Arcade Nation

I got bored and built an NES clone bartop

2011-03-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

I recently got bored and decided to attempt to merge some console and arcade technology in a twisted experiment. A friend of mine (Jay) had a spare Taito Arcade Classics bartop gathering dust: Other friends of mine (Dan and Gabe) talked me into buying a Yobo FC3 NES/SNES/Genesis clone (pictured below) at PAX East last year. You might be saying to yourself--stop now! Why hack two pieces of gaming technology that are cool in their own right? Well, the bartop had no game circuit board. As it turns out, those boards make for really nice multi Taito arcade cabinets, and someone had already removed the board. The Yobo FC3 is a cool little system, but the controllers it came with were absolute junk! One of mine was nonfunctional out of the box. The other died shortly thereafter. It plays cartridges fine--but without controllers, no joy. That being the case, I set out to graft these pieces of tech together. The FC3 would serve as the gaming powerplant and the Taito bartop would be the control platform. First off, I removed the existing 13 inch monitor from the bartop and replaced it with a 13 inch TV. The tube bolted right up to the existing mounts without an issue. While I was inside the cab, I yanked the existing speaker (right) and replaced it with a much beefier 'arcade' speaker (left). The bass on the new speaker really kicks: Wiring up the controls required a bit of circuit tinkering. Simple pad hacks were not in the cards, since the pads themselves were DOA. Ultimately I went with the circuit from this site, adapting it slightly for my use. It was really cool learning how NES controllers work from a circuit perspective. Since the Taito bartop already had two 8 way joysticks with two buttons each, a menu select and a two start buttons, it was an almost perfect match for the button layout on two NES controllers! I ended up mounting the FC3 to the top of the bartop cab using four carriage bolts. This allowed me to cut a slot in the top of the cab to use for swapping out NES cartridges: Here is a shot of the machine in action with Mario Brothers (the arcade classic) up and running: Right now this rig is working really well. For a while I was toying with the idea of cutting more slots in the top of the cabinet (to add SNES and Genesis capability), but that would also require creating swappable control panels. That might be a fun project for the future, but for now I'm enjoying the current setup. The art on this cab is not bad, but I think it might benefit from a Nintendo themed facelift at some point...

Vanguard

2011-01-12T16:19:00.001-08:00

It's officially winter in New England, and you know what that means--trying to grab one last game before your basement gets snowbound! A local collector recently rescued a Vanguard and a Phoenix from a barn in New Hampshire. The story on the machines was that they were put away working. I've been keeping my eye out for a Vanguard, and fortunately for me the rescuer decided to pass the games along to other collectors. With a storm baring down on me, I managed to wheel this game into my basement just before Jack Frost hit us with 17 inches of powder.

I received the Vanguard complete, and pretty much unhacked (except for some wires hanging out through the coin door lock hole--obviously because there were no coinups available when this machine was stored). The game was pretty filthy (it had been living in a barn after all) and I had to extricate a wasp nest and several larvae of unknown origin. The manual (complete with schematics for the game boards and monitor) was in an envelope in the bottom of the cab.

After checking the connections, I plugged it in, and immediately got monitor crackle and speaker hum. The marquee blinked to life. Initially, there was practically no image on the monitor--it was a super dim bluish haze; the brightness control didn't help. I hooked up my trusty Heathkit rejuvinator, and all the electron guns in the CRT tested fine. At this point the game would not coin up or play bind, so I figured there was something up with the boardset. I checked all the DC voltages and they were fine.

I pulled the boards, reseated the ribbon cables, reseated the CPU, and cleaned the edge connector with a pencil eraser. At this point I could see some Vanguard like junk on the screen (still dim) and in a triple (overlapping) image. It looked like the attract mode, sort of. It still wouldn't coin up--then I realized that someone had twisted some of the coin switch inputs together (perhaps as a cheap attempt at a free play switch). These wires were sticking out in through the lock hole in the coin door. With this input shorted, the other (unhacked) coin switch would not activate. After separating the wires, the game coined up, and I was able to hear sounds, music, and speech.

At this point I set about adjusting the monitor (Wells 4600). Since the brightness control wasn't doing anything, I figured the dimness might be solved by a cap kit to be performed later. I really wanted to get rid of that triple image. I played with the adjustment a bit, and then started to work the horizontal oscillator coil (L351) on the XY board. That adjustment requires a plastic tool, since it is a bit recessed and not readily accessible. Upon turning this coil a bit, all of a sudden an nice saturated image flashed on the screen--yes!

At this point I had to adjust the vertical hold (which I had fumbled with earlier) and had to turn down the brightness a bit. The game plays, but it does have a graphics glitch on some of the sprites. I'm going to check the ROMs next and see if there is an issue there.

Rock solid!

2010-08-19T19:20:00.001-07:00

One of the toughest things about this hobby is dealing with the little things that are amiss with a game. My Asteroids Deluxe has always been a great playing machine, but the screen never really looked right. Asteroids Deluxe has a neat screen setup, where the picture you see is the combination of the vector monitor output and a blacklit 3D background. The two images are combined by a partially silvered first surface mirror. This mirror reflects some light (from the monitor) and transmits some light (from the fluorescing backdrop behind it). The problem with my screen is that you could see a dim white rectangle the full size of the monitor. There was no way to adjust this out.. and it totally killed the 3D background effect. You want to see ships and rocks floating in midair, not on a dim white screen that is interfering with your view of the cool 3D stuff!

My screen was also missing the blue 'gel' that goes in front of the monitor. That didn't bother me so much--I figured experiencing the game in white lines wasn't that much different than experiencing it in blue lines.

Then I got thinking about this a bit more. (For this next bit, you need to bear in mind that during my day job, I do a bit of spectroscopy, which deals with the interaction of light and matter.) What if it was the black light that was causing the screen to show up as a white box? As it turned out, the ultraviolet (UV) light from the black light was making its way through the partially silvered mirror, straight down to the picture tube. The UV was then causing some of the phosphorescent material on the tube (that is supposed to be lit up by the CRT electron beam only) to glow. As it turns out, air doesn't block UV very well. Glass (i.e. the mirror) doesn't block it very well either... but plastic, well, plastic is another story! Plastic is very good at blocking (absorbing) UV rays, and guess what the blue gel that is supposed to go on an Asteroids Deluxe monitor is made of.. You got it, plastic. With the blue gel in place, the UV from the black light does not have nearly as big an effect on the picture tube:

It's not perfect, but the effect is a heck of a lot better than it used to be!

