TronTastic

[Ropey9]

Hi All,

Found you and joined up today.

Joined up because my midlife crisis is pending and to get over it I'm buying myself a 1982 Tron Arcade Upright.

The internet is a wonderful thing when its helping like minded people and it is this I am hoping to get some insights.

I've found a couple of Tron Original 1982 units both in Canada for a decent price.

1 has has the chips changed with the highscoresave chips that dual starts with Tron / Satans Hollow (https://highscoresave.com/search?sSearch=tron).

The second has the original chips, so how the arcade game was original created.

The first unit looks in amazing condition and there is little in the price for both units. I assume the gameplay on the highscoresave will be exactly the same so wonder if there are advantages over either option.

Secondly the power will be setup for Canada / US, should I just get a step down transformer or look to alter the main supply to work with 240V? I'm not particular electronically adept, happy to build PCs but not so good soldering capacitors, etc. So could work from a step by step guide if the switchover from 110 to 240 is fairly standard.

Thirdly shipping, I'm fortunate that I have family in Canada who are arranging everything and looking at the machine to check all is well before parting with any money, I've been quoted ~£1200 (2 different companies) for shipping, this includes pick up from the seller, packaging, insurance and to the door delivery in the UK. Any thoughts on if this is excessive and alternatives on how to get an awkward item shipped?

I've been looking for a while for a unit in the UK and emailed a couple of places that have had them for sale in the past. I've had a response from one and they have one mothballed that needs some TLC which they will do, they are looking for £5500 for the unit once it is ready. Any thoughts on this as a price, the one in Canada including the shipping is pretty much half the one in the UK.

If anyone has a Tron 1982 in decent condition and are looking to sell I would be happy to discuss options.

I need to make a decision on the one in Canada in the next week so appreciate any help.

Sorry for a long opening introduction.

Cheers

 

[Phils Arcade]

Hi Mike and welcome to the club

Ken on here fills a container up every so often, currently on AC22. He has just filled his quota for this shipment. This is then shipped at £299, with delivery to the U.K. which you can pick up or arrange to forward on.

As I said though, he has just finished the container, so unknown if/when the next one will commence.

http://www.ukvac.com/forum/ac22-shipment-usuk-299-we-are-full_topic383885.html

I think there are a few arcade companies in the U.K. that regularly buy from the States that will ship your unit in their container for a fee. Would need to hunt around. Only thing is having to wait for when they are shipping.

Good luck with the cab though.

 

[_Matt_]

Regarding the Tron available for £5,500 over here, I'm guessing it's a company? If so, when they say they have one mothballed, what they will actually mean is that they will try and buy one for half that amount from a collector and sell it on to you and keep 2 or £3k as a finders fee._Matt_2021-09-09 20:52:42

 

[TheDaddy]

Welcome to ukvac !! Good luck with your search , sure you will find one.

Dave.

 

[Stickman]

Welcome to the forum, I am in the hunt for a Tron to complete my games room, they do not come up often and the UK ones are commanding top price at the moment.

I am also looking at the US as an option and as mentioned there are a few ways to get ones shipped to the UK at a more reasonable price.

If you do go for one of the two you have found, feel free to drop me the details of the second one as I am always searching and may not have seen these yet.

 

[Fantazia2]

Welcome to the forum, I am in the hunt for a Tron to complete my games room, they do not come up often and the UK ones are commanding top price at the moment.

I am also looking at the US as an option and as mentioned there are a few ways to get ones shipped to the UK at a more reasonable price.

If you do go for one of the two you have found, feel free to drop me the details of the second one as I am always searching and may not have seen these yet.

Surely you would be better off getting together and attempting to import both at the same time, if you want the other one, then the shipping cost per cab could come down quite a lot.

 

[namfreak]

Welcome to the forum!

All my cabs are US 110V and I use an external step down transformer so you don't have to mess around with the wiring in the cabinet. Easy peasy

I have imported single cabs in the past but £1500 sounds steep
Ken is definetly the way to go if you can. He only asks a $200 handling fee for cabs that are not his own and he is handling the shipping of a cab for me that I sourced externally

Steer clear of that £5.5k offer. As others have said that smells like a £3k (or more) finders fee

 

[Ropey9]

Hi, thanks for your welcome and post.

