Trio of tantalising cocktail/tabletops!

[tnone]

Hey legends, me again! 😅 Hope everyone is well leading up to Xmas.

Deja Vu

I realised around two months ago now, that it had been around a year since the last saga with my restoration take on the lowboy I picked up, it was sent away about 6 months ago now and is with its new owner getting prepped with a new monitor and chassis. 
 

Nearly a year to lick my wounds, and I noticed a little something on marketplace. Only two pictures to go off, seller wasn’t an enthusiast either so hard to get details. Just “not working “ and running 8-1 boards.

 

 

 

I procrastinated here, for easily a month. After my last experience with the lowboy I didn’t particularly want to be dealing with blown flybacks shorted yokes and tubes burnt beyond recognition.

They all had CRT’s from what I could see, and looked to be some kind of Hankin clone

Had a window of about 5 hours one day and just YOLO’d it. Destination was only 1.5 hours away.

Met up with the sellers father who was an ex vending machine operator. Got taken out bush to a huge warehouse where they were stored .

 

 

And there they were, probably sitting here for around 15 or more years. Operated in bowling clubs in the area in the late 90’s early 2000’s until the influx of LCD cabinets took place.

Picking these up was definitely a memorable experience. The issue here was they were stored up high so how to get them down 🥴

The process involved looking for keys and the cutoff seatbelt buckles/fasteners that clicked in for the first of the three communal forklifts in the shared storage warehouse. If the fork lift didn’t sense a seatbelt fastened, the bloody thing wouldn’t start 😂

The forklifts mentioned were in three sizes, small medium and large. And around a 20 minute mission for each to find the key and associated belt buckle.

Small forklift was first which got precariously driven inside the storage space, smashing into old vending and claw machines on the way.

When old mate got it below the machines, the fork wasn’t high enough 😅

Try the large forklift now, same 20 minute search entailed.

Got in in position and old mate lifted the forks, and in the process took out a huge chunk in the roof and smashed a fluorescent large light into a million pieces 🥴

There was some swearing involved throughout the whole process here on the sellers behalf. 

Last option was the medium forklift, same tried and tested process and this one was just right. It was like something out of bloody Goldilocks and the three bears.

So in position under the cabinets I was instructed to “ride” the forklift up and get to the top area, and shimmy each cabinet one at a time precariously onto the forks which could only get about 90cm under the cabinets.

Each cabinet also had a length of wood underneath for strength I suppose which made them wobble dangerously and not sit flat on the damn forks.

 

 

As I rode the forklift down with the cabinet and myself on the end of the forks, I got scared at this point for both myself and the cabinets. If one of these toppled off, I had nowhere to go and would had a 90 odd kg machine come crashing down with me underneath it. It was quite harrowing. 
 

In the end we got them down , a few more claw machines and vending machines were jolted and crashed into as the forklift got backed out.

Next mission was getting them in the car. 
Can you fit three tabletops in a 2003 VY holden wagon?

 

 

Well yes you can! With the passenger seat down, the first of the three at an awkward angle sideways with the exposed metal end of the CP right near my head in drivers seat, and the remaining two sideways aswell , with approximately 5mm to close the boot. The seller also stumbled over a forklift prong here while we were loading up and half dropped a cabinet on his foot 😅

This was one to remember I tell ya, the whole pickup including travel was about a 6 hour mission. Seller was a nice bloke though god love him, and he reduced the price of the cabinets in the end too.

And here we are home safely, I’m lucky to be blessed with a very understanding wife who helped me unpack.

 

I suppose we are at the end of the prologue to probably the biggest undertaking I’ve done in the hobby so far I.e do my take on restoring three cocktails simultaneously…..

Please forgive the huge first post friends and more to update very soon!

 

Tom

Edited November 3 by tnone
Fix spelling mistakes

[tnone]

Chapter 1

Rundown of the three cocktails:

Couldnt help myself the night of pickup, after work that evening I had to have a peek.

