Tempest restore by a neophyte...

FlapJ4cks

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Been a Tempest fanatic since I was a kid and have always preferred vector games... So I finally took the plunge on a full restore of my first machine. After a post on the wanted forum here on KLOV, Komodo was kind enough to set me up with some good bones to start with and has provided tons of advice... Having him local and awesomely helpful will be invaluable.

So this thread will serve as a restore log as I document my progress. I'm sure I'll be asking lots of questions along the way.


March 5, 2017:
I didn't realize I wanted to start documenting everything until I had already unloaded the cabinet and removed the control panel. Started snaping some pics as I began disassembling everything for a good thorough cleaning and once over...
 
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There's a pretty big chunk missing in the MDF on the top middle of the left panel. I see some Bondo work in my future.


The bottom back corners have some moisture swelling and flaking from years of being hauled around; mopped up against, etc. Some wood hardener and heavy sanding should shore those right up..
 
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3/16 Part 1

Between the previous post and this one, I removed everything from the cabinet and cleaned out the interior as well as I could.. Simple green, air compressor, you name it... It's looking pretty good. I disassembled the power brick and cleaned it up as best I could. It has some rust on the top that I tried to wire brush off but that didnt get it all. May try getting it sandblasted.

The spinner that came with the cabinet felt pretty good, but it had some of that "BRRRRR" going on. I'm not a fan like others, so I ordered the ArcadeTools spinner brass busing kit and decided to rebuild the spinner.


After disassembling the thing, the shaft of the spinner was a little gunked up and there is definitely some scoring going on. A little rubbing alcohol seems to have done the trick.


Filming this video I discovered my spinner knob has a crack in the flange and along the base in about a 30 arc of the flange itself. :/ Dunno if I should attempt to glue it with some CA on the under/inside or just leave it risking it coming off completely.

 
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3/16 part 2.

I also decided to tackle installing an LV2000 on the 6100. I've done quite a bit of soldering over the past few years for a myriad of other hobbies, but for some reason this and the upcoming re-cap process has intimidated me a little.

I toyed with the idea of using a Solder Sucker and wick to do the job, but seeing John and other videos of people using real re-work/de-soldering tools convinced me that there was no other way to go. I ended up forking out for the Hakko FR300... I gotta say.. Im impressed. This was a WAY easier job than I had expected. The thing just works.



This board has had a lot of work done in the past.. It looks like its covered in solder rosin residue and lots of little jumpers made from component legs, etc. Apparantly I have a pretty early board as ZD101 is mislabeled as R105.


The desolder tool made simple work of cleaning the through holes.


And the final result. WAY easier than I had expected.


I don't have a 100% working vector PCB on hand and still need to do a cap & transistor replacement on the rest of the 6100 anyway... so no real way to test my work yet..
 
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You picked a difficult one to jump into for your first game, but definitely a keeper once finished.

Subscribed for updates, looking forward to your progress.
 
This board has had a lot of work done in the past.. It looks like its covered in solder rosin residue and lots of little jumpers made from component legs, etc.

WAY easier than I had expected.

Solder rosin seems to be part of the older processes, makes a gunky mess across the whole board. Is is localized or everywhere?

Having the right tools makes things super easy, a desoldering iron (a good one) seems to make a huge difference in the ease of recap and other soldering work.

Congrats!
 
Solder rosin seems to be part of the older processes, makes a gunky mess across the whole board. Is is localized or everywhere?

Having the right tools makes things super easy, a desoldering iron (a good one) seems to make a huge difference in the ease of recap and other soldering work.

Congrats!

It's pretty localized to the LV section (ugh) and the areas that have the jumpers installed. Looks like components have been replaced several times. It really isn't a huge deal other than obscuring what I think is my decent solder job amidst a ton of rosin stains. Looks like they may have used a bit too much heat too.

No regrets on the seemingly pricey de-solder gun at all. Kinda pissed I didn't have one before on other projects!

Thanks for all the well wishes, gang!
 

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A little more progress this weekend.. First things first... the SigOt was out of the house Saturday morning so I took the opportunity to throw the wiring harness in the dishwasher with a little liquid detergent. I thought about including the AR board as well, but it is suprisingly clean and dust free.

As I didnt think it was a good idea to include them in the washing, I wanted to document the correct (or at least current) wiring to the power switch, volume pot, and interlock switch and then removed them.


I knew there was no way this would be kosher with her home. :) Into the top rack it goes.


