Star Wars Cockpit......SHE LIVES !!!!!

[Level42]

Yeah, I think D. If it's not 100% it will be close enough.  The good thing is that I may very well be able to order it from Suzo's headquarters which is "around the corner" for me. I also asked Ponyboy, is he still around ?

Not sure how I will fix the grills back. In fact, I may very well not be using the original grills anymore. The reason is that they are simply not up to the task. I mean, these grills had a primary goal of keeping the speakers protected from heels and hands etc.  Of course, in an arcade environment this is the most important thing. This explains the construction of these grills: it's more metal than holes.
But, since I'm seriously upgrading the speakers, I am looking into using other grills. The thing is that in home use there is much less risk of the speakers getting hurt. For sound reasons, cloth would be ideal, but of course this is TOO risky. I've been looking around a bit for grills that have much more "open" area, but are still constructed of steel.

The sheer amount of metal in the original grills becomes clear when you stack 4 of them and lift them. They are _HEAVY_ ! This means that most of the area is covered with steel and thus blocking sound.

There's a great explanation about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_grille

In theory I could use the grilles that were included with the JBL's but hey, that would look WRONG.
So, I will try to go for an original as possible look, but still improve sound as much as possible. I've already seen this:
http://www.audiogoedkoop.nl/nl/Monacor-MZF2544-Speakergrill.html
I could maybe use those and add some speaker cloth to still give it the correct look.

About the sound:
I just hooked the JBL's up. Temporarily mounted them under the seat and they sound _sweet_ !

Maybe the best thing is that these speakers have a little button that increases the highs a little bit, which works great. The result is about what I expected:
Especially the Pokeys sound MUCH better now. The music and sound effects really improved immensely.
I always knew that the Pokey could sound pretty good. I remember hooking up my Atari 600XL to our home stereo to get those great bass sounds on f.i. Donkey Kong !

The voice samples gain less. This is because the sample technology in those days were simply pretty limited. The sample simply don't have much highs in them. And what's not in there, you can't (re)create. Still not a bad thing really. This is how the samples are supposed to sound. I think the much better speakers may uncover the "flaws" of the TI speech chip a bit, but it's not annoying at all.

Now, I need to get another set of these. I picked them up used for 25 euro's.

I think when having both sets installed the total result will even be better.

Of course there's also a small disadvantage. The rubbers where the cones are hanged in are larger than on the original speakers. Now they touch the wooden panels so I'll have to carve out a bit of the wood (particles).

Some pics to compare the speakers:




Pretty unfair really. Original: Single cone (not even dual cone !). Very low weight (thus inadequate magnet). JBL: three-way system and _heavy_. Bass cone is also not paper which is good for keeping it good for a long time...

[MaximRecoil]

Pretty unfair really. Original: Single cone (not even dual cone !). Very low weight (thus inadequate magnet). JBL: three-way system and _heavy_. Bass cone is also not paper which is good for keeping it good for a long time...

I doubt there is much audio in Star Wars that exceeds the frequency range that the stock speakers are capable of accurately reproducing; and as such, tweeters (and especially "super tweeters") or "whizzer cones" aren't completely necessary. Most midrange drivers have a more or less flat response from ~80 to ~3,000 Hz.

BTW, paper cones are used in a lot of high-end speakers (usually treated), as well as a lot of cheap speakers (usually untreated). Many people have a preference for paper cones; they are organic and tend to produce a "natural" sound. I have a pair of 12" subwoofers that retailed for $400 a piece when new, with massive magnets, dual 4" voice coils, cast aluminum baskets, Santoprene rubber surrounds... and they have treated spruce pulp paper cones; and they have survived fine in a car environment in Maine for the last 10 years.

BTW, those stock speakers seem to be fairly high quality; higher quality than I'd expect from an '80s arcade machine anyway. The paper cones appear to be treated, and the surrounds appear to be rubber (most cheap speakers have a paper surround, which is not great). Large magnets are only required to energize large voice coils, and large voice coils are only required for large power handling, and large power handling is only required for loud distortion-free volume (by "loud" I mean threshhold of pain loud). There are other things which affect maximum volume too of course, such as Xmax, sensitivity, cone surface area, and enclosure type. None of that really applies to an arcade machine.

If you could figure out a way to hide a pair of tweeters and a pair of passive crossovers in there, you could keep the original speakers and probably have as good or better sound than your JBL triaxials, but that may not be worth the effort, especially since crossovers tend to soak up about half your power, so you'd probably need to get an amplifier for the setup rather than using the existing one.

