I love watching this because I just realized I enjoyed watching my dad do this when I was young. I finally bought my first multimeter and I'm going to be using my dad's soldering iron and solder for projects around the house. This is awesome.
I don't think you can get away with the "I don't know what i'm doing" card anymore Vince, we're watching a pro at work these days. Always a pleasure and always an inspiration! Thank you!
Haha, thanks Wayne! I'm sure the beauty of editing makes me look better than I am. Still plenty of burning boards, and not having a clue about components left in me just yet. Appreciate the kind words though 👍👍🍻
Your Son is a talented artist!!! Those "bumpy" traces -its from where the board was wave soldered, or dipped into solder. You got uneven solder on the larger areas as it cooled - common to see on older computers and stuff from that era. Lovely fix =D Video and sound is great =D
Nice one Chris, I knew you would have the answer on the bumpy creased tracks. I will pass on the praise to Ben, he loves me telling him about the nice comments. Cheers mate 👍😀
@@Mymatevince The slug that you retrieved probably belonged where you took it from, just someone had overtweaked it and broke it. You can get pastic trimmer tools to adjust those inductors without your body and the metal in the tool that you use throwing off the adjustment. They can be VERY finicky. Well done on the fix and your son has some good talent there. Also, I was shocked you hadn't come across Gorf in vintage computers or in the arcades. It was a big deal when it was new as it could even SPEAK to you in the arcade! How cool was that? One of the first, if not the first, arcade machines with speech synthesis.
It's very interesting to see the insides of one of these CBS models for the first time. I was surprised to see that RF modulator situated where it was when the U.S. Colecovision has it on the main board. The CBS models came out a year after the ColecoVision was released in North America, so it would seem that they made some significant changes along the left hand side of the board to make it easier to accommodate different modulators for PAL and SECAM.
Brand new ASTEC UM1286 modulators are available to buy for around £15 and will come tuned for video and audio ready to solder. Would have kept it original and gave you a lot less hassle. However, it was a well presented video and you used your skills nicely to diagnose and remedy the problem to get a fix. ON to the next one!!
Greetings from California USA . I bought a COLECO Vision game console system back in 1983 . I still have it . Donkey Kong came came with my system as a combo package. I then bought Donkey Kong Jr , Gorf , Rocky wich was based on Sly Stallone's Rocky movie when he fights Mr. T . Rocky came with a pair of 'SUPER CONTROLLERS " . I then bought Baseball . The expansion module on the COLECO game console, you could connect CLOECO'S ADAM which was a separate computer with key board and all. That is why the power supply on the COLECO Vision is huge. It would power accessories like the ADAM computer and what ever would come in the future . By the way...back in the day most game cartridges were basically versions of arcade games . Gorf , Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr are examples of arcade games for home console game cartridges . Of course the graphics and game play were not exactly the same as the original arcade versions but they were still fun to play with .
Even unfinished wow!!! Help keep his interest in his gifts…and help him grow them…I bet you’re an amazing father…good man Vince…thanks for the hours and hours of entertainment!
Haha its funny when you say you have no clue about electronics and then show us a diagram on how you connected the cables.. this was some advanced next level thing.. respect
This was my first ever console as a kid growing up and my neighbour also had one and we used to share each others games, There used to be plastic cards which slid into the controllers for use with certain games.
Why do we enjoy watching you fix things from when we were the little? Probably for me is that you actually fix things. I just carry out their death sentence! I'll look through some of my old electronics and see about sending them to you! Great video and channel, glad I found it!!
Great job! An AV mod is usually the way to go with these old consoles, unless you're an avid collector and really want to keep them mint. I've done some Atari 2600 systems that way. The added transistor is basically amplifying the video signal as this is normally done inside the modulator. The rippling on the PCB I've encountered in an old Atari 400 computer. It's harmless, but scary if you don't know what it is. BTW, your son is very talented indeed. Amazing work!
Thanks for the memories Vince! A friend had the Colecovision when I was in middle school and we loved to go to his house to play. I think the console may have come with Donkey Kong. Some games came with flat plastic inserts to go under the frame around the number pads on the controllers. The inserts had icons or pictures for various commands associated with that particular game.
Thanks Mike, I did see a slot on the side of the controllers and I was wondering. Sounds very similar to the Atari Jaguar controllers with the button overlay. Nice one 👍👍
Most tunable coils of that era had ferrite slugs in them. These are quite fragile and brittle. Often once set up in the factory they had hot wax put on to fix them in place. This or just using the wrong tool can cause the core to break if attempted to be turned. Such 'twiddly bits' are often a magnet to young inquiring minds (I broke a lot in radio's etc. as a kid). My guess would be someone played with the trimmers, some broke, a brass screw was substituted for one and whatever was in the other just fell out. Great diagnosis to find the issue pretty quick.
Love this system. My uncle had it with a massive collection of games, which he gave me when we moved away in the late 90’s. Space Fury is really fun, Looping, Smurfs, Ladybug, Cabbage Patch kids Adventures in the park, are some of my favorite to play, may have missed a few as I have not played it in years.