 

What I had here was two identical cocktails (the leftmost two on the above picture)

And one that was a little bit different on the right, it almost looked like a flatpack cabinet that someone had put together and was slightly smaller than the other two. With the removable sides panels that cover the ends of the CP a lot like a hankin. But more on this one later.

Where as the other two looked more like a mass produced clone that a company may have distributed.

For the two identical ones I was happy to see them both with identical Toshiba A51KSV22X02 tubes, with no burn in at all. A great discovery 

Quite tidy wiring wise inside too

 

At first I thought they might have been computer monitors looking at the VGA connector setup.

 

 

I was a bit confused here, and thought these might be 31k only, but the 8-1’s VGA wasn’t connected and it was getting RGBs straight from JAMMA. Also the VGA being connected to some type of pass through PCB which I later discovered was a video amplifier.

 

 

Then I saw the remote board and it’s various adjustments, and thought to myself 🤔 This can’t have been a PC monitors front panel setup adjustments on this remote….

A further inspection gave me my answer….. A wei-ya chassis 😅

I wondered why Wei-ya did the VGA cable…. Possibly their solution to package all the wiring off the neckboard neatly ? And to conform with the signal booster?

I’ve never dealt with these before, but I suppose it wasn’t a Kortek at with an exploded flyback . Appeared to be a (free voltage?) C3120(A?) chassis, which explained why the cabinet didn’t have a stepdown.

At this point I confirmed some AC and powered on, to get a ticking from the flyback area. HOT was shorted so it needed some attention.

 

Couldn’t find any info on this model specifically just it’s variations, the component density was pretty hardcore on these, and I did my research to learn about their fallbacks. Came across some valuable write ups from the man himself @Jomac (first link below) specifically with how the chassis’s need to be kept cool and the lead free solder that was used on them.

https://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/Rodotron_666

And also some more interesting info about them in general from user @Pac-Invader here

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/wei-ya-cga-monitor-chassis-429h.455975/

 

…....So I reflowed the entire chassis, neckboard and remote board for peace of mind with leaded solder and the iron set quite hot. Confirming joints were not accidentally bridged with DMM along the way.

 

You need to be a bit careful reflowing these as I discovered, some of the pads are incredibly close together , to bridge anything at this point and not notice would have been a nightmare to track down. And if I sent it for service I didn’t want to cause any headaches for Joe.

Painstakingly over a few hours I got it done, and in the same night completed a reflow on the identical wei-ya chassis in the other cocktail. By around 2am I was seeing double from the sheer concentration 🥴

It had already been a big few weeks tearing down and starting to prep 2/3 cocktails, as well as the sheer amount of bits and pieces I was purchasing to get them up to scratch….was starting to feel mentally exhausted at the undertaking .

Onto the ode to hankin now….. the first I was laser focused on completing 

 

Edited November 4 by tnone

[tnone]

Chapter 2

My take on Hankin exterior styling and some overall preparation 

Goal was to have a reasonably period correct machine externally, to have the two control panels populated with 1 joystick and three buttons each…….

And have a spinner on each CP 😅

What can I say I wanted to play Arkanoid with a spinner 🤷

First was the plan to keep the chassis cool, and run two shielded speakers

 

 

 

Did something I’ve never done, and bought a decent drill, to make the holes to suit the two 4” shielded speakers

 

 

As I was budgeting I had to get the cheaper hole saw’s from Bunnings. A 102mm from the set to suit the speakers

 

I didn’t want even shielded speakers anywhere near the monitor to prevent any purity issues which took the original grill cutouts/vents where the fans would go out of the question , as the cabinet was two player sided I decided to drill each speaker in each bottom corner of the second player side.

