How Many “Newer” Monitors do you have in your Machines?

[mecha]

I'm guessing the one in my Robotron (repaired by Williams expert @mecha) is not original.

neither was the trash one that was in it previously. LOL there just happened to be that Vision Pro in the first lot we got and I said I'm switching this.

had something lesser than Wei-Ya

 

[alfonzotan]

neither was the trash one that was in it previously. LOL there just happened to be that Vision Pro in the first lot we got and I said I'm switching this.

had something lesser than Wei-Ya

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Wei-ya in the bootleg cab. Still procrastinating on adjusting its width coil.

 

[jimbodeanny]

I'm with you @Phetishboy on kicking yourself for not buying up more new monitors back then. Back in 2005/2006, I bought two new 19" Vision Pros for something like $120 (I think that was the sale price) from Happ. They had a local branch about 45 minutes away so it was easy to just pick them up. Both are absolutely gorgeous monitors. I've never had any issues with them, but have recapped them just for maintenance/future-insurance. One of them lives in my Toki and the other in my Arkanoid 2: ROD.

The other "newish" monitors I have are from the old 8Liners (if anyone remembers them). Back in the day, they'd take a newer Jen Shinn chassis and pair it with a tube to make you a "new" monitor. I bought one 25" monitor with the JS chassis from them for my TMNT (which was my first game.) A few years back, I picked up a free 25" monitor that happened to also have a JS chassis on it. I don't know what it is about these Jen Shinn chassis, but I frickin love them. They produce a gorgeous picture and, like many newer chassis, have plenty of easy adjustments, including a horizontal width pot on the remote board.

That's about it on the newer monitor front, although @CarrieZ and I recently picked up an Atari Vapor TRX game for free that has a Neotec NT-2700 27" med res monitor in it - but I think that's from the late 90s.

 

[bobbyb13]

Adapters can be had! You can either make one or more easily Buy something from @dezbaz that will probably do the trick.

I have a 1994 TV I kept around just to use the tube but it isn't pin compatible with my stuff. What's the best way to see if it's usable to someone?

And you really need to do this!
A few neckboard options exist at this point too.

I'm considering this. Have all the necessary parts except a neck board (although all of them need work).

 

[WadeLanham]

Adapters can be had! You can either make one or more easily Buy something from @dezbaz that will probably do the trick.

And you really need to do this!
A few neckboard options exist at this point too.

Please point me in the right direction! I've been so close to pitching this thing. Might as well try a chassis on it, if there are any that are reasonably likely to work.

Wade

 

[alfonzotan]

Adapters can be had! You can either make one or more easily Buy something from @dezbaz that will probably do the trick.

And you really need to do this!
A few neckboard options exist at this point too.

I'll need to rebuild the HV board first. The guy I bought my Tempest from threw it in, he had it as a spare, it had been almost completely depopulated at some point in its life other than the flyback (he didn't say why). I need to do an inventory of what needs to be replaced.

 

[PassivePac-Man]

I'll echo everyone else in this thread. I have one WG7203, no idea how much it was used prior to me getting it but it's beautiful. It's in my BitKit cab and I didn't need to adjust a thing after plugging it in. Worked perfect from the get go

 

[DLP]

I don't remember the exact count, but around 2003 or so I bought around 16 new Wells Gardner 19" monitors and a few Vision Pro's too.

Both companies seemed like they were trying to get rid of all their remaining stock of tubes so the prices ranged from around $120 to $180 each.

I also remember needing a 25" medium res monitor for my 720 that I was assembling around that time as well.... so I bought a brand new one from WG and paid $600 for it! All my friends were like "you are crazy for spending $600 for a monitor on a $300 game!!!" Hehe... "a $300 game.... ahh the good old days.

Hey @DeLuSioNaL29 ... I saved you the time and posted the image that you would have responded with. Lol!!!!!

 

[WadeLanham]

I was think about buying a bunch of those CRT monitors on close out, but I only needed 3, and they're heavy and take up a lot of space. So instead I bought $3000 in Amazon stock. I did OK.

 

[bman7418]

none, k7000, GO7, k4900, and k4600. makes for easy repair, and tube swapping gives them another 40 years of life. It will be interesting what will happen to these games once the tubes and Gen X all die off.

 

[WadeLanham]

Seriously, I did buy 2 new CRT monitors but they were larger and not for my classics. I wanted to buy some new 19" monitors, but it was hard to justify it with the shipping costs, and the value of the games at the time. Literally the new monitors cost about the same as my whole games, about $200 or so. And I wasn't going to buy a bunch and store them to speculate on their value jumping up.

Honestly, the fact that you can still find them NOS occasionally for $600 is a pretty fair deal and about the same as they were then adjusted for inflation. And when a lot of games are worth $2k and up, the price of a CRT is lower than it was relative to the whole game!

 

[DeLuSioNaL29]

Hey @DeLuSioNaL29 ... I saved you the time and posted the image that you would have responded with. Lol!!!!!

Here's the MUCH better animated .gif !

 

[brokentoken]

Out of ~20 games, I'm running 3 Vision Pros and one 7203, and I love them. Part of that for me, I'm sure, is the crispness of the brand new CRTs they came with.