Another small issue popped up what I was tinkering with the machine--intermittent power failures, accompanied by nasty audio buzzing, graphics flickering, and high scores getting wiped out. This machine has a (relatively) fresh big blue capacitor, a rebuit AR board, and a recapped/rebuilt monitor. Upon further investigation, it turned out that by jiggling the cables on the power brick, I was able to reproduce the effect. I figured it might be a bad molex connection on the brick, but the pins looked factory fresh. Things on the AR board looked great too--no loose pins or cold solder joints anywhere. Then I pulled on a few wires that were leading into the power brick (through the hole on top). These wires went to the (fresh) big blue... but they were the culprits! As it turned out, the end loops on the wires were loose where they were screwed on to the big blue. I had replaced that big blue a few years back, and apparently the replacement I got had screw holes that were a little bit too shallow for the factory screws that were used on the original big blue in this machine. The machine had worked fine for many years, but apparently the jostling the machine has seen over the years (including a coast to coast move!) had slowly loosened the wires. I pulled the screws and washers and cleaned them with a wire brush. Then I sourced a few more washers (to make up for the fact that the screws were a tad too long) and securely screwed the wires in place. The machine is now rock solid! The moral of the story--even if you know the big blue is good, check those connections! There are lots of wires going into and out of that capacitor, and they are all vital to smooth operation of your power supply.

One interesting side note is that these power issues wiped all of the high scores on this machine--high scores that were there when I bought the machine (I tend not to clear out high scores on my games). These scores were ridiculously high scores set by some guy named 'DAN'. DAN, I wanted to beat you the legit way, but it just wasn't in the cards. Now to *finally* put some scores of my own on there.

Two pack of cutesy games

2010-07-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

<-- Here's my Ranger doing what it does best. I've been looking for a proper Q*bert and a Frogger cab for some time now. I have a bootleg Q*bert machine (in a generic cabinet) that I enjoy--but I have been keeping my eye out for a dedicated cabinet from Gottlieb. Frogger is another staple of the golden age, but for whatever reason, they are hard to find (at least in New England). A lot of Froggers were made, and I am sure that many are still out there.. but as everyone says, people tend to hold on to them. My friend Jay has the lowdown on where to find games around here and he recently clued me in on the location of a converted Q*bert cab. We cruised to the location, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a converted Frogger cab as well! Sweet--two birds with one stone. Both cabs are converted to Merit Trivia Whiz. Fortunately the conversions were relatively clean--the original power supplies and monitors were left intact, and a Trivia Whiz conversion doesn't Swiss cheese the control panel as much as a standard 'classic to JAMMA' conversion does. (Check out my Dragon's Lair conversion for an example.)

Some parts are on the way, and I have started cleaning and stripping these cabs. I'm considering swapping the guts from my Q*bert bootleg/generic into the Gottlieb cab, but that decision can come a little ways down the road. Now to find a Frogger boardset!

Donkey Kong restore

2010-01-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

It has been a really long time since my last post, probably because I have been too busy fixing up games and the like. I've been taking some pictures along the way, and figured now is a good time to post something.

A while back I grabbed a converted Donkey Kong (DK) that was sitting on Craigslist. It was advertised as a Konami basketball, but the pictures showed it was in a converted DK cab. The cab didn't look that great online, but it appeared to have potential when I saw it in person. It still had the original Sanyo 20-EZ monitor, and the original Nintendo harness was intact. $100 and some driving left me with this in my garage:

I figured I would have to buy most of the replacement parts, but when I looked into the upper back, I thought I saw one of Donkey Kong's eyes in the marquee area. As it turned out, the marquee had just been covered over with a sticker, and the original marquee was quite well protected:

Unfortunately, the control panel had extra holes drilled in it, and the original overlay was long gone. I set to work on filling the conversion holes with bondo, then painted the panel, and lastly added a screen printed overlay from TNT Amusements:

Half of my control panel carriage bolts (the tiny ones) were missing, so I had to order a set from Mike's Arcade--kinda pricey, but those things are hard to find! The original buttons were discolored and some had cigarette burns, so I replaced them with reproductions from Mike's. Someone replaced the stick with a rather worn out 8-way, so I ordered a reproduction Nintendo 4-way (once again from Mike's). I would have gone with a cheaper used stick, but I was impressed with the one I purchased for my DK Jr, and figured DK deserved no less. The control panel wiring was a bit hacked up (for the additional buttons) but I was able to clean it up and get it back to its original state.

I was able to snag a new set of logic boards (2 board set) on Ebay, and also had to track down the small wooden shelf and metal brackets that hold the board in place. These parts took a really long time to find, but I was able to get them from someone who was parting out a badly water damaged cabinet.

The monitor had some bad foldover (see my earlier entry about this exact same issue with my Donkey Kong Junior) so I removed the monitor, ran the chassis through the dishwasher to clean it, and installed a cap kit. The monitor came out looking (and functioning!) like new.

The speaker panel had a bunch of gunk and residue on it, perhaps from tape:

This was cleaned up with some goo-gone, a plastic paint scraper, and a lot of elbow grease. While I was at it, I removed the black laminate above the control panel. It was in really bad shape and couldn't be saved.

I ended up sanding this area down and painted it with satin black. I may choose to cover it with laminate at some point in the future, and I still need to track down an instruction sticker.

Next up, I reinstalled the control panel and installed a replacement bezel that I found on Ebay:

That's looking a lot better than a Super Basketball! I converted the mechs over to tokens, added new connectors for the speaker, and reconnected some missing wires to the second coin mech. The machine needs a bit more cleaning up (I'm anxious to replace the t-molding) and a few decals, but for now it is back in the line next to one of its immediate family:

Token Effort

2009-07-31T11:21:00.001-07:00

My latest undertaking is converting my machines to run on tokens. This is part of the metamorphosis that many arcade collectors go through. Once your games are pretty much working, if you want to keep fiddling with them, you convert them to tokens.

