Author Topic: Need help with a Galaxian/Galaga Cabinet restore! (Read 41727 times)

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #40 on:** July 20, 2014, 02:49:21 am »

So I have been looking into what the little PCB does, and it says that it is a Filter PC. So please forgive my N00b question, but does that mean it connects to the power supply or the transformers?

Malenko · « **Reply #41 on:** July 20, 2014, 09:41:32 am »

is the filter PCB the one that goes on top of the galaxian board that the wiring hooks into? if so, the best place for it is the trash.

just look up how many people fixed their MsPacman cabs and the like by removing that. You just slide the main PCB into the connector on the bottom of the filter board.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=99097

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #42 on:** July 20, 2014, 02:38:12 pm »

The Weird thing about it is that it has that yellow cable running off of it. It says its a ground strap, that kind of threw me off when I was examining it.

ed12 · « **Reply #43 on:** July 20, 2014, 03:34:30 pm »

the filter board is used to filter any noise out >a/c< and or >over-sync<,
if u can remove it with out seeing >wavie's in the game once running<?,
then leave it out..if u see wavie's then just use the end that hook's to the video side of it
bypass the main dc filtering,do it all the time..

ed

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #44 on:** July 21, 2014, 10:53:13 pm »

Well, I cleaned the boards, and tried to get the second side finished tonight. Sadly, the lift off spray ran out, and wasn't too effective in places. I did get a bit off the black off with the new paint thinner(this time I got the paste), but even doing it slowly a section at a time, it was still pulling off the color with the black.

I have it on it's back now, and I will try to pick up some more spray tomorrow for the front. Sadly, home depot was out Thursday night when I went back for more then. I will have to go to the other one close to work on lunch break tomorrow.

I also manged to get the control panel off and clean behind it. Then I carefully pulled out the bezel and cleaned it and the monitor screen beneath it. You need to be careful when cleaning the back of the bezel, as that artwork will want to flake off. I also put in two LED bulbs into the Marque light sockets, and put the marque on!

It is starting to look like an arcade machine now!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #45 on:** July 22, 2014, 07:20:11 pm »

Parts are here!

So anyone know what these two cables are for? I am assuming that they are grounds.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #46 on:** July 22, 2014, 07:53:20 pm »

Or are they connectors for the 120V to go into the power supply from the powercord/Transformer/wherever?

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #47 on:** July 22, 2014, 09:00:15 pm »

I am pretty sure that is what they are now that I have looked into it.

I have the power supply connected to the PCB now!

Still working slowly on the front art piece. So far so good!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #48 on:** July 22, 2014, 11:22:34 pm »

Now that I get to the final part, I have seemed to have mastered the art of paint removal!

Using just lift off, and a ton of it, I slowly, but surely got each section done, and now it looks like this!

It turns out that any of the paint thinner is just too strong for this cabinet and its ancient black paint job. Now that it is off, you can see that the cabinet has some damage on the bottom corner, but when I eventually replace all of the vinyl, I will take care of that.

Over all the cabinet is looking sweet now!

I have disconnected the old power cord. Now I just got to figure out what is going on with the connector and all of those loose wires. I am assuming that they went to a power supply that is now missing.

Also, If I am following the idea correctly, the new power cord should connect directly to the new switching power supply. Please let me know if this is correct or not!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #49 on:** July 23, 2014, 09:17:33 am »

This is a pretty good read for Power supply connecting.

http://homearcade.org/BBBB/acwiring.html

Malenko · « **Reply #50 on:** July 23, 2014, 09:37:31 am »

yeah thats the correct way. basically you bring in the AC , fuse it and split it, so 1 part goes to the isolation transformer for the monitor, and the other part goes to the switching power supply.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #51 on:** July 23, 2014, 10:00:41 am »

Should I be nervous that it doesn't look like they ran the earth ground off of the AC Filter to all the various screws in the components?

Malenko · « **Reply #52 on:** July 23, 2014, 10:01:41 am »

not really. usually its the CP and the PCB Cage that gets grounded.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #53 on:** July 23, 2014, 11:35:29 am »

Something that has me a little puzzled is that the ground from the power cord goes into the AC Filter, and then that is it. Shouldn't it go to the switching power supply?

