MK1/2 Resto/Conversion

Meph

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I stopped by a local operator today looking for an old Midway cabinet for a Mortal Kombat machine. He had a couple old MK cabinets that had been painted over and converted to Golden Tee machines. He pulled one out for me and plugged it in to test the monitor. It has a WG 25" in it and it works but is fuzzy. He played with it for a couple mins and said it just needed a cap kit. I can take it all for $100 or he can do the cap kit and I take it for $200.

Looking at prices for cap kits it looks like its definitely worth it for me to take the cab as-is and just do the cap kit myself. This will be my first arcade project but I have worked with electronics all my life. My last couple projects were jukeboxes so i'm assuming that this should be no problem. I just have a couple questions.

How hard is a cap kit to do? I have plenty of soldering experience. I have already looked up discharging the monitor so the rest looks pretty easy from what I can tell.

Also, how does a Jamma cabinet work? Can I basically plug any Jamma board in? Could I literally have a MK1, MK2, SF-Turbo all in the cabinet and just change the harness to change the game?

Forgive my ignorance, this will be my first experience with this.
 
if your good with an iron and have worked on electronics all your life a cap kit and flyback should be simple, tho it might just be the screen pot on the flyback that needs adjustment.

yes you can have what ever jamma games you want for the most part in that cabinet that require 2-6 buttons and 1 joystick per player. for SF you'll need a SF style 6 button control panel, and a kick harness.

Another good way to do it is to get or make a spare 3/4" wood/mdf panel and cut it for 6 buttons, populate it and put molex connectors on the harness by the control panel that way you can just unplug 2-3 connectors and be able to play whatever you want.

For games that use a trackball or 2 joysticks per player or any other setup you'll need to make another panel.
 
If I wired it for 6 buttons would I need to disconnect one when playing a MK game or would it just be an unmapped button?
 
Cap kits are easy. With a wells 7000, I'd do a flyback replacement too while I was in there. They are about 20 bux from many places. I'm sure you will have no issues with your experience. The fuzziness could end up being the tube, so a rejuv may still be needed even after the cap/fly replacement. You can plug any jamma board into the harness. Kick harnesses differ between them and the CP layout will not be compatible between MK and SF games.
 
If I wired it for 6 buttons would I need to disconnect one when playing a MK game or would it just be an unmapped button?

it would just be unused. no wire changes needed.

but as terborlicec said the layout wouldn't be correct (tho to some this doesn't matter, it does to me but this is your rodeo :D ).
 
Cool, i'm actually really looking forward to this project. I may just do a single dedicated MK1 or 2 machine. I'm planning to do a custom built showcase cabinet running MK9 and SSFIV Arcade Edition on my PS3 so I don't know if I want to go all crazy with this cabinet. I just want a first project to get myself started and SF/MK were my thing back in the day so its a logical start.
 
Oh I guess since I posted this in the Resto forum I do have some resto questions too =). The cabinet was originally MK1. Now there is some Golden Tee artwork on the side. I have seen in the past that people have managed to remove the current art and paint, to uncover the original art underneath. How hard is that and where do I begin.

My only stripping chemicals I have experience with is Citristrip. Works great to take off 73 years of lacquer on an old Philco radio but on an arcade cabinet will it take off everything?
 
Oh I guess since I posted this in the Resto forum I do have some resto questions too =). The cabinet was originally MK1. Now there is some Golden Tee artwork on the side. I have seen in the past that people have managed to remove the current art and paint, to uncover the original art underneath. How hard is that and where do I begin.

My only stripping chemicals I have experience with is Citristrip. Works great to take off 73 years of lacquer on an old Philco radio but on an arcade cabinet will it take off everything?

Citristrip is good. I just had a good experience with it on a KI cab. I would only coat about a 12-24 inch section and test after about 10 minutes. You want to get a feel for how long it is going to take to get the paint off. You also don't want to let it sit there for too long or it will eat up the art. Just practice first then do a section at a time. Hopefully, you find some nice unfaded art.
 
Citristrip is what i'm planning on using in the next month or so on both my MK1 and NBA Jam cabs. I've been putting it off since it's been so warm. I used acetone on a corner of my MK1 cab and it worked but would take forever to do it like that. I've heard of others who've used a couple of the Goof Off products with good results also.
 
Just to pitch in on the encouragement.

I recently did my first cap kit, and I'm relatively new to electronics and soldering and it was a piece of cake.

What I suggest, Order from Bob Roberts, he'll get you everything you need at a good price and include a guide as to which cap replaces which, as sometimes the original values are hard to find. In the cap kit I just installed, some of the newer caps were higher voltage ratings than the old ones, so he includes a list of what to replace and which cap to use.

Also, do one cap at a time. Take your time, do them one at a time and just make sure they are facing the right way and you'll be fine, its really easy.
 
Cool thanks. I'm currently working on a touchscreen jukebox in a 1938 Philco radio cabinet but there is more waiting that working on that project so I am looking forward to starting this. I might also be starting my first pinball resto really soon so I might have my plate full this fall.
 
If I wired it for 6 buttons would I need to disconnect one when playing a MK game or would it just be an unmapped button?

The extra button will act as an extra block button in Mortal Kombat 1 and 2. For 3 and up it will be the run button.
 
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