FA: Rebuilt Arkanoid spinner

[OSCAR]

Since I'm always looking for new ways to avoid sleep...

I've never been happy with the way original Arkanoid spinners performed so I decided to take a spare one I had and see what I could do to improve it.  The Arkanoid spinners are notorious for sloppy and noisy operation, mostly due to the nature of their Eastern fabrication.  All the original ones I've seen were fabricated in Korea and were, quite frankly, of sub-par quality.  What I did was replace the components that contributed to their poor quality.  This one that I upgraded feels tight, smooth, and much more responsive than the original one.

I had it installed in one of my test panels for a while and I can honestly say that I had a real blast playing Arkanoid with it under MAME; and I never really cared for Arkanoid that much before I played it with this spinner.  I almost don't want to sell it now, but I need to start clearing out all these parts I've accumulated over the past few years.  If you are an Arkanoid freak, you may be interested in this spinner for your project.

See the auction description for more info on how I rebuilt this spinner.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3241955123





BTW - I don't currently have any more Arkanoid spinners to modify like this one, so this is very likely the only one I will have up for auction.

[Carsten Carlos]

From what it look and the "natural" sounds you descripe, it seems like the two spinners I got from Ebay are original Arkanoid ones!

Seems like I don't have to try to make them less noisier.

Just curious, is the top of the knob with a big blue circle in it?

[OSCAR]

From what it look and the "natural" sounds you descripe, it seems like the two spinners I got from Ebay are original Arkanoid ones!

Seems like I don't have to try to make them less noisier.

Just curious, is the top of the knob with a big blue circle in it?

There will always be a little noise from the meshing of the gears, but what makes all the ones I've seen before so loud is that they don't mesh properly.  By replacing the center bearing with a higher quality one, the gears now mesh correctly and it gives it a much nicer feel and quiets it down.

Yes, the original knob did have a blue center.  I put one of my machined knobs on this spinner because the original knob was integrated to the shaft and ccould not be removed without destroying it.

[paigeoliver]

Hmm, following your link, and then your ebay feedback shows that you just bought a TIME PILOT!   Have you picked it up yet?

[OSCAR]

Hmm, following your link, and then your ebay feedback shows that you just bought a TIME PILOT!   Have you picked it up yet?

Picked it up, fixed the monitor, repainted the cab, touched up the coin door, and currently playing it...  

This cabinet was originally a Scramble, converted to Super Cobra (still has the SC glass bezel), and has the gaudy Konami version Time Pilot marquee.  Actually this marquee matches the SC bezel better than the Centuri marquee, the one on KLOV, would.  I had only seen the Centuri version of the marquee before this one.

[paigeoliver]

So, do you have a Konami boardset or a Centuri boardset?

Either way, we are both in the club of having rare versions of Time Pilot, with you having the conversion one, and me having the dedicated Centuri cocktail one.

Since I have both Time Pilot and Time Pilot '84 boardsets for my cocktail I am considering doing a graphics hack of Time Pilot '84, calling it Time Pilot '2004 "Out of Time", and burning the chips onto another '84 boardset so I can have the worlds only Time Pilot trilogy machine.

[OSCAR]

Konami boardset.  Yep, definitely a rare kit.  I don't know if the conversion kit included a bezel or not.  I'm guessing that if it did, the op would have installed it versus leaving the Super Cobra bezel in.

A trilogy would be pretty cool.  Time Pilot was one of the 6 games a local ice cream shop had when I was growing up, and probably the one I spent the most time playing as a kid.  I couldn't pass up a local auction for a working one for $90.

[paigeoliver]

I guess I need to see if Time Pilot '84 is in that rom graphics hacking program (What was that called?). I hope it is, I would much rather base the hack off of the cheaper (and more capable) Time Pilot '84 boardset, than the more expensive Time Pilot boardset.

Plus '84 has those cool tilemap backgrounds which could really be changed up. Maybe I could top it off with a rapid fire option, or maybe a faster ship, or SOMETHING to make it differ somehow in gameplay from '84.