Jeff at RotheBlog.com got some more info on the Moon Patrol bezel repro that Rich at ThisOldGame.com has been working on. It looks like its getting closer to being a reality. Awhile back I scanned in the bezel and vectorized it. Rich has been working to get it printed, along with a lot of other projects. See this page for an update.

Greetings earthlings! This post is a continuation of this mess. Basically, when I first got my Moon Patrol cabinet, I got a PCB along with it. That PCB had some major issues which I tried to fix. I got nowhere with it, and decided to just buy a working one. I’ve had the old dead board sitting here and figured I would take another crack at fixing it for fun.

Before this round of screwing with it, one of the things that was most noticeably wrong with it can be seen here:

That should read BEGINNER COURSE GO! Half the letters are incorrect. In diagnostics mode, there was a RAM error, but it was difficult to read because of the character problem. I’ll try not to bore you too much, but here’s what I did for this round…

Moon Patrol is a 4 PCB stack. Now that I have a working set, I figured I could use it to isolate the problem to a particular board in the stack. I swapped each board from the bad stack into the good stack one by one, powering it on in between to see if the problem would follow. Doing this lead me to figuring out that the main CPU board, #2 in the stack, was the one with the problem.

With that out of the way, I noticed in the manual that if you don’t have any characters on screen at all, the ROM in  3F on the scrolling video board is bad. I swapped it with a good one, and the problem was still there. I guessed that maybe something connected to 3F was bad, and if I remember correctly, I traced 5M on the CPU board back to that chip. It’s a logic chip - 74LS245. I searched the RGVAC newsgroup for this chip, and many people were reporting that they fail pretty often in a lot of games. I then did a test I learned from Randy Fromm on that chip, checking each pin to see if any were out of wack. The basic idea is you put your meter on the diode test setting, put the red lead on ground, and probe each pin on the IC. All pins on the chip except for ground and Vcc (+5v) should read around .5 to .9. Anything way lower (like .004, for example) or way higher is probably bad. You can then compare any suspect pins to another of the same chip on the board if there is one. I did my comparison to the same chip on the working board. I found that pin 18 read .002, and was shorted to ground. I thought this was pretty cool, because I really am clueless with this stuff.

So, I removed 5M, put a socket in, and replaced the chip. With the old chip out, I tested it again. While pin 18 still read wrong, the short was not there. The short was actually on the board somewhere else. I went over every single trace on the board visually looking for problems, hoping to find the short that way. While doing this, I spotted this on the chip in 1K!

That is definitely wrong. I checked the same chip on the working board and it wasn’t intentionally not soldered. So, I removed that chip, bent the pin back, put a socket in and popped it back in. I still had that pesky short however. I read through the schematics, and wrote down every thing that was in circuit with 5M pin 18. That gave me a list of about 6 or 7 chips. I figured I could test them one by one, but the fastest way was to clip pins on the chips in question. I had replacements for them, so I started clipping hoping I would get lucky. I found the suspect chip at 1D. Pin 8 was shorted to ground. I replaced that chip and the short was gone. In the process of finding the short, I clipped pins on 3 other chips so I changed those as well.

BOY this is long and boring.

Anyways, after all that, I hooked it back up and the character problem was solved. The board still has issues however. It keeps resetting, the tank is missing sometimes, and the background looks a bit weird. In diagnostics mode it says RAM NG 8000, which according to the manual means RAM 3C on the scrolling video. board is bad. I know that’s not the case because I had already changed that RAM prior to this, so I have no clue what’s causing it. I’m taking another break from this board but maybe I’ll get back to it in the future.

Hey! Happy Black Friday. My wife is out shopping because she is completely insane. I’m home working because I am only partially insane.

This post has lots of pictures. As always, click them to make them bigger. I know you want to, so just do it.

Moon Patrol has been in the garage since I got it. I decided it was about time I bring it inside and finish working on it, which I did a few days ago. I finished putting the t-molding on, which was a lot of fun…especially the part where I put my finger right into the hot glue I was using and melted my flesh. It’s called “HOT” glue for a reason people.

I bought this “Williams Control Panel Molding Trim” from Arcadeshop.com:

Here is the control panel without this beautiful piece of plastic-y goodness:

You have to trim the molding to size. I used this stuff to glue it to the control panel, which worked great:

Here it is after the trim was applied:

Read the rest of this entry…

Hey. I FINALLY finished the redraw for the Moon Patrol bezel repro I’ve been working on!

Here’s a closeup:

I’m putting the files together to send to Rich at ThisOldGame.com.  From there, he’s going to reproduce it and sell them on his website. When I get word that they are available I’ll be sure to let you know here.

There is one more small piece that I’m going to work on…redrawing the paper instruction card that goes behind the glass on the right hand side:

They made different versions of these to use depending on your settings. I *may* have some NOS ones around. If I do, I’ll repro all of the variations of this.

For those of you that have been here before, you may know that I’m working on redrawing a scan of a Moon Patrol bezel so Rich at ThisOldGame.com can make reproductions. It has been very slow going. If you read the other updates in this section, you’ll see that I had all of the color work done, and the black lines that were feasible to vectorize. The part that has taken me all this time is the night sky, which had to be done as a raster image in Photoshop. Here is what I started with, after removing everything that was already vectorized:

Here is the end result, including the black vector portion layered on top:

The only thing I have remaining now is the halftone shading on the buildings.

Making more progress:

I have the black raster portion to do, along with some halftones in red in that second rainbow strip from the top. Without all the black/blue stuff I keep wanting to see this with a palm tree for some reason.

