Wow…it’s February already. Time flies when you are soldering the heck out of stuff.

I’ve written a new tutorial for you:

I still consider myself a newbie when it comes to electronics. I’ve picked up things here and there but have a lot to learn. I read on PinRepair.com that the 40 pin video processor chip in U16 of Baby Pac-Man’s Vidiot board is prone to failure because it gets ridiculously hot, and that a heat sink should be installed on top of it. The chips are expensive and hard to come by, so now that my Vidiot board is working I wanted to make sure to take this advice. I wasn’t exactly sure how to best go about this, so I figured I would write a tutorial on it. This might be moronically simple for some, but maybe someone will find it useful.

Materials Needed

1. Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive & mixing thingy (the first three items above from left to right)

$5.95 on eBay

2. 40 pin glue-on alluminum heat sink

$1.50 at DigiKey.com - part #HS274-ND (thanks PinRepair.com!)

3. Any IC chip that needs a heatsink

4. CD that you don’t care about

$.01 on eBay

5. One rubber band

$1.48 for 1/4 lb bag at Staples (shoot the extras at unsuspecting passerby)

General Ramblings

I headed to Radio Crap to see if they had some sort of adhesive for heat sinks. They didn’t, so don’t bother going. They have heat sink grease, which is NOT adhesive and will not work for this. They do have loads of batteries, crappy remote controlled toys, and cellphones. Are you interested in any batteries? Me neither.

Instructions

1. Get out the outdated CD. If you need to play it once for old times sake before wrecking it, go for it. I’ll wait. All set? Let’s continue.

2. The CD is going to be used to mix the adhesive on because that’s all its good for anymore. This adhesive is magical in that it supposedly transfers heat from the chip to the heat sink. Instructions for using this stuff can be found here. Apparently it’s highly toxic and you aren’t supposed to eat it.

Squirt out equal parts of the two compounds onto a clean area of your Michael Bolton CD.

3. Mix it up with the spatula like you are making some sort of homemade tooth paste, but DON’T brush your teeth with it (yet).

4. Spread a thin layer on the top of the chip…just enough to cover it. Try not to get it all over the pins.

5. Put the heat sink on top…press it down a bit but don’t go all “hog wild” on it. Wipe or lick off the excess.

6. Double up the rubber band and carefully put it around the heat sink/chip sandwich without bending the pins. This was a little tricky.

7. Wait a few hours and remove the rubber band. If you did your’s right it will look like the one above but without a rubber band on it. If it looks completely different it’s time to get a new hobby.

Epilogue

I did something pretty stupid when I did mine. The heat sink is EXACTLY the same length as the chip. After gluing it on, I couldn’t see the notch in the chip that shows you how to orient it when inserting it in it’s socket! Luckily I had another identical chip. I used my meter set to continuity to find 2 pins on one side of the “non heat-sinked” chip that were connected. Then, I found the same pins on the “heat-sinked” one which let me match up the direction properly. After that, I marked where the notch would be on the very end of the chip, and wrote on the underside of it (with a paint pen).

Don’t be a dummy like me…mark your chip first.

Good evening. I was planning on testing my Baby Pac Vidiot board “on the bench”, via the instructions at Pinrepair.com’s awesome Baby Pac-Man page. I ordered some 12 pin and 2 pin .156 Molex in-line housings from Bob Roberts. Because they were so cheap, I ordered some extra connectors, including some headers and sets of monitor connectors. Here’s what I got today (picture taken after I ate the Moon Pies that he included in the box)

The 4 small bags in the upper left that are the same size are sets to make monitor connectors. They contain (1) 3 pin .156 housing, and (1) 6 pin .156 housing. Below those on the left are .100 headers that can be snapped to get the size needed. Below that are 24 pin .156 headers that are also “snappable”. The right side shows (4) 12 pin .156 housings, and (4) 2 pin .156 housings. That’s what I’m using for this tutorial.

OK…I needed an easy way to hook up alligator test leads like this (from Rat Shack)…

…to header connectors on my Vidiot board like this:

That image shows a 5 pin header. The Vidiot board has 12 pin and 2 pin headers, but you get the idea. I can’t just hook alligator leads to these because they could touch each other. It would also be difficult to put 2 clips right next to each other in that small footprint. I decided to make some test connectors that I can reuse…there may be a better way to do this, but this is how I made mine.

First, I took some .093 molex socket connectors that I got from Bob Roberts and opened them up by forcing a small screwdriver in the end and wiggling it around. This pic shows one of those pins, before and after.

I crimped the end on an 18 AWG wire. Then, I took some shrink wrap tubing, and cut it so it would be a little bigger than the connector.

