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Picked up my grail today! Arm Champs II


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Hey peeps, just thought i'd share with you this beast I collected over the weekend. I meant to post this yday but was busy getting pissed.

Arm Champs II, the seller said it was included in a lot of arcade machines he bought from a bowling centre that recently closed down in Liverpool, NSW. This had been down in their basement for the last 15+ years.

It looks in pretty good condition cosmetically.

When powered on it has no picture and it gets stuck on the 'Motor Test' screen.

Does anyone have any experience with these machines? I'm yet to look inside as i need to drill it open, but am hoping it has the manual.

Fingers crossed the mechanics are ok inside and the pcb, I read these have a chain or something for the arm that rotates..

Once it's working it will be going right next to my Title Fight cabinet. Wish me luck

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Edited by Jason_roberts13
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That is one awesome machine.

Would love to see pics of your progress bringing this machine back to life.

 

The motor probably got jammed & they put it in storage for later repair.......Which never happened.

Hopefully a simple fix for the motor or arm components.

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At least you know the screen works.

Have you tried going into test mode?

 

Actually the screen doesn't work I just took that screenshot from my mame rom. I know it gets stuck at that motor test screen becoz it makes 3 beeps when I turn it on. And nothing happens after that. If I load the mame rom I can replicate the same error. Plus i don't see the arm move when I turn it on.

 

I haven't tried going into test mode yet but will do. I suspect it's either the motor or power/wiring issue. Hopefully...

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Very bloody cool :) will be popular with the mates around ;)

 

Yes I can't wait to get it cranking, will be good to have a few rounds of this and the boxing on title fight :)

 

I know the bowling alley, I used to go there a lot 15-20 years ago for school sport. Don't remember seeing this cab there though.

 

I just opened the cabinet this avo and found a receipt for 'Manhattan Superbowl' dated 2001.

Looking online this bowling centre is at Mascot, is that the one your thinking of?

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That is one awesome machine.

Would love to see pics of your progress bringing this machine back to life.

 

The motor probably got jammed & they put it in storage for later repair.......Which never happened.

Hopefully a simple fix for the motor or arm components.

 

It will be a slow repair process as its currently in storage since I don't have enough room at home haha. I managed to drill the lock open today though and it's got a couple of motors, with one big ass chain that drives the arm.

Yes I'm hoping its a simple fix for the motor too.

And I suspect ur right they put it away since the motor got jammed and never ended up fixing it.

The screen needs to be fixed too which shouldn't be too hard, hopefully just the chassis.

 

Here's a pic of the pcb and one of the motors. The main motor and chain can be seen from the back which I haven't opened yet as my drill ran out of power and I ran out of time...

The chassis appears to be at the top of the unit behind the screen. Need to pull that out too

 

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ImageUploadedByTapatalk1393846268.073575.thumb.jpg.247fb2097d16f9f3686f70b5abce97de.jpg

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Yes I can't wait to get it cranking, will be good to have a few rounds of this and the boxing on title fight :)

 

 

 

I just opened the cabinet this avo and found a receipt for 'Manhattan Superbowl' dated 2001.

Looking online this bowling centre is at Mascot, is that the one your thinking of?

 

They had one in Liverpool too. It was called something else before and it became Manhatten around the early 2000s. It was on Norfolk street Liverpool. The building is still there, marked for demolition. Two blocks of apartments going up.

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They had one in Liverpool too. It was called something else before and it became Manhatten around the early 2000s. It was on Norfolk street Liverpool. The building is still there, marked for demolition. Two blocks of apartments going up.

 

Ah right so that's definitely the one then. Thanks it's good to know the history of where it came from

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Did they have a Ivan Stewarts super off road? The one with 3 steering wheels? I remember putting in a bit of time on that when it was there. They had quite a few pinballs as well if I remember correctly.
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Did they have a Ivan Stewarts super off road? The one with 3 steering wheels? I remember putting in a bit of time on that when it was there. They had quite a few pinballs as well if I remember correctly.

 

i didnt see one of those, the seller said he bought the lot because he really wanted the jukebox. but they wouldn't sell it separately, only as one big lot - take one, take everything. so he ended up with 17 arcade machines which he is now selling on eBay. i think hes keeping a few and selling the rest.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ok so I've been working on this beast the last few weekends.

When I picked it up i noticed the following;

 

It turns on but no picture on screen

Game doesn't start but can hear 3 bell rings that repeat every 15 seconds

 

I drilled open the locks on the front door and this is what I see inside.

The game PCB on the left, some sort of power distribution board in the middle and towards the back is the motor that is connected to a chain that goes up to the arm. The disty board had a metal cover I took it off to check the voltages.

It sends 110v up to the flashing lights on header and most importantly feeds 80v DC to the electrical motor which drives the arm.

 

 

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So I opened the back cover and find no monitor chassis, it had been removed by the last operator. We can also see the top of the chain that connects to the arm out front.

 

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So I take the yoke readings and send it off to Joey for a replacement chassis.

 

While I'm waiting I'm curious to find out what the 3 bell rings mean for this game so I download the mame rom for this game and load it up out of curiosity. When it loads it goes past the memory test screen then comes to a motor test screen where low and behold I get the same 3 bell rings! It makes that noise when I fails the motor test screen, so I know there is something wrong with the motor.

 

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I take a further look at the motor inside and it's 80V DC. I can see it is getting 80V from the distribution board (I'm not sure if this is the name of the board as I don't have the manual but that's what I'm calling it).

I took the chain off the motor and turned the machine on to see if the motor would spin, nada. I can spin the cog freely but once it receives 80V it just turns a bit then stops.

So it seems like it is ceased up or something.

 

So out comes the motor. I'm gonna call a few electrical motor repair places to see if I can get this thing looked at

 

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Next post coming soon..to be continued

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Excellent work so far.

The motor, Gear and chain assembly all look clean and unworn - Which is great.

 

Can you pull the end housing from the motor to check inside yourself?

(You might see something obvious - Even if your not sure what it is!)

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Hope so, I dropped the motor off this morning at the repair shop so hopefully they can work some magic.

 

When I got the chassis back from Joey and wired it up I found it blew the horizontal circuit!

I was spewing as I checked everything was wired up correctly.

After sending pics of the tube and neck to Joey he said that almost all cases where that happens the cause is a short in the tube, and the pics I confirmed that, here is a pic of the neck of the tube where you can see something has blown

 

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Bugger another problem!

The tube is 25" and lucky for me I have a spare 59cm tv sitting outside at home! Woohoo

So I'm taking the tube out and Joey will repair the chassis and return it to suit the 59cm tv

 

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1396304332.152987.thumb.jpg.fc34f563aa995ec6ac900ba01209dace.jpg

 

I can tell u it was a bugger to pull that tube out, as you can see there is barely any room at the front to get at the frame

 

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1396304391.240229.thumb.jpg.9a24fc941e9a556a335d49c43f90c34b.jpg

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Jason, good work so far mate! You are now on a mission to restore Arm Champs to a prestige working condition! If you need a hand let me know.

 

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks mate!! Once I get started on a project I can't stop until I finish lol.

Can't wait to get this sucker up and running!

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Hi I am a Power Tool Technician and I can tell you DC motors are fairly bullet proof, looking at your pics it looks like you can access the carbon brushes easily from the motor housing, (those 2 black bits on either side of the motor look like the brush caps) that would be the first thing I'd look at.

Good luck with this.

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