Project updates part 3

Posted on 2013-12-03 by Ken

Last of these bulk updates, I swear!

Lots going on with the second conversion I’m doing. It’s a Centipede cocktail I got without boards or monitor, getting the 60n1 treatment. Not the best end… Not the worst either. I like to think I’m doing it justice while meeting the needs of the person who commissioned it.

A disturbing amount of lint came out of those trackballs. Like, several square inches of it. As well as a toothpick and wrapper, two bits of gum stuck to a roller, and what I’m pretty sure was a receipt at some point. Classy people, those players in the distant past. I got the trackballs performing nicely, though new bearings are probably in their future.

New control panel overlay (from Arcadeshop, amazing quality and I cannot convey how nice having the holes die cut is) for player 1 installed, along with the LCD. Was happy to be able to mount the LCD without modifying the cabinet beyond a few screw holes. I doubt this thing will ever be deconverted, but if it is it’ll be an easier job than a lot of the bullshit out there.

Got the dents (yeah, seriously) out of the player 2 control panel tonight as well, and sprayed it black again. Will get the new CPO on and reassemble later this week and then it’s back to waiting for more parts to come in.

In other news, the boardset for my Space Invaders came in finally!

I ended up having to use half of my original boardset (the audio board) and half of the donor (motherboard) in order to get a fully functional game in my cocktail cab. The end state working set is pictured above.

The donor boards evidently came from an upright. I’d heard all Space Invaders boardsets were alike and there was merely a cabinet wiring difference between the upright and cocktail versions. Given the fact that the cocktail audio board has an extra set of connections versus the upright board I think the difference is more significant than that.

Might also be a change between revisions though… The audio board I bought has older style gigantic caps on it, among other differences. More research is necessary to get that sorted out though, it seems like the Deluxe version of the game has much more info out there about it and there was not much forthcoming about the original.

Thankfully it was my motherboard that was the issue, not the audio board, so I frankensteined it and got a few rounds in tonight!

Project updates part 2

Posted on 2013-12-02 by Ken

Also converted my ex-Bosconian cabinet from Krazy Bowl to Capcom Bowling with some parts provided by another local collector. Pretty much the same game play but orders of magnitude less obnoxious.

Took some baby steps towards making it look nicer too…

On the recommendation of one of the local collectors’ mailing lists I tried Motsenbocker’s Instant Latex Based Paint Remover.

It did a decent job… Still took a lot of brute force to get the stuff off, but it loosened the paint and left what was underneath intact. I ended up giving up on doing it by hand by the end and putting some scotch brite on a palm sander.

I think I’ll use this stuff to get the paint up off the side art on another cab, but not for a whole side again. I’ve got a jug of 3M Safest Stripper waiting for the other side of the Bosconian, so we’ll see how it compares soon.

Also finished conversion of the gutted Gun Fight cabinet I picked up a while back and delivered it to its new owner.

It has a handful of imperfections I’m not happy with, but they’re things only I would notice.

The custom monitor surround in progress… It turned out looking incredible.

It was a lot of work though. I pressed my Mario Bros. into service as an impromptu brake for the mat board I used to create it.

Spent a couple days at the office under strenuous quality control testing.

Project updates part 1

Posted on 2013-12-02 by Ken

Got a bit caught up with other aspects of life so I haven’t been doing much with the blog lately. Got a lot done with the games in the last few months though!

Cleaned a terrifying amount of goop out of the coin door to the Defender cabinet and made that sucker shine again. It also has a monitor bezel now, and by pure happenstance the inner monitor surround too. Snagged the bezel for ten bucks on eBay, and found out after a little bit of comparison with Internet pics that I got three of the Williams style monitor surrounds in a pile of them I picked up a while back.

Got reaaaaally lucky and picked up this lovely thing for $150. Spent a night retrieving it from Hood River, all in all I’d still consider it a killer deal. It comes complete and loaded with Dr. Mario and Super Mario Brothers ROM sets.

While it was supposed to be working as of my purchase, I never got to test it in as found condition. While loading it onto a dolly to bring it in I dropped it on its side. Seems to have caused some damage to the monitors, hopefully that’s the extent of it. Was super bummed about that. Definitely don’t try to move one of these things solo, the size is deceptive… Two monitors and a steel cabinet mean it’ll get away from you in a hurry if you’re trying to muscle it around.