Onto actually finding some decent shielded speakers I got a tip from my old mate @mR_CaESaR that Wagner online had some nice little ones

https://www.wagneronline.com.au/4-square-shielded-speaker-105mm-8/daichi-classic-series/daichi-universal/speaker-drivers/audio-speakers-pa/sp4-30-7003/3086/pd/

 

 

Dai-ichi!!!!! 😀

They were no Pioneer TS-G1020F but the magnets are incredibly strong on those, unfortunately they weren’t an option.

As for fans, I like the Noctua stuff. A bit more costly, and a little bit silly putting them in something like this….But I went ahead anyway, as well as a fan controller for them. 
 

 

Once holes drilled etc , everything was mounted, bit tricky with the fans, as I had to make sure they were somewhat centre on the pre routed vents. Air flow a bit reduced because of the way the vents were, but I wasn’t about to be trying to find a solution to that and thought at least some fans is better than no fans.

 

 

Now for the spinners! I was bloody intent on integrating this into the build 😅 no matter the cost!

……and it sure was a cost 🥴

Ultimarc stuff

 

Very nice quality these Spintrak rotary controls, with small and large weights to cover anything I needed.

But how to interface these and actually get them working?

My two options were either Groovymame or a mistercade here. I opted for the cheaper option of a Groovymame setup for the time being. I’m not particularly fond of a PC setup in a cabinet with every title known to man in it and “spoiled for choice” options it entails, but planned on running only a few select titles at a time, so as not to put a damper on the experience and joys of original PCB collecting.

At the end of the day, the cabinet would be dual wired to instantly be switched to a JAMMA PCB setup when required.

More ultimarc things 😅

 

J-PAC above to enable the PC

Ultimate I/O to handle one spinner and the 1 & 2p and rest of the inputs. The 2p spinner was to be on a USB interface and connected directly to the PC

Pretty much had my solution here to have two spinners working, but definitely a costly exercise.

As I was dreading doing all the wiring I switched priorities and constructed a proper earthing plate set for the new IEC connector, as the original in the cabinet had no plate at all, which wasn’t particularly great.

Found a few brackets lying around that fit nicely around the IEC both at 90 degree angles. The bottom was pretty simple as it was just a fixture to mount the connector. The actual original hole to accommodate the connector through the wood base was way oversized so this bracket set on the bottom had to be used.

The bracket set inside the cabinet however needed to be prepped for the earthing bolt itself and one half slightly cut to sit hard up against the inner wall of the cabinet and also fit snugly around the earth enclosure of the IEC, and for added piece of mind have continuity across the two halves of the plates. Drilling a small hole where both came together and bridged with a small screw. The two plates had a very minuscule gap between them, so the screw to bridge them was required.

 

Probably should have just got two reasonably thick pieces of metal from Bunnings and dremeled a hole to suit the IEC…..but you know me 😅😅

Now was to decide between doing wiring or removing rust from metal things. Both of which I wasn’t too enthusiastic about.

Decided to prep some of the metal bits and pieces I could re-use over the next few day’s following.

 

 

Edited November 4 by tnone

[1.21 Gigawatts]

Great write-up thanks. These will be great when done. 

[furballx]

Great write-up indeed.

Nice work.

Dave

[tnone]

@1.21 Gigawatts Your welcome mate, great to see your reply and hope your well brother 🙏

@furballx hey legend, going to lengths to get it all up, quite the task but we’ll worth it for anyone wanting a little novel to read 😅 thanks mate

[tnone]

Chapter 3 bits and pieces and some mains AC

No mucking around with the old switching PSU here, Meanwell RT-125A all the way. Use these all the time. Magic little switching PSU’s

 

 

 

Prepped it partially for the mains, a short set to branch off to the IEC, which would also be on a Y cable split and then run along the back wall of the cabinet to the PC, and a set dedicated to the chassis’s power.

 

 

Chassis power branching off on an appropriate 3 way

Prepping some metal parts below . Lots of rust throughout on every nut bolt hinge etc

 

 

Got a bit stuck in the build here, very annoying getting the clamps that hold the glass onto the top of the machine back to bare metal because of how they’re shaped. Used combination of hand sanding and a dremel. Very rusted these were.