[Level42]

I doubt there is much audio in Star Wars that exceeds the frequency range that the stock speakers are capable of accurately reproducing; and as such, tweeters (and especially "super tweeters") or "whizzer cones" aren't completely necessary. Most midrange drivers have a more or less flat response from ~80 to ~3,000 Hz.

My friend, you are more than welcome to come over and let your ears decide.
Never said it was necessary, it's just a lot of fun and it does sound a lot better.

Frequency range says very little over the quality of a speaker. Just like the number of Watts it can handle says anything about the quality. It's about how a speaker reproduces sound. The pokey chip (that SW has 4 off) is capable of producing some decent sounds (which is much more demonstrated on the Atari 8-bit home computers than on any Atari arcade game), as I mentioned, try hook up an Atari 8 bit machine to a stereo and listen to the DK sounds. If you play it on a tiny TV speaker it's still a lot less than through a decent Hi-Fi set-up. Of course it won't be Hi-Fi but sound does improve.
 

BTW, those stock speakers seem to be fairly high quality; higher quality than I'd expect from an '80s arcade machine anyway. The paper cones appear to be treated, and the surrounds appear to be rubber (most cheap speakers have a paper surround, which is not great).

Never said they were terrible. They're just not fabulous. You're right about the paper and rubber. For most other games, I wouldn't bother setting up speakers like this. It's just that SW has some decent music, nice sound effects and the speech of course.  SW was one of the first games that had a separate guy working on the sound. Atari never bothered until then and the game programmers had to do the sound themselves (which they didn't like) and this resulted in a lot of the games sounding like each-other.
The cockpit is much better sounding than the upright. THis is because there are two speakers right behind your ears, and two speakers in the seat. The two behind your ears reproduce the fake stereo effect much better than the upright does, simply because of their position. The seat works great as a speaker box and enhances the bass sounds a lot.

All his decided me that I wanted to improve the speakers, and as mentioned, I won't put loads of money in it, I just look for cheap but good quality second hand speakers.

If you could figure out a way to hide a pair of tweeters and a pair of passive crossovers in there, you could keep the original speakers and probably have as good or better sound than your JBL triaxials, but that may not be worth the effort, especially since crossovers tend to soak up about half your power, so you'd probably need to get an amplifier for the setup rather than using the existing one.

The JBL's have cross-over filters built in.
About the power, I was pleasantly surprised. By no means do I intend to run insane volume levels. I wanted to improve the quality of the sound, not the volume level.
This model JBL speaker has an impedance of 2 Ohms, which means it gets the most wattage out of an amp and it shows...
Turned it up quite a bit to test (higher than I will be running it) and there was no distortion at all. Of course things will start to distort when you increase the volume even further, but that goes for the original speakers as well (probably more) and as mentioned, it was fine way up to a level I would never run it on.

I could make a video, but I doubt the microphone of my camera will really make it possible to hear the difference.

All I can say, try it and you'll hear

(Note: the original speakers are magnetically shielded. This is often necessary for regular upright cabs because they are usually near the monitor. Since the speakers are pretty far from the monitor in a SW cockpit this is not important at all, but check this when you try this on a machine that has a speaker neer the monitor).

[MaximRecoil]

My friend, you are more than welcome to come over and let your ears decide.
Never said it was necessary, it's just a lot of fun and it does sound a lot better.

Yes, I believe you that it sounds better, and it's due to the tweeters. I was just pointing out my theory on why Atari didn't bother with tweeters or even "whizzer cones" (the smaller cone on "dual cone" speakers, often found in OEM car speakers).

Frequency range says very little over the quality of a speaker.

That's true, however, the response curve over a given frequency range says everything about the quality of speakers. This shows the speaker's ability to accurately reproduce sound. Ideally the speaker would have perfectly flat response over its intended frequency range.

Just like the number of Watts it can handle says anything about the quality. It's about how a speaker reproduces sound.

Yes, how it reproduces sound (sound quality) is objectively measured by the frequency response curve. Peaks and valleys are bad. A roughly flat line is good (a perfectly flat line is ideal, but not plausible). And the number of watts a speaker can handle does say something about quality, but only about the quality of construction (speakers that can continuously handle high wattage have to be quality-built by default). It says nothing about the sound quality (which I assume is what you're talking about).

The pokey chip (that SW has 4 off) is capable of producing some decent sounds (which is much more demonstrated on the Atari 8-bit home computers than on any Atari arcade game), as I mentioned, try hook up an Atari 8 bit machine to a stereo and listen to the DK sounds. If you play it on a tiny TV speaker it's still a lot less than through a decent Hi-Fi set-up. Of course it won't be Hi-Fi but sound does improve.

