WG K6100 (rebuilt, colorful now)

[kayoteq]

It's a Gravitar with a Space Duel 6100 replacement. Me first vector, be gentle 

Red light is on, game board voltages are okay, transistors aren't shorted as far as I can tell. after replacing the connections and powering up, the red light is slightly dimmer to my perception.

Based on what I've read, looks like I pretty much need a kit to try to fix it by renewal rather than guess and patch.
There's nothing on the boards that looks like an obvious toasted part. I'll find out when I do the kit, I suppose.

 Is everybody's about the same, and what of these 'deluxe edition' kits?

should I be going for that since it's new to me and I should want oh, more than a month of gameplay before the next repair.
 
I"m planning on adding a fan or two to the chassis as well, just for the nature of the beast..
as well as double-checking all the connectors/wire leads for anything that might lead to unreliable connection.

Oh, and spare parts are welcome. If you've got two or three of the varied K6100 boards, and want to let one go, let me know.
Not that I fear failure, just that it would be convenient and make for more relaxed soldering/gaming than 'it's the only one I gots'.

Thanks..

[Level42]

It's a Gravitar with a Space Duel 6100 replacement. Me first vector, be gentle 

Red light is on, game board voltages are okay, transistors aren't shorted as far as I can tell. after replacing the connections and powering up, the red light is slightly dimmer to my perception.

Based on what I've read, looks like I pretty much need a kit to try to fix it by renewal rather than guess and patch.
There's nothing on the boards that looks like an obvious toasted part. I'll find out when I do the kit, I suppose.

 Is everybody's about the same, and what of these 'deluxe edition' kits?

should I be going for that since it's new to me and I should want oh, more than a month of gameplay before the next repair.
 
I"m planning on adding a fan or two to the chassis as well, just for the nature of the beast..
as well as double-checking all the connectors/wire leads for anything that might lead to unreliable connection.

Oh, and spare parts are welcome. If you've got two or three of the varied K6100 boards, and want to let one go, let me know.
Not that I fear failure, just that it would be convenient and make for more relaxed soldering/gaming than 'it's the only one I gots'.

Thanks..

So, in all that text, I couldn't find what's actually wrong with the picture.... ?

[kayoteq]

Sorry for the rambling. Trying to explain everything but the screen itself.

No picture. at all. not even a tiny dot. should I be getting something even with the system in spot killer cutoff?
The actual burnt hole at the center of the CRT concerns me, but I guess it's not fatal(?)

All the fuses are fine, no transistors shorting,X Y doing its thing on the game board.

The transformer is humming, voltages are 13v at the 10v unreg lead, 5.3 at the 5v test at the game board.
Going for a rebuild of the major bits of the power supply to see if it gets back to spec.

[Kevin Mullins]

The spot killer (red led) is part of the circuit designed to shut the monitor off when there is a problem.....

Are there any blown fuses on the monitor chassis ?
Do you get any "crackle" / "static" sound when you first turn it on ?
is there any glow in the neck of the tube ?

Does the game play "blind" ?
(coins up, plays, has sounds but just no picture)

[kayoteq]

Game plays, but sometimes it starts up with the coinup sound and a tone.

no crackling noises. Neck glows, but that's part of the main power.

Which led me to examine the bleeding obvious one of course not done prior to now.. Flyback/HV circuit.
Discharge resulted in 0 spark. Looks like the HV board is funky. Or does spot killer turn that off as well?

Previous owner had looked at the wires, apparently.. they were a mess and probably would have gone Sega on them
had it started working again. Maybe that explains the fuses being intact; they replaced them and it still didn't work,
which led to its abandonment and eventual resale. 

Ah well, the kit is on its way.. Methinks I should stop powering it up till all suspect circuits are updated and examined.
Gotta be extra careful, every darn thing on this game except the monitor is original.

[kayoteq]

Back again, now with a box o' parts.. freaked out one friend with the Big Blue. Mad scientist friend wants the old one..

Looks like I'm missing a couple of resistors, but that's no biggie. Radio shack might even have those in stock, unless they've finally gone full suck. It being a holiday weekend, I may just wait till I can get to my proper store for a more durable part and move on to the rest of it. They tested fine in-circuit, though..

So far the HV section is going swimmingly, although..

 one of the capacitors I got that's supposed to be a  -[  ]- (end leads) is instead a [  ]= two pronger on one side. ??

Don't much care for the looks of that one, but I guess it's technically rated the same, so in it goes. a bit of shrink tube  to keep the risk down. I'm always up for a kludge fix on other common low-voltage electronics, but this is one of those categories where it's 'do it as it is supposed to be'..

One of the old caps had what looks similar to a leaking battery gunk at one lead, perhaps that was the actual problem.
Really like this modular system as opposed to the G07 chassis. lets me divide and conquer.

One bit of advice; be careful handling the zener diodes. Dang printing came off and I'm just hoping that part that mostly resembled a stripe was the actual stripe. Will test that one, along with every other connector before the power goes on. Which will be awhile, still have 4 power assemblies to go; doing the whole electrics from plug to tube. Over several sessions, to keep the fatigue mistakes to a minimum.

