November 18, 2009

I ended up buying the games mentioned in the post below. I’m not 100% sure what to do with them yet, but the guy made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Most likely I’ll end up trying to sell the majority along with some other games I have. But a mixture might end up in an arcade once I recover my costs from this past trip.

So now, I own 30 arcade games (2 being redemption games) and a Pepsi machine. I think I could stand to sell a few.

Here is a list of my current games and their general condition:

Donkey Kong – Red cabinet, working.  I will NEVER part with this game.
Donkey Kong JR – Donkey Kong cabinet, working
Golden Tee 98 – Working
Burgertime – Working
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Board and power works but I need to build a control panel and find a 25″ monitor
Golden Tee 97 – No clue on the condition. It’s complete but the back of the monitor makes fireworks when it’s turned on.
Donkey Kong Jr – Cabinet but I have the parts to make it complete Possible multicade.
Super Mario Bros – Cabinet but I have the parts to make it complete. Needs a cap kit for the monitor. Possible multicade.
Donkey Kong Cabinet – Original DK cabinet that I painted red. I have a DK3 board I can put in it. Possible multicade.
Crown’s Gold – No working. The monitor keeps blowing fuses. I’ll probably give this one up soon.
Centipede – Cabinet is in rough shape but it is mostly working. I can either fix the power board or supply an external 12v dc I think it was.
Golden Tee 3D – Working but needs a cap kit installed which is on hand.
Kid Niki – It powers on but the monitor is in rough shape. Has Q*bert burn-in. The cabinet is a little rough so I’m not sure of its fate.
Haunted Castle – Working and is a really hard game. The cabinet is in kind of rough shape.
Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters – Working but monitor needs a cap kit. It’s a converted Sanyo 20EZV so I might try to find a Wells Garnder to replace it.
Mortal Kombat 3 – Working but needs a cap kit.
Virtual Fighter – I’m not sure I checked this on yet.
Fisherman’s Bait – Supposedly working, but I still need to check it.
Hammer Head – Redemption whack-a-mole type game. Mostly working but one shark head is busted, one does not score, and one does not pop up.
Wing Shooting Championship – Supposedly working, but I still need to check it.
Fighting Vipers – I’m not sure I checked this on yet.
Virtual Fighters 2 – Working but the screen is dim. I’m not sure if it needs a cap kit or the brightness turned up.
Area 51 Max Force – Appears to be working flawlessly.
Revolution X (1) – I can hear the game when it boots but the monitor is not working.
Suzuka 8 Hours 2 player – Supposedly works with steering problems. I haven’t checked yet.
Gun Blade – 50″ Monitor – Working but the screen is somewhat dim. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with it or if there was too much light in the room.
Revolution X (2)– Working. The screen appears a little wobbly at first but clears up. One of the guns doesn’t vibrate as much as it should.
Police Trainer – Appears to be working fine.
Star Wars – Sitdown Pod Racer – Like Revolution X (1) above, I can hear the game play but the monitor doesn’t come on.
Frantic Fred – Appears to be working OK. It is a redemption type video game. It might or might not remain as Frantic Fred. I could use the 19″ monitor for something else.

November 12, 2009

All of them listed aren’t pictured, but included in the lot are:

1. Mortal Kombat 3 – Works
2. Virtual Fighter – Unknown
3. Fisherman’s Bait  – Works
4. Hammer Head – Works (missing marquee)
5. Wing Shooting Championship  – Works
6. Fighting Vipers – Unkown
7. Virtual Fighters 2 – Screen weak
8. Area 51 Max Force – Possibly works
9. Revolution X – Unknown
10. Suzuka 8 Hours 2 player – 25″ monitor – Works (Steering Problems)
11. Gun Blade – 50″ Monitor – Works
12. Revolution X – Works
13. Police Trainer – Works
14. Star Wars – Sitdown  Pod Racer – 33″ monitor – Unknown
15. Frantic Fred Driving Game – Unknown

October 13, 2009

I was leaving out a small, what I thought to be insignificant, fact to my BurgerTime story.  I mentiooned I used a power supply from my Super Pac-Man.  However, what I failed to mention was there were actually 2 power supply boards, one installed in the Super Pac-Man machine and a 2nd laying loose in the machine.