Malenko · « **Reply #54 on:** July 23, 2014, 12:38:27 pm »

Quote from: Cobolisdead on July 23, 2014, 11:35:29 am

Something that has me a little puzzled is that the ground from the power cord goes into the AC Filter, and then that is it. Shouldn't it go to the switching power supply?

Quote from: from that page

One piece of green 18 gauge wire connected from screw #2 to screw #1 will earth ground your switcher.

You should run green white and black to the switching power supply, they simply aren't screwing it into the earth ground terminal, but to the cage of the power supply. Its perfectly acceptable to do that. You probably already know this, but AC wiring has Black (Live) White (neutral) and Green ( earth ground) ; green can also sometimes be just bare copper. I feel the need to stress that BLACK IS NOT GROUND IN AC WIRING, cause I don't want you to get zapped. So when you are wiring the switching, the AC wires are all grouped together at the bottom if you do it the traditional way.

EDIT: adding this picture from that site, they have an Earth ground/ Field ground show in the last illustration:

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #55 on:** July 23, 2014, 01:57:08 pm »

Ahh, I see. Why wouldn't you use the terminal though? Is that only if you were running the AC directly to the switcher?

Malenko · « **Reply #56 on:** July 23, 2014, 01:59:13 pm »

A combination of preference and that some switching supplies may not have come with a field ground terminal. Personally, if the FG is there, I'd use it.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #57 on:** July 23, 2014, 02:04:49 pm »

Awesome! I will just use the one that came on mine then!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #58 on:** July 23, 2014, 11:10:27 pm »

Well, rather than attempt to wire everything up tonight, I thought that it would be a crime for me not to use all that extra lift off spray that I got. So I put the cabinet back on its side, and used my refined technique again on the side with some color left on it. I had pretty good results, if I do say so myself.

Here is a before Pic:

And here it is after I finished tonight:

I was able to remove quite a bit of black from it with a couple more passes of Lift off. The rest of the black can just stay there until I am ready to replace all the vinyl.

So my question now is, what about the wiring? It has an original AC Filter, two transformers, several sets of fuses, and a ton of wiring going everywhere! Should I pull it all out and start over from scratch, minus the cut offs, Marque light wiring, speakers wiring, and controls wiring? Or can I just remove the transformer that was going to the old power supply, and then remove the excess wiring that use to connect the older power supply to the Main board?

I have no clue which way to go here. The latter would probably be the least amount of work, but I am leaning toward the former as it seems like the right option to take. I am no expert on this, but it seems like there are a lot of extra wires here! Here are some pics for you to look at to see what I mean.

Malenko · « **Reply #59 on:** July 24, 2014, 09:18:27 am »

Welp, Id start with just removing what ever went to the old power supply first. The wiring in there is very tidy so I wouldnt want to mess with it too much. If you're gonna just rewire the whole thing, you should have just gotten a JAMMA loom and went from there (and a JAMMA to Galaxian adatper if you didnt want to run a 60 in 1)

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #60 on:** July 24, 2014, 10:31:43 am »

Hmmn, then I should probably remove the circled transformer, and the wires coming out of it, as I believe it went to the original power supply. I believe that is where it feeds into out of the AC Filter. Also should remove the wires coming out of the old harness as well since I have the adapter card that comes from the new switching power supply.

If you notice the green circled cord, it looks like they ran the ground to that, and at the same input spot, connected another wire to run the ground to the rest of the machine. However, I still need to get in there and look around a little more. I probably will end up breaking up those nice neat wire bundles to follow all the various wires to see what is going on.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #61 on:** July 25, 2014, 09:35:29 am »

So here is a n00b question. If the connector that is in the cabinet is for Galaga, can I disconnect it and rewire for Galaxian or would I need to find a new connector?

Malenko · « **Reply #62 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:13:54 am »

just find the pin out differences and see what needs rewired. The more you post about this the more I think you should have just went JAMMA with a 60 in 1

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #63 on:** July 25, 2014, 11:13:18 am »

lol. Yeah, I have a lot of n00b questions.

