Hobby or Wallet? Not what you think...

[coinopdirect]

You need your wallet to support your hobby so:

My opinion is that you need to be reimbursed for your efforts. It's one thing to share the wealth such as providing free guidance on standard repairs & troubleshooting to a fellow collector (in any hobby) but people should be getting paid (either cash or trade) to provide physical repairs or parts / products or upgrades such as what you are proposing.

The question becomes what can you price your product at that will allow you to comfortably to earn a profit reasonable to you and that will allow you to reinvest some money into other projects that will further benefit your business and those in the hobby.

I suggest you initially offer the modification as only a service you provide for about 4-6 months. This will allow you to guarantee the quality of the installation and as you install more of them you can revise installation instructions so that most people can understand and follow the procedure. Plus you should be able to gauge the interest of the product for suture release as a kit.

I would then offer this modification in a kit form option with clear step by step installation instructions (lots of clear pictures) as many will be new or relatively new to soldering and repairing boards. The last thing you want is someone to complain that your kit fried their monitor because they did not understand the installation flow.

At about the year mark, I would post up the modification as a free resource while still offering the product in a kit form. At this point someone will have created their own version based on your success and design and will be undercutting you anyways. Thats the nature of the coin-op world (business & hobby).

But in the end, this is just my opinion and you need to do what you feel is correct.

 

[TheShanMan]

If you feel motivated to freely provide the information needed for someone to perform this mod, then by all means do so. Some people derive more happiness from helping someone else out than by the money they could charge.

However, if you'd like to charge but you worry that you'll be seen as greedy or not being a friend to the hobby, put that thought out of your mind. You have every right to seek compensation, and if anyone does have negative thoughts about you as a result, too bad for them. They're probably not the kind of people you'd want to freely help anyway.

Either way, the hobby will be enhanced by your effort!

 

[SuperSprint]

My assumption was based on "$20 in parts and less than an hour labor". Admittedly I didn't actually look at the schematics. The "conversion board" I'm talking about is the extra board I've seen on the medium resolution version that's a hacked 4900. I assumed that's what he was talking about doing.

Man do I wish! That's some sort of "protection" circuit that I haven't been able to determine out the function of. It is an obvious difference between the two, but not the only difference. The med res version takes a 25khz signal, vs. 15khz for std res. As you can imagine the drive circuitry is very similar, but the values of many of the components change to mate with and process the altered frequency signal. It's not a crazy mod, probably involving a few RC and coils changes, but one that requires more than a daughterboard.

 

[shardian]

Oh yeah, I forgot to put my 2 cents in to answer your question.

Feel free to charge as a service for as long as you want. Buy up monitors and change them over, do mail order, whatever.

If some day you feel like releasing the how to guide to everyone, feel free. No one will hold it against you for providing the service. Anyone who does, well they are the hobby 'scum' and aren't worth providing the info to anyways.

 

[RetroHacker]

Post the info, but sell your service/converted parts.

I have a feeling that you've spent the time to document the component differences between the standard resolution 4900 and the medium resolution 4900...

A known tested, working medium resolution chassis is a useful thing, but you've got a fairly small market here too - since there aren't very many medium resolution games. And the people looking for new monitors aren't going to feel like hacking a standard resolution chassis, not after they've spent several hours trying to patch up the overheated/cooked/cracked solder joint nightmare of their existing monitor chassis...

-Ian

 

[modessitt]

I guess you have to swap or modify the yoke too. If it was just a chassis hack, mail order would be no prob.

there are also other issues. the med-res 19K7000's have a 10-pin large neck while the standard-res have an 8-pin small neck, so the neckboards are different. So you couldn't convert the CGA to the EGA without either changing the tube, yoke, and neckboard, or figuring out how to use the 8-pin neckboard with modification....

 

[modessitt]

Fair enough. In that case it doesn't seem like something that's worth pursuing at all (IMO). Unless there is actually a demand which is of course the whole point of this thread.

My assumption was based on "$20 in parts and less than an hour labor". Admittedly I didn't actually look at the schematics. The "conversion board" I'm talking about is the extra board I've seen on the medium resolution version that's a hacked 4900. I assumed that's what he was talking about doing.

Man do I wish! That's some sort of "protection" circuit that I haven't been able to determine out the function of. It is an obvious difference between the two, but not the only difference. The med res version takes a 25khz signal, vs. 15khz for std res. As you can imagine the drive circuitry is very similar, but the values of many of the components change to mate with and process the altered frequency signal. It's not a crazy mod, probably involving a few RC and coils changes, but one that requires more than a daughterboard.

Well, that's not the only change, but it is a significant one.

As for the G07, that's probably beyond me at the moment. And you're right, the cost probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

Still - I often see people asking for medium-res monitors, or how to use their standard-res in a medium-res cab, and if the chassis can be converted fairly easily (for anyone with some soldering skills) - that can help a lot of people.

Right now there is someone looking for a K5515 chassis - not easy to find. If I can take a working K4901 and convert it to a K5515, I'm sure he'd be happy. Some people already have the medium-res tubes and just need a chassis. Others have nothing, and would probably be happy with the slight quality difference with the tubes...

 

[andykmv]

Do both. Post the instructions for those that want to (and can) do it, and offer the service of converting someone's board or supplying a converted board.

my vote: hobby (eg originality) first; and i agree with bungy

my thooughts: if people want original ms pac, they'll pay the $. if they dont want to pay the $, there are always 48-1 boards, and 4-1 pac hack kits or similar.