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Grandstand TV Game 3600 Mk II Capacitor Replacement Guide

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Adman Grandstand 3600 MK II Colour (14)
The 3600 Mk II board. The blue 220 µF electrolytic is on the top edge above the second and third slide switches; two more blue electrolytics are at the left end above the 2 MHz crystal, the "SE 10 V" one is in the bottom left corner, and a small light-blue one stands beside the green trimmer at top right.

The Grandstand TV Game 3600 Mk II has five electrolytic capacitors on its single board, all dating from the late 1970s; the AY-3-8500 on the photographed board carries a 1978 date code.[1] No parts list or schematic for the console has been found, and the photographed console works,[2] so there is no failure report to go on. What follows is what can be read from the board photograph at full size, and how to replace the capacitors on this particular board.

Opening the case is described on Grandstand TV Game 3600 Mk II General Maintenance; symptoms that point to the capacitors are on Grandstand TV Game 3600 Mk II Troubleshooting Guide.

Capacitor list

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Electrolytic capacitors on the 3600 Mk II board (one photographed board)
Position (component side, switches along the top) Capacitance Voltage Notes
Top edge, above the second and third slide switches from the left 220 µF Not legible Blue sleeve
Left end, above the 2.000000 MHz crystal (larger of two) Not legible Not legible Blue sleeve
Left end, above the 2.000000 MHz crystal (smaller of two) Not legible Not legible Blue sleeve
Bottom left corner, below the 2.000000 MHz crystal Not legible 10 V Blue sleeve marked "SE"; light-coloured deposits on the board beside it
Top right, beside the green trimmer and the 4.433618 MHz crystal Not legible Not legible Small, light-blue sleeve

Read from File:Adman Grandstand 3600 MK II Colour (14).jpg and the larger copy of the same photograph on the owner's blog, both examined at full size.[1] The right-hand half of the board, around the RF section and the adjustable coils, carries ceramic and film capacitors but no electrolytics. The board has no capacitor numbers printed beside the parts.

Two partial readings are all the photographs give, so read each value from the part in front of you before removing it. If you recap a 3600 Mk II, photograph the board and record the values: no list has been published.

Signs of trouble

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  • A bulging or leaking can, or a sleeve that has split.
  • Deposits on the board around a capacitor's leads. The photographed board has light-coloured deposits in the corner beside the "SE 10 V" capacitor; their cause is not known.[1]
  • Hum bars, a rolling picture or colour that comes and goes, once the television's tuning and the console's supply have been ruled out. See Capacitor Failure Symptoms for the general signs.

Replacing the capacitors on this board

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  1. Remove the cells, open the base and undo the RF lead's clip.[3]
  2. Photograph the component side before removing anything. The board is held by two screws; take them out and turn the board over gently, because the leads to the side sockets are soldered to it.[2][3]
  3. Work on one capacitor at a time. Read the capacitance and voltage from the sleeve, turning the part if needed, and note the negative stripe.
  4. Desolder from the solder side. The tracks are fine and the board is single-sided, so use a pump or braid and do not linger on a pad.[3]
  5. Fit a capacitor of the same capacitance and the same or higher voltage rating, 105 °C, with the same lead spacing. Keep the leads short near the 4.433618 MHz crystal and the trimmer, where a long lead can pick up or radiate interference.
  6. Clean the board with isopropyl alcohol, especially the deposits in the corner beside the "SE" capacitor.
  7. Refit the board, lining the slide switches up with their slots, and power up from a current-limited 9 V supply before connecting the television.
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  • Temperature-controlled soldering iron, desoldering pump or braid, flux, isopropyl alcohol.
  • Multimeter; a capacitance or ESR meter to check the old parts.
  • Radial electrolytics from a reputable maker (Nichicon, Panasonic, Rubycon or similar), 105 °C.
  • A frequency counter if anything near the colour circuit is disturbed.

