Pole Position Cockpit Refurb

So I finished the cap kit after work today after work. I think I fixed the initial problem, but now it looks monochrome.

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Is it common for colors to be so far out of adjustment after a recap? Or am I looking at a new problem? Looking for a plastic tool to adjust the color on the neck board...
 
Partially figured it out. There are 3 pots for RGB and and additional 2 for R and B. I turned up the R and B and those colors came back. Now need to read up on how to calibrate things properly...
 
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Much better...

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Something still jacked up. Not sure if this is color adjustment with the logo. The clouds are all blocky which i read might be ROM corruption. Maybe this is also related? Next will pull all the socketed.ICs, clean them, deoxit, and verify ROMS.

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One thing I noticed is that the chassis of transformer assembly gets really hot on the side with the fuses. I think it is the bridge rectified bolted underneath. Is it typical to get that hot, or should I dig deeper?
 
One thing I noticed is that the chassis of transformer assembly gets really hot on the side with the fuses. I think it is the bridge rectified bolted underneath. Is it typical to get that hot, or should I dig deeper?
Yes, he bridge rectifier is mounted underneath the brick housing right next to the fuse bus/holder. It gets very warm/hot around there, but you should make sure there is thermal paste between the rectifier and the housing to dissipate the heat from the rectifier. Also check the connections to the rectifier and the big blue cap. Common for the connections to get loose which generates even more heat and will burn up the connectors and shorten the life of the rectifier and capacitor.
 
If you want to really get creative, you can always wire this up as a pseudo-igniton



Good call! I had one of these on a PP machine 6-7 years ago and it was fantastic!!! The previous owner was a locksmith and had installed it. It was especially great for guests bc they wouldn't load it up with credits and bail after one game. Anyway, highly recommend, and it feels like you're starting the ignition every time you coin up. 🤙
 

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Labor Day weekend, I found this empty PP cockpit (with pedals and CP) for $80 down in Cinci, so made a road trip to pick it up and hang out with some old friends for the night. I was really surpried how geeked my daughter was over this....I was not suprised how much my wife was not, but she went along with it.

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I had planned to slowly piece it together over time, but on the drive back to MI, another fully populated cockpit project with PP2 board and extra CP/pedals popped up in Cleveland for $500. Took a quick 2-hour detour to make that grab but couldn't fit both cabinets in the truck. The cab already in the truck was the better of the two, and the seller was nice enough to help me strip his cabinet for the same price!

I called this a "refurb" because I'm not going all out on the cosmetics that I see in other threads. Someday I might circle back with more ambition, but right now, I'm just going to patch the chunks missing along the base and primer it (not unlike my first car).

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The guy I bought the hardware from said he had tested the PP2 in his upright, but have picked up the cabinet from a friend and was not sure what did or did not work. $500 for a complete set of hardware plus an extra set of pedals and CP seemed reasonable, especially when I was looking at everythng there and realizing how long it would take me to find everything piece by piece.

Since I already had everythig out of the cabinet, I set it up on my bench yesterday to see where I was starting.

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I had pretty much everything connected except the CP. I checked the power supplies before plugging in everything else and had 5.35V on each. So after checking to make sure everything was stable, connected, and no chance of shorting against something, I turned it on to see this. No smoke and the monitor works! But work to do....

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Going back to the power supplies, I found that one of them was pulled down to 800mV under load. I was hoping it was a bad pass transistor and not the board pulling a ton of current. So I changed the 2n3055 and voila!


Progress! I wasn't sure what to do next, then I realized in the top right "ROM 8". I pulled that ROM and the game booted! Everything was great for 3-4 minutes, then the picture started to bend along the left side of the screen. I'm new at this, so I'm not sure if that is what is called "curl" or something else. A quick search make it clear that people don't have much good to say about the Matsushita TM-202G. I wasn't sure if this might be a cap thing or possibly one of the drive transistors flaking out after it heats up. The quick searches seemed to point toward caps, but still need to dig.


The other problem I had was no audio. I had hooked up the panel of volume knobs from the cabinet and they were pretty cruddy, so I swapped it for the one I stripped from the other cabinet, and that fixed it.

Once I get on top of this monitor problem, I'll post progress on the cabinet.
Ah, the dreaded "Piece-o-shita" CRT. You can cap it.
 
So I'm pulling the ROMs to clean them and verify them, then I realize that the MAME file names do not seem to line up with the reference designators on the PCB. For example, It looks like the file suffix is a board locator, I can't find a 12 E or 12F file anywhere... Am I missing something?