Next, I slid the shrink wrap tubing over the end, making sure it was sticking past a little bit. After heating it with a lighter, here’s what it looked like:

The idea with this is to have a connector I can easily clip a lead to while still being insulated, like so:

The 2 pics above show the first connector I made for this. The end of the shrink wrap tubing didn’t shrink tight enough around the wire end. For the rest of these, I put a small piece of narrower shrink wrap tubing on that area to build it up a little thicker before putting the wider tubing over it.

Here are 2 finished test connectors ready to go. I alternated the length of the wires so adjacent connectors won’t have any chance of touching.

I finished putting everything back on the Baby Pac playfield, including the flippers with new yellow rubbers. Before I attempted to put the new drop targets in, I searched online to see if there was any info out there explaining how to do it. I didn’t want to risk screwing something up. I couldn’t find anything, so I just flew by the seat of my pants (wooHoo!). I’m writing this post as a tutorial in hopes it might help the next guy searching for the same thing.

This would have been a lot easier with 2 people! I had to hold the playfield up on it’s side the whole time I did this. Too bad my wife wasn’t home yet.

Tools/stuff needed:

• Phillips head screwdriver
  
• Needle nose pliers
  
• 1/4″ nut driver
  
• Fingers - get as many as you can. I have a whole jar of ‘em for emergencies.
  
• Bandaids for above
  
• 5 New drop targets from PBResource.com - $4/each.
  

Instructions

1. Turn playfield on it’s side (duh)

2. Here’s the drop target bank:

The bottom of that picture is actually the back end of the playfield (opposite flippers). Remove the two screws that I circled.

3. Here’s the other side:

Remove the 6 circled screws - 2 of them are phillips, and the rest are hex heads.

4. Remove the two metal plates and it will give you access to the inside.

5. Start with the drop target on the end. Knock it down if it isn’t already, then push all the others up to get them out of your way. Remove the spring for one target from the metal rod so it’s still attached to the target.

6. Pull the drop target down a little so you can work on it.

7. Remove the lock washer at the end with pliers.

8. On some of mine, the post holding the drop target fell right out. On others I had to push on the end to take it out. Here’s one of them:

9. Remove the drop target from the metal arm thingy:

10. The target is now free…pull it out.

11. Put the new target in the same way the old one came out, but be careful not to grab the top. By now your hands are going to be pretty greasy.

12. When you have all the targets back in, put the metal bottom pieces back on, lining up all the guide arms (or whatever they are called). This part was a bit tricky by myself.

Here they are on mine after I finished.

I’m very close to being done with this…the only thing I have left to do is to replace the bulbs on the underside. Here’s a couple of shots of the top done:

I got this cool Dig Dug license plate a couple months ago:

I had it up on the wall since then, and figured I could make it look a bit better by turning it into a neon sign. Here’s how I did it….

1. Get a license plate that will look cool in your game room.

2. Head to an auto parts store and get a neon frame. I got mine at Autozone for $24.99:

3. Get a 12VDC power adapter. I have loads of these in my cellar, but couldn’t find a 12V. I had to get one at Rat Shack for $22.

This one is 1500mA. I’m not sure how many amps that light draws but I’m sure it’s nowhere near 1.5 A.

4. The frame I got came with instructions. It has a small transformer box that you have to wire to the wires coming off the frame. After that, you wire the 3 wires (red, white, and black) coming from the other side of the transformer to your adapter. There are 3 different modes this light supports. The first is to trigger it with brake lights. I don’t have brakes on my house, so that option is out. The 2nd option fades it in and out:

Connect the red wire to positive, and the black and white wires to negative ground.

The 3rd option keeps it lit all the time:

Connect the red and white wires to positive, and the black wire to negative ground.

I opted for #2:

Here it is lit up:

And finally, a video of it in action:

I just won this Pac-Man plate on eBay, and plan on pimping it like it’s Dig Dug brother.

This post is being written as a tutorial, as some may find this helpful. Some may also find it very unhelpful, but at least I tried. Maybe you will come crawling back here the next time you get zapped with 20,000 volts while tweaking your pots (damn, that sounds bad!).

I went out today to a few stores, trying unsuccessfully to find a mirror that I could clip on the front of a game and position it so I could easily adjust the monitor from around back. I saw a post somewhere (KLOV.com?) with a picture of one that someone rigged. I don’t remember what post it was in…it was quite a while ago when I saw it. Thanks to whomever posted that as it got me started with this.

Everything I got for this came from Walmart. I know Walmart sucks, and they have that whole slave labor thing going, but I’m cheap and I bet you are too. Here is a parts list:

1 Mirror - $4.37
SKU: 36826-00092

This hand held mirror was in the aisle with hair accessories…elastics, brushes, stuff like that. There were 2 that were similiar, this being the larger of those 2. It’s a rounded rectangle, with a handle that has a whole in the end. Scroll down further to see a pic.