I forgot to take an after pic, but it came out pretty well. Its a lot less dingy and the wires are a lot more flexible. I was hoping it would brighten the colors a bit too, but they didn't change that much.
 
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(darn 8 pics per post limit!)
Part 2:

While the dishwaser was running, I dove into the phase 2 of the 6100 rebuild. After the seemingly successful LV2000 installation, this weekend I dove into rebuilding and re-capping the deflection board and HV board. I had watched the rebuild videos from John's Arcade quite a few times so I thought I was pretty well prepared. It went well overall but there were a few hiccups.


First I pulled the big caps @ C100 & C101; old vs brand new is quite a size difference. Also the leads on these new caps are more like fork tines than wire leads. They werent really bendable at all. The large leads felt a bit too big for the small holes and I couldn't find a combination of small/small or small/big holes that would span the distance. Ian Kellog filled my in that I was kind of a dunce and needed to clear the factory-filled hole just offset from where the old caps were connected... that was the magic solution.


I didn't have any cheap thermal paste to use on the transistors heat-sink fins, so I used some PC CPU ICDiamond paste... Hope that work and is maybe a little overkill? Beyond that, everything else went pretty well with no real issues until I got to R701. Up to this point almost everything I replaced had been symmetrical to both the X and the Y side of the deflection board. This resistor being SO much larger on the X side had me questioning if I had screwed up somewhere and put the wrong resistor someplace or if the labeling was off. Once again, Ian to the rescue who explained that the X side has more voltage going through it than the Y side..



I had 2 diodes and 1 resistor left over that I just couldn't find the right spot. Turns out I have a pretty early board version with P314. In hindsight I should have read the FAQ thoroughly before starting on this rebuild as it would have explained the board differences and I wouldn't have been left wondering if I screwed everything all up.

Actually.. I still wonder if I screwed it all up; no real way to test yet as I wont get my board repaired in a few weeks. lol

the aftermath...
 
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part 3: the HV board

So on Sunday I got to the HV board. Man, this thing has seen better days. It's crispy as hell, most of the wired connections to the board are barely hanging on (if at all), and there are some really dark areas that look like the board got scorched pretty hard at some point. In many places the scorch marks are so bad I couldn't read the component numbers. :/ One of the large caps appears to have had a major malfunction. ;)




Some of these resistors have seen better days.. oof. And the dial on the voltage pot sorta of just crumbled off as I was inspecting the board. :/ Sounds like that's a risky thing to replace; not sure what to do there..


I got all the basic stuff that came in the rebuild & cap kit replaced without much issue. Need to track down a few replacement resistors that weren't in the kit that appear extra-crispy on the board and then research the gotcha's and hows on replacing that voltage pot mid-board. I also need to replace all those HV cage transistor wires as they are all split and hanging on by a single strand as well as the ground lead to the cage as it pulled out completely...

There are also a few extra parts that didn't have corresponding locations on the board that I could find. I had trouble finding a diagram of the board version I have (P329) and am sort of curious if these "missing" parts are critical. My layout is vastly different in some areas than the one that comes printed with Ian's kits...

The HV aftermath:
 
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Finished up the HV board tonight while watching the WVU vs Gonzaga game. I was hoping to get to this earlier in the week but had to run down to Austin for 2 days for a work trip.

Replaced the pot in the middle of the board that crumbled in the last session. Ian's kit warns about this pot being tricky to adjust so I left it set to dead center for now... I also cut some fresh wire to the frame transistor. I didn't have white wire in an appropriate gauge so black with some white heat shrink ought to prevent someone getting confused in the future. ;) I also re-connected the black ground wire

I didn't have the proper gauge or pins to replace the wires on the molex connector.

I tested all the super crispy looking resistors that weren't replaced with the rebuild kit. R904, R906, R919, etc... All tested good despite their appearance fortunately. I'm also a little doubtful of the transformer at T901; it's pretty ugly. Not really sure how to test it just yet, so I'll just leave it for now and hope for the best.



I wanted to get started on cap'n the neck board as well, but it didn't come off as easily as I was expecting. I don't know if it's secured on there with some silicon or something and since it was a little dark in the garage I thought I'd just leave it for another day...
 
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Looks good. Make sure you reflowed the pins of the right angle connector on the HV board (and all other pins of all other headers on all other boards!)
 
Been a Tempest fanatic since I was a kid and have always preferred vector games... So I finally took the plunge on restoring my first machine. After a post on the wanted forum here on KLOV, Komodo was kind enough to set me up with some good bones to start with and has provided tons of advice... Having him local and awesomely helpful will be invaluable.

