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BUILD an ARCADE XY VECTOR MONITOR

I set out to build a working 13"-27" CRT Arcade XY Vector Monitor.
UPDATE!!! 5" and 9" monitors too.


fredkonofredkono
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UPDATE!!! Long overdue. Some very exciting things are happening. I've complete the XY deflection, High voltage section and crt driver for a plug and play kit that will work for most 5"-9" crt's and ordered the parts for a small run. James Sweet has also finished his vector daughter board. A board that plugs onto a cheap Altera Cyclone FPGA board and so far lets you run Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe for true hardware goodness. I've added a couple pictures of the prototype deflection and James FPGA board running on a vectrex crt. The screenshot is terrible, but trust me it looks amazing in person.

I have split up this build into 3 major sections for my Vector monitor. The deflection, the high voltage and the CRT. The deflection runs the CRT tubes yoke and controls the beam on the screen. It is comprised of 2 amplifiers and a spot kill circuit. The high voltage takes care of the anode, focus and misc voltages used to drive the crt. The crt is the gun driver circuit and the crt itself. This is the section that runs the crt guns.

Here are some links that inspired me.

http://www.e-basteln.de/asteroids/asteroids_monitor.html

http://www.jrok.com/xfer/xystuff/

Here are the schematics for the Amplifone and WG6100 

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-monitors/Atari%20Monitor%20TM-239%201st%20Printing%20Amplifone%2019in%20and%2025in%20Color%20XY.pdf

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-monitors/Atari%20Monitor%20TM-183%202nd%20Printing%20WG%206100%20XY%20Quadrascan.pdf

A good write-up about how XY monitors work.

http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm

THIS IS THE LINK TO THE MODIFIED SCHEMATIC

This is the schematic for my deflection PCB with the TIP transistors.

The circuit outlined in the green box is what is on my pcb. For the small signal transistors  I used 2n2222 and 2n3906 transistors.

http://www.filedropper.com/deflection

  • New XY monitor kit on the way.

    fredkono • 02/17/2017 at 19:49 • 2 comments

    UPDATE!!! Long overdue. Some very exciting things are happening. I've complete the XY deflection, High voltage section and crt driver for a plug and play kit that will work for most 5"-9" crt's and ordered the parts for a small run. James Sweet has also finished his vector daughter board. A board that plugs onto a cheap Altera Cyclone FPGA board and so far lets you run Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe for true hardware goodness. I've added a couple pictures of the prototype deflection and James FPGA board running on a vectrex crt. The screenshot is terrible, but trust me it looks amazing in person.

  • New mini Deflection PCB's

    fredkono • 09/17/2016 at 23:55 • 0 comments

    New tiny deflection pcb's arrived and assembled. These run off from + - 12v and are good for 5-9" crt's. They also can replace the deflection in a vectrex and enable the vectrex to run arcade games with a great picture.

  • Build a 5" XY monitor

    fredkono • 09/08/2015 at 18:44 • 0 comments

    LONG OVER DUE UPDATE - Completed a 5" crt XY monitor with a smaller deflection design and stand alone high voltage pcb.

  • -UPDATE-

    fredkono • 11/12/2014 at 15:32 • 0 comments

    I ordered most of the parts to begin work on the CRT neck board. I also have a updated High Voltage circuit. I want to get the High Voltage PCB s designed and produced soon along with CRT neck PCB s.

    \

  • HV

    fredkono • 10/23/2014 at 00:52 • 1 comment

    Schematic of high voltage. I did not build the shut down circuit that is in the slotted box and added it just for reference in the schematic. I may add it at a later date, but as drawn it probably will not function right so leave it off if your going to build a prototype. If anyone has a place to host files and stuff for this project let me know and I will email all the files for you to host. Thanks

  • Prototype High Voltage built

    fredkono • 10/22/2014 at 21:55 • 0 comments

    I have built a prototype HV power supply and now have a fully functioning XY monitor. The only thing I am using that is not built from scratch is the neck pcb from a TV. Here it is! Asteroids on my 9" color xy test monitor. The China power supply only outputs 98V max, it would have been better to have around 125V for b+, but for a test monitor it works fine. If anyone builds this be warned you are dealing with high voltages that can be lethal. I am not a high voltage design expert, if you see a way to improve this please test it ouT and let me know. I will post the schematics shortly.

    I also have 2 new complete assembled tested working deflections pcb's for sale if anyone is interested. I have left mine running for days and days they are bulletproof. Heatsink is not included.

