anoon's Joust

Marquee!

Oooof. So dirty. I rinsed it in the sink and then wiped both sides with isopropyl alcohol.

This was the first time I have ever removed the marquee, so I got up real close to appreciate the wonderful artwork, done by the artist Python Anghelo.

I was fortunate to have met Python back in the 90s when the company I was working for was being contracted by Capcom for Street Fighter the Movie.
Python was quite the character. He was an old school pinball designer from way back. Super nice, but crazy in a mad genius, ADHD way. For me, it was quite an honor to meet the person who created the artwork that left such an impression on me as a kid.

Sadly, he passed away a few years back.

Hey wait a minute... what's that?
Vandals strike again. Some no doubt fatherless, Motley Crue listening hellion took it upon himself to trace the lettering in the marquee with a sharp object. Probably a switchblade. What an absolute cretin.

Oh well. Another opportunity to buy tools. I'll probably never need to use the mini polisher ever again, so Harbor Freight will do.
$14? Done deal.

I used auto polish and while it didn't get all the gouges out, it looks better than it did. I think I need to try a more abrasive compound next time I have a go at this, but as I've never polished anything like this before, I didn't want to risk anything too harsh.

The marquee brackets were in good shape, but I wanted them to match the coin doors and control panel hinge, so I gave them a pass of my textured paint technique. Not authentic, but I like it. I masked off the areas where the marquee comes in contact with the brackets, as I did not want the texture to scratch the plexi.
 

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The backglass is in ok condition. There's some amount of flaking of the paint on the back. Not sure why there was electrician's tape running down the sides. I feel like I have seen this on another Joust though. Was this done at the factory, or is this a piece of operator's tribal knowledge at work, protecting the edges of the glass?

The vinyl part of the tape came off really easy.
The sticky part of the tape, not so much. The glue was left behind front and back sides of the glass. Goo Gone and some gentle rubbing with a soft cloth made short work of the gunk.

a gentle cleaning with some water, and the glass was good to go.
 

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Time to put it all back together.

There were two holes drilled in the front. I am not sure why. Perhaps they were for a security bar? At any rate, I had saved the original plastic plugs, filled the holes with hot glue, and stuck them back in.

Lower door and hopper installed, along with the upper door. I bought some cheapo cabinet locks for the coin doors as a temporary measure until I can be bothered to source some of the more authentic flat headed ones.

For the control panel I bought a repro piece of protective stripping for the back edge and applied some foam weather stripping. I put more weather strip along the contact points between the backglass and the frame. It snugs up the glass nicely.

Finally, the marquee.
 

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So what is left to do?

Only about 3000 more things.

Obviously, the sides could use some attention. But I don't trust my wood working skills enough to do a good job of it. Plus, I need to reclaim some gym space in the garage.
For now, the game will stay as is. Perhaps I will have a go at the sides next spring, as well as the top and the back.
 

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Very nice. My Joust is in roughly the same shape with the side panels, though without some hooligan's initials carved into it. Know what I'm going to do about it? Not damned thing :)
 
After I stood the game back up, I flicked the switch, and...

...nothing.

The game wasn't running. It worked when I laid it down. Time to troubleshoot.

There was power getting to the marquee, the start buttons, and the coin rejects, but the screen was black. My fear was I damaged the monitor when I laid it down, but when I did, I had done it ever so gently. I opened the top rear of the cabinet and confirmed neck glow, so I had that much going for me. Another quick look at the front of the machine and I could see that the monitor had warmed up, but still no game. It was something.

Opening up the bottom of the back of the machine, I saw that there was no power getting to the PCB. I also noticed that there was a splat of primer on the board.

When I laid the game down to work on the front panel, I must have missed taping up one of the coin door bolt holes, because primer had fallen through on to the circuit board. Was the game fried? Now, I am told the paint is non conductive and I should just leave it, but I wouldn't be able to stand seeing that on there. I removed the board, and with a magnifying glass, spotlight, toothbrush, sculptors pick, and isopropyl alcohol I spent a an hour or so carefully removing the paint. I did not take any pictures of the splat or its removal out of shame.

Once clean, I hit the connectors with Deoxit and I plugged it back in. But before I flicked the switch again, I took another look around.

They say that when diagnosing issues you should always start at the cord. Well I know the cord was good because the rest of the game lit up. Moving inwards, I arrived at the power supply: one of the switching variety that had been added by an operator prior to my purchase of the machine some +25 years ago. The spade connector holding the ground wires had come loose. Was the supply damaged? There were screws missing from a couple of the terminals. Had they fallen into the unit? I took it apart to check for damage and loose screws. Nothing to be seen.

The power supply was pretty old and dirty anyway, so I ordered a new one from arcade shop and wheeled the machine back up against the wall, (thank you, casters!) while I waited for the new part to come in.
 

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Hurrah! New power supply. I'll be playing Joust again by the weekend.

Or not.

I was in the midst of wheeling the machine out to the center of the garage when a very loud and very disturbing crack was heard, followed by the machine quickly starting to tip over.
I grabbed it in order to hold it upright and see what was up. There on the ground, was one of the casters, screwed into the mounting block that was formerly stapled to the bottom of the cabinet.

I am sure all of you anti-caster purists are cackling with glee.

The threaded stems of the casters are longer that the receiving t-nuts in the wood block. The t-nuts are open ended. I had screwed the casters in too far. The end of the stems were all the way through the t-nuts and pushing against the base of the cabinet. I had popped the mounting block free of the base. What is extra frustrating about this is that when I bought the casters, I noted how long the stems were and thought, "Gee. These seem really long. I may have to cut them down." (but didn't)

I re-adjusted all of the caster heights and wood glued the block back to the base. A whole day lost while I waited for the glue to dry.

With that all taken care of, I wired up the new supply. Before plugging the board in, I checked the voltages. Good thing I did, as I was getting +5.35. I tuned it down to +5.01 and plugged in the PCBs.

I powered up, the red LED on the ROM board indicated no errors, and the machine was back to life.
 

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There's a still a ton I could do. In fact, I could keep working on it indefinitely. The sides and back need some woodwork and painting. The interior needs a thorough cleaning. The transformer could use reconditioning. The monitor could do with a servicing. The wiring needs a bath. There's still the issue of the scratched up marquee...

But for now, I gave the sides a cleaning with a mild detergent and hot water, and already they look 5x better. So this is where I will leave it for now.

On to the next project.
 
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