OMG What have I gotten mysefl into! 8 additional cabs in one shot...

What have I gotten myself into! 4 cabs done, 5 to go!

Crap.

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That's what happens when you're rushing and not being careful. One of the back panels of a nearby cab toppled over on the monitor from my Final Fight cab when I wasn't looking. Heard the tell-tale 'hisssssssssssssssssssss' -- that means bye bye tube. Dammit. Now I have to find a donor tube.

Oh well, Lemonade, right? I decided to pull the chassis off this broken monitor, and swap it in place of the ugly chassis from the Golden Tee monitor. Both 19K7xxx monitors, so there's a pretty good chance it would work just fine.

And here we go:

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Yee Haw! One more cab up and running! This one is super exciting because I own this cab, so now I can sell it. I'll need the money to support my yoke snapping habit. :mad2:
 
rmackie6661 said:
Hah I knew I've seen that GT99 before somewhere. I sold it way back about three years ago.
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Hah! Want it back??? :D

The guy I bought it from in Hudson said he bought on the 'bay. Was that your auction, or did you sell it to someone who then sold it on eBay?
 
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A little work on Tetris

I found some more free time during Badger's halftime, so I decided to get a look at the Tetris cab quick. I didn't like the way the buttons felt when playing the game. Sure, I'm not going to be toally restoring EVERYTHING on these cabs, but one thing I'm a stickler on is the controls and coin mechs. They HAVE to work. Especially the controls. There's nothing worse than walking up to a cab and finding semi/non functional controls. I'll walk away in a heart beat.

After pulling the buttons off the control panel, I quickly found out why they were giving me trouble. They were VERY VERY dirty:

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No wonder they don't work right. Ick.

So, a few minutes in the sink with a toothbrush and warm soapy water, and they look great!

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I put them back in the game, plugged it in, and began testing. All was well until *poof* the game shut off and wouldn't come on. :004_ssleepy:

After a few swipes with the multi-meter, I determined that the power supply had failed.

So, I pulled the known working one out of the Neo Geo cab, and moved it over. Problem solved. Tetris is alive again!

I also replaced and adjusted the coin reject lights, and gave the mechs a good spray silicone treatment.

Since this is an old Williams Robotron cab, it uses the lesser common 15" tube in the light fixture. I considered widening it, but I'll just order a 15" tube.

Once the tube arrives, Tetris is done!
 
love the ms pac coin mech!! custom!!!

and to be honest, the old op work makes a GREAT golden tee conversion cab.. ill have to keep that in mind
 
This song seems to come to mind when I read all the work you have done in such a short time.

Well I been workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whew about to slip down
 
flourescent lights - getting a 'bright idea'

So today I turned my attention to some of the 'trim' details on the games. While it's my opinion that the controls and coin mechs MUST work in these games properly, I'm ambivalent about the coin lamps and marquee light fixtures. But the owner wants them done, so I'll be digging in.

The Tetris cab uses the old Williams (Robotron) fixture, which is a 15" (***edit*** 14" ) tube. I haven't tried sourcing this tube yet. Anyone know where I can get one? If I have to, I'll re-work the fixture to accept 18" tubes. I'm still stewing on this one.

My Arkanoid II cab (Centipede conversion) appears to missing parts. I cannot find a ballast anywhere in the speaker / light fixture area. Has anyone ever heard of a marquee lamp that DIDN'T use a ballast and starter? I thought that was pretty much 'florescent lights 101' info. As I understand it, the basic layout of a florescent fixture is this:

fluorescent-lamp-starter.gif


The Arkanoid fixture only has the starter fixture, I don't see a ballast.

Anyone know how these things work?
 
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For you're lights just for the sake of cost it's almost easier and cheaper to go to Menards and get a new under the counter 18" light and stick it in there. the ballasts are basically the same price as a cheaper light. Just cut the cord and splice it into the old wiring and get rid of the old light setup all together.
 
smalltownguy2 said:
I'm ambivalent about the coin lamps and marquee light fixtures.
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Come on, a lighted marquee is a must!

The Tetris cab uses the old Williams (Robotron) fixture, which is a 15" tube. I haven't tried sourcing this tube yet. Anyone know where I can get one? If I have to, I'll re-work the fixture to accept 18" tubes. I'm still stewing on this one.
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Lowe's carries the light.
 