Yes, Pokey chips are cool. The only Atari 7800 games that had decent sound were the ones that included a Pokey chip in the cartridge. Unfortunately, they only did that for like 2 cartridges. Fans of the 7800 regret that the 7800 didn't include a Pokey like the 5200 and the 8-bit home computers; because otherwise, it was a nice piece of hardware.
 

The JBL's have cross-over filters built in.

Yes, most all coaxial (and triaxial) speakers have built-in crossovers, but they are typically a simple first-order (6 dB/octave) crossover, which is accomplished with a single filter capacitor. Component speaker arrangements (separate midrange driver, crossover, and tweeter) typically have at least a second-order crossover (12 dB/octave). The component speakers I have in my vehicle have fourth-order (24 dB/octave) passive crossovers, and the active crossovers in my amplifiers have fourth order crossovers in a Linkwitz-Riley configuration. The more complex passive crossovers are the ones that really soak up the power, reducing the amount that actually reaches the speakers.

About the power, I was pleasantly surprised. By no means do I intend to run insane volume levels. I wanted to improve the quality of the sound, not the volume level.
This model JBL speaker has an impedance of 2 Ohms, which means it gets the most wattage out of an amp and it shows...

It is generally not good for your amp to run it at half the impedance it was designed for. I say "generally" because some amps have built-in protection circuits to keep them from delivering additional power at lower impedances. A typical car audio amplifier is stable at 2 ohms in stereo operation (4 ohms when bridged mono), but arcade boards typically used "amp-on-a-chip" designs, like you'll find inside a car radio, rather than the more robust toroidal transformer designs of standalone car and home audio amplifiers. However, I don't know what type of amplifer was used in the Star Wars cockpit, nor do I know the specs on it.

Now running an amplifer at a lower impedance than it is designed for won't generally harm it immediately, but does accelerate wear and tear; sort of like running your car motor at 4,000 RPM instead of 2,000 RPM.

I'm curious about how much wattage is reaching your speakers when playing at your preferred volume. You can calculate this by measuring the voltage at the speaker terminals. The formula is voltage squared, divided by the resistance of the speaker (V^2)/R. So if you measure 5 volts at the speaker terminals, that would mean 12.5 watts is reaching your speaker (5^2)/2. This will only give you a rough idea because music is dynamic, and different frequencies present different loads to the amplifier (higher frequencies = higher loads), so the wattage will jump around a bit. To measure an amplifer's output accurately, a dummy load is normally used (which is a big resistor of the desired impedance, e.g., 2, 4, 8, etc., ohms).

Turned it up quite a bit to test (higher than I will be running it) and there was no distortion at all. Of course things will start to distort when you increase the volume even further, but that goes for the original speakers as well (probably more) and as mentioned, it was fine way up to a level I would never run it on.

Yeah; I'm guessing that in the case of an arcade machine amplifier, the amplifier will start to distort the signal as you increase the volume long before any decent quality speaker will. But as you said, that point is beyond the level you'd want to hear it anyway.

[Level42]

Heh, you know your speaker stuff What do you have at home ? I've got a nice Bowers & Wilkins 600 series surround set-up. Without sub. Not needed

Without de-railing the thread here:

I checked wich amp is used in the SW. It's on the AR-2 board and there is one for each channel. They're mounted on the big cooling body in the center of the AR-2.

I forgot the exact type, but I looked at the datasheet and it said it could handle something like 1.6 Ohms impedance. This will get a bit tricky when I connect the second set of these. The speakers are connected in parallel, thus the impedance will half when connecting two speakers with 2 Ohms impedance, resulting in 1 Ohm impedance. Worries me a bit, but as mentioned, not too high power levels so I guess it will be fine.

[MaximRecoil]

Heh, you know your speaker stuff What do you have at home ? I've got a nice Bowers & Wilkins 600 series surround set-up. Without sub. Not needed

Nice. My brother is a fan of B&W speakers.

I don't have an audio setup at home, unfortunately (aside from my cheap PC speakers).

I do have a setup in my vehicle though, consisting mainly of "old school" pre "sellout" era Rockford Fosgate equipment from the '90s, including a pair of 6.5" Fanatic Q component speakers up front driven by a RF Power 800a4, bridged dual mono (400W x 2 @ 4 ohms), and a pair of 12" RF Power DVCs driven by an RF Power 1000a2 brided mono (1000W x 1 @ 4 ohms).

