Midway Arcade Cabinet by Big Electronic Games

[livingonwheels]

I've been having an issue with my Konami machine (the one with vga). In the lower left corner of the vga screen I see some wavy lines or interference of some sort. I'd say about a couple inches or so. I hooked the machine's board up to another monitor and didn't have this issue. I also ran different power supplies to the machine's board to see if there was any difference, and there was not. Lastly I connected a Dreamcast to the machines monitor to see if the monitor itself was the issue, but the Dreamcast's image was perfect, no wavy line interference at all. It just seems the machine's board and monitor are not working well together anymore for some reason.

[ice2921]

Interestingly enough, hooked up an old Commodore 64 monitor I had laying around and it works. I'll see if I can get it mounted for giggles. The funny thing is that the monitor is worth more than the cade fully restored. 

[jbserra]

Here are some pics of the playstation conversion

[Viewsonix]

I've been messing around with one of these for a while, and after raising the base up 6 inches on a riser box, it feels a lot better to play.

What I wanted to do was do some other cheap mods to it, like replace the 12 inch TV, and maybe put a lighted marquee on it.

The problem is the CPU box apparently puts out a super weak signal, so that most TVs won't recognize it.

I've tried adapter cables to get it to display to LCDs thru VGA but no dice (that was one suggestion I received).

Does ANYONE have the model numbers of TVs that they have used that work? 

I've tried posting around a few places but had little luck.

I know the old RetroBlast website had a page talking about modifying this thing, but that site is long gone and archive.org doesn't have that article saved.

[jbserra]

PM me your email address.  I can share from Dropbox the contents of the old RetroBlast website for this machine.

I'm using a 20" Sony Trinitron CRT TV.  Works great.  Might be a little big for the graphic capabilities, but fits the cabinet and works properly.  I submitted some pictures previously to this thread.

[scheky25]

Does anyone have the tabletop version of this arcade game? The tabletop has RCA jacks as an input for plug and play games or an additional console to be viewed through the monitor. Is there a way to disassemble a PS controller and attach it to the control buttons on the system?

[Viewsonix]

Thanks for sharing JBSierra, that is good info.

As far as I know, the standup version also has those rca jacks in the interface box on the inside for plug and play games.

Were you trying to replace the original joysticks and buttons with a PS controller?

[jbserra]

Does anyone have the tabletop version of this arcade game? The tabletop has RCA jacks as an input for plug and play games or an additional console to be viewed through the monitor. Is there a way to disassemble a PS controller and attach it to the control buttons on the system?

Yes, you can use an old PS controller and the pinout on this thread to allow the use of the control panel with a Playstation.  Pictures were in Reply #82 above.

[Rada Rada]

Would someone be able to help me out by sending over the archived webpage for this cabinet? Yes I too fell into the trap and looking to change the monitor and add more sound.

[MdPhoenix]

It is both hilarious and interesting to me that this thread is still going.  When I first found it, and saw it started in 2007, I had no hope.  But seeing that it keeps getting revived, I've gotta laugh, and join in.

I have attempted the same as Ice2921.  I cannot get it to work properly on an LCD.  I have a Dell LCD 4:3 monitor with a composite input.  Sometimes I get a B/W display with strange lines, although the games are perfectly visible.  Sometimes I get what looks like a weak signal along with an off-color band going down the left side of the monitor about 1/5 of the way in from the side.  It looks good on the CRT the unit came with, but as we know, the colors are a bit off and it's quite small.  My idea was to convert this into a tabletop as the base was trashed on mine.

I have no serious love for this thing, but 4 dear friends of mine spent way too much on it for me and I want to resurrect it to make them feel better.  I know they paid at least 200 bucks for it.  I didn't have the heart to tell them it was crap.  Only that the base was water damaged and it needed to be rebuilt.

I saw up above that Viewsonix stated the box might just not put out enough juice for another monitor.  Has anyone tried a video amp?  I'd much rather use an LCD, but I do have a source of old flat screen CRTs at work.  I'm going to bring one home to see if the display is better on one of those.  But LCD is definitely desired.

[jbserra]

Would someone be able to help me out by sending over the archived webpage for this cabinet? Yes I too fell into the trap and looking to change the monitor and add more sound.

