Tron restoration

CaptainHendry

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Donor 2015-2016
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Location
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In 1982 I was 15-years-old and living in the Northern Virginia suburbs. My best friend and I both loved arcade games. My favorite was Asteroids. His favorite was Tron. (He wanted to be an artist and the art of Tron had really inspired him.) But Tron never made it to 7-11 or the drug store near my house, both of which had a rotating selection of games. The only place we could play Tron in 1982 was a drug store that was 2 miles away on Main Street.

So every few weeks, we would load up on all the quarters we had and walk the 2 miles to play Tron. There were lots of great arcade games in the late 70s and early 80s, but Tron seemed extraordinary to us even then. The cabinet was so cool with the blacklights and amazing art. It was as if a piece of Hollywood magic had claimed a tiny outpost in our otherwise bland world. We'd play for maybe an hour or a little more (I was never very good, my friend was better) and once we were out of money we'd walk 2 miles back. That was 35 years ago now, but I still remember it all like it's something I did last month.

Needless to say, I've been on the lookout for a Tron since I got into this hobby. I got one this summer from my friend Kalan. It was a project. It didn't turn on. The art was missing or shot, but the cabinet itself was solid. No water damage or swelling. Everything was there. Here's what it looked like when I first got it home:

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The side art was missing on both sides. One side seemed to have been used for archery practice or something. There were small divots all over the place.

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The other side looked better:

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As I mentioned, the art was pretty rough. The front of the control panel overlay is chipped exposing some rust underneath.

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The shroud looks faded and some of it has chipped off. The interior art along the side is still bright but it has been beat up as well.

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So it was definitely going to be a project but I was so happy to have it. I walked out into the garage a few times the first night just to stare at it. For me, it really brings back good memories of 1982.
 

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It was just a fuse...sort of

As I said above, this was dead as a doornail when I got it. On a project like this I sometimes start with the body work and sometimes with the electronic work. In this case, I decided to see if I could get it running before I took it apart.

The first thing I inspected was the power block. Someone had put a switcher in it and but it just looked liek a big mess to me.

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I checked the fuses with my meter thinking "watch it be a fuse" and, to my surprise, one of the fuses did test bad! In fact, there were two bad fuses in the power section.

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I installed some shiny new fuses but I still couldn't test the game because it looked like some wiring had come loose from the previously installed switcher. I had ordered the MCR switcher kit from Arcadeshop so I was ready with a replacement. Here's the old switcher and the new one:

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Once I got the new switcher wired to the AC line (that took a minute to figure out) and had connected all of the Molex connectors to the Arcadeshop board. Here's what that looks like all together:

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I turned it on and crossed my fingers. The black light, the rear light and the marquee light all came on. Then the screen slowly warmed up. It showed a picture but it was very narrow and the colors were a mess. I shut it down, pulled the chassis and did a full cap kit. Then I spent probably two or maybe it was three nights fiddling with the width, the sync (using the procedures in the manual) and the color. I finally got a picture I was happy with:

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So, in this case, it really was just a fuse. Well, sort of. I did have a good picture and the game played, but there was something wrong with the sound. About half of the sounds were missing.
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Sound advice

There are two sound tests built into Tron. One plays each of the 30 odd sounds one at a time. The other tests the 6 channels that mix the sounds by playing a tone through that channel. I was missing channel 5 and sometimes channels 4 and 6 were out too.

After reading through some old KLOV posts, I suspected the problem might be the little audio amp board which is mounted above the main board stack inside the cabinet. It looks like this:

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It's a stereo amp with channels 1-3 going through one side and channels 4-6 going through the other. I bought a rebuild kit and replaced the caps. No change. That was unfortunate because if the problem wasn't on this amp board it was on the main audio board.

I spent some time looking at the schematics and noticed there were what looked like six channels all of which got mixed down to left and right.

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But which channel is which? The schematic didn't say and I couldn't find this simple info anywhere on KLOV. I started a thread in the repair section asking for help: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=413057

About an hour later, Phil Bennett chimed in with this:

f10 = ch1
f9 = ch2
f8 = ch3

f3 = ch4
f4 = ch5
f5 = ch6

So those are channels 1-6 in order as you look down the schematic. I replaced f4 because my channel 5 never worked. It didn't help. I replaced D8, which is also in the path of channel 5. That didn't help either. The problem was somewhere else.

After some more help from i86time it was narrowed down to two remaining chips, C6 and C10. I replaced both and suddenly all of my sound was back!

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Here's a successful sound test!



