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Author Topic: I still go BERZERK !  (Read 24150 times)

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Level42

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I still go BERZERK !
« on: November 05, 2009, 03:51:38 am »
...when I watch this picture. I love it :)



It's amazing to find ONE Berzerk over here at all, let alone THREE ! I've never seen a Berzerk for sale over here. The only one I know to exist in Europe was Luigi's machine.

Just reserving some space for my restoration here.
I've powered up all the cabs. None is working. All monitors do seem to work fine though. 2 give "garbled" pictures, 1 is black.

I've dug around the KLOV forum and found some bits of good information there, plus this very nice repair log:
http://www.wowway.com/%7Eookpik72/brl.html

So first thing to do was remove all the ZPU boards from the machines and get rid off those  :angry: :angry: batteries that have killed so many Berzerks.
Desoldered them. Interesting trivia: one side of the battery desoldered really easy (at 400 degr. temp). but the other side was much harder to get flowing easily. Must have to do with the polarity and/or the acid.

Next I neutralized the acid with vinegar (I used the "cleaning vinegar" sort, not the one you use on your salad). You can actually see it reacting with the acid at some places (f.i. between IC legs) because of the bubbles !! After some time I rinsed the part of the boards that were effected with water and then dried with my wife's hair dryer.

So far, I've seen three flashes/beeps on one of the boards which apparently means that the ZPU board is actually working (although it could still have some problems). My next step will be buying a SCSI cable to hack up and use it instead of the old ribbon cables, even if it's just to rule that possible cause of trouble out. I'll also try a PC power supply instead of the original (for testing at least) because I've read that the original Stern PS is not very good.

Some more pics:
















About the last pic....could there be a minty CPO under that stuff ? ;)

About the envelope with the docs......I couldn't bring myself to open it.
It looks so sweet that it has been untouched for almost 30 years....

ckong

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2009, 06:36:26 am »
Wow, those cabs still look awesome after so many years. You won't have to do that much at all on the outside, it will mostly be internal/electrical restoration I guess. About the enveloppe, put my address on it, and a stamp and send it to me. I promise that I will not open it  :blah: :blah:

Spyridon

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #2 on: November 05, 2009, 08:33:10 am »
Those look great.  At least you still have two original sticks in there.  Outsides are in great shape.  I'm assuming you will fix all three and sell off two.

My current collection:  Arkanoid^3, Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Donkey Kong w/DIIK, Frenzy w/Berzerk multi, Galaga, Galaxian, Gyruss, Mappy,  Missile Command, Multi-Williams, O'Boyles Arcade (Mame), Pac-man,  Sinistar, Star Wars, Tempest, War Gods

ChadTower

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2009, 09:08:31 am »

There is an ATX-Stern adapter out there if you hunt it down.  That might help.  I never had a power supply problem in mine, though.

It was the transistors in the battery area that were my problem.

Those are some great looking cabs.  I'm still holding out marginal hope that my bat stick will arrive someday.


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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2009, 09:12:05 am »
I hate you...   ;D

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2009, 09:49:07 am »
Bolted on ashtray! LOL! That's totally ugly and awesome at the same time! I can see some dude sitting on a bar stool in front of that thing with a row of coins on the glass with a cig hanging out his mouth and another burning away in the tray.

hatrick

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2009, 01:03:04 pm »
Awesome! I scored 2 non-working Berzerks this year and got them both working pretty easily. I sold one and kept one. It is one of my favorite games now.
The problems I experienced were bad connections at the cables and bad RAM. That is all it took to get both of mine going.
If I can be of any assistance, let me know. BTW, mine were serial numbers #250 and #10xxx (Ten thousand something) Quite a spread between the two, and it was evident in the quality of the stenciling on the sideart. The #250 machine had a much better stencil job than the later one. I kept the later one, however, since the cab was in better shape.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2009, 02:21:05 pm »
Great !!!  Any help is welcome ! You didn't have any battery corrosion ?

Serial numbers of the machines two are in the 2000 range, one is in the 3000.
The stenciling is far from perfect, the logo doesn't really allign (at least on some of them).