  • Time for a much needed update. High Voltage coming together.

    fredkono • 10/17/2014 at 14:45 • 3 comments

    Okay I have settled on a elegant and cheap solution to making the High Voltage.

    If you want to follow a long you will need to buy one each of these items.

    2SD2599 or equivalent Hot transistor. Most of the newer hot transistors will work. (I used one out of a 13" TV)

    One of these SMPS.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/251389244815?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

    This flyback is the one I settled on because it is cheap and available.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/400453658884?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

    555 timer, A few fast switching diodes (UF4007), 2n2222, some resistors, capacitors and misc. Most stuff any good parts bin will have.

    Some of you might ask why did you not use a WG6100 or Amplifone flyback. The answer is simply because it was cheaper to use the above components. The WG and Amplifone flybacks are $40 or so each (I even asked about price breaks). All the parts to build the version I made should be less than that to build with all new parts. I was thinking about designing a pcb with a SMPS for B+ when I found that the Chinese already built one for less than $10.

    Stay tuned for lots of updates and in the mean time collect up some parts.

  • Collecting components for high voltage and purchased a Vectrex.

    fredkono • 10/03/2014 at 21:05 • 0 comments

    I have been collecting components up for the next section of the project the high voltage section. I am still undecided on whether to use a repro wells wg6100 flyback or adapt a common TV flyback. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

    I also purchased a Vectrex to experiment with. These are a neat vintage vector based games system if you didn't already know.

  • Rewound a 13" TV Yoke and tested it out.

    fredkono • 09/22/2014 at 23:44 • 0 comments

    Now I need to get my Space duel PCB working so I can run a color XY game.

    Notice I used a 13" pirates of the caribbean themed TV from a thrift store :) .

    Asteroids with RED Gun

    Asteroids with Green Gun

    and finally with blue Gun

  • Please like us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/MarletteRepair

    fredkono • 09/19/2014 at 14:43 • 0 comments

    Please keep us in mind for your all your arcade pcb and monitor pcb repairs. 

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Matt Carr wrote 12/20/2017 at 11:08 • point

Hey there! I've been watching your project for a while, awesome stuff. I've been working on kind of a counterpart: a little arcade board that uses a dsPIC33 and a 2-channel DAC to play games on an X-Y mode oscilloscope screen. There's not much more to it beyond linking the PIC to the DAC through SPI; most of the secret sauce is in the runtime. https://hackaday.io/project/28620-ocelot-arcade-system


I'm going to look through your stuff to see what I'd need to make my style of board compatible with your monitors!

  Are you sure? yes | no

m.leber wrote 09/17/2017 at 11:48 • point

What a great project! I'm interested to convert a 9" crt TV and try to creat a Vectrex clone. I've loved those systems since the 80s when I had one as a child and being that I'm a student of electronics, this project is quite exciting to me being that I can't afford a real Vectrex as a full time student. 

Bravo on your work and thank you for sharing it ! 

  Are you sure? yes | no

FloppidyDingo wrote 10/25/2016 at 05:25 • point

Hi, I really like your project. I have a question though. Could i by any chance see the flyback driver schematics? I'm trying to get a CRT to work, and i have a flyback transformer that's the exact same model as the one in your pictures.

  Are you sure? yes | no

hackaday wrote 12/09/2015 at 18:46 • point

Nice work! I plan on starting off with https://trmm.net/MAME and making use of some analog oscilloscopes I have, but it would certainly be nice to have color for things like Gravitar and Tempest.

What is the drawback of just keeping an equivalent inductance attached to the TVs horizontal output and then driving the rewound horizontal and vertical coils externally? That way you don't have to build your own HV driver. I am guessing spot kill could be a simple circuit that activates blanking when the sum of x+y is below a certain value.

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 12/09/2015 at 18:52 • point

You can certainly do it that way. I didn't like the extra non used TV parts still attached myself.. I would be very interested in making one of those ZVG replacements or buying one from someone. Shoot me an email sometime to Fredkono(at)gmail.com

  Are you sure? yes | no

hackaday wrote 12/11/2015 at 21:02 • point

I think the author (Trammel Hudson) is still working on the hardware, but it's really just a Teensy 3.1 and some MCP4922 DACs. The rest of the circuitry just provides for bipolar drive signals.

  Are you sure? yes | no

David McKean wrote 05/14/2015 at 16:32 • point

A lot of the images are no longer working.

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 02/15/2015 at 04:15 • point

That's amazing. I don't think the arcade XY monitors would be fast enough for that though.

