt stop talking about how cool it was.

[Zebidee]

Easy way to solder those VGA headers, and many other things, is to stick them and the wires down with some blu-tac or tape. (usually stick them to a small piece of hardwood offcut, rather than the bench). Then you can have both hands free to solder. Trim the wire sheaths by about 3-4mm, no need to tin them first, just line them up and the little buckets make the soldering easy.

If you're having trouble with the smaller stuff, and aren't we all, an articulated desk lamp with a built-in magnifier is really handy. I used mine all the time. You can get them with stands or clamps, and there are USB varieties.

[abispac]

Owwwwwwww crap, i was getting an itch to build a vector monitor based on what i saw on this topic and arroyos topic as well, so i started to look for some info, since i can source cosumer tvs real easy and cheap, as well as real arcade monitors, but then money came to play, 350 dlls for the dsbdvg thingy? wow, and then 150 for the pi4, and what? 250 or more for the newish vector chassis, am i right? so you looking for a minimum of of 750 dlls.... and thats a minimum, i love this hobby to death, but i dont got that kind of money right now so sadly i would still have to keep watching. Good job bobby13

[bobbyb13]

It is NOT a cheap hobby.
Don't tell the wife.

Oh, and pinball is MUCH worse.

I'm grateful that those vga connectors have those little cupped terminals to solder to or I would be doomed.

If I built a motion rig it would be a sit down driver, but since I currently have two Rush 2049s and a mongrel Cruis'n I don't see that ever happening unless I open an arcade business out here.

Of course seeing that rig RandyT built makes me want to do it.

I think I may need to start another build thread while I'm waiting to sort out the bezel on this thing.

The horizontal build itchy is getting pretty scratchy.

And I DO have the monitor working and one of the control panels mostly built now-
 

[Zebidee]

if you discount the cost of the Pi (every cab needs a CPU of some kind), then a cost of up to ~$600 for a decent vector monitor setup isn't that terrible, especially if you are committed to the hobby. Certainly something you don't see every day.

[Arroyo]

This is actually a 110 degree angle tube!

Good stuff Bobby.  If you wanna double check you can look at the tube itself.  There should be an embossment in the glass indicating the size and angle of the tube.  The convention is diagonal length in inches followed by a V and then the degree of the tube.  So for yours if it is indeed a 110degree tube you should find 19V110.  Here is a conversation on the topic: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/90-100-110-degree-how-do-i-know.309041/

Here is an example pulled from that thread:




Pulled from my thread for reference:

And so, my FIRST question would be what fuses have you settled on for power supply feeds?

As for the fuse.  Hard to be sure from you pic but I am going to assume that you have the fuses coming on the output side of your power supplies. I assume you are using these in an attempt to protect the electronics.  You shouldn't need any. 

If you look at the power supply from an Atari vector brick here:



What you'll note is that there is no fuse coming off the transformer to create the 50VAC power that is for the monitor (red arrow).   I'll show the connection to your power supplies in a second.

You'll see that there are fuses for the other power lines highlighted by the green arrows.  Specifically 10.6VDC, 36VAC, 6.1VAC.

If you follow back the 50VAC line (red arrows), you'll see they don't have a fuse (purple arrows).  There is a blue arrow pointing to a main fuse of 7Amps Slow Blow.  This is for the cab overall and for the 120VAC line that attaches for marquee lighting and other misc (fans and such). Highlighted by yellow arrow.

The 50VAC heads directly into the 15 pin Molex connector.  Specifically on pins 13 and 15 (14 is ground):



Follow the red arrows.


Then it comes into the Deflection board via the connector as shown here:



Note the pins 13 and 15 (red arrow) which heads into the deflection board where there is a set of 5amp Slow Blow fuses. The +24V and -24V are separated via the diodes (CR14-CR17) and smoothed with capacitors .  You can see the positive voltage, ground and negative voltage heading off to the High Voltage board through a connector as indicated by the Blue Arrow.

From here it is brought to the High Voltage PCB as indicated in the blue arrows, and you can see your +24V and -24V on the red arrows.



Here is a component view of the deflection board on an Amplifone where you can see the two 5 Amp Slow Blow fuses (highlighted in red arrows):



So the deflection board should have the fuses in place to handle the voltages coming in, hence why I said you don't need them coming off your power supplies. If it would make you more comfortable having something there then you can add redundancy with 5amp slow blows. If you want to really be comfortable than you could contact Shilmover on KLOV.