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2009, 03:14:35 pm »
Suprisingly, I didn't have any major acid damage on either board even though the batteries were still in them. I did immediately remove the batteries once I got the game home.
I left the battery out of the one I sold, but on mine, I added a 3.6 volt rechargeable cordless phone battery mounted at the bottom of the pull out board tray with Velcro.
You have a real advantage having multiple machines, you can swap parts all day long to narrow down the culprit. Having 2 machines side by side made my troubleshooting job a breeze. 
I replaced the original RAM on the VFB-1000 board with 4116. The nice thing about that is you only need to fill rows 9 & 11, so you only need half as many chips and no modifications to any traces or anything.
What monitors do you have? one of mine had a K4600 and the other a G07. I kept the G07 since it's a more common, and better monitor in my opinion.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2009, 11:28:30 am »
Yes indeed having more machines (and boards) around is great to fix them all hopefully...

Already did some work. Since it's very technical I put it on KLOV forum (I hope on Mark chiming in....although he might just be testing new ZZPU boards right now ! ). Here it is: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=109967

The one machine that I checked from the back has a G07 (see pics) which I'm happy with (hope the others are the same).

About the RAM: I've seen more people replacing the 2114's with 4116's but what I wonder about: On Williams machines everybody tries to get rid of the 4116's because of their heat production and unreliability. I've got a big stack of 4164's here, would they work with some modification ?

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #10 on: November 11, 2009, 09:21:03 am »
Looks like cnlmoore is going to do another run of Berzerk panels.  He is also going to do Frezy.  He is asking for emails to get on the list.



My current collection:  Arkanoid^3, Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Donkey Kong w/DIIK, Frenzy w/Berzerk multi, Galaga, Galaxian, Gyruss, Mappy,  Missile Command, Multi-Williams, O'Boyles Arcade (Mame), Pac-man,  Sinistar, Star Wars, Tempest, War Gods

ChadTower

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2009, 09:51:14 am »

Watch out, there is also someone out there passing those off as NOS on ebay.  The "NOS" panel I got is clearly not stainless steel.  Fortunately the price wasn't too much higher than what cnlmoore wanted for the repro originally so I wasn't too ticked off other than the principle.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2009, 11:54:49 am »
I guess stainless steel would sky-rocket the price of this baby.

We need a much better pick though, this isn't going to sell it :D


Great timing !! :D

Oh, I opened the envelope ! Felt  like....... well uhm....touching somebody never touched before :D

As expected, it was the manual in there and the drawings. It's always great to have the schematics on large size.
There were also instruction cards in both English and Spanish. (Dutch and French on the cabs now).
The really interesting thing is that the manual looks to be a very early revision. It's not like the file I found on the Aracade Archive. The front looks hand-drawn, the texts inside are clearly typewriter stuff (plus hand-written texts all over the place.
The trouble-shooting section is extremely basic (two beeps = RAM on ZPU board, that style).

Also a schematic of the G07, no full manual.

I checked, and ALL monitors work, which is a plus. On one cab, I have no 5V unregulated. Forgot to check if it was the fuse though DUH  :banghead:
Will do so tomorrow.


« Last Edit: November 11, 2009, 01:56:28 pm by Level42 »

ChadTower

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #13 on: November 11, 2009, 02:43:56 pm »

If it helps, the repro is pretty good, it looks like the screening is well done.  There is no flex in the panel despite being aluminum.  If your CP is trashed, it is worth the repro cost.  If your CP is decent I'd say keep your original.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2009, 02:54:20 pm »
Well mmm, I think at least I will replace mine. I prefer a minty CP and it's not like you can ALWAYS buy these...

I guess two of the three machines had "ok" panels, but a good share of cigarette burn. The third one (with the cover) is a goner. I just uncovered it and it's heavy damaged. (Pic a bit later).

Aluminium is fine with me, a lot lighter for shipping across the pond !
There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #15 on: November 11, 2009, 03:37:47 pm »
There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.
That's what she said!
NO MORE!!

RetroACTIVE

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #16 on: November 11, 2009, 04:16:18 pm »
There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.
That's what she said!


ba-da-bum-bum-bum.. chisssshhh!
Happy Gaming!

Level42

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #17 on: November 11, 2009, 04:17:11 pm »
Heh  :D


Here's a better pic of Chris's repro.




He says it will be stainless steel though, just like the real thing, so Chad, maybe you got a different product....