PM your email address and I'll add you to the share on dropbox.  Thanks

[jbserra]

It is both hilarious and interesting to me that this thread is still going.  When I first found it, and saw it started in 2007, I had no hope.  But seeing that it keeps getting revived, I've gotta laugh, and join in.

I have attempted the same as Ice2921.  I cannot get it to work properly on an LCD.  I have a Dell LCD 4:3 monitor with a composite input.  Sometimes I get a B/W display with strange lines, although the games are perfectly visible.  Sometimes I get what looks like a weak signal along with an off-color band going down the left side of the monitor about 1/5 of the way in from the side.  It looks good on the CRT the unit came with, but as we know, the colors are a bit off and it's quite small.  My idea was to convert this into a tabletop as the base was trashed on mine.

I have no serious love for this thing, but 4 dear friends of mine spent way too much on it for me and I want to resurrect it to make them feel better.  I know they paid at least 200 bucks for it.  I didn't have the heart to tell them it was crap.  Only that the base was water damaged and it needed to be rebuilt.

I saw up above that Viewsonix stated the box might just not put out enough juice for another monitor.  Has anyone tried a video amp?  I'd much rather use an LCD, but I do have a source of old flat screen CRTs at work.  I'm going to bring one home to see if the display is better on one of those.  But LCD is definitely desired.

The only place on the internet to talk about it! :-)  Welcome to the party!

[MdPhoenix]

Hey, thanks! 

I got it working on an old Commodore CRT, and a tiny 7" LCD screen from a vehicle entertainment system.  But no go on a 20" LCD.  My buddy brought over a VHS enhancer (one of those old tweaking boxes for getting past Macrovision), and it didn't help much at all.  I think I might try buying a straight video AMP from Amazon and give it a shot.  I REALLY want it working with this Dell 20" LCD.

[BigJer]

Greetings all!  What a wonderful thread.  I am here to help keep it going with some questions.  Keep in mind this is my first foray into Arcades as a hobby.(Not to mention from reading reviews around the web and this thread it appears people do not consider this device a "true" arcade system, but meh!)

I picked one of these up a week back or so for what I felt was relatively cheap.  It fired up and I could play "some" of the games.  The problem was that not all of the controls worked.  Upon removing the controller platform I discovered why.  It appears, what I will call the pass-through controller pcb, that the wire connections have been soldered and re-soldered countless times.  I found numerous wire breaks.  (Image 1)With this knowledge and the wiring pin out found in this thread, (Thanks for that btw!) I will be attempting to remove all wires this weekend and cleaning up the board as best as possible and then re-tinning all the wires and soldering them back into the board.

My question is directed to jbserra.  Where did you find the board you were using to mod that controller?  (jbserra's image from post above or Image 2 attached)  My thought was, if my cleanup and re-solder was not successful this weekend, could I not get two of those boards and and hook one up for Player 1 controls and one up for Player 2 controls and figure a way out to mount them inside?  Was that a specific board for your mod or is it just a pass-through for the connections much like the original board in the system?

Anyway, thanks again for keeping this thread alive and the information provided here.  It has helped me feel much more comfortable about taking on what I am going to do.  I do not plan on doing any mods "yet"  I would like to get it up and running first and let the kids and grandkids play it first.  Not to mention, I spent many an allowance and mowed many a lawn just to feed my Joust addiction.

[jbserra]

That is the original board that plugs into the back of the cartridge, but you have to remove it from the sleeve.  I disconnect the board from the back of the cartridge and hook my ribbon cable to it to take the CP inputs and pass it along to my hacked PS2 controller which is plugged into the PS2 :-)

[BigJer]

Yeah, I guess it is.  The one I had was pretty beat up from constant re-solders.  I managed to clean it up, re-tin all the wires and re-solder everything cleanly.  Only issue was the reset solder pad was missing.  I can jump that one later to an unused pad if needed.  Probably good that I do not have it anyway so that the grand kids can't constantly hit the reset button.

Thanks for the input!

[MdPhoenix]

No luck with either the video amp or the Composite to HDMI conversion.  I still get terrible video with strange lines going down the screen.  What could possibly cause this thing to work very well with other CRTs, but not play nice with LCD  (except for that little 7 inch guy)?