Now that everything was working and sounding great it was time to get back to the cabinet and the art.
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Sanding, sanding and more sanding

I seriously considered using laminate for this game. Laminate is a bit pricey but it's so easy to install and the results are a perfectly flat, clean side that won't scuff easily. I decided against it for one reason. The inside of the cab was also in need of a respray. You can see the art is a mess but the whole edge looks like it has been stripped and then badly repainted. In fact, the paint doesn't even seem to match. It looks like a flat black, which isn't right:

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So even if I laminated the outside I'd still have to paint the inside. At that point, I decided to just go with paint for everything. Fortunately, I had some help. Another KLOV member, z0ner, volunteered to travel from the outer reaches of Orange County to help me out. I was really glad he was there when we pulled the k4900 out. That is not a one-person job. And with two of us sanding at once, we got through one side of the cabinet in less than an hour. Sanding just takes a long time. Here I've completely sanded the right side while the left side still has some gunk on it.

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And here it is completely stripped:

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There were only a few places that needed bondo work on this cab, which was a nice change.

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With those done, I filled in all the divots I mentioned earlier and then sanded everything with 220 until it felt smooth. It sort of looks like a pimply teenager which seems appropriate somehow.

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Next up: More prep work.
 

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Looks good, Wish my tron cab was salvageable. game actually works but cab is completely ruined. Some day I will come across a converted one and fix it up.
 
Looks good, Wish my tron cab was salvageable. game actually works but cab is completely ruined. Some day I will come across a converted one and fix it up.

Yeah, I've been watching these for a couple years and you frequently see them with swelling around the base. This one really didn't need much work compared to others I've seen.
 
More Prep-work

With the sides sanded and ready, I still had to prep the back doors, both of which were looking rough. The upper door needed some bondo in a few spots:

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The lower door that came with this machine is a mystery. It's made out of a different material (fiberboard instead of particle board) and it's not painted. Also, someone cut the hole for the lock on the wrong side and then filled it in and cut it on the correct side. I honestly have no idea what happened here.

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I removed the coin door and the coin bucket from the machine. All that was left was the kickplate, which didn't look very good. This was stapled in with more than a dozen staples which had to be pried out one at a time.

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This took about half an hour to remove. I still haven't decided what to do about replacing it. I may order a replacement or I may cut a replacement from hardwood. I think that's how Phetishboy did his and it looked great. I won't be adding lighting to my kickplate like he did to his, but I am planning 3 different mods to this machine, one of which is spectacular (No, it's not lighted T-molding).

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Next up, removing the interior art.
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Removing the interior art

The interior art was a mess and the paint along the edge was bad. It all had to go.

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I decided to use some Citris-strip to remove the art. I brushed it on and let it sit. After about 30 minutes, most of the art just peeled off in big pieces but the paint underneath became a mess.

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With the art gone, here's what's left.

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After a bit more Citris-strip and scraping it looked like this (yes, this is the other side):

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I used a 1/4 sheet sander to remove the rest of the paint and sand the edge smooth. With that done, the game is finally ready for paint.
 

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The shroud

With the cab prepped, I took the game up the road to my painter and left it. While that was underway I decided to tackle the shroud. As mentioned previously, the art was cracked and faded. But getting it off turned into an ordeal.

I've stripped plenty of CPOs at this point. Usually you can heat the old art off or use citris-strip or just go at it with a sander. But this shroud is made of plastic so sanding and harsh chemicals are out. I did use my heat gun but I was afraid to get too crazy with it lest the shroud itself melt. Eventually I found a combination of heat, Goof Off and a scraper worked pretty well. It doesn't look very good but it's clean with no glue residue.

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What I didn't know until it was too late was that Goof Off would discolor the plastic, turning it white.

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More discoloration:

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So the only option was to paint the shroud using some Satin black Krylon for plastic.

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I'm going to sand the front down a little and respray it. The satin black really makes those cigarette burns on the right stand out. I'll have to do something with that and then paint again.

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I lost track of how many hours I spent just to get it to this point. At least four and it still isn't ready.
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Primer and Paint

Every time I drop something off for paint I imagine I'll have it back in a week or two. But it never works out that way. In reality, the shop I take this to has a lot of real work passing through, entire pallets of doors and cabinetry. My little job is something they do for extra lunch money, which means painting a cab black can take a month.

The first shot of primer revealed just how terrible this material is for paint. It absorbs at different rates and comes out blotchy. I sanded it down until it was smooth but it clearly needed at least one more coat of primer:

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In fact, the shop did 3 more coats of primer. They actually lay the game down and sprayed it flat so the primer would soak in and level. Then they waited for it to dry and did the other side the same way. Once they had it sanded smooth, the shot the black. I got a call to come get it earlier this week.