What I find strange is that the repro has "blank" parts, where my original machines have white paint (like on the big arrow around the joystick)


Level42

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #18 on: November 11, 2009, 04:21:05 pm »
Just learned there were two versions, one with the white, one bare metal.

I think I actually prefer the bare metal.

ChadTower

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #19 on: November 11, 2009, 04:58:40 pm »
There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.
That's what she said!


in-da-bum-bum-bum.. chisssshhh!


fixt


yeah, I know, but it was way too good to ignore!

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #20 on: November 11, 2009, 05:06:13 pm »
Hey guys, give me a break, you all know my native language isn't English...... :angel:

RayB

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #21 on: November 11, 2009, 11:48:38 pm »
Hey guys, give me a break, you all know my native language isn't English...... :angel:
It's 6502 assembler.

*badum bump* pssshh!

thank you thank you, I'll be here all night.
NO MORE!!

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #22 on: November 12, 2009, 09:19:28 am »
I'll be here all night.

At least he warned us!

I'm not wearing pants!


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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #23 on: November 12, 2009, 01:49:51 pm »
AWESOME!  :laugh2:

(Sorry for the thread-wreck Level42... your Berzerks are still awesome too)
NO MORE!!

Level42

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #24 on: December 18, 2009, 01:13:07 pm »
It's about time but I should finally post it here:



The picture in the video sucks. In reality, the monitor looks like new, even though it has some burn. Still even need to clean the CRT front and inside of the bezel.



And a HUGE THANK YOU ! goes out to Spyridon  :applaud: :applaud: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

« Last Edit: December 18, 2009, 01:24:11 pm by Level42 »

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #25 on: December 18, 2009, 03:23:27 pm »

And a HUGE THANK YOU ! goes out to Spyridon  :applaud: :applaud: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:


Awesome.  Glad to see it working. 
My current collection:  Arkanoid^3, Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Donkey Kong w/DIIK, Frenzy w/Berzerk multi, Galaga, Galaxian, Gyruss, Mappy,  Missile Command, Multi-Williams, O'Boyles Arcade (Mame), Pac-man,  Sinistar, Star Wars, Tempest, War Gods

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #26 on: December 20, 2009, 06:04:22 pm »
Sometimes I hate this hobby.

I just completely dissassembled the original Berzerk joystick. It was working OK, but the diagonals were either not working or very hard to "reach". So I thought the reflective disk must be dirty and so a little cleaning would solve that.

Indeed the disc wasn't very shiny anymore. So I cleaned it simply with some hand-soap and paper-towel and it was like a mirror again.

I also noticed that a cap had either broken loose (it was also dented) or cut loose on the joystick PCB. So I replaced it.

Re-assembled everything, put it in the CP, power up machine and:

Dead. Completely dead joystick ! WTF !  

SO sigh, gonna disassemble again.

I'm pretty much out on my own here. Apart from the Berzerk manual. Original Berzerk joysticks are RARE.

On the other hand,I'm not the kind to give up easily....

Indeed I had made a mistake while re-assembling. The optical PCB was too far from the reflective disc because I had mounted it incorrectly.
Fixed it and it works great now. Diagonals are 100% better then before..... Still not too wild on this joystick. It's definitely not the best I've ever played....

The spring was pretty tight on this one. I felt it was more of a muscle exercise machine than a game so I adjusted the spring tension to it's minimum. Let's see how I like that.

Still, hitting the end of the joystick's movement space  is not feeling very comfy because there are no rubber stops or anything like that.... o well...part of the game I guess....
Here's the disc "before":


and "after":



Also, sometimes in this hobby, you just DON'T want to know what it is..:


I guess it's the "crud" often mentioned as being the cause for this joystick to fail.

Might just as well post the other pics I made. The CP underside after removing the joystick, luckily Leaf-switches only ! They only need some cleaning. And the buttons need to be replaced. Look at that branch-part in the wood, the branch was removed and replaced with something.....ahhh those were the days :D:


The outer "casing" of the joystick. Apart from holding the spring, this also doubles as a "dark room" for the optics...The rust came loose already with some hand soap and scrubbing sponge. Will do a proper job later.