The tokens I have chosen are 0.984 inches in diameter. These are called 'quarter sized' tokens, but they're actually just a bit larger than a quarter. I picked up a batch of old Chuck E Cheese tokens on Ebay. One nice advantage about 0.984 tokens is that you can usually convert a quarter mech to run with the slightly larger size. It requires a bit of filing and adjusting, but it is manageable. Plus, I already have a bunch of quarter mechs in the machines. It is possible to buy token mechs, but they can get pretty pricey in a hurry ($10 to $15 or so each on ebay). If you have the patience, converting your quarter mechs is the way to go.

In my case, this has been an interesting task, since many of my machines have different coin mechs, and many require different adjustments. It's a lot like solving a puzzle at times. Here is a basic rundown on a run of the mill metal mech:

Depending on the mech, you may have to file down the area where the coin enters just a bit to get the clearance needed for a 0.984 token.

Then comes adjusting the cradle. On this mech, I actually ended up removing one of the cradle pieces in order to get the tokens to pass the cradle area:

Then came adjusting the bar that decides whether to accept or reject a token after it has traveled through the mech. A screwdriver is used to loosen the bolt and then slide the bar back and forth until you find the sweet spot. This ends up being a trial and error game, so get ready to put that token through the mech about 50 times in order to get this right:

I may follow up with a post detailing some of the more challenging token conversions I encountered.. the Nintendo and Bally/Midway machines in particular required a bit more work.

Dragon's Lair gets a new monitor

2009-07-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

My plan with Dragon's Lair is to run the game from a PC, using software known as Daphne (named for the princess in Dragon's Lair). Daphne emulates a number of arcade games that ran on laser discs.

My DL cabinet came with a 19 inch Electrohome G07 monitor. Unfortunately, an off the shelf PC cannot put out a 15 kHz RGB signal that an arcade monitor can display. Ultimately, I ended up swapping out the monitor for a new one. I ended up getting a 19 inch tri-res monitor:

The picture on this thing is great! It's a cool rig, since it can accept a VGA signal or traditional arcade signals. The screen was nice and bright, which made photographing it a bit of a challenge. In person, the screen images are fantastic.

I added in an Ipac (from Ultimarc) for interfacing the controls, and built a new harness for the joystick and buttons. The game plays great with the PC I was using for testing. I'm still ironing out a few kinks with the PC that will ultimately reside in this cabinet.

Ground Kontrol

2009-06-28T15:37:00.001-07:00

The second post in my Arcade Safari series comes from a recent opportunity to visit Ground Kontrol, the classic arcade/bar in Portland, Oregon. As you stroll up to the front door, you can hear a continuous loop of arcade ambience on a speaker above the door, a nice touch.

They have a wide array of vintage video games as well as an upstairs pinball parlor.

Interestingly, they also sell vintage consoles. All the games ran on quarters, and the machines were in pretty good shape. Only one machine was dead when I was there (Battlezone).

I'd like to sum up the experience with the good and the bad.

The good:

Nice selection of machines.
Friendly staff (quick to return a lost quarter).
On a Sunday afternoon, you have your pick of games, because the place was pretty empty.
Only one machine was out of order, which was impressive, given the number of machines they have.

The not so good:

My biggest gripe--the overbearingly loud music pumping through all corners of this place. I was there at 3PM on a Sunday, and it was incredibly loud. (I used to play in a band every weekend--I am no wuss when it comes to loud music.) When you have to yell to someone you are playing a 2 player game with, it's too loud. It wasn't even 80s music.
A few of the machines were quarter eaters, but the staff was pretty good about it.
Some of the games were placed a bit too close together, face to face. When I was there, some guy was sitting down and playing the Ms. Pac, which totally blocked off access to the Galaga behind it.
They are a bit light on vectors (perhaps due to reliability) and didn't have any laser games.

All in all, an interesting place. They do have some interesting bands/DJ's sheduled there, and are supporters of video game related bands, which is very cool. This is definitely a good place to grab a beer and play some games if you are in the area. It's a short walk to the waterfront and the Chinese gardens, both highly rated local attractions. Just don't forget the earplugs.

Separation Anxiety

2009-06-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

I finally got my old Tron back. (It had been in my Sister's care for a number of years.) This was the very first game I brought back from the dead--and when I say dead, EVERYTHING was dead on this machine--the power supply, boardset, monitor, fluorescent lights--the whole works. Anyway, it has been sitting for a while, and a number of the things I fixed need attention again.

One suprise I noticed when moving this thing was the fact that the back portion of the cab was separating. The cab has not seen water (nor does it have any water damage) so I was suprised to see this. I guess too much moving and wear and tear can have that sort of an affect on a cab. These Bally/Midway cabs are not built in the tank like fashion that Atari used. You can see some of the separation here:

That's the support that handles the orientation of the backdrop as well. The support holding the fluorescent tube (just above this and off frame) was also super loose.

One of the back panels had broken off as well..

(That's where the back board is supposed to connect.)

I considered a few routes, and upon consulting with Dave, he confirmed that going with big clamps and wood glue was my best option. I headed over to Sears Hardware, and they had a sale on monster clamps, in a color that would make the MCP proud. Here's a shot of the clamps pulling the back of the cab back together while the glue sets.

The cab is a heck of a lot sturdier now!

I started to go through the wiring, and found the wires for the switch (in the top of the cab) twisted together with no cap. I fixed this, then decided to fire up the monitor. The monitor showed some rastering, which was good. I then hooked up the boardset, and got some screen garbage (doh! these boards used to work..) and shortly thereafter, the monitor blew. There was a loud snap followed by some buzzing. I had capped this monitor, but heck, that was probably over 10 years ago! This monitor chassis had lots of random issues to begin with, so I ordered a replacement with new parts. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Arcade Safari

2009-06-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

One thing I want to do with this blog is use it to document classic arcade machines in the wild. At one point in time, the classics were everywhere. Now, not so much.

