Minty: A Star Wars Story

kryptronic

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Donor 3 years: 2021, 2024-2025
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Location
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Just like every other family from Baltimore, we went to Ocean City, Maryland every year for vacation. Near the end of the boardwalk there, near the inlet, is a great arcade named Marty's Playland, which I frequented as a kid, and it's still around today. In 1983 they put a Star Wars machine at the front of the arcade and it was the most fantastic thing I had ever seen or experienced. I loved the movies, and being able to play the game and do a trench run as Red 5 was mind-blowing at the time. I dumped quarters in that machine every year for decades until it was finally decommissioned sometime between 2005-2009. It sat near the entrance and faced the boardwalk and looked out across the boards towards the ocean. Smells of salt water, Thrasher's french fries and Tony's pizza permeated the air. In the distance you could hear the roller coaster and Zipper at Trimper's amusements. It was a great time to be a kid, to be on vacation, and to be at Marty's Playland. That's the only place I ever played the game.

I think each of us has a game which we have a ton of nostalgia for, and that game has cost us way more than it should. For me, that game is Star Wars, and this is my Star Wars Story...

I bought this machine in September 2023 from a member here who described the machine as "...in Collectors condition (Minty). All Metal was powder coated black, coin doors reconditioned with new springs, etc. Works perfectly with excellent bright monitor. The front and sides are is in immaculate condition. The Yoke is excellent with all metal gears..."

I was newer to the hobby then and paid full market value for a mint condition machine (ouch) and had it shipped to me from Utah to Pennsylvania (double ouch). Here are a few pics from when I first got it. I wasn't really planning on doing restoration threads at the time, so some portions of this story are lacking in good photos.

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Episode I: The Phantom Mint

So this machine was described by the seller as "minty", "in collector's condition", and "immaculate". To me, this language describes a machine is either fully restored to it's original glory without any problems or deviations from factory design, or an untouched survivor in the same excellent condition. Unfortunately the seller and I have different definitions of what those adjectives mean. It's not the purpose of this thread to throw this guy under the bus for inaccurately describing the machine - that's why I've not named names. With a little search fu you could figure out who the seller was, if you were so inclined. Let's just let this all be a lesson to everyone new to the hobby - people have seriously different opinions as to how to describe the condition of these machines.

With that all said, here's what I found:

- None of the serial numbers match on the cabinet or hardware, and most of them don't look to be Star Wars serials. The actual serial number for this cabinet is unknown. It has a property tag (I think) with "G 233" stamped into it. I wonder where that's from.

- The vector monitor was not an Amplifone, and it was not even a WG6100. It was a 90 degree Samsung tube with a rewound yoke, an Arcade Shop neck board, and a WG6100 HV unit (missing it's cover), and deflection board (with holes in it) with an Alan-1 transistor upgrade kit (non-working that somebody dropped at one time). Needless to say, it didn't work.

- The interior of the cabinet was missing the PCB cage and PCB cage adapter board, and all the Amplifone hardware. The ARII was marked with "Sense Mod", and the harness was a reproduction harness with super wobbly, subpar solder-on edge connectors. The weight of the cabinet has started to push the feet through the floor at some point, so different feet with light duty mounting plates were haphazardly installed.

- The exterior of the cabinet appeared to be solid without any signs of water damage. It had been restored, though, and poorly. What little bondo work was done was done poorly - without full sanding or sharp corners. New t-molding was on the cabinet, but it was installed with waves and loose areas. The cabinet appears to have had it's sides painted by brush with latex paint (black). The artwork appears new (all of it), but it's all very low quality inkjet art printed on thin vinyl. The real cheap stuff. And the side art is bubbling everywhere. Like they took two minutes to apply it. I imagine this whole restoration to have taken no more than a weekend and it would have been better left undone.

So we had problems inside and outside and with construction as well as electronics. Not so minty after all, in my opinion.

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Episode II: Attack of the Vector Monitor

After paying too much for the game, and too much to ship it, it arrived and I was all ready to play it, and it didn't work. I got audio, I got good voltages everywhere, and I got no video at all. Damn. What a disappointment. A real kick you know where.

As we learned in Episode I, the vector monitor was a Frankensteined 6100. A 90 degree Samsung tube with rewound yoke, aftermarket neck board and no transistors. The HV was OK, but the deflection board was a mess. The heat sinks literally wobbled. It had holes in it under some resistors. Connection headers were loose.

I had a Tempest previously that had an Alan-1 deflection board and transistor kit in it that I had yanked to replace with real WG6100 components. That machine was long gone, but the Alan-1 stuff was still here, so I installed the Alan-1 deflection board and transistor kit, did a little testing, and was able to fire up the monitor and get some vectors.

Due to the combination of the Alan-1 stuff and the 90 degree tube, the monitor was very hard to dial in, and the convergence was absolutely horrible. Plus most of the guns on the tube had to be overdriven, so that resulted in noticeable blur. Refresh rate seemed to be off, too. I had vectors, but they weren't great. You can see in the opening post in this thread what the graphics looked like. But I could play the game...