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So I'm pulling the ROMs to clean them and verify them, then I realize that the MAME file names do not seem to line up with the reference designators on the PCB. For example, It looks like the file suffix is a board locator, I can't find a 12 E or 12F file anywhere... Am I missing something?

I found the info needed in the MAME code. I'll try to post a table this weekend unless there is one that I had not found.
 
I cleaned all the socketed components with a dremmel and Dexoit and the game seems fully functional with no glitches, so moving to the mechanical work.

First stripping everything possible...


Front View Stripped.jpg Seat View - Stripped.jpg


Seen better days...sI'm surprised we were able to push it up and down the ramps.

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I couldn't find something that has the exact same dimensions, but close enough

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For my next trick...

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I struggled with doing this, but with a stair case having a 90° dog leg, there was no possible way to get this in my basement short of paying a ridiculous amount of money to put in a walk out in my basement.

I tried to remove the roof panel, but I was afraid trying to seperate all the glue joints were going to case more damaege than just curring it. Next step, patching all the chunks along the bottom.

I used bondo, but after reading what @Jaydon has done, I wish I would have tried epoxy, but this came out fine.

Left side of front half of cabinet.

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Right side of the front half of the cabinet

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This post is already pic heavy, so I'll forego the detail on the rear half of the cabinet compelete with primer.


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Next step, truck it to the basement without damaing the cabinet, drywall, windows, and more importantly fingers and my back...
 
I trimmed a 2x4 to fit snuggly between the top and bottom plywood of the cabinet base. I fastened the plywood with 8 lag screws. On the top, one screw on each side of the split, and on the bottom 2 screws on each side of the split.


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The seam on the floor is covered with a rubber mat with a diamond plate pattern. The carpet didn't extend up around the pedals, but I liked the way it looked. I just bought standard carpet hardware to cover up my imperfect cuts.

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I covered the top seam with a painted piece of wood. I thought satin would match better. Might touch it up later with something that blends better, or might not...


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Inside the cockpit, I covered the seam with a wooden strip as well.

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Here is a view of the primered bondo along the bottom of the reassembled cabinet.


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For some reason the cabinet was missing the bottom panel below the service door. I had a second service panel door that was pretty beat up, but had some sections that could repurposed. I cut a section to replace the missing monitor shelf, and there was just enough fit this missing panel. I cut holes for the power switch and the power cord. I know that usually the power cord fits through a slot in the top of the panel, but the air vent is in the way, so I brought it out the bottom below the power switch.


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So, I inadvertantly have the serial numbers of both cabinets... pretty cool


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The extra vent on the bottom made me realize the two doors had different vent designs. In any case, I think this low vent will create a stronger chimney effect and less load on the exhause fan at the top hole.
 
I had just polished some trim on my OutRun project, so my angle grinder was still out. This shined up nicely.

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Everything is more or less back together and I was ready to clean it and take some final pics... and then WTF? I have 3 CPs from my salvage cockpit and the parts I bought, and they all fit the same. (2 of them were taken off of cockpit cabinets) Are there different CPs between the upright and cockpit? Or do I have no idea how to install the CP?

Still playable!!! Would just like to make it right.




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Everything is more or less back together and I was ready to clean it and take some final pics... and then WTF? I have 3 CPs from my salvage cockpit and the parts I bought, and they all fit the same. (2 of them were taken off of cockpit cabinets) Are there different CPs between the upright and cockpit? Or do I have no idea how to install the CP?

Still playable!!! Would just like to make it right.




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Flip the hinge. The bolts go from the inside of the control panel to the outside.

I did the same thing at first. 😄
 
Thanks! I'll add.that to the list of dumb things the last few weeks...

1. Installed pedals upside down
2. Installed EPROM backwards... which I caught before plugging it in. (Always check yout work!!!)
3. Installed CP with hinges inverted.
4. And the best for last... Got my first HV "tickle".

I haven't in this long enough to justify buying an HV probe, so I made something to discharge tubes with a relic I found in my inherited tools, a hose clamp, and several 100k resistors in series. It has worked fine for months but I found a flaw in my design this week.

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The arrow above points to a metal collar around the handle. Fortunately I was in parallel with the resistors to ground, and they must have been lower impedance so I would call the sensation an unpleasant tickle ... need to wrap it in electrical tape.
 
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