Arcade Projects
Where I got the Frenzy
I came across this cabinet for sale at a local auction house here in Indianapolis, much to my surprise. I got to the event late that morning, and it was one of the first things to be auctioned. Being a little flustered, I wasn’t as patient as I should have been, but I still knew my upper price limit. I ended up bidding $20 to buy the machine. I probably could have waited, there might have been one other interested guy, but the crowd was thin and no one was bidding. Oh well. Next time I’ll have some more patience to let it hit the floor in price, but it was still a really great value.
Happs and Wolverine Electronics – Limited Selection
On Friday I finally made it over to Happs and Wolverine Electronics. Neither of them had my 9 pin female molex connector that I need. Happs couldn’t even order it they said. On Thursday I stopped by and got a bag of free molex connectors, I mean a ton of them. But, not the style of one I needed. So, I guess that means I am going to have to try King’s, Meunier’s, or even Fry’s (*gasp*). I have to get the diode for the audio board anyway, so it should be a worthwhile trip. I am just bummed it has been so hard to find this connector. I have the pins, and I posted on both of the main arcade forums, but no one has answered.
Cap kit for Sanyo 19″ Color 20-Z2AW
And yet almost another month gone. Today I finally finished the cap kit on the monitor for the Dig Dug, a Sanyo 19″ Color 20-Z2AW, or so the cap kit package from Bob Roberts says. I think it is a variation of the number, but the same idea. I also got to solder on the new resistor on the Audio board, and removed the other bad resistor. Now I have to figure out what I need there as my next step I would guess.
May 24th, 2007
Got the game into the basement tonight, for it’s final resting place for awhile. The monitor was great in the garage until I moved it around, and then when we moved it into the basement it got better again. Was a ton of work though, figured out that we can’t have a game facing out with it’s back against the window. The back really has to be against the guest room closet wall. But it works.
Cutting wood for Mr. Do! control panel
Tonight I went over to a friend’s to use some of his tools, and have him help me cut up a board to use on the back side of the control panel. It was some composite wood from a shelf, that we cut down to size, drilled the holes for the joystick and the two buttons, and then did some holes for the bolts to hold the clips on. He had a cool drill bit with a counter sink, but the hole size was just a fraction too small. Plus, the holes we drilled with his wood blades were just a touch too small. So, now I need to see if I can possibly purchase some wood blades to make the holes bigger, and look again for small but longer carriage bolts. But things are very close.
May 16th, 2007
Got out tonight and worked on the control panel. The control panel I am using is a rusted, beat up Pac-man with most of the chewed up overlay still on it. I had gradiose ideas of taking that off in one piece and keeping it, but sad to say, in the end it was anything but in one piece. I did some scraping to take away the outside plastic layer with a 5 in 1, and then started trying different chemicals to get it off.
I had read Acetone worked really good for getting Midway overlay’s off, but all that did was take off the painted artwork for the overlay, it did nothing for the 3M adhesive. I tried Goof Off, and that worked fairly good, but the best was the same remaining paint stripper I used on the cabinet (Stripeeze). That got me right down to the painted panel.
I got it sanded down fairly well. I thought briefly about leaving it as just the metal color, but I would have had to work that much harder on the details to get out all the small areas of paint left. I didn’t need to in painting it over, so I wiping it down, and gave it two coats of spray paint before the night was over. Looking pretty cool, amazing how nice it looks after you do that. I was pretty surprised when I sanded down the exposed panel on the Pac-man I have.
Next is setting up the wood for the backside, which a friend was going to help me but he may be busy for awhile now, I am not sure.
Ms. Pac-man Marquee Light Working.
Kenny was over this weekend, and he took a look at my connection behind my Ms. Pac-man marquee. He changed out the starter with the one that was in the Pengo, as well as the bulb, and found that both the Pengo starter and bulb worked fine.
So looked back at the light fixture and figured out that it was just that the connection needed a little push and on the marquee came! Exciting to have that lit up.
Unfortunately, I now realize why the operator in Ohio was selling this marquee. Although there is great color, there are some significant scratches. I don’t think I got a bad deal per say, I just know that deep scratches on the artwork of a marquee, which would have to come from behind, wouldn’t happen naturally. So to say, “Hey, that’s just the age of the game” doesn’t exactly work.
But getting another one isn’t high on my priority list with what else I have to do with my other games. Maybe sometime I’ll just come across one when talking with people.