BTW - all of these schematics can be found online.  And if you don't know about ArcMissions site storing these (you can thank bperkins01 and MikeA), then you can find a lot of great stuff here:

https://arcarc.xmission.com

The above used schematics from Major Havoc for reference: https://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee/Major_Havoc/Major_Havoc_SP-252_2nd_Printing.pdf

and from the Amplifone manual:   https://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-monitors/Atari%20Monitor%20TM-239%201st%20Printing%20Amplifone%2019in%20and%2025in%20Color%20XY.pdf

[bobbyb13]

Outstanding info Arroyo, appreciate you taking that time.

I knew very little about electronics when I started on this hobby and learn best through specific examples like this still, so thank you.
 

Fear of blowing things up to begin with (when I knew even less than I do now!) made me want to fuse the power inputs.
Man did I go through a lot of 3 amp fast blow fuses- and continue to think I ruined something.
And that was because the only info I could find about it anywhere was difficult to find to begin with (and on facebook?!) and turned out to be wrong- of course.

It is the primary reason I started this thread actually, to start the conversation here and hopefully catalog some helpful info for others in the future.

Original vector hardware was really finicky and not robust and so many who talk about the stuff speak in hushed grave tones with stories of component meltdowns and unsalvageable monitors.
Turns out they are less complicated than raster monitors.

Appears to me that issues with original ones were mostly inadequate transistor cooling, tired power supplies, and video input signal voltage spikes, so if you bulletproof those you can have a reliable monitor.

When you look at what you and I are putting together these issues have been well addressed so it will be interesting to see what we get for longevity.

These new reproduction parts are better in nearly every important way from what I can see.

I need to check that tube embossing.
It's a big one though, so it is going to be a weird number!

[bobbyb13]

To confirm what I thought I read in the E.I.A. registration document for this TV,  tube embossment shows...

25 V 110

Maybe was a blessing that this thing had a bonded yoke.
Not like anything else I could find was going to work well with this tube anyway.

The upper left hand corner has some convergence weirdness at the very outside corner, really only noticeable in menu borders and test screens.
Still looks really good in gameplay somehow.

It will be interesting to see if playing with magnet strips stuck somewhere on the tube can fix that, since yoke position or ring adjustments are completely out of the question in this instance.

Yet another thing that I have yet to find a well done "How- To" on-
Purity and convergence.

I've read a few things that gave me huge confidence in my ability to tune up an image, and in practice I get little to nothing for results.
Disheartening really, since I would like to get it better than 'good enouugh.'

[Zebidee]

There are plenty of CRT convergence setup guides and videos. Problem is, they sometimes leave you feeling more confused.

For me, I find the best approach is to think of it as three phases to perform & complete in sequence, before moving onto the next: "purity, static convergence, and dynamic convergence". If you don't do the steps sequentially and in order things tend to get messy.

Purity phase means getting colour right/balanced. Input a white signal, or use a screen or solid colour red/green/blue, then move the yoke back/forth and/or the first pair of rings (closest to front, two magnets) to get a solid full-screen of colour/white). After this phase, if you moved the yoke, you can put back your rubber wedges and tighten it up again.

Static Convergence phase is about bringing red & blue together. Input a crosshatch pattern (turn off green if you like). Adjust the second pair of rings (middle, 4 magnets.)

Dynamic Convergence means bringing the green together with the red & blue. Use a crosshatch pattern and adjust the third ring pair (closest to back, 6 magnets).

The term "dynamic convergence" also includes a bunch of other later-stage convergence adjustments, mostly for picture edge, such as tweaking pots for pincushion, linearity, hourglass etc, adjustments in service menus, and so forth. I like to think of this extra pot-fiddling as an additional "tweaking convergence" phase.

To help understand all this, remember that the cathode ray guns are (usually) lined up R-G-B (or is it B-G-R?) such that GREEN is in the middle.

You have a TPG, it is great tool for this.

Unfortunately my experience is all based on raster monitors, not vector & any differences.

[bobbyb13]

There ARE many- and they are all just vague enough to make the whole thing impossible to do well- after even multiple attempts.
 

Vector stuff is different, but mercifully the menu that Chad made for this setup includes a host of great test patterns all with the ability to swap colors throughout.

I wish someone who knows well how to do it would put together something with pics or video, including caveats and explaining what is going on when things aren't going properly.

Merely a list of steps (even a thorough one!) on how to do it is simply inadequate for learning how to do this.

I'm sharper than the average bowling ball and fairly patient, and I still can't get anything to look right!

[Zebidee]

The CRT still uses the same purity/convergence rings right? So you'd just move through the three phases? Guess the next question is, what test patterns can you use?

[bobbyb13]

This is a good question, because with some of the patterns everything appears perfect and then with some images, there is weirdness in the upper left corner of the screen- and then that doesn't appear to show up in any of the games I have run.
Still a mystery.

The CRT still uses the same purity/convergence rings right? So you'd just move through the three phases? Guess the next question is, what test patterns can you use?

