Asteroids restoration in progress

KorbenD

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Picked this machine up a couple of weeks ago. Doesn't need a ton of work (unlike the Marble Madness cabinet) but it still needs some minor wood repair.

The G05-801 had zero volts coming out of the regulator board. Started checking components and found that Q100 was open, and ZD100 was shorted. ZD101 also had a resistor tied in series with it for some reason. Went ahead and replaced both TO-3 transistors, both zener diodes, and all capacitors except for the two big filter caps (both tested good). I also replaced a 25A fuse with the proper 5A slow blow.

That got the 25v and -25v coming out of the board as needed. When power was applied, the fuse on the HV board blew instantly. Took the board out and found that the leads on capacitors weren't trimmed when they were installed by some previous owner. Clipped them, replaced the fuse and tested again. Got the spot killer light and ~12kv output from the flyback. Turned up the brightness and got a dot in the screen. Yay.

Also found a blown deflection fuse and replaced it. Tested the monitor in my BZ machine and it's working perfectly. No burn on the screen either, although it's filthy, haven't had a chance to clean it yet.

The cabinet had a crack on the left side by the marquee. There was also some dings and minor water damage on the bottom. I was hoping to save the side art, but decided finally to start over.

The inside edge of the crack was fixed by clamping the hell out of it to straighten it, then pouring wood hardener into the t-molding channel to set it in place. After drying for 24 hours, it was nice and sturdy. The outside edge was built up with bondo, as well as filling in the existing t-molding channel, then sanded flat.

The bottom had the rotted wood cut away with a razor, then sanded flat (do this BEFORE wood hardener, learned that the hard way on Marble Madness). Then hardener was applied in several coats and allowed to dry. Bondo filled in the missing edge and was sanded.

The side art was *barely* on the machine. The adhesive used completely dried out, so it all came off in about five minutes. I then sanded off all the old adhesive down to bare wood and filled in a few scratches and dings.

To do:
Repair back bottom edge and apply vinyl
Strip and repaint coin door
Repair right side
Send game PCB for repair
Order new side art, plexi bezel, cardboard bezel, control panel overlay, find good marquee
Repair fluorescent fixture

It'll be next month at the soonest before I can afford the repro stuff, so it's going to be cabinet and repair work only till then.
 

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Awesome choice for a full resto. I love Asteroids. It was the first game I ever did a facelift on. I wasn't ready for full restoes then, and mine didn't need one.

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Looking forward to your progress.
 
Hey Phet, is that blue or purple T-molding? Have any other photos to share (feel free to PM them to me)? I'm getting ready to "detail" mine out seeing that's all it needs and probably change out the T-molding on this one.
 
Ok, small update.

Monitor's working, PCB is working, A/R rebuild kit is on the way.

Repaired the wood on both sides, painted with satin black to prep for side art.

Patched the missing formica on the front and covered with some leftover vinyl from Marble Madness.

Going to replace the wiring tomorrow. I'll need to buy some bolts for the monitor mount. I'm also looking for a coin door in better shape than the one that was in it.
 

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Nice work, glad I don't have that much to do on mine :)

Just repainted and put on a new cpo this weekend, feels like a new machine.

Noticed that TNT Amusements puts chrome t-molding on theirs they sell, looks nice as well imo.
 

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Small update.

A coworker was kind enough to fabricate a new back door for me (he has a lot more woodworking tools than I do). The paint wasn't quite dry in this pic, but I had to see what it looked like. :)

I still need to strip and revinyl the bottom part and clean the top. Found a better coin door in my parts pile, so that's out of the way. Repaired the fluorescent fixture with Plas-T-Pair.

And thanks to zinfer.com for the plans for the back door.
 

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I just bought a very nice asteroids yesterday and im loving the coin door. So different!

Sucks though cause im bitten by monitor issues as well and i bought this from a guy who seemed to know how to research issues and fix them. Hopefully i can fix this monitor.
 
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