Just bought a Vectrex. Is there anything I should know about this system?

[Steven Pendleton]

Alright, thanks. I'll see about taking a look at it, but I need a longer screwdriver than what I have to open it, so I will have to go buy one on Wednesday when I get some time. Bad caps might explain the loss of video, as well.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Steven Pendleton

[+jgkspsx]

The Vector Gaming board and the Facebook group are probably the best places to get a diagnosis. I’m happy to act as a gobetween there if you don’t want to use them.

[Steven Pendleton]

Alright, thanks. Not much I can do right now, but I'm going to go the hardware store tomorrow as soon as I can and get a longer screwdriver and open the Vectrex and take a look.

 

Hopefully the sound chip is in an IC socket so I can just get a chip puller and rip it out and replace it, but I won't know for certain until tomorrow.

[Vectrexer]

Another way to get help is via the VEXTREME discord .

https://discord.gg/5Q6CxuxJ

 

[Steven Pendleton]

An update!

 

My update is that I bought some screwdrivers, but then I became lazy/have stuff to work on in real life, so there isn't an actual update.

 

I plan to stop being lazy sometime this year. Possibly.

 

But probably not.

[Steven Pendleton]

Okay, an actual update: I opened the Vectrex and the sound chip is soldered to the motherboard. I'll have to learn how to solder and get some equipment, apparently. Apparently a lot of stuff runs through sound, so hopefully fixing the sound will fix the video. It turns out that the brightness knob was inside the case. The tiny little board that it's on is cracked in half, but hopefully it still works. Everything seems to be intact otherwise. I don't see any bad caps or anything... my camera is too poor for me to take any decent pictures, and of course my trash-tier photography skills, which are on par with that of a newborn baby, would prevent me from doing so anyway.

 

Now that I have recovered the brightness knob, I plugged it in to see if changing the brightness changed anything and it did not.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Steven Pendleton

[+-^CrossBow^-]

12 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Okay, an actual update: I opened the Vectrex and the sound chip is soldered to the motherboard. I'll have to learn how to solder and get some equipment, apparently. Apparently a lot of stuff runs through sound, so hopefully fixing the sound will fix the video. It turns out that the brightness knob was inside the case. The tiny little board that it's on is cracked in half, but hopefully it still works. Everything seems to be intact otherwise. I don't see any bad caps or anything... my camera is too poor for me to take any decent pictures, and of course my trash-tier photography skills, which are on par with that of a newborn baby, would prevent me from doing so anyway.

 

Now that I have recovered the brightness knob, I plugged it in to see if changing the brightness changed anything and it did not.

Most likely the cracked board means cracked and broken traces hence why the knob didn't make any change. So that will also have to be looked into to be fixed.

 

[Dr. No]

Cracked, or snapped off in half? Either way, that sounds pretty bad... either way, sorry to hear about that...

Edited May 26, 2022 by Dr. No

[+Razzie.P]

I was reading this last night before I fell asleep, and I ended up having nightmares about having a Vectrex that didn't calculate my games' scores and lives properly.

[Mamemeister]

Appreciate the tip on always leaving the Vecrtrex on and just use the power socket to power on and off.

[Steven Pendleton]

Yes, I still need to fix my Vectrex. I've gotten sidetracked by other stuff. For now, I am going to be working on cleaning up the New Astro City that I got in the mail today, but I'll get around to the Vectrex soon.