TRON Restoration

JohnT

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Bought a non-working Tron machine, was told it was playing blind but the flyback on the monitor had gone.
Turned out it was a bit more than that, but managed to get it working again. Ended up doing:
- G07 chassis - repaired and refurbed by Gunblade (many thanks!). Had some problems with colours that ended up being a cable issue so made a new one and the screen is crystal clear
- The cabinet was full of white speckled stuff which I assumed was mould, it was over everything inside so decided to just strip the whole cabinet bare and then treat with some mould and fungus remover then left it to air for a week or so, that seems to have got rid of it
- Tron board wasn’t working - had issues with it smoking because of some shorted tant caps so recapped it and replaced an inductor and then I was getting garbled graphics. It came with a spare board but that just boots to a yellow screen. That did mean though I could do some trial and error testing with the 3 boards and I Watched a lot of YT vids and saw something similar. It ended up being a couple of bad z80’s and some cold solder points and now runs fine (spare board still not working but I’m parking that for now)
- The spinner wasn’t responding so I ended up replacing the optical sensor and works great now.
- There were sound issues so I recapped the AMP board and now the sounds great
- Coin Door was rusty so gave it a treatment and a respray and gave the chrome parts a polish and a good scrub with wire wool. Cleaned up the coin mechs and they were working great now too.
- issues with power supply, it had been converted to run on UK mains with a transformer but the switching power supply wasn’t working so replaced that.

The side arts decent and the CPO isn’t too bad but the art on the shroud’s not the best. Also the paints peeling on the marquee in places. I’m torn between leaving the original art or ordering a replacement art set, but the only place I’ve seen them is Phoenix Arcade in the USA and they’re expensive - but the quality’s meant to be top notch.

Vid of it playing:

Some before and after pics:

After:

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Before:

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Body pop

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Superb work !
Love that
Feel your pain with the art from USA
I want /need the 720 boom box art and can only get it from there
Though I’m also torn on leaving what’s there on there
 

JohnT

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Just adding a couple more pics - I got a new marquee from Olly at arcade art shop which looks great. But still in two minds if I should replace the CPO and the art around the bezel - I like the originality but wondered if the new art would just make it really pop.

I will be looking to sell this aswell at some point (currently debating space available and which cabinets to keep or sell) so from a price/collector perspective what would be best, leave as-is or new art!
The new art from Phoenix would be something like £200-250 including shipping from the US.
 

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