APF TV Fun Repair - No Visible Paddles?

[mikey.shake]

Hi everyone,

 

Just got an APF TV Fun (model 401A) -- my 1st First-Gen home video game console, and along with the Telstar, aesthetically my favorite Pong-alike console. I paid almost nothing for is "as-is", so it wasn't exactly a shock when it wasn't in 100% order, but I'm pretty sure it's fixable.

 

With batteries, it powers up, I get clear video and sound (though I assume the TV is SUPPOSED to continue the static since the sound effects come from the console -- or is the TV supposed to go silent?). The ball bounces and the score is kept. It never restarts on 0/0 when turned on, but some other seemingly-random score combination. 0/0 comes up whenever I hit the "Start" button". The four game variations all seem to appear just fine, as well as the fifth option, when the selection knob is set between any of the other two modes.

 

But there are no visible paddles onscreen.

 

The game seems to start up right away and start serving away, so maybe the start button is involved in this. Even with frantic knob twiddling, I can't seem to return a serve. Everything else seems to be working properly, though. The red light comes on when switched on. It looks like Pong, it sounds like Pong, the picture's nice and clear, the ball angles and speed change when I flip those switches, so other than the paddles, it seems fully-functional. I've opened it up, cleaned it out, looked for loose connections, and re-seated the main chip in the socket.

 

Now, I'm really not terribly knowledgeable about electronics, but I'm not bad with a soldering iron, as long as the instructions are paint-by-numbers style. I realize I could get a working unit for $15 (and will if I can't fix this), but I may as well try to repair the one sitting in front of me. It's so good looking.

 

Could any experts suggest places to look (beyond "look for loose wires/connections", I'm on top of that) that might help me pinpoint the problem? Regions of the board, or maybe specific components that would affect that part of the output signal?

 

Here's the manual:

http://pongmuseum.com/share/APF-TV-Fun-Model-401-manual.pdf

 

...and here's some other reference material:

http://www.raphnet.net/divers/tvfun_repair/index_en.php

 

I can post video/pics of what's coming out if that would help. But just imagine Pong... you know, without paddles.

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me fix this. I don't make it to this corner of the site much, but whenever I do, there's some amazing stuff to be found.

[zylon]

Are you getting voltage to the control pots themselves? next question would be are the pots operable? Some of those games had a flaw in the programming that would let the paddles travel off-screen at the extreme position of the knobs. If you have a pot that is either in an "open" condition or a "short" condition, the result would be the same.

I do not have one of these anymore and am working from memory.

[mikey.shake]

I got out my multimeter... and it's not working either! But as soon as I can get my hands on one, I'll check the pots -- I hadn't thought of that possibility. Thanks for the tip! I'll get my hands on a new multimeter and see what I come up with.

[Rob Mitchell]

Tonight I pulled out two APF TV Fun units to test. The more primitive of the two has the built in paddles which work. (401A) The more advanced one (402E) would not display color. Only the remote paddles worked. We could not get the two console paddles to respond. My guess is dirty pots which keep the paddles off the screen, I will clean them and see if I can get all four paddles up and working ..

Edited June 11, 2015 by Rob Mitchell

[Rob Mitchell]

With a little contact cleaner and some tuning of the RF box, I now have stable color and full paddle functionality x4.