Astro Blaster - Red, Green, Blues

derSturm

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Picked up a pretty pristine Astro Blaster a few days ago (1981 Gremlin/Sega). It's actually the finest 30 year old cabinet I've ever seen. The only flaw on the entire externum of the machine is a little nick in one corner of the CPO.

Internally the game has a few flaws. First, it hums horrifically until a game is started. Once the sounds begin (with gameplay) it sounds just fine.

Second, I can't get the monitor to display the blues beyond merely very, very slightly. When I got the thing home and started it up it was, as it had been at the seller's locale, all fuzzy and very over-red. Quick fixes with the focus, screen, and brightness pots yeilded a very clear, albeit still overtly red, display. I tried everything I knew to get the greens and blues up. I, of course, fiddled with the red, green, and blue pots, as well as (as mentioned) the focus, screen, and brightness knobs. I finally loosened the rings and played with the purity set, to no satisfactory avail.

Tonight I plugged the thing in, for the first time since messing with it as mentioned above, and was surprised to find the greens displaying just beautifully. Now all the reds and greens are perfect! I left it on and played it like 12 times with no noted change to/decay in the display as mentioned. Again I tried adjusting everything, shooting for better blues (there are, as I said, blues displaying; it is that they are very weak, relative the other colors).

Does anyone know what I've got going on here? Is it a mere matter of ensuring that the blue pot is intact and online?

Does anyone know what monitor I've got here? It's labeled only "SEGA" and with an array of Japanese characters, as if SEGA itself made the dadgum tube. I'm pretty sure that the monitor is original. This machine was purchased by the man who sold it to me back in like 1985 at some charity auction. The burn-in on the screen is 100% Astro Blaster.
 
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Astro blaster

I've owned (3) of these.. Pulled them all out of a warehouse at the same time.. One had no sound and the other 2 worked fine. The loud hum is typical, both my working games had it.. It ends when the game starts.. Super annoying.

All of mine had a go7, but it's the negative (or positive) sync version.. Only a handful of games use this setup.. Looks like a typical go7 but has a pcb sandwiched on the chassis.

Sounds like the trannies on your neck board have cold solder joints. Try reflowing the solder to them and the color pots on the neck.

Cool game, doesn't get much love
 
Yeah, truth is I prolly wouldn't love it, either, if I hadn't played it so much at the Piggly Wiggly when I was 10. Still, I played alot of games then and AB has always been on my Top 20 want list.

I appreciate the advice. I'm hoping you're right. I don't know nearly enough about these old beauties yet but I do know how to solder.
 
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