I used to go to school in New Haven CT. There is a record store there of some note called Cutler's. During the late 90s, Cutler's had a whole row of classic 80s video games and pins up back. They had Tron, Centipede, Ms. Pac, Galaga, and a whole slew of others. I recently went back there, and all they had up back was one solitary Ms. Pac machine.

Quite a few years ago, I had spoken to the guy who had his machines on location at Cutler's. He was a local collector. Apparently, the owner of Cutler's lease was mandating that they move next door/reduce their store to a smaller space, and also madated that they ditch the arcade machines. The claim (so he said) was the machines brought in a 'bad element'. Funny, the people I saw playhing the games during that time were in their 30s. Heck, some of them were bringing their children with them to show them the games they used to play. I used to get a lot of inspiration to fix up my Tron (and collect more games!) by visiting Cutler's. I certainly dropped my fair share of quarters into those games, and I had some good high score battles on the Tron there.

You know what stinks? Cutler's had a retro arcade set up to celebrate the arcade goodness of the past, and even that got shut down. If you appreciate the history of these things, do what you can to preserve and celebrate it, because not everyone looks fondly on this stuff.

Special delivery!

2009-05-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

My handlebar overlay from this old game arrived, which was much needed on my Paperboy.

Before:

After scraping off the remaining adhesive with 'Oops':

Next, I used a drill with a wire brush to remove the remaining adhesive and paint:

I added a coat of primer:

Then I painted it black:

(I also touched up the bolts with some paint at this time.)

After the paint dried, I put on the overlay:

Last but not least, I put it on the machine. It makes a big difference in the looks. Now when people who come over to visit, they'll know how to select 1 or 2 players! :)

Now you have a friend in the paper business!

2009-04-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

I finally dug my Paperboy machine out of storage. This one has had quite a journey.. I found it out in California while on a warehouse raid with my friend Dave (and his friend Mike). I was only out there for the summer, and had to return to the east coast to finish up school. Dave shipped the machine out (many thanks!) and I took it back to the apartment I was renting. I managed to get it working, but it was always flaky--it had power issues I was unable to track down, despite a lot of tinkering. I managed to pick up a Championship Sprint kit for it, which is a lot of fun with two players. After finishing grad school, I stored the machine at my parents' business, and moved back to California. There it sat in (literally) cold storage for about 7 years! Then, I moved back to the east coast, got a house, and started assembling an arcade in the basement.. it was time to reclaim the Paperboy.

Given that it was flaky when I put it away, I was not surprised to see that the machine was dead 7 years later when I plugged it in. Paperboy is a power hungry machine; it has the normal power block that most Atari machines have, but it has an extra big blue bolted to the floor of the cab. It uses an ARIII board for +12 volts, +5 volts and audio amplification, and then has a second power supply (in my case a switching power supply) that supplies +5 volts for the CPU board. (The machine needs +5 volts for both the CPU and the video board--both of which take up a lot of room in the cabinet.) When it's running, it pulls about 2.3 amps, more than twice what typical older machines require.

The troubleshooting went like this.. I noticed that I had a cooked fuse on the power block, which was traced to the circuit that is supposed to supply 12 volts DC to the ARIII board. This is a very simple circuit, consiting of a transformer, a fuse, a bridge rectifier, and two big blue capacitors. Upon replacing the fuse (slow blow) I found that I was getting about 3V DC, where I should be getting about 4 times that much. I thought I might have a short in the big blue.. I unplugged the leads that lead to the big blue, and tested to see what kind of output I was getting on the DC output of the bridge rectifier--and I was getting no where near the 12 volts (unsmoothed) that I was supposed to be getting. Then I checked the output from the transformer itself--12 volts right on the money. The problem was a bad diode in the bridge rectifier. One order to Bob Roberts for $3, and I had a new rectifier. (I also picked up a replacement big blue, and an ARIII repair kit just in case.) I replaced the bridge rectifier and the big blue--now reading a solid 12V DC on the ouput. I tossed in an ARIII board and bolted it into the machine. (Had to run out to the hardware store to pick up some 6/32 bolts to hold the board in place.) I plugged in the machine.. nothing. I got out the multimeter, and found that while I had good voltages on the CPU board, I only had 2.5 V (instead of 5 V) on the video board. The video board has its 5 V supplied by the ARIII. I happened to have another spare ARIII, so I popped that one in. As I looked down at the multimeter and saw +4.97 V on the readout, I heard the test tones go, and then the speech test said "Now you have a friend in the paper business." I walked around to the front of the machine, and saw that it was operational:

Then I proceed to play the game for the next three minutes, in that wonderful feeling of joy/disbelief that often accompanies an easy fix! I did a bunch of cleanup on the machine--the control panel, the glass, marquee..it was pretty dirty. The handgrips were really funky from being in storage, but some hand soap and some scrubbing with a brush in the sink got them back in order.

The kicker is this--the day I got this thing back to my house from storage, Rich (from thisoldgame) announced that he is selling a reproduction overlay for the handlebars (conspiciously missing from this machine). This is the first time that part has been reproed.. is that good timing or what? I just got notice that mine is in the mail, and I'll post an update when it is installed.

If you need me, I'll be on Middle Road.

Activate interlock! Dynotherms connected! Infracells up! Mega thrusters are go!

2009-03-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer: if you plan on doing this repair, make sure to unplug your machine first--120 VAC can be dangerous.)

Ok, so this repair is not as exciting as the title appears. When I recently put my Centipede back together, I noticed that certain parts had been stripped, particularly the coin door area. Atari liked to put interlocks on the coin doors of its older machines, for safety reasons. Open the coin door, the power to the whole machine goes off. (That way the guy collecting coins has little chance of getting shocked.) My interlock had been stripped out, likely used as a repair part on another machine. You can see where the wires were twisted/black taped together. This is a sloppy and possibly unsafe scenario:

I took them out, separated the wires, and attached some quick disconnects:

Here's the interlock. If the plunger is pressed in (i.e. when the door closes on it) it makes a connection. If it is manually pulled out (i.e. during servicing) it also makes a connection.

Here is the interlock attached to the quick disconnects:

You can see in that picture that the AC wires leading to the interlock are fed through a rectangular mount. This is where the interlock snaps into place:

That's it. It's a small repair, but with these machines, every little bit counts.

