fixing vectrex consoles has got to be one of the most worthy restorations to do. those things are beautiful, and so unique. nice work mate, good to see you back too. to think its probably been laying dormant for years, all because of a blatantly fucked plug. lol. nice find. :)
Been years since I've seen a plug like that! I remember when elctricals didn't come with plugs and you had to buy them separately! Thank god for molded plugs!! At the tender age of 10 i was wiring plugs! We were taught at school how too and I'm not ancient - only in my late 40's! lol
Just want to say good job and thanks for your videos. You have a real relaxed approach to problem solving. I'm 42 & I can remember those systems when they were all the rage, but am not the sort of person who would normally think about taking consoles apart. I watch your videos with interest and have learned a lot from them. I also have used some of your videos as reference when fixing housing on my kids more modern ds handheld games. You videos in particular have given me the confidence (& probably many other people ) to have a try at simple fixes to broken consoles. (Something I couldn't do without revering to RU-vid) As I have 3 kids all into gaming systems your videos have been some of the most useful and have saved me money, not to mention made me look cleverer than what I am! ;-) Please keep them coming!
Great to see you back, Martin! You have been missed! And congratulations on your Vectrex score, with what may be the easiest fix I've seen you execute yet. :)
There's a couple of videos on Ashen's channel about the Vectrex, so that would be a good place to get clued up on what it was and some of the games you can get for it. Wow, hard to believe it was such a simple fix to get it up and running again! Well done!
Nice find! Sadly, a "standard" controller wont work with the Vectrx. It uses a analog joystick in stock. however, with a pair of voltage dividers, replacing the pots in the joystick, you can use a D-pad or a digital joystick for it. I got a video on my channel, explaining a bit how it's done. Also, a guy in the UK sells a custom made cartridge with all the 72 ever released games, including DIY games and demos on it. It's about 30 odd pounds for it.
This game on the Vectrex was the first video game I ever played, so your video brought back some good memories for me. By the way, awesome deal you got there.
I have one of these. One of those came through my electronics pawn shop, and the seller was some grandma who didn't know what she had. I bought it for $20 - $30 dollars after testing it out. I had to have my friend who teaches electronic engineering replace . . . something on it because when the Vectrex was powered on, it made this low, constant, and annoying buzzing sound. And there's the buzzing sound at 7:20 just as I was typing this! Anyway, it's a surprisingly fun system that I break out about once a month or so.
Awesome , been waiting for this since you first tweeted about it a while back. I love your videos man you inspire me to take my consoles repair needs into my own hands. Never paying repair fees again.
Awesome find. Even better, you didn't have to do anything remotely technical to get it up. I was worried the crt was faulty. Glad it was just a neutral lead. lucky score!
Really really nice find!! Can't believe the only problem was a dodgy old badly wired plug without the protective sleeve found on modern BS1363 plugs!! Now that she is safe and well you will not be able to stop playing!! Love the Vectrex display!
RetroGameTech I was expecting the word 'leaky' and 'capacitor' used more than once, perhaps add in a little flood damage and some burned components but no :D Not even so much as a corroded trace to be repaired!! I wish I had your eBay skills maybe then I can find myself the perfect Dreamcast hehe
Your channel has inspired me to learn electronics and repair old consoles- is there a console you would you recommend for a beginner to work on? What I mean is there a console that doesn't have difficult fixes.
Brew The NES is definetly the easiest to start with. 99% of its problems can be fixed by carefully cleaning the cartridge connector, the rest is bad caps and broken cables.
+Brew I repaired a GB Pocket, pretty easy. The main problem was it wouldn't even start. I just cleaned the battery connectors and worked fine. Then I realized the LCD cable had desoldered from the screen. I tried to resolder it but in the end I had to replace the LCD.
+Brew There's a couple channel recommendations I'd like to throw your way. If you're not easily offended by swearing, AvE is great. Then there is bigclivedotcom. I heartily recommend these channels, they are fantastic. There is also Afrotechmods, who still has his original website and forums. As far as consoles go: anything Nintendo. They are amazingly simple machines to repair.
That is cheap for a Vectrex. I think this is one of the most interesting things you have fixed I have seen you do; not many of these around so the more working the better.
I don't know if you could even class that as a fix. It was way too simple :P Unfortunately it'll probably cost me double what I paid for the console to get hold of a controller for it! haha
You only need the original screen overlays, the Vetrex use clear plastic screen overlays to show the playfield/backgrounds. Nice find only needing the wire attached again LOL
Glad to see another video my man! I am actually looking at some model 1 sega cds that say they are broken and try to get one to fix up because I have always wanted a model 1 because they looked so awesome to me back in the day.
Cheers dude. Those model 1's are usually pretty simple to fix. A very common and easy to fix fault is a blown fuse on the mobo right next to where the power supply connects.
Wow the graphics do look so sharp. That is really cool. Thanks for the upload. If you find a controller, I hope it's another Ebay junk, so we can get another repair video.
That's a massive score! What a great price for it! Vectrexes are a collectors wet dream. I have a feeling that possibly the seller deliberately pulled out the neutral pin, to comply with laws on selling vintage equipment. Anyway, great deal. Never sell that, it's a goldmine. Recycledgamer *Chuck van pelt possibly has some controllers for your system ;)
There's a retro shop on ebay trying to sell one with one game for £150... good luck.. There's one with no bids at £89 with a nice multicart like the one on Ashen's video.