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I showed up and after trying to decide how to fit this beast in my mini-van without damaging anything, the shop owner decided to just put it in his pickup and drive it to my house. He brought two of his guys with him which made it a snap to take the cab out at my house. No dragging or leaning, we just picked it up and set it on a dolly.

After they left, I discovered a mistake. They had painted the wrong side of the lower back door. Oops!

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I decided to just spray it myself. It's only a back door.

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I still prefer laminate in most cases but I think this came out pretty good.

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Next up, installing the new art from Phoenix Arcade.
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Coin bucket

The coin bucket holder had some rust so I soaked it rust remover.

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The bolts were also rusty so I spin-sanded them in my drill. You can still see some pitting from the rust I removed. A couple coats of satin black will smooth that out.

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After soaking the bucket holder overnight it looked rust free.

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I painted it Satin Nickel which came out looking much better.

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Here it is in the sun.

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I'll install it this weekend once I've got the coin door cleaned up.
 

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Shroud part 2

After stripping and painting the shroud, the cigarette burns really stood out so I decided to sand it down and repaint. There were little divots which I filled with a tiny bit of bondo.

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You can still see the cigarette burns if you look closely but it's much less pronounced than it was.

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Once the paint was dry I wound up sanding a few areas again and repainting a third time. Once that was done I cut apart the shroud graphics and started installing them.

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Despite using tape, I did not get these placed right the first time and wound up peeling them up and starting over. Fortunately, the vinyl is very forgiving.

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Finished! It's not quite good as new but it's so much better than when I started.

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Still left to do: Coin door (which is already stripped) and the control panel (which isn't), plus the 3 mods I'm adding to the game.
 

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Brackets

All of the metal brackets needed some attention. The panel that holds the volume knob and service switch was a bit rusty. Unfortunately it was soldered in so I had to clip the leads to get it out.

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I soaked it and the other brackets in rust remover and then sanded them.

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After that, I painted them.

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Here are the control panel brackets.

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Here's the control panel bracket installed.

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With that done, I intended to install the lower plastic but I ran into a problem with it.
 

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Lower plastic art doesn't fit

I bought the full Tron art kit from Phoenix Arcade. The quality is amazing. Every bit of it looks 10 times better than the old, faded art I'm replacing. Here's the lower plastic art, old vs. new:

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Unfortunately, there is a problem. The lower edge of the new plastic art piece (left) is slightly shorter than the old one (right). The difference is slightly less than 1/8" as you can see in this comparison.

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In most cases that might not matter but in this case it means the holes in the plexi do not line up with the tapped holes in the metal panel. (Note: In reality, the metal panel goes over the plastic but I'm showing how they line up.)

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Why can't I just push the plastic back a bit? Because the front edge of the metal bracket (on the right in this picture) won't allow it to go back any further.

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The bracket itself can't go back either. It fits over a post mounted into the side panel. And if I moved the hole the control panel wouldn't fit properly.

As far as I can see, there's only one way to fix this: Drill new holes. I'm really not looking forward to drilling into a $90 piece of art, especially this close to the edge of the plexi. But I don't see an alternative.

I'm assuming all the plastic pieces are the same so there'd be no point in complaining about the one I got. I just have to make it fit. Has anyone else had this problem?
 

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Lower Plastic Art

I was hesitant about drilling more holes to make this plastic piece fit properly so I went out and bought some of these tile and glass bits hoping I'd be less likely to crack it.

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I went very slowly and only heard any cracking once. Here's the new hole next to the old one. As you can see, there's really no space left on either side.

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With that done, I attached the plastic to the bracket with the fluorescent lamp.

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And that did it. The plastic now fits around the bracket properly. It looks good but I'm not taking the protective wrap off the front of this until I'm done.

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Next up: Time to reinstall the monitor.
 

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Interior art

Re-installing the interior art was a bit of a challenge because the pieces aren't die cut and the angles are all odd. The key is to just keep the spacing even along the front edge and cut everything else to fit. After spending some time placing it and cutting with an x-acto knife, I had it ready to go:

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I used the first piece as a template to cut the opposite side. Here's what it looks like.

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Here it is installed. Installation is tricky because the vinyl needs to go under that wooden retainer for the shroud, otherwise you'll see the edge. If you look closey, you can see where mine got caught on the edge of the wood and stretched a bit. It's actually a tiny bit too short near the bottom there but I hit the edge with some flat black (using a brush) so it's really not visible once the shroud is over it.

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Here's a before and after.

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Next up is the side art and then I'll get back to the monitor.
 

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