Well I got a coin door to use for this thing that didn't cost $250 but it is just a shell and I have no idea what parts it takes.
Is this a CoinCo door anyone?



The other thing is that this does not need to have fully functionaly coin mechs and the rest either, so I would be happy to fabricate something to receive a tasteful coin up button/switch that actually LOOKS like a regular old coin reject button.

Hoping for wisdom and suggestions here anyone!

Still trying to mentally work through building a bezel for this thing.

The original has a rectangular box at the bottom and then the triangular boxes on the sides- and then yet another panel at the back.
I left space to be able to include these as well as the backlit panels that the original uses but this part is a bit intimidating actually.

[bobbyb13]

And so before I even got the first iteration of this done it is off to version 1.1
Or maybe 2.0?

So I learned of what I thought was a very cool project being worked on by two guys a hell of a lot smarter than me and since using their genius was appropriate here (and I could learn a whole bunch of other fun stuff while I was at it) it became time to start acquiring some original machine parts.
Explains where I've been for a bit maybe?

It also gives me a reason to use the pile of monitor parts I have been assembling for a few years now and see if I can get another type of vector tube fired up.

If you know the original game this stuff is for you can probably guess before you see it running.

Harness.


Not complete, but I can build the other parts.

Brick.  Holy crap are these things heavy.



Super crusty but the proper one- so doesn't matter.
The transformers practically never fail and the other crap I will replace anyway.

Power supply.  This one had a runaway +5V issue in its former life so needed a little love before I could get it running what it needed to.
Not to mention it wasn't fully populated for all the voltages I needed either so it took a bit of fun learning to get it functional.



On to the central part of the whole thing.
Now this set I had stumbled onto a while ago and at a glance it looked like the right vintage to be what I wanted for this all along really.
Vintage 1985- straight outta Bloomington.



Disassembly of one this old was really fun.
Crazy what it took to build a regular old TV set back then.
Look at all these individual components!



I felt a bit guilty for gutting the thing but it didn't run and was going to the recycler otherwise and I have a plan for the case- which I am saving for another fun project.

The best part was looking up the details on the tube and discovering that it is a dead ringer for a 19VLUP22 but has a different yoke.
The other monitor parts I have been collecting for quite some time.

I got a 6100 deflection and neck board which happened to have been rebuilt back in 1983- and then sat on a shelf since apparently!

As I am starting from scratch with this particular monitor anyway, getting an original monitor frame and side pieces is pretty much out of the question for me here, and the most problematic part of an original WG 6100 appears to possibly be the chassis bottlecap transistors as it is then it was a no-brainer to get an Alan-1 transistor upgrade kit because it is a one shot solution for me in this instance.

While I was continuing to pile together stuff to pull this whole assembly off miraculously an original unused 6100 high voltage unit comes up for sale.

Done.  I now have all the parts to FrankenWeenie mysellf a WG6100- INCLUDING a small dot pitch tube.
Vector glow nirvana.

I had been agonizing over how to deal with the neckboard bit since the original 6100 is a CR-24 (?!#$) and I had not idea what the hell that was- until I opened this thing up.
The neckboard in this was a surprise.  Newer saw one in mulitple pieces before.



And the cherry on top of the fine dot pitch tube find was this.



Plug n play with the neckboard I had.

I got the brick back together and confirmed I had proper voltages and got the monitor parts all piled on the rolling bench for the scary eventuality of having to actually energize this thing and then discovered that the LM305 regulator on my AR-II was spent and had gone from not even putting out 5V to pumping out 14V in under a minute.

Glad I decided to check ONE last time before I plugged this sexy board I got into the harness.

Back to the waiting game for parts-

[bobbyb13]

Gotta love the USPS in my hood.

So I got a few LM305 voltage regulators because it seemed like that was the crispy element on my AR-II.
Cutting the old one out sucked.
A tenacious little bug looking thing that Atari must have felt needed to be shoved as close to the pcb as possible for soldering.
No big deal when fighting two legs, but when you get to this many it is a real PITA.

While I was waiting for those to arrive I discovered that the main board harness connector was cracking.
Old parts sent to me from a friend in Canada to the rescue!



If I don't go one wire at a time with this kind of crap I'm sure to screw it up royally.
I was still paranoid even doing it like this even.

So after I got through that it seemed like I was ready to do something real and put the whole mess together and power it up to see what explodes first.
50 shades of paranoia.

I have had such drama with ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- smoking or having things not work at all that every time I get to this point it is terrible blend of anticipation and cringing.
I lost track of how many times I checked voltages and every connector.



