jdennis1989
New member
Hello,
New member here. The other day I thought to myself "wouldn't" it be fun to restore an old arcade machine. So I looked on craigslist, did some looking around and could not find a cheap arcade machine that still works (go figure right lol). Well anyway I come across an old Asteroids machine. This was one of my favorite retro games, so I email the people who have it. He tells me it lights up and sound works but the monitor doesn't come on and is in bad condition. He ends up selling it to me for $75 dollars, and I lug the thing back to my place. I had to pry open the coin door(looked like someone had already done it before) and the back door to get in due to no key. And after doing some looking around inside I spot three fuses in the monitor that look burnt out. I make the trip to radioshack and buy new ones, and put them in. Turn the machine on again, still no sign of the monitor working. I then find the brightness and contrast dials. I turned them and presto! the monitor works! I drop a quarter in and my wife starts playing the game. The screen isnt perfect, infact its almost like it has white squares checkerboarded across the screen flickering away. She doesn't even finish the game because my tape on the back switch falls off(had the door open doing the switches.) When I turned it back on it just starts flickering everywhere, and you can make out the words press start and stuff, but there are white lines going everywhere. Also when I try to drop a quarter in the game wont start. Anyways thats the story so far, now comes that hard part. Does anyone know how deep im really in on trying to restore this thing? The cabinet looks really bad, as you can tell by the pictures. Before you start saying I shouldn't have bought it since I didn't know anything about restoring these things let me say this. I love arcade games, and even though i'm only twenty I really do want to restore this beast back to its glory days. I have done some research and I know that its going to take a lot more research and hard work but I really want to do this, and do it right. So any help would be awsome.
Here is some of my concerned areas.
Cabinet (iv seen online where people are selling side art for it for like 175, is this just a sticker or something? Iv seen some pictures of some arcades restored on here and it looks like repainting it is the route to go. Any insight on the restoration of the cabinet would be great.)
The game itself, any clues why its not working? Im doing some research on it before I go pokeing around on the inside too far because I dont want to ruin the motherboard or monitor.
Also with the cabinet, is it smart to take everything out while redoing the cabinet? also its made out of like partical board on the sides and stuff, is this normal for a cabinet and how hard is it to work with it when its in the condition its in.
Anyways, if anyone would take the time to help me a little I really want to get into this. Arcades are amazing and I love them. Please either post back on here or shoot me an email. [email protected]
Thanks again!
New member here. The other day I thought to myself "wouldn't" it be fun to restore an old arcade machine. So I looked on craigslist, did some looking around and could not find a cheap arcade machine that still works (go figure right lol). Well anyway I come across an old Asteroids machine. This was one of my favorite retro games, so I email the people who have it. He tells me it lights up and sound works but the monitor doesn't come on and is in bad condition. He ends up selling it to me for $75 dollars, and I lug the thing back to my place. I had to pry open the coin door(looked like someone had already done it before) and the back door to get in due to no key. And after doing some looking around inside I spot three fuses in the monitor that look burnt out. I make the trip to radioshack and buy new ones, and put them in. Turn the machine on again, still no sign of the monitor working. I then find the brightness and contrast dials. I turned them and presto! the monitor works! I drop a quarter in and my wife starts playing the game. The screen isnt perfect, infact its almost like it has white squares checkerboarded across the screen flickering away. She doesn't even finish the game because my tape on the back switch falls off(had the door open doing the switches.) When I turned it back on it just starts flickering everywhere, and you can make out the words press start and stuff, but there are white lines going everywhere. Also when I try to drop a quarter in the game wont start. Anyways thats the story so far, now comes that hard part. Does anyone know how deep im really in on trying to restore this thing? The cabinet looks really bad, as you can tell by the pictures. Before you start saying I shouldn't have bought it since I didn't know anything about restoring these things let me say this. I love arcade games, and even though i'm only twenty I really do want to restore this beast back to its glory days. I have done some research and I know that its going to take a lot more research and hard work but I really want to do this, and do it right. So any help would be awsome.
Here is some of my concerned areas.
Cabinet (iv seen online where people are selling side art for it for like 175, is this just a sticker or something? Iv seen some pictures of some arcades restored on here and it looks like repainting it is the route to go. Any insight on the restoration of the cabinet would be great.)
The game itself, any clues why its not working? Im doing some research on it before I go pokeing around on the inside too far because I dont want to ruin the motherboard or monitor.
Also with the cabinet, is it smart to take everything out while redoing the cabinet? also its made out of like partical board on the sides and stuff, is this normal for a cabinet and how hard is it to work with it when its in the condition its in.
Anyways, if anyone would take the time to help me a little I really want to get into this. Arcades are amazing and I love them. Please either post back on here or shoot me an email. [email protected]
Thanks again!
