Midway Galaxian cab, I need help with basic bulb / marquee lightning - PIC

[mrclean]

I just picked up an original galaxian cab, and would like to convert it into a pac-man cabinet, when  I picked up the cabinet it had two bundles of wires, which I would guess are for the marquee lights, one had I think 6 in one bundle and another had 4, see PIC. I just wanted to know also did galxian use traditional bulbs like pac-man or did it utilize a fluorescent ?

the galaxian PCB works as far as audio so I know those wires are lighting wires.. if it helps I will provide the color coding.



So who can help me get the marquee lit ?

[SirPeale]

1) Please don't convert the Galaxian.

2) Yes, those are the wires for the marquee bulbs.  Should be a hot, neutral and earth ground.  On Galaxian it gets split in the marquee area because there used to be two incandescent bulb fixtures.

3) don't bother with the heat producing incandescent light fixtures.  Get an undercounter florescent fixture from Wal-Mart.  Costs about eight bucks.  Cut off the plug and splice it into your wiring.  Done.

[Level42]

1) I agree with SirPeale, please don't convert it. Galaxian's site-art is unique and there is no 100% true reproductions available because of the vinyl structure.

2) Amazingly, Midway started with the Galaxian production with fluorescents (like on my ser.no 815, see here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62784.msg624174#msg624174) but from serial number 3000 they changed to incandescent. Very weird as these waste loads of energy plus it lights up the marquee very uneven. I guess they wanted to save a couple of dollars production costs.

3) So follow SirPeale's suggestion I'd say.

[orion]

On both my Pac and Galaxian, I use CFL's in place of incandescents and I have to say that simply doing this makes a big difference in getting rid of some if the unevenness in the lighting of the marquee.

[mrclean]

My Galaxian cabinet when I picked it up last weekend was already painted black, it had galaga 88' side art, and a galaga glass bezel (which im parting it out along with the other galaxian parts). Personally I hate galaxian, I'm more of a Galaga / Galaga '88 fan. I don't care that much for galaxian, Pac-Man shares the exact same cabinet shape and I love Pac-Man, therefore it will become a Pac. I know I don't need to justify it, but at least i'm not turning it into a MAME cabinet / 60-1 which so many do. I own a Bubble Bobble cabinet which originally started it's life as a beat to shizzle Robotron 2084, and a Gun Smoke machine which is in a taito cabinet, why... because those games along with sooo many other games are Kit-Only games. I understand that people want to have "number matching, original dedicated cabinets" but galaxian to pac is certainly not the worst thing that i've seen being done :-)


It's tough to find a good deal on a Midway pac-man cabinet in my area because usually people that have them think they are sitting on gold (of course some people get lucky etc). I picked up the Galaxian for $100.00 and it was semi working. And another KLOVer I went with got a dead Defender out of the deal for $50.00. I don't see the problem with parting the cabinet out & letting other "collectors" and other people who share the same hobby have a chance to get original parts and then converting it to a game I want especially since it shares the same profile / cabinet style. That's just my 2 cents though.

Get an undercounter florescent fixture from Wal-Mart.  Costs about eight bucks.  Cut off the plug and splice it into your wiring.  Done.

I have an undercounter black light fixture, and it requires you to hold the button to turn it on, hopefully the models they sell won't require that.

2) Amazingly, Midway started with the Galaxian production with fluorescents (like on my ser.no 815, see here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62784.msg624174#msg624174) but from serial number 3000 they changed to incandescent. Very weird as these waste loads of energy plus it lights up the marquee very uneven. I guess they wanted to save a couple of dollars production costs

didn't know that, pretty neat!

Oh, and that day I had absolutely no intention on picking up that Galaxian cabinet... read::




here is the story / post from KLOV :

An ad was posted on craigs list in New Haven CT ( http://newhaven.craigslist.org/for/1364055369.html ), which was a complete waste of time!!! The person listed a Ghost N' Goblins Cabinet, A Missile Command and claimed to have boxes of PCB's "50" to be exact. Turns out it was just a massive pile of garbage. No Ghosts N' Goblins, No Missile Command..instead it was a poor condition double dragon with a junky monitor / no bezel etc. The other games were said to be working which were not! It was a garage filled with complete crap, and the seller wouldn't budge 50.00 to have us take some of his broken crap away.

To make a long story short on the way home we decided to call local craigs list ads to see if we can snatch some cheap cabinets for $100.00 ea. ... The name of this game was "Let's Play $100.00 cab!". After getting many negative responses, in addition to some crazy person wanted $2,000.00 for a multi super-pac, we ended up calling some dude that posted a Galaxian, and Defender for 600.00 for the pair. We told him we had a trailer and were ready to pick up both cabinets for 200.00, he said yes! We were pretty shocked after he said yes so we ended up going to at least check em out, being that we already had the trailer.

The Defender was not working but seemed whole (all boards / parts etc), and the Galaxian worked to a degree (was looping back to the first board), but had Galaga glass, and Galaga 88' side art. We offered 100.00 for both.. the guy thought about it and then said 150.00 for boh, so we ended up taking both machines for $150.00. The day was long and rather took an unexpected turn.. but it was a fun trip.

[SirPeale]

You didn't mention it was painted and whatnot; I'd say that's fair game to convert.  Plus as a bonus you can reuse the harness since it's nearly identical.

What are you going to do with the Galaxian board?  I know you're local to me-ish.  What about the CP?

[mrclean]

its funny you should ask.. they are all on ebay and ending in 4hrs!!

[SirPeale]

Noted.  And bid on.

You're in NYC?  I thought you were somewhere else?

[mrclean]

I live in Long Island, NY

[SirPeale]

It doesn't matter now anyway, I lost all your auctions. 

[mrclean]

don't bother with the heat producing incandescent light fixtures.  Get an undercounter florescent fixture from Wal-Mart.  Costs about eight bucks.  Cut off the plug and splice it into your wiring.  Done.

I did just that, pretty cost effective and was very easy, thanks.