My First cab and First Restoration (sorta) - Galaxian/Galaga

[Crayola]

I used to participate in this forum almost 6 years ago when I saw a post on Slashdot back then about it.
Back then I loved the idea of creating a massive monster frankenmame with a huge control panel... I was
going to play every game damit:) So I starting collecting parts.. ipac, optipac, buttons, etc.. but I kinda
fizzed out and went onto to another project for some reason, I cant remember... Probably having a
less then 1 yr old daughter:)

Fast forward six years.. I decide I really need a hobby.. and being 39.. I am really starting to pine for
my youth.. much of which was spent in arcades. I thought about the franken mame but reading your
posts about saving a bit of history by restoring games hit a soft spot.

So...I bought my first cabinet tonight, a sweet working Galaga for $500 that's in really good shape.
I'd give it a B condition wise. I need to clean it up a bit replace the kickpanel art, CPO, and t-molding, and a bit
of paint to freshen it up. Otherwise it works and plays well. I will probably cap the monitor since it really should
be brighter and replace the power supply for the long haul.

I'll get some better pictures tomorrow during the day. I am really excited and my kids love it. My son is in
the pictures playing in his jammies.

Any idea where I can get a new coin mech for it? the back halves that verify the coins are missing.

I also picked up an Asteroids and Defender which are not working... I'm jumping in with both feet!
I'll setup separate restoration threads for each.

Thanks Crayola


 

[Spyridon]

What you have there is a Galaxiga. It's a Galaga in a Galaxian cab.

[Crayola]

Hmm okay you guys are the experts.. What makes you believe that?

The two cabs look very similiar on KLOV.

Crayola

[Crayola]

I just looked at the rivets on the control panel on the Galaga vs the Glaxian on KLOV. You are right.
The bezel is also Glaxian. The cabinets themselves look identical.. except paint.

Hmm.. Now I dont know what to do. Should I keep it as is or restore it to a Glaxian? Or maybe further convert it to a Galaga? Obviously this being my first cabinet I am enjoying playing the game:)

The cabinets themselves look identical.. except paint.

Crayola

[saleem]

you are not restoring it if you keep it as a galaga,it looks like you got a conversion so convert it back to galaxian.more expensive route but,i suppose you cant go wrong for $500 we would be lucky to find a cab like that with space invaders in it never mind galaga here in uk.

[Mauzy]

The cabinets themselves look identical.. except paint.

The cabinets are very different when seen from the side. The Galaga/Ms Pac Man "side swoop" is much more dramatic than the Galaxian/Pac Man. From the front they do look the same though. If you notice, you still have the Galaxian bezel. The Galaga bezel would be similar but in color rather than black and white.

[RayB]

No, keep it as Galaga.

1. It's almost 100% Galaga already
2. Galaxian is not as fun as Galaga
3. Galaxian has full length side-art that AFAIK has not been repro'd and if it has it's costly.
4. It will be more expensive to revert to Galaxian than fix up Galaga.
5. Galaga has a higher resale value (most likely reason it was converted to that in the first place).

[WunderCade]

A true Galaga is closer to a Ms. Pac-man cab (only difference is the coin door on Galaga is .5 inch higher than Ms. Pac. and the coin hopper area is wooden)

What you have is a Galaxian cab which is most identical to a Pac-man.

As you can the sloping is cut deeper back on a Ms. Pac/Galaga style than it is on the Pacman/Galaxian style:

[Crayola]

So I didnt get a chance to get more pictures last night but I did do a bit of
poking around in it. The power supply has been replaced with a switching
supply.. although they left the original so I have some work to do there.
The coin door mechs are also missing but they are easily replaced.

Given I would have to virtually replace everything it.. Art, marquee, pcb, rewire it
to get it back to a galaxian..which means well over $500.. I'd be in over 1k in
the machine which just isnt worth it IMHO even if it is just for my personal collection.

If I find another original Galaxian & Galaga I might consider doing a part swap to
get two original machines..

For now I am going to stick with the Galaga and replace the Control panel and the bezel
with Galaga ones (I'll save the originals just in case).

I guess we can move this out of restorations for now.