As for the 60 in 1, if the board I bought doesn't work, then that is probably what I will do. I just wanted to try to restore this one to its original condition first.

Using the previously linked pin out pages:

https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=pinout&page=Galaga.html
https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=pinout&page=Pac.html

It looks like I should be able to trace the wires back to see if the game is setup for Galaga(Most likely) or not. And then re-solder the wires to the appropriate spots on the connector for Galaxian.

Malenko · « **Reply #64 on:** July 25, 2014, 11:26:10 am »

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #65 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:54:11 pm »

So here is my progress for the evening.

Removed the original Power supply. I found out that Galaxian, Pacman, and Ms Pacman(?) get their power directly from that one and the board converts it, hence no separate power supply board. Anyways, I removed it, and tried to remove all the dangling loose wires, and let me tell you something, its a mess on that power board. Look in the top right corner, and tell me what this does:

I am not an expert, but that doesn't look that safe to me.

However, I decided to just for the moment mount the PCB back into the cabinet.

I get it hanging there, and lol and behold, that connector doesn't fit! it is only an 18 Pin X 2 connector where as Galaxian and Galaga use 22 Pin X 2! I thought, "is this JAMMA?" Turns out no, it's not. its some sort of edge connector I guess. Take a look:

I have a new connector ordered, and hopefully I will have it sometime this coming week.

Also, can anyone tell me what the name of this connector is? I need to get one for the new power cable to plug into the existing setup.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #66 on:** July 28, 2014, 10:31:27 am »

Quote from: Malenko on July 23, 2014, 12:38:27 pm

EDIT: adding this picture from that site, they have an Earth ground/ Field ground show in the last illustration:

So, here is a question about the power distribution block. Is it just a splitter or does it do something else? I can't seem to find one online that works for the 18 gauge wire, and I was just wondering if I could just split it off from the AC Filter to the three components?(Lights, Power supply, and Isolation Transformer)

Malenko · « **Reply #67 on:** July 28, 2014, 10:52:05 am »

Its just a power splitter. Why cant you cut back the existing connector and just splice the wires?

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #68 on:** July 28, 2014, 11:11:27 am »

Cool! One less part to buy!

Quote

Why cant you cut back the existing connector and just splice the wires?

Well, I can and probably will just splice in the new cord, but it would have been easier and cleaner looking to get a new connector. I am wondering whether or not to take out the connector and just splice the new cable directly to the line leading to the fuse and AC Filter.

orion · « **Reply #69 on:** July 28, 2014, 07:51:48 pm »

Wish I had seen this post before now... Or someone else who has a Galaxian or Pac did. The power supply for the Galaxian/Pac boards are on the PCBs themselves. They have voltage regulators that take the power directly from the transformer, that sends 7 and 12VAC that it looks like you might have removed. It looks to me like the only thing you needed was a new wiring harness or just to have rebuilt the other one... Using a switching power supply will work though.... On another note, Galaxian sure is a fun game. Your better off playing Galaxian on a true Galaxian than the 60in one. I have both and the sounds are off on the 60in1.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #70 on:** July 29, 2014, 09:19:40 am »

Yeah, I found that out right after my new Switching power supply arrived, but after 35 years, the old supply might have been bad. Rather than test it and try to use it, I just pulled it out. I'll keep it around, but having the switching supply seems like a good idea. If nothing else, I need to rewire the board for the 22 pin connector, as you see what they did down there. Any idea why they had an 18 pin connector? It was a Galaxian machine converted to Galaga, and they both use the same connector. It's a bit of a rat nest on the power board, with some questionable wiring. I still have no idea what that thing in the corner is doing, so that is getting removed too. I am just going to build that simplified version off of Bob Roberts website, and use that for the cabinet.

I like the idea of a 60 in 1, but I am going to try to get it original, because everyone keeps saying how the ROMs in MAME and the 60in 1 are slightly off.

