Sega Star Trek upright restoration

Coin Box

The coin box had some rust but getting to it was a bit of a puzzle. There are little screws holding that bundle of wiring to the box. Those were easy enough to remove.

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But those two black wires that pass into the box through a grommet near the center go to the coin counter. So the only way to disassemble this was to cut the wire ties and push the two coin counter pins out of the harness. After I did that I was able to slide the wires through the hole and remove the coin counter.

There's also a service panel attached to the back of the coin box using rivets. Only option was to drill those out:

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Finally have it apart and you can see there was some surface rust along the bottom, especially up front. There's also a bucket that slides into this (you can just see it on the left) which had a bit of rust around the bottom.

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I could try to soak these in rust remover and paint but I've decided to just have them powder coated. I dropped them off yesterday.
 

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Power Supply

I spent the day working to clean up the power supply which is mounted to a metal plate on top of a small wooden riser. It was a filthy mess when I removed it:

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Some surface rust on the transformer:

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I removed that and the unit that regulates power for distribution to the board etc:

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The card cage is mounted to the same assembly so I removed that:

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Finally the metal which was held on by just 3 screws:

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Now to clean it up and rebuild it...
 

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Power Supply part 2

I removed the card connector from the card cage:

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I mentioned above I had a real problem getting the boards out of the cage. I can see now that it is dished inward on both the top and bottom just slightly. I pounded on it with a punch and a small hammer to try to pop it back into shape:

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I soaked the parts in rust remover. I didn't have enough to fill a bucket so I just did one side at a time.

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I wound up having to sand the metal ground plate to get all the glue and gunk off it:

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It came out looking pretty nice:

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Now it's time to reassemble everything.
 

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Power Supply part 3

After soaking just the edges of the transformer to remove surface rust I decided to add a little paint to keep it from rusting again. Here's the before and after:

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All the rust and gunk is gone from the card cage and I removed and cleaned the molex connectors with Simple Green:

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I'll be replacing the stock regulator with a switching power supply and the Vector Labs conversion board. I've got the switching p.s. sitting in place but I haven't decided how to mount it yet. Here's the before and after of the entire unit:

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I'll be real interested to see where you mount the VL power board and how you mount it.

Back when I did mine I decided to keep all of the original wiring and I didn't see a lot of options so I'm sure your choice will have me kicking myself saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"
 
I'll be real interested to see where you mount the VL power board and how you mount it.

Back when I did mine I decided to keep all of the original wiring and I didn't see a lot of options so I'm sure your choice will have me kicking myself saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"

With the old regulator box removed I've got plenty of space. I'd like to keep the switching ps touching the metal plate but I'm not sure how to attach it. There are no tabs to put screws through. I guess I'll have to put a couple screws into the side of the case with some brackets.

And where did you tap into AC for your switching power supply? Did you piggyback on the tabs for the transformer? I'm a little vague on the best way to do that.
 
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With the old regulator box removed I've got plenty of space. I'd like to keep the switching ps touching the metal plate but I'm not sure how to attach it. There are no tabs to put screws through. I guess I'll have to put a couple screws into the side of the case with some brackets.

And where did you tap into AC for your switching power supply? Did you piggyback on the tabs for the transformer? I'm a little vague on the best way to do that.

OK, you're cheating by removing the regulator box. :) My issue was where to mount the VL board when you still have the regulator box in the system? I eventually figured out a solution but it took a while.

I kept mine in and still use it as well as the switcher. I just use the regulator box for the audio amp because it sounds so much better than the amp built in to the VL board.

I'll have to see if I have any pictures of how I wired it because I can't move games around at the moment to get back there and take pictures.
 
OK, you're cheating by removing the regulator box. :) My issue was where to mount the VL board when you still have the regulator box in the system? I eventually figured out a solution but it took a while.

I kept mine in and still use it as well as the switcher. I just use the regulator box for the audio amp because it sounds so much better than the amp built in to the VL board.

I'll have to see if I have any pictures of how I wired it because I can't move games around at the moment to get back there and take pictures.

Yeah, I think I read somewhere that the VL board was underwhelming as an audio amp. I'm going to see how it sounds before I decide. Wiring in both seems like it would be a PITA.

Well, don't worry about pulling stuff out. I was hoping you remembered how you did it. Unlike an Atari PS, there's no power block to tap into so I guess it's going to have to be somewhere on the transformer. Also I'm planning to add another fan and maybe a vent to the top of the cab to prevent G08 overheating so I need to connect that in somewhere as well.
 
Yeah, I think I read somewhere that the VL board was underwhelming as an audio amp. I'm going to see how it sounds before I decide. Wiring in both seems like it would be a PITA.

Well, don't worry about pulling stuff out. I was hoping you remembered how you did it. Unlike an Atari PS, there's no power block to tap into so I guess it's going to have to be somewhere on the transformer. Also I'm planning to add another fan and maybe a vent to the top of the cab to prevent G08 overheating so I need to connect that in somewhere as well.

It's not BAD as an amplifier it's just noticeably worse than the original one.

I suck; normally I take pictures inside the cab before and after I do anything substantial but I didn't in this case.

