Dedicated Tapper Cocktail - Arcade Icons

Griffin

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I picked up this dedicated Tapper cocktail in a recent operator haul. I was in pretty dirty shape, missing a leg and looking a bit sad, but I grabbed it untested because, hey, it's Tapper!!!! :D

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Once I got the cab home I started cleaning it up and dove in to see what I had on my hands...

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Powering up the game for the first time I was happy to see it had some life. But looking at the game I couold see there were no sprites and the machine was making a pretty bad humming sound that would pop in and out.

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I pulled the game board, re-seated the ROMs and replaced the pretty badly dissolved ribbon cables with nice new ones.

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Woot, all the sprites are back and the game plays properly, although the sound issue still remain. I also played around with the monitor and got it looking pretty decent although it really could do with a rebuild.

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Next I started looking at the sound amp. I already own an upright Tapper so I'm pretty familiar with how the game should sound. To my ear it sounded like one of the sound channels was missing.

I touched the heat sinks on each of the audio amps on amp board and sure enough one of them was very warm to the touch while the other was stone cold.

So I pulled the board and ordered the MCR dual channel amplifier rebuild kit from ArcadeShop so I can just shotgun the whole thing.

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After doing a lot more cleaning on the cab I got a better idea of it's condition.

The original CPOs weren't too bad so I decided to leave them alone

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The wood finish is still in pretty decent shape under all that dirt

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That coin door is going to need some serious attention though

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I ordered replacement underlays for this cab and the dedicated BurgerTime that I am working on at the same time.

While the BurgerTime underlay was accurate, there was an issue with the Tapper art... :mad:

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Yep it is about 10% too small. I've been in communication with the seller 'The Artwork Doctor' and he has been quite responsive, so we are trying to work out a solution. It is a little weird as this is a factory Tapper cocktail with the labels still stapled to the interior of the cab, so it's unlikely they put out cabs in two different sizes (but who knows).
 

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Here's a top tip!! When rebuilding an audio amp, don't put the caps in backwards, they make a really loud bang and scare the living shit out of you :eek:

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Once I fixed my little mistake the amp tested properly but alas one of the sound channels was still missing. So I checked all the wiring coming from the sound board which seemed fine, but did show me that the missing channel was actually also at the sound board.

After some further testing I found the real culprit, a dead 8910...

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I pulled an 8910 from a parts board and gladly all the sound returned :D
 

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Time to give the coin door some sweet lovin'

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That's better

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I love that there is so much original paper/card in this cab, it just adds to the whole history of the thing. Usually these items are the first things to get torn out or lost when in arcade operation.

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One of the original legs had been torn off and was long gone, so I took that opportunity to add locking casters to one side of the cab. Solves the immediate problem and actually makes it way more practical to move around.

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That coin door is sweet, nice work! Did you get that coated or you use some fancy spray stuff?
 
I use Rustoleum textured black, it's wonderful stuff.

This stuff is worth its weight in gold!

Crappy surface imperfections too minor for Bondo but too deep to sand out? Textured Black will mask them right over. Looking to replicate that old coin door texture? Textured Black has your back.

A coat of this stuff with a topcoat of something semi-gloss is a beautiful thing.
 
Replacement Handle Labels

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That's better

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Wow this was really done properly. If I had $$$ right now it's be mine already, lol. nice work.

wish more people could call it restoration without using a flat screen
 
Nice save!

Nicely done! I know, this thread is kinda getting dated but I rarely look at this section of the forum so it's new to me, lol. ;)
 
Did you ever get a proper sized repro for the underlay art?
What serial # was it? I know there was ~300 (?) of them made.
 
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