Solar Quest restoration

i love it, i suspect mine will have either CCPU boards problems or a monitor problem (easier) but i haven't tried to turn it on so i won't know about that for awhile

i cut a new rear door for mine but after seeing yours it appears to have a heat vent cut out in it? true?
 
i love it, i suspect mine will have either CCPU boards problems or a monitor problem (easier) but i haven't tried to turn it on so i won't know about that for awhile

i cut a new rear door for mine but after seeing yours it appears to have a heat vent cut out in it? true?

Yes, there is a vent in the back door. However someone added a piece of white melamine on the inside of mine. I don't know if this is original. I think maybe it was added because there is no cardboard art piece in my machine. Without it, any light coming through the vent shines on the mirror. But that's a guess. I've never had another one of these opened up.
 
Great thread.
I have an original solar quest I bought many years ago. I will take a pic of the neon splattered back drop. Long story played the game for 5 minutes and the monitor went out, its been siting in the corner ever since. That was 12 years ago !
 
Great thread.
I have an original solar quest I bought many years ago. I will take a pic of the neon splattered back drop. Long story played the game for 5 minutes and the monitor went out, its been siting in the corner ever since. That was 12 years ago !

Wow, that's a long time! Time to pull that monitor and get to work. Yes, please post a pic when you get it open.

I'm actually working on the monitor for my Space War now. I found a dead bottlecap and a burned up resistor. It's pretty tricky to work on because Vectorbeam did not stencil the parts on the PCB so I'm going by location.
 
to: "doomed" ..... could you let me know if your back door has a heat vent in it & if so location measurements ..... thanks!
 
Interior art!

Some good news. As mentioned above I've been looking for the interior art for this game since July. I wasn't just checking eBay and KLOV. I've been mentioning it to every person I come across who might possibly have seen it or know someone who has. I think I asked 3-4 people about it at CAX this year.

The result was that no one anywhere had one or had ever seen one for sale. Animesuperj offered to hook me up with a repro based on his original but it was going to have to be hand painted because no one seems interested in doing a repro of an oversized piece of fluorescent artwork for a rare game like Solar Quest.

I'd pretty much given up on ever finding an original and then a couple days ago someone on Facebook posted a picture of their truck with 2 Solar Quest machines in the back. I contacted them right away and it turned out they were parting out one of the machines and were willing to sell me the art piece. Hooray!

Not sure when this will ship out but once it arrives I'll post a picture of the install. The seller tells me it's in great condition.

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Glad you were able to find an original interior art piece! When I had my first cab, which was in horrible shape and missing that piece, I looked around a long time for it and could never find one. They're not easy to come by, so that's awesome you snagged one. If you still ever want a repro for whatever reason, let me know!
 
Glad you were able to find an original interior art piece! When I had my first cab, which was in horrible shape and missing that piece, I looked around a long time for it and could never find one. They're not easy to come by, so that's awesome you snagged one. If you still ever want a repro for whatever reason, let me know!

Yeah, I really was thinking I'd just never see it. Definitely got very fortunate to come across one.

And thanks again for offering to help me out. If you're ever in SoCal let me know and I'll buy you a beer or something.
 
Yeah, I really was thinking I'd just never see it. Definitely got very fortunate to come across one.

And thanks again for offering to help me out. If you're ever in SoCal let me know and I'll buy you a beer or something.

Next time I'm out that way will be CAX next year. Already looking forward to it!
 
Interior art installed

As mentioned above, I was lucky enough to find interior art for the game from a seller on Facebook. Here's how it looked when it arrived:

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After carefully peeling off the electrical tape I touched up any areas of missing paper with a brush and some black acrylic paint. There' wasn't much to do.

I didn't want to staple a bunch of holes in the art so I added some cardstock tabs on the back using double sided tape then stapled the tabs.

Once I had it in I noticed the stars seemed very dim. The black light was working but the bulb seemed dim. I ran to Home Depot and replaced it. With a new bulb everything looked plenty bright (though it was hard to get a decent picture).

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I notice there seems to be too much brightness from the monitor. I see a faint reflection of the tube on the mirror. I tried turning the brightness down but that brings the brightness of the vectors down without dimming the glow of the tube. Is there a contrast adjustment on this monitor? Or maybe I'm getting a reflection from the black light? I'll have to sort that out tomorrow. But this game is about 99% now. It looks so much more appealing with the interior art.
 

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Sweet! I would like to play this game...

I spent about half an hour playing last night, along with my daughter who was eager to try it out. The controls are the same as Asteroids/Star Castle so I have no problem moving or shooting, but there's also a hyperspace button (like Asteroids) and a nuke button. The nuke is a lot like photon torpedos on Star Trek SOS but I really suck at using it.

Sounds on this game are great, though I think my volume pot needs to be replaced. Sound seems gritty if that makes any sense. I may do that tonight.
 
That CRT glow is from the tube phosphor reacting to the black light source. Is there any way that you could shield the CRT from the black light? Say like install another black cardboard shroud somewhere? I expect that there's nothing that you can really do about it though.

Just curious, are you using the "black" black light tube or the "white" black light tube. Most mirrored games specify the white one (i.e. Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Omega Race). Maybe this is why.

Bill B.
 
I went back and checked on that glow I was getting off the tube. You can see it in the picture above. Sure enough that is the result of the black light reflecting off the tube. I added a piece of black cardstock as a baffle to block the light shining on the tube. I used tape to attach the cardstock to the back of the speaker shelf.

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Now the top 3/4 of the screen has no reflection on the art. There is still a little bit at the very bottom but it's not as bad.

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Still think I have some kind of sound problem but after replacing the tube, the art, the black light and adding this baffle the picture is looking great.
 

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That CRT glow is from the tube phosphor reacting to the black light source. Is there any way that you could shield the CRT from the black light? Say like install another black cardboard shroud somewhere? I expect that there's nothing that you can really do about it though.

Just curious, are you using the "black" black light tube or the "white" black light tube. Most mirrored games specify the white one (i.e. Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Omega Race). Maybe this is why.

Bill B.

That's exactly what I did using some card stock.

There was a "black" black light in the game so I replaced it with same. I wanted to get the "white" one also to compare but Home Depot didn't carry it. I think I'll order one and see if that helps. I do have the white one in my Asteroids Deluxe. Not sure what is in the Omega Race I bought last week. Haven't had a chance to look at it closely yet.
 
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I got my "white" black light tube in the mail today. I opened the cab and put it in to see how it would look.

On the plus side, the "white" version is much brighter and doesn't seem to create much glow from the tube back onto the mirror. However, the "white" tube is so bright that you can clearly see every imperfection and fold line in the art.

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You also see a bright line where the bottom of the mirror stops about an inch above the tube. Instead of staring into deep space, it looks like you're staring into a video game made of cheap cardboard. I found it distracting and ugly.

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I put the "blue/black" tube back in. There was some slight glow from the monitor (even with my added cardstock baffle) and the stars in the background were not as bright, but the overall impression was a deep black with shining stars in it. All of the imperfections are hidden. The art does not look like a cheap piece of cardboard. Here's a comparison with the "white" tube above and the "blue/black" one below.

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I'm definitely sticking with the "blue/black" tube.
 

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