I just spotted this ad on a website:

This is an ad about refinancing your home. So, why did they choose this particular picture to go with this ad? I would expect a picture of a house, or an old dude cutting his grass, etc… I would not expect a shirtless Rob Zombie look alike (don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against Rob Zombie).

I just got the TELEPHONE plexi sign from Brian at GameStencils.com. It is beyond awesome:

Here you can see how the white is 3D. It sticks out about 1/16″:

Here’s some pics of it lit. My camera doesn’t do it justice:

I decided to leave the top open, so it is a bit like a sconce. Now I just need to restore the phone and I should be done with this.

I finished building my Payphone enclosure! In case you didn’t read my last post, here’s a 3D mockup I made before building this:

Here it is mounted on the wall:

I designed a TELEPHONE sign in Illustrator for the top. Brian Jones from GameStencils.com is turning it into a real plexiglass sign that I can back light.

The phone was converted for home use before I got it. It does not require money to call out, but I’d like to change that if possible. I’d also like to put a bell inside so it rings on incoming calls. I have no idea how to work on these, so if anyone has any resources please let me know. The dial sticks, which I think I can probably fix by taking it apart and cleaning it up.

Here are a few shots of the build:

Hey there! I’ve been using Google Sketchup to figure out a new layout for our arcade. I’m hooked on it. You can checkout more about this in my post on CoinOpSpace.com.

Here’s a couple of models I made with it so far, make sure you spin them around!

Awhile back, I bought an antique payphone on eBay, which looks similar to this one:

This phone is a bit too old fashioned to look good in our arcade. I’ve been planning on putting it upstairs in our hallway. It’s been sitting in the corner up there for 2 or 3 years now so I figured I should get around to mounting it. I don’t have keys, but managed to get into the top box and have a plan for mounting it. I’m making my own enclosure for it, which I modeled in sketchup:

Here’s a 3D view:

and an exploded view:

The plan is to make a custom TELEPHONE sign for the top, and have it light up. I’ll post more pics as I put it together.

Hey there. This is going to be short, because I’m tired. I got up around 5AM to drive to NH and pickup these two:

It was pouring out most of the day today, but my brother helped get these with me in his van so they didn’t get wet.

The Super Pac-Man works, and is in pretty decent shape. It’s not shiny and new by any means, but these hardly ever are. The bottom saw some water at some point and is a little swollen, but the sides at the bottom don’t have any water damage. I may put a new bottom in it at some point but its not too bad as is. The monitor has a great picture on it, so I may not bother with a cap kit. I’ll probably just clean this one up and try to find a spot for it in the house. I am severely out of space, but keep finding more somehow.

The Donkey Kong is a bit beat up. It doesn’t look too bad at first glance, but the kickplate has come away from the sides of the cabinet and is leaning in. The piece above that and under the control panel is also coming off. At some point, someone put a load of screws all over the place to try to keep it together and most of them have ripped free. I’ll need to restore the cabinet at some point. The game boots up and plays somewhat OK. The monitor is pretty screwy, so I’ll need to start with a cap kit and see if that fixes it.

I had all the repro art, and other parts to build a DK. I planned on taking my 2nd Popeye that is hiding in the corner of the garage and convert it into a Donkey Kong at some point. Now with this other Nintendo cabinet, I haven’t decided what I’ll do. I may fix this one up and sell it, or might use it to convert to a DK Jr. Decisions, decisions.

Hope its as cool as the old one. Here’s a clip from its predecessor:

I made some more progress on Q*Bert in the past couple of days. First, I got the knocker working. Here’s the original knocker assembly:

The coil was dead, as well as the fuse. I put in a new coil:

I put in a new fuse, and tested the transistor that powers the knocker to make sure it was OK. It’s knocking as it should now. Gotta love those knockers.

Here’s a pic of how the control panel was:

I swapped out the joystick for one that matched better, put in new buttons, and a new overlay:

While working on this, I had to find a way to keep the cats from climbing inside the cabinet. Homer Simpson worked nicely:

I am now a supreme noser. To recap, here’s the last graphics issue I was trying to fix:

Notice the Q*Bert logo in the top left, and the screwed up sprites. Here it is working:

There seems to be a sound issue that only occurs when you make Coily jump off the board after you. You can here it twice in the video above. If anyone knows what would cause that, please let me know.

The graphics problem ended up being a bad jumper on the main board, JP13:

Before finding this, I figured I should go through all the boards in the game to make sure there were no issues. I started with the filter board, which had some major issues. One of the header pins burned up, and left a crater in the board:

Both pins on the right were affected, and consequently some rocket scientist soldered the two wires that connect to those pins right to the back of the board:

I removed that set of header pins:

and replaced them with a new set:

Around back, you can see the remnants of the wires they soldered directly to the board:

The pin to the right of the fried one actually still had its solder pad and trace in tact, so I only needed to solder in one jumper directly to the header pin:

I resoldered all the other header pins on the board. I then pulled the main PCB, and changed all the sockets. I did the same for the sound board, and replaced all the caps on it. That’s where I’m at now. I just got a replacement coil for the knocker. With any luck, maybe I’ll get that going tonight.

When I got this Q*Bert, it was missing a power supply PCB. I ordered one online. While waiting for it, I figured I should clean up the power block in the bottom of the cabinet, and test the components on it:

It was pretty corroded. My goal here was not to make it spotless, but just make it presentable and ensure everything was working. I cleaned it up with some wire brushes and steel wool, and checked all the fuses to make sure they were the right values and that they were working. I also tested the 2 bridge rectifiers. Everything tested fine. Here it is cleaned up:

I hooked this back up in the bottom of the cabinet and waited. I received the power supply PCB earlier today, and hooked it up. It shows some signs of life now:

As you can see, some of the wrong sprites are being pulled up. Where the spinning round discs should be, there are those green guys. Where the “Q*Bert” logo should be is a bunch of garbage. When Q*Bert moves up the board, his sprite changes to coily. Here’s a video of it in action:

It’s been a long day, so I think I’ll call it quits for now. When I get back at it, I’m going to go over the other boards to make sure everything is OK. I also need to work on the knocker, as it’s not firing.