Not so fun fact. Back in the 1980's most electricals weren't pre-installed with a UK plug. You had to fit your own, which alot of people didn't do correctly back then, which resulted in alot of deaths & fires. If i mind right, bbc watchdog had a massive influence in changing this law. Now plugs come as standard. I bet you that plug was probably installed in 1982! Nice find :-)
Wow so lucky! Another great video. I want a Vectrex really bad but they are quite expensive normally and I have little space to put it. Hopefully one day! Kind of funny actually, I recently bought an NES with a plug that looks near identical to that one (wires sticking out, a little rusty etc). It will need replaced soon as it doesn't work so good.
The prices for complete Vectrex systems seems to be all over the place right now. Anywhere between £50-£150. I'd say definitely worth paying around £80 for a good working one :) Get that NES plug replaced before it causes a fire or electrocute someone! They cost next to nothing :)
Hah, you are like a techno womble or something. Great stuff, good find. I guess most people when something breaks down, they are afraid to even open a plug. We tinkerers though, get out our tool kits.
I think I have seen this on eBay when it was listed. Yeah I'm 100% sure. I was thinking of buying it but with the shipping cost to Belgium it was ugh and I already own a few Vectrex systems. Around the time of the listing I bought a demo pod with a "non working" Vectrex.. turns out if you let it be plugged in for a while it eventually turns on :) Must be some faulty parts that I need to replace. It works, but when I plug it out I have to let it "charge" up before it turns itself on again.
yay, I knew you'd return :D edit: If you are having trouble finding new consoles to buy and fix you should just buy random broken consoles and try to fix them as a challenge and see if you can resell them for a profit
Nice vid and a great score. Still, I would not be plugging in 30+ year old hardware (especially high-voltage CRT stuff) into the mains without opening it up and inspecting the internals first. You never know what condition the electronics are in after all these years and there's the possibility of permanently damaging something.
I know you didn't need it, but an old trick to see if there is any power getting to a tube based screen/system is to place the back of your hand on the screen when you turn it on. If there is anything getting to it, the hairs on the back of your hand will stand up *like static*. Just for future knowledge.
They had a Vectrex in Game in Glasgow? Haha, that's crazy. I remember seeing my local Gamestation selling a used Virtual Boy for £70 a couple of years ago. Kinda wish I'd bought it.
RetroGameTech when i say a few years ago, it was like 8 or 9...maybe more, not sure it was game at the time or game station, but feel the same, wish i bought it haha
I remember seeing a boxed Vectrex for sale at a games expo at Braehead a couple of months back. Shame I didnt have a spare £300 How you were lucky enough to find yours so cheap I'll never know.
As I understand it, plugs with fuses are common in the UK because many older houses (namely the ones built in a hurry after the war) didn't have proper circuit breakers in the wall. These fuses are likely separate from any that might be located inside the main housing.
Gambit771 Is that right? We don't have anything like that in North America (well, at least not in the USA, I can't speak for Canada or Mexico even if most of the same products are sold throughout), that makes so much more sense. I had to change a fuse in a lamp a while back. It wasn't a big deal, there were just a couple of standard screws to get at it. But, I'll bet if that lamp went out on somebody that was less mechanically inclined, they probably would have just assumed that it was totally dead and chucked it. There wasn't any indication on the lamp itself that the fuse was serviceable, and the package and instructions were long gone. The fuse was housed in the lamp's base in a totally inconspicuous way, I didn't even know if it WAS serviceable, and wouldn't have bothered to look if I didn't like the lamp so much. It's a fairly new one, too. You'd think with so many people trying to "go green", they'd make these fuses easier to get at.
Why was I no subscribed to you anymore ? Damn youtube shite ! Anyway, that was a great find there. I can't believe that they didn't even check the plug before listing it on ebay LOL. I would love to get a Vectrex sometime, I've never played one either. I do know someone who has one though, so I should at least get a go on one sometime LOL
Fucking awesome!! Now what you need to do is install a big speaker in it and turn the volume all the way up before turning it on. Then have somebody play it...heheheheh. DUN!DUN!DUN!DUN!
Damn last time I watched this I was using a Samsung Note 3. Then upgraded to the Note 7 (the one that exploded, apparently), to an S10+, and am now on a Pixel 6 in 2023.
Watch out your going to catch the Vectrex bug! I have it and I love the system! You haft to check out all the homebrews for it!! Plus the Vectrex has a amazing library of original games also!!
I took a chance on a Vectrex 2 years back for the same price with the same fault but rewiring the plug did nothing. I spent hours tinkering with the console and ended up hating the thing.
The only time I've ever played one of these was at the Insomnia 49 gaming festival. The camera really doesn't do the display justice. I'm assuming it's electron beams that make up the shapes, but I'm not sure.
Hey maybe you can wire a Saturn 3D pad to work with this thing to get analog control. I think the Saturn and mega drive wiring is very similar and it's possible to change the plugs to use one on the other. So maybe if you change a Saturn 3D pad to get a mega drive plug it would work on the Vectrex.
NiceandGames did a video about his Vectrex. He got a Time Pilot clone for it that someone made recently. Seemed to be a pretty cool game if you are interested. Also, you can't always trust continuity on fuzes. Sometimes the filament will flex under load and break contact if one side of the filament isn't properly soldered into place anymore. This is definitely a few and far between occurrence, but I thought I would share.
