Dragon's Lair Fans - Arcade Lifestyle
General Chat => Arcade Lifestyle => Topic started by: bloodflowers on May 04, 2012, 01:08:10 AM
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And after a lot of work, one of the infamous Duke cabs has been restored.
I'll get some much better photos when I can actually put it in the middle of a room instead of blocking the lounge doorway ;) There was no space in the house but the rain kept stopping me working on this, so I put it inside anyway.
(http://www.system11.org/temp/Arcade/Cabs/Missile%20Storm/missile_storm_finished2.jpg)
Work list:
Cabinet stripped
Cabinet cleaned (gently!), metal rails removed, polished and refitted with new tacks, t-molding polished, some slight edge damage on the black touched up here and there.
Coin door totally stripped, cleaned, polished, all parts replaced or de-rusted and polished (note: bulbs are still in the mail somewhere...)
Control panel stripped, trackball stripped, cleaned, de-rusted, rebuilt - may have new rollers made so I have spares, unique Sidam part. Bearings reconditioned due to difficulty getting new ones that were free running enough. Buttons dismantled and cleaned. Panel cleaned and polished.
All metal control panel mounting parts cleaned and re-plated where required.
Black metal trim all removed, cleaned, polished.
PCB caps replaced.
Power supply stripped, new line filter, rebuild with new diodes and caps, new power cable made up.
Monitor stripped, shielding de-rusted (created a WHOLE PILE of rust+paint from this part alone), rust protected and primered, chassis dusted out, rebuilt - did not explode, very happy.
Bezel reinforced to restore to correct shape as far as possible - may work on this again sometime to make perfect.
Light fixture and marquee cleaned, new strip light, found someone had disconnected the speakers. No idea why.
Then it was all put back together again, new screws/etc where possible, earth terminals polished and tested.
Turn on, go deaf due to volume being up so high. Lose in round 1, always the same for me.
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Lovely job on that bloodf.
Paul.
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this looks AMAZING!!! can't believe that after sitting on a ship for so many years it's now in collector's hands being played again. fabulous effort!!!
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Very nice !
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Wow, truly an incredible job you just pulled there :spaceace: :spaceace:
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Beautiful job! Really inspirational. Thanks for sharing and have fun playing! :)
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LOVE IT !!!! Sidam is the best bootlegger ever !!!
This does make me feel sorry that I had to cancel mine though......if only I had more space.....
Someone (Muerto) needs to upload this to the KLOV database !!!
Come to Eurocade and bring it over so we can put it next to the Asterock to make some sexy pictures of these Italian beauties !!!!
p.s. one minor thing: no new ball for the trackball ?
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Someone (Muerto) needs to upload this to the KLOV database !!!
p.s. one minor thing: no new ball for the trackball ?
Nowhere seems to sell 3.5" trackballs, but the old one cleaned up nicely.
Also please don't upload the photo to KLOV yet, I'll be submitting one but I want to get a much better picture. :)
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Ah it is 3.5" !! Nice compromise for a smaller CP.....as long as the ball is not heavily worn (which it probably isn't after having been in use so shortly before taking a VERY long "nap") there is no problem.
Yes it must be close to impossible to find a ball that size...
Oops about the pic ;)
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Did you already create a new entry for this on KLOV? If so, I could publish it right away ;)
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Did you already create a new entry for this on KLOV? If so, I could publish it right away ;)
I will do when there's a good picture to use.
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Wow, very nice restoration, i like everything about the cab except the marque.
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Was my first thought too, but it does fit with the great inside bezel...
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Wow, very nice restoration, i like everything about the cab except the marque.
The older marquee design is better (it seems I have one early machine / proto, and one 'tweaked' machine). You can see them together here, note the orange is added to the bezel design, larger colour ovals on the marquee, and obviously the silver coin door changed to black.
http://www.system11.org/temp/Arcade/Cabs/Missile%20Storm/onboat/mstorm_composite.jpg (http://www.system11.org/temp/Arcade/Cabs/Missile%20Storm/onboat/mstorm_composite.jpg)
Really I had wanted to keep the other marquee for my cab, but P-man pointed out I would be splitting up an art set. Since I had chosen to keep the later coin door and bezel, it was the right thing to do I guess. I'm still really tempted to swap them over ;) Both look better unlit to be honest, the whites get a yellow tint when lit in both cases - it's tempting to try to get a blue filter tube filter to 'cool' the colours, I know where to get yellow ones to warm - maybe they can supply blue.
