Armor Attack restoration complete!

[ifkz]

I also posted this on KLOV, but I figured I should also post it here, the first arcade message board I ever joined!  It has been a year of restoration, but my Armor Attack project is finally finished! See the pic, attached.

So, it all started when my local arcade buddy, cw (member here) asked me if I wanted an Armor Attack cab last November. I said sure without hesitation...who doesn't love vector classics? Armor Attack (AA from here) is my favorite of the Cine B&W vectors.

The cab came with a few parts, but was not complete. I needed to find a set of replacement internal monitor rails, a Cinematronics monitor, a populated CP, and a coin bucket. It had a few things with it, a bezel, AA monitor overlay, a coin door, the wiring harness, a burned out Data power supply, and a set of dead AA boards. So, this is where the project started.

I quickly (and luckily) found a rare Cine monitor for it on E-bay. But, this wasn't a regular Cine monitor, it was actually from Solar Quest (one of the Cine's last B&W vector games). The add on 64 level intensity card caused me fits as I rebuilt the monitor, but toward the tail end of the rebuild W.Boucher (http://www.biltronix.com/arcade_01.html) sent me a helpful document on how to hack it back to a regular Cine monitor. After all of the rebuilding steps in the Cine B&W vector FAQ, I found that it had a defective tube, so I had to get another one from Richardson Electronics. If you read the FAQ, it basically tells you to almost completely strip all parts from the monitor chassis and substitute new better parts in their place. Again, I have W.Boucher to thank for sharing the Digikey part numbers for the components I needed on his website, they really helped out.

Quarterarcade.com helped out too with some needed parts. I found a beaten up, but complete, AA control panel. I also found a set of untested game boards for AA and Star Castle (part of the conversion class). The main Star Castle PCB worked, which I am still thankful; it was invaluable as I rebuilt the power supply and the monitor. This other set of AA boards was in need of repair also.

So, now I had all of the parts but everything needed repair work. I handled the cab by going over the pure white areas of the cab with 3Ms Safest Stripper to clean them off. This worked great! I used Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser on the side art, and was very careful. The front corners were rebuilt with bondo, and I cut a back door for it that was not with the cab.

I also rebuilt the power supply with the help of a mixed up order from Quarterarcade. Anthony is a nice guy as most here know. I was accidently sent a Dragon's Lair power supply that I couldn't use, but it did help me identify the chip that was burned in half (!) on the Data power supply that I had. After finding a replacement chip and new capacitors, this was fixed.

I handled the monitor rebuild and power supply rebuilds, but the game PCB rebuilds were beyond my skillsets. Thankfully, W.Boucher was at this time working on a Cine Exorcisor and agreed to try and fix my two dead AA boardsets and my dead Star Castle sound board. Last Wednesday his great work showed up at my local post office and I was finally able to assemble the completed Armor Attack!

I now have an extra working AA set (PCB & sound board) that I have $150 in, cost. I would like to sell this to get the money out of this cab. If I do not add in this AA set and also the extra $60 NOS Cine flyback, the cost of the project is a little upwards of $600, which is not bad in my book.

[cw]

 


its time to take it off of your project list.