I don't believe it, another classic added => Centipede ! FINISHED !!!!

[ChadTower]

NJ is the deepest and easiest source for games in the northeast, maybe on the whole east coast.

[SithMaster]

NJ is the deepest and easiest source for games in the northeast, maybe on the whole east coast.

This is true.  However my sources arent that great for these things.  I dont visit newsgroups and when something does popup its either something i dont care for or something overpriced.

[ChadTower]

Read the sequence below... and try to understand that newsgroups and ebay aren't the place to get the best deals.  Learn to find leads and follow them and stay with them.  I know guys who will stay in contact with a person for well over a year before they get the games from them.

Level42 why is it that you keep getting all these sweet projects?

I think it's because the guy who works the hardest finds the most games.  That's all there is to it.

For some reason i dont think im going to find a centipede or a sw vector anywhere near me. 

However my sources arent that great for these things.  I dont visit newsgroups and when something does popup its either something i dont care for or something overpriced.

[Level42]

Uhhmmm, well honestly each and every cab I've got comes from the Dutch Craigs' list variant. (not the Pinball though).

This site is used by everybody here to sell anything. It's a pain in the ass of e-bay, at least it was, because e-bay is nothing here for domestic stuff (I do use it for international stuff). So, naturally, e-bay bought the site.....and the previous owner is now very very rich....

The thing is the Dutch don't like to pay for anything on the internet.....so e-bay is mostly ignored.


I do have a contact like Chad mentions now though, through one of those deals.

Maybe you should have a look at the KLOV forum.

[Level42]

He guys, looky what I found:

http://www.atarigames.com/page5/files/page5_1.pdf


Very interesting reading !!!

So who's got that rare 19" Centipede cocktail ??

[SithMaster]

Chad chad chad.

I could have meant why does keep getting the cabs/projects as in how is he able to get away with it.  He doesnt live alone.

Yes people who work harder get the better things.

Im going to stop now so Level42 doesnt yell at me.  Sorry for the offtopicness.

edit-Level42 that pretty interesting that when they replaced the cocktail with an upright more people played it.  In would figure in a bar people would avoid playing for lack of a place to put down a beer.

edit-nevermind i think i read that wrong.  they just added a bigger cocktail cab.

[Level42]

aha.....yeah......my wife is great about them....well not as great as Darthnuno's wife, but she accepts them, and there is still that long-term goal of putting them all either upstairs or in a new shed in the garden....

I guess she prefers me to play with the games then with other.....ahhh never mind

I don't think I've ever seen a 19" centipede cocktail. From the info, the thing was larger, not just the monitor.

Also interesting: There was a lot of negative response about the smaller size of the trackball. Lots of test players wanted a 3" (hence 3" on Millipede ?) There are also test-player suggestions that there should be exploding things on the screen (also included on Millipede) and bees.  ( I think Millipede has bees ?)

Not a single word about the placing of the fire-button though.....I had hoped to read something about that.

[Level42]

Despite my son's birthday last weekend I managed to do a little work on the Centi....

My Centipede was equipped with some black-painted woodstrips on the bottom of both sides and the front. I was pretty sure that this was not original, and after seeing Luc's Irish Centipede, I was sure that this was not standard.

So, I wanted to remove them. Gotta say, they did a pretty good job. It was a bit of a gamble, because of course there would be damage of the nails, and possibly of the removing tools...but I figured I'd like it better still.

So I put it on a cart and started to pry with pliers and later a knife that I put behind the strip....






Clearly, the black paint of the strips transfered to the vinyl.... I could scrub most of it off relatively easy. Also turns out this is now the whitest part of the side-art, so I guess these strips were put on very early.



Also, time to install the new T-molding........only to discover that the T-mold I ordered at Suzo is NOT wide enough  It leaves a small part open at the side. Doesn't look like it should, but I figured to finish it just as well.... I couldn't really see much difference in width when I held the old and new op top of eachother. Could be it's a metric size, just a little narrower.....next time, it will be t-molding.com again......



It turned out the custom woodwork was also used as alternative to the original legs. Pretty firmly built. Since it doesn't show much on the front (black on black), I decided to let it there where it is.

Now I need to repair the holes and restore the "vinyl" look at the bottom sides. Anyone have any suggestions ?

[Level42]

Ok, remember this:


Thougt it was about time to fix this mess. I still had the monitor (TV) and rest of the electronics on seperate mains cables, so I put them together to let it work with just one mains plug and start everything up in 1 go.

