Flying High Again

Posted on 2014-04-13 by Ken

Back in September of last year I picked up this Atari System 1 cabinet from a guy down in Salem.

Originally an Indiana Jones, at some point it received a Hydra conversion kit. The two axis flight yoke controller installed for that is similar to the one used in several other Atari games, Star Wars most famously. It uses a 5k potentiometer for each axis, and has a trigger and button in each hand grip, which makes it one of the more versatile yoke style controllers (others lack the second axis or the thumb buttons). The Hydra kit also added a foot pedal with another 5k pot which adds to the games the cabinet can potentially support.

I decided I’d like to wire it up so it could easily be swapped between different games using the Hydra yoke and pedal. I started out with installing a new unhacked JAMMA wiring harness, and running the wiring for player 1 and 2, and the pedal, straight up to the control panel area.

Then I built some adapters I could place in line between the control panel and pedal wiring and the JAMMA harness to adjust the pinout for different games.

I struggled with the wiring for the potentiometers initially. Not having worked with them before I didn’t realize that they need to have power run across them and then have a reading taken from the wiper. I tried wiring them up with just wiper and ground pins and was stymied for an embarrassingly long time by the odd values I was getting trying to calibrate the controls.

Once I ran a 5V feed up to the control panel and modified my adapters to accommodate power I got things working as expected. Then I turned my attention to the yoke controller itself. It’s definitely seen some hard use and questionable maintenance. I reworked the wiring inside the yoke and fixed the shameful soldering quickly enough.

The bad part was this bodge job. At some point the original screws holding the left handgrip in place were broken or lost, and replaced with square drive carpentry screws, one of which itself ended up breaking off. Messed around with that situation for too damn long, in the end I couldn’t remove the broken screw and just drilled out enough of it to allow the handgrip to come off.

Unsurprisingly, wood screws left the assembly with considerable play allowing the parts to abrade horribly.

I put it back together as best I could and greased the bushings and springs. The hex head screw isn’t exactly what belongs there but at least the threading and length are right. Good enough for now. I need to take the whole thing apart more thoroughly later on to rewire the left handgrip buttons and replace the broken centering spring. That was a little bit more project than I cared to bite off at the moment though since none of the remaining flaws impede gameplay.

Did some testing with the new adapter for Hydra, all looks good…

…then with Road Riot 4wd which runs on very similar hardware.

Success! That takes care of the major to do item for this cabinet. I still need to fabricate a new front door for the compartment with the power supply and PCB, and perform the rest of the yoke repairs. After that I want to build another adapter for the Vapor TRX board I have, and set up that PCB with a flash drive replacement for the failing Quantum Fireball hard drive it came with.

Great Guns!

Posted on 2014-04-01 by Ken

Posting mostly just to get these pictures up before I forget… This is a piece I picked up several weeks ago and haven’t really had a chance to go through yet.

It’s a 1983 Stern Seeburg Great Guns. I hadn’t heard of it either, but figured I’d check it out when I saw it offered up free for the first taker.

It’s a carnival style shooter with a variety of themed levels to blast through. From warlocks, to dinosaurs, to creepy, creepy clowns, you can shoot it all.

The hefty rifles are fixed to cast iron ball joint bases. Underneath, a set of attached gears turn large potentiometers to determine where the player is aiming. A kicker solenoid mounted under each rifle provides ‘recoil’.

Originally the game also had a feature to return the player’s quarter if they performed well enough. This was unpopular enough with operators that most games had the mechanism removed, including mine.

The formidable rack of PCBs is intact, but I don’t have any idea if it’s working or not. I’m told it was when it was initially put into storage years ago, but time is rarely kind.

Victory in the battle against the Grey Menace

Posted on 2014-03-21 by Ken

Back in December I removed the paint on one side of my converted Bosconian cabinet using a bottle of Motsenbocker’s Instant Latex Paint Remover. The experience was so traumatizing that it took me until now to work up the nerve to do side two. While it did work, the Motsenbocker’s product took several applications with a lot waiting in between and extra measures to help the stuff keep from drying out while it did its thing. I also burned through a stack of Scotch Brite pads encouraging the softened paint along, eventually resorting to a palm sander for some extra oomph.

For the second go around, I picked up a jug of something different, 3M Safest Stripper Paint & Varnish Remover. Unlike Motsenbocker’s spray on liquid, the 3M stuff is a gloopy semi-paste substance that readily clings to surfaces. I laid down a single layer of it on the cab side, and went to grab dinner.

After letting it sit for around an hour as recommended for the latex-based grey scourge I sought to eradicate, I returned to the scene. There wasn’t much of a visible difference, but I gave the paint an experimental poke with a metal scraper and a section sloughed off in a wrinkly sheet. Already better than the other stuff.

Went to town on the paint with a scraper and had it all off without too much trouble. There were a few spots where I’d applied the paste too thin and it had dried; this left the paint still softened but with a bit better adhesion to the wood. If I’d applied a thicker coat I think that would not have been an issue.

Second pass was with a sprayer of water and a Scotch Brite pad. The remaining residue came off quite easily when dampened and everything wiped clean with a damp towel.

And done! Side two took about a third of the jug of Safest Stripper, one and a half Scotch Brite pads, and a handful of hours. Clearly, the 3M stuff is the way to go for a large job like this. I’ll keep the Motsenbocker’s around for spot work or cleaning up fresh spills, but that’s about it. The 3M goop is way more efficient materials-wise for large projects, and saved a ton of labor as well.

Raster Burn

Category Archives: Portland

Flying High Again

Great Guns!

Victory in the battle against the Grey Menace