I was toying with the idea of buying both and keeping the best one, selling the other. It depends on what they are worth really and whether I'd recover the cost of the one I would sell.

The second one I've nicked images from the listing to give an idea of the condition. The listing states that the side art is new from phoenix arcade art and is ready to be put on, so I would expect it to look pretty decent once that was done.

With the current shipping costs this would be somewhere between £2500 --> £3000 once in the UK and would still be on 110V. No idea if this is what is palatable or not, for me as a one off it is and I'll suck up the £1200 shipping if there is no alternative.

 

[Ropey9]

Welcome to the forum, I am in the hunt for a Tron to complete my games room, they do not come up often and the UK ones are commanding top price at the moment.

I am also looking at the US as an option and as mentioned there are a few ways to get ones shipped to the UK at a more reasonable price.

If you do go for one of the two you have found, feel free to drop me the details of the second one as I am always searching and may not have seen these yet.

Surely you would be better off getting together and attempting to import both at the same time, if you want the other one, then the shipping cost per cab could come down quite a lot.

The 2 units are about 2000 miles apart in Canada, so I would need to see if one of the shipping companies would combine and ship for less.

 

[Ropey9]

Welcome to the forum!

All my cabs are US 110V and I use an external step down transformer so you don't have to mess around with the wiring in the cabinet. Easy peasy

I have imported single cabs in the past but £1500 sounds steep
Ken is definetly the way to go if you can. He only asks a $200 handling fee for cabs that are not his own and he is handling the shipping of a cab for me that I sourced externally

Steer clear of that £5.5k offer. As others have said that smells like a £3k (or more) finders fee

Thanks for responding, can you provide details of the step down transformers you use, makes sense for me to get something that someone is already using and works well.

 

[Ropey9]

Welcome to the forum, I am in the hunt for a Tron to complete my games room, they do not come up often and the UK ones are commanding top price at the moment.

I am also looking at the US as an option and as mentioned there are a few ways to get ones shipped to the UK at a more reasonable price.

If you do go for one of the two you have found, feel free to drop me the details of the second one as I am always searching and may not have seen these yet.

Surely you would be better off getting together and attempting to import both at the same time, if you want the other one, then the shipping cost per cab could come down quite a lot.

The 2 units are about 2000 miles apart in Canada, so I would need to see if one of the shipping companies would combine and ship for less.

I've also PM'd Ken directly to discuss this, not sure how simple things would be, Canada --> US --> UK, two different imports.

Ropey92021-09-10 10:23:46

 

[Stickman]

PJ Flynn is also someone that imports and has a container that will ship over from the US, you will still need to get it to the US west coast I think, maybe worth reaching out to him.

 

[Phils Arcade]

Don't forget about import taxes etc...

Bloody pain in the arse.

 

[tronads]

Tron is a wonderful game, and one with my 12 hour game, I believe I would have been the world record holder on back in the day, had I known about such things.
As such, I always thought I wanted to buy myself one.
However after playing on the game in recent years at meets and at Arcade Club, I realised that whilst I still love the game, I actually wouldn't probably play it that much at home, and as I am regularly at Arcade Club, I have given up on the idea of adding one to my cab collection.
So just wondering, have you played it recently ? Just to be sure you actually do want one...

 

[DanP]

Welcome to the forum!

All my cabs are US 110V and I use an external step down transformer so you don't have to mess around with the wiring in the cabinet. Easy peasy

Sorry but this isn't actually 100% correct. Whilst a cab will probably work just like that initially there are things to consider wrt to Tron or indeed any US import cab. Tron needs a hefty step down, more than a normal cabinet because it has 4 fluorescents in it instead of just 1 in most cabs. Secondly, if you leave original US spec fluorescent ballasts running they will eventually fail due to the 50/60hz difference, before they fail they will likely run hot. This failure could be catastrophic (they can catch fire - it happened once at a UKVAC meet), annoying (it can go short and trip out your RCD), or they can just stop working. They either need to be replaced with difficult to find 50hz 120v ballasts, or more modern ones that will work with either 50 or 60hz 120v, again these aren't simple to find and sometimes need newer fixtures. Your third option is to replace them with 240v fixtures (and add lots of wiring) or use something more modern like LEDs.

