| Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair |
| I only have EYES for KICKMAN... (COMPLETE 7-25-2020) |
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| alfonzotan:
UPDATED after an 8-year hiatus; see the last post for current status. Original post follows... EYES is complete. Last post: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,118755.msg1717810.html#msg1717810 KICKMAN is complete. Last post: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,118755.msg1719400.html#msg1719400 -------------------- About 17 years ago, I was living in north Florida, and having just gotten into arcade collecting via a yard-sale Donkey Kong Jr. ($35 plus a cap kit), I noticed a couple of cabinets standing in the door of a Fort Walton Beach thrift shop. They turned out to be a Rock-Ola Eyes (which I had never even heard of before) and a Kickman. Neither worked. Eyes had a bad monitor, and Kickman had a bad logic board. But the owner only wanted $5 for them (not $5 each, mind you, but $5 for the PAIR), so I snapped them up. Those were the days, kids. Before eBay. Anyway: After hauling them home to my garage, I ran upstairs and tried Eyes in MAME. And I thought it sucked. Beyond ordering a cap kit (which to this day I still haven't installed), I've barely touched that cab since. The Kickman I made a few desultory attempts to fix, but I quickly established that PCB repair--beyond capping a monitor board--is pretty much beyond my abilities. But thanks to having ample storage space and a couple of company-paid moves, I held on to them (it's helped that I haven't had to move again since getting married), and this year I finally decided to get serious about restoring them to operating condition. The good news is, both cabinets are physically in very good shape. There's no sign of water damage to either one, and the artwork (such as it is) is clean. The Eyes control panel has some cigarette damage, and both CPs have gotten rusty in the worn spots, but really it could be a lot worse. I cleaned up all the glass on both cabs this afternoon, and both of them look quite a bit better than I'd expected. I located a guy on KLOV who repairs MCR boards and shipped off Kickman's brain. Got the board stack back in this week; it needed a lot of work. Thanks to the power supply being KREP (typical for MCR II), that machine still doesn't work, although the monitor appears to be fine beyond a bit of burn-in. I'm ordering an MCR power adapter from ArcadeShop.com and adding a new modern power supply to replace it shortly. One nice thing about Eyes is, it's based on the Pac-Man hardware set, so the original game (I like it better now, but it's still hardly a classic) can be augmented with a Multi-Pac daughercard, which I've purchased. I'll probably also replace the power supply in that cab, since nothing seems to power up these days (after 17 years in storage, I'm not terribly surprised). I'm not really looking forward to removing the video PCBs to put in the cap kit, but I'll also be getting to that shortly. So, more to follow... |
| IG-88:
Thats amazing you held on to them for so long. After a divorce and a couple moves I hardly got anything left from that long ago. Eyes is a fantastic game. In my top 10. (cliched I know) but its easy to pick up and takes some descent skill to master. I would love to have one. I would definitely put that daughter board on it too. Both machines look really good. Will be watching this with interest. Please docu alot! :cheers: |
| alfonzotan:
--- Quote from: IG-88 on March 10, 2012, 04:51:25 pm ---Thats amazing you held on to them for so long. After a divorce and a couple moves I hardly got anything left from that long ago. Eyes is a fantastic game. In my top 10. (cliched I know) but its easy to pick up and takes some descent skill to master. I would love to have one. I would definitely put that daughter board on it too. Both machines look really good. Will be watching this with interest. Please docu alot! :cheers: --- End quote --- Honestly, it wasn't that tough. When I was single, there was plenty of spare room in the garage, and my current house has a detached second garage that we just use for storage. If I'd had to haul those beasts on my own dime, they probably would have been sold off or left behind many years ago. I'm kind of embarrassed that I just left them sitting around for that long. I'm pretty sure that this is the only Eyes cabinet I've ever seen (no pun intended). Just didn't ever run across them, even during the 80's heyday. |
| IG-88:
We had a cocktail version along with a Omega Race and an upright Black Tiger of all things in our local Pizza Hut back in about '86 or '88 IIRC. Played the hell out of all 3. Is the Eyes a dedicated cab or a conversion? I'm thinking they had their own cabs.... |
| paigeoliver:
I recall seeing a Kick-Man control panel on ebay yesterday for not too much, can't remember if it was nicer than yours. |
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