3 replies to this topic

[Chuck D. Head]

I bought a nice looking vader at a rummage sale, but so far, she's a no go. For the most part, just get a black screen, no matter the cart or positioning. Despite the awesome external condition, there was some rust residue in the bottom of the case when I opened her up, but as far as the circuitboard, the rust only barely hit the back edge. I cleaned the cart socket contacts with some sandpaper with no noticable difference. I checked the voltage regulator and it has 10.5v in and right at 5v out.

I went ahead and took the shielding off and the rust didn't appear to affect anything on the board, so I cleaned it up and then noticed rust at the bottom seam of what I assume is the RF box:



I tested it some more thinking the RF box was bad; some frying of the power switch easily produced random, recognizable sound effect and very clear vertical bars of color. I was thinking that my next move was to replace the CPU, but what do you guys think about the modulator box, if that's really what it is?

Edited by Chuck D. Head, Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:34 PM.

[akaviolence]

You may need to clean the power switch, some are difficult to open and reassemble so start with just spraying in some contact cleaner and cycling it on and off a bunch.
Also are you pluggin the r/f cord into a switchbox or into the tv directly? Those switchboxes are also known to corrode inside after time. Also I heard auto switch boxes, like nes and sega type don't work for ataris because the signal is weaker.
Cheap direct adapters are availble on ebay etc.
eBay Auction -- Item Number: 350446725223

[Albert]

akaviolence, on Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:03 AM, said:

Cheap direct adapters are availble on ebay etc.
eBay Auction -- Item Number: 350446725223

Also available here:

http://atariage.com/...duct_list&c=101

..Al

[LittleJoe]

If you've got good modualtion while frying, it's probably not the modulator. Usually when I've seen bad CPU's the black screen has a faint grey bar at the bottom. I'd swap the chips at this point. If still no go then bad solder joints and/or clock circuit. But I've never been able to fry a bad CPU (or clock circuit) into displaying anything though, so my wild guess right now is a bad riot.