When I was testing the 2 boards for the -5v I was missing, I accidentally shorted a couple of pins.  After a small spark, there was nothing showing on the -5v pin.  So, I tossed it to the side, thinking I did some major damage to it.  I thought the power supply I ended up installing was the one installed in the Super Pac-Man, but apparently I was wrong.

While at work today, it hit me that I never bothered to check the fuses on the shorted board.  When I finally made it home, I checked the fuses and they were reading nearly the same on both boards.  But one of the fuses was just off enough that it caught my attention.  So I switched it out, hooked up the power, and wouldn’t you know it, I got my -5v.  I threw the board in the machine, hooekd up all my wires, flipped on the power and… no buzzing!  The picture came up fine and the sounds played loud and clear.  Now, I have a fully working BurgerTime that I picked up for a song.  I could probably easily quadruple my money, but this is one of the games I want in my game room.

There still is the problem of the buzzing.  I intend to hold onto the spare boards and figure out what’s causing the problem on at least one of them so I can have a backup.  Rebuild kits sell for $20 + shipping, so I might go that route and completely rebuild one to keep back just in case.

Now I just need to clean up the cabinet and find somewhere to put it.

October 12, 2009

I saw an ad for a non-working BurgerTime on Saturday and immediately sent an email.  After a little back and forth, I got a phone number.  Unfortunately, I was about to head out for an evening to a concert.  I was worried someone might swoop in and take my deal.  I called the first thing the next morning and thankfully the people were expecting me to call.  They held the game for me.

The person I spoke with had a few reservations about letting it go for so little without having someone look at it first.  Apparently, they had played it one day, wanted to play it another day, but it didn’t power on.  They were thinking it might be something as easy as a blown fuse but had no idea how to work on the machine.

Fortunately for me, they wanted it gone.  So I agreed to their asking price and made the 2 hour drive Sunday morning to pick it up.  The cabinet was in excellent shape with only a few dings and scratches, mostly on the front.  I think it’s probably in good enough condition to just clean up and leave it as-is.

Turns out it wasn’t as simple as a blown fuse, but it was a pretty easy fix to get it to 90% working condition.  I first tested the monitor, but it checked out ok.  I checked the voltages coming from the power supply since I had a similar problem with my Centipede.  Ah ha, I wasn’t getting -5v to the board.  Fortunately, I had a spare power supply from my Super Pac-Man conversion.  They were exactly the same, so all I had to do was switch them out.

The game came up and played fine.  All the controls and buttons are respnsive and springy.  However, I do have one more problem to overcome.  For some reason, there is a loud buzzing coming from the speaker but I can hear the game sounds underneath.  I unplugged the marquee light, the monitor, hooked up a different speaker, and did the built-in spund tests, but nothing solved or indicated what the problem might be.  I can turn the volume on the sound board all the way down and the buzz will go away, but so will the game sounds.  So, I still have to determine what’s going on there.  But, it’s still playable in the mean time.

September 7, 2009

I’ve had some arcade game movement in the past couple of months so I thought was time for another update.  I still haven’t made much ground in any of my restoration, although I was able to (poorly) paint the Donkey Kong cabinet I picked up in Louisville.  I picked up a new paint gun so I’m going to have to take another shot at it.

I also patched and (mostly) prepped my Donkey Kong Jr cabinet for painting.  I want to get it ready to paint before doing the cabinet mentioned above so I can knock them both out in the same day.  I decided both will be turned into Red Donkey Kongs and I will either install original DK boards or go with a 60-in-1 multicade setup.

As far as purchases go, I picked up a couple of cabinets in Ohio.  The first was a non-working Crown’s Golf game I picked up in Cincinatti for $20.  I messed with it a little but no luck getting it going yet.  I figured it was cheap enough so I might as well pick it up.  Maybe I could use the monitor or power supply.