Great work Vince. I've been looking at buying a faulty Colecovision for a while with the intention of doing the Ben Heck mod. I'm so glad you did this as didn't think about the NTSC difference on the RF modulator. Great fix and I think it will be a good long term fix.
It's amazing just how detrimental RF was to the sound quality( not to mention the video quality.) Glad to see you go direct A/V. Made a big difference all around.
That was such a good fix, I had an Atari, with ping pong etc, no colour and no varied sounds, then my sister had a Commodore 64, I never got into gaming. I do love those retro games now though. Lovely Mr Vince 🤗
oh wow, the memories.. This was my first ever console. I'm not sure if they were more common here (Argentina) or how my parents got it on the first place, but I have great memories of playing this when I was a little kid. Great content as usual, Vince
I was so poor in the US, I had to pretend to want to go spend time with other kids just to play their old Ataris. We were all too poor to afford the Colecovision.
I got one of these systems from a relative when I was a kid in 2000 and I loved it. It was stolen though. My older brother had the Atari 2600 at the time, but the ColecoVision's graphics and gameplay were MUCH better. Even my mom was addicted to the game "Mouse Trap." Always said I'd get another one eventually.
Great video Vince. Plenty of good troubleshooting tips in here. You inspired me to dig mine out of storage. Never been able to get it working. Turns out the power supply is knackered.
In the states this system was great back in the day. Had an Atari 2600, and then was a big step up. Games like Miner 2049, Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong Junior. I think back fondly on this system. Got a notification on this and when I saw a Colecovision had to watch it. :)
I never had one as a kid but my uncle did. Sure does bring back a lot of memories. I think my favorite was the super action controllers for baseball and boxing. Was absolutely the coolest thing at the time.
The basic hardware specs of the ColecoVision (Z80 CPU, TMS9918 graphics chip and SN76489 sound chip) were also used by Sega for their SG-1000 (which wasn't released in the Western world), and then although the Master System and Game Gear upgraded the graphics chip, they continued to use the Z80 CPU and SN76489-based sound core, which were even both put in the Mega Drive as its secondary processor and sound generator alongside the 68000 and YM2612!
My friend I had one of these in the early 80s. I had the Atari 2600. Whenever we would switch games on the ColecoVision, we would have to slide a new card over the controller for a new button alignment.
Great fix Vince just the sound of those games gave me goosebumps, so many memories Well Done. Your son definitely has a talent for painting so keep him at it and he will be earning a fortune some day. Mick 👍👏🍻
@@Mymatevince Love your videos from across the pond, I’m in the US and I found your Dreamcast video when I first started really getting into repair. I was amateur back then, now I’m moderately skilled and improved every time! We all break shit occasionally too, it happens but sticking with it definitely helps with ANY fix! I do some game console repair for my buddy with a shop, if you’re up for it and can find a PS2 slim that stays in the red light when the power button gets pressed that would DEFINITELY help me fix one for them, I also have questions with lid switch sensors on the slim as well as bad spindles and motors. All the best, always a fan! -John 😎👍🏻
@@RetroTechRepair Ha! That is so strange, I literally just checked your uploads as I thought you had been quiet and maybe I'd missed one. All good thanks, looking forward to your next video when you get the time 👍
You can't adjust those slugs with a metal screwdriver, it will affect the tuning. They make special plastic drivers to tune slugs. :) Great job on the conversion!
Vince, based on the circuit diagram I think a neater solution for the composite mod might have been to build a small strip board module with the three RCA plugs on and just use the wires that attached to the old RF modulator circuit board. You had the ground and the leg you lifted on the transistor only went to he RF modulator board connection so you could have left all that intact, changed to one resistor that you needed to change and then built it all on a strip board with jacks so the composite cable didn’t need to be hard wired in and could be changed as needed. Granted your mod works, but I think it would have been neater to leave the unit largely untouched with just the resistor and potentially a 5v feed wire added in to go onto the strip board. Just a thought :) good video though, great to see these things saved for future use rather than just binned.
Brilliant that you made it work ...I used to collect old games consoles had BBC s commodores amigas zxspectrums and lots more sadly sold them got a few joy sticks left and a few power supplies I once got given a skip full of BBC computers a local school was upgrading aaah happy days makes me wish I had kept a few old games 😁
Great repair, Vince! Moving over to composite was certain the best solution since RF never looks as good! If you want to get fancy you could add composite plugs so you don't have to drag the big cable around!
I had one of these back in the 80's, Gorf was one of the best games! Finding an RF modulator should not be too hard, but as it works fine via the composite mod, I would not bother.
Those astec Modulators were user in home computers in the day, the version you have there had sound but ther was a cheaper version didnt. Most people would just do the composide mod you have done in the version of the mod for the spectrum computer there are 3 different options to get the video signal looking better. There are more modern modulators that you can buy NOS that are left over from VCR production in Europe that are a different shape and need an Ardunio because they are controlled with I2C but with analogue TV being dead most people wouldnt bother. The wrinkly pcb traces were common on cheaply made pcbs of the time. I had one of these second hand about 20 years ago with the Atari convertor that i bought at a car boot with lots of boxed games but sold it on ebay as about 30 lots:) As a Sinclair collector i would sell on ebay retro stuff that turned up to raise funds to buy Sinclair stuff instead.