Malenko · « **Reply #71 on:** July 29, 2014, 09:45:28 am »

off the top of my head the only major games that used 18/36 pin headers were made by konami, tons of bootlegs used them too. As for the 60 in 1s , I can tell the difference, no one else who has played (at my house) can. Also, its good enough for me.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #72 on:** July 29, 2014, 12:46:55 pm »

Hmmn, I wonder why they put one in here? Maybe they had a Bootleg Galaga board?

orion · « **Reply #73 on:** July 29, 2014, 02:32:26 pm »

Quote from: Cobolisdead on July 29, 2014, 09:19:40 am

Yeah, I found that out right after my new Switching power supply arrived, but after 35 years, the old supply might have been bad. Rather than test it and try to use it, I just pulled it out. I'll keep it around, but having the switching supply seems like a good idea. If nothing else, I need to rewire the board for the 22 pin connector, as you see what they did down there. Any idea why they had an 18 pin connector? It was a Galaxian machine converted to Galaga, and they both use the same connector. It's a bit of a rat nest on the power board, with some questionable wiring. I still have no idea what that thing in the corner is doing, so that is getting removed too. I am just going to build that simplified version off of Bob Roberts website, and use that for the cabinet.

I like the idea of a 60 in 1, but I am going to try to get it original, because everyone keeps saying how the ROMs in MAME and the 60in 1 are slightly off.

It's been a while since I looked inside my Galaxian, so that thing in the corner could be some weird hack, but for some reason I'm thinking it has something to do with the coin door wiring. I'll check mine tonight when I get a chance. It wouldn't surprise me if this game has been hacked up to run an untold number of games, which would explain the 18pin connector. You know if it's been hacked up so severely and you can't figure out the wiring, a pac-man wiring harness would work. You just have a difference in how the audio is wired, but the pac man wiring harnesses are probably easier to find.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #74 on:** July 29, 2014, 02:57:40 pm »

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised with this old cabinet if it did have a bunch of other games in it at one point or another.

Well, the new connector should be here tomorrow, so I should be able to disconnect the old connector and just resolder the control lines to the new connector. I just have to hunt down which ones go where.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #75 on:** July 30, 2014, 08:34:40 am »

Looks like I should get the Connector tonight, so I will be working on wiring that tonight. Rather than try to solder the lines inside the cabinet, I think that I will solder them outside the cabinet with some extra wiring and just connect that to the wiring in the cabinet. Should make it a lot easier than trying to work in that small space. I am kind of excited, as I really want to know if the board that I bought works or not. Also, this should allow me to test out the monitor as well. Those are two things that I have no idea on if they will work or not.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #76 on:** July 30, 2014, 10:40:58 pm »

Building the new harness right now! Just got wires 7-18 soldered in, and now its time for J-V!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #77 on:** July 31, 2014, 12:29:56 am »

J-V according to the pinout example, but not on the connector itself.

Speaking of Pin out examples, I have some serious need of knowing which wire is what.

Like what is Table mode and where does it come from? Is that something, like the Player 2 controls(fire, left, and right), that I leave empty?

Also, which of the 5 wires coming out of the monitor are which? I can tell you which one is the power cable, but the other 5 little wires(Red, Green, Blue, Sync, and Ground) are a mystery. I assume that it is the original monitor if that helps.

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #78 on:** August 04, 2014, 12:54:10 pm »

So I found out which wires coming from the Monitor are what, so tonight I should be able to get it mostly wired up if not completely so! Here's hoping that the monitor, board, and fuses still work!

Cobolisdead · « **Reply #79 on:** August 04, 2014, 11:48:00 pm »

Well, I got the wire harness all hooked up. No pics of that until I can put some wire ties on the cables to keep them from looking so rat nesty. I was trying to hook up the ac filter to the new 6 position dual row terminal strip that I got from Home Depot. They told me that it would work quite well for a splitter, but when I touched the multimeter to the FG and the hot, it tripped a GCFI outlet across the room! Fortunately, I didn't have it hooked up any further than the terminal, so nothing could have got to the board or power supply.

So anyone have any tips for this stage? I could definitely use some!


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