I also replaced the experimental SCART wiring with a proper cable. Soldered all the resistors at the right places and neatly isolated everything with shrink-tube.  Fixed the cabling everywhere.

Don't look at the coin door, as that is still a mess....


Here's how I tapped into the +12V and the +5V wires for the SCART cable. These snap-things are great when you need to tap the same voltage (or signal) to an extra wire. The main advantage is that you don't have to cut and strip the cable. You simply put it on the existing wire, add the extra wire and press the metal "knife" with pliers. Done.
I even used one side of a resistor on one of them, no problem (to lower the +5V to +3V).




I also used them to tap into the +5V and GND wires of the trackball to power the super bright LED:


You can still see the old wires that I had temporally soldered to the encoder pcb.Of course I removed them a bit later.

And the same for the fire button:



O and, yes I did clip of the excess on the ty-raps.....

[Level42]

Here's a better pic of the tap-on connector I used. Anyone else using them ? I bought them at Suzo, so I bet Happ sells them too.

They're great.

[Level42]

Yeah, yeah progress is slow. I just have to spend a lot of time on a study lately and also working on some friend's machines.

Anyway did a bit of fixing up the little coindoor and the big coindoor frame.

The bigone, I only cleaned it and put a single layer of black paint on it. It was nearly 100% ok, just some scrubs and things.
The little one had "rust" spots (although it didn't look like rust under it at all". So that one got the full treatment of sanding, primering, and a couple of layers of black. I guess I need to buy a bit more expensive paint next time....
















Slapped a new lock in it......and that's it.  It actually looks a lot better than on that last pic, the flash is spoiling it. Maybe not perfect, but a lot better than what it was and I'm happy with it.

The big coindoor will be pictured when I've re-installed the mechs etc.

I've decided not to try to remove the scratches from the stainless steel door. I guess I will screw it up more than it is now. I may put that Atari sticker on the spot that "needs" it. This will take away the eye from the scratches

When the big coindoor is ready I only still have to clean the lower sides and it will be 100% done ! That will be my first completely finished restoration, as the Galaxian is still needing the bottom kick-plate art to be fixed....

[Level42]

She is ready !

It's been quite a while, but I "finished" the restoration today.

Here are the last pics:









However hard it will be, she will switch places with the Puckman that is in storage in my shed now. I need to do a "quick" job this time. My son is urging me to start on the Mario Bros. for obvious reasons. But I'm still not sure. Mario or DK ?

(In all honesty, I still have to do the lower parts of the sides, but I figured it would be better to do those when she comes out of storage again....)

I've got a monitor and 48in1 plus Jamma harness ready for the Puckman....

[patrickl]

Sexay 

[WunderCade]

So Level42 is this the "original" Euro version of the coinbox?



  I'm kidding of course.......nice job. It looks great. 

[patrickl]

Kidding? That is standard isn't it?

[Level42]

I haven't seen this kind of set-up of coin-box on any other Centipede yet, not even the Irish built one's.
But I am 99% sure that it was factory made. The whole construction looks like it has been built there right in the beginning. It is indeed very weird. Maybe it was something country specific or special request from a distributor or something like that ? I wonder if I can give the bag a wash, since there's a metal ring inside.

O well, it's in my shed now so won't be happening until it gets out and moved into the REAL gameroom....

[Level42]

Well, this cab was put into storage working and well. It got moved to another location and back in the mean time, and I don't know what happened but the TV was not working anymore. Everything else was fine still.
The TV did get it's 230VAC and I tried switching it on manually with the built-in buttons and with the remote, no go.

Also, coincidently, I had found a G07 PCB set in Germany. I only had to pick it up and it was completely free ! It also included a large arcade power supply, don't know what game it's from but maybe handy for test set-up.

Anyway, I found back the original CRT in my attick, installed the "new" PCB set and tested it. And it works fine !

Only still need to adjust the horizontal size with the horizontal coil. Everything else looks as sweet as you can expect from a 25 year old CRT.

This also solves the (small) annoyance I had with the TV set, that I wasn't able to fill the screen completely vertically (so horizontally when the monitor is inside the cab). Not a big thing, but I like to have these little things perfect when I know they can be.

I'll do the obvious cap-kit on the new PCB set and restore the G07 to it's old glory. Might even find out what's wrong with the old board now I can compare.

It's great to have the new gameroom, can work on some cabs and leave stuff around without the wife complaining I'm sure it will look like a workplace every now and then, but hey it's better than having to work in the kitchen