The head unit is an old Clarion with a Clarion external digital signal processor that is designed specifically to work with it. However, it needs to be replaced. It is old (no USB port or MP3 support) and it is starting to act flakey (always wanting to do a system self-test before doing anything). The speakers and amps are built like a tank though, and are still doing great after over 10 years of use in several different vehicles now.

I checked wich amp is used in the SW. It's on the AR-2 board and there is one for each channel. They're mounted on the big cooling body in the center of the AR-2.

I forgot the exact type, but I looked at the datasheet and it said it could handle something like 1.6 Ohms impedance. This will get a bit tricky when I connect the second set of these. The speakers are connected in parallel, thus the impedance will half when connecting two speakers with 2 Ohms impedance, resulting in 1 Ohm impedance. Worries me a bit, but as mentioned, not too high power levels so I guess it will be fine.

How many speakers are there, and how many amplifiers?

It is surprising that your JBLs are 2 ohm speakers. Most car audio speakers are 4 ohms, with the exception of subwoofers, which come in a variety of loads and voice coil configurations (e.g., 2, 4, or 8 ohm, SVC or DVC).

[Level42]

Your brother has great taste !

Sounds like a serious set-up in your car ! I have to do with a factory built-in system. Not too shabby, but not great either.

Speakers are a personal preference, but I believe B&W delivers the best quality for the price. In review magazines they always end up between much more expensive competitors.

I hate it that B&W doesn't make car speakers. Well actually they do, you can buy B&W car speakers but you'll have to buy a Jaguar around it    (http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=4295)

The SW cockpit has 4 speakers and there are 2 amps on the AR-2. So each amp drives two speakers in parallel.

I included a clip of the schematics.

By the way the original speakers cost (total) $16,22 for the upright according to Atari's cost calculation. But this is for 2 speakers and not sure if they are the same as the one's on the cockpit.

Oh and the JBL's filter is a cap and a coil.

[MaximRecoil]

Well you could always wire the speaker pairs in series for a 4 ohm load to be safe (that would give your amps a much easier life too, over even the factory wiring configuration). This of course, will result in half the power reaching your speakers compared to the factory setup; but you could still try it; and if you get sufficient volume from the setup, then you are golden.

Oh and the JBL's filter is a cap and a coil.

It could be a 1st or 2nd order crossover (it would need more components to be anything higher). Either way it is a better design than the simple filter cap that most coaxials and triaxials use.

[Level42]

Wouldn't serial wiring effect the sound ? Never thought about that....

Anyway. I decided to give up to find the perfect solution for the metal top parts. I bought a can of Hammerite black hammered painting:

http://www.icipaints.co.uk/colours/hammerite/hammered_colours.jsp

I actually like how it turned out a lot, It's a lot more shiny than the original, but it blends nicely with the "black" plexi canopy.

I also did the vents with Rust-oleum flat coating. Turned out great too. Can't wait to replace the vinyl.

Pics:










Oops, the flash shows a lot of dust on the canopy !:


Better with no flash !


I like the reflection of al the lights. Maybe it's not factory original, it sure looks slick

[MaximRecoil]

Wouldn't serial wiring effect the sound ? Never thought about that....

It only changes the impedance. Series and parallel wiring of multiple speakers to a single channel are used interchangeably in car and home audio, depending on what the desired impedance is. Series and parallel wiring are even used in combination sometimes, which is known as series-parallel wiring.

For example, say you have four 4 ohm speakers that you want to wire to a single mono amplifier, and that amplifier is stable down to 4 ohms. Now you obviously can't wire them all in parallel, because that would present the amp with a 1 ohm load which would probably fry it in short order. You could wire them all in series and your amp could live the easy life with a nice, cushy 16 ohm load, but then it would only be making 25% of the power that it is capable of. So the solution is to wire a pair of them together in series, and also wire the other pair of them together in series, and then wire those two serial pairs to the amp in parallel; which gives us a 4 ohm load; which is exactly what we want. It would look like this:



A pair of 4 ohm speakers simply wired in series for an 8 ohm load would of course look like this:

[THE POKER BRAT]

i have an some interesting questions,..
1) Has anyone who owned a star wars cockpit had ANY touble getting the machine up or down stairs?...
2) Can it be taken apart in sections to be easily moved?   
3) Is there any pictures of the machine dissasembled to give reference?
just curious......

[Level42]

To answer your questions

1) Thank god I never had to even think about that. I especially rented an (expensive!) van with a tail gate lift because I did NOT want to lift over 200 kgs......

2) Yes it can.......with a lot of patience.....and be careful !