I owned a Colecovision, new, with all the accessories. Haven't thought about it in years. It was a good game system, which could also double as a home computer.
My reaction when I saw this video in my TH-cam feed: "Oooooooohhhh My Mate VINCE is doing a compyuter veedeeoooooo" ...I just woke up and I couldn't words good lol
I had one of these back in the 80s and when it finally failed after many years of use, it failed with what was a common problem, which was one of the memory chips. We had everything that was available for the system at the time and the steering wheel with accelerator pedal was really leading edge at the time.
Great work. I love the Colecovision, some fantastic arcade ports on it. One of the few consoles I need for my collection. Picture looks ace with that mod.
My memories of playing that very game on this exact system came back to me like it was yesterday seeing and hearing this. I would have been playing it back in 1983. I remember the slots in the coleco for heat exhaust being big enough to fit pennies, because I stuffed mine full of them. I broke everything as a kid for some reason.
Half finished projects usually represent a perfectionist tendency. This comes from a recovering perfectionist that now finishes projects, but slightly imperfect. A huge weigh lifted from me when I stopped trying to be perfect as in reality, I was a perfect fool.
Never have truer words been spoken. 95% perfect is good enough, as that last 5% is very hard to achieve, and most people don't notice it. A 95% finished project will always beat an unfinished project. 👍👍👍
@@JustACupOfCoffeePLZ You made me laugh, but that is also a struggle. This is going to sound crazy, but I try and channel patient people like Vince and others to slow down my projects, be only as thorough as needed and wrap it all up in the same block of time. It's the most difficult thing I have to face in my personal life.
Great video as always and looks better with the mod you did. I am sure the ferrite screw was from the big metal can and not the other where it was missing.
I admire you for persevering with the RF modulator, and of course it is someone else's console, but my first thought when I pick up a retro console to refurbish is where are the A/V signals coming from and how do we get to the source? Great vid :)
The ColecoVision was made at the time when products were made to last rather than have planned obsolescence. I have a colour TV from 1974 that still works perfectly. Great fix as always Vince!
Nice save Vince. I have a ColecoVison on the shelf, and it's noisy too. I may just do this conversion to it, and return it to the game store that sent it in.
Wow your wee man has got a talent there alright mate,you should get him onto the TH-cam and do timelapses if him doing the paintings,next banksy in the making
Imagine @benheck and @mymatevince doing a video together… the guy that brought me into electronics and the guy that went from my skill level to far beyond that…
Another great video Vince. great analytical trouble shooting. I actually have a spare Colecovision Modulator board. I did a Coleco early on on my channel and it had modulator problems too, in my case seems a good cleaning fixed it, I think modern TVs expect more precise RF signals from modern electronics. Older kit was more accepting of imperfections, that could be what prompted someone to twiddle in the first place... for me that seldom goes well. I ended up with the modulator as I eventually did the gamesx mod and removed the modulator, it worked for me, but it could be luck. I think your circuit wasn't too much different, perhaps using the TV as ground and not using the 75ohm impedance match. I don't think it will damage console. As others have said the rippling of the PCB is normal, graphite slugs suck and a plastic screwdriver is the way to tweak them. Love seeing your sons pics, very gifted. Another great video mate.
Cool, I haven't seen one of those since the early 80's. One of the officers I hired for the PD had one, I used to drop by for coffee and we would put on a game and pass the time of day. My favorite on that platform was Burgertime they had a wonderful version of that classic, I have yet to see anything that would outclass that system. Intelivision came close but I didn't care much for the joypad system they had.
I loved my ColecoVision except blowing into the cartridge before inserting. Almost bought the Personal Computer Expansion that plugs into the expansion slot, but since my next door neighbor was a RadioShack store owner, bought a Tandy 1000 instead.
Nice to see somebody excited about something experienced late for the first time, there sure is a lot of people out there seemingly buying old things they don't like for some reason. ;) Like I got a Philips Magnavox Scuba HMD, sure it's no HTC Vive but online reviewers act like it murdered their pets or something. ^_^ Guess I admire your gumption but personally I take no pleasure in blind runs of hardware, love those online document resources we have now heh. While I don't think RF deserves that much work anymore it was an interesting break. :)
Good luck with rf VOODOO. The broken part is a coil the broken stuff is ferrite. And the missing screw is another ferrite " slug". These are critical to the rf tunning and audio sub channel......good luck...maybe convert to composite output?
Those are tuning coils and the "slug" or center portion affects the resonant frequency of the coil. Any conductive material affects the tuning, but ferrous material works better. If there's a slug of magnetic or diamagnetic material in the original design then substitution of a less magnetically permeable material will shift the frequency outside component specifications. Those circuits are very sensitive to frequency as NTSC timings are in the mhz range.