Also, I found a deal on a Golden Tee 98 in Columbus.  The listing said the game worked, was upgraded to Golden Tee 2k courses, had a “new” monitor, and a new power supply, but the image was upside down.  Easy enough, I thought.  Either the monitor was installed upside down (it could happen) or some wires were switched.  But, when I got up there, I saw that the image was actually split with part of it being upside down.  It appears as though the frequency is wrong for monitor.  But it’s a standard res monitor and a standard res game, so that’s not it.  Everything is wired properly.  For now, I’m stumped.

I had a 25″ TV taking up space that I wasn’t using, so I purchased an RGB to NTSC adapter and inserted it into the cabinet.  Unfortunately, as expected, quite a bit of signal is lost in the conversion process so it’s not the best solution.

However, just a few days ago, I saw an ad for some games available near Cincinatti.  Available were a Ms Pac-Man, a Nintendo Playchoice 10 with 7 games, and a Teenag Mutant Ninja Turtles.  If I had the right vehicle, I would have returned with all 3.  Unfortunately I only had room for one, so I opted for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The cabinet is exactly the same as My Golden Tee and it was working, minus the control panel.  So, I bought it primarily for the 25″ monitor.

After returning home, installing the monitor in my Golden Tee, and firing it up, I found out that this particular monitor requires and isolation transformer.  Oops.  I immediately blow a fuse.  Fortunately I’m prepared for this and have more fuses handy.  After installing an isolaiton transformer I had laying around… I blow another fuse.  Not good.

I go online and seek help from the fine people at KLOV.com.  They gave me some hints of what might have gone wrong with too much power.  It looked like a lot of work ahead.  I removed the monitor chassis and found my ground trace on the edge of the board was completely fried.  That was an easy enough fix by running a wire to bypass the burned edge.  Someone told me to check the bridge, that 2 of the diodes would probably be shorted.  Bingo.  I had to google to determine what the bridge was, but I found it and 2 dead diodes.  After a trip to Radio, I mean, The Shack and a couple of assorted packs of diodes later (wouldn’t you know they didn’t have the exact ones I needed in their packages) I replaced the 2 diodes and hoped for the best.

In the off chance that my isolation transformer was bad, I lugged the 25″ monitor back downstairs to try in the TMNT again, since I knew it was working fine before.  Fortunately, it fired up and worked just fine.  After reinstalling it in my Golden Tee and replacing the sync wire, I finally got to play the game it was meant to be played.

I still have a couple of small issues with the monitor but nothing major as of this point.  There’s a small spot at the top of the screen where the image is shfted but it’s not that noticeable yet.  The monitor will need a cap kit anyway, just to freshen it up a bit, so hopefully that will take care of that issue.

And finally, my Red Donkey Kong has taken its spot in the game room.  I still need to do some touch up work to it, but it’s cozy for now.

So that’s my update.  I now have 4 (mostly) working games sitting in a garage about 3 hours from here, 2 Donkey Kong cabinets in my game room (1 having a Donkey Kong Jr board installed), a Golden Tee in my upstairs office, 3 Nintendo cabinets, a Centipede, a Crown’s Golf, and a TMNT cabinet in the garage.  I need to start making room soon.

January 8, 2009

-No back
-But has wheels (can lean back and roll)
-Completely painted black
-Has one noticeable bad corner (that stands out anyway)
-Comes with the pedal
-Coin door is there but no coin mechs and has been painted black
-Noticeable scratch on right side
-Still has the speakers in place
-Still has light sockets
-Not pictured are a couple of boards that served as a platform for the control panel

December 9, 2008

I won an auction on eBay for a Centipede machine in Knoxville…  $50.  Unfortunately, it’s non-working.  The problem is in the board I believe.  That is, unless it’s in the wiring.  I verified the monitor works, so that’s a start.  Anyway, here are a few photos.  Maybe this will be the last game I buy for awhile.  Maybe…

I finally snapped some pictures of the lot of games I picked up a few weeks ago.  In the pictures you’ll see the Golden Tee 3D, Kid Niki, Haunted Castle, and Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters…

November 9, 2008

I’ll cut to the chase.  I picked up a Super Pac-Man machine the other day (I believe it was this past Monday).  It’s in great shape with a few dings, but was not working.  I’m not sure how much cabinet work I’ll put into this machine, but I may try to patch the dings and do a little touch up painting.  The original sideart is in great shape so I don’t want to mess with it.

