Former Temporary, now PERMANENT guest at my home: Gravitar !

[ANY]

I first installed the caps. It's still amazing to see how small the modern caps are today:
Left old, right new. Yes same Farads, some voltage !

Today caps are smaller, but not good as the old one.
The old one are better made, todays caps are shit if you compare them at the same age.

[ckong]

Thanks for the vid. I immediately saw that the red color has gotten much brighter then it was before. The overall picture sure looks very nice. You are a magician (for me at least). Gameplay sounds are unfamiliar to me however.

[level42]

Thanks for the vid. I immediately saw that the red color has gotten much brighter then it was before. The overall picture sure looks very nice. You are a magician (for me at least). Gameplay sounds are unfamiliar to me however.

Heheheh, yeah it's just the attract and Wilma had just returned so....blablablabla.....

About the caps: I esp. adviced Erik to go for brand caps (in this case Panasonic) and 105 Degr. versions. Why would today's be worse compared to the old one's (cost reduction ?). I think there's a lot of rubbish on the market from cheap Chinese brands but I hope the brand names still produce some decent stuff...

[level42]

Yesterday (well, last night) I found this cool video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrs369nuezQ

I just tried this trick this morning and it worked !

Funny, but pretty pointless.....

Any way, there's a great website dedicated to Gravitar with AMAZING stuff by the current world-record holder Dan Coogan:
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/gravitar.html

One of the gems (amongst many others) are an interview AND the FULL Gravitar project binder by Mike Hally. All 350 pages of them !
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/binder.html

I love that kind of stuff, I prefer to read that over reading a novel It's the moments like that that I would love to own an iPad.

If you don't want to read all of it, read at least the first two pages, it's a very interesting memo about licensing (Namco) games Kangaroo and Fly Boy and developing Atari's own games and about the quality difference between the two (which is _very_ true).

I must say that I always had a hint I would like Gravitar because I loved Lunar Lander. (Gravitar was initially named Lunar Battle). There's something about a being in control of a space ship that is drawn by gravity.
The game is _so_ elegant. It requires TOTAL control. It requires you to CONTROL your nerves. If you get into the slightest form of panic, you're dead. Play this game when you are tired/angry/exited and you will fail.

Instead of minslessly banging fire buttons this game actually requires you to let loose of your hate against the enemy. You have to search your feelings and free it of bad feelings. Because else you will be drawn to the dark side... o wait sorry....
 It requires your total calmnes. I doubt a serious record could be played in public because on-lookers will be going OOOOOH, and AAAAAH at narrow escapes or tight situations all the time (you actually have to control yourself not to do it....)
Really, you need to be in balance, you need to be in a completely focussed stated of mind, your yin and yang need to be perfect to achieve serious scores on this game.

It's brilliant.

[ckong]

André, I do get the game back, don't I? Olli already warned me because he immediately saw that you were completely into the game. 

[level42]

André, I do get the game back, don't I? Olli already warned me because he immediately saw that you were completely into the game. 

Give it back ? What are you talking about ?






 
Olli was right !

[ANY]

About the caps: I esp. adviced Erik to go for brand caps (in this case Panasonic) and 105 Degr. versions. Why would today's be worse compared to the old one's (cost reduction ?). I think there's a lot of rubbish on the market from cheap Chinese brands but I hope the brand names still produce some decent stuff...

The branded cap you will buy on retail market is not that bad. The one used on retail product are not so good...

I never replaced so many caps like in the last 2/3 years. The "standard" PC power supply are the worst example. The well know brand pc PS are from another planet.

[level42]

I think I might try and video some gameplay next time. I don't have a tripod though.

Need to know TG rules, I want to be in that top 10 list

[level42]

And....done.....

I installed the LV2000 and I may say that it was needed. Not that the monitor wasn't working before, but there has been (as with almost every WG6100) burns in the low voltage section before. This was fixed with a different (better) kind of transistors by earlier men who worked on it. Due to the burning, the PCB almost burnt through at some spots, causing the PCB tracks to come loose. This was all fixed very well though, good work done before, but I prefer to replace the entire low-voltage section with a LV2000 and be safe for sure.

Anyway, since I have already installed one on Luc's WG6100 is was a pretty straightforward job, desoldering all the original Low-voltage section parts and installing the three legs and two wires of the LV2000. I did have to make some bypasses because of the damaged/disappeared tracks but I could use the LV2000 legs for that so that was really easy.

Also resoldered one of the legs of one big resistor on the deflection board. This one is getting so damn hot, its seems to be desoldering itself over time ! I strongly suggest to replace it with a bigger (more watt) one Erik !

So, I fired it up, and to my relieve both LV2000 LEDs came on, the spot-killer LED came on and went out again (like it should when it correctly works) and there was a picture appearing. BUT, there was no red !
No panic though, gotta love experience. Because I connected the monitor on the floor at the back of the cab (because I still had to adjust the LV2000 pots) the wire harness of course had been moved around a bit. This caused the red (or the ground of the red) pin in the connector to come loose from the connector. I had exactly the same with my SW cockpit once or twice.

It shows that it would be a good idea to replace those connectors, but that's a nice job for Erik

So, I checked the low-voltages as described by the LV2000 manual. They were a tiny bit high so I re-adjusted them to exactly 26 Volt and -26 Volt.

The monitor worked exactly like it did before though. I can still see the tiny jitter. I'm sure most people probably wouldn't notice. It looks like it's only happening when there are a lot of vectors (lots of text) on the screen so it really doesn't hurt gameplay.

The only things I can still think of this moment are the Big Blue and the AR-2 caps. I measured the ground between the power brick and the monitor and there's about 1 Ohm resistance there. Looks pretty OK to me for a metal to metal mearurement but I will investigate a bit more.

I still need to check the HV output to be sure it's 19.5kV and the B+ voltage.

[ckong]

Good work André, and I believe that you are almost done, and then you can start practicing for your High Score attack. 

Yes please, leave something for me to do, I will have no problem with those connectors. But could you replace the big transistor on the deflection board for me, I'm not used to replacing them?

[level42]

HOLY SMOKES !

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250607639184&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1069

That is INSANE !

[ckong]

Wow, that better not be mine!

I know, it isn't, and I am very glad that I have a working one in my Gravitar game. How is the High Score doing?

[level42]

I haven't been able to match it so far, but I'm pretty steady at scoring 50000/55000 now.

That's the big issue for taping a record....I've got a tri-pod now though.....now I need time (and rest at my home). Probably next sunday !!!

[Alpha1]

The prototype of Gravitar was indeed called Lunar Battle. I infact had a Lunar Battle once, but I ran out of money and couldn't afford to import it

I sold it to a friend in CA in the end.

Pix: http://www.arcadeoll.com/pics/LunarBattle/

Oliver

[ckong]

I love tempest so much that I decided to convert my Gravitar to it: http://arcarc.xmission.com/Faqs/Conversion%20FAQS/Gravitar%20To%20Tempest.txt  

Or shall I make it a Black widow: http://arcarc.xmission.com/Faqs/Conversion%20FAQS/Gravitar%20to%20Black%20Widow.txt

Or ...... Major Havoc: http://arcarc.xmission.com/Faqs/Conversion%20FAQS/Gravitar%20to%20Major%20Havoc.txt

No, just kidding, but it is interesting to know that it is possible quite easily.