Rust proofed and done gloss /flat black

 

 

The actual stand off legs were also VERY annoying as you can see how rusted above, wire brush on a battery drill and thin sand paper to get in all around the inner circumference of these where the rubber meets the rounded metal “body”. Rust was deep down in these. Then masked around the rubber bottoms and rust proofed/ sprayed with silver kill rust epoxy. Not meant to be touched really after using this stuff, so not recommended for anything in a high touch area. It’s a good silver though and just provides some protection rather than bare polished metal finish.

 

 

Good enough, and after seeing the offerings at Bunnings in the stand off leg department , I had to re-use the above.

 

Next a solution for test/service and the volume potentiometer, again brackets I had lying around, not ideal but good enough. With the below from Bunnings to drill the 29mm holes to suit two MCA buttons. Would also serve to drill the holes for the spinners in each CP

 

Sacrificial old school pine table here to screw the brackets down to hold things in place as I drilled. Unfortunately I don’t own a vice 🥴

 

After some horrible noise I got there in the end, did all three in one go for each cabinet to save time later.

 

Came out ok and will serve the purpose 

 

 

Sandblasting and powdercoating prep and drilling Spinner holes-

Spinner holes drilled out here, did it on the grass here which was awkward.

 

 

Made a bit of a mistake here, I’d drilled the holes to suit left handed……And I’m right handed 😅.

All it meant was positioning a few cm’s different how you sit at the CP, which wasn’t a huge issue. Couldn’t exactly have these central on the CP as the joysticks were there. 🤷 All good 😅🤦‍♂️

 

Had the next little problem here doing the three cabinets simultaneously. So as not to inconvenience the legend that does sandblasting for me, I had to get all three cabinets bits and pieces for sandblasting, all together at the same time. Which involved a combination of pulling monitors out, and setting the cabinets on moving trolleys. A bit harrowing on moving trolleys with the monitors still in there due to the piece of wood underneath the cabinets that didn’t let them sit evenly. Due to room had to put 2/3 cabinets on trolleys with monitors still in there , in order to take the legs off each.

 

Got it all together in the end. Dawning on me the enormity of the whole process here

 

Everything rusted AF which is all part and parcel of this stuff I suppose isn’t it 😅

 

 

Off to the bloody local legend that does my sandblasting at his home workshop, and he then hand delivered to powdercoaters for me.

Few days later all done, started to see some progress now I was pleased.

 

 

 

And all six legs

 

 

Measurements taken here to be sent to Carson at Noodleshirt for the overlay’s

 

 

Simple overlays for these, no button graphics etc etc. Wanted some LAI flair.

 

 

Carson did good here and got em out in 48hours, bloody legend.

Quite hard to apply these evenly and take into account each corner and top/bottom gap, while keeping it straight across the CP.

 

 

Was happy with how these looked, definitely can see the progress of all the trouble I went to.

This vinyl that Carson uses (orajet/orafol I think) is bloody resilient though, at one point I had to rip it off entirely and start again, and it was able to be re-used!

And the joystick buttons combination I chose, using what I had on hand. Not ideal colour combination but all I had.

 

Gettin there now

 

 

Happy with that, and proceeding to the dual jamma I/O wiring

 

Edited November 5 by tnone

[Alston]

Looking fantastic! That powdercoat turned out great

[tnone]

1 hour ago, Alston said:

Looking fantastic! That powdercoat turned out great

Didn’t they just mate? I’m happy with that.

Following along with your Computer Space journey you bloody wizard! 👏

[needlebat]

A very entertaining read, what a journey!

[tnone]

1 hour ago, needlebat said:

A very entertaining read, what a journey!

Love you enjoyed it mate Thankyou!!!

[tnone]

Chapter 4 

The JAMMA harness to end all harnesses!!!

This was a dead set mission!

You can see my predicament here, no way in hell these I/O inputs would reach each players CP!

