Hello everyone!
This cabinet came to me by pure chance three years ago. By then, I was part of one small arcade associaton (that gone wrong) and we saw one interesting add of some arcades for sale on a second hand app. They were 3 or 4 "Photoplay" (a touch cabinet very popular in Spain that had games like Trivial Pursuit, find 7 differences...) and one Batman Forever cab. Once there, we agreed price for all of them together and then asked if she had any more cabs or knew of any old distributor that still had any storage. She answered that she had one more cabinet, but it was so messed up that they didn't put any add for it. They were thinking of throwing it away so, if we liked it, we could take it for free. We follow her to a sort of garage with farming tools and there it was:
Yes, it was quite messed up and seen better days, but that game is probably in wich I spent more coins during my childhood. And it was free! We search around the garage and found almost everything: top board, cpo with original joysticks, rear boards, front piece... We had everything except PCB (dammit!), coin insertor and marquee.
Once our association went wrong, I asked to keep this cab as I really have emotional connection with it. Took it to a friend's place where it has been more than 2 years until now that I've decided to finish it once for all.
First thing that you can see is that front part had been modified by previous owners, replacing all 4 red buttons for those metallic things. What the heck are those things? Well, they are cup holders!!
. I think owner was tired of children spilling their cokes all over the cabinet and decided to make such a bizarre change. Metallic plate was also reversed. I was going to buy new buttons, but one friend told me that he probably had some from some old slot machines he had. Finally took them from a broken dartboard.
With that modification, it didn't also have its Quattro credit board. All wire was tangled and had some cut and duck tape conections here and there. Jamma connector was also very rusted so I decided to take all out and rewire from zero.
Acording coin counter, 163.911 coins that multiplied per 25 pesetas (our old coind) makes a total of 4.097.775 pta (24.600 € aprox.). Marquee area had rust too, so probably need to replace that too. Same with speakers.
I started restoration by checking power supply. Didn't know if it was alive, but when first connected at least lights didn't go out, hehe. It was making awful noises but checking it with the multimeter showed right values. Then, it suddenly died. Replaced fuse and returned to live. Plus, no noise now!
Last step (for now) of disassembly and cleaning was CPO. Lot of superficial rust, but at least is in one piece. As you can see, 1 extra button had been added to side players and 2 buttons for central players. My bet is that one extra button was added as replacement of the front red buttons, and second one on central players probably this cab was used on its last days with any 2 player pcb.
I forgot to mention that original crt (Wells Gardner 25K7191) was inside. Crt was checked and repaired by a technician when we found it 3 years ago, but after all this time without being used and with a move in wich I didn't take as cautions as I should, it needs a new repair. It's alive but coulndn't stabilize image, and when game changed screen in demo mode, it was screwed again. After some tries, it went worst and worst. So I will take it out and send it to the only technician that I now in my area
(THAT'S ALL FOR NOW. I WILL CONTINUE WHEN CAN TAKE SOME FREE TIME)
davorz2020-02-23 22:20:24
This cabinet came to me by pure chance three years ago. By then, I was part of one small arcade associaton (that gone wrong) and we saw one interesting add of some arcades for sale on a second hand app. They were 3 or 4 "Photoplay" (a touch cabinet very popular in Spain that had games like Trivial Pursuit, find 7 differences...) and one Batman Forever cab. Once there, we agreed price for all of them together and then asked if she had any more cabs or knew of any old distributor that still had any storage. She answered that she had one more cabinet, but it was so messed up that they didn't put any add for it. They were thinking of throwing it away so, if we liked it, we could take it for free. We follow her to a sort of garage with farming tools and there it was:
Yes, it was quite messed up and seen better days, but that game is probably in wich I spent more coins during my childhood. And it was free! We search around the garage and found almost everything: top board, cpo with original joysticks, rear boards, front piece... We had everything except PCB (dammit!), coin insertor and marquee.
Once our association went wrong, I asked to keep this cab as I really have emotional connection with it. Took it to a friend's place where it has been more than 2 years until now that I've decided to finish it once for all.
First thing that you can see is that front part had been modified by previous owners, replacing all 4 red buttons for those metallic things. What the heck are those things? Well, they are cup holders!!
With that modification, it didn't also have its Quattro credit board. All wire was tangled and had some cut and duck tape conections here and there. Jamma connector was also very rusted so I decided to take all out and rewire from zero.
Acording coin counter, 163.911 coins that multiplied per 25 pesetas (our old coind) makes a total of 4.097.775 pta (24.600 € aprox.). Marquee area had rust too, so probably need to replace that too. Same with speakers.
I started restoration by checking power supply. Didn't know if it was alive, but when first connected at least lights didn't go out, hehe. It was making awful noises but checking it with the multimeter showed right values. Then, it suddenly died. Replaced fuse and returned to live. Plus, no noise now!
Last step (for now) of disassembly and cleaning was CPO. Lot of superficial rust, but at least is in one piece. As you can see, 1 extra button had been added to side players and 2 buttons for central players. My bet is that one extra button was added as replacement of the front red buttons, and second one on central players probably this cab was used on its last days with any 2 player pcb.
I forgot to mention that original crt (Wells Gardner 25K7191) was inside. Crt was checked and repaired by a technician when we found it 3 years ago, but after all this time without being used and with a move in wich I didn't take as cautions as I should, it needs a new repair. It's alive but coulndn't stabilize image, and when game changed screen in demo mode, it was screwed again. After some tries, it went worst and worst. So I will take it out and send it to the only technician that I now in my area
(THAT'S ALL FOR NOW. I WILL CONTINUE WHEN CAN TAKE SOME FREE TIME)
davorz2020-02-23 22:20:24
