Zitruskeks

I have the same issue. Trying to measure the Voltage on Pin 1 of IC304 changes the size of the Text displayed by the vectrex, and though the pot clearly has influence on the vectrex (images shifts diagonally) the measure voltage doesn't change.

Grabbed mine, too! Thanks a lot.

Usually the replicas are made cheaper. There are repros of competition pros and they have a more brittle plastic (plus the unusable usb interface with tons of lag) not to speak of the one that comes with the c64mini that are completely different in function. Also, I read this: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/263697-question-about-joysticks/ And as I never had an atari in my youth (c64-amiga-pc) i thought i ask before I buy. Grabbing a repro one for the price of an original doesnt sound so funny.

Hey. Im still on the hunt for a CX-40 to fit my light sixer. Now you can find all those modern repros of teh original cx-40 and I already asked google about it: is there a way of spotting the modern china versiona against a real atari cx-40? Regards

Its a part of the CRT mounting posts. This "cap" goes on the posts that are moulded into the front bezel of the vectrex, then sometimes followed by a small rubber buffer on one of them to adjust the heights of the posts (at least on my vectrex one of the mounting posts had one), followed by the actual CRT (plus the dag-earth-clamp on 2 of these posts), then rubber buffers plus washers. You can see them on this image on wiki: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Vectrex_open.png Look at the mounting post on the top left (the one with the green grounding wire).

Just pull it straight out. The knob just holds by a metal spring that clamps around the shaft of the potentiometer/switch combo. Like the usual potentiometer knobs. Mine was a bit rusty and also seemed to be secured by the reddish loctite-like material that is on every screw. Took a LOT of effort though. Much, much more than I had expected. So I was terrified to break anything, too. But in the end it came loose with a bang and everything was ok. Don't lever on it, just try to get a good grip and pull. Be prepared for the sudden release. PS: the reddish loctite-esque stuff can be cleaned from the screws and heatsink and such by submerging the parts in a water/simple-green-substitute solution. Actually I used Koch Chemie Green Star, but should be the same. Pure water seems to work, too, but takes a lot longer (days instead of hours). The "loctite" gets foamy and can be simply brushed away after a night in the solution.

They should fit. When the 3ge boards got re-worked for the non buzz late vectrexes (without the red jumper wires and different cap layout), they also switched from styrene caps. So if you have a 3ge and styrene caps, the ones the the usual cap kits should fit.

Wery well analyzed. I grew up on the Commodore eight- and sixteenbitters and thus with digital Joysticks. Never really switched to Gamepads (besides for Street Fighter 2 on the Amiga). So I never really adapted to the different input paradigm and I have a hard time with games like Turrican on the SNES - I am used to jump with the stick and not with a button, and so jumping AND gunning at the same time feels clumsy and unnatural for me with these systems.

How did you remove the aluminium switch caps? Are they just press fit? Or is there a little splint pin that need to be removed?

120° Celsius it totally ok. Removed the stickers on a joust cart that had broken prongs that open the dust cover (typical "tested and working ebay junk, even had a spiders web in the contacts) with my cheap 858 rework station set to this temp (as suggested by Wolfgang Robel for removing the vectrex controller stickers) and it worked great. All glue is still on the stickers, and the plastic wasn't harmed at all.

Arcade Jason had a nice video about it, he used TarnX, which cleaned the chips perfectly with no overexessive abrasion, no bend legs in seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_EaHKlwtZc

More like this problem: ?

Add a LED to the circuit, so that you can actually see the exact moment when the switch toggles. This might one of the biggest accuracy improvement for little to no money as you don't depend on the "feeling" of where the putton really does the switching, as this moment is neither in the beginning nor the end of the finger movement. You might want to watch the youtuber Battle(non)sense, he uses a similar setup (hacked mouse with a LED across one mouse button, a fast camera etc.) to measure input and network lag of games and also output lag of monitor technology like freesync and gsync. He describes his setup in nearly every video.

Did you replace the styrene caps on the integrator? With something like https://console5.com/store/vectrex-integrator-cap-kit-revision-3ge.html ?

Hey a german shop offering modded and overhauled 2600 systems claims to "fix a serial (as in systemic) error in the power circuit" of the 2600 and this preventing "destruction of the system due to handling/operating errors (of the user)". When asked what was modded they answered that "every senior electronics engineer should see it". So, what systemic error could they mean? To my knowledge, we have the unregulated PSU coupled with the 7805 rated just at the edge of the current draw of the system. So you probably should switch the linear regulator to some beefier one or a DC/DC switching component (with all the drawbacks it might provide). But other than that? Is there a known fault that should be fixed? All I know of (besides switching the 7805 to one with a higher ampere rating) ESD mod the fiel manuel suggests, but this is not related to the power circuit. Regards

Sent a pm, too.

Are these still available?

Generally surely a good point, but beeing a black/white crt the vectrex has no shadow mask and there is no convergance as there is only one electron gun present in the system. Thats why b/w crts where used in viewfinders, as no mask sets - and thus limits - a physical resolution.