After I got the machine home, I cleaned out the dust and cob webs and tinkered around with the electronics.  For the most part, I just made sure everything was connected properly.  Basically, I just unplugged everything to make sure there wasn’t dirt breaking the connection.  However, I noticed one wire was hanging loose.  I tracked it down and determined it was a loose ground wire.  I screwed it down and fired up the machine.  After about 15 seconds, I was looking at a functioning Super Pac-Man, but the screen was sagging and blurry on one side.

It didn’t take long to determine the cause of the blurry image.  It turns out the inside of the bezel was just really dusty.  A simple cleaning remedied that problem.  However the screen is still warped, so I’m sure I will have to replace a capacitor or 2.  But for now, the game is very playable.

Here are a few pictures I snapped.  You can see there is bad burn-in on the screen, but it’s not noticeable at all when the bezel is replaced and the game is running.  Since it will be for my own use, I will refrain from replacing the monitor for now.  And my investment is already paying off.  I found a total of $2.51 ($0.50 is in the coin box) lodged in the back of the cabinet.

October 28, 2008

I had not mentioned it here before, mainly because I didn’t want to alert someone to swoop in and steal my deal, but I reached an agreement to buy a few arcade games this past weekend.  There had been an ad on Craigslist for some time, advertising these games for sale.  The person selling them was initially asking $500 for a lot of 4 games.  But, over time, we discussed it and I got the lot for a grand total of $250.

The ad did not offer much of a description, but from my conversations with the seller, I found out three of the games were working fine, while one had an unknown problem.  One game was sitting in their house and was in pretty good shape while the others were in a storage building and collecting cobwebs.  The 3 in storage were in somewhat rough shape, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired.

The Games

The non-working machine is a Kid Niki: Radical Ninja.  The cabinet is in decent shape but needs cleaned.  There are dings, scrapes and scratches that need patched, but it won’t be too difficult.  I will probably end up replacing the t-molding on it as well.  However, I would like to get the machine in working order first.  I really have no idea what’s wrong with it.  It looks like someone has replaced the normal cord with a plug from a PC power supply.  Plugging that in will kick off the fan, but nothing else happens.  No sounds, no lights, nothing.  I supposed I will start with checking voltages.  I have a few other games to restore before this one, so it might be awhile.

The second game is Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters.  The cabinet is in OK shape but, like mentioned above, needs some patching/painting.  It powered up right off the bat and seemed to be working great.  However, I noticed that the top of the screen is cut off.  I think this is usually an indication of a bad capacitor, so I’ll get the monitor model information and see if someone sells cap kits.  If not, hopefully I can dig out the schematics and give it a capacitor overhaul.

The next game is probably going to become a favorite of mine.  It is Haunted Castle, a game from the Castelvania series.  The game works great.  All controls are functional and the monitor is full, bright, and with no waviness.  However, there’s always a catch.  The cabinet is in very rough shape.  The bottom must have gotten damp at some point, because the cabinet is breaking off.  Fortunately, the sides are lower than the actual floor of the machine.  So, I might be able to whack off the overhang and do some minor patching around the bottom and give it some feet.  The cabinet won’t be 100% complete, but it will look a lot better if I can pull this off.

The final game, and one I really wanted, is a Golden Tee 3D.  This is the machine that was sitting in their home.  From an operational point, it seems to work fine.  The monitor might need a cap kit because I saw a little waviness, otherwise it’s really bright with little to no burn-in.  The trackball, however, is a little rough.  It has been dinged up over the years and rolls rough.  I might be able to clean it out, but ultimately I will probably end up replacing it.  I will most likely have to drill out the locks and replace them, but it’s a small price to pay.

So there it is, my treasue I found tucked away in eastern (not “Eastern”) Kentucky.  I’ll post some pictures when I get a chance to snap some.  I guess these will turn into projects V, VI, VII, and VIII.

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