3) Sure:
http://andysarcade.de/data/picseries/sw_restore/overview.html

Those are pics from the cockpit of "Speleo" or Andreas from Germany. He had to store it for a long time in a small space so he took it apart....

His site is a great source of info about all vectors games: www.andysarcade.de (no worries, it's in English).

[Level42]

I ordered the vinyl. What would be the best thing to do, remove the old vinyl (from particle board) or stick it over the old stuff. I think I would prefer removing the old as the edges are getting loose. Do I use a heatgun ?

And how to save the manufacturer sticker ?

[Level42]

So, I decided to do all the metal parts myself. Gotta think economic at these times
For the insides I use Rust-oleum mat black. The outsides will get the Hammerite.

My failing experiments meant I had to sand some of the parts for a second time...

Still love the look of bare metal....the most left part is the seat edge corner cover. It's aluminium (because of the complicated shape, it's extruded I guess). Aluminium is a lot harder to sand and get a nice smooth finish.....(not only discovered with this one, but especially with the metal parts of the Joust I did in the same "go", see my Joust thread)



I think I'm starting to learn how to paint properly with a spray can....quality of the paint helps too. 3 thin layers....


Had to use flash on this pic (was getting dark) doesn't really show the quality look it has.

[Spyridon]

I ordered the vinyl. What would be the best thing to do, remove the old vinyl (from particle board) or stick it over the old stuff. I think I would prefer removing the old as the edges are getting loose. Do I use a heatgun ?

And how to save the manufacturer sticker ?

On my Centipede, there was a piece of vinyl that was starting to pull off.  I just pulled on it and the entire piece pulled right off.  I think if you can get an edge up, it may pull right off for you.

As far as the manufacturer sticker, I think you'll have to cut around it and leave it (which will make putting the new vinyl on difficult).  Or if the vinyl is pulling up really easy, remove it completely, then cut it out and stick it back on over the new vinyl?

[Pacman83]

I must say that this is a BIG restoration !
Looks fantastic, superb work there 

[Level42]

Thanks !

Big and taking forever

While waiting for the vinyl and the yoke parts to arrive:

The vinyl looks really worn out, the heat around the vent has made it "shiny" there. I do want to save the stickers though.




Funny, the staples the probably held the keys or maybe the bag with the manual etc. are still in there. Should I reproduce this ? 


I simply started peeling and some parts came of in big chucks, others not so easy but overall it is pretty easy to remove it all without any heat or tools.


I will have to sand it a bit and I want to re-spray the edges in black so if there are some smal parts not exactly covered with the vinyl it won't show too much.


I managed to get the stickers of relatively undamaged but it will look a bit funny on the brand new vinyl I guess....I also kept the VAN sticker because it actually belongs to the cab now. It's from the Dutch "Allience of coin-op traders" and it has a nice 70's/80s look. I bet it was on there from the moment the machine was imported and put into service.
I scanned both....just in case

[Superully]

nice job on removing those stickers - stuff like that has to be saved  and i think it's going to look good on that new vinyl, too, the happcontrols-stuff is a good match. keep up your outstanding effort, andré!

[Level42]

Still waiting on the vinyl 

Still waiting on yoke parts 

Anyway, a pic I forgot, inside of the back-panel that I stripped. Yeah lot's of heat went past there


This panel was screwed with a myriad of different type of screws, but I believe these were the orignals:




Does anyone know how these are called and where I could find them ?

[sevenleaf]

I have no idea but have just done a quick search, do a search for black washer head screw (try philips / pozideive to narrow it down)

This isn't perfect but the visible head is a close match:

[njay]

Dude? your a dutch man also?

lache !

(i said funny/laugh in dutch to him)

[Level42]

Ja inderdaad 100% Nederlander

So....let's get on !

Got a call from Suzo headquarters today that the vinyl (finally !) arrived. Since I was ready with work early and already pretty much in the area I picked it up right away.



Wooohhh, they thought there was some risky stuff in there !


Instead of a bazooka, all they found was 10 feet of Pica Vinyl !


More about application later ! Had to do something else first:

I never really liked the big extra resistors that Atari "designed" into the HV-pcb. First of all, positioning them in an acaptable way is pretty hard. I've seen some put upright and I've done some other "creative" positioning, but whichever way you look at it, it's clumsy.

Apart from "looking bad" there was also something else that annoyed me a lot more: They get pretty damn hot in use, and they are very close to the (brand new) caps on the board. That means they're nicely aging the caps right away again, something we don't want.

