I recently started restoring a Xybots I bought from Whoamonga. I've had it for a while but only really had time to play with it recently.
The first thing I tackled is the joystick repair. The player 1 joystick sucked. It was sticky and the move right only worked sporadically. That makes it very difficult to dodge shots when you can only move left, until you hit a wall, then you are a sitting duck.
I first pulled the joysticks to take a look at them and was horrified at what I saw. At some point in time, someone had sprayed them with WD40, tried machine oil and worst of all attempted to lubricate them with axle grease. <insert horrified picture here - (damn 4 picture limit)>.
This is what they looked like before:
You can see the axle grease covering practically everything. In addition, the rubber cushion ring that is used to contact the micro-switches was gone, replaced with about 100' of black electrical tape wrapped around the actuator. It was a mess.
When I finally got it disassembled, I found that all of the microswitches were gunked up with axle grease and the move right was completely destroyed. After a lot of cleaning the other 7 (3 on the player 1 control and 4 on the player 2 control) were salvageable.
Fortunately, whoever greased the actuator didn't take it all the way apart and the pivot ball was still showing white lithium grease. I cleaned the pivot ball and regreased it with lithium grease and reassembled that part and set it aside. It took over an hour to remove the axle grease from the actuator and the 8 position plate on each joystick. That stuff was nasty. Next the electrical tape was removed from the actuators and they got a final cleaning with rubbing alcohol. I have no idea where to get the original cushion rings for these joysticks, but the actuators are the right size to use a pinball flipper rubber. So that's what I used.
After cleaning I lubricated the points specified in the Atari document (it's good to have original docs when possible) and reassembled the joysticks. The player one is still a little sticky, so I swapped it for the player 2 joystick when I remounted them.
This is what the joysticks looked like after cleaning and restore:
Next, I removed the old monitor and installed a rebuilt WG4600. Somebody wired the previous monitor directly to the 120 VAC coming into the switcher. I am really shocked that it didn't fry immmediately (and also glad I didn't power it up before I started the restore). I little digging revealed that the iso transformer was working and was set to put out 100V of isolated power. A quick switch of the output wires bumped it over to the 1:1 windings and got 120VAC. A quick switch of the plug for one that I had a pair of connectors and an install of the mating plug on the monitor and there was power to the monitor. Unfortunately, the monitor mounting was designed for a Sharp monitor, so I had to improvise with some t-nuts and some 3/4" plywood to move the monitor a little forward. This makes it meet the bezel better and moves the back of the monitor forward enough that I won't break the neck when I build the upper back door.
With the new monitor securely mounted, I had to make a pigtail to convert the 0.100" video cable to match the 0.156" WG video pinout and I was ready to fire it up.
I also replaced the entire fluorescent setup in the marquee area after replacing the ballast, the starter and the bulb and about six 3 amp fuses. I still don't know what is wrong with the original fluorescent fixture, but there is a short in it somewhere, so it got replaced with a $7 Wallyworld one. Enough is enough.
The final result:
The whole thing:
There is still some bondo work to do to fix the cracks in the case and I need to make a back door assembly, but it is substantially done and it is playable (and very frustratingly hard!).
I don't remember playing Xybots in the arcades but it really plays like Berzerk if it had been done by Id Software using the Wolfenstein engine. It's pretty cool.
ken
The first thing I tackled is the joystick repair. The player 1 joystick sucked. It was sticky and the move right only worked sporadically. That makes it very difficult to dodge shots when you can only move left, until you hit a wall, then you are a sitting duck.
I first pulled the joysticks to take a look at them and was horrified at what I saw. At some point in time, someone had sprayed them with WD40, tried machine oil and worst of all attempted to lubricate them with axle grease. <insert horrified picture here - (damn 4 picture limit)>.
This is what they looked like before:
You can see the axle grease covering practically everything. In addition, the rubber cushion ring that is used to contact the micro-switches was gone, replaced with about 100' of black electrical tape wrapped around the actuator. It was a mess.
When I finally got it disassembled, I found that all of the microswitches were gunked up with axle grease and the move right was completely destroyed. After a lot of cleaning the other 7 (3 on the player 1 control and 4 on the player 2 control) were salvageable.
Fortunately, whoever greased the actuator didn't take it all the way apart and the pivot ball was still showing white lithium grease. I cleaned the pivot ball and regreased it with lithium grease and reassembled that part and set it aside. It took over an hour to remove the axle grease from the actuator and the 8 position plate on each joystick. That stuff was nasty. Next the electrical tape was removed from the actuators and they got a final cleaning with rubbing alcohol. I have no idea where to get the original cushion rings for these joysticks, but the actuators are the right size to use a pinball flipper rubber. So that's what I used.
After cleaning I lubricated the points specified in the Atari document (it's good to have original docs when possible) and reassembled the joysticks. The player one is still a little sticky, so I swapped it for the player 2 joystick when I remounted them.
This is what the joysticks looked like after cleaning and restore:
Next, I removed the old monitor and installed a rebuilt WG4600. Somebody wired the previous monitor directly to the 120 VAC coming into the switcher. I am really shocked that it didn't fry immmediately (and also glad I didn't power it up before I started the restore). I little digging revealed that the iso transformer was working and was set to put out 100V of isolated power. A quick switch of the output wires bumped it over to the 1:1 windings and got 120VAC. A quick switch of the plug for one that I had a pair of connectors and an install of the mating plug on the monitor and there was power to the monitor. Unfortunately, the monitor mounting was designed for a Sharp monitor, so I had to improvise with some t-nuts and some 3/4" plywood to move the monitor a little forward. This makes it meet the bezel better and moves the back of the monitor forward enough that I won't break the neck when I build the upper back door.
With the new monitor securely mounted, I had to make a pigtail to convert the 0.100" video cable to match the 0.156" WG video pinout and I was ready to fire it up.
I also replaced the entire fluorescent setup in the marquee area after replacing the ballast, the starter and the bulb and about six 3 amp fuses. I still don't know what is wrong with the original fluorescent fixture, but there is a short in it somewhere, so it got replaced with a $7 Wallyworld one. Enough is enough.
The final result:
The whole thing:
There is still some bondo work to do to fix the cracks in the case and I need to make a back door assembly, but it is substantially done and it is playable (and very frustratingly hard!).
I don't remember playing Xybots in the arcades but it really plays like Berzerk if it had been done by Id Software using the Wolfenstein engine. It's pretty cool.
ken

