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Help Please - VS Excitebike to Donkey Kong Conversion
wmba:
Hi all. My name is Bill and I am new here. I have gotten into collecting and restoring arcade games over the last couple of years, and I am currently taking on my first "big" project. Was hoping to get some advice from the experts here.
I recently bought a blue Nintendo cabinet that was originally a Donkey Kong, but had been converted to Excitebike. I am trying to restore it back to Donkey Kong.
The monitor is currently horizontal for Excitebike, and I will be putting it back to verticle. The original DK control panel is there (artwork was removed.. but I have replaced with new DK art). The buttons are wired as follows: Original DK jump button is wired as Player 1 Start. What would have been the Player One and Player Two start buttons for DK are now operating as the "A" and "B" buttons for Excitebike (accelerate and turbo).
My question is this: When I get my hands on an original DK boardset, will I need to replace the entire wiring harness for the control panel, power, and monitor.. or will the current harness work? I don't know much about this stuff and am trying to learn.. so any tips would be great.
Thanks!!
Bill
Kevin Mullins:
One way I like to start off a project like that is to read through the installation manual of that VS kit and see what all they changed while installing it. This will help to reverse engineer the process and show you what all was added or modified. I know there are some wiring harness add-ons for those kits, but i couldn't tell ya right off exactly what else was changed without going through it myself.
Take a look here:
VS Installation Manual
pcb:
If your going back completely stock, you may want to find a DK harness. Some kits had little adapters that changed the wiring from DK to VS, but most of the VS games I've been inside totally replaced the harness and removed the DK wiring. Making it difficult to use what's there. I've converted the harnesses back, but had to change connectors on the card-edge and CP to do it.
Best,
- Mike -
wmba:
Guys... this is exactly the kind of help I was looking for! Thanks for the tips... and if anyone else has additional tips.. please keep them coming!
Thanks for a nice welcome to these boards!
Bill
Kevin Mullins:
Glad to be of help....
Does your machine still have a metal tag on the back with a model number like TKG3-UP-US ?