I had played with the idea to use some transistors instead of resisitors. There are designs with 78xx and 79xx voltage regulators that allow for more amps to be delivered using transistors and it seemed like a more sensible way.
However, that would require some more modifications of the circuit on the board which I didn't like. Also, Mark Spaeth pointed out that transistor or resistor, the power was still going through either of them and thus the heat would still be generated anyway.

So, next I thought about getting two wire-wound resistors that are designed to handle some serious loads and have a metal "fan" body. These are transferring heat a lot better than the ceramic one's. Now, these baby's can be mounted on a heat-sink in the way like you do with transistors and voltage regulators.

Since the heat-sink that is used by the 7824 and 7924 is not getting hot at all, I figured it could handle a little extra heat from the resistors.

Thus, I mounted the resistors on it. Had to drill some holes and I used a thin film of thermal grease. There's no need to electrically isolatie the resistors as the body is not in electrical contact with the resistor itself. I ran some thick solid core wires through the original resistor holes and soldered them as were the original one's.

Here's some pics:





Since I'm still waiting for new yoke parts (David ?) I can't really stress test it, but I started a couple of uncontrolled games and let it run for half an hour. The resistors and heat-sink feel like skin-temperature,  so I guess it worked out really well.

More stress testing will be needed (death star explosions!) but I'm pretty confident that this is a great solution. Let me know what you guys think.

[RetroACTIVE]

I think this is a FANTASTIC idea!  I'm not crazy about the wires but hey I'll take it if it prevents the burning of the PCB and melting of the adjacent caps!

(edit)
Getting back to this idea...

I ordered 2 of these and am planning on mounting them to the vertical surface, drilling holes in the board for the leads to feed through....  I realize it puts them back down along side the caps but with the heat dissipation of the heat sink perhaps it will be fine.

I will be adding a fan to the cabinet as well... (this will be part of my Star Wars restore sequel)

[Level42]

Your link is bad Retro....think it should be this :
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Caddock/MP930-50-1/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvhlCB8CTbT5PmR67RQzICTapYoJzuqUVw%3d

With hindsight, I think that will work out just fine. I had not idea what to expect from the heat generation, but it's less than I'd expected and I think you'll be fine with that solution. The heat-sink really "eats" all the heat.

The resistors I used can dissipate 15W (when on a heat-sink), so that's triple of the "original" 5W ceramic resistors. Think 30W may be a bit over the top, but it can never hurt of course

[Edit] O wow, those are in a TO-220 housing, NEAT ! Never knew that these existed or I would have opt for those too ! Might be possible to drill holes where you want to install them and only run some wiring on the track-side of the PCB. That would look really tight....

[RetroACTIVE]

[Edit] O wow, those are in a TO-220 housing, NEAT ! Never knew that these existed or I would have opt for those too ! Might be possible to drill holes where you want to install them and only run some wiring on the track-side of the PCB. That would look really tight....

Yeah... that's exactly what I was thinking (or at least tried to say)... I'm rebuilding my Amp boards now... I've got the deflection done... I'm moving on to the HV next... I will snap some pics when I get it done...

[Level42]

The only "issue" I can think of is that those resistors will come pretty close positioned to the voltage regulators and that those TO-220 housings cannot dissipate any heat themselves. They will rely 100% on the heat-sink where the one's I used also dissipate a certain percentage through it's own body.
They can dissipate 8W themselves (so over 50%) without any heat-sink because it already has it's own. It reaches it's 15W capacity when mounted on a proper heat-sink.

That shouldn't stop you from trying though, I still think it will be fine. The voltage regulators really don't generate that much heat because the resistors take the vast majority of the load and the heat-sink used is pretty over-dimensioned for those two.

[hatrick]

I like that resistor idea, Level42. I have used the same type of resistors on both Sprint 2 boards I have repaired. They normally use a regular ceramic resistor in the power regulator portion of the board, but these seem to do a good job of keeping the heat off the board.
I think I will look into your method when I rebuild my Amp HV board.

[Level42]

Ran the cab for about an hour. No fan installed, not even the factory fan on the game PCB set, but as may be known, the lower back panel is missing on my SW so it was open.

After about an hour with about 5 started (but not played) games the resistors were still quite cool. The heat-sink had gotten a bit warmer, but completely acceptable. The temp of the voltage regulators were OK too. I could keep my index finger on them for an extended time.

It may be that the voltage regulators now get a bit hotter than before, but I think it's totally within the 78xx and 79xx specs.

The extra fan aimed at the HV and deflection board (a necessity IMHO) that I will install will do the rest.


Next it was time to apply the vinyl !
Another scaring step, as I'm simply not that handy with things like that...