My local hardware store had the 14" lamp I needed. Sure, it was $12, but I don't care. I'd rather give some money to my local hardware store than ship if off to Mr Sam Walton or some other thousand chain store. Sorry about the soapbox, but we just lost a 100 year old hardware store in the town 5 miles down the road last month. They packed up because of the big box stores. :(

I asked them if they had a ballast, and they took me to the aisle where they had them. I dug around a bit on the back of the shelves, and lo and behold, I found a dusty old box in the back behind several other boxes. Inside was a perfect replacement for the ballast I needed on my fixture. There were on labels or anything on the box, and the ballast inside had been screwed down once, and there were cut wires on it. I didn't care. I flipped the store owner a fiver and took it home.

Wired everything up and:

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Let there BE LIGHT!!

Now, for posterity, here's a shot of some fallen soldiers:

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Natey_boy, I heard that somewhere else too -- my buddy swears he's got some bad caps in one of his that he can fix.

I'll pull a few apart tonight to see what I can see, if I get time.

My 2nd Bob Roberts order arrives today, so I'll have 3 monitors to re-cap and a sound board on the DK cab to work on. Plenty to do!
 
Sound is working on Donkey Kong - mostly...

I took care of the audio board repair kit for the Sanyo monitor in the Donkey Kong cab last night.

When I turned it back on I was greeted with some very serious line noise. I realized the volume pot was turned all the way up on the monitor board. I'm not surprised, some of the caps just broke off in my hands as I was replacing them; they weren't held on by much.

I lowered the volume to an acceptable level, and the noise went away for the most part, but it's still there, just quieter. Game plays fine, but if you place your ear near the speaker when you're not playing it, you can hear the humm/buzz/rhythmic beeping Do I have a ground issue, I wonder? :confused:
 
smalltownguy2 said:
My local hardware store had the 14" lamp I needed. Sure, it was $12, but I don't care. I'd rather give some money to my local hardware store than ship if off to Mr Sam Walton or some other thousand chain store. Sorry about the soapbox, but we just lost a 100 year old hardware store in the town 5 miles down the road last month. They packed up because of the big box stores. :(
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I know how you feel. There's a place local to me that has had more selection and variety than Home Depot on certain stuff. Most recently I needed some metric hardware for my Star Wars Trilogy and of course Home Depot either didn't have the right size or only had 2 of them. I know Metric isn't as popular necessarily, but why only have 2 or 3 of something? Maybe my local Home Depot just isn't as good as others.
 
Interesting...when I booted the Donkey Kong cab today, I no longer get audio noise. I rebooted it several times. The sound is normal now ?? Oh well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right? I'm calling Donkey Kong done, save for a marquee light bulb, which I will pick up tomorrow.

I took some great strides forward tonight. I installed an under cabinet fluorescent fixture in the Tetris cab, and I also changed out the smoked plexi to clear:

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Looks good! She's ready to go!

Here's a shot of one of my steps when cutting plexi for my monitors for the Tetris and Arkanoid cabs. I used a plywood board for clamping to the table (to prevent the plexi from cracking under the clamping pressure), used the original smoked plexi as my guide, scored my line with a utility blade, and gave the plexi a quick bend of the wrist to hear that satisfying 'SNAP.'

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After getting the kiddies to bed, I turned my attention to the G07 monitor with the flagging. This was the monitor that I'd taken out of the Ms Pac Man cab, substituting the G07 from the Mortal Kombat in it's place as a temporary solution.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to report that I have completed my first successful recapping of a monior! WOOT!

I know, trivial to some, but a victory to me. Especially since my first attempt at recapping a monitor was the WG 19K7302, wich had over 2 dozen caps. Took me 2 hours to change them all out, and in the end the flyback was the issue. THAT chassis is currently on its way to Orlando to the capable hands of Carl Blessing at Allgood repair.

The G07 has like 12 caps. It was easy peasy. OK maybe 18 caps. I'd recap THAT monitor every day of the week.

Once I get the monitors swapped back, I'll be waiting on a marquee for Arkanoid from EMDKAY, and a few lights and locks.

Ok, status update:

1. Final Fight: currently without a monitor, since I smashed the neck on my tube. I called a TV repair place today and asked if I could pick through their boneyard to find an old 19" TV to rob a tube out of.
2. Donkey Kong: 90% -- just need to get a light bulb for the marquee.
3. Tetris: DONE!
4. Mortal Kombat: 90% -- just need to swap monitors with the Ms Pac at the pizzeria.
5. Ms Pac Man: DONE! (but I need to swap the monitor back)
6. Golden Tee: DONE!
7. Arkanoid: waiting on marquee, and I need to fabricate a retainer top bracket for it.
8. Neo Geo cab: needs power supply, coin mechs, and monitor chassis (out for repair). Control panel needs a rebuild too.
9. Head On: :dead1:
 
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