I just finished up tuning an old CRT for an 80's era CNC machine and was thinking of this video as I worked on it. If you are tuning one of those coils, you have to use something non magnetic to do the tuning. A metal screw driver will affect the setting drastically. This is why many TVs and monitors of that era had little plastic adjusting tools mounted inside their cases. As Tiporari said, they are very sensitive.
All of those broken parts in the RF modulator are variable inductors. It is very clear someone was previously in there "fixing" it. It's a very common problem with people who unwittingly use metal screwdrivers to adjust these things. The cores are pressed ferrite iron (very often), and they are fragile and will break apart into tiny pieces if you use a metal tool.
For half the video, I'm just shouting "Dude... what are you doing. Rip the RF modulator out and throw it away!" The transistor mod you did for the video port looks really close to the Atari 2600/7800 AV mod. Though with that fragile install (no circuit board, and it's just flapping in the wind), I would pot it in epoxy to create some mechanical stability. I also wouldn't have embedded the AV cables, but just installed a TRRS 3.5mm jack.
Never had one, but I’ve played one a few times. When I was a kid, my mum and dad used to go to the cash and carry , Makro. Makro is a trade only shop (you have to join, and to join, have to prove you own or manage a business). Not sure about now, but in the 80s, they used to have two halves. There was a cash and carry, and a sort of department store. The department store went downhill (IMO) but in the early 80s had an excellent computing department which sold all sorts of computers and consoles. Including the Aquarius, Ti99 4/a, the complete Atari and Commodore range, the Osbourne 1, the Intellivision and the Colecovision. Of course, that wasn’t all at once, the range changed over the years. And yes, they did have one of pretty much every device set up so you could try it..
It uses similar chips as an early MSX machine. One of my favorites. Pepper II, QBerts Cubes, Venture, Burgertime, Jumpman Junior, 2001 Space Odyssey, Frogger, Ladybug, Choplifter, Centipede, Frenzy, HERO, Mousetrap, Jungle Hunt, Blackjack, Oil's Well, Mr Do, Omega Race, Spy Hunter, Tapper, Threshold (from Sierra On-Line!) are all fun games.
I love watching this because I just realized I enjoyed watching my dad do this when I was young. I finally bought my first multimeter and I'm going to be using my dad's soldering iron and solder for projects around the house. This is awesome.
I don't think you can get away with the "I don't know what i'm doing" card anymore Vince, we're watching a pro at work these days. Always a pleasure and always an inspiration! Thank you!
Haha, thanks Wayne! I'm sure the beauty of editing makes me look better than I am. Still plenty of burning boards, and not having a clue about components left in me just yet. Appreciate the kind words though 👍👍🍻
@@Mymatevince Maybe it's like FFMpeg command line switches, even the pros have no idea what they're doing ;)
Love your videos.
I know I'm a little late to the party, but I completely agree!
Your Son is a talented artist!!! Those "bumpy" traces -its from where the board was wave soldered, or dipped into solder. You got uneven solder on the larger areas as it cooled - common to see on older computers and stuff from that era. Lovely fix =D Video and sound is great =D
Nice one Chris, I knew you would have the answer on the bumpy creased tracks. I will pass on the praise to Ben, he loves me telling him about the nice comments. Cheers mate 👍😀
Thx for this i had assumed it was the PCB coating/mask.
@@Mymatevince Vince, i don't think that is easy to fix it
A lot of old arcade boards have the same "wrinkly" solder. First time I saw it, I thought it must be fragile. Later learned otherwise
@@Mymatevince The slug that you retrieved probably belonged where you took it from, just someone had overtweaked it and broke it. You can get pastic trimmer tools to adjust those inductors without your body and the metal in the tool that you use throwing off the adjustment. They can be VERY finicky. Well done on the fix and your son has some good talent there. Also, I was shocked you hadn't come across Gorf in vintage computers or in the arcades. It was a big deal when it was new as it could even SPEAK to you in the arcade! How cool was that? One of the first, if not the first, arcade machines with speech synthesis.
I love your videos. You are clearly not a trained technician, but your logical thinking always gets you in the right direction. Kudos from Belgium!
It's very interesting to see the insides of one of these CBS models for the first time. I was surprised to see that RF modulator situated where it was when the U.S. Colecovision has it on the main board. The CBS models came out a year after the ColecoVision was released in North America, so it would seem that they made some significant changes along the left hand side of the board to make it easier to accommodate different modulators for PAL and SECAM.
Brand new ASTEC UM1286 modulators are available to buy for around £15 and will come tuned for video and audio ready to solder. Would have kept it original and gave you a lot less hassle. However, it was a well presented video and you used your skills nicely to diagnose and remedy the problem to get a fix. ON to the next one!!