Restoring a Swiss Cheesed Control Panel

2009-03-15T17:12:00.001-07:00

Like many Dragon's Lairs, this one was ultimately converted to another game. This particular one became a Clutch Hitter, which required 2 joysticks with 3 buttons per joystick. The original Dragon's Lair had one centrally mounted joystick with 2 sword buttons, one per side.

Here's the converted panel:

Here I am in the progress of stripping the panel. My trusty heat gun, box cutter and scraper are clearly in view. For removing the adhesive, I used some Goo gone and a brass wire wheel brush on a power drill.

Check out the cleaned off panel--I see way too many holes! Fortunately, when they converted it, they did not fill any holes--they just cut new holes, put on the overlay, and bolted a piece of plexiglass over it.

My strategy for filling the holes was simple. I bought a thin piece of aluminum sheet metal, and cut it to the exact size of the panel I was working on.

Next, I clamped it in place behind the panel, and traced out only the holes I wanted to keep with a sharpie.

The 'keeper' holes were then cut out (roughly) with a dremel. They need not be perfectly round, since they won't be seen or touched in the finished article.

Next, I slathered on some quick setting epoxy:

Then I glued the aluminum sheet (carefully aligned) to the original panel. You can see that I clamped it in place with some spare junk buttons and some spring clamps. Now I have nice solid metal behind every hole I want to fill.

Bondo time! Here is the first layer after application:

Here it is after some sanding. I ended up putting on another layer (mounded up over the holes) and repeating the sanding process.

Next up I had to do some work with a metal file--some of the holes were kind of rough cut with the drill from the original conversion. After the edges were flattened out, I cleaned the panel with 409 (to get rid of dirt/fingerprints) and then primed the sanded panel:

That's starting to look more recognizable. After priming, I put on a coat of black paint.

Next, I lined up the overlay (from Quaterarcade) and put in some buttons for alignment. I pulled the backing off of the top edge, and tacked it down.

Next, I removed the buttons, and slowly removed the rest of the backing, sticking the overlay to the panel. I used a heat gun (very gently) to heat the portion of the overlay that had to make the 90 degree bend. Then I clamped it down (with spring clamps and some buttons).

Here's a shot of the panel in place on the machine, with a leaf switch Wico installed and a few buttons loosely tossed in.

Here's the machine with the restored panel and marquee. The cabinet still needs a lot of work, but it's identity crisis is over.

Hidden Treasure!

2009-02-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

It's nice when you find a little something extra in a cab. I bought my Dragon's Lair cab assuming everything of interest had been stripped out of it. One bummer was this:

That's the scoreboard plexi--painted over. I figured I would have to hunt down and buy an original (or a repro) scoreboard. When I got the cab home and took off the back door, I was pleasantly surprised to find this:

That's the scoreboard card, between the two speakers. When the machine was converted, it was left in place. Score! I did some digging online and found a wiring scheme that makes is possible to hook the scoreboard up to a PC parallel port for reading scoreboard output from Daphne. I ordered the appropriate connectors and ribbon cable, built the cable and plugged it in for a test:

It works great! This cab is one step closer to delivering an authentic Dragon's Lair experience.

Getting Medieval

2009-02-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

I've been kinda busy lately with work, but in my not so copious free time I have been trying to do bits and pieces of my many arcade projects. One of the big items on my list is deconverting a Clutch Hitter back to a Dragon's Lair. I started with the marquee, which was kind of a tricky task. The Clutch hitter marquee was stuck on there pretty good, over the original Dragon's Lair plexi:

So the trick was--removing this thing without ruining the plexiglass. Fortunately, the repro I ordered (from Quarterarcade) sticks on over the plexi, so slight imperfections in the plexi wouldn't be a problem, provided that enough light passed through. My tools of choice for this were my trusty heat gun, a metal putty knife, paper towels and a can of 'Oops' remover. I started by GENTLY heating the marquee material, and peeling it back. Some gentle scraping with the metal putty knife helped me get the stubborn bits off. This left me with a piece of plexiglass with a TON of adhesive left on it. There was so much, it would have made it tough for the new marquee to stick properly. This is where I came in with the paper towels and just a little bit of 'Oops' at a time. The nice thing about the 'Oops' is it was gentle enough not to melt/fog the plexi, but strong enough to lift this particular adhesive. It took some time (and elbow grease) but I was able to get the plexi pretty much crystal clear! I was very happy with the results:

(I took another pass with the 'Oops' and got it even clearer than that pic.) Next up was applying the new marquee. First, I cleaned off the plexi with some Windex, to get rid of my fingerprints. Then I lined up the marquee, clamped it in a few places, and then removed the backing on one edge. I stuck it to that edge, and slowly worked my way across the marquee from left to right. Fortunately, there is a bit of wiggle room with this application; the edges of the plexi get covered by the angled marquee brackets, and the marquee sticker doesn't quite fill out the plexi.

Next up, I tried it on for size in the cab:

For the full effect, I killed the lights and fired up the fluorescent fixture in the cab:

Next up, I'll be showing you my progress on the control panel.

Topping off

2009-01-31T18:28:00.001-08:00

You may remember the extremely beat Star Wars cab I picked up a while back. One of its more unique 'features' was its missing top. See exhibit A:

You can see a bit of the top remains, clinging to the blocking:

I pulled out the remaining piece of the top, then went after the remaining nails:

In the end, I had to just replace the blocking with new wood:

Next, I had to make a new top. The important thing about the top is the placement of the t-nuts that are used to hold in the marquee. (You can see them on the top of the photo below.) This took a fair amount of measuring to get right, and I had to have a marquee in hand first in order to get the measurements.

Here's a test fitting of the top, before I had it cut to length and painted (you get the idea):

This thing still needs a LOT of work, but it's coming, one step at a time. At least it doesn't look quite so drafty now!

Unfolding

2009-01-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally did a cap kit on my Sanyo 20 EZ monitor in the DK Jr. It did a nice job fixing the vertical fold over problem. Also, the screen size was set way too small due to poor adjustment (which is usually the case with malfunctioning monitors). Instead of fixing the problem, people will try to 'adjust' it away. Check out the before and after pics:

You can also see that I was able to find a replacement control panel overlay; with it, the last vestiges of 8 Ball Action have been swept away.

