Mad Planets Build

CaptainHendry

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Donor 2015-2016
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I've done a bunch of restorations over the last two years, several of which I've described in detail here: Tail Gunner 2, Space War, Solar Quest, Star Trek dedicated and Star Trek Captain's Chair. This project is a bit different. It's not exactly a restoration, more of a conversion.

My daughter's favorite arcade game is Mad Planets. She got to play it a few times at a nearby arcade [2084] and loved it. I love it too so I wanted to get one. But given the price of a complete working game I decided to take another approach. Step 1 was to buy a JROK board. That takes care of a working board for the project. The JROK board sat on a shelf for several months while I pondered how do find the rest of the parts.

There are two parts that are pretty difficult to find: the joystick and the spinner. They go for around $350-$400 each when they come up for sale. I learned you could substitute a Tempest spinner with the JROK board and I found one of those pretty easily. The real problem was finding a joystick...

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After a bit of research I discovered that there was one joystick still being made which had a similar design. So I bought one:

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Some of you may recognize this as a Xenophobe joystick. As you can see, the design is pretty close to the original MP stick, especially below the panel. The handle is also a similar shape (that's actually the Tron handle only in black). But there is one serious problem with it:

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The shaft is bent forward which means it will always look and feel a bit funny if used as a Mad Planets controller. I talked to Takeman about the idea of doing a replacement shaft. I figured there had to be a few more people doing a Mad Planets build. And after an interest thread and a for sale thread, the project actually went forward. So the replacement shafts are now being made and that should make this a pretty affordable replacement for the MP stick. Not perfect mind you, but pretty close for a lot less money.

Next up: Finding a cabinet.
 

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Finding a Cabinet

It's not that easy to find an original cabinet for Mad Planets. Since it's a very collectible game and since it shares the cabinet with Qbert, which is also highly sought after, it's tough to find.

After a couple months of looking I found one on Craigslist. It was a Qbert cab that had been gutted and partly converted to a multi-game of some kind. The monitor was gone. The board was gone and the sides had been stripped and repainted. But the cab itself was in decent shape. I hesitated for a couple weeks and when it didn't sell I finally offered $300 for it. Had to have it shipped but here's what it looked like when it arrived:

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I thought the cab was empty when I bought it but it turned out someone had mounted an old CRT computer monitor inside:

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The craftsmanship that went into this was, shall we say, subpar. The monitor was screwed to a piece of plywood which was nailed to a block of wood with folded paper as spacers. The beige bezel had been painted black, with a brush from the looks of it.

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Next: Disassembly
 

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Disassembly and sanding

The monitor was not easy to remove on account of the GIANT FRAMING NAILS! Here it is removed:

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I also removed the coin door. It's not the one with the Gottlieb badge but it's in really good shape. The only thing left inside now is the transformer assembly and most of the yellow ground straps.

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Next job was to sand off the paint, which was not original. There was yellow paint and some primer underneath.

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It took about 3 hours to sand all of this off. It went quicker once I switched to the belt sander with 60 grit paper but, as happens, I did gouge the wood in a couple places. Here it is after a weekend of work. Still a long way to go:

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Base Repair

One of the things I noticed while sanding down the cabinet was the terrible condition of the base. The front piece had apparently been worked on by the same person who installed the monitor:

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It's not salvageable so I removed it and cleaned up the bits that were glued to the side rails with a chisel:

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There were T-Nuts in the front of the cab for leg levelers but none in the back. I want the cab to glide on carpet so I added four new leg levelers.

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With that done I cut a new piece for the front. This is checking the size before I staple it in place.

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Bondo

Removing the remnants of the lower marquee and all the glue that had held it on for 30+ years was a real chore. I started applying a little Goof Off to the glue. That made it lump up which made it easier for the sander to get at it. Here I've got the upper face done but the lower one is still full of glue:

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But despite my best efforts, removing the glue took a toll around the edges of the cabinet where the sander dug in a bit too deep. I really want this to look good when it's done so I spent a lot of time filling these areas with Bondo and sanding them carefully to get them nice and straight:

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I sanded the sides with 200 grit and then went over them and added bondo any place there was a divot I could feel.

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At some point, another piece of the project arrived in the mail:

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Missing Pieces

There were three things my cabinet did not have when I got it. It didn't have the metal vent cover that goes on the top rear panel of the cab. It didn't have the marquee light or the wooden assembly it mounts to. And it didn't have the piece of wood on which the speaker mounts above the monitor.

The speaker board is the tough one because it has a routed section similar to a Nintendo cab and because it has a rabbet that allows it to slide into a groove at the front of the cab. Fortunately, I have a Qbert so with a little disassembly I had a template. Here's the board from my Qbert:

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After cutting a board the same size, I clamped the two together and drilled holes to allow me to insert the router bit:

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Here it is partly routed out from the back side:

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Once that was done I had to cut the rabbet. I use a spare board to make an edge I could run the router along. It worked well but I was covered in sawdust from head to toe after this cut:

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Here's the finished piece:

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It fits perfectly and, after a little sanding it's ready to go in the cab.
 

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Marquee Light

One of the other things that was missing from the cabinet was the marquee light. Not just the lamp but the entire assembly. Someone had even yanked the wooden stops that hold everything in place out of the cabinet. I can't imagine why anyone would think that was necessary.

