Update: Working Crazy Climber for $60!

[Paladin]

I thought I'd share what happened to me tonight.  It started with a routine check of Seattle craigslist, but here's what I saw:

crazy climber arcade machine - $60

first one to call takes ask for name and number
it worked i moved it things moved out of place and
havent tried it since

The time on the ad was half an hour earlier, but I decided to call anyway.  To my surprise he said it was mine.  He asked when I could pick it up, and I said tonight was good.  He offered tomorrow at 6:00 which I said was fine, even though it would mean driving from Seattle to Tacoma during rush hour.  About 20 minutes later he called me back and said tonight was OK.

I got our truck ready, and my wife and I drove the hour long trip to Tacoma.  The whole way I was worried that someone else would beat me to it.  We took a wrong turn somewhere and needed to call for directions, which his dad gave to us.   I'm guessing his son put the cab on craigslist for him.  We arrived a short while later, and pulled up to the garage.  I took a brief look at the cab and gave him the $60 without trying to talk him down any further.  I didn't even try to open it up.

When I got home I opened the coin door, and tried the back door lock.  The back door key isn't the same, so I removed the plexi and was able to unbolt the lock so I didn't have to drill it.  That's when I noticed the serial number 155!  I found a manual and schematics attached to the back door, although they look like copies.  The cover of the manual shows a cocktail cab, and near the end of the manual is a diagram of a different type upright than the one I have.  I also found 3 quarters inside, and a lot of dust.

The control panel harness has a wire plugged in that prevents me from removing the panel, and the controls have hand written tags attached listing 1up, 1down, etc..  So someone has been in there before.  There is also a loose wire connected to the 12v tap on the power supply that terminates in a male molex pin.  I have no idea where that would plug in, as I thought the PCB would be the only thing that gets 12v - and it doesn't have any molex connectors.  The fuse is good, but I'm not planning on powering it up until I figure out what's going on with the control panel and 12v wire.

The cabinet is a bit wobbly. It's not falling apart but most of the panels have gaps.  There are some screws in the sides of the cab holding them to the lower back panel, which is chipping apart.  The marquee has black electrical tape on both ends, probably to block light from shining out the gaps.  I've never looked at a crazy climber cabinet before, so I've got some web searching to do.

I've got my fingers crossed that it's an easy fix.  I can see a fair amount of screen burn on the monitor, I hope it still works.  I won't be able to spend much time on it until next week, and I'll post my results with the power on.  Wish me luck!

Tom

[Paladin]

Well, a quick look online shows me that the cabinet looks nothing like a real crazy climber.  Hmm... is it a transplant or a bootleg??

[Donkman]

Maybe this cab is a conversion or an early model? I have seen Crazy Climbers years ago in the arcades but I don't remember the cabs. Have you looked at the Klov.com website for info? Cool find for an old arcade machine. 
Good Luck with your project.

[shilmover]

Nice find!  Glad I did not see it as my wife would kill me!!!   

[Paladin]

The folks over at the KLOV forums pretty much nailed it down as a Time Pilot conversion.  I guess I'll see if I can get it working and figure out what to do with it then.   Today I swapped out the coin door with my Tempest project, as the crazy climber one is in a lot better shape.  I moved the cab into the house, but still haven't turned it on yet.  I did figure out that the extra 12v wire isn't used, and the extra wire in the control panel harness goes to the coin door.  Someone who didn't know what they were doing was obviously trying to work on it.

[TOK]

I'd like to know this games history, since it seems odd that a game would be converted to something older.
Centuri used that style of cab for a bunch of games, though the earliest still date back to around the same time as Crazy Climbers release.

[Paladin]

OK, after cleaning the cabinet up some I started to dig into the loose wires.  I removed the 12v wire that was just hanging in the cab.  I think it may have gone to the coin door at one time, but there are no lights hooked up now and I don't care about the coin counter so I just removed the wire.  The other 2 loose wires were for the coin door switches.  I grabbed a molex connector and plugged them into the coin door.

I then powered on the cab and found that it worked with the exception of a messed up picture.  I went online and found instructions for adjusting the horizontal hold on the WG4600.  I adjusted the red pot on the adjustment board, and ended up with a working game!  There's a fair amount of screen burn, but when the game's on you don't knotice it too bad.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with it.  I bought it because it was a low cost project.  I didn't plan on keeping it, so I need to figure out whether to part out the cab or try and sell the whole thing.

[Q*Bert_OP]

Well, a quick look online shows me that the cabinet looks nothing like a real crazy climber.  Hmm... is it a transplant or a bootleg??

I'd say it's probably a transplant because the PCB looks like it has that security encryption pack on it.(that thing encased in a green box on the pcb)..