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WOW, this really looks amazing! Fantastic work. It's always good to see a machine with such a history alive and being cared of. Thanks for sharing!
I like the artwork. At first I also thought that i don't like the marquee but actually it fits very nicely with the CP and the Bezel.
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Did you already create a new entry for this on KLOV? If so, I could publish it right away ;)
Created an entry as I have some slightly better photos to upload now, just needs someone to approve it.
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I have much better pics of the Asterock too. With the original bezel instead of the Asteroids one.....
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Did you already create a new entry for this on KLOV? If so, I could publish it right away ;)
Created an entry as I have some slightly better photos to upload now, just needs someone to approve it.
Just published the database entry: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=18833
As mentioned before, I have no influence on pic uploads/approvals though.
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I think Muerto needs to submit the pics if you want them fast there ;D
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And then .. disaster! My MS boardset has developed a fault. Allow it to warm up a bit and corrupt flashy bars appear above and below the picture. The actual game screen is unchanged and all works, it's like the game is drawing extra memory above and below the actual boundary of the picture. I'm unfamiliar with Missile Command type hardware, does anyone have any suggestions? In fact in test mode where only white is used (it says ram/rom are ok), the corruption doesn't really change at all, then scrolls if you roll the trackball, almost like it's drawing the data area for the inputs under the screen.
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Post a picture or video.
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http://youtu.be/TSJ_08gdudk
Sorry didn't show much of the game running, the pause is where I've flicked the test switch.
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You have a fault in the blanking for the visible display area I think. This is not the same as the video blanking in the sync for the monitor - it looks like the lines are supposed to be present in the video output as a black border to the game area. They'll likely be a specific peice of circuitry that forces black for what looks like the first few and last few H lines (i.e. the data is read out of the VRAM but masked off).
If I can find a set of schematics online for MC, I'll see if I can find the circuit.
Paul.
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On the schematic Sheet 2 Side B in the Output Circuits section the colours are masked by VBLANK*. This signal is generated off VBLANK plus some logic based off the first 3 (1V,2V,4V) and last 3 (32V,64V,128V) V-counter bits hinting it might be doing the visible area blanking. It's located on Sheet 1 Side B in the Sync section, an LS27 and an LS10 (IC B7 and B5 though it'd hard to read on the scan).
Good luck!
Paul.
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good hunting work :)....and now let's hope Sidam did a 1:1 copy of the board for this game....but I highly doubt it. (would love to see a pic)..
Asterock's set-up is of course similar to Asteroids, but not a 100% copy. We are lucky to have the Asterock schematics but I don't think I ever saw them for Missile Storm...
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I have much better pics of the Asterock too. With the original bezel instead of the Asteroids one.....
Don't blame my poor Asterock, pictures were taken ten years ago with a cheap 2 MP camera.
P.S. when I found the cab the bezel was missing so I supposed it used the one from the original Asteroids since there were no available public pictures nor any kind of documentation.
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Haha, I don't "blame" anyone....time marches on and cameras improved ;) Indeed I was thankful to find already so much info about Asterock :)
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The board doesn't match the schematics accurately, but there are certain chip arrangements that can be identified. I've found the LS08/LS10/LS27 associated with VBLANK*, on the Sidam board they're using different parts of the chips in different places, but I now have a list of inputs and outputs to check. Since I can't run this up on a test bench without unsoldering all the regulators, I'll solder some wires to +5 and GND and do the probe checks hooked up to the cab.
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So I got the probe connected, and the problem has gone away. Left it for 20 minutes, nothing.
I checked the +5v and it's only 4.85, the totally dead board is reading dead on 5v in the same cab. Can a bad voltage regulator cause this?
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Fixed.
LS27 was looking bad but after replacement no change. LS08 however looked good, and was actually bad!
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Electronics.....will never fail to surprise. Well done !