Abandoned Food Fight UR #1966 Restoration

Food Fight is so awesome. First arcade game to utilize the instant replay feature. Yes?
Yes! First game with instant replay! GCC made it and Quantum for Atari. Both weird, but beautiful games!
 
Original Atari and not a repro, eh. (y)
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This also came with the PCB... An Original! It's a little beat up, but hopefully nothing a paint pen and some triple thick can't at least improve. I'm sure most people won't notice the damage.

Hopefully I can get that sticker off without leaving residue.
 
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While looking at the AR, I noticed that the copper thieves stole a capacitor?? Why??
Guess I'll just replace that, but weird AF.

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Applied some wood harderner and I'm dealing with the only swollen spot on the cabinet. I'll let that set overnight.

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Also finally added locks (and a keychain!) to the door.
 
My mission to squash down the swollen area of the cabinet was a complete success. Now I think it's in pretty good shape!

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I also learned that the back door from my Space Duel/Major Havoc conversion is a perfect fit for Food Fight.

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Does anyone local-ish to Southern Maryland have a spare Centipede/Dig Dug/Sun Sister or Space Duel/Gravitar back door I can use for Food fight?
 
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I just put in a big wirebot and digikey order. I started thinking about modifying the dig dug harness and then realized I'd rather have the proper wire colors and have it not be a hack.

So... I guess I'm going to try to reproduce this. The edge connector I'm just using the solder eyelet version. The proper molex version is stupid expensive. Those pins are like $1+ per! So I'm going to make that one change.

Wish me luck...
 
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Traced the rest of the harnessing. Just (im)patiently waiting for my wirebot order to arrive....
 
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This beautifully restored power supply just arrived from @Kaworu5! Unfortunately the USPS wasn't so kind to it, despite the multitude of FRAGILE and THIS END UP labels. Somehow they managed to ignore that and defeat Kaworu's expert packing skills and cave in one side.

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Nothing a hammer and some cardboard to try to protect the powdercoating couldn't fix though! Got it all installed.

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I've also fixed the AR since this photo was taken, and voltages are looking good. The monitor and marquee fixture are getting power. Just need to build out the Low Voltage/Main Harness now. Oh USPS, please deliver my USPS and wirebot orders already!
 
I am needing a harness myself for a Food Fight project so I would like to get details on your construction of the harness. A list of materials you bought from Wire-bot would help.
 
I am needing a harness myself for a Food Fight project so I would like to get details on your construction of the harness. A list of materials you bought from Wire-bot would help.
Yeah I can provide a list when I'm done. I bought enough materials to make two. That second one has already been spoken for (assuming I don't fuck up the first one). But if there was interest (and it doesn't turn out to be a major pain in the ass) I'd consider making more of them.

I got the dimensions/made the loom from the Dig Dug harness. The only difference I can discern between the Dig Dug cabinet layout and the food fight cabinet layout is that Dig Dug doesn't have a PCB cage and interface card. So I added a couple inches to the loom to account for it. I got the wiring colors from the schematics. I sourced the connectors based on the dig dug harness and what remaining connectors were left in my Food Fight cabinet. Using 18ga for power and 22ga for signal.

I have harnesses for Dig Dug (Food Fight), Centipede, Red Baron/Battlezone and partial I Robot I'm hoping to repair. I can't promise exactness in dimensions (I'm no @Charles Kline) but I can at least get the colors right and hope that it will look good in the cabinet. More to follow.
 
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Yeah I can provide a list when I'm done. I bought enough materials to make two. That second one has already been spoken for (assuming I don't fuck up the first one). But if there was interest (and it doesn't turn out to be a major pain in the ass) I'd consider making more of them.

I got the dimensions/made the loom from the Dig Dug harness. The only difference I can discern between the Dig Dug cabinet layout and the food fight cabinet layout is that Dig Dug doesn't have a PCB cage and interface card. So I added a couple inches to the loom to account for it. I got the wiring colors from the schematics. I sourced the connectors based on the dig dug harness and what remaining connectors were left in my Food Fight cabinet. Using 18ga for power and 22ga for signal.

I have harnesses for Dig Dug (Food Fight), Centipede, Red Baron/Battlezone and partial I Robot I'm hoping to repair. I can't promise exactness in dimensions (I'm no @Charles Kline) but I can at least get the colors right and hope that it will look good in the cabinet. More to follow.
If you do put me down in the number 1 spot for sure.
 
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Harness is just about done, and passed the fit check in the cabinet.

Unfortunately, I have been blocked by my lack of female ramp pins for the monitor connections.... I thought I had a whole drawer of them. I had zero. So I guess I will not be testing this today. Sad.
 
Does this indicate that the CPO was replaced more than 20 years ago when this was last worked on, or is it possible that the CPO is original to the machine with a mismatched Charlie Chuck?

I'm suspicious that the loose joystick probably came from a different control panel that the operator may have pulled at some point to get this working??

Now just gotta figure out what the heck is wrong with it...

Why not just move the tube to the original chassis and frame?
 
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Made a back door. It's not a perfect fit, but close enough. On the other side I traced out where the ventilation and lock hole should go, so I'm just waiting for a drill bit of the proper size to arrive so I can drill out the lock hole.
 
20241016_170404.jpgThe last connectors I need should be in tomorrow, so I'm crossing fingers thet this works. My guestimated dimensions on the food fight specific parts of the harness seem to have worked out.
 
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So the harness is totally done! And I tested voltages and everything seemed to be good, so I installed the boardset. Unfortunately, this is what I was greeted with:

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Not great. I adjusted the board some, and squeezed some sockets, and it did in fact come to life! I was able to play one game before it started freaking out again.

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But for a brief, glorious moment, it was there! It worked!
 
What was wrong? Loose connector??
For the initial boot problems, not sure. I reseated a bunch of stuff and it came up.

For the later glitches, it was ROM 6 that needed to be cleaned and reseated.

For the missing red color, it was the neck board of the monitor which wasnt pressed in far enough.
 
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