Checks after recapping

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After recapping a 3600 Mk II
Check Expected Source
AY-3-8500 pin 4 to pin 2 +6 to +7 V [4]
Pin 17 clock 2.012160 MHz ±1% [4]
Colour subcarrier 4.433619 MHz ±50 Hz; do not retune unless it has moved [5]
Picture Green field, coloured bats and scores; target games with the gun plugged in [6][2]
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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Photograph by José Antonio Ortigueira Amor, File:Adman Grandstand 3600 MK II Colour (14).jpg (CC BY 4.0, from Wikimedia Commons; larger copy on the owner's blog), examined at full size: component side of the board with "GI AY-3-8500 7831 TAIWAN", Motorola "MC14075B", "CD4069UBE RCA 827", crystals "2.000000 K.D.S" and "4.433618 K.D.S", a green trimmer beside the 4.433618 MHz crystal, a screened section at one end holding a transistor, an air-wound coil and the RF lead, three adjustable coils in metal cans, a "TOA 8 Ω" speaker, seven slide switches along one edge, two board-mounted sockets, a metal plate marked "V-7" carrying two spiral spring contacts, and five electrolytic capacitors: a blue one marked "220 µF" on the switch edge, two blue ones at the end beside the 2 MHz crystal, a blue one marked "SE 10 V" in the corner below it, and a small light-blue one beside the green trimmer. Light-coloured deposits are visible in the corner near the "SE" capacitor.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 José Antonio Ortigueira Amor, "Adman Grandstand TV Game 3600 MK II Colour (1978)", Retro Ordenadores Orty (collector's blog, in Spanish), 23 November 2023 (retrieved 2026-10-18). The owner's description of his console: General Instrument AY-3-8500 with a Motorola MC14075B and an RCA CD4069UBE; two separate hand controllers that plug into LEFT PLAYER and RIGHT PLAYER sockets near the front edge; a socket on the left side for an external 9 V DC supply, centre positive; a jack and a mini-jack on the right side for the light gun; the RF lead leaves the rear; six 1.5 V C (LR14) cells in an internal compartment reached through the lower case; four screws hold the lower case, and removing it exposes the back of the board, which is held to the upper case by two screws; the console works and gives a colour picture; only the four bat-and-ball games are available until the light gun is plugged in, when the target games appear; the 3600 series had three models (TVG 3600, Mk II and Mk III).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Photograph by José Antonio Ortigueira Amor, File:Adman Grandstand 3600 MK II Colour (13).jpg (CC BY 4.0, from Wikimedia Commons; larger copy on the owner's blog), examined at full size: the upper case seen from below with the base removed; the solder side of the board, held by two screws; the RF lead held to the case by a plastic clip and screw; a round opening in the board where the speaker sits; coloured flying leads soldered to the board.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 General Instrument Corporation, GIMINI TV Game Circuits, January 1978, pp. 4-7, PDF hosted by Pong-Story (retrieved 2026-10-18). AY-3-8500 data sheet: pin 2 VSS, pin 4 VCC; standard conditions VCC +6 to +7 V; -0.3 to +12 V maximum on any pin; supply current 40 mA typical, 60 mA maximum at +7 V; clock input pin 17, 2.012160 MHz ±1% (1.99 to 2.03 MHz); sound output pin 3 (32 ms tones: 976 Hz hit, 488 Hz boundary, 1.95 kHz score); ball angles pin 5, ball speed pin 7 (open 1.3 s, grounded 0.65 s to cross the screen), manual serve pin 8 (grounded for automatic serving; when open the game stops after each score and a serve is made by momentarily grounding the pin), bat size pin 13, game select pins 18 to 23 (rifle 1, rifle 2, tennis, soccer, squash, practice), each grounded to select; reset pin 25, momentarily grounded; shot and hit inputs pins 26 and 27, positive pulses from monostables in the rifle circuit; sync output pin 16; bat inputs pins 11 and 12 fed by R-C networks, "Use a 10K resistor in series with each pot"; control inputs have on-chip pull-ups and need a contact resistance of no more than 1 kΩ to VSS; reference circuits with 1 MΩ bat potentiometers and 0.1 µF bat capacitors.
  5. ↑ General Instrument Corporation, GIMINI TV Game Circuits, January 1978, pp. 73-83: Astec International application notes on PAL colour for the AY-3-8500, PDF hosted by Pong-Story (retrieved 2026-10-18). The 2.0 MHz game clock must be at exactly the right frequency, because on PAL receivers with a delay line a wrong clock makes picture detail appear doubled; the 4.433618 MHz subcarrier oscillator needs careful alignment and stability. "An alternate colour encoding system" uses only two CMOS packages, a 4069 hex inverter and a 4075 triple 3-input OR gate, with one transistor, ahead of an Astec colour encoder and modulator; its subcarrier "should be aligned to 4.433619MHz with a maximum tolerance of ±50Hz", because the pull-in range of the average colour television is only about 400 Hz; standard modulators are tuned to channel E3 (VHF) or E36 (UHF).
  6. ↑ Photograph by José Antonio Ortigueira Amor, File:Adman Grandstand 3600 MK II Colour (9).jpg and the other screen photographs in the same Wikimedia Commons series (CC BY 4.0): the console's picture on a colour television, a green playing field with coloured bats and two-digit scores.


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