Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair
Restoring my first arcade cabinet - Centipede
StuDaBaker:
Slow going here, I gotta try to fit these projects in between a lot of other stuff going on. These are from Friday, Oct. 30, 2009:
First I carved 2 pumpkins, here's one:
Then, I replaced the worn, frayed and sans ground prong A/C cord with a new 8' cord.(on the centipede cabinet, not the pumpkin 8))
Cinchy.
Then I removed and disassembled the trackball assembly to prepare to do a bearing, roller and trackball replacement.
Sure was a lot of crud in there.
and the other side.
Wait a minute. What did that say?
Oh, noob mistake. I assumed that it would have an atari trackball in there. Not so. Wico and so the parts I ordered for the trackball rebuild are useless.
Even the 2-1/4" replacement ball for the atari is slightly larger and gets pinched in the housing so it's difficult to spin. Well, as long as I had it apart, I cleaned out the housing by soaking it in warm soapy water and scrubbed it down with an old toothbrush. Cleaned it right up. Then I cleaned up the worn rollers as best I could and oiled the bearings, and re-installed the Wico trackball with all the same parts that were in it when I took it out. That little bit of attention made a big difference and the tb is very smooth now, but still seems to sit down in the hole a bit more than it should because of the worn rollers. It's not a finger-pincher though as I believe SirPeale said his was.
First, I was pissed at myself for making the mistake of getting the wrong parts, but, I decided I would get an old atari trackball assembly to rebuild with the parts, so it would have a stock trackball with a snow white ball. That made me feel better. ;D
Also, I received a complete wire harness I got off ebay that included the coin door harness and cp harness and buttons, including the cones and original white leaf switch fire button. Maybe I'll see how that cleans up and replace the red microswitch fire button mine has. Hopefully I'll get to fool with it some more in the next week or so.
RayB:
The bearings are the same. The ball is the same. If it's touching the lip, then you have something not properly "seated" somewhere. The ONLY difference is the casing, optics and rollers.
StuDaBaker:
--- Quote from: RayB on November 04, 2009, 12:29:00 pm ---The bearings are the same. The ball is the same. If it's touching the lip, then you have something not properly "seated" somewhere. The ONLY difference is the casing, optics and rollers.
--- End quote ---
As previously stated, I'm no expert, but I will have to politely disagree with you. There are differences on the trackball I have. The bearings for the Wico are substantially larger than the bearings that came with the Atari bearing and roller kit from Bob Roberts, you can see that from the picture, even though the new bearings are still in the package. The Wico rollers are shorter in length and thicker in diameter than the atari ones as well, which is not apparent in the picture I posted as I did not open the package because it was evident to me that the kit would not work with the trackball I had. The pictures I've seen of the Atari trackballs being rebuilt contain 3 rollers and 6 bearings. This Wico trackball has only 2 rollers for the encoder wheels with only a single bearing (the edge of mine is concave from wear) to hold the ball against the rollers on the opposite side . That's the lone bearing you see on top the package in the last pic. 5 bearings total on the Wico. I checked to make sure everything was seated properly a couple of times before giving up and dropping the original ball back in the housing.
You may be right, that Atari and Wico have trackball models that could use interchangeable parts but, as my luck has it, that's not the case here. :-\
When I get the Atari trackball, I'll post some comparison pics.
RayB:
OK I believe you.
There are two main styles of Atari trackballs... the early generation were machined metal (4" example here):
And then they started using one with a plastic housing:
I'm sure someone on this board can buy the kit off you and then you can buy the proper Wico kit.
Level42:
For 15 bucks you get yourself a brand new Atari housing from Bob Roberts !
That is, if the encoder wheels fit....else you'll need those (mounting bolts) too.
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