Bummer..
Crayola
 

[Mauzy]

So I didnt get a chance to get more pictures last night but I did do a bit of
poking around in it. The power supply has been replaced with a switching
supply.. although they left the original so I have some work to do there.
 

You probably want to keep the switcher in there. It will be more reliable than the old wiring. I agree with leaving it as a Galaga. Since you're doing that I would adopt the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy on this machine, but thats just me...

[Crayola]

Yea I have been busy buying Galaga parts for it all day. I am going to replace the control panel
with a galaga one with original buttons/2 way joystick, new cpo, locks, midway coin door sign,
I have the kick panel art already, new leathered t-molding, new Galaga glass bezel and a
freeplay/attract mode chip mod. I'll probably end up sanding the whole thing down and
replacing the side art anyway even though its in good shape.

Now this may be total sacrilage.. but what about just changing the galaxian cabinet side curve to
match a standard Galaga cabinet.. The Galaxian cab curve is more gentle. If I could find a
Galaga to get the curve off of I could quickly replicate it on the galaxian cab.

Also the coin mechs are missing. Its midway door. Any idea where to pick up some mechs for it?
This is the part that drops in and determines if its a quarter or not. Mikesarcade.com looks like
they sell something that might work but I am not sure. The pictures I have seen of complete mechs
are metal.  

I'll try my best to get a bunch of pics tonight. Its going to be a project at least even if it isnt
faithful to the original cabinet. Its going to get as close to a Galaga as I can make it.

Crayola

[RayB]

Coin mechs are pretty standardized. You can buy them everywhere. Some are metal, some are plastic.

I have to ask, why did you purchase a Galaga control panel? Or did you mean just the overlay? If the metal panel, it likely won't fit that cabinet.

[WunderCade]

What a bummer. For 500 bucks, the seller should've been up front with you that it was a conversion (worth a lot less) and not an original. You think the seller was just being greedy?

But, all that matters is that you and your family enjoy playing it. Put a 60-in-1 in it.

[Crayola]

I actually purchased the control panel and overlay. The guys over at Quarter Arcade compared the two control panels
and think it will fit without any issues. They have both originals.

I dont think the seller knew. He was a pinball guy and said he owned it for about 5 or 6 years.  There is some Galaga screen burn in
on the screen.. so its been running Galaga for quite some time. No sign of Galaxian burn in.

I finally got around to getting pictures for your arcade machine porn pleasure:)


As I mentioned the coin door mechs are missing and it needs some rewiring.

[Crayola]

more pics  

Did an original galaxian use incandescent bulbs? I was wondering why the marquee
looked so yellow and was bright on the left and right side. Funny thing is the florescent
tube works fine, just needed a new starter. Took about 30 seconds to fix.

Who ever installed the galaga hacked the heck out of the wiring harness. They was some really tan/aged
paper in the cabinet showing the galaxian pinout vs galaga. My guess is this happened many years
ago.

[Crayola]

And final batch of pics...

So anyone know where I can buy a cap kit for a Wells Gardner 19k4635
Is it worth capping with that amount of burn in? Maybe a new 19" might be in order.
Who makes one that would fit this cab?

[jennifer]

    Galaga is probably a better game, I"d leave it be, few people will ever even know.

[Crayola]

I am basically going to treat it like a galaga restoration and get it looking/working great.
While 60 to 1 sounds nice I'll reserve that for some lame game jamma cab I pick up for a
$100.

[WunderCade]

Not to belabor the issue, Crayola, but just in case you go looking for a dedicated Galaga in the future, for your visual reference, here is a real deal dedicated Galaga, side profile:

[Crayola]

Thanks Wundercade.. I am planning on changing the side profile to match. Shouldnt
be to hard if I can get someone to help me trace the curves in an original.
I am going to do a bottom up restoration/conversion.

Crayola

[Mauzy]

If you want an absolutely dedicated Galaga, why don't you fix up this machine as a Galaga (make it all nice and pretty, running solid and such) and sell it to look for a true blue Galaga? They aren't that hard to find if you know how to look.

