Rheingolds
Now that I had the Atari Football all cleaned up, it was time to install the Bob Roberts capacitor kit for a Wells Gardner V1000. Football has a huge 23″ black and white picture tube and I wanted to make sure those Xs and Os looked their best. The monitor can be removed in one of two ways. The monitor is bolted to a piece of plywood that can slide out of the cabinet. You just open the control panels, loosen some wingnuts, and the monitor and plywood monitor mount slides out. I opted for removing the glass and cardboard “stadium” bezel, then unbolting the monitor from the plywood mount and lifting the monitor out of the top. What a pain. I did this because I didn’t realize you could easily slide out the monitor from the side until later… That’s what I get for not bothering to read the manual.
Smoke
After the game had been powered on for 5 minutes, I noticed that smoke came up from the monitor and I smelled burning plastic. Great! (I am being sarcastic, of course.) I thought that I had done something wrong with my cap kit install. Fortunately, no. I let the game cool off, powered it on again, and slid out the motherboard to see if it might be the culprit. The mainboard and monitor are close together, so it could’ve been either one. Sure enough, the huge wirewound resistor that is near the edge connector was smoking. It had been dipped in some kind of black plastic hence the burning plastic smell. This particular resistor is part of the +5V regulator, so I decided to replace the regulator’s main components. Heck, since the Atari Football mainboard has two regulator circuits — one for +5V and another for +12V, I decided to just replace them both. The electrolytic capacitors in each regulator circuit needed to be replaced; after all they were 30 years old!
Another thing I noticed while the smoke was happening was the picture would jitter and I would hear a slight screeching noise (from the +5V regulator area!) at the same time. It looked like the +5V regulator was probably causing that, too. I ordered the following from Bob Roberts:
+5V Regulator Circuit
LM323 or LM323K (TO-3 Package) +5V Regulator — Don’t forget the mica insulators and thermal paste!
R37 – 4 Ohm, 10W Wirewound Resistor
C23 – 470uF 25V Axial Capacitor
+12V Regulator Circuit
LM7812CV – +12V Regulator
CR1, CR2 – 1N4001 Diode
C50 – 10uF 25V Axial Capacitor
C62 – 4700uF 25V Axial Capacitor
On my mainboard, the resistor that was smoking (R37) was actually a 20W resistor. The schematics call for a 10W resistor which I used. You could still use a 20W resistor — someone probably put it in there to make the circuit more robust to the current draw. In the photo above, you can see the new components that I installed for the +5V regulator circuit.
After “upgrading” the two regulator circuits with new parts, Atari Football was back in action after all these years! No more smoke, no more screen jitters, no more screeching.
I also replaced the 22/44 Molex edge connector for the wiring harness that connects to the mainboard. It was a pain to crimp because of many wires and small gauge wires. I will have to make another post on my advice for crimping.
LEDs
One of the red LEDs for selecting plays was not working. I replaced it and I noticed how dim the other LEDs were. Even in the dark they were hard to see against the lamps that illuminated the play diagrams. So, I changed out all the red 5mm LEDs which made a dramatic difference. (You can order the LEDs from Bob Roberts as well.) The play panel is very vibrant with the new lamps and LEDs.
Now that things were looking on the up-and-up, I tried playing a few games (yeah, I know — it’s a two player game…) The Player 1 track-ball was not working correctly. I could move the player in the horizontal direction but not the vertical direction. Next up, fixing the track-ball opto board.
Seeing the side art (below) reminds me of watching football games with my dad and uncles on Sundays… nothing like that 70s style…
February 18th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Looks good Tony. Atari black and white looks so fantastic in a darkened arcade.
My only memory of this game was putting a quarter into it, not knowing what the hell to do, and then the feeling of my palm pinched between the trackball and control panel.
Decided this game was for the big kids and didn’t get any more of my precious quarters or skin.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Hey Daryl,
Thanks! Luckily I was warned by the people who played this game in the past. The fact that you and they remember how brutal this game was says a lot. Needless to say, I make sure my hands don’t get too close to “the gap”…
November 21st, 2009 at 1:36 am
Tony,
How well I remember this game. My chums and I would plunk quarters in this machine at some arcade on “the Drag” in Austin, Texas and hammer those trackballs until our hands were swollen from the pounding (you had to really slap those trackballs with your hand to get your guys sprinting).
As we were almost 17, we could drive home, but we had to hold the steering wheel with a flat palm because our hands were too swollen to actually grip the wheel.
I love the game, but I don’t think I would play it again. I’d be too tempted to slap the track balls like a kid again, and I really can’t afford messed up hands anymore.
But such memories!
Good luck.