Greetings from California USA . I bought a COLECO Vision game console system back in 1983 . I still have it . Donkey Kong came came with my system as a combo package. I then bought Donkey Kong Jr , Gorf , Rocky wich was based on Sly Stallone's Rocky movie when he fights Mr. T . Rocky came with a pair of 'SUPER CONTROLLERS " . I then bought Baseball . The expansion module on the COLECO game console, you could connect CLOECO'S ADAM which was a separate computer with key board and all. That is why the power supply on the COLECO Vision is huge. It would power accessories like the ADAM computer and what ever would come in the future . By the way...back in the day most game cartridges were basically versions of arcade games . Gorf , Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr are examples of arcade games for home console game cartridges . Of course the graphics and game play were not exactly the same as the original arcade versions but they were still fun to play with .
Even unfinished wow!!! Help keep his interest in his gifts…and help him grow them…I bet you’re an amazing father…good man Vince…thanks for the hours and hours of entertainment!
Just bought my first Colecovision console myself. Now I got the real thing and not just the AT Games Flashback system.
Loved this video.
Haha its funny when you say you have no clue about electronics and then show us a diagram on how you connected the cables.. this was some advanced next level thing.. respect
Your son has some skills! Coming from an illustrator and graphic designer. Keep up the good work Vince!
What a lovely looking console 😍 Ben's artwork is looking great too! Gotta make sure he finishes it! 😁
Nice one Steve, It's getting there now. Another couple of weeks and I think he will actually finish this one 👍👍🐶
That odd solder mask was common back in those days, it didn't change over time, it looked like that the day it was manufactured.
This was my first ever console as a kid growing up and my neighbour also had one and we used to share each others games, There used to be plastic cards which slid into the controllers for use with certain games.
Why do we enjoy watching you fix things from when we were the little? Probably for me is that you actually fix things. I just carry out their death sentence! I'll look through some of my old electronics and see about sending them to you! Great video and channel, glad I found it!!
Great job! An AV mod is usually the way to go with these old consoles, unless you're an avid collector and really want to keep them mint. I've done some Atari 2600 systems that way. The added transistor is basically amplifying the video signal as this is normally done inside the modulator. The rippling on the PCB I've encountered in an old Atari 400 computer. It's harmless, but scary if you don't know what it is. BTW, your son is very talented indeed. Amazing work!
Thanks for the memories Vince! A friend had the Colecovision when I was in middle school and we loved to go to his house to play. I think the console may have come with Donkey Kong. Some games came with flat plastic inserts to go under the frame around the number pads on the controllers. The inserts had icons or pictures for various commands associated with that particular game.
Thanks Mike, I did see a slot on the side of the controllers and I was wondering. Sounds very similar to the Atari Jaguar controllers with the button overlay. Nice one 👍👍
My mate had one of these back in the day, he rented it from Radio Rentals
You make art with solder your son with paint, awesome. It's an artists household.
I'm from the states and I had one of these as a boy. Absolutely love to see you enjoying it these many later. Great video Vince!
Most tunable coils of that era had ferrite slugs in them. These are quite fragile and brittle. Often once set up in the factory they had hot wax put on to fix them in place. This or just using the wrong tool can cause the core to break if attempted to be turned. Such 'twiddly bits' are often a magnet to young inquiring minds (I broke a lot in radio's etc. as a kid). My guess would be someone played with the trimmers, some broke, a brass screw was substituted for one and whatever was in the other just fell out. Great diagnosis to find the issue pretty quick.
Thanks Mike 👍
So are those things adjustable inductors?
Love this system. My uncle had it with a massive collection of games, which he gave me when we moved away in the late 90’s. Space Fury is really fun, Looping, Smurfs, Ladybug, Cabbage Patch kids Adventures in the park, are some of my favorite to play, may have missed a few as I have not played it in years.
Takes you right back to the 80s in an instant
I’ve got a couple of these, one new old stock, something special when released back in the day. Nice to see you working one one.
Great work Vince.
I've been looking at buying a faulty Colecovision for a while with the intention of doing the Ben Heck mod. I'm so glad you did this as didn't think about the NTSC difference on the RF modulator. Great fix and I think it will be a good long term fix.
Nicely repaired Vince. I love the Colecovision, it was so far ahead at the time. King of the consoles
What a treat to watch after a long day at work
It's amazing just how detrimental RF was to the sound quality( not to mention the video quality.) Glad to see you go direct A/V. Made a big difference all around.
I find it amusing how even early on it becomes obvious a composite mod will fix it, lol. Its nice to know you can try and fix it but not NEED to.
a mod is still a fix to me if at the end a broken item starts working again. Great
job VInce Love the videos
I know it's called a "resto-mod" when it comes to cars, but I'm not sure about electronics.
I had one of these back in '84 when I lived in LA. Been a gamer ever since.
Great video Vince! Try some IPA & a wet wipe to get rid of the varnish on the top of the case 👍🏻
The painting is very good what a little artist you have there. I think i remember that console a friend of mine had one not seen one in years
ACTUALLY this video game console is FANTASTIC
The wealthy kid over the road had one of these when i was young, i was so jealous. Great fix!