I did find this though. It's how I mounted both the VL power board and the original. It was easy to wire up that way and I constructed a little wooden platform on stilts to mount the VL board on and ziptied it around the original power supply:

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The board itself is on standoffs on top of the wooden platform.

That's a Corsair PC power supply mounted to the left.
 

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It's not BAD as an amplifier it's just noticeably worse than the original one.

I suck; normally I take pictures inside the cab before and after I do anything substantial but I didn't in this case.

I did find this though. It's how I mounted both the VL power board and the original. It was easy to wire up that way and I constructed a little wooden platform on stilts to mount the VL board on and ziptied it around the original power supply:

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The board itself is on standoffs on top of the wooden platform.

That's a Corsair PC power supply mounted to the left.

Looks like a clean way to fit everything in there. But in this pic it seems you're not using the old power regulator at all. Did you switch back because of the sound?

I'm going to see how it sounds with just the VL board first and go from there. It would only be a little more work to run power to the old regulator to use the sound amp but it would leave me short on space for the switching PS. I don't think it would fit in that top left corner. I'd have to move it underneath the cage.

Since everyone seems to agree this is a weakness, VL should consider a minor hardware revision with a beefier sound amp.
 
Looks like a clean way to fit everything in there. But in this pic it seems you're not using the old power regulator at all. Did you switch back because of the sound?

I'm going to see how it sounds with just the VL board first and go from there. It would only be a little more work to run power to the old regulator to use the sound amp but it would leave me short on space for the switching PS. I don't think it would fit in that top left corner. I'd have to move it underneath the cage.

Since everyone seems to agree this is a weakness, VL should consider a minor hardware revision with a beefier sound amp.

Sorry, must have been another thread where I discussed what I did. I'm using the VL power board for everything but the sound amp; the original power setup is doing sound amp only.
 
Sorry, must have been another thread where I discussed what I did. I'm using the VL power board for everything but the sound amp; the original power setup is doing sound amp only.

That's what I thought you said but in this pic the audio cables are plugged into the VL board so that threw me.
 
That's what I thought you said but in this pic the audio cables are plugged into the VL board so that threw me.

Yeah, that was the way that I ran it for a while till Gamefixer mentioned how much better the audio sounded with the original sound amp. I tested it and was convinced and switched.

I guess I was pretty distracted that night because I missed my customary before and after pictures. :)

Regarding your other question about how I supplied power to the switcher, when I started someone had already hacked a switcher into the cabinet so I removed it and re-used the wiring that was supplying it.

This was all part of an effort to squash once-and-for-all apparent power-related glitches that plagued the system for years so I methodically replaced/repinned EVERY part of the power delivery system starting with the power cord all the way through the switcher, added the VL power board, and ALL of the wiring through the connector plugs on the cage side (ask me how much fun THAT was, crouched in the narrow confines of the cab, methodically recrimping/replacing both sides of those plug connectors), all the way to the boards. It worked; the game has been absolutely rock-solid since the start of the year when I finished.
 
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Yeah, that was the way that I ran it for a while till Gamefixer mentioned how much better the audio sounded with the original sound amp. I tested it and was convinced and switched.

I guess I was pretty distracted that night because I missed my customary before and after pictures. :)

Regarding your other question about how I supplied power to the switcher, when I started someone had already hacked a switcher into the cabinet so I removed it and re-used the wiring that was supplying it.

This was all part of an effort to squash once-and-for-all apparent power-related glitches that plagued the system for years so I methodically replaced/repinned EVERY part of the power delivery system starting with the power cord all the way through the switcher, added the VL power board, and ALL of the wiring through the connector plugs on the cage side (ask me how much fun THAT was, crouched in the narrow confines of the cab, methodically recrimping/replacing both sides of those plug connectors), all the way to the boards. It worked; the game has been absolutely rock-solid since the start of the year when I finished.

That does not sound like a fun repair.

I'm sort of surprised no one has come up with a hack or part replacement on the VL board to improve the sound.
 
Purple Trek?

Yesterday when I ran out to lunch I passed by the shop where my Star Trek cab is being painted. I decided to stop by just to see if any progress had been made. It turned out they had just finished the first coat of paint and well...the color was a little off:

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The cab looks shiny in part because the paint was still wet. But the real problem was that the brown had a definitely purple cast to it.

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The plan was to sand this down smooth and then try to mix up a second batch of color for a 2nd coat. These guys have always done a great job on stuff I've brought them but admittedly they've never done an arcade cabinet. Maybe I'll stop by again tomorrow.
 

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I thought you gave them the back door to color match? :rolleyes: So the color inconsistency would have been obvious, no?

From post #19: "I gave them a back door to use for paint matching."
 
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I thought you gave them the back door to color match? :rolleyes: So the color inconsistency would have been obvious, no?

From post #19: "I gave them a back door to use for paint matching."

I did. They had it there. In fact, right before I took that top pic he was holding it up against the cab and I was saying it looked purple.

It's hard to describe but the color actually isn't that far off. It's brownish but it's missing something, some yellow maybe?

I think they'll get it eventually but this first attempt just wasn't it.

And to be clear, he already knew it wasn't right. It was just a matter of chance that I showed up to even see this 1st coat.
 
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