Dragon's Lair

2009-01-16T17:57:00.000-08:00

Yay! After a bit of searching, I finally snagged a Dragon's Lair cabinet today. It's pretty cold up here, so I'm just glad to have this one in the garage. I can't wait to dig into this one..

Lead on adventurer.. your quest awaits!

Go!

2009-01-04T17:04:00.001-08:00

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been spending more time working on these machines. Track and field is now among the living! This is the first time I started with just a cabinet--no monitor, power supply, boards, lights, marquee, control panel.. just the wood and a beat up coin door. It wasn't my goal to build a Track and Field out of this (I got the cab from someone who had made a MAME panel for it) but things kind of fell together over the years.

Starting with nothing, power was a necessity--so I went with a switching power supply that I had yanked from my Mania Challenge-turned-Centipede, and finished it off with some parts from Bob Roberts' AC power starter kit. The kit has some nice stuff in it, including a fuse block, distribution block, isolation transformer, line filter, plug/cable, power switch, wires, and a bunch of other stuff. If you are looking to build a game from the ground up, these things are a necessity. Many of these items (like the fuse block and the isolation transformer) are there for your safety. Here's what I put together--it's all mounted on a 3/4 inch thick piece of MDF, about a foot square:

Now I needed to connect this thing up to the Track and Field board set I got on Feebay. As luck would have it, after digging around a bit, I found out that Track and Field (Konami) had the same pinout as Mania Challenge (Memetron/Taito). Apparently some manufacturers latched on to the Konami standard for a while there. This meant I didn't have to track down or build a wiring harness--I could just use the one that was already hooked up to my switcher from the Mania Challenge I deconverted. Sweet! One thing to note--Track and Field does not use -5V, so I disconnected that wire. (No need to send voltages to the board that are not neede--not that it did any damage--yes, I had it connected that way for a short while.)

Here's a shot of the boards being tested:

I had my eye out for a monitor, and managed to pick up an Electrohome G07 for $20. That's it in the picture above. I like these monitors because they are easy to work on, reliable, and produce a nice picture. I bought it in untested (aka sitting on a shelf for 15 years) condition, but it fired right up! Sometimes in this hobby, luck is on your side. Next up I had to rewire the connections for the Track and Field control panel. (Mania Challenge had things going on joysticks/buttons, whereas Track and Field is a nonstandard layout.) It took a lot of molex crimping and fiddling with pins on the board's edge connector to get everything going, but in the end, it was worth it! I bought a new fluorescent fixture from Home Depot and wired that in to my AC power center. I also picked up a marquee from Quarterarcade--it's fine for right now, but will keep my eye out for a nicer one. The machine needs some cosmetic work, but here's a picture of it in action:

We had some friends over so I hastily buttoned it up and we tried it out on a 4 player match. It worked like a charm! This is going to be a great addition to the arcade.

Let there be light!

2008-12-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

Tis the season for lights, and I've been doing my best to take care of a major pet peeve of mine--games with nonworking lights. Collecting and playing standups is about the arcade experience, and part of that experience is lit up marquees and coin door lights. I was lucky to score an original marquee when I purchased my Centipede cab, but the fluorescent fixture was dead. One trip to Ace Hardware and I was able to find a starter and a fluorescent bulb. I'm pretty happy with the results:

Next up was a tricky puzzle with my Gauntlet coin door lights. (As you may recall, this game has 4 coin slots, one for each player.) They have never worked since I have owned the machine, and as it turns out, the problem was deceptively simple. I had tried changing lights/checking voltages on the left side door, and never found voltage. My big problem was I had 2 dead coin door lights on the right hand side door. As they say with Christmas lights, when one goes out, they all go out--and this is true for Gauntlet coin doors. They are wired in series, so if one side is entirely dead, the other side will be too. This is not true for most games--since there is only one coin door. Live and learn! The lights are lit, but I still need to fix them up with some new inserts and a new plastic piece for the rightmost slot.

Return of a classic

2008-12-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

I've been going great guns on the Centipede restoration, and am happy to report that Centipede lives!

There were a few twists and turns (literally) along the way. First, let me get the obligatory trackball comparison shot out of the way:

The one on the left was nasty. It looked like someone poured lubricant directly on the ball in order to lube the bearings! The control panel I picked up got new bearings, rollers, and a snow white leaf button from Bob Roberts. Here's a shot of the control panel.

I *thought* the overlay was an original that had faded, but upon closer inspection, it appears that the overlay is an inkjet reproduction. It's not wide enough to cover the whole panel, and the cutout under the fire button hole is kinda ragged (but hidden here). I have a new silkscreened overlay on its way, but right now we are getting scored on functionality. Cosmetics will come in time.

After plugging in the new ARII (audio regulator two) power board, harness, and testing all the test points on the ARII, I was ready for the moment of truth--installing the game PCB (printed circuit board). Usually it's a bit of a nail biter, but you can only sit around and test voltages for so long.. I plugged in the board, and this is what I saw:

Upside down success! It was suprisingly easy to play, because I had installed the trackball backwards by mistake. After inspecting the monitor a bit more carefully, I discovered that someone had cut and swapped the yoke wires. These are the wires that go from the chassis board to the yoke (a set of deflection coils) on the monitor neck. Swapping wires allows you to reverse the way the picture is drawn on the screen. (The person who converted this to a Mania Challenge did this in order to get the correct display.) It's weird that they cut the wires, since the wires go to a molex connector where you can easily pop the pins out (with a paperclip) and reverse them. This is the route I took, which put the screen in the proper orientation.