Good job Vince!! We had this system as kids
That was such a good fix, I had an Atari, with ping pong etc, no colour and no varied sounds, then my sister had a Commodore 64, I never got into gaming. I do love those retro games now though. Lovely Mr Vince 🤗
Thank you Dorian 👍👍
oh wow, the memories.. This was my first ever console. I'm not sure if they were more common here (Argentina) or how my parents got it on the first place, but I have great memories of playing this when I was a little kid. Great content as usual, Vince
Only the rich the kids had a Coleco in the UK, all the rest of us had our Ataris! Great job on the composite mod though Vince, looks ace.
And the rest of the rest of us had a ZX 81.
I was so poor in the US, I had to pretend to want to go spend time with other kids just to play their old Ataris. We were all too poor to afford the Colecovision.
It is awsome to see you do a great job of keeping that masterpiece working!! Thank you!
Thanks Anders 👍👍👍
This may be my favorite bit from any of your videos, at 30:42 where you explain your schematic and show how you did it.
Cheers Garth 😎
I got one of these systems from a relative when I was a kid in 2000 and I loved it. It was stolen though. My older brother had the Atari 2600 at the time, but the ColecoVision's graphics and gameplay were MUCH better. Even my mom was addicted to the game "Mouse Trap." Always said I'd get another one eventually.
That type of system is about my level of gaming. Again nice video, keep up the good work.
Great video Vince. Plenty of good troubleshooting tips in here.
You inspired me to dig mine out of storage. Never been able to get it working.
Turns out the power supply is knackered.
In the states this system was great back in the day. Had an Atari 2600, and then was a big step up. Games like Miner 2049, Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong Junior. I think back fondly on this system. Got a notification on this and when I saw a Colecovision had to watch it. :)
I never had one as a kid but my uncle did. Sure does bring back a lot of memories. I think my favorite was the super action controllers for baseball and boxing. Was absolutely the coolest thing at the time.
The basic hardware specs of the ColecoVision (Z80 CPU, TMS9918 graphics chip and SN76489 sound chip) were also used by Sega for their SG-1000 (which wasn't released in the Western world), and then although the Master System and Game Gear upgraded the graphics chip, they continued to use the Z80 CPU and SN76489-based sound core, which were even both put in the Mega Drive as its secondary processor and sound generator alongside the 68000 and YM2612!
I will cry 🥺 because i really really appreciate you Vince and i really love your videos
amazing work, great diagnostics, perfect mod. Congratulations on another great video.
Ahh I enjoyed this - I've owned most consoles across the years - never one of these - looks amazing!
Thanks Kip, I have never even seen one before in the wild 👍
Good for playing Atari games on too 👍
@Kip Hakes Thank you for being a MMV Massive. Regular folks like us appreciate your support.
Was really lucky to have one growing up, with the Atari expansion. Really was the best at the time.
My friend I had one of these in the early 80s. I had the Atari 2600. Whenever we would switch games on the ColecoVision, we would have to slide a new card over the controller for a new button alignment.
Great fix Vince just the sound of those games gave me goosebumps, so many memories Well Done. Your son definitely has a talent for painting so keep him at it and he will be earning a fortune some day. Mick 👍👏🍻
Thank you Mick 👍🍻
@@Mymatevince Love your videos from across the pond, I’m in the US and I found your Dreamcast video when I first started really getting into repair. I was amateur back then, now I’m moderately skilled and improved every time! We all break shit occasionally too, it happens but sticking with it definitely helps with ANY fix! I do some game console repair for my buddy with a shop, if you’re up for it and can find a PS2 slim that stays in the red light when the power button gets pressed that would DEFINITELY help me fix one for them, I also have questions with lid switch sensors on the slim as well as bad spindles and motors. All the best, always a fan!
-John 😎👍🏻
Great video, I'd love one of these systems, very advanced for their time.
So this is where you hang out when I'm snowed under and not putting stuff out :) Hope you are well
@@RetroTechRepair Ha! That is so strange, I literally just checked your uploads as I thought you had been quiet and maybe I'd missed one. All good thanks, looking forward to your next video when you get the time 👍
It's a lovely looking bit of kit. Oh, and I loved Gorf bitd.
A man fixing old electronic products while giving updates on his son's dog portrait? I'm in.
i love the painting he will probably put in background on the marks, love your vids thanks mate
You can't adjust those slugs with a metal screwdriver, it will affect the tuning. They make special plastic drivers to tune slugs. :) Great job on the conversion!
I really enjoyed watching this fix, what a very interesting console. I have never owned one, but I think it's an impressive console. Fantastic fix.
Vince, based on the circuit diagram I think a neater solution for the composite mod might have been to build a small strip board module with the three RCA plugs on and just use the wires that attached to the old RF modulator circuit board. You had the ground and the leg you lifted on the transistor only went to he RF modulator board connection so you could have left all that intact, changed to one resistor that you needed to change and then built it all on a strip board with jacks so the composite cable didn’t need to be hard wired in and could be changed as needed. Granted your mod works, but I think it would have been neater to leave the unit largely untouched with just the resistor and potentially a 5v feed wire added in to go onto the strip board. Just a thought :) good video though, great to see these things saved for future use rather than just binned.
