Star Wars - Should I Pull The Trigger

[FrizzleFried]

Alright...so the guy who LUCKED OUT and picked up the free Star Wars from some genius locally about an hour before I got there is now selling the damn thing.  He wants $500.00 and he describes the problem as:

very nice starwars arcade upright the game was working for a while but there is an issue with the monitor so the spot killer keeps coming on. it al powers up fine. monitor needs work but complete. this is a very collectable machine. i have the original program sheet from inside the cabinet, owners/operations manual, troubleshooting manual for game and for monitor. the monitor is a wells gardner k6100.

the pic of the monitor shows the spot in the center showing the spot killer working and there is a red led on the monitor chassis signaling the same.

Damn cabinet looks to be in pretty good condition.  I am so on the fence on this cuz I KNOW the guy got the cab for FREE just last week.  But damn...if it were working $500 would have been in the guys hand already.

Any inside info on the spot killer issue? And should I pull the trigger on this?  It WOULD be the most I paid for a cabinet...and it ain't working!

[Level42]

I haven't voted, you're the only one who can answer that question. It all depends on how much you want a SW and about your money situation AND about your skills in getting it working.

IMHO, if you actually see a dot in the middle of the screen, the spot killer is not doing it's work. It should turn off the beams shouldn't it ?  Also note that the WG is NOT a medium resolution CRT, so it won't look as pretty as the original Amplifone. I personally think you should pay less because of that. But that's just me who is comfortable with a working CP in original condition...I'd probably would have cared less about it when it was MY only chance to get a SW....

[FrizzleFried]

I haven't voted, you're the only one who can answer that question. It all depends on how much you want a SW and about your money situation AND about your skills in getting it working.

IMHO, if you actually see a dot in the middle of the screen, the spot killer is not doing it's work. It should turn off the beams shouldn't it ?  Also note that the WG is NOT a medium resolution CRT, so it won't look as pretty as the original Amplifone. I personally think you should pay less because of that. But that's just me who is comfortable with a working CP in original condition...I'd probably would have cared less about it when it was MY only chance to get a SW....

I think the spot killer only REDUCES the beam intensity when the X/Y signal stops for whatever reason....but I am not 100% sure of that.  I've seen other pix of X/Y monitors with the Spot Kill activated that had the spot in the middle.

[FrizzleFried]

Alright...just talked to the guy...here is more info:

He says it doesn't play blind but that he "read somewhere" that when the spot killer comes on the game sounds are killed and you can't tell if it is playing blind? BS or truth?

Secondly, he says the neck board is broken and that there are obvious repairs from where someone hacked it and fixed the neckboard...how hard would it be to acquire a neck board?

[Level42]

Yeah, that could very well be. If the spot killer wouldn't kick in it would burn a hole in the phosphor in no time.....Anyway, the Amplifone schematics from Atari say that it "turns off" the beams so I would expect it to be completely dark....but the WG could work differently of course...

[Level42]

Alright...just talked to the guy...here is more info:

He says it doesn't play blind but that he "read somewhere" that when the spot killer comes on the game sounds are killed and you can't tell if it is playing blind? BS or truth?

Complete BS. On the Amplifone, the spot-killer works on the deflection board. If it kicks in, the beams are shut-off and a LED will indicate that it has. However there is no way that the game PCB set knows that the spot killer has kicked in, there is no feed-back about this ! Also, suppose there WAS something like that, why would the sound be turned off ??

Secondly, he says the neck board is broken and that there are obvious repairs from where someone hacked it and fixed the neckboard...how hard would it be to acquire a neck board?

I don't know about the WG, but the Amplifone doesn't have a neckboard, just the big connector thing where all the wires go...

[Level42]

OK, the WG does have a neckboard:


Here's more on the 6100:
http://andysarcade.de/vec_monitors.html

Pretty hard to get I would say....

[ChadTower]

The spot killer is an LED on the chassis... it's not a spot on the screen.  It's called the spot killer so that it kills that spot you see before it trashes the CRT.

Still, if it's in good shape, $500 is a starting point.  Offer $350 and pay $425.

[Kevin Mullins]

$350 tops if you plan to fix everything yourself.

Non-working monitor. (physically broken parts)
Non-working game pcb. (who knows)
Un-known condition of the yoke.

I've seen fully working machines sell for $500 in good condition.