First I removed the staples that once held the manual, sanded the top and the sides and did some painting to get the edges covered in black to hide any imperfections that the vinyl won't cover. Not sure why but I decided to do a basic layer all over this part, but it turned out this is really not necessary.


Following what I've seen others do I bought some glue spray and applied it to the board first. I had expected the glue-spray to be very even but instead it spit out some glue that looked like confetti-spray.

Tried to spread it out as evenly as possible and assumed it would even out under the vinyl. So I applied the vinyl, got it on pretty OK but the uneven glue showed through in bubbles and wrinkles. I tried to flatten it out with a roller but didn't work. I let it dry for an hour or two to see if it got better but it didn't.

In the mean time I decided to do the smaller parts without the spray since I thought the vinyl itself was sticky enough by itself. These parts turned out absolutely great. Applying it is not that hard at all, simply cut a rough piece that's a bit oversized for the part. Then line out the straight (factory) edge on one of the sides and then roll off the protective layer and roll out the vinyl.

The top vent part before, you can see what age and heat do to the vinyl, it get's gray in area's and overall it looks really bad:


Peeling off the old vinyl takes time and patience. It comes off but sometimes it's hard to get a "starting point" I used an x-acto knife to get some small start pieces curled up.


Finally bare. Sanded it lightly after this:


After painting the edges, the brand new vinyl applied. (As always poor light in the gameroom)


In reality it looks much better and VERY tight. Here's the lowest backpart:

(Had forgotten to cut-out the power switch hole here ).

Because the vinyl on these parts look absolutely straight and very tight, I decided that I would probably be annoyed forever by the bubbly looking top panel:


It may look quite OK on that picture, but if you look at it in detail:


Not only those very obvious bubbles on the left are annoying (and there were much worse one's on the right part), but the entire surface is bubbly if you look closely.

So, I decided to get it off again before it would dry completely. It almost came off in one piece:


I noticed that Happ's pica vinyl is much thicker than the stuff that Atari originally used. It's really a great product and looking what a simple thing like this improves on the looks of a cab it's tempting to do it for other cabs too.

Now, i'll have to re-sand the top panel and apply a new piece of vinyl of course....


Instead of looking for new screws for the vents I decided to simply paint them with the same Rustoleum that I used for the vents.


 

[m_mcgover]

Wow, the new vinyl'ing looks really good.  I need to either paint or vinyl some pieces on mine...originally I was thinking paint...now maybe vinyl.  Have you tried any vinyl application for pieces still on the cockpit?  My worry is getting the piece sized correctly so that it makes it to the sides, without either running up the side or coming up short.  Because I am sure my cockpit is not longer "squared", do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

[Level42]

Actually the only part that didn't stay on the cockpit was the big "lid". The other parts can't be removed from the cab (at least, not without completely taking it apart). It was really not that hard to do.

I put the straight (factory cut) edge completely in one corner (the one where I started to stick the vinyl), then roll off the protective layer and "fold out" the vinyl as you go. Use your hand to flatten it and be sure to get no bubbles in there.
When you reach the other (inside) corner, remove the protective layer completely, then fold the vinyl into the corner as much as possible but DON'T stick it to the other side. Get it in the corner as tight as possible, use some plastic tool to get the corner completely straight. Then you can (temporarely) stick it to the other side. Next use an x-acto knife and cut EXACTLY in the corner. Move slowly as it's very easy to come "out" of the corner... if you do it right, you get a perfect cut.


If you are in doubt between paint and vinyl, I would definitely go with vinyl. It looks SO tight !

So, it was time for V2.0 vinyl on the back panel:

First had to sand off the "old" paint and glue, which had nicely mixed to some very sticky stuff that the ex-centric sander didn't really like......but I got it as smooth as a baby skin.....


Roughly cut a piece of vinyl that's a little bit oversized for the part:


Use the straight (factory cut) edge to line up the vinyl, but do _not_ align the edge to the edge of the board. Make sure it overlaps about a cm.
The reason is that 25 year old particle boards simply are not as straight as the vinyl. If you need to do "inside corners" directly on a cab, you _can_ use the factory edge though.


Peel off the beginning of the protective layer on the straight edge and stick it to the board. As mentioned, make it overlap about a cm. Then "roll of" the vinyl while pulling away the protective layer. Sometimes you'll get some bubbles. With the Happ vinyl you can pull it back a bit and apply it again to remove those bubbles.