 

I’m pretty sure the Ultimarc gear is supposed to be literally under the CP’s panel 😅 But as it is with me I go against the grain and make thing’s significantly harder than they are supposed to be.

Either that, or no one’s bonkers enough to attempt what I’m trying to do here specifically with Ultimarc things 😅😅

To the options here below, to be able to use the I/O and retain JAMMA if a PCB was connected.
 

- Extend the I/O wiring all the way under each CP to the button/joystick microswitches effectively severing and losing original JAMMA inputs if a JAMMA board was connected. Replace and pass through straight to JAMMA on a new male 12 way 

 

-Extend I/O wiring to near the CP’s on its own new matching male 12 way, and interchange each connector as required whether it be the Groovymame setup functioning, or have a JAMMA PCB connected. This was probably the easiest idea, but still required unplugging and changing connectors.

……And these big chunky 12 way molex are a dead set pain in the ass to switch over! They are very awkward and tight to get clamped together in my honest opinion!!! 🥴 But in retrospect, could also be that I was putting these (off brand?? Duratech) receptacles matching the original male receptacles (proper molex I assume) and slight manufacturing differences caused that. Although they match and fit together connector and pin wise, the 20 year gap in manufacturing processes could make them slightly different 🤷

Anyway 😅😂

Last idea was to

-Extend I/O wiring to near the CP’s original 12 way, sever the original 12 way JAMMA wiring that comes directly off each button microswitch , and replace with a new male 12 way double crimped with both the I/O inputs, and the severed original wires on each pin. Effectively having a “dual “ button setup or Y cable or pass through type of system.

This way when the I/O was in use and powered, it would take button presses from micro switches directly off the back of the connector, and in turn be linked to each microswitch through the original CP wiring……which in turn was still passed through to the original-female- 12 way direct to the JAMMA harness.

Yes…. Confusing AF when intricately explained like above 😅

This was the answer here to have the cabinet covering both , without ever having to swap a connector.

 

The new male 12 way above with its dual wired setup

And the craziness that evening below,  crimping both the extensions to the I/O and replacing the 12 ways.  This was a 3am bedtime 🥴 With work family and parent duties, I suppose a lot of us enthusiasts are in the same boat, tinkering away between the hours of 10pm till who knows when 😅

 

This was extremely laborious to say the least. Hozan crimper definitely helps. Some of the I/O wiring was different colours and also with the cabinets JAMMA connector, someone had messed up and used incorrect colours to JAMMA standard!

 

 

It was like from around the RGB and sync pins down, everything was 1 colour off. This really confused the absolute bejesus out of me, to the point I had to make silly little tags of what each wire was to get through my thick skull what was connecting to what 😅 confirming with DMM along the way.
 

…… It also didn’t help that I was using all black wires for the extensions 😅 it was all I had! 🤷

And the whole Frankenstein in its entirety, with spinners also on extensions.

Found out a few days later, that the second spinner needs to be connected directly to PC via a usb interface, which was rectified in the following weeks.

And mocked up here in the cabinet

 

 

I was glad that was over, but still had no idea if it would even work. In theory it should, but I couldn’t be sure until I had everything in place.

 

A break from wiring now thank the lord, and onto something I actually like doing, covering old clapped out surfaces in Vinyl!! 😀😀

Edited November 6 by tnone

[Autosteve]

Ow I do love the new ideas while retaining the looks of the original product.

Here's something to contemplate. Make the player control panels flip-able.

As only one panel would be required at a time, I see no reason why you couldn't have a totally different control layout on the underside, in your picture where your knees would go.

The two panels are set up in a rectangular box, one control panel facing up and the other panel facing down. You put a rod down the length of the rectangular box so the whole assemble can spin length ways on it. One spring loaded lock pin holds the box from spinning when in either of the two positions

You run all your wires through a commutator mounted at the end of the rectangular box.