With all this attention to the monitor, I noticed that the circuit board was held in place (literally) by a thread. Only one of the bolts was in place--the other was wedged between the bottom of the board and the cabinet shelf. (It's amazing it didn't short anything out.) Another annoying aspect of the monitor was the pinkish glow that it had. I wasn't able to adjust it away. I figured it was time for a cap kit, so I ordered one from Bob Roberts. I just finished installing it tonight, and the difference (shown in my blurry pic below) is clear:

No more annoying pinkish tinge! I also reflowed the video connections for the monitor and bolted the chassis board in place properly. I also got out the Windex and gave the thing a good cleaning. The monitor is now in good shape on this machine. Here's a picture of the Centipede in the row. (This is pic pre cap kit--I got the machine up and running quickly on a day we had some friends over.) I have the glass bezel, but I'm planning on touching it up before installing it.

There is still a lot to do on this one--marquee lights, coin door lights, uncovering the side art, etc.. but those can wait for a little while. I had forgotten how much fun this game is to play! I'm chasing GAB's high score (whoever that is), but I'm off by an order of magnitude right now.. See you in the arcade!

Centipede on a Budget

2008-11-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

When people find out I have some games in the basement, most of them say: "Sweet, do you have Centipede?".. and I've always had to say: "uh, no."

I've kept my eye out for a machine, but it's one of those popular/recognizable titles that's a bit of a cross over. What I mean is this--collectors want it, but so do people who only buy one machine for fun. Centipede prices can be a bit higher than the average game, despite the large number of machines made. That being the case, I set out to find a decent converted cab.

Here's the one I found:

This is a Mania Challenge, but in a former life, it was a Centipede. It has the screen burn and the painted over side art as proof of its former greatness! When I called the guy about this machine, time was running out--he said I could come pick it up in the morning if it didn't get rained on in the meantime. (It was outside--he had just moved, and there was no room for it inside.) I got there and struck a deal for $50. Interestingly, when he found out I wanted to convert it back to a Centipede, he led me to his parts room, where I picked up a beautiful marquee, a completely populated control panel and an original painted glass monitor bezel. I ended up offering him $60 for those items, and he was fine with that. It just goes to show--if you don't like the prices on the internet, it's time to get out there and start pounding the pavement.

He said the machine wasn't running, which wasn't a big deal to me, since I wanted it for the cab (and perhaps the monitor). When I got it home, I found that the Mania Challenge boardset was sitting loose in the cab--I plugged it in to the wiring harness, and it fired right up! The monitor takes a long time to warm up, but it works fine. The cab is in exceptionally good shape--glad I got to it before the rain did! Time to convert this thing back to Centipede! For the rest of the parts, I went to the 'conventional' source--the internet. I was able to score a wiring harness for $25 shipped, an Atari ARII board for $13 shipped, and a working boardset for $50 shipped. Fortunately, the Atari power/transformer/fuse block was still installed in the base of the cab. A few miscellaneous parts from Bob Roberts (a new AC cord, a big blue capacitor (I had a spare from a while back), and a cap kit for the G07 ran about $20). All told I have about $218 into this project, with enough parts to make it go--I hope! Stay tuned!

On your mark, get set...

2008-11-15T06:40:00.000-08:00

Track & Field is a really fun game--you can't beat the button pounding, and it has appeal to a wide array of people. In an effort to make my row of games more appealing to visitors, I've set out on a quest for a Track & Field.

A few years back, I picked up a cabinet that had been partially converted to MAME. It was a Track & Field cabinet (painted black) that was stripped, but otherwise in really nice shape. At the time I thought, hey, I can use this for MAME and *maybe* convert it back at some point in the future.

The parts didn't seem to fall into my lap though, so the project was on the way back burner until a few weeks ago, when I bought some parts and the guy threw in this for free:

I believe his exact words were (while chuckling): "You want that?" I was pretty psyched, since this would finally get my project off the ground. The panel had seen better days, but the metal was good, and that's pretty much all you need. If you find yourself restoring a control panel, there are 2 tools that are an absolute necessity in my book. The first is a heat gun. It looks like a hair drier but gets a lot hotter. Hitting the trashed overlay with the heat from the gun loosens up the adhesive, which allows the overlay to be easily scraped off.

Next off I had to remove some of the adhesive. There are a lot of products out there that are supposed to do this, but I went with an odd recommendation from rgvac--peanut butter. It worked ok, but next time I think I will try something stronger. Apart from the adhesive, I had to remove a lot of rust. Both sides of this panel had a lot of rust; maybe it was left outside at some point. This is where the second tool comes into play: a power drill with wire wheel brush. I've sanded stuff by hand before, but this bad boy ate it up like nobody's business! If you already have a drill, you can get a wire wheel for about $3.00. After cleaning off the metal, it was primed, and painted satin black on the control panel side. (I did this so only black would be visibile on the sides if the overlay was slightly offset on application--it's usually a good idea to do this.) This was all done with spraycans (Rustoleum), since I don't have a fancy painting setup.

After letting this dry, I placed an order with Pheonixarcade . They do great screenprinted arcade artwork, and Track & Field appears to be one of their specialties. Here's the sweet overlay they sent:

Installing it went smoothly. It arrived with a the backing punched out for two of the buttons. This allowed me to set the overlay on the control panel with two buttons aligning it on the button holes. I pulled away the backing on the opposite side of the panel and tacked it down. Then, I unfastened the buttons, and removed the rest of the backing, and carefully smoothed the overlay into place. I would have pictures of what I just described, but my hands were kind of full at the time! Here is the final result, finished off with some leaf switch buttons from Bob Roberts:

Return to DK Jr.

2008-11-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

I've made a bit of progress in turning my recently acquired '8 ball action' back to its original Donkey Kong Juniorness. This involved tracking down some parts. Fortunately, the monitor bezel (surround) was installed backwards on the machine. All I had to do was unscrew the bolts holding it in and turn it around. (Easier said than done!) For the marquee, I had to go to Ebay. There were a lot of overpriced ones there, but after watching auctions off and on for a few weeks, I was able to find a decent one at a decent price.

I also had to remove the 8 Ball Action EPROMS/PROMS from the board and replace them with some DK Jr. ROMS. Fortunately, I was able to find a set at www.m ikesarcade.com. The picture shows what they looked like pre install. I recommend getting a chip puller if you are going to be removing chips from printed circuit boards. You won't be as likely to damage your boards, your chips, or yourself. (This is the voice of experience--I once impaled my thumb with a chip way back.)