The stick and the optical board. The optical board hangs up side down (parts facing the floor)
For those who don't know how this joystick works: Infrared light is emitted by the four little black opto-combo's around the hole in the PCB. The disc on the other side of the joystick will reflect the light (more) when it's move in the position that that opto-combo is. The reflected lights falls onto the other part of the opto-combo (the photo-diode) and through the Op-Amp chip the PCB "emulates" a closed switch for that direction.


Here's how I INCORRECTLY re-assembled it. The nuts should have gone UNDER the PCB and then the two hex legs should go on top of the PCB. You can see the disc is now quite (too) far away from the PCB now.


You can see the damaged/leaking/broken off cap on the top left on the PCB.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2009, 06:07:42 pm by Level42 »

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #27 on: December 25, 2009, 07:28:38 am »
Some detail shots of the front area. I haven't found a correct repro of that coin door sticker. Phoenix arcade and thisoldgame.com have another version. You can see the rust bubbles under it. I think the sticker itself is clear and showing through the black of the coin door.

The door will need the regular work. Hope I'm able to remove the rust from the blank steel.
I'd prefer Dutch coin inserts but haven't seen them either (these are Belgian).

I tried cleaning the front but it didn't help much. Hope to find a way to paint it without loosing the structure.












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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #28 on: December 25, 2009, 07:43:42 am »
Some first basic work. Cleaning the marquee which was very nice outside but very dirty inside:


Much better:


And the front: Mint except for some tiny spots and some area's of damage that you don't see when it's installed:


The marquee lighting. Still ALL original.Notice the isolation tape with which they tried to fix the tube. I soon discovered why.


The lighting didn't work, but when I turned the tube a bit, it started !

I had some discussion on this forum before about original tubes still working in some of my cabs. This is another. The tube is GE and made in the USA. Not likely to buy around here. The size is T12, which became extinct around here.  I bet this is the original tube.



The problem was that one pin on both sides got loose from the end part. The wire internally is still there (thus it works) but it's making very poor contact in the holder. The reason why this happened is probably because of a manufacturing issue. The holder on the right side was not mounted exactly at the right spot and in an angle:


Ballast and starter, still the originals too:




No pictures yet, but I took a close look at the speaker too. It's easily the flimsiest and lightest speaker I've ever had in my hands ! Maybe it weighs 20 grams or so ? Gonna replace it with something decent to bring out the voice and sounds !

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #29 on: December 26, 2009, 07:14:52 pm »
Looks good so far.  I am doing the repro's again because of a barrage of requests to do so.  Pre-orders are on and if the minimums are hit I'll do them, if not the project dies for good.  Here's the info and for the record, the panels are stainless steel like the originals.

http://www.tokensonly.com/berzerk-and-frenzy-control-panel-pre-order/

Chris M
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My VAPS entry
3 pins: LOTR, TSPP & Firepower

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #30 on: December 27, 2009, 05:07:36 am »
WAHHOOOO ! Yes !!

I'll put my pre-order in today !

Would it be a good idea to offer the correct new buttons with the panel ? I know we can get them elsewhere but....well....just any idea, would be convenient :D


I also found the correct coin-door sticker here:



http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/forsale/decals.html
« Last Edit: December 27, 2009, 05:10:16 am by Level42 »

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #31 on: December 28, 2009, 05:34:37 pm »
OK about the speaker. I already mentioned the original speaker is very light and has an absolutely tiny magnet and coil. I'm already amazed that it produces the sound that it does at all (thanks to the cab acting as "bass" box).

The candidates: Sony car speaker, to the right the original Berzerk speaker and under those the speaker from the SW cockpit:


Notice the very tiny magnet and coil on the original speaker.


It was selection time. I first replaced the original speaker with a Sony car speaker that I had around.

Although it brightened up the overall sound, it lacked the deeper sounds (bass) that I was looking for. Actually I thought it toned the sound quite badly (exaggerated highs, a common problem of low-price brand speakers) so I think those are not very good speakers at all.The original speaker simply sounded better ! Also the size was a bit to small to fit it at the same location.

Next I tried one of the speakers that I had removed from my Star Wars cockpit, and hey, there is the much deeper bass-sound, which increases the voice quality a lot and esp. the robot's shots are much more impressive.
It also did not raise the "high" tones like the Sony did, and that was good for this game.

Size is a problem though, it's larger than the bolt pattern for the grille. I will fix that though.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #32 on: December 28, 2009, 06:12:48 pm »
OK let's get this moving.