One half side of the commutator has the wires required for one player panel and the other half side for the opposite player panel.......the other half of the commutator has all the common wires back to the cabinet wiring. The commutator handles all the wiring connections for both panels 

The LAI style tables seem to lend themselves to such a "flipping player control panel setup" as the panel is roughly the depth of the player control mount.

A bit of a sketch showing what I mean,,,,,,,yellow is one control panel, (the player panel in use).......Lt blue is the inside view of the other control panel. (the player panel not in use)

All locked in place by a spring loaded locking pin however if you pull the locking pin out of the way, it allows the rectangular box to spin on the shaft so the yellow panel now faces down and the blue player panel is now in operation

Brown rod is the pivot shaft the whole rectangular box spins on.......Purple/ blue disc is the commutator.

 

 

[tnone]

1 hour ago, Autosteve said:

Ow I do love the new ideas while retaining the looks of the original product.

Here's something to contemplate. Make the player control panels flip-able.

As only one panel would be required at a time, I see no reason why you couldn't have a totally different control layout on the underside, in your picture where your knees would go.

The two panels are set up in a rectangular box, one control panel facing up and the other panel facing down. You put a rod down the length of the rectangular box so the whole assemble can spin length ways on it. One spring loaded lock pin holds the box from spinning when in either of the two positions

You run all your wires through a commutator mounted at the end of the rectangular box.

One half side of the commutator has the wires required for one player panel and the other half side for the opposite player panel.......the other half of the commutator has all the common wires back to the cabinet wiring. The commutator handles all the wiring connections for both panels 

The LAI style tables seem to lend themselves to such a "flipping player control panel setup" as the panel is roughly the depth of the player control mount.

A bit of a sketch showing what I mean,,,,,,,yellow is one control panel, (the player panel in use).......Lt blue is the inside view of the other control panel. (the player panel not in use)

All locked in place by a spring loaded locking pin however if you pull the locking pin out of the way, it allows the rectangular box to spin on the shaft so the yellow panel now faces down and the blue player panel is now in operation

Brown rod is the pivot shaft the whole rectangular box spins on.......Purple/ blue disc is the commutator.

 

 

Oh Steve my friend, your an ideas man mate!

I appreciate this tidbit, and you went to a bit of trouble in your reply here thankyou so much you legend! 
 

This is an idea of epic proportions, your a man after my own heart.

Would an entirely new CP box have to be constructed do you think? Given the hinge mechanism on the bottom of these that I’ve currently used?

Appreciate the reply Steve 👍

 

[Autosteve]

54 minutes ago, tnone said:

Would an entirely new CP box have to be constructed do you think? Given the hinge mechanism on the bottom of these that I’ve currently used?

Never worked on one so I would only be guessing.

Maybe take some pictures including how it all attaches to the cabinet.

 

[tnone]

Chapter 5

 

Some Vinyl!

My old favourite, the eBay vinyl!! Two to be used here from the same seller as last year. The lord of China vinyl I nickname this lad!!!! 😀
 

And the matte satin black for the front and rear of the cabinet 

 

 

The matte satin black says car wrap, but it’s used like the usual vinyl aswell

 

So it was a shame here that I couldn’t use the different of the three cabinets, because that one had the removable sides like a hankin and I could of woodgrained those, and had the sides black. As per Hankin period correct exterior scheme.

So there were a few problems if I wanted to use the above one.

- It’s running a stepdown so you know a 10cm square footprint of vital space is being used

-It’s quite smaller than the others, it’s like a mini cocktail 😀

With the sheer amount of crap I had planned to cram in this fully equipped beast, unfortunately it wasn’t an option 

So sticking with the Hankin panel theme I wanted it along the lines of this very nice one of user @Yobs on here. (Hope you don’t mind I use the picture mate)

 

Just love that wood grain 🔥

So away I went preparing one of the other cabinets. This was all pre-wiring these pictures so please forgive the hiccup in the timeline.