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Episode III: Revenge of the Edge Connector

What a hunk of junk! In this episode, we learn the hard way why molex connectors are better than cheap solder-on edge connectors.

I got a bored with Star Wars and wanted to try something new, so I decided to install @ArcadeJason's Vector Wars PCB in order to run a few more games like ESB, Battlezone I and II, and Red Baron. He's got a fantastic product there.

Well, I should have left well-enough alone. Apparently the edge connector was connected to the Star Wars PCB in such a way that it worked, but after trying to swap in the Vector Wars PCB, all hell broke loose. A laser beam of light literally burned through the front of the monitor in the two seconds I had it on. Damn. This machine just became the bane of my existence.

I pulled the edge connector, and behold - pins were bent in and not making contact. I can't recall exactly what I traced those pins to, but they were on the connector for the monitor, and I believe they carried voltage away from it. I guess this is what happens when a vector monitor can't offload it's excess voltage. I'm no EE, but this is how what happened makes sense to me.

I replaced both edge connectors with the correct molex connectors and repinned everything. This was my first time doing that, and I think I did it well, but did have a couple of issues with a couple of crimps. I'd like to give a shout out to @mopar5150 for helping walk me through a couple of issues with my yoke which we tracked back to bad crimps. He went so far above and beyond to help another member out. Truly a great guy.

In the end I had fixed the harness and the edge connectors and had tested everything that could be tested in the cabinet. The vector monitor was working again, but now with an ugly scar across it's subpar graphic display.

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Episode IV: A Glimpse of Hope

I have an eleven year old son, and he always has a buddy or three over the house hanging out. Nearly every time they're around I fire up the games in the arcade, and they always hop in an play for a little while. Star Wars is the one machine that they all play and they all love. It's got such draw for the younger kids that I could never see getting rid of it, no matter how much it pains me to keep it. It keeps kicking me down.

We're at the point of our story now, though, where things may be turning around. Another call out to @mopar5150, who sent me a PCB cage which I was able to install and get the interior of the cabinet in much better order. I had to move the brackets for it because a previous owner had moved them closer together so the PCB could sit there on it's own without the cage.

The arcade was off the kitchen in a smaller room, and it moved to the library right around this time. The kids were playing it every time it was on. The machine was finally getting some love and things were good. Things may be turning around here. The vectors still look bleak, though.

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Episode V: The WG6100 Strikes Back

It was a dark time for the machine, and it was time to do something about the monitor. I decided to build a WG6100 from whatever I could find in my stash, or on our site here, and with a little help form some experts.

@78whiteorbs posted a WG6100 for sale on here in November 2024, non-working, at a ridiculous price that I just had to have. This thing was super crusty and needed a full rebuild, but it was nearly burn free. It showed a little Tempest wear, but not much. I disassembled it, media blasted the metal frame and RF shield, and clear-coated it then scuffed it to a matte finish. Everything cleaned up nicely. Due to the scuffing and residual pitting under the clear coat, it looks like a battle scarred tie fighter.

For the electronics, I sent the full HV cage, deflection board and neck board out to @andrewb, who does excellent work on these things. I packaged up basically trash boards covered in dirt and puke, and about three weeks later I received back spotless working WG6100 setup fully blessed by the man himself. His services are worth every penny, ladies and gentlemen.

I've got some pics throughout the process here to show the build process all the way through, but didn't get any pics of how dirty the boards actually were. It turned out great.

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Episode VI: The Return of the Vectors

In our last episode we we spent way too much money building a WG6100 to replace the trashed 90 degree vector setup in the Star Wars machine. The install went super easy - the only notes I had on it were you do need a 15 pin extension cable to get the main harness to mate to the monitor properly with a WG6100, and when loading the monitor into the cabinet, there is literally no room to spare vertically. You kind of have to lean on the wood cross brace for the bezel glass to bend it to get clearance. At least on this machine.

At some point in the future I'll get some screen printed art and strip and properly restore the cabinet. But for now, it's in perfectly good working order, is nearly complete, and gets used every time it's on. I really don't want to take it down for any period of time right now. It gets too much play from the neighborhood kids.

Until next time, may the force be with you.

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I have the glass for that if you need it. Or I can send you the dimensions so you can get one made.

Thanks. I've got the glass - it just wasn't on in that pic. I wasn't quite ready to button down the CP at that point. I do need a cardboard bezel for under the glass, though, but was planning on making that myself.
 
Congrats! Nice job recovering, and sorry you have buyers remorse. You did get an EPIC game though - so you have that going for you!
 
Thanks. I've got the glass - it just wasn't on in that pic. I wasn't quite ready to button down the CP at that point. I do need a cardboard bezel for under the glass, though, but was planning on making that myself.
I may have a spare cardboard bezel, I will look. If not I can trace mine and make patterns for you.
 
Thanks for sharing your story. Glad you have that thing back up to snuff and the kids are enjoying it.

I had to think about how many games I have bought without looking inside to make sure they have real parts. I am sure there have been a few, but they were probably cheap ones. I'll make sure to see inside if I am ever dropping real coin from now on.
 
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