Details on my Baby Pacman restoration - For Sale

rcranetx

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I just posted most of this on Dallas Craigslist but I wanted to share with everyone the great time I had bringing this game back up.

First off, thanks to many folks: Komodo, Bob Roberts, Tanner Electronics, numerous websites, and great friends at work that helped me out through this effort!

I bought the game from Komodo. A great guy. We found two quarters in the machine (72/76) and the last sticker from the state was 1986. All boards with a limited amount

of battery acid damage. No glass. I got it home and immediately plugged it in. Not much. A few lights but the monitor did work! I stayed up until 2am that night studying

the machine and the schematics to see what I was up against.

First, no blinks on the MPU board. Mild acid damage was there but, at least, the battery had been removed. Ordered a kit from Gerbers that included most of the components

normally affected from the old NiCad battery. Installed numerous components including the LED. The board showed all six blinks after that. Only two on the Vidiot board.

That will have to wait.

I then turned my attention to the playfield. It was extremely dirty with the plastics being pretty warped. I removed all plastics, cleaned them, and baked them back to

flat. Completely cleaned with Novus and waxed the playfield. It's ok but with normal wear. I got a spare playfield from Komodo and exchanged the one spinner and both

spinner holders. Only a handful of lights worked so I went to the Solenoid/Lamp board. I noticed that numerous SCRs were missing but thought it might be by design. Nope

and the previous owner had replaced some with normal transistors. I figure it didn't fix the problem so they jsut gave up and didn't replace all of them. Got new SCRs

from Tanner's and replaced all. Many more lights but not all. Couple of existing SCRs and one I just installed were bad too. Another trip to Tanners (4 in ALL). I then

was able to get all of them working. (insert picture) What a great day!

Well, only the flippers were firing. The web pointed this to a fuse on the underside of the playfield. I didn't even know it was there! I replaced the fuse and bam,

blown. A short. Where? I started with the the main coils and removed all of the diodes but it still failed. I then removed the signal lines to all coils. Still blown.

WTH? I then saw the other coils inside the drop down target cage. You know that it was the last coil, right. Yep. Stole a coil of the backup playfield and then heard

the coils fire upon power-up. Luckily, I checked the replaced coil and noticed it was energized vs the others. Quick, turn it off. Tracked that to a bad transistor back

on the solenoid/lamp board. Figure that transistor went bad and eventually melted to the coil. All coils worked (at least i thought).

During all this, I was finding time to clean the cabinet inside and out. There was a lot of dirt and muck on the side of the cabinet but with a little green stuff and a

magic eraser it looks phenomenal. I really am still impressed in the quality of this cabinet. The side art as a corner off one side and little more on the other but All

of it looks very original. The CPO is clean but has some flaking. The joystick is missing the actuator (lol). Thanks Bob Roberts! The CP lock bar needs to be

re-attached. Found the key too! Don't know if original but all keys came with it except the coin door which was missing the lock. No problem as I had a Ms Pacman lock

from my first arcade project (this is my 3rd, with a MK Mame machine I put together in between). Took the front glass and monitor smoke glass off and cleaned both. It

looks awesome.

Back to the vidiot. This board looked great and I didn't expect anything to be wrong. I guess I would have been disappointed if it would have just fired up as I was

looking for a learning project but I didn't expect this amount of on the job training. So, the board had two flashes. This tells me the audio portion is working but ROM

U12 is not. Ordered this along with new balls (2 of course), rubbers. Wait several days. Joy, it is here. Out to the garage and notice something on the ROM about Star

Trek but I'm ready to get this going. I start to install it and huh? It's too big. After closer examination it does indeed say Start Trek the next freaking generation!

Ah man... I call up Marco and they ship me one out and tell me to keep that one. Anyone want it? Wait. The real U12 is here. Installed and still only two flashes.

Crap. I take the board to work and test all the traces from U12 to the 6809 processor. All good. Hook to scope all but one look good. My friend finds a short while I

went to a meeting (I'm both happy and sad about that). An address line on the processor is shorted to ground. Trip to Tanners. Replaced the processor and still only two

blinks. WTF! I notice U11 is hot to the touch so we remove it and the other remaining ROMs. 3 blinks! Re-install U10 and U9 and still 3 blinks. Install U11, two blinks.

