Nice surprise - Solar Fox mini

mnrocketry

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Earlier this week, I won an ebay auction for a "XX Mission" jamma game. I bought it solely because it was in a Midway Mini cabinet . I have a fondness for that cabinet style, and wanted one with a vertical monitor - possibly for a 60-in-1. I could tell by the bezel and control panel in the auction pics that this cab had originally been a Solar Fox.

Well, finally made the two hour round trip this morning to pick it up. When I got home, I found that it had definitely been a Solar Fox mini. The cabinet tag was still stapled inside, "SFX-MINI No. 0272". Still has the original K4800 13" monitor (works, but needs a cap kit). JAMMA conversion was fairly well done - by Operator standards, that is. It needs some help to bring it up to my standards. Original AC harness is pretty much still all there. MCR harness is completely gone as is the big transformer and original power supply.

The nice surprise was when I started looking at the control panel and marquee. To convert this game, the Op had just taken cheap marble-pattern contact paper and stuck it over the cp and marquee. It pulled right off and didn't even leave any adhesive residue. What was underneath? The original cpo and marquee! The marquee is gorgeous, the bezel is in fantastic condition. The cpo is in decent condition other than missing material across the front corner.

The attached pics show what it looked like when I got it home, and what it looked like after removing the contact paper and doing a little cleaning.

Now, just what should I do with it...
 

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I saw this on Ebay as well, and immediately wondered if that was contact paper placed over the original art... Now we know!

I'd see if there's a Solar Fox to Jamma adapter somewhere, and restore it to Solar Fox again.

Kyle :cool:
 
You know what everyone is going to say....Make it a Solar Fox again.

I have this one all repaired and patched up. Just matching paint now.

CIMG1939.JPG
 
Nice recover!

I saw one of these at a gameroom store a few years back.
 
Cool, try and turn it back to a Solar Fox. Looks like a pretty fun (and rare!) game. Just peel off that contact paper and you will already be halfway there.
 
very cool! get a board, wiring harness, ect and convert it all the way back to a solar fox.

That would my preferred course, but definitely easier said than done.

To do it right, I would need:
Solar Fox pcb stack
transformer, filter assembly, power supply (or switcher conversion)
MCR wiring harness
audio amp board

I have an extra audio amp board; I'd have to acquire everything else.

A JAMMA adapter might be possible, but would definitely be a PITA. I'm not aware that anyone sells a premade MCR to JAMMA adapter.

I'll probably do an external cosmetic restoration - keep it looking like a Solar Fox, and fix up some of the internal wiring issues that I don't like. Re-cap the monitor and throw in a 60-in-1 board for now, but start working on acquiring the parts that I'd need to de-convert it back to original form.

Anybody have any of the stuff in the above list for sale? I see that there's an untested Solar Fox board set on ebay right now, but it's from a seller that I promised myself I wouldn't buy from ever again...

Alan
 
I may soon

Hello, I have a guy that I got a couple Wizard of Wor machines from a week or so ago, and he still owes me a monitor. He is picking up a Solar Fox (working) any day now and is planning on giving me the monitor. I can ask him if he wants to sell the rest to you rather than going the ebay route, but since I don't have it in front me yet, it is a little hard to tell. I have no idea what the board or other parts may be worth, but this guy is trying to make a living with this stuff. If the game is fully working (as I have been told), what is the board and any other parts I can get worth to you? I am not trying to squeeze any cheese out of it, and would be happy to pass it on to you for whatever he wants for the parts. I just don't have much knowledge of the game or the value of the parts. Shoot me what you would be willing to pay for the boardset alone and then what you would be willing to pay for the boardset, power supply, wiring harness, etc and I will be happy to try and get the parts when I get the monitor if the numbers look good to both of you.

And oh, btw, great score on that little beauty. One of the WoWs I picked up was a cabaret, and I really like that little midway cab. I will try to find out tonight if he picked it up yet.

Anybody on here have an extra metal bracket that goes on these cabs above the CP to hold the bezel in place? Mine is a little tweaked and I would love to find one of these somehow.
 
