Just picked up a FREE Pole Position

[tbombaci]

Hello all.  

I responed to a local ad to remove a Pole Position upright. This person had to move and she didnt have time to finish the game (currently not working).

My intentions were to gut and make a dedicated Verticle MAME cabinet....but....I cannot bring myself to do it. I am going to try and get it going again. The cabinet is complete. She even had the manual and schematics.

A friend of mine is an electronics otaku and is willing to help me out on the PCB level. (monitor too)

Also, the thing is filthy!!

I will take some pics and post on the project board.

Best Regards,
Tom

[paigeoliver]

Pole Positions have BAAAAAD PCBS. Nonworking ones are nearly worthless because of this, and many collectors shy away from the working ones for the same reason.

You might be better off using a computer and Oscar mouse hack than you would be trying to fix those Pole Position boards.

[1UP]

That would make a cool dedicated racing cab!  I wouldn't destroy a classic cab like Pole Position by putting a 4-player frankenpanel on it (I saw that done to a Star Wars cab once and I've never been right since then...   )

But I don't think it would be sacrelige to put a PC in it and only load racing games.  You should be able to do this without even doing any major mods.  You should be able to do a simple optical hack to hook up the wheel, and maybe even just hook the original hardware to an Opti-Pac.  The pedal hack should be easy. Get an analog gamepad, rip out the pots and hook up the cab's pots to the pad.

Good luck, and congrats!  I wish I could find stuff for free...  

[paigeoliver]

Pole Positions are actually one of the best cabinets to use for a driving Mame cabinet. The hardware design on them was defective. They barely worked when they were new.

It is POSSIBLE to bulletproof a Pole Position, but it takes a ton of custom PCB work (running many more power inputs to different places on the board). But a computer would still be more reliable.

[crsdawg]

i'll third the motion on putting a pc in there. great game but the electronics stink. strip out the pcb, and psu keep the rest. grab an arcade vga and a decent pc and your golden. good luck.

[tbombaci]

Thanks for all of the input. A friend sent this to me:

****************** snip **********

Remember, each of the 2 boards on this game has its OWN power supply and
loss of either will kill the game.  Check the 5 volts on both boards AT
THE BOARDS.  Never seen a Pole Position yet that didn't have the power
supply pins on the edge connector burnt...that's definately a place to
check.  If that happens you can try running the 5 volts and ground to
their respective test points on the board and see if that helps.  Better
yet is to connect both boards together and feed them power from a single
switching power supply, but that isn't really needed.  If the stock power
supplies are running (good chance) they will do the job nicely.  Installing
extra fans in this game is a good idea (one machine I had had a fan mounted
on the card cage to cool the main boards).  The power supplies could use
a little extra air, too.

Get 5 volts to the boards and they should work just fine.

*****************

Worth a try at least!

-Tom

[Inaba]

I don't suppose you live in the KC area, tbombaci?

I saw someone toting a dirty upright Pole Position in the back of a (black?) pick-up truck a couple days ago and was jealous.  Was that you?

[Raleigh]

Well his profile says his location is San Jose, CA so I doubt it would have been him.  
I would make a decent drive for a free cab, but I think 1900 miles is pushing it.  

[Inaba]

Haha!  I didn't think to check his profile.

Hmm... I wonder who the guy was with the upright Pole Position was then... and where were they going!

Those bastages!  I want it!!

I'd have run 'em off the road, but I was afraid I would have damaged the poor little guy... don't want to hurt a classic cab!

[tbombaci]

Sorry! Wasnt me. However, I did travel to Oakland to pick it up (about 35 miles north in Bay Area traffic hell).

-tom

[traknfieldSUPAstar]

craigslist?

[tbombaci]

craigslist?

Yes indeed! I use CL weekly to buy and sell!

-tom