I’m getting very close to finishing my Moon Patrol restoration. I got the cabinet back in December of 2006. Since then I have been looking for a decent bezel on eBay, and was having a hard time finding one. They just don’t seem to turn up for some reason. I finally found one recently, which was in horrible condition:

I contacted Rich from ThisOldGame.com. He makes great repro art for Space Invaders, Burgertime, and other games. He said he would reproduce these if I can get him a good vector drawing of it! So, I’m now in the process of working on the redraw/cleanup for this using Photoshop and Illustrator. It’s coming along good so far. Here is a closeup of the original scan so you can see what I’m up against:

You can see all the cracks throughout the paint…it looks a bit like Bea Arthur after she’s been in the sun too long.

Are you done vomiting? OK…let’s continue….

This pic shows what I’ve got done so far:

Here is a closer view:

It looks a little fuzzy in that image, but it should look perfect when done. The fuzz is just due to the way it appears on screen and the level of zoom, etc…

I made some more progress on Moon Patrol. While some of the things I’m doing now may seem a little out of order, I’m doing them that way because I’m waiting to save a little money for the parts I need.

OK…check out the nasty speaker board this game came with:

Where do I begin. Let’s start with the bare wood. That should be covered with speaker cloth. Then there is that unsightly metal vent crap that they’ve screwed over the speaker hole. I think I just threw up a little. Based on some recommendations in posts in the RGVAC newsgroup, I headed to Ace Hardware to look for some special heavy duty replacement screen material called “Paw Proof”. It is designed to keep these from ripping your screens to shreds:

I couldn’t find one specifically with that brand name, but I did find a roll of what must have been the same stuff. It was $3.49 a foot, and came in a 36″ roll. I bought 4′ to have some extra. Here it is after I sprayed the board with some black rustoleum and covered it with the screen:

I just folded it over the back and stapled it. I really like the way it came out. Thanks go to whomever suggested that material.

I started wiring up the cabinet. I installed a new marquee light, the marquee, a switcher, and a custom wiring harness that I put together. Here are some picks of the back. Keep in mind it’s not done, and I need to vaccuum out the inside a bit.

If you’ve been reading my other posts, you may be wondering if that monitor will work after I hosed it down with a garden hose. I hooked it up, and it was deader than a door nail. It turned out that the fuse 601 was blown, so the problem had nothing to do with my heavy duty cleaning. I messed around with the monitor, trying to figure out the best way to mount it. This was clearly not the original monitor. This one is a Kortek KTA-915, and was designed to be mounted vertically. I was able to situate it in a spot so that the back door should just barely close, and the bezel around front should just barely fit. Before I went through the effort of trying to mount the monitor, I wanted to make sure it was going to work.

My wife got me a set of Randy Fromm DVDs and his big blue book. He has monitor flow charts to help troubleshooting monitor problems. According to the one for this monitor, if fuse 601 is blown, it is usually due to someone hooking it up without an isolation transformer (more than meets the eye). It said that when this happens, the bridge rectifier may be shorted. I tested it, and it didn’t seem to test right. I pulled it out of circuit and it tested fine so it went back in. He also says to check capacitor 602 for a short, but it wasn’t shorted. So, the problem may actually just be a fuse. I didn’t have one that fit, so I ran to Ratshack expecting them not to have it, and expecting them to try to sell me a cellphone. I was very shocked to find that they actually had the right fuse, and didn’t even ask for my name or phone number when I checked out.

I put the fuse in, did a cap kit, and it fired right up! Here it is from the front.

I was able to play a few games by touching the control panel wires together. It should be a lot easier to play once I actually have a joystick and buttons hooked up.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment…

I finally finished painting! Check it out:

In case you forgot what this puppy looked like before:

I still have lots left to do, but it feels good to actually see it look like a Moon Patrol again. The method I used to clean up the drips with Goof Off worked pretty good. I ended up using Mr. Clean Magic Erasers instead of a rag and a ton of Goof Off. By the time I was done, I think I was starting to hallucinate. I sprayed the Goof Off on the sponge, and wiped gently trying not to rub the edge of the stencil more than I had to. The paint started to smear at first and made quite a mess, but came completely off after I kept going over it. The vinyl stencil held up pretty good while doing that, but did start to lift a little in just a couple of spots where I probably scrubbed too much. Because of the screw up, the edges on the yellow layer look a bit harder than they should.

They almost look like stickers, but I think it still looks good. There are a couple of spots that I want to touch up with a brush.

One nice bonus…the stencils came with registration mark stickers for the Williams logo:

I let Linda put those stickers on, so she gets credit for finishing it. I have to order the control panel overlay and t-molding so it will be a little longer before it’s done.

I found a video today that seems appropriate to end this post, seeing as this has now returned to a Moon Patrol (well….almost!) and we are going to be returning to the moon soon:

Saturday was our 2nd wedding anniversary. For those that don’t know, we got married in Vegas on 5/5/5, which is why the Skeeball sign we made has that impossible score:

We got up early and took the boat out Yard Sale-ing. We picked up some stuffed animals to add to our crane, and this:

I have to buy a sequencer to put in it so it will go from green to yellow to red.

After we were done yard sale-ing, we went to the movies to see Invisible.

The move was pretty good, but what was weird was there was one part in the trailer that wasn’t in the movie. If you watch the video above to about 1:20, you’ll see the main character look up towards a window and look at some old guy. Later they show him talking to him, and you get the impression that he’s a ghost. This is one of the things that made me want to see the movie, and that guy was nowhere to be found in it. It seems to me that they shouldn’t be allowed to use scenes in a trailer that don’t make it into a movie, but maybe I’m just being picky.

Quick update on Moon Patrol…I finally got all the sections of the stencil that dripped down to bare wood, and painted it with 2 coats of primer. Tomorrow I’ll paint it with the blue base coat and hopefully yellow if there is enough time for the blue to dry…cross your fingers that I can keep the drips at bay.