 

Light sand here all over to be certain surface was flat and free of any bumps

 

 

And the more tricky parts first in the matte satin black, the face front of the cabinet where the CP wiring comes through , and the inner “bulge area 😅” I call it that the  CP hides, but I like to do it anyway. All one seamless piece. Crude template was used. Love me a template.

Funny when you see any 90 degree angles of the cabinet, in template form they look very odd, and I thought I’d messed up, but a bit of an illusion with the slanted angle the entire length of the cabinet is.

I made sure the top and bottom 90degree corners were perfect fitting first.

Carefully aligning the top angle I tacked and peeled the vinyl back only at that point and worked it into the corner , effectively holding the entire piece on.

This ensured the entire way down the vinyl sat snug into the corner of the cabinet

 

From there it’s simply peeling the rest of the vinyl downwards and smoothing out . Not even any need for a tool here just using my hand.

 

 

A nice result, love the instant transformation you get with vinyl.

The 2p side was a lot easier, as it doesn’t have the angle cutouts that the actual front door of the cabinet entails.

Onto the rear of the cabinet applying vertically here, as the vinyl is delivered and stored rolled up, I find you need to work with whatever way the vinyl wants to “unfurl” or “unroll” when doing larger surfaces. If you go against it you’ll have dramas.

Starting with a perfect straight edge is essential with the below, and it’s smooth sailing. When reaching the opposite side working the vinyl with a straight tool into the corner, and then trimming the excess.

There’s no need for perfect measurements in between two sides when your working between two corners.As long as you start with that perfect first edge and let the excess on the opposite side creep up the other side and then trim.

 

Although above it looks like the vinyl was unrolling horizontally, the entire surface is applied here and no backing is on there, hence the overhang curling as it has.

 

Nicely trimmed here

 

 

 

To the wood grain

 

Please forgive the lack of pictures with the application. Also had to run some epoxy around the points in the routed valley to secure the T-moulding properly again. Was sagging in a lot of parts.

 

 

Powdercoated legs back on here too, starting to see the progress made.

 

 

 

Not true Hankin, but I was reasonably happy.

Finale with the top. Lots of trimming here

 

 

Had to stand this up against the wall for application in the end, with the vinyl and gravity helping it. Previous attempt trying to apply flat, ended in disaster, caused by the minute movement in the vinyl as you’re working across the huge hole in the middle. Ended up with huge creases.

Against a wall and working downwards was the trick with this. 
 

Glass preparation and all back in place

 

Love this auto Glym stuff, great glass polish. Designed to take water deposit marks from car windshields. Also great for polishing the face of CRT’s, or removing sprayed on worn and blotched anti-glare films on some monitors (hand polisher recommended for that)

 

Hinges back on and monitor surround

 

 

A before and after for comparison 

 

 

Just missing a hankin decal underneath and the black borders. For my take on it I’m happy though.

 

 

Seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Next up…… the dreaded configuration of Groovymame and the chosen PC

 

Edited November 7 by tnone

[Davefjedi]

Looking MINTY

 

[tnone]

5 hours ago, Davefjedi said:

Looking MINTY

 

Great to hear from you Dave and hope you’re well mate.

getting somewhere now legend 👍

 

Tom

[Brad]

This is an epic restore thread. Thanks so much for all of the detail. Having done many myself I know how much work it takes. These look fantastic!

Brad

[tnone]

15 hours ago, Brad said:

This is an epic restore thread. Thanks so much for all of the detail. Having done many myself I know how much work it takes. These look fantastic!

Brad

Your welcome Brad, thanks for the kind reply legend.

It really is a lot of work mate 100% I think with the things Ive done in the past this first cocktail has been the most time consuming thing I’ve ever taken on. 

Both that as well as the sheer cost of bits and pieces, trying to get that plan in my head to come to fruition and the challenges that entails.

Thanks for following along mate

 

Tom

[mR_CaESaR]

Didn't even see the notification of this thread... love your work Tom! I've seen the progress in real time and I know how much work and effort has been going into this. Once those control panels are done, it's going to be epic! 