1 Clip on Desk Lamp - $7.97
SKU: Too lazy to move from my chair to look

This was in the aisle with regular lamps, and looks like this:

Assemby Instructions:

1. First you need to ruin this lamp. Remove the nut around the switch with some pliers:

2. After you do that, the socket for the bulb will have some slack and hang down a bit inside the reflector. Cut the two wires and pull the bulb holder out. You’ll see the wires sticking through on the inside, tied in a knot.

3. Untie the knot, and pull the cord out through the other end of the tube.

4. You have to get that nut off that’s holding the reflector shade on. I ended up using visegrips to grab hold of it on the inside, and then I turned it and the shade until it was lose enough to remove by hand.

Now, you should have a bare end like this:

I thought I was going to need that nut later, but didn’t end up using it.

5. This is the cool part. Take the mirror, and put the threaded end of the rod through the hole in the handle. If you push on it a bit, it will go about half way in. Then just spin the mirror to the right and it will self thread onto the end. It worked great for me, and ended up very tight. Be careful though…if you go all hogwild on it, you may strip it.

It should now look like this, minus the dirty rug:

Here it is in action:

The clamp has a little bit of foam on the inside of the jaws to protect whatever you clamp it to. It’s working fine now, but the foam seems a bit thin. It may be a good idea to buy some thicker foam to stick in there at some point.

Do not show this to your wife. She will probably steal it from you. If she does spot it, tell her you need it to put your face on in the morning.

Hey there. I’m going to make this post a tutorial.

In case you didn’t read the older posts in the Moon Patrol section, the Moon Patrol I’m restoring had water damage on the bottom of the cabinet. I cut away the damaged wood and added new pieces to replace it. The old wood looked like it was rounded off at the corners intentionally, so I rounded the new wood to match, and was pretty happy with the result.

A cruel individual who shall remain nameless (Wade Lanham) decided to comment on those rounded corners and informed me that they weren’t originally rounded. At that point, I had 3 corners rounded off, and was going to get to the 4th soon. I was thinking of just leaving them as is, but it was bothering me. I’m spending so much time trying to make this right, that it would suck big time to have those corners rounded when it’s complete. I decided to fix them. This method would work regardless of whether you screwed up a corner on purpose like myself, or if you had one that was broken off.

Materials and tools you will need:

• Bondo
  
• Putty Knife
  
• Sanding block and paper (80, 120)
  
• Orbital sander (optional, but better than spinning your sanding block around real fast)
  
• Hammer
  
• Finish nails - 1″ or so is probably fine
• Light Block (for mounting lights on vinyl siding)
  
• Ruler
  
• Hacksaw
  
• Jigsaw (optional…watch your fingers!)
  
• Drill and bits
  
• Motivation
  

OK…here goes. The light block is in two pieces that snap together. Separate the pieces. You’ll need the piece that looks like this:

OK…take a beer break….ready?….let’s continue….

The side shown in the pic is the side that goes against the siding, and we are going to use it as a mold for the bondo. Bondo will stick to just about everything, except plastic. You basically need to cut this in half so you have 2 corners. The best way is probably corner to corner. I did it a little different but would probably do it diagonally if I had to do it again. I started cutting with a jigsaw which was fast. The only problem is it will heat up the plastic and melt it, and it quickly bonds back together. I then had to score it with a utility knife to get it separated. After I cut mine, the two pieces looked like the one on the left here:

Ignore that clamp…I didn’t end up needing it.

There is no easy way to explain this part…you need to measure and cut more of the plastic corner so it will fit underneath the corner, as shown in this pic:

Once you get this cut so it fits well, you’ll need to secure it. I did this by drilling a small pilot hole in a few spots, and banging in a finish nail just enough to hold the corner tight. You can see some of the nails better here:

Read the directions on the can of Bondo until you have them memorized. Mix the bondo on something flat that you can throw out later (like that girl you met at the sports bar last night?). When you have the bondo mixed, spread it into the mold like you are making a cake. Be sure to push down enough so that it forces the bondo down to the bottom of the mold, and leave the bondo higher than the repair so you can sand it later.

If you mixed the bondo right, it should harden in about 30 mins. If you crush a viagra and mix it in, it usually hardens a bit quicker. Feel the bondo to make sure it’s solid, pull the nails out and the mold should come right off.

Now, hit the side with the orbital sander using 80 grit paper until it’s smooth. For the edges, you can either use the sanding block, or the orbital sander. If you use the orbital sander you can easily make it crooked if you aren’t careful. Count the number of beers you have left, and make your decision. Here is the finished result on my Moon Patrol.