[Nckeyman]

The year is 2018 and I'm needing a monitor for my big midway that this forum is about.. so I'll run my issue by yall. Its plugged up and I cut the switch on and within 5 seconds u see the monitor attempt to turn on some colors appear then it shuts off with a white dot about 3 inches across.. with 1/4 of the top of the screen also lit and then goes black. No sounds either. I seen a pic of the machine working when it was posted for sale,  I got it for free when I went to get it and it was doing this. I'll try to post 2 pics... i so wanna show my kid defender and joust and rampage.

[livingonwheels]

The year is 2018 and I'm needing a monitor for my big midway that this forum is about.. so I'll run my issue by yall. Its plugged up and I cut the switch on and within 5 seconds u see the monitor attempt to turn on some colors appear then it shuts off with a white dot about 3 inches across.. with 1/4 of the top of the screen also lit and then goes black. No sounds either. I seen a pic of the machine working when it was posted for sale,  I got it for free when I went to get it and it was doing this. I'll try to post 2 pics... i so wanna show my kid defender and joust and rampage.

It might be a little too late to help you out, but have you tried flipping the switch under the unit? I had a similar issue and my switch was "in the middle" when it should have been either to the left or right.

[evil jerry]

I just picked up one of these machines and it appears it was working except the control panel.  I didn't care about the internals however so I gutted it  and i'm in the process of building a vertical machine with an LCD, light up marquee, and new control panel.   If anyone needs a control panel, buttons, 12 in 1 game board, Non light up wood marquee, or bezel just let me know.  I will give you want ever you want for free as I rather you have a working machine than my trash can eating arcade parts. As for the TV, I've already trashed that piece.   

[alphaNate]

I would like the game board. Where are you located?

[alphaNate]

Also. I have a question about the original TCL TV. I have a harmony remote. I tried programming it with the TCL brand and model number into it. The TV doesn't respond. Has some one figured out what brand remote has worked for it. If any have worked. I know someone before got a universal remote to work. But I don't have that type. The harmony ones are programmed with info.

[Ken Layton]

Here is some repair information about the monitor in these machines (including a link to the monitor schematic):

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=437315

[GOZDZILLA]

Brand new to this. Forum

I have never been able to get the game settings for difficulty and spaceships to work on my. Big electronics game. Cartridge

Any suggestions?
Thanks for the help

[jbserra]

Also. I have a question about the original TCL TV. I have a harmony remote. I tried programming it with the TCL brand and model number into it. The TV doesn't respond. Has some one figured out what brand remote has worked for it. If any have worked. I know someone before got a universal remote to work. But I don't have that type. The harmony ones are programmed with info.

I never found it either.  I tried with a Philips programmable remote, but none worked.  In the end, I drilled small holes over the buttons I needed access to so I could use a paper clip.  Ultimately, replaced the TV anyway with a 20" Sony.

[jbserra]

Brand new to this. Forum

I have never been able to get the game settings for difficulty and spaceships to work on my. Big electronics game. Cartridge

Any suggestions?
Thanks for the help

Did you try holding player1 and player2?  You should be able to change settings for all games from that menu.

[coop3233]

Hi, I am new to this forum, I just picked up one of these units for $125.  JBSERRA,  I was interested  in any information and/or pictures on how you replaced the screen with a 20" sony.  Concerned that a crt screen will be too heavy!  Thanks.  Chris.  Any other help with screen replacement would be greatly appreciated! !!

[wslover317]

PM me your email address.  I can share from Dropbox the contents of the old RetroBlast website for this machine.

I'm using a 20" Sony Trinitron CRT TV.  Works great.  Might be a little big for the graphic capabilities, but fits the cabinet and works properly.  I submitted some pictures previously to this thread.

I cant PM for some reason, can you PM me this info too please?

[jbserra]

PM me your email address.  I can share from Dropbox the contents of the old RetroBlast website for this machine.

I'm using a 20" Sony Trinitron CRT TV.  Works great.  Might be a little big for the graphic capabilities, but fits the cabinet and works properly.  I submitted some pictures previously to this thread.

I cant PM for some reason, can you PM me this info too please?

Sent!

[ph3n]

ok so i actually found one of these things on the side of the road with FREE next to it. apparently the previous owner had it outdoors somewhere so the cabinet is not in great shape anymore but im going to build a new one. my project with this is not only to add a new screen(hd if possible) but also use my raspberry pi thats gathering dust in the other room to just basically make a retropie machine. the thing still works great surprisingly i wanted to know if the gaming module will hook into an hdtv and if it is possible to have a multi system where i can still use the built in midway games and dual boot to the pi if i wanted. anyone taken on such a project and is it even worth it or should i put it back out on the corner with FREE next to it?