[tnone]

11 minutes ago, mR_CaESaR said:

Didn't even see the notification of this thread... love your work Tom! I've seen the progress in real time and I know how much work and effort has been going into this. Once those control panels are done, it's going to be epic! 

Appreciate it Sensei

Thanks for your ongoing support as always old friend, converted you to liking cocktail/ tabletops now haven’t I??? 😅

[mR_CaESaR]

2 minutes ago, tnone said:

converted you to liking cocktail/ tabletops now haven’t I???

😄

[tnone]

Chapter 6 part 1 

Groovymame setup

 

Never thought I’d be doing this,  but with the titles I wanted available (vertical semi old school, Arkanoid/1942/Dig dug / DK Jr etc) for the cabinet it was one of two choices.

Groovymame with a PC crammed in or mistercade.

For now I chose Groovymame with a PC crammed in 😅

Jeez the last time I used mame was in the late 90’s , in internet technology classes , alt-tabbing to metal slug , waku waku 7 and samurai shodown while teacher wasn’t looking 😅

I remember it taking us 3 hours to download a 40mb samsho5 rom at 2k/s download speed 😅

I was definitely exposed to a lot of great arcade titles in the late 80’s and through the 90’s in our small coastal town at fish and chip shops and civic video etc. But as far as neo geo was concerned, we only ever got to play bust a move and samurai spirits.

I owe it to those late 90’s early days of mame exposing me to a more broad spectrum of the kings of 90’s arcade like neo geo MVS/ cps1/2 and other Capcom system titles other than street fighter.

First I tried a test fit with a spare optiplex 9020 before I did any of the restoration of the cabinet.

 

 

Looked promising but would need right angle PSU and dvi-vga adapter.

 

Not much room at all down bottom for the Dvi adapter as the cabinet slopes down the most

Despite that ordered the appropriate upgrades for said PC

 

 

Jumping forward to actually setting up , this was one to remember 🥴 What you are required to do is download a set of files, and using an at (least) 16gig USB, make that USB bootable so the files can be copied to your new SSD, and the windows 7 front end that runs Groovymame can go through its setup process.

The entire process can be found on Groovymame creator chunksin’s thread on the Arcade project’s forums.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/windows-7-read-only-groovymame-image.13415/

 

And my experience with it at post #110 in the above thread.

What it came down to in the end, with my problem was, I was using the initial install files from a few years ago (V2) where as I needed to use some modified install files (V3) to solve a USB port problem with the initial win7 front end setup.

In a nutshell i toiled for about 8-9 hours over a few days , trying to get past a point in installation, without USB port access rendering a mouse and keyboard unusable, and not being able to update any drivers to actually allow the USB ports in the first place.

There was also another very annoying problem mentioned in my post on the arcade projects thread which added even more time to the whole ordeal.

Pretty much stuck in the below, and had to format the SSD and start again, did this about five time 🤨 solution was later found out.

 

 

 

Was all down to me using the incorrect v2 files in the end.

The mentioned updated files (v3) can be found in the above thread, as well as setup instructions below

 

Using the correct files in the end had a breakthrough , and got through the setup nicely. Pretty amazing you can display a PC at 15k, and have access to pretty much any arcade title known to man.

 

Set up outside the cabinet for testing purposes, was quite happy it was working 

 

 

A little dangerous though, to a more traditional enthusiast like myself, who likes to savour arcade games, and only have access to the titles I literally have the physical PCB for. And the spoilt for choice feeling that mame entails.

Its a bit like Netflix, where you have so much to choose from, you end up not wanting to watch anything at all 🥴

 

 

….The ongoing saga continues with probably the biggest fail so far in the build

 

Edited November 10 by tnone

[snippy]

Excellent thread, thanks for taking the effort to write it up. Great workmanship too, well done.

Cheers,

Snip.