I've always thought the 20EZ produced the best picture of the classic era, and I think the Vision Pros are close to that.

A properly serviced K7000, K4900 or G07 (with or without a ittle burn) is hard to beat for nostalgia, though.

I also have a hoard of NOS monitors, tubes and chassises sitting on the shelf

 

[Brentradio]

I purchased 3 of the Happ Vision Pro monitors directly from Happ in Las Vegas years ago. One of them is (or was) in FatherPain's Pole Position he bought from me. The other two I still have. So glad I have them. I had a special connector made to put two of the monitor adjustment board cables together, and it works great. I can now extend the monitor adjustment board through the coin door to adjust the monitor standing directly in front of it. The board has all 6 of the adjustments you need. I even had a 3-D case printed to hold the board. My cab easily rotates the monitor 270 degrees and I have 7 6in1 switchers with over 30 multi kits with tons of differnt games, a lot of them on original hardware. With the Vision Pro I can quickly dial in any game (usually perfectly full screen) after changing from one game to another. And the picture always looks fantastic! I can't say enough about these monitors.

 

[bobbyb13]

Um...
Do you have the build and/or pics of this machine somewhere?
I want to see how you went about this- that sounds like a lot of good stuff in one place.

 

[Brentradio]

Um...
Do you have the build and/or pics of this machine somewhere?
I want to see how you went about this- that sounds like a lot of good stuff in one place.

I call it "The Multi Multi" for multiple multi-kits in multiple switchers.

I also have 10 different control panels, marquees and bezel to swap out.

Reach in throught he coin door and the monitor adjustment, and all of the remote game select boards are there. You also can swap the Jamma edge connctor to any of the three 6in1 switchers inside the cab or even to the JammaOutTheBack connector (see pic below) which goes to 4 other 6in1 switchers (one of which is located on the top back of the cab.)

All of this is stuffed into the bottom of my Dynamo HS-2 Cab (what's not pictured but in the cab also is the Multi Kick harness switcher and the Deco LS-30 rotary joystick switcher for the six rotary boards below)

Here's what I used to rotate the monitor (you can see the NAOMI on the left back wall and the corner of the Sega ST-V multi cart on the right everything else above is below those two on the back wall.


I also have JammaOutTheBack. I made my own back door with a cut out for this.


SOME of the other boards

Here's a pics when installing it

Here's it set up with Arkanoid ROD. I can fully change a game in under 3 minutes.

 

[bobbyb13]

Outstanding.
That is impressive.
Your solution to the screen rotation dilemma is slick (and one I would like to steal!)

 

[Brentradio]

Control Panels To Swap Out With Custom Bezels and Marquees made:

Street Fighter II (for all fighting games - connects to the Kick Harness merge board)
Ikari Warriors (I have 6 LS-30 boards inside the cab and 6 other LS-30 boards as well)
1943 (for all SMUPS - third button added)
Ms Pacman (for all 4 way joystick games)
Arkanoid ROD (panel also is setup for trackball games)
NEO GEO (Standard 4 button NEO GEO goodness for the NEOGEO multikit)
QBert Quick Swap Panel (I don't have this panel finished, but it allows you to swap in different joysticks in under 30 seconds, really cool, and change the button layout in under thirty seconds, even Tempest spinners)
Golden Tee (original Golden Tee panel with the soft rubber edge mounts to the top of a Dynamo HS-2 Cut Corner panel and is bad ass)
Defender (with extra button for Stargate)
Pole Position (I have all of the parts for this, just need to put it together)


I also have all 4 of the JROK multi boards and several other crazy stuff for this cab (light gun multi, consoles to jamma).

 

[Brentradio]

Outstanding.
That is impressive.
Your solution to the screen rotation dilemma is slick (and one I would like to steal!)

Yep, I can rotate my Vision Pro like a pro! There is a eyelet screw in the bottom back, unscrew, rotate, rescrew, done. 270 degrees. I had to put the large vent in the back to let the neck board clear the back of the cab.

Oh, and the black monitor surround bezel is mounted to the monitor, so when you rotate the monitor, the bezel goes with it.

And when you want to connect any jamma board, you can set it on the top tray on the top back of the cab. The tray holds most pcb's and slides down on to the angled wood handle on the top of the cab. Just connect the JammaOutTheBack extension and you are good to go.

To credit the machine, push the red coin reject button (like my avatar) and that pushes a leaf switch together which coins up the game.

Inside the coin door is a lighted custom service panel that has the power switch for the NAOMI power supply, the volume control, the on/off switch for the marquee light, the +5 volt switch to send +5 to either the spinner OR the trackball on the Arkanoid panel, the on/off switch for a fan at the bottom of the cab, a service button and a test button.

I have the top marquee bracket held on with velcro, so I can change the marquee in under 5 seconds. It works great.

Only two wingnuts are used to secure each control panel to the cab, so changing them is super quick as well.

 

[bobbyb13]

That is beast.
How long did THAT engineering process take?!
I'm interested to know where the turntable bearing ring assembly you used came from!