  Are you sure? yes | no

charlton.rodda wrote 01/14/2015 at 22:53 • point

Also, you may be interested to see that not only has someone made sound file visuals for x/y oscilloscopes but someone got one to run Quake! http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/oscilloscope_quake.html

  Are you sure? yes | no

charlton.rodda wrote 01/14/2015 at 21:29 • point

Looks great! I actually just started a similar project, though my experience in electronics is relatively limited.

How much would one of those PCBs be? Unfortunately I'm in the UK, so shipping is an issue, and I don't have much money (student) but I imagine it might be less than trying to get one bespoke and all the components individually. If not, could you put the PCB files on a different host? That one's down.

Also, how did you wind the yoke? How many turns? I picked up an Optiquest Q41 and found a service manual.

I see you used original game PCBs, would DACs (e.g. sound cards) driven from a computer have any issues? I'm interested in programming my own visuals.

Sorry for the number of questions, but I figured I may as well ask all of them.

Thanks in advance!

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 01/14/2015 at 21:53 • point

Deflection PCB is $69.00 fully assembled + shipping. If you read through the older updates I think all your questions are answered.

I have no clue if sound cards would work. If they work with original arcade vector monitors then they probably would..

  Are you sure? yes | no

charlton.rodda wrote 01/14/2015 at 22:22 • point

$69.00 sounds reasonable, I may get in contact soon.

I did at lest skim all the updates, but unfortunately some of the images aren't working for me (Yoke Rewind and a few others) and so I missed the 92 turns a side and possibly others. The questions about the yoke were the only ones you hadn't answered, so that's great. Sorry about that!

Thanks very much!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Piero Andreini wrote 10/01/2014 at 20:34 • point
Fantastic project! I will enjoy if I can get eagle project. My email pieroandreini@vodafone.it thanks!

  Are you sure? yes | no

vernimark wrote 09/23/2014 at 10:40 • point
hello,
how did you adapt the raster yoke (with different impedances on H and V) to a vector signal?
Thanks

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/23/2014 at 18:59 • point
Rewound the Vertical coil. Look at the build logs from the past.

  Are you sure? yes | no

Matth Jenks wrote 09/23/2014 at 01:18 • point
Awesome project! I'll be interested in seeing how you adapted the TIP power transistors and modified spot killer.

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/23/2014 at 03:04 • point
When I get a chance I will post the schematic and if anyone wants the eagle pcb files to host let me know.

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/17/2014 at 01:22 • point
VivaLed , I will sell a few assembled deflections and possibly a complete small monitor or 2 when I am finished. As far as the schematics, the deflection is just an updated version of the Amplifone. I used the Amplifone schematic and changed the transistors to Tip transistors that are available. They are slightly better rated also. At some point though I can draw up the schematic with the tips in there and the slight tweaked spot kill circuit.

  Are you sure? yes | no

vivaLED wrote 09/14/2014 at 20:55 • point
The original tubes look so nice compared to TFT well done so far.
Are you planning on selling these or will you be releasing the schematics?
I also am in the beginning stages of making a xy based cab only with a 7" CRT as a small tabletop machine.

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/12/2014 at 21:03 • point
Convergence will be the fun park. I actually bought a book from the early 70's that details TV repair and goes to great detail how to do convergence... :)

  Are you sure? yes | no

TheShanMan wrote 09/15/2014 at 18:09 • point
What's the name of that book?

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/18/2014 at 19:26 • point
The book is named Television symptom and diagnosis by Richard W. Tinnell here is one on ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Television-Symptom-Diagnosis-Richard-W-Tinnell-book-Howard-W-Sams-TV-repair-/271587769924?pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item3f3be47e44

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/12/2014 at 21:02 • point
Use the Amplifone yoke specs and then try to get yours close with a LCR Meter. I just did 92 turns and it came out pretty close.

  Are you sure? yes | no

netbeard wrote 09/12/2014 at 19:36 • point
Awesome project! I've been wanting to do exactly this for a long long time!
I plan to develop a replacement for the long out of print ZVG vector generator, in order to play mame on a proper XY monitor.

Is there any chance you could release schematics for your project?

  Are you sure? yes | no

netbeard wrote 09/12/2014 at 19:39 • point
Also, some details on determining the proper turns ratio and wire gauge for the deflection yoke would be fantastic!

Thanks

  Are you sure? yes | no

fredkono wrote 09/18/2014 at 19:28 • point
I used 24 gauge wire.

  Are you sure? yes | no

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