Since I picked up Popeye, I’ve done a little bit of work on it. The marquee light was out, and it was an odd size fixture that is supposedly very difficult to get bulbs for. I removed it and replaced it with one of these $15 lights from Home Depot:

The wiring in Nintendo cabinets was designed for 100 VAC, which is what they use in Japan instead of 120 VAC. In cabinets that were sold in the US, they used a step down transformer (more than meets the eye) to drop the 120 down to 100. They then use that 100 VAC to power the marquee light and monitor. Because I’m replacing the light (and because I’m not Japanese), I had to tap into the 120 VAC at a distribution block in the bottom of the cabinet before it goes to the transformer.

Let there be light!

As you probably saw in my last post about this, the control panel was a little beat up.

The control panel plexiglass had a big crack in the bottom left. Crack kills, so we had to fix this. I was (and still am) on the lookout for a NOS control panel overlay for this. I posted in the RGVAC newsgroup looking for one, and someone replied saying they had an original used one in decent shape. I got it cheap, and it looks a lot better than what was there. The joystick was completely shot, and one of the buttons was the wrong color. I put in an order at MikesArcade.com for a replacement joystick and buttons a few days ago. That order and the replacement CPO came in today. I printed out a new instruction card, and slapped it all together.