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Finally, after months of slow work and bugging KLOV forum members to death, Robotron is restored!

I picked up this sad conversion back in February of 2023. The wiring harness was hacked up and there was some minor cabinet damage to the bottom. It was some crappy Jamma game that didn't work. Monitor was dead. Still, it had the original sound board, linear PS and transformer block. The control panel was salvageable.

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I had lots of help from friends on the forums. I discovered that there's experts in every aspect of this hobby. I had great help with my first attempt at airgun spray painting, stenciling, etc. I'm already pretty good at some construction, woodwork, and body filling, so I managed to get the cabinet fixed up REAL NICE!

One member here told me, in a very stern tone, to slow the hell down and practice a bit with the sprayer. I'm glad he did. It took me a little while to figure out the thinness of the primer, the flow rate of the sprayer, etc. It was a very rewarding experience!

On the electronics side, I knew my limits and just paid @Charles Kline to build me cabinet, control panel, and coin door harnesses. I'm so glad I did. He matched all the original wiring colors and used quality connectors. A good friend GAVE ME his spare Robotron MPU, ROM, and widget boards, and his spare marquee that turned out to be in perfect condition! It took me quite a while to get all three circuit boards working and I had extensive help with gurus on KLOV. This process taught me a lot about TTL logic, troubleshooting, and more. One member here even lent me his ROM board from California, at his expense, so that I had a known working one to test with!

@braedel supplied me with a few truly obscure parts: various latches, the interlock switch brackets at the coin door and coin vault, etc.

I used parts mainly from Arcadeshop.com and Arcade Parts and Repair. Both outfits are top notch! More generally, I used Digikey and Jameco a lot for electronic components.

Anyway, I took a few liberties: I left the large back door interior unpainted. I just think it looks much better with the game boards mounted to it. My upper back door interconnect diagram is slightly undersized from the original, so that I could have a neat margin all the way around. I also painted the PCB metal sheets black, and I reinforced the handle at the back of the cabinet with a strong metal strip. This would be considered a mod but I think it helps strengthen it up back there.

Things are not perfect though. My glass bezel is pretty bad. I'm on the lookout for a nice original one, or a quality repro that is glass and does NOT have the instruction card screened as part of the artwork. I guess Phoenix Arcade's could just be scraped off but he wants $195 for that thing shipped and at that price I don't want to be trying to scrape off anything! Elsewhere, I have a few very tiny flaws in the sideart paint, and I know that my sideart grey is a tad shade lighter than what originally rolled out of the factory.

But, in the end, I'm very proud of this restore! The game plays great and seems very solid and reliable. The monitor is like new. No screen burn whatsoever. Colors are vibrant and the graphics are clear as a bell!

Here's a few more pics:

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As you can see from the pics, I decided to go back to fully original hardware. That's the original game boards and linear power supply. Rebuilt, mind you, and I believe much more reliable! I bought a Jrok multi thing along with a cabinet harness-to-JAMMA adapter, and a switching power supply. I'm probably just going to keep the JROK thing around for a while as a rainy day backup, or maybe build some kind of goofy multi cabinet. But a fully original Robotron is the way to go!!

Thanks for reading and for all the help, you know who you are!
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