OK, U11 is bad. Marco! Get the new ROM and post caps. Replace U11 and 4 blinks. They're all bad. Tanners. This time, I buy two ROMs, and try to find anything that was

on the same bus as the processor's bad signal. Numerous attempts at a ROM burner fail but I finally found a good one at work. Burned the new ROMs and 6 blinks. OK, I'm

starting the feel it now. Next blinks go to the memory. I've got that. Replace the memory and, viola, I hear audio. I jump from the back and run to the front to see

Baby Pacman spinning his yoyo. Joy, Joy, Joy. I know most of you know the feeling but this is great!

I spend the next few days fine tuning the game. Ball eject wasn't working as numerous playfield removals pulled the power wire off. Left popout not working to well as the

leaf spring was too far apart. Right bumper had no sound, leaf spring adjusted. Monitor colors fine tuned along with focus and it looks great with no cap kit needed.

Black is black and red is red. I wasn't getting enough sound from the front pot and found another sound pot on the vidiot board itself. Plenty loud now. Re-soldered a

few other wires including one on the joystick. Ordered the 21x16 1/4 x 3/16 glass and installed a few days later and it is complete!!!

This was a great experience and can't wait to start my next project. I'm not looking to make a business out of this or make a lot of money. I don't want to loose it

though. Including all the time I put in, I probably am but I don't care. This is fun folks!

I hope to make this into a webpage as I believe it can help others going down a similar path. I took lots of pictures during the process too.

A little fluff from my CL posting:

*****
Baby Pacman, manufactured in 1982, is one of the more unique arcade games ever made. Building on the success of both Pacman and Ms. Pacman, this game took a step in

combining two classic arcade features. First, the game is a video game. As most Pacman variants, you navigate a maze munching dots while avoiding ghosts. Second, the game

is a pinball machine. When a player exits the video portion via two tunnels, a pinball is launched into action. The better you do at the pinball portion, the easier the

video portion becomes allowing you to finish the stage and move to the next.

This arcade game is:
Fully complete and 100% Functional
Monitor is crisp and clear
Control panel has very limited flaking
Unbelievable Cabinet w/ few blimishes
Side art is mostly complete and can easily be replaced
Pinball playfield is very clean with normal wear
Original Manuals and coinbox
All keys included (back/control panel)

Updates to this game by me include:
Cleaned and Polished Playfield and all Plastics (no warp)
New rubbers, post caps, and pinballs (2)
Installed new diodes (all Lights/coils work)
Cabinet cleaned inside and out
Installed new fuses
One coil replaced
Solenoid/Lamp board updated with new SCRs and Transistor
Installed and cleaned Pinball MPU board and replaced numerous components
Installed AA battery back-up
New Mot 6809 uP on Vidiot board
New ROMs (4)
New Memory (2)
Monitor cleaned and fine tuned
New pinball glass
Installed lock on coin door
Replaced missing joystick actuator

Again, this is a very clean and complete game that can go straight to your game room.

*****

Please, no comments about my Baby Pacman description ;)

Lastly, here are a few high level before and after pictures. I've got more coming when I get the website up.

BTW: I'll sell this game for less than the CL posting for all KLOVers. The spare playfield is also for sale.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/vgm/1607310371.html
 

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You had to do all that to get it working? Damn... I'm in trouble. Here's what I am starting with... $650 is a steal.
 

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That's great. A lot more work than I had. Cabinet and playfield look good from a distance. Feel free to contact me if you get stuck. I'll try to help if I can.
 
That's great. A lot more work than I had. Cabinet and playfield look good from a distance. Feel free to contact me if you get stuck. I'll try to help if I can.

Thanks very much. I'm sure to need help. I hope you can blog or post something with the details and lots of pictures. I am sure I will be spending the entire summer working on this project. I want to do it right.

Anyway... great, great job on yours. Very inspriational.

Here's the obligatory "If I were closer" and "if I had more cash to spend"... etc. :)

Good luck with your sale!
 
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