So this thread will serve as a restore log as I document my progress. I'm sure I'll be asking lots of questions along the way.


March 5, 2017:
I didn't realize I wanted to start documenting everything until I had already unloaded the cabinet and removed the control panel. Started snaping some pics as I began disassembling everything for a good thorough cleaning and once over...
View attachment 303015View attachment 303016View attachment 303017View attachment 303018

I had one that had alittle top damage too.
I DO have another black front glass and that mesh bracket that goes between the marquee
and front glass if you are looking.

 
I had one that had alittle top damage too.
I DO have another black front glass and that mesh bracket that goes between the marquee
and front glass if you are looking

Thankfully i have the glass and bracket; I had just pulled it off before I started taking pics.

Thanks for the offer tho!

Nice work getting those cabinet edges crisp! Did you use the plexi method with the bondo?
 
I started taking a closer look at the cabinet yesterday. The bottom panel is in decent shape except for where it counts; the corners. The old levelers were jammed in so far they had splintered the wood and let a ton of moisture in that eventually started to rot. My plan is to put little 2" casters with brakes on instead of levelers, but there just isn't enough good solid wood in the back two corners for that to work.



I thought about just adding a second complete bottom cabinet and staple it to the original/existing or even just adding some corner blocks. Neither sounds like a good solution and when adding the casters may make the cabinet appear too high off the ground and weird looking.

The panel appears to be both stapled AND glued into place along all 4 edges and in the middle. Some heavy work with a rubber mallet didn't budge it at all and only marred the wood white. The staples are very deep, so I'm clearly going to have to try and dig those out and hope the glue lets good pretty easily.



Got some good advice over on this thread. The jigsaw method sounds like the most likely. Although I'm also worried that the bottom isn't true and square and cutting an exact fit new piece will be stupid challenging. :/
 
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You could also glue and screw a 6" or so square of 1/4" thick Masonite to each corner, and then screw or bolt on one of these near each corner. Much more stable than casters and only raise up the cab by 1" (or 1.25" in your case). If you have low-pile carpet, they are really great because the cab stay put (the rollers make a little depression in the carpet) but will roll if you really want it to (a good shove gets it out of the divots).
 
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Thankfully i have the glass and bracket; I had just pulled it off before I started taking pics.

Thanks for the offer tho!

Nice work getting those cabinet edges crisp! Did you use the plexi method with the bondo?


yeah and no.. sometimes its not quite a straight edge so you gotta balance between
painters tape and plexi.
I do keep a couple rolls of wax cooking paper in the shop and you can then use shaped pieces of wood instead of plexi..
Or you can just buy me coffee and donuts and ill come over and fix it for you lol.
 
I started taking a closer look at the cabinet yesterday. The bottom panel is in decent shape except for where it counts; the corners. The old levelers were jammed in so far they had splintered the wood and let a ton of moisture in that eventually started to rot. My plan is to put little 2" casters with brakes on instead of levelers, but there just isn't enough good solid wood in the back two corners for that to work.

View attachment 304705

I thought about just adding a second complete bottom cabinet and staple it to the original/existing or even just adding some corner blocks. Neither sounds like a good solution and when adding the casters may make the cabinet appear too high off the ground and weird looking.

The panel appears to be both stapled AND glued into place along all 4 edges and in the middle. Some heavy work with a rubber mallet didn't budge it at all and only marred the wood white. The staples are very deep, so I'm clearly going to have to try and dig those out and hope the glue lets good pretty easily.

View attachment 304712

Got some good advice over on this thread. The jigsaw method sounds like the most likely. Although I'm also worried that the bottom isn't true and square and cutting an exact fit new piece will be stupid challenging. :/

You can pull it off,, it did it to a smokey joe cabinet that had a really bad floor.
cut the staples if you can get to them,, dont try and pull them fully out.
I really should make some more videos lol,,, also i used two pieces of string the same length
to square the bottom before i put the new one on.
Unless you feel like doing the router trick .
mark off a nice size triangle bigger than the damaged area and route it halfway down.
one in each corner without hitting the cabinet sides.. set the depth of the router bit to only
go halfway down.. then get some donor wood that will sit flush in the corners you routed.
mix some sawdust and glue and clamp the new pieces into those routed corners until it dries completely. or use epoxy , but your gonna need a few tubes of that for sure.

* Fun facts (lol)
if you cut new pieces of wood , save the sawdust in a container for later use... you can mix that with glue and make your tee molding slots tighter.
 
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