Just something to be aware of. I wouldn't let it put you off importing one. I used to have one but sold it years ago, it got to the point where I wouldn't play it due to a single game taking over 30mins.

Dan

 

[Ropey9]

Tron is a wonderful game, and one with my 12 hour game, I believe I would have been the world record holder on back in the day, had I known about such things.
As such, I always thought I wanted to buy myself one.
However after playing on the game in recent years at meets and at Arcade Club, I realised that whilst I still love the game, I actually wouldn't probably play it that much at home, and as I am regularly at Arcade Club, I have given up on the idea of adding one to my cab collection.
So just wondering, have you played it recently ? Just to be sure you actually do want one...

This is a great post, thanks for taking the time. No I haven't played this since I was 15/16 when it was on rotation in my local swimming baths - far too long ago 86/87 ish and yes you are most likely 100% spot on when I will binge for 2 months and then it will sit idle in the corner while my wife tuts at me. I played and was decent at a lot of games and Tron was the stand out for a 10p game and spending 4-5 hours before I lost focus or was kicked out due to it being closing time.

While keying this response it has made me reflect on this a bit more and perhaps I'll put the brakes on a bit and take a trip out to 4 quarters in Elephant and Castle (the only Arcade within a reasonable distance I can see with a Tron) and spend an afternoon with some beers getting reacquainted. This may be enough to get it out of my system as it were.

I was being protective of the 2 Tron listings I found but this has made me feel less urgent about doing this so for anyone else that may be interested these are the 2 listings I found - as of yesterday they were both still available, the one for $3500 the chap was willing to accept $3000 and the one at $2800 we settled at $2500. This is CAD so converting to GBP looks decent value if you can work out the shipping. Let me know if anyone decides that they are getting one, I'll bring some beers and come play.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-old-video-games/saskatoon/original-tron-arcade-for-sale/1578018894

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-old-video-games/calgary/midway-tron-arcade-restored/1542091899?fbclid=IwAR0jHMCxfvFm7tS1sTBtppfykIYC1e1GbowTz7jFemLcNHDchS1bUY4uVCo

Cheers

Mike

 

[Haves1979]

I paid just under £3k for mine last year. I dont play it a great deal but love just having it really. If you do import I'd recommend seeing if it needs the plastics doing if they are faded, and if so order from Phoenix at the same time. I've been looking at importing and shipping I have been quoted isn't cheap so you might be able to get them shipped at the same time.

Also I've been the lookout for 50hz ballasts for ages and had no luck so far, including getting a response from the German pinball place.

Good luck with the hunt!

Cheers

 

[Bods]

Think my game would last more like 4-5 Minutes

Wouldn't mind one myself but not to play it, just looks so damn cool. Did bid on one years back, project one not working but got outbid, probably a good thing

Just keep watching the movie every few months, that will probably get you playing it again after

 

[Stickman]

Cheers for sharing Mike, I will look into shipping as they are good prices at CAD, watching the Captain Auction there is one but I feel this will go for silly money.

We’re both sellers happy to work with a shipper, did Ken come back to you?

 

[Ropey9]

Cheers for sharing Mike, I will look into shipping as they are good prices at CAD, watching the Captain Auction there is one but I feel this will go for silly money.

We’re both sellers happy to work with a shipper, did Ken come back to you?

My sister lives in Canada so was getting the shipping quotes and the seller in Calgary was happy enough as the shipping company was doing all the work. I didn't really get into it too much with the cheaper one.

I did get a response from Ken, he wanted $300USD for handling the cab + the £299 usual container cost. Obviously there would be whatever it cost to ship from Canada to Ken. I would think it might save £400-£500 going via Ken.