Games in space, with rocks and saucers......Atari Italy Asteroids

[level42]

The chassis. It's a pretty neat design with clear sections. On the far left there are two huge heatsinks which so an amazing job. Even after prolonged running they only get "hand warm". Of course there is no backdoor on the cab now which may influence this a little bit, but it can't be much worse.

Right next to them is the deflection PCB. I had a look at the schematics a bit and it follows more or less the regular B/W vector design. Lots of transistors are European types though, which I like

Right next to the deflection is the Power Supply, I like that this got it's own PCB.

And on the far right is the HV cage.

One thing I noticed on the deflection PCBs is that the 4 heatsinks of some of the transistors are mounted "standing up" where the picture on the manual, and the one PaTrYcK's machine have them "laying down". Maybe this was a mod done later in production to increase cooling ?

[level42]

1) The side with the deflection transistors. 2N types on one axis, BDs on the other....kinda strange, maybe a repair or just what the factory had around...

2) On the other side a hole for one of the bottle cap transistors on the HV cage....good for cooling...

3) HV cage

[level42]

1) Lots of dust on the CRT of course...

2) The CRT, a Fivre M50-210M-W. Also Made in Italy.

I had never heard of that brand...so I did some googling and found some pretty interesting stuff with quite a number of pictures from that factory ! => http://obsoletetellyemuseum.blogspot.nl/2012/03/siemens-elettra-tv2451-crt-tube-fivre.html

(Scroll down !!!)

[level42]

Interesting document about Fivre's history....wish I could read Italian (yeah I know I can use Google translate but....far from perfect.):

http://www.aireradio.org/articoli/img/Fivre.pdf

What I understand is that they excisted from 1932 till 1992 in Pavia, a town north of Milano. The factory building was demolished in 2007 and, interestingly they also had a factory in....Firenze.....where Hantrex produced this monitor

[level42]

1) OK, something I REALLY like about this monitor is these two little knobs....by turning both loose, you can very easily remove the chassis from the frame. Compare this to it's US cousins....it is even so that you can actually remove the chassis WITHOUT removing the entire monitor from the front on an Asteroids cab, this is impossible with the US and UK machines
In fact this exactly what Robin and I did when we did the first fix.

If you keep al the wiring connected you can STILL remove the chassis and put it in front of the frame.

2) and 3) chassis loose....I did remove wires here for cleaning

[Etienne MacGyver]

Yep, Hanta did that, my CK MTC 900 also has those.
very nice to take out the chassis in comparation to a Sanyo 20 EZ...

[level42]

1)+2)  The HV cage opened.

3) look at this fuse on the power supply board. The one on the deflection board actually looked a bit worse and hence lost contact.
IIRC the seller of the cab told me that the place where he got it from was pretty moist....which makes is even more special that the machine is in it's current condition.

[level42]

1) Interesting....4 wires connect the Power Supply PCB and the deflection PCB. I am sure they actually designed this to use connectors and some (ribbon) cable but it looks like they decided differently in the end. Even so, it would have been quite possible to replace either PCB pretty easily.

2) The solder side of the chassis. The overall look is that the solderings are still nice and shiny. There has been definitely some PCB "hacking"....some tracks are covered in solder for large sections....maybe they had some overheating tracks problems.....
Also a couple of resistors on the solder side....

3) OK........let's clean that CRT !!!!!! I hate dirty tubes !
Magic sponge and some bootleg Glassex are set to work.....am I worried about the aquadag......nope

[level42]

So.....did you see that little number on the CRT....... 20" ! Yes sir, this is not a tiny 19" tube but a whopping 20" !!!

For once, a European thing is actually bigger


The downside of all this excitement is...........the cardboard bezel is the same.....so the visual screen is just the same....

Aside from this....US and Euro tube sizes sometimes were measured differently.....I'll measure this and another B/W vector to compare the REAL size difference....

1) after several cleaning "go rounds" (it kept coming off....)
 
2) and 3) I really like the transparent (silvery) look at the part that are not covered with aquadag...

[level42]

1) The neck after cleaning it carefully. Sometimes I wonder why I clean all this stuff that no-one will ever see.
But then....I will know it's there ! Plus....I believe part of the smell of a cab is from the dirt and dust inside...

2) Tube nice and clean again. I didn't separate it from the chassis, there was no need.

3)While looking at the HV pcb I soon find out that the big filter cab is pretty damn loose !

[level42]

1) A look at the solder side reveals why: the right most soldering is completely loose.

I wonder if the HV simply worked without the filter cap or that I was lucky and it _JUST_ made contact somehow....

2) Solder side of HV PCB.

3) While the monitor is out, let's clean that area of the cab...

[level42]

1) Washed all PCBs. Checked all caps but decide to do a "full" cap-kit (except the big filter caps).
Replaced the old fuse holders and fuses.

The monitor has a couple of "dangerous" things with the connectors. There are 2 2-pin connectors on the deflection board and mixing them is probably not a very good idea.....

TBH, one of those pins actually never has to be disconnected, unless you want to separate the HV cage.

The second issue is that the connector on the harness that goes to the deflection board has 2 pins MORE than the connector it goes to on the deflection board....and it has to be in the "middle" so one empty "pin" on each side....and there are no physical keys to prevent misalignment !

Anyway, it looks pretty nice again, maybe not factory new but fresh enough for 35 more years

[Etienne MacGyver]

you are going full throttle on this one !

Looking good !

[vernimark]

this is a great monitor and easy to repair. actually a couple of trimmers are not easily adjustable but it is globally a good product

[level42]

Yup, so far I agree ! it worked almost "out of the box", only the fuse holder was a real problem and OK, one soldering still a lot better than a lot of other vectors I've seen

The design is neat and clean.

Also: the signal to generate the HV is created with a 555 IC. The U.S. monitors only started using that set-up with the color vector 6100..............who knows, maybe they "borrowed" this idea from the Italians


Hope you can find some time to scan the bezel Marco

I know that the size of the U.S. Bezel fits nicely in the cab so I don't expect that to be (much) different.

It might well be enough to only scan the lower section of the bezel....and use that together with the existing file for the U.S. one.