Decided to start work on the drawer board. I must say, this is one of the more brilliant things on the Berzerk cab.

I was finally able to find out how to remove it, and if I'm right it only takes one bolt to remove to be able to slide it out (but not sure yet as I removed the entire sliding rails on top and bottom).

Here's the drawer outside the cab. Removed the ZPU already. It looks OK from a distance, but I like to have things clean and as "new" as possible.


Slider on the back of the drawer, rusted and dirty:


The leaking battery didn't only damage the PCB(s), but also the strip(s) it was mounted on:


Removed all the PCBs:


Then the wire harness, tranformer and other stuff. See how the metal strips look:


Here's a close-up of some of those strips (the lowest one is the sliding part on the under side of the board):


Removed all strips. Some heat spots here and there:


Clean after some good scrubbing. The streaks will be invisible after some time (aluminum oxidation)


At those times you think you must be crazy: Hand-sanding all those strips. A tedious job for parts no-one will probably ever see again (except for me)....


Strips re-mounted:


Harness and stuff CLEANED and re-installed:


PCB's and flat-cables CLEANED and re-installed:


I only fixed the board with a couple of screws because I want to replace them with thumb-screw (the one's PC case modders use).

Removed the slider on the bottom of the cab. This is how it looked:


This will also get the full sanding treatment. I will "grease" everything with some teflon spray and then the sliding should be silk-soft again.

I also removed the top sliding part on the cabinet side. Bolts will need sanding and painting and of course the sliders themselves will also need the "full treatment".

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #33 on: December 28, 2009, 06:43:10 pm »
Wow, what a difference!

My current collection:  Arkanoid^3, Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Donkey Kong w/DIIK, Frenzy w/Berzerk multi, Galaga, Galaxian, Gyruss, Mappy,  Missile Command, Multi-Williams, O'Boyles Arcade (Mame), Pac-man,  Sinistar, Star Wars, Tempest, War Gods

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #34 on: December 28, 2009, 09:45:45 pm »
Occasionally one of the robots in the game spouts off with a very bass sentence. I bet that will sound cool with that SW speaker.

Also, how do you clean your harness's?
"I know what a HAL 9000 is... I was wondering if HAL 7600 was his retarded cousin or something..."
-HarumaN

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #35 on: December 29, 2009, 02:31:15 am »
Occasionally one of the robots in the game spouts off with a very bass sentence. I bet that will sound cool with that SW speaker.
Indeed ! The voices are random in tone which is pretty cool IMHO.
Quote
Also, how do you clean your harness's?
Very carefully ! :D

I use a small sponge that I get "just" moist with some soapy water,"fold" it around the harness (and as much as possible around individual wires) and go along the harness. (If you are _extremely_ hardcore you will have to cut the old ty-raps to reach all individual wires and of course put new one's on afterwards) I always make sure to move away (down) from the connectors. The connectors I do too, making sure no water is getting in the pin holes.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #36 on: December 29, 2009, 12:59:35 pm »
That FS-4 starter isn't the right one - replace it with an FS-2 when you replace that T12 for a T8.  It should (I think) fit in the original fixture.  An F15-T8 is the current industry standard, and has been for 25 years.

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #37 on: December 30, 2009, 05:48:42 am »
Mmmm, could it be they used the FS-4 because the machine is set-up for 230V ?

F15 is a size you do not find in Europe. It's a US size I guess.

But luckily enough I could order them through www.RS-online.nl (a sister of Allied Electronics, and through RS I can order all Allied stuff, and the real bonus is NO shipping costs !).

This way I don't have to install some other Euro-sized set-up. Would be pretty hard too, because the lighting support wood is pretty tiny and wouldn't fit a larger sized tube.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2009, 05:53:00 am by Level42 »

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #38 on: December 31, 2009, 11:40:33 am »
Hmmm...maybe!  I keep forgetting you're across the pond.  

F15 is what's in there now, correct?  Just a T12 instead of T8.  What do you guys use over there?

edit: just looked at the picture again - F14T12.  Huh!
« Last Edit: December 31, 2009, 11:42:49 am by SirPeale »

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Re: I still go BERZERK !
« Reply #39 on: January 01, 2010, 05:08:30 am »
Uh, I was confused too. Indeed 14 it is, still a size you don't find here.