X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion

Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair

<< < (8/20) > >>

opt2not:
You know me, I'm a stickler for artwork, and this one just bugged me. I'm definitely striving for "looks restored". :cheers:
Shouts out to Arroyo for the heads-up. I'm really curious to the quality of Szabo's prints, because on his site they look pretty amazing.

For reference this is Szabo's (image taken from his site):

Due to the TMNT cabinet being a bit slimmer than an original Xmen, about an inch or so near the monitor area, I will have a bit of cut-off on the image. I'll play with the placement when I get the art in, but I'm expecting Wolvie and a bit of Dazzler to be clipped on the sides.

For reference, here's a comparison of the cabinet dimensions (image found on KLOV).
--- Quote ---The green is TMNT and the dark blue is Simpsons. The control panel boxes are also different heights.
--- End quote ---

Arroyo:

--- Quote from: opt2not on November 21, 2019, 09:56:59 pm ---Shouts out to Arroyo for the heads-up. I'm really curious to the quality of Szabo's prints, because on his site they look pretty amazing.

--- End quote ---

:cheers: If the print that I saw on the Tempest Cabaret is any indication then you are in for a treat.

opt2not:
Since my daughter is up early, I figured I'd update this thread.

Made some major progress in the last few days.

I cut a new CP out of particle board, the same stuff the cabinet is made of, using the old CP as a loose template. I say loose, because as soon as I took apart the old CP, the thing just fell apart in half!
That crack down the middle that I mentioned before was no joke.

Using what I could, I successfully made a replica, and used the old CP's joystick recess to trace onto my new CP as a template. Hey why not, saved me a bit of time.

I plan on using threaded inserts from below, so the recess is deep enough to give me the proper joystick height, but shallow enough to install the inserts.
As for buttons, I'm going to wait to get the CPO Artwork and use that as a guide since I don't know where the X-men buttons are placed exactly. They're different than where the Simpsons/TMNT 2-buttons per player are positioned.

Hit this thing with some light primer...

...then moved onto working on the monitor.

I had a spare K7000 w/ chassis in my stash. I knew the chassis was good because it was pulled from a working machine many years ago. It just needed new caps and a solder reflow, so I went ahead and did that along with cleaning the chassis while I was at it.
The tube was from a local arcade collector, who told me he "thinks" it's still good. Well...

At first I thought it was my chassis, that somehow I mucked it up with the cap kit and reflow. But after re-checking my work, and reading voltages, the chassis checked out fine. So the CRT was the culprit!
I own a CRT rejuvenator, so I started testing and reading the guns in the tube and tried my best to rejuv it. Unfortunately this tube was too far gone.

But after a small moment of panic, I figured I'd try the CRT that came with the cabinet. I did some readings on the rejuvenator, thinking that it might have suffered a similar fate of my spare CRT, but it checked out working! In fact, all emissions were strong, and each gun looked healthy!

After messing with convergence for a long time (I hate convergence), I was able to dial it in to a satisfactory image:

Woo hoo! That was one point of anxiety I had that could have made or broken this restore. I really don't have the time to be fiddling with the CRT for too long, so I'm glad this is working.

Next up is wiring up the cabinet and properly installing the power supply block into it...that's definitely something I can do while I wait for the artwork to arrive.

yotsuya:
Not doing carriage bolts?

Arroyo:
Which sticks? Wico?

Navigation

 Message Index

Go to full version