I had those reproed years ago, but they are all long gone. I may still have a prototype template, but it won't be painted or be made of steel (templates were aluminum).

As for the Solar Fox UR and mini... very nice score and recovery on the mini. Very cool. I realize you are trying to help out this guy by tking the UR guts for the mini, but that also means an UR will be lost. Seems like there is enough MCR guts on ebay on a regular basis to not have to gut the UR, resulting in it being lost. Just my $0.02.

Scott C.
 
I had those reproed years ago, but they are all long gone. I may still have a prototype template, but it won't be painted or be made of steel (templates were aluminum).

As for the Solar Fox UR and mini... very nice score and recovery on the mini. Very cool. I realize you are trying to help out this guy by tking the UR guts for the mini, but that also means an UR will be lost. Seems like there is enough MCR guts on ebay on a regular basis to not have to gut the UR, resulting in it being lost. Just my $0.02.

Scott C.

Agree. Personally I would buy the upright if it didn't cost too much, drop a monitor in it and enjoy. Fun game BTW.
 
I had an upright project 5 or 6 yrs ago that I couldn't give away. The cabinet was nice, I didn't have space for it, and ended up throwing it out. It didn't seem very good in MAME to me, but I dunno. Cool if you can save the mini, but I wouldn't sink a lot of money into it.
 
I had an upright project 5 or 6 yrs ago that I couldn't give away. The cabinet was nice, I didn't have space for it, and ended up throwing it out. It didn't seem very good in MAME to me, but I dunno. Cool if you can save the mini, but I wouldn't sink a lot of money into it.

If I had known about I would have made the drive to save it. I would like to have a Solar Fox, prefer a UR but a cabaret would work for me.
 
That would my preferred course, but definitely easier said than done.

To do it right, I would need:
Solar Fox pcb stack
transformer, filter assembly, power supply (or switcher conversion)
MCR wiring harness
audio amp board


Alan

Solar Fox seems to run fine from a switcher, no buzz etc..Just an FYI.

Sounds like a cosmetic resto for now is a soild plan. It's already been JAMMAd, so run a multi in there and you have not harmed anything.

Hopefully the MCR stuff can fall into your lap at a reasonable price. I know, it is really hard spending $500 building a $200 game. Still not sure what I will do with my upright when its done.
 
Not quite 4 months later...

I toyed with the idea of unconverting this cabinet back to Solar Fox. Sellers seem to think that Solar Fox board sets are gold-plated or something! However, I picked up an untested "Kick" board set for next to nothing ($10). It would only be an eprom swap away from becoming Solar Fox. I was still lacking transformer, filter, power supply, wiring harness... So this project sat in the garage.

Then, I played Solar Fox at CAX. Meh. Just didn't enthuse me. So, about ten days ago, I decided to tackle this project and follow my original plan of a minor cosmetic restoration and installation of a 60-in-1 board that I had on hand.

External work was fairly minimal. Clean it up, new t-molding, new leg levelers, fill a few holes. Since it was in decent shape, I decided to leave things original and not repaint the coin door, marquee brackets, and such.

Internally, the AC wiring and power distribution wasn't up to my standards, so I tore it all out and redid it. The JAMMA harness was fairly well done. I did rewire the coin door and the speakers. Only one speaker was connected, so I wired both in series for an 8 ohm load. I ran power to the coin door and marquee lights and replaced the marquee bulbs with LEDs. The monitor got a cleaning and a cap kit.

I completely disassembled the control panel, rebuilt the original joystick with a new centering grommet, and put in new leaf switch buttons. I did make one modification - two small player start buttons above the joystick. I used the same style buttons that Midway did on cocktail and some mini games so that they'd look appropriate. I did trim away the battered overlay at the front bend and around the joystick and painted those areas.

Anyway, here it is. It'll look right at home in my row of Midway mini cabinets.

Alan
 

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*thumbs up*

I once got to play a Solar Fox mini. Loved the cabinet, meh on the gameplay. Midway cabarets are nice for 60-in1 boards if you don't/can't bring them back to their native state.
 
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