I figured this freakshow merited having something close to an original spinner now (which I couldn't find anywhere for quite some time) so I kind of built one.
New ball bearing wearing frame from arcadeshop, original dial base, enocder, cap and shaft from Stephen of arcadefixit fame, and repro dial and a whole big pile of $$ later I have what should work for that.

And the moment of truth...
I flipped the switch, heard the fan on the Alan-1 transistor block fire up, watched the spot-killer LED on the deflection board go on- then off! and a few seconds later-



Holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- I have a functional 6100.
Well, mostly functional.

No frakkin red.

Of course I'm getting less scared of messing with things at this point since I'm getting comfortable with soldering out and in components that I have blown up through sophmoric decisions, so why not play a little?!
This was a lot less dramatic than that because only trying to adjust the individual color drive pots on the neck board led me to the diagnosis of a cracked trim pot, unsurprisingly on the red drive.



Not used to pots that look like these things but I happened to have a 500 ohm one of a style I could make fit so what the hell.
Why wait for one in the mail?!

A little time huffing solder fumes, reassemble and paranoia check everything again- twice- even though I hadn't touched anything but the neck board- and give it another go.



Hot damn!

Now, I have to say that the first setup I built for this, using what is now Barry S's Amplifone monitor project and just any old 19" tube with a properly rewound yoke, the now difficult/impossible to acquire USB-DVG, and Mario's brilliance with the Raspberry Pi AdvMame version and Chad's vector menu worked and looked great- it is still what happily resides in the horizontal cabinet I still have to finish.

But, this current monstrosity, using a fine dot pitch tube, rewound yoke, Franken6100, and ArcadeJason's multiboard...?

WOW is this image crisp.

Having not played Tempest on an original machine in decades I was MORE than satisfied with what I had put together first for this cabinet, but the current iteration here is next level repro from my seat.

Granted, the software for this board (which Jason's co-conspirator Ralf is developing) is still in beta but holy crap is it something to behold already.

Looking forward to when Ralf has time to work on updates (which hopefully will include Cosmic Chasm and Tac/Scan in their arcade form- maybe even Quantum?!) because this is outstanding.

Time to stuff all this into the cabinet it will reside in.

If nothing else with this project I can say that my eyes have been opened as regards putting together a vector capable machine.
For a good number of years after getting into this hobby I figured proper vector game play was unobtainable for me here.

Buying any original ones out here is pretty much out of the question (I know of ONE original vector machine in the islands) and with all the mystique surrounding "a true vector monitor" I had bought into the ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- that outside of original parts you are TSOL.

Not true.

It is entirely possible to build your own vector monitor with an old consumer tube, a properly rewound yoke, and some occassionally available (but also soon to be more currently available) parts.

If you really do want to build one with new updated tech then keep an eye on the site vectorheadarcade.

The site appears to be getting rebuilt as I'm typing but at some point you can get in line for all the parts you need to build an Amplifone clone (but better!) monitor.
Except the tube of course.
Barry just bought an amazing assortment of machinery to be able to really fire up the production line so hopefully soon he gets time to get started.

In the meantime go find yourself an old consumer tube with as LOW a horizontal resistance/inductance value as you can find.
My experience here tells me that a measurement even up to 2.0 ohms for the inner windings works.

You need to rewind the outer vertical coils anyway so their original values are largely irrelevant, unless you can find one that is already between 0.6 and 1.0 because then you could leave it alone.
If you follow the 100-120 wraps recommendation for rewinding the vertical ferrites you will get there though.

Vector joy is within the grasp.

[Zebidee]

In the meantime go find yourself an old consumer tube with as LOW a horizontal resistance/inductance value as you can find.
My experience here tells me that a measurement even up to 2.0 ohms for the inner windings works.
...

Vector joy is within the grasp.

Man I am impressed, though not sure if/when I can get some "vector joy" into my own grasp.

A quick tip for measuring these low-ohm horizontal yokes - make sure you zero-out the DMM/ohm meter first. Put the leads together until you get a 0.00 reading before measuring the yoke ohms. This can make up to 1-2 ohms difference in your measurements, which is obviously important in this context.

[bobbyb13]

Oh... it has been a while!

I got around to working on another vector project and had another look at this thread to update a few things that had changed since last I was at this.

I updated some info on a few posts in this thread (notably #32 and #36) to address the fact that I had noticed that links I used previously have since gone dead.

The updates keep a clear path to info necessary to make this build thing work still- and I would also add that Mario has posted a new advancemame USB-DVG image to work with a Raspberry Pi 5 !

I have one on order and will be giving it a shot as soon as those clowns at Amazon actually get it to me.

There are things to add to the horizontal build thread too.

And I really should start another thread with Robin's vstcm project (now that I have that well into production.)

Hope to see as many of you as possible at ZapCon in March!!