So.. my sheet says 'replace the HV adjust pot only if necessary/required'. After consulting with a techie friend, 'ain't broke, ain't fixing'.

Relearning a lot of basic electronics repair with this.. I mean, I've been soldering for years, but nothing quite like lots of consecutive desoldering/soldering on a difficult-to-replace board to make a person be careful.. (okay, just plain expensive-to-replace, but you get the point)

Except for two missing resistors bought locally, and the 2 Mysterious Ceramic Resistors in the pack, the vector chassis is done. The deflection board is where the fire was. Resistors a mere shell of their old selves, with a burn mark on the back of the PCB. Too focused on completing the task to take dramatic photos, sorry. Only one lifted trace, and that one was carefully placed back on the board and ain't going nowhere.used the extra wire length of the component being installed to bridge it to the circuit redundantly.

All the case push-pull metal bits installed with fresh new paste. There were mere vestiges of the original paste there. Glad I'm doing everything regardless, it's a hodge-podge of varied replacments over the years.. Each install tested to make sure they aren't grounding (once I figured out the technique; tighten to a point, then move it around till nothing is touching nowhere, then tighten and recheck for ground..

The side-case ones can be removed /installed with a standard swiss army knife screwdriver with the CRT in the cabinet, BTW, just barely. I don't want to move the CRT unless absolutely necessary.

Once the missing resistors have been replicated, and the placement of the Mystery Ceramics determined, it's off to the AR II. I want to have as much of this thing to spec as possible. (5.3V to the PCB, too much iirc) Then the big blue, then thorough testing of all the bits from the PS upwards before the first power-up. And maybe rebuilding the power cord, all this effort and a electrical-taped power cord just doesn't seem right to leave as-is. (the ground plug was broken off)

Some questions for the Vector Experienced:

Mine has the Atari LV field fix riser board; should I be adding that one resistor inline with those wires?
Anything I should be testing for/replacing on that board? They're all the original wire-only hookup from the old resistor holes on the chassis. (P314)

Is there anything I should be adding besides the get-well kit to this thing while it's apart to improve reliability/safety?  I have the FAQ with all its suggestions,
but I want to know what opines there are 'out in the field' .. my HV is a P316, so there's no HV cutoff circuit, just the HV voltage adjust,
which is still in the position it was when I pulled the chassis out. Still several things to go before I get to the point of being confident in plugging the stuff all back together.

 

[kayoteq]

Okay, lots of soldering done. HV board,  deflection board, all the Q's,big blue replaced.
Even a couple of ceramic resistors bought locally since I figured why not be consistent in the looks of things. (correct resistance, of course)

 I rebuilt my ARII from my centipede with the parts since the gravitar's voltage was in spec once I found the adjust 

Everything double-checked and plugged in.. chatter! no smoke! but.. no X deflection, still red-lighting. looks like a  laser light show out front,
the game is playing, but very very skinny. I have up-down, no left-right.  It's mostly green, but I see specs of other colors in there.

Edit: Dumb/ lucky strikes again- I didn't have one of the connectors pushed in all the way. Lucky it didn't decide that was electrically unstable.
Thought yet another things was wrong, then I adjusted the brightness down to get rid of the retrace lines. I have X now..

I have red, green, but no blue. game board blue test lead has voltage.. ?

Happy camper, except the ship and other things use  the blue, so it's puzzle time again.

[kayoteq]

This is a puzzler. Since there's those convenient 3 identical, (almost) circuits, I checked values and compared them to the working equivalents.
Get to blue channel's D803 and I get around -2.1 voltage at one side, 0 volts on the other.  (that's negative voltage, with negative probe on frame)

Got a replacement diode, ends up giving me not 0, but -.1 as opposed to the R,G channels normal range.

In other words, barely any change. There's still a gremlin in there.

Got me a proper printout of the whole schematic (Gravitar manual, first printing) and planning to track down the whole route up to the neck..

any advice on what common thing would give me 2 out of 3 colors, and mucking with poor D803? I may discover the thing on my journey through
the traces, but.. I think some of you may have done more of these than me. (one)

Is there things I should be testing 'hot' with certain connectors out? Don't want to fry bits I don't need to. Um, or any bits, for that matter.

So far I've not fried any fuses, red light is finally out, and I have a reliable and un-distorted display, sans blue.

Alrighty then.. removed the neck board, put it on the bench for testing.. and notice two things: a circular pattern of fragmenting corresponding with the neck connector,
and 0 continuity on the blue gun traces.

Drermeled the insulation off carefully, and flowed solder to make the island part of the mainland again. with just a bit of wire to be sure.
Repeated the process on the other connections, just to make sure.

On re-installation, I note that it makes for a more precise reinstallation _without_ the cardboard cover, so now that's the last thing to go back on, you get more of a
precise feel of when things are back in place. Cage reinstalled, power up.. and



I haz color! 

Now to install a proper fan system for the long term, and replicate the busted back door (guess that's what happened when the PO had lost the keys)

And the mundane challenges of playing the darn game. And saving up for a Zecktor.