Brilliant that you made it work ...I used to collect old games consoles had BBC s commodores amigas zxspectrums and lots more sadly sold them got a few joy sticks left and a few power supplies I once got given a skip full of BBC computers a local school was upgrading aaah happy days makes me wish I had kept a few old games 😁
Great repair, Vince! Moving over to composite was certain the best solution since RF never looks as good! If you want to get fancy you could add composite plugs so you don't have to drag the big cable around!
Very nice fix, next up the atari 2600 😂 your son is really talented by the looks of his painting skills, just beautiful. Can't wait for the next video
Been looking for your channel for weeks. I forgot the name of it! just found it by chance. SUBBED
I had one of these back in the 80's, Gorf was one of the best games!
Finding an RF modulator should not be too hard, but as it works fine via the composite mod, I would not bother.
Those astec Modulators were user in home computers in the day, the version you have there had sound but ther was a cheaper version didnt. Most people would just do the composide mod you have done in the version of the mod for the spectrum computer there are 3 different options to get the video signal looking better. There are more modern modulators that you can buy NOS that are left over from VCR production in Europe that are a different shape and need an Ardunio because they are controlled with I2C but with analogue TV being dead most people wouldnt bother. The wrinkly pcb traces were common on cheaply made pcbs of the time.
I had one of these second hand about 20 years ago with the Atari convertor that i bought at a car boot with lots of boxed games but sold it on ebay as about 30 lots:) As a Sinclair collector i would sell on ebay retro stuff that turned up to raise funds to buy Sinclair stuff instead.
Oh i want this video game console 😂 Great video Vince. I really enjoyed the video.
I owned a Colecovision, new, with all the accessories. Haven't thought about it in years. It was a good game system, which could also double as a home computer.
A very good video Vince I watched it last night but my comment wouldn't go on but really enjoyed watching the video
My reaction when I saw this video in my TH-cam feed: "Oooooooohhhh My Mate VINCE is doing a compyuter veedeeoooooo"
...I just woke up and I couldn't words good lol
I had one of these back in the 80s and when it finally failed after many years of use, it failed with what was a common problem, which was one of the memory chips.
We had everything that was available for the system at the time and the steering wheel with accelerator pedal was really leading edge at the time.
this brings back memories i had one of those when i was a kid nice job vince
I had one of these when I was a kid. For what it was, it was pretty good.
Great work. I love the Colecovision, some fantastic arcade ports on it. One of the few consoles I need for my collection. Picture looks ace with that mod.
Absolutely awesome love old retro consoles from my era great mod to get it fully working excellent video vince 😀
My memories of playing that very game on this exact system came back to me like it was yesterday seeing and hearing this. I would have been playing it back in 1983. I remember the slots in the coleco for heat exhaust being big enough to fit pennies, because I stuffed mine full of them. I broke everything as a kid for some reason.
awesome fault finding again Vince and a nice mod done really well :)
I remember one of those. My grandmother had one at her house. I remember coming over and playing it. Wow long time ago....
Half finished projects usually represent a perfectionist tendency. This comes from a recovering perfectionist that now finishes projects, but slightly imperfect. A huge weigh lifted from me when I stopped trying to be perfect as in reality, I was a perfect fool.
Never have truer words been spoken. 95% perfect is good enough, as that last 5% is very hard to achieve, and most people don't notice it. A 95% finished project will always beat an unfinished project. 👍👍👍
But what if the pile of unfinished projects fills up 95% of your apartment? Wouldn't that be yet another unfinished project? Asking for a friend...
@@JustACupOfCoffeePLZ 🤣🤣
@@JustACupOfCoffeePLZ You made me laugh, but that is also a struggle. This is going to sound crazy, but I try and channel patient people like Vince and others to slow down my projects, be only as thorough as needed and wrap it all up in the same block of time. It's the most difficult thing I have to face in my personal life.
Well done Vince love the videos keep them coming.
Great video as always and looks better with the mod you did. I am sure the ferrite screw was from the big metal can and not the other where it was missing.
hey bud thank you for fixing this legend, l never had one but do remember playing Donkey Kong in the old arcades so big thanks bud
I admire you for persevering with the RF modulator, and of course it is someone else's console, but my first thought when I pick up a retro console to refurbish is where are the A/V signals coming from and how do we get to the source? Great vid :)
The ColecoVision was made at the time when products were made to last rather than have planned obsolescence. I have a colour TV from 1974 that still works perfectly. Great fix as always Vince!
Nice save Vince. I have a ColecoVison on the shelf, and it's noisy too. I may just do this conversion to it, and return it to the game store that sent it in.