Here are some pics I snapped of the machine in its current state:

I still need to replace the control panel overlay and substitute in a nintendo joystick. (These are an easy find--I'm just looking for a deal.) I also have to install the cap kit I got from Bob Roberts to fix the vertical foldover problem on my screen. (See how it is scrunched on the left?) After that, some sideart and fresh t-molding would finish this one up in good shape.

Im-bezeling

2008-11-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

"Flynn--are you embezzling?"

I've been doing some work on my Return of the Jedi cabinet. This machine and I go way back. When I bought the machine, it had a bezel (cardboard monitor surround) in it, but it wasn't in very good shape. Years ago I removed it, traced it, and scanned the artwork. Then I put the machine in storage for a while. Fast forward to now--I was able to find the tracings and the file for the artwork, but not the original bezel. (I must have put it somewhere safe! :) Anyway, that has left me playing a machine that looks like this:

I got tired of the 'exposed wood' look this weekend, and used the tracings to make a new bezel:

(I still need to trim the bottom piece a bit, but you get the idea.) I ended up hunting around a bit before I found the right material. The stuff they had at the big box office supply stores was either too thick or too thin. This image does not do a great job of showing the 3D nature of this bezel. It consists of several pieces, folded and interlocked. (Building one of these is a bit like origami!) I still need to get the instruction decal on there--then I can start looking for my monitor glass.

In addition to the bezel, I did some work on the Audio Regulator II board in this machine. One of my speakers was buzzing like crazy during gameplay and attract mode. I got an AR II capacitor kit from Bob Roberts and replaced all the capacitors on the board. The buzzing is gone, and the game sounds a whole lot clearer too. Thanks again Bob!

Woodworking for Wookies

2008-10-22T18:19:00.001-07:00

The woodworking saga continues. In this shot you can see the addition of a platform for a monitor shelf behind the control panel. Since I don't have an Amplifone or a spare WG6100 lying around, my current plan of action is to substitute in a fully cased VGA monitor. ( I recently picked up two 21 inch Dell Trinitrons cheaply on Craigslist.) These monitors are capable of very high resolution, which is key for a good simulation of vectorized output. With the shelf configuration, it will be easy to swap monitors when needed.

Here is a shot of a test fitting of the monitor. I used a spare piece of MDF for the shelf base, and made a back brace out of some 1x2's and some spare monitor brackets I had lying around. There is a lot of the monitor's weight on the back brace, but it holds. If this monitor were a tiny bit longer, it would not have been possible to fit it in the cabinet and put a back door on the machine. Fortunately, the original angle of the monitor in this machine was quite extreme. With a monitor in place, it's time to install a sound system. Tune in next time!

New Acquisitions

2008-10-21T08:22:00.001-07:00

With this hobby, it's always good to mix things up every now and then. I recently tracked down a couple of nearby classics. First up was a Black Widow (in a Gravitar cab):

I bought this one working, which is amazing, given that it clearly hadn't had any maintenance for a while. The first thing I did was clean the power block and replace the big blue capacitor with a new one. Next up, I replaced the rubber grommets in the Wico joysticks. They had turned to powder, and the joysticks handles were just 'floating' in their sockets--not very playable. As it turned out, there was a 4 way Wico knockoff installed in the left (motion) stick; it's tough playing an 8 way game when you can only move in 4 directions! I replaced the stick with a spare 8 way. This game will need a new overlay (there is only a small amount of the original overplay present near the player 1/2 buttons. I also have a cap kit for the monitor that I will be installing soon. In addition to the black widow, I also picked up this:
You may not remember 8 Ball Action--I didn't either. I got this game because it used to be a Donkey Kong Junior. If you look carefully, you can see that the bezel is simply the original bezel installed backwards. The monitor has a bit of vertical fold over, so it will need a cap kit as well. I'm amazed at how clean this machine is!

Parting in

2008-10-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

With the rails in place and the control panel support built, now it's time to start putting some pieces together. Fortunately I was able to track down a monitor surround online:

I also had a pretty beat up star wars control panel/yoke that I picked up years ago. It's in need of restoration, but I'll get to that later. Right now I want to make this machine functional. Here is the front of the machine with the control panel and the monitor surround installed:

It's starting to look a bit more recognizable. Now to attach the beat up yoke for good measure:

As Yoda might say: "In the future, a yoke overlay, I see.."

More de-MAMEing

2008-10-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

A monitor shelf was installed as part of the previous owner's MAME conversion, but the location and orientation of the shelf is at odds with where a monitor belongs in a Star Wars. Here it is before I ripped it out:
Next, I decided to build a new front panel capable of holding a star wars control panel and yoke. I ended up building this piece out of some 3/4" MDF. MDF can be found dirt cheap in the bargain bin at Home Depot.

Next up, I added some rails to the interior of the cabinet. These rails support the control panel as well as the monitor assembly. The originals were long gone, so I made some new ones out of one by twos. I made sure to predrill the holes where the wood screws went (and countersunk the one by twos as well). Here is a front view of the newly installed rails, with the control panel ready to be fitted:

Back to basics

2008-10-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

After a long ride home (just avoided some rain) I was able to unload the cab in my basement. Here it is:

The cab is literally quite rough around the edges. It has some serious water damage and some shredding around the t molding in a few places. The top (what top?) is missing entirely. I'm guessing it got doused from above at some point. Time to start stripping out the MAME conversion (monitor bezel, control panel, and associated brackets):

Upon closer inspection of the front, I found this:

Yes, that's a doorbell.

Arcade Rescue

2008-09-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

I recently picked up a Star Wars arcade cabinet that had been 'well loved'. The cab was pretty beat, and the owner had converted it into a MAME cab. Here's what it looked like in the ad:

I went to pick it up because in the 'pre mame' shot (see left), the side art and front art looked intact. Honestly, when I come across a cab like this, I don't quite know what to think. At any rate, seeing a Star Wars cab sporting a 17 inch VGA monitor and a Street Fighter control panel was a bit of a shock. I think this calls for a brief moment of silence.

I decided (probably against my better judgment) to rescue the thing. Ok, it's time to roll up my sleeves and get to work. Let the unmaming commence!