Space War Vectorbeam

This is a Space War. Vectorbeam version built around 1978.

Fairly low serial number: 00718

When downloading from the ute, bits fell off.

It had been wet at sometime, perhaps with the back exposed to the weather.

I stripped it immediately.

Front

Back. Previous owner had started to restore but I will replace the bottom and back with sturdy ply.

Some bits that fell off..

Interesting to see a lot of the cab was made from reversed woodgrain chipboard, possibly recycled as seen from the artwork on part of the internal frame.

Connected gameboard to 5V, the reset led flashed. hmmmm very good.

Plugged into Starhawk.

Excuse my cynicism but I was little astounded to see it working!

The monitor is faulty. The seller's description of magic smoke around the deflection circuit, was a resistor.

Both Horizontal deflection drivers were faulty.

Obviously had trouble around this area before. The wires protruding through the holes should be connected to the rest of the six pin connector above.

Look closely, you can see the pads above are badly dry-jointed. This is the connector for the deflection coils.

Checked the transistors in the previous stage - all Ok.

Still no deflection. I will check through the inputs later. ( one has to work to pay for these things).

 

Connected gameboard to 5V, the reset led flashed. hmmmm very good.

Plugged into Starhawk.

Excuse my cynicism but I was little astounded to see it working!

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]121587[/ATTACH]

 

That is great news :)

You have a Starhawk machine too, Any other vector games ?

enjoy Starhawk on the Vectrex, might drag it down off the shelf for the holidays and have a blast.

That is great news :)

 

You have a Starhawk machine too, Any other vector games ?

 

enjoy Starhawk on the Vectrex, might drag it down off the shelf for the holidays and have a blast.

Thanks Jed. No, just these two and a Ripoff board plus monitor. Enjoy Starhawk. :)

The Monitor.

Fitted mod to prevent damage to analogue switch, LF13331.

Powered up to trace input. Burning smell, 47 Ohm resistor is smoking. This is getting tedious. I will buy flame retardant resistors next time.

This may have something to do with " permanent damage will result if transistors are unplugged". I'm sure I didn't have this trouble with the other monitor, oh well.

Disconnected resistors on both deflection circuits.

Traced input through analogue switch (yay) to output of op amps TLO81. TOK

No output from trimpots...dirty trimpots?, I usually have demonic faults but dirty trimpots.

One trimpot is o/c the other worked with some rotation.

100 Ohm trimpots not on hand but salvaged a 500 Ohm for now.

Still no deflection but traced to Q2, o/c every way. Didn't pick it using DMM because of the other transistors in line with it.

It works.

Picture is small but awaiting trimpots. Also the substitute transistor for Q2 is a little low powered, I will order that too.

Cabinet

Previous owner repair.

Removed base and bits to replace with ply.

Just a note on the cabinet. Internet says Vectorbeam built better cabinets than Cinematronics by using ply.

This one is particleboard held together by a zillion staples, more like the Cinematronics cabinets.

As posted before, it appears to be recycled woodgrain board as well.

The internal artwork appears to be of the era. (There is a shoe to the left, cut off by bad pic cropping).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]122641[/ATTACH]

This from a Space War in Brisbane, "the old Boathouse" in 2013.

It is also constructed from particleboard.

Just saying, internet or history is not always right.

Is this project finished love to see a pix of it completed.