Q*bert. A man and his grail... FINISHED !!!

[level42]

It's só bright....

[level42]

Apparently I had forgotten to post the front pic of my monitor set up idea....


Judging by your picture Thorsten, the tube's mounting corners are touching or only just not touching the wood panel...and anyway , I now know the correct distance....

[level42]

Love the CRT, nice and clean. Can't wait to see Q working.

Yep I love NIB/NOS CRT monitors too......the clean and new look is simply awesome

Can't be that much longer to get it running at least. Still need the shroud and leaf button holders.
Oh and of course my ever favorite (not) part of any resto: the coin door.....but this time I'm in luck.....it only needs some new paint........and......OK it would be cool to be able to add the Gottlieb logo plate but I know it's not easy (=expensive) to get and also.....not all Q*berts had them originally.

[level42]

OK let's convert that Horizontal monitor into a vertical one !

First of all I have to remove the 4 bolts to remove the metal plate that carries the PCB. I decided to keep the PCB mounted on the metal plate, it's easy to screw that down to the wood.

Next I unbolted and removed the two metal bars of the frame.

[level42]

Of course I had to cut away some ty-raps and unknot some wires to be able to move the PCB to the "vertical position".

[level42]

At first I thought the wiring for the degauss coil would not be long enough but then I had a look at the pictures of my test set-up and this showed I had the wrong CRT orientation in mind. So now it was just fine when I turned the supports around

I positioned the supports with "eahother" in that I used one flat side to adjust the support so that it would be exactly flush with the lowest part of the metal supports already on the monitor (the "ears" of the CRT).

I marked the hole positions on the supports with a sharpie. The one on the top (the most right one on the 2nd pic) was unusable as the diagonal support is welded on that very spot.

[level42]

Then I drilled holes, first tiny one's with the Dremel, then big one's (in two steps) with the big drill.

Mounted the supports on both sides with carriage bolts and extra rings....very tightly and presto, we have a vertical monitor !

[level42]

Now I have two issues before installing it into the cab:

1) How am I going to do that on my own without breaking the neck ?
2) How much distance do I need to keep from the artwork bezel ? I guess I can only truly correctly position it once I got the monitor shroud...yugh....

[anunaki]

Don't do it alone then. I can give you a hand tomorrow if needed

[level42]

Would be awesome but I have a full schedule tomorrow and King's day.... :S

I just stubbornly tried to see if it would fit and it doesn't ....well it does but the short ends of the triangle supports are a bit too long....they can rest (thank god) on a horizontal lath by gravity but since they are a bit too long the CRT actually touches the artwork bezel which is not how it's supposed to be I'm sure.

If I can kindly beg my good friend Thorsten to do one final measurement for me......I really need the distance of the CRT's "top" (the center top of the "bulb" so to speak) to the artwork bezel center.

Edit: never mind that....I just realized it's physically impossible to measure that distance...need to find something else as reference....

If I position it too close to the artwork bezel I can't install the shroud later on. If it's too far away, it will look crappy. And I can't drill holes endlessly in the wood, in fact, it would probably be only small differences...

I think I'll just order the bezel I think will fit and use that, that's the only way to be 100% sure.....gonna take some time to arrive I'm afraid though...

[Luigi]

ah dammit....forgot the leafswitch holders

I wrote myself a note...I'm getting older ya know


as for the distance between the tube and the bezel....I think it can be measured but it needs more than one man to do it. One has to hold something as bezel replacement and the other one measures....will talk to Dirk about that

[level42]

No worries my friend, I know the feeling

Hold your horses with your measuring my friend, the bezel I'll be getting may well be different from the original and make the measurement unusable. I really only have one shot at this since if the holes are slightly incorrect I'm screwed.....there's a lot of weight on those four holes when the monitor is mounted and I can't "move" the holes

[level42]

Yeah, found someone who can do sandblasting for me so this is now at his place....

There was more rust then expected and the paint was getting loose at several spots. It also looks like they did some "re-painting" at some point....without proper sanding of course.

[level42]

WOW...this picture helped me even more than I thought:




The angle meter also has a cm. scale on the bottom, from this I now know the exact position where the support of the CRT needs to be, 7.7 cm.

Of course, there is still a possibility that the bezel may be a bit higher or lower, but I can't imagine it can be much difference....I'm going to take the chance.

I'm ordering the cheap bezels, I'll be ordering 3, since shipping costs are so high anyway if I buy one it makes sense to have 1 or 2 spares.

[level42]

Meanwhile, somewhere in the arcade capital of Europe....