Use your hand to straighten the vinyl to the board:



Make sure the vinyl is entirely flat on the board. Here's two pics of the overlapping edges:




I rollered the vinyl for the first time directly after applying it. My son shows how to do it here:



Then it's cutting time ! Here's the weapon of choice (this one also shows the lovely structure of the pica vinyl):


Use a NEW blade. No use risking unclear cuts for a couple of cents....

Some people might start their cut at the top of the board, but I feel that it's pretty hard to get _exactly_ to the right spot there. So, I start a bit below the top and cut in an angle until the blade touches the board. Then simply follow the edge of the board all the way down.


My son volunteered to make a little video of how it's done. He's only 7, so excuse the shaky parts, think he did pretty good for his age :


After all the cuts are made, once again roller firmly (did it myself after this to have some true force ):


And done ! With flash:


and without flash:


It looks much better in real life, I can't seem to get a good picture. It looks REALLY tight and factory fresh....

[Level42]

Installed the vent cover. I'm a bit hasitant to put back the serial plate. It looks so tight now....not sure if it would spoil it or not....
I guess I will go for it anyway....

Before:

After (what a poor picture....I'll do a better in daylight....)

[patrickl]

Very nice. Indeed the stickers look a bit off compared to the new look of the vinyl. Would be a waste to do this without them though.

[m_mcgover]

Installed the vent cover. I'm a bit hasitant to put back the serial plate. It looks so tight now....not sure if it would spoil it or not....
I guess I will go for it anyway....

Level42-

First of all, thanks for the write-up and pictures...maybe I will vinyl afterall.  It does look very good.  And, checking the Happ site, the cost is pretty small for the vinyl...Hmmm....

So, do I *really* need to remove all of the old vinyl?  With some of the restoration I've done, I have pieces that are part vinyl, part bondo, part original wood.  Will the new vinyl adhesive not stick to the original stuff?  And, once this is one there, how well does it adhere?  Am I going to be gluing down edges in a few years?

I think I may make your day on the labels...depending of course on how "original" you want your cockpit vs. how "restored."  Check out this link for someone that sells replacement Atari stickers.  I cannot link directly there, but go to:

http://zinfer.com/

and click on "products" tab on the top.  From there, you can purchase replacement Atari labels.  You may need to work with him since yours is Ireland and his are likely US.

Cheers!

[Level42]

Thanks !!!!!

I had actually seen these before and was looking for them like nuts !!!

I'm not sure though.

Take a look at this picture:


And also the pics on the guy's site:



I'm turning on anal-mode here, so forgive me:
First of all (and most noticable): the repro is much less shiny than the original. It looks like the repro is simply printed on a gray layer instead of silver.
Second the positioning of the logo, text etc. doesn't seem 100% right.

This is not to say that I won't get these, but when you go through the trouble of reproing those, these are pretty essential details. It's very cool that he will do the original serial number on the stickers for you though....

And indeed, I bet it's US only. I'll drop him a mail. I've scanned my serial sticker but I lack the skills with Photoshop to get this reproduced perfectly, nor do I have the tools to "emboss" the serial nr. on it.

It's a compromise either way: Go with a not entirely perfect repro or use the far from new looking original ?

[Level42]

Well this sunday was a lovely day with bright sun and some very nice temperatures for this time of year, so I decided to take out the lady for probably the last time this year.

Here's some pics that really show the nice new vinyl:




Think I did three "sessions" of painting bolts and screws...


So, next up was the front of the cab (although I still don't know what's front and back on a cockpit). Before:




Pretty nuts, I even did a part that will be fully covered by the marquee holder....






Removing the old vinyl takes loads of time and patience and it was already dark when I installed the vinyl. Bad thing I can see some "bare parts" here and there....gotta cover it up a bit.... but the overall look is a LOT better IMHO.

[Spyridon]

 

[Level42]

Tell me. How bad would it be to upgrade the seat area a bit. After all, these games had to be in arcade area's where drinks and food and abuse were all around. But now, they're in a safe place. And it will get extended play by single persons. The SW cockpit seat isn't exactly a very comfortable one.

This:


made me think about a very bad idea.....how about some nice leathered seating. But then, done in stylish black of course. Something like my gameroom stools....
)....

Mmmm....probably not fitting the budget at this time but still.......a nice idea......

It could be done with "loose" boards so they could be taken out if needed, to keep it 100% original...

[patrickl]

If you go to the market they usually have a stall that sells fabrics and foam. You could create your own padded seat.

[Muerto]

wow! impressive! what a timeconsuming job! - but surely worth it!
The venyl you are using, where do you buy it?

[SirPeale]

I would not do leather seating, but I would do vinyl.