Oh, and yes, I would at least kindly ask if that's the same one as the free one. 
Might help ya argue the price a bit.

[ChadTower]

I've seen fully working machines sell for $500 in good condition.

Must be regional.  $500 for a fully working Star Wars here would be a theft.  Working ones here with good art are in the $750 range after negotiating it down.

Oh, and yes, I would at least kindly ask if that's the same one as the free one. 
Might help ya argue the price a bit.

It might, but it wouldn't with me.  Can't tell you how many times I've gotten a deal on something, fixed it up, and then when I try to sell it to someone I know they pull out the ol' "but you only paid $200 for it".  Yeah, well, keep looking for one at that price, then, and eventually you'll find it as I did... or else pay fair market price on the one right here.  It takes work and patience to find that deal.

[Jeff AMN]

Man, I'd really be tempted. However, at $500 it's a little steep for a non-working cab. You have to consider what it would take to get it back to 100% operational. You're going to need to work on the monitor, you may need to work on the PCB, and it could have other issues that we don't know about at this point. If you end up sinking a whole lot more into the project, you could just wait until you find a working one for roughly the same price.

Star Wars is kind of like the last cab I'm really aggressively hunting though, so if it came down to it, I'd probably pay the money and try my hand at fixing it up.

[shardian]

He's just trying to turn a quick profit, AND he is located in a small market selling a broken game. I'd call that a buyers market. Offer him $250 considering boards and monitor are most likely dead. Worst case, he is just fishing for a sucker and doesn't really care if he sells it.

[Level42]

The spot killer is an LED on the chassis... it's not a spot on the screen.  It's called the spot killer so that it kills that spot you see before it trashes the CRT.

It's not just a LED, it's a circuit that detects that the beams stops moving in the X and/or Y direction. If one (or both) of the deflections is not taking place, the circuit takes care of shutting of the Z amplifiers (=RGB amplifiers). To indicate that it has been triggered, it will turn on the LED on the deflection PCB.

[ChadTower]

That's what I was saying without being so specific... the spot killer comes on, you look at the LED to see if it is reasonable.  If the monitor is dead, that LED is a major troubleshooting point.

I wanted to make sure he understood is that if he sees anything on the screen the spot killer is not properly activated.

[Level42]

You didn't read my reply #5 did you Chad 

[ChadTower]

You don't have the market cornered on that advice.   

It's worth everything Frizzle paid for it.   

[shardian]

So the general consensus is that the board is most likely dead, and the monitor is screwed too?

[ChadTower]

Based on the law of averages, absolutely.

The evidence actually given isn't enough to say for sure if both are bad or if only one is causing the issue.

[Level42]

So the general consensus is that the board is most likely dead, and the monitor is screwed too?

Neckboard broken is serious bad news. Unless it's a small break where the tracks can be bridged, but I bet it's worse than that.

About the PCB's: SW has three PCBs. It could be "just" the sound board.It could be just a loose connector from the sound PCB to the main PCB. Or it could be much more...

I saw a complete PCB set went for over $200,- recently on e-bay....

[leapinlew]

I voted no.

Frizzle is having second thoughts about the deal that "could've" been. $500 is a lot of cash. You want every machine in your collection to be a purchase without regret. The fact he's regretting it even before he bought it is a sign that he may never be happy with it.

The only saving grace is to offer a number you would feel fine with.

[Havok]

Lowball the guy - since he is going to push the price up anyways, offer $150, and go up to $250. The yoke alone is worth it. In the meantime if you have to, slap a pc with Mame in there until you can afford to fix the boards and\or vector monitor...

[FrizzleFried]

Well I got it for $300 plus a cab I essentially got for free (it was a Primal Rage I got for $125 that had a VERY NICE 25" monitor in it working.  I pulled that monitor and dropped in the monitor from hell (see MONITOR STILL ON LSD here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71600.0 )....plus I threw in another dead QNIC monitor I had picked up for $25 some months back...and he DID get a Zanen Cap Kit I bought for the QNIC at $15 or so. 

I'd venture to guess I got a decent deal at $340 or so.

It's a project...time for some cussin.

[Zebidee]

Yesterday I just convinced a friend to NOT sell his WORKING Star Wars game too cheap!  An unscrupulous arcade operator was trying to con it out of him.  It is a collectors' item!

The friend is a StarWars collector, so the game has found a good home