[jbserra]

It requires an RCA input.  There are RCAs out on the "computer".  You would need an LCD with RCA input.  You could always run sound to speakers if it's a monitor with a single video RCA input.

There is a video switch box inside the cabinet for the TV, so you could switch the video between sources, but that doesn't switch the controls.  You can probably wire your pi to the controls simultaneous to the existing computer and just power up one unit or the other and use the switch box for video.  If your LCD support HDMI, then you would switch inputs on the LCD.

If you don't want the old game unit, let me know. I might be interested as a spare.

[dabone]

My son in law just dropped one of these off to me that he has had since it was new.
Monitor h-hold was out, so I replaced the cap and got everything up and running.

I checked the monitor while it was out using a commodore 64, and it looked good.. really good.
But when I got it back in the game, every thing was dark and smeary, with horrible colors.

So I removed the cart assembly and tried it on different monitors, and it's color is awful.. Black and white on most lcds (if they sync at all),
Look at it on a scope, the colorburst signal is very low. Has anybody ever figured out a hardware fix to get good video out of these things?

Thanks.

[jbserra]

My son in law just dropped one of these off to me that he has had since it was new.
Monitor h-hold was out, so I replaced the cap and got everything up and running.

I checked the monitor while it was out using a commodore 64, and it looked good.. really good.
But when I got it back in the game, every thing was dark and smeary, with horrible colors.

So I removed the cart assembly and tried it on different monitors, and it's color is awful.. Black and white on most lcds (if they sync at all),
Look at it on a scope, the colorburst signal is very low. Has anybody ever figured out a hardware fix to get good video out of these things?

Thanks.

What do you mean, "it's color is awful"?  Do you mean it doesn't look like the original game, it's faded, wrong color selection or what?  It does look like some folks had issues with getting LCDs to display properly (see above posts).  The original tube looked fine when I got mine, but it was dark. I found my brightness was at 50%.  Cranked it up to 100% and image looked just fine.  I now run a 20" Sony tv in it and it has colors and I think it looks decent.  If you want to use the original cartridge, just grab a free/cheap tube off Craigslist and off you go!

[dabone]

What I mean is that the games are too dark, and colors are wayyyyy off

But the same TV using a different input device. (I.e. a commodore 64.) is displaying all the colors correctly, brightness and contrast are good. And looking at the output of the original game board (cart),
it's a very weak signal.

Hooking the board up to one of my Sony PVMs, same dark screen with very muted colors. Like everything is muted pastels.

Robotron has never looked so bad, and bubbles is basically unplayable (Player character is lost in the background except for the eyes and smile.)
Another example, in robotron the hulks are grey. And I still don't think I've see a bright red out of this thing while on the PVM.
Joust logo is pale yellow with orange highlights.

Here's the title screen for splat

[jbserra]

Yeah, I'm not sure.  Maybe there is something with the board.  There isn't much red (as you mentioned), but there is some.  Here's a couple of screens:

[jbserra]

The pictures didn't do it much justice.  There is more contrast when viewing directly.  There is a Yellow and an orange and those look blended together in the pictures I sent.  I think some of that was lost in taking the pictures.  Bubble is playable as a little blue drop floating around on a lighter blue background.  Sounds like you've lost contrast somewhere.

[dabone]

Yeah, my board is nowhere near as good video quality as that one. Maybe a capacitor on the board is going, but they are all surface mount in the video section, and I have no idea of the values.

[dabone]

I used hot air to reflow the caps near the video out port (C33 thru C35) and that actually brought back the color.. weird.

I was also having a issue where the board wouldn't startup all the time and would take multiple power cycles to boot.

Replacing C2 (10uf @ 10v) cured that.

[jbserra]

That is great information!  Thanks on the C2 heads up.  Mine occasionally does not boot as well.  Guess I'll have to take a look.

Now if you're savvy, see if you can figure out how to keep the high scores :-)

Thanks!

[gandalfnet]

So I adopted one of these and was going to replace the monitor but while I was testing it out i pressed the reset button.
once you do that the unit stops working then at a random time minutes or hours later it will start working...

any thoughts?

Has anymore made a ribbon cable to jamma adapter for this?
it seems to be a ton of the still out there lol

Keith