I just hate to see cabinets get irreversibly altered such as cutting down the sides. If some day down the road after you've got your room of 25 cabinets with the cool black light spaceship carpeting and a pop corn machine and you want to do a true restore on your Galaxiga, you won't be able to because the sides are screwed.

I made an ENORMOUS irreversible mistake as a new collector, I just try to keep others from having the same regret.

And by all means, its your cabinet. You can set it ablaze next week if you want. Just throwing in my 2 cents 

[Crayola]

Yea I hear you Mauzy.. Its not sitting right with me. I put out requests on the boards for an
empty galaga or ms pacman cabinet and I am watching craigslist/ebay.

Any idea how to find a cab near NJ thats been gutted? Maybe some giant parts place?

Crayola

[Spyridon]

I hate the be the bearer of more bad news, but that also in not an original Galaga board in there.  It is a bootleg one. 

Looks to match the Nebulous Bee one listed on Arcadeshop's site.

Your board:


Nebulous Bee Bootleg board:


Original Board:

[Crayola]

ROLF 

You have got to be kidding me... Your right. It does look just like the nebulus board.
Well that said.. I give up. my dreams of a 100% orig galaga are dead for now.

I'll end up buying a new machine down the road when I have more cash.
I'm going to focus on my defender and asteriods.. both I believe are 100% original
but I am going to check with ya'll first:) I'll have pics up of the asteriods tomorrow.

Damit.. I just bought a Cr@Pload  of galaga parts to fix this up. Even a new wiring harness.

What would it take the convert this to a 60 in 1 board? Any multicade boards you
could recommend?  I'd want something that I could limit to just vertical games
that require 1 button max.

How do those interface to the wiring in the galaga? Any websites or resources
you could point me to for converting to a multicade?

Thanks,
Crayola

[Spyridon]

Just because you can't go 100% original doesn't mean you can't have a nice looking Galaga.  Yeah, it's not the right cab, but if you make it look good and it plays...great.  Only us nitpicking types will ever know.

[opt2not]

Yeah, I say stay on target.

No one but the enthusiasts will know that it's not 100% original. It can still be a really nice cabinet. Don't fret!

[Crayola]

I suppose you're right. Especially since I just bought virtually every galaga part they make.
I get hung up on things being perfect sometimes.

I'll stop whining/freaking out and start fixing this thing up! Now where did I put that orbital sander and
citristrip:)

Crayola
 

[Mauzy]

I get hung up on things being perfect sometimes.

Look through some of the bigger restore threads.

You will quickly see that you are not alone in this! 

[Crayola]

this is kinda off topic but I just brought the Asteroids home. Holy Cr@p it was heavy. It had to be
400 or 500 pounds. I even had an appliance dolly. The problem was we needed to haul it out
the bilco doors of his basement at a 45 deg angle.

Any idea how much a defender weighs? I think they guy I am going to see this weekend
to buy it from also has it in a basement.

Crayola

[jennifer]

    That"s nasty too...... better eat some wheaties!!!!

[Spyridon]

Any idea how much a defender weighs? I think they guy I am going to see this weekend
to buy it from also has it in a basement.

I've not moved a Defender cab, but Williams cabs in general seem to be lighter than Atari cabs.  Atari makes some of the heaviest cabs you'll find.

[RayB]

My Galaga is JAMMA and running a bootleg board via a jamma adapter. The ROMs on it were modified so that it still says "Galaga", shows the copyright notice and plays 100% the same.  So for all intents and purposes, I'm 100% happy with it, especially since the board is modified with 2 high score banks and a switchable fast-shoot mode.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I noticed someone mentioned you didn't have the correct bezel so I salvaged this from a Galaga that's rotting in the back of a trailer nearby here a few hours ago:


it's missing a little paint here and there:



You want it?

I'm in SC, not sure what the shipping would be like to NJ; it's rather heavy.

[Crayola]

Thank You for the generous offer cotmm68030. I bought a reproduction glass bezel
from two bits already. Its on its way here.

A little bit of touch up paint and that would look really nice. Good Find! Any electronics in the
rotten wreck?

Crayola

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

no just the glass and marquee.

pulled some other boards from a few other machines in the trailer though, a digdug, centipede, and cruisin' usa. gotta find them a good home next.