Wow your wee man has got a talent there alright mate,you should get him onto the TH-cam and do timelapses if him doing the paintings,next banksy in the making
Imagine @benheck and @mymatevince doing a video together… the guy that brought me into electronics and the guy that went from my skill level to far beyond that…
Another great video Vince. great analytical trouble shooting. I actually have a spare Colecovision Modulator board. I did a Coleco early on on my channel and it had modulator problems too, in my case seems a good cleaning fixed it, I think modern TVs expect more precise RF signals from modern electronics. Older kit was more accepting of imperfections, that could be what prompted someone to twiddle in the first place... for me that seldom goes well. I ended up with the modulator as I eventually did the gamesx mod and removed the modulator, it worked for me, but it could be luck. I think your circuit wasn't too much different, perhaps using the TV as ground and not using the 75ohm impedance match. I don't think it will damage console. As others have said the rippling of the PCB is normal, graphite slugs suck and a plastic screwdriver is the way to tweak them. Love seeing your sons pics, very gifted. Another great video mate.
Nice one Roger, cheers for the info 👍👍👍👍
Cool, I haven't seen one of those since the early 80's. One of the officers I hired for the PD had one, I used to drop by for coffee and we would put on a game and pass the time of day. My favorite on that platform was Burgertime they had a wonderful version of that classic, I have yet to see anything that would outclass that system. Intelivision came close but I didn't care much for the joypad system they had.
Really nice mod rf is only good for crts but you managed a good solution. Keep the good work
I loved my ColecoVision except blowing into the cartridge before inserting. Almost bought the Personal Computer Expansion that plugs into the expansion slot, but since my next door neighbor was a RadioShack store owner, bought a Tandy 1000 instead.
Nice to see somebody excited about something experienced late for the first time, there sure is a lot of people out there seemingly buying old things they don't like for some reason. ;) Like I got a Philips Magnavox Scuba HMD, sure it's no HTC Vive but online reviewers act like it murdered their pets or something. ^_^
Guess I admire your gumption but personally I take no pleasure in blind runs of hardware, love those online document resources we have now heh. While I don't think RF deserves that much work anymore it was an interesting break. :)
Good luck with rf VOODOO. The broken part is a coil the broken stuff is ferrite. And the missing screw is another ferrite " slug". These are critical to the rf tunning and audio sub channel......good luck...maybe convert to composite output?
Super work, that looks fantastic :)
Thanks Mike, it's a beauty!
Absolutely great Video! Been hoping you would do a ColecoVision. I have 2 of them and they are my favorite system
Those are tuning coils and the "slug" or center portion affects the resonant frequency of the coil. Any conductive material affects the tuning, but ferrous material works better. If there's a slug of magnetic or diamagnetic material in the original design then substitution of a less magnetically permeable material will shift the frequency outside component specifications. Those circuits are very sensitive to frequency as NTSC timings are in the mhz range.
Not just NTSC but PAL both around 8 MHz. But the R F out is 450, MHz ( UHF ) in europe
I just finished up tuning an old CRT for an 80's era CNC machine and was thinking of this video as I worked on it. If you are tuning one of those coils, you have to use something non magnetic to do the tuning. A metal screw driver will affect the setting drastically. This is why many TVs and monitors of that era had little plastic adjusting tools mounted inside their cases. As Tiporari said, they are very sensitive.
All of those broken parts in the RF modulator are variable inductors. It is very clear someone was previously in there "fixing" it. It's a very common problem with people who unwittingly use metal screwdrivers to adjust these things. The cores are pressed ferrite iron (very often), and they are fragile and will break apart into tiny pieces if you use a metal tool.
For half the video, I'm just shouting "Dude... what are you doing. Rip the RF modulator out and throw it away!"
The transistor mod you did for the video port looks really close to the Atari 2600/7800 AV mod.
Though with that fragile install (no circuit board, and it's just flapping in the wind), I would pot it in epoxy to create some mechanical stability.
I also wouldn't have embedded the AV cables, but just installed a TRRS 3.5mm jack.
Never had one, but I’ve played one a few times. When I was a kid, my mum and dad used to go to the cash and carry , Makro. Makro is a trade only shop (you have to join, and to join, have to prove you own or manage a business).
Not sure about now, but in the 80s, they used to have two halves. There was a cash and carry, and a sort of department store.
The department store went downhill (IMO) but in the early 80s had an excellent computing department which sold all sorts of computers and consoles. Including the Aquarius, Ti99 4/a, the complete Atari and Commodore range, the Osbourne 1, the Intellivision and the Colecovision.
Of course, that wasn’t all at once, the range changed over the years.
And yes, they did have one of pretty much every device set up so you could try it..
all my old consoles are boxed i was not aloud to play them ... so much money thanks mom
Love you fixing vintage gaming stuff
It uses similar chips as an early MSX machine. One of my favorites. Pepper II, QBerts Cubes, Venture, Burgertime, Jumpman Junior, 2001 Space Odyssey, Frogger, Ladybug, Choplifter, Centipede, Frenzy, HERO, Mousetrap, Jungle Hunt, Blackjack, Oil's Well, Mr Do, Omega Race, Spy Hunter, Tapper, Threshold (from Sierra On-Line!) are all fun games.