Lucky. Wild. And WORKING!!!!!!!!!!

vintagegamer

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As many of you have seen in my prior posts, I brought home a Lucky and Wild game on November 5th- my theorized goal was, if it wasn't too far gone, to have it up and running by Thanksgiving weekend...

The flyback was blown on it, the 1 slo blow fuse in the cab was blown, and the connector to the boards was charred. I rebuilt the monitor on 11-21 with parts from Bob Roberts, and after doing a check with the rebuilt chassis, the video came back online.

The biggest mystery was that damn PCB connector. With the help of Oryk Zinyo here, along with members from 2 other websites, it was concluded that the connector was a "mate n lock" connector that was available via Mouser Electronics. It was also told to me that this type of connector was the industry standard for bill acceptor units. At the time that I was told that, I didn't give it much thought, although it was interesting info to know.

Yesterday I was planning to order my parts from Mouser, but in the AM I decided to install blinds in the garcade window, and while I was out there, I noticed an old bill acceptor lying in my parts bin. I knew I had one in the pile, but I did not remember its age or what connectors were on it- I went over and picked it up, and sure enough, looking me dead in the face was the connector type I'd been searching for! Better yet, this was the specific connector that would replace the worse of the 2 charred connectors on the LNW!! I scampered over to the Lucky and Wild game to match up the connectors, and the only diff was that the connector on the bill acceptor had 20 gauge wires going into it, where the one on the Lucky and Wild has 18 ga wire. I'm not planning on leaving this game on all the time, and on top of that, I simply needed to know at this point if the boards were even functional, or if they too had been damaged. So, I cut out the bad connector, and spliced in the one from the bill acceptor.

Since I had no idea what caused the death of this game in the first place, I put my finger on the power switch, and put my head down and closed my eyes :D :D :D I flipped the power switch, and was amazed to hear speech coming from the LNW. I got my old butt up as fast as I could and fumbled around to the front of the game, and found the attract mode running beautifully in all of its 25" eye-candy goodness.. I screamed "YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" My daughter came out to find out what I was doing, and it was great to hear her gasp a breath of surprise........ She said "Daddy you got it working!!!!!!!" Immediately followed by: "CAN I PLAY IT?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I ran through the test screen to flip it to set it to free play, and found out that the credit switch is what's supposed to allow you to navigate through the different test screens. Well, for some reason, someone never bothered to wire it up. So, just to appease my daughter (and myself), I backed out of the full test mode so we could try out the game, TOGETHER.

I have to say that for anyone who has never played this game, you have to find someone or someplace that has it and try it out. It is hilarious! I was trying to grasp at the time that I first learned about the game, the concept of a driver game where the driver also has to shoot a gun at the same time. It seemed to be a little bit much to me. But let me tell you what- it's exhausting and just insane fun at the same time. And to play at the same time with my daughter made it even more funny, because she kept saying over and over, "This game is just CRAZY!!!" In the meantime, she proceeded to play between 30 and 40 games of LNW up until her bedtime!! And this morning, when she got up, I'm sure you can imagine what the first thing was that she wanted to do. ;)

Special thanks goes out to Oryk Zinyo, Modessitt, and many many others for your assistance in helping me bring this game back from the dead! (will add more pics shortly)
 

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That is a pretty fun game. There have been a few at the auctions over the last year and of course I got to try them out. Those games monster sized for sure.

Good for your, I'm glad there's another collector enjoying this one out there. Thank you for rescuing another one from the graveyard.
 
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More pics attached. I also wanted to RE-mention that this beast weighs over 500 pounds! The bench seat alone weighs 110!!

I have also removed that sticker residue you see at the bottom of the monitor screen since these pics were taken.

I've also removed the ghetto setup marquee lights, and I'm going to mount a new 20-watt assembly in there (the original one has been cut up at some point and I want a good, safe, reliable light up in there).

I was also a soldering freak in this game now that I understand how to do it. I wired up the credit switch, resoldered all the spots that were ghetto-connected, and I'm sure this game will be 10x more reliable now. LOVE IT!
 

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Nice one that you got it working with extra parts you had on hand. Good to hear your kids are so in love with your hobby too :)
 
I worked for an op a few years ago, and we had a few of these floating around. I always liked them, I thought it was a cool game and kids liked that it had a huge bench seat you could crawl on. I always made sure to have one on my route somewhere. I even recovered one of the bench seats with a staple gun and vinyl to make it look better for one location just so it could hang around.
 
Great read, glad you got it working.
It's a cool game, I always play it when I see one in the "wild".
 
There is one for sale fairly close to me if anyone is interested. At least it was on CL recently...fully working it said.
 
I've found Namco games are usually pretty good, glad you saved it. Enjoy the free space while you have it :) What other seats are in the rear of the first pictures? Virtua-On?
 
I haven't met anyone that has not had a good first impression of Lucky n Wild (especially if you have a second person to co-op with). Accidentally stumbling upon a part/fix you need is always a good feeling. :) Congrats
 
What other seats are in the rear of the first pictures? Virtua-On?

Yes I believe that's what they were in a former life. They had been converted to something else by the time they were there in the pic. They too were free, but I had a tough enough time shoehorning the LNW in my Jeep, let alone finding a place for them too! And I couldn't go back, because I picked up LNW on Friday night. The other 2 were apparently gone on Sat :(
 
I enjoy researching these parts and I am fairly good at it.

Besides, I do almost all of my KLOV surfing while at work so it would be wasted time anyway.


VG - your pm box is full!
 
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