Who is the best at repairing vector games?

squeakman

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I have a Gravitar with amplipone monitor that is playing blind. Game starts and you can play but not see. There is neck glow on the monitor, and the red led is on on both mpu board and deflection board. I e read several things pertaining to the graphics chip needing replaced? Have also read on a spot killer problem. I'm green so I can only do so much. Could use help if it's something simple or looking for so. Ive reseated all chips and cleaned legs, rep logged all plugs, checked fuses.
Done really good to repair things for me.
 
Red light on the deflection board is spot killer. Generally indicates invalid/no input.

Is the AVG on your board original?

That said, @andrewb is the king here of Atari Vector repair work.
 
Amplifone is above my pay grade. or more specifically I've never had access to one.

your problem could either be the monitor or the analog output section of the game as the game running means the digital part works. I don't know if @andrewb does Amplifone too but probably. Gravitar is a very cool game, albeit I'm terrible at playing it. :p
 
Okay, let's take a small step back.

This game is all original amplipone monitor. It worked when I picked the game up. I loaded it and bam.
Did you just pick this game up? And it was working when you picked it up? And no longer working when you brought it home?
That definitely feels like a connection broke somewhere, even on component level.

and the red led is on on both mpu board and deflection board.
The red light on the MPU is just an indicator that 5V power is present. As mentioned above, the light on the deflection board is the spot killer. When you have the game up, do you hear any "chatter" or buzzing from the monitor?

I e read several things pertaining to the graphics chip needing replaced?
That would be the AVG, used on Gravitar, Black Widow, and others post tempest. You can get a replacement here, though I'm not convinced you need it.


Before going any further, read over these two posts by @andrewb

First: How to bring up an unknown atari game (Rule out power issues completely)

Second: How to bring up a 6100 Color Vector Monitor (Even though it's an amplifone, some of this is still going to apply, particularly testing the game board output voltages).

If you're able to determine that the game board IS in fact outputting proper signals, then turn to the amplifone Faq.
 
your problem could either be the monitor or the analog output section of the game as the game running means the digital part works. I don't know if @andrewb does Amplifone too but probably. Gravitar is a very cool game, albeit I'm terrible at playing it. :p
Yes. Andrewb does Amplifone rebuilds. He did one for me 2 years ago and the work is top notch. Recommended highly.
 
I'm trying to think of what would go bad on a monitor while just bringing it home. Did the game have to go up stairs to come out? Did it get loaded on its side in your ride? Any wicked bumps on the way home? Not trying at all to sound like a jerk here, just curious what might have set things awry.

It's car mentality- if something came loose during the drive, you put that part back on, not replace the engine :)
 
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