Starstormer Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 (edited) Hello I'm new to the forum and I was hoping that someone would be able to help out with pong consoles. I had never owned a pong console so needless to say I was very excited to get it up and running. It only seems to make a continuous beeping sound when I power it on and I only see horizontal lines. I have the tv set to cable channel 3 and that's the channel I get the best picture from, all other channels give me static. Once I opened it up I noticed that there is a single yellow wire missing around where the switches to adjust difficulty and game type are. I've included a few pictures as well. I also tried adjusting the rf box with an alan wrench as I heard adjusting that on pong consoles can get them to work on digital tv's. If it is repairable and anyone has any suggestions that would be very much appreciated. Edited October 12, 2012 by Starstormer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Welcome! The yellow wire should lead from the game-selection switch to the harness plug, but it won't affect the signal quality. I'm assuming the beeping is the normal beeping when the unit is powered on... even when you're not playing, the ball bounces around the playfield and makes the beeping sounds. It looks like your sync signal is messed up, or possibly the power supply is insufficient. Not sure how handy you are with reading circuit diagrams, soldering, etc. but you can get schematics and video-mod information from this thread. The telstar has very few components, so it's reasonable to do some simple checks on all of them with a multimeter. I had a telstar with wonky video and improved the signal somewhat by replacing a bad cap, but video modding it made a huge difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starstormer Posted October 13, 2012 Author Share Posted October 13, 2012 I don't know a whole lot about circuitry but I am inclined to listen, The extent of what I've done is trying to adjust the internal rf box Thanks for the help with the yellow wire, good to know its not the cause of the video. I'll attempt to mod it once I know more and get the video and sound to display properly. Is there any kind of tutorial on how to fix the sync signal? Since the telstar has few components I imagine it isn't a very difficult fix to replace a cap. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Just noticed that you're trying this with a digital TV. you are connecting to the analog RF/coax port on the TV, not the composite-in, right? You should also try the unit out with a CRT TV if you can, just to make sure its just not an issue with that particular TV hating the telstar video output. Assuming that it's still an issue with the telstar... There's no tutorial on fixing sync signals that I'm aware of. If you can get your hands on a multimeter with a capacitance measuring mode, it's best to use that. Unfortunately meters that measure capacitance are expensive and less-common. Capacitors fail in two ways; they either become shorted or have infinite resistance. You can do a basic cap check with a cheapo multimeter. Small caps like the ones in the telstar should measure with a near-infinite resistance. The downside of this technique is it checks one of the failure modes (short) but not the other. Alternatively, if you're handy with a soldering iron you can just try replacing both 0.1μf caps. Resistors can be measured for their expected values while you're at it, but they won't fail unless someone has dropped the telstar at some point. The video mod actually works directly off the main AY-3-8500 chip, so it bypasses all of the old discrete components, like the caps. If you're looking to eventually composite-mod the unit, you might consider just tackling it up-front. Modern TVs are generally happier with composite input than old console RF input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starstormer Posted October 13, 2012 Author Share Posted October 13, 2012 Yes I am trying to hook it up the rf/coax port, I've tried a non digital crt tv as well with similar results. I do have a voltage meter that may be able to measure capacitance. I' somewhat handy with a soldering iron and I found a tutorial on how to replace a capacitors in a vintage game console. Again I'll do my best to get it up and running. it would be a shame to lose a piece of hardware this old due to a minor technical problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Cool. I have confidence you'll be able to find it - most problems with these pong units are fixable, owing to the simple pong-on-a-chip design. Be sure to share your results with us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starstormer Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 (edited) Been a while but I figure I'd update. I suspect I'll need to adjust the rf box. For the most part this became a forgotten project but at this point I'm thinking of getting the capacitors replaced. I suspect now that the capacitors are dead and that's why I've been unable to get a signal. I might attempt this myself or if I can have the help of someone who has more circuitry skills to help as well. Glad to know what type of capacitor it is and if I can get this up and running I'll be sure to make a post it. Edited January 2, 2013 by Starstormer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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