Atari Cabaret Owners With Marquee Lights

Phetishboy

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How is yours mounted? Was there a special bracket that came from the factory or did you invent something yourself? Care to post a pic? I'm about to do a light restoration on my Dig Dug cabaret and wanna add the marquee light while I have it torn apart.
 
Here is a couple pics from my asteroids deluxe cabaret. I think it's factory but I'm not sure. - Barry
 

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The Atari Asteroids Deluxe images above are how it was done at the factory. The later cabarets, Tempest, Dig Dug and Centipede were different as many of those didn't have a factory light. However, of those factory lights I have seen in those later cabarets, they are similar in design, but do not extend down on the right, as the AD cabaret did (where the transformer is in the picture). Further, the wood above the light has a longer depth to hide more light from shining up onto the glass bezel or CP. My Tempest and Dig Dug cabarets came with them and I made a copy for my Centipede (I think I have that in the right order...).

Scott C.
 
Yeah I was interested in seeing how the lighting was handled in the Dig Dug, Centipede and Tempest cabarets. I am trying to figure out how the mounting bracket should look, then try to fabricate an approximate facsimile. My marquee is flaking in the middle and I don't want the light source too close to the back of it to make worse.
 
Yeah I was interested in seeing how the lighting was handled in the Dig Dug, Centipede and Tempest cabarets. I am trying to figure out how the mounting bracket should look, then try to fabricate an approximate facsimile. My marquee is flaking in the middle and I don't want the light source too close to the back of it to make worse.

Blkdog7 has a tempest cabaret.
 
My Centipede Cabaret has a Home Depot Special mounted in there, my Tempest is factory and I'll post photos asap.
 
My Centipede Cabaret has a Home Depot Special mounted in there, ...
Yeah, I did the same thing. I just sat the whole light bar on a couple of L-brackets, driving a screw through the bottom, using a couple of screws to keep it attached.

There is a bit of annoying light bleed around the CP that I'll address another time with an over-hanging piece of black bristol board or something, but otherwise it looks good.
 

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Yeah, I did the same thing. I just sat the whole light bar on a couple of L-brackets, driving a screw through the bottom, using a couple of screws to keep it attached.

There is a bit of annoying light bleed around the CP that I'll address another time with an over-hanging piece of black bristol board or something, but otherwise it looks good.

Cool, that's kinda what I had in mind. Did you find and crimp on the proper molex then plug the fixture into the open connector on the power supply?

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Actually, I bought the cab gutted so I'm running a 60-in-1 from a new power center I built, ala Bob Roberts: http://www.homearcade.org/BBBB/acwiring.html. I just wired in an old female plug so the 18" fluorescent is unhacked. The on/off switch is kinda handy if I don't want the light on for whatever reason but the fixture does make accessing the CP clips a little more difficult.
 
I'd like to add a light to me centipede as well -- but I would like to do it exactly like a factory tempest. I see it shown in the tempest cabaret manual. Anyone wanna take a few pictures of a tempest cabaret one?

A shot from the front looking down with the control panel open. One from the back and something showing how the factory wiring went down to the power brick.

I have a few far away pics and it looks like an extra wood block with 3/4 square dowels mounting. Then connectors ballast etc mounted to the wood?
 
Finally fabbed and installed my Atari marquee light for my Dig Dug mini this past weekend. I used well-worn parts from old arcade florescent light assemblies to make it look more authentic (a store-bought fixture just looked too white and shiny), a new FS-2 starter, a piece of 1/2 inch plywood (should have stained/aged it a little, it looks a little too nice) and 2 small 3/4 inch square dowels. I mounted the assembly directly below the bezel mounting blocks, to make sure it sat back far enough to allow cp latch access thru the coin door:

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And it works well:

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Finally fabbed and installed my Atari marquee light for my Dig Dug mini this past weekend. I used weel-worn parts from old arcade florescent light assemblies to make it look more authentic (a store-bought fixture just looked too white and shiny), a new FS-2 starter, a piece of 1/2 inch plywood and 2 small 3/4 inch square dowels. I mounted the assembly directly below the bezel mounting blocks, to make sure it sat back far enough to allow cp latch access thru the coin door:

That looks awesome. I would love a Dig-Dug cabaret.
 
That turned out really nice. I don't know why Atari didn't do it from the get go.

I have a fixture that I bought either on here or on eBay a while back that is supposedly an original Atari cabaret fixture. I bought it for my Dig Dug, but for the life of me I can't figure out how it is supposed to install.
 
That turned out really nice. I don't know why Atari didn't do it from the get go.

I have a fixture that I bought either on here or on eBay a while back that is supposedly an original Atari cabaret fixture. I bought it for my Dig Dug, but for the life of me I can't figure out how it is supposed to install.

Yeah, it makes a big difference.

Before:

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After:

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So Dig Dug cabaret didn't have marquee lights originally?

Dig Dug and Centipede cabarets, no. But they put it in the Tempest cabaret for some reason. Maybe because the poor Tempest didn't get an bezel art. :D
 
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