I cut a couple of pieces, measured the distance I needed and stapled them back in place:

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I was planning to get a cheap 18" open fixture but the ones at Home Depot came with a warm white bulb. I don't like those for marquees as they make the whites look pink. So with a cool white bulb I was looking at $30. I decided to spend $50 and get an LED fixture that was brighter and had a switch to select from three color temperatures (3000, 4400, 6000). Here's what it looks like mounted to a board:

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Here's a test with my glass marquee. It looks a little dark because we're outside in the sun.

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So that's everything I was missing except the metal vent on the top of the cab. If anyone knows where to find one of these, please let me know. (Note: I grabbed this pic from KLOV.)

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Monitor

The cab is ready for paint. I have the marquee, the spinner, the coin door, the board (JROK), a Jamma harness, a control panel overlay and the lower overlay.

The joystick and new control panel are on there way from Takeman. But I still didn't have a monitor. I asked around and no one had one. I check eBay and the only K4900 was a horizontal model (and pricey). I found one for a good price but the shipping was going to be $150.

Finally, I called Gene at Vintage Arcade. He had a couple of vertical K4900s including one that he said had no scratches and light burn. It cost a bit more but no shipping so it was a good deal. Last Saturday, I made the trip to Los Angeles.

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I'd never actually been inside but Gene's warehouse is pretty amazing. He had racks of everything. I regret not taking pictures but he was working and I didn't want to take up his time. Here's the K4900 I picked up. As promised, very little burn:

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It's pretty clean, but I am going to recap it before I install it.

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So that bring this thread up to date. I went back and forth but finally decided not to laminate this cab. I'm going with paint, similar to what I did with Star Trek. The painter was supposed to come and pick it up yesterday but got delayed. Hopefully tomorrow it'll be off for primer and a coat of satin black. I'll probably let it dry 4-5 days before attempting the stencils.
 

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Hey dude if that monitor has a lot of flicker you need to replace the aquadag on the tube. It seems as if it's missing a lot of it.
 
Captain - Its starting to come together. I remember seeing this Q-bert cabinet on the Sacramento CL for a very long time with the guy asking $400 firm. I just could not pull the trigger on that cabinet and most likely not as good with wood working as you are. Glad you were able to get.
 
That's half the fun of a router.... Sawdust.. Sawdust.. EVERWHERE... :)

I should have taken a picture. I was covered from head to toe.

Hey dude if that monitor has a lot of flicker you need to replace the aquadag on the tube. It seems as if it's missing a lot of it.

I actually hadn't thought about that. I noticed it was missing but I guess I should just buy some aquadag and paint it on. I've never done that before. Any tips for doing it right?

Captain - Its starting to come together. I remember seeing this Q-bert cabinet on the Sacramento CL for a very long time with the guy asking $400 firm. I just could not pull the trigger on that cabinet and most likely not as good with wood working as you are. Glad you were able to get.

Yeah, that's the one. I watched it for weeks and finally just offered him $300. I think it had been up there so long he wasn't as firm on the price. I wish I'd been able to save on shipping but I just couldn't find one locally.

The way this often works out for me is I buy something 1,000 miles away because I can't find it locally and the following week there are 3 available within driving distance ;-)
 
Monitor Work (part 1)

Since the monitor won't be going in the cab for a couple of weeks I wanted to work on it. There was a tag on it saying it had been recapped but I wanted to use high-temp, high-quality caps and wasn't sure about the quality of these.

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When I removed the board I discovered some damage. As you can see, a corner of the board is just missing and one of the big resistors has been connected back to the board with a small lake of solder:

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For a moment I hesitated about doing any more work on this. But I saw a picture of it working and really it's just one resistor that seems to be affected. So I'm going to proceed.

I also noticed some of the small transistors on the front of the board were bent down sideways on the board. The way they were bent I was concerned the legs were going to short against one another. I tried to pull them up carefully but one of them broke.

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The manual says these are 2SC1815-GR transistors, so I ordered a set of 50 on eBay. They're coming from Hong Kong so it'll be a couple weeks.

Meanwhile, I also have ordered a bottle of aquadag since (as noted in a previous post) mine is flaking pretty badly. I read up on this and if that ground wire crossing the back of the glass is not in contact with the aquadag it can create shorts that look like jumps and pops on the screen. So there will definitely be a Monitor Work part 2 to fix these remaining problems.

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Finally, I got my lower overlay in the mail this week and it looks amazing. Thanks to Mark L. for this.

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Control Panel

This arrived in the mail today. Thanks for Takeman for running these:

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Unfortunately, I'll probably have to add a couple extra holes to accommodate the Tempest spinner.
 

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This arrived in the mail today. Thanks for Takeman for running these:

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Unfortunately, I'll probably have to add a couple extra holes to accommodate the Tempest spinner.

Actually you can just drill a couple holes on your tempest spinner frame to mount it correctly on your control panel. Give that a try before modifying your control panel.
 
Actually you can just drill a couple holes on your tempest spinner frame to mount it correctly on your control panel. Give that a try before modifying your control panel.

Was wondering if that was an option. I'd definitely prefer that to drilling new holes in the panel. Thanks for the tip.
 
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