I’ve had a busy summer this year. I was able to wrap up three projects before the weather turned cold. I already reported on the Time Pilot restoration, and shopping my Earthshaker pinball. The last game I finished up this summer was my Centipede that I’ve had in the garage for a few years. I was never able to get this into the house to work on because it was soaked in mouse urine and smelled really bad. Last year I picked up a replacement cabinet but had not had the time to transplant the working parts from the first cabinet. I finally got this done and now have a nice working Centipede in my gameroom!

All kinds of cabinets around this project! The front one is a friend’s who just happened to store his in my garage for a few weeks. Cool photo opp!

When I last checked in on this game, I had just purchased the replacement cabinet and stripped all the parts out of the original cabinet. I also already rebuilt the control panel and had it ready to install on the new cabinet. I stopped at this point because the new cabinet had its sides covered in white laminate. I needed to take some time to decide if I was going to remove the laminate and buy reproduction side art for the cabinet. Well, the more I thought about doing this, the more I realized that I should just keep the laminate. The white laminate looked great, and I would not even see the sides anyway due to how tight my gameroom is. There just is no space between games to show off the artwork. With that decision out of the way the rest of the project would be easy!

The last step done to the “mouse urine” cabinet. I hate to destroy original cabinets!

Since I had the cabinet gutted and cleaned out, the first step was to put the original Centipede power block back in the bottom of the cabinet. I actually took this apart and repainted the metal framework from this assembly. I then cleaned all the remaining parts and reassembled it. I also put a new fuse holder block in it because the other one was pretty old. This assembly needed to go in first because there were several harness connectors that needed to be plugged into it. This would allow me to align the harness to it. Once the harness was aligned it was easy to lay out to all the other areas of the cabinet.

All cleaned out and ready for some parts.

As I mentioned before I had a special harness that was modified to play both Centipede and Millipede boards. They have different wiring connections so they weren’t interchangeable in the original harness. I added another PCB track above the normal Centipede location so I could install the Millipede above. It fit like a glove! After the PCB was installed, I finished the rest of the internal components and harness installation. Everything looked great when I was done.

Starting to look like an arcade game.

After the internals were all reassembled, I reinstalled the control panel. I rebuilt the trackball and put a new fire button in the panel, but I hadn’t fixed the LED lights in the start buttons. They weren’t working so I was hoping the LEDs were burned out. I picked up a set at Radio Shack and replaced them in the button. I had to drill out the rivets holding the button assemblies together. The LEDs were a little tricky to replace because the they were soldered to the button contacts. It was worth all the effort to rebuild because the buttons are really bright now!

Switch disassembled awaiting a new LED

Nice and bright!

The panel looks great in the new cabinet!

Once I finished reassembling the game it worked great! The Millipede board isn’t working right so I need to do some work to it to get it to run. The Centipede works GREAT and is a lot of fun to play. I had one spot left in the gameroom to squeeze this in. Now the gameroom is done for the year. I have several more projects coming up but with the weather change there won’t be any new games for a while.

All assembled ready to go.

Looks great along my other Atari cabinets.

I have it to the right of my Crystal Castles, but I think I will move it soon because the Crystal Castles looks hidden between the large Centipede and Pole Position cabinets.

Centipede has a great marquee!

Check out all the Centipede restoration pictures in my Centipede Photo Album

I had some really nice progress on my Centipede this week. I picked up a Centipede cabinet a couple years ago. It was fully working, but not in great shape. The cabinet had some damage along the front marquee area on the sides and there was some minor swelling around the t-molding. That wasn’t even the worst part. The cabinet smelled horrible from mouse urine. It was stored for several years out in a barn, and some lucky mouse made a nice home out of it. Since Atari built their cabinets in the 80s from some really cheap MDF, it would soak everything with moisture in it. The speaker area had whole 1/2″ of extra thickness just from swelling due to mouse pee. YUCK!

Nothing like finding a mouse nest in a game…thankfully he was gone!

I was going to still take a shot at restoring the cabinet as it was, but I could not do anything to get that nasty smell out of the wood. I didn’t want to paint the smell into the wood for fear I would still smell it, so I decided to put it on hold until I was able to pick up another cabinet. All I needed was the box, because everything else was in great shape after I rebuilt the control panel.

About a year ago I came across a Craigslist ad for an arcade golf game pretty cheap. I went over to check it out and it was a Centipede converted to a Taito US Classic golf game. The cabinet was in great shape. We haggled a little bit but he was asking more than I wanted to pay, so I left it. Several months later I sent him a quick email to see if he ever sold it. He hadn’t, so I offered what I wanted to pay and he accepted.

I went over to pick up the game a few months ago, and things didn’t go so well. First, the cabinet was terribly heavy like all the old classic MDF Atari cabinets. It was in his basement so we would have to take it up the stairs, and the seller had some back problems so I was on my own. He didn’t have the keys to the cabinet so I couldn’t take out the monitor to lighten the load. I brought in my hand truck that I use to move games so I thought maybe I could handle it. Once I got to the stairs, I immediately noticed that the carpet padding on the steps was so thick that I couldn’t roll the wheels of the cart on it. That wasn’t going to work! Finally he offered to let me use his hand truck. It had really large rubber wheels so I thought I was in luck. As soon as I put it under the game and pulled back on it to balance the weight on the wheels, I could see that the tires on the cart were totally flat. Being out of options, I had to pass on the game and hopefully come back in the future when I could bring someone to help move it out.

This past week I finally was able to work out a day to go get this game. I brought a full size appliance hand truck with me, and a friend who I suckered into coming along. We were able to get it out of the house pretty easily. It was heavy but came out ok.

Once I got the game home I drilled out the back door lock and inspected what I bought. Found four quarters in it, and the key to the lock I just drilled out! It was in really great shape and was a decent conversion. The side art was covered by laminate, so I’ll eventually remove it once I buy new Centipede side art. There was minimal burn-in on the monitor, but it took a while to warm up. I’ll put in a nice fresh cap kit and it should be fine. I also found the original Back Door Instruction Sheet still on the back door and in great condition. This cabinet will make a nice host to all of the great parts I’ve been saving!

It even has the old Back Door Instruction Poster!

The laminate on the sides makes it too wide for the t-molding.
I’ll remove it once I buy some new sideart.

Sunday afternoon my son and I spent some time gutting the old mouse pee cabinet. We pulled out everything. He was nervous a mouse would jump out at him, so it was pretty funny. I still need to gut the new cabinet and get it ready for the parts. I will plan to trade or sell the US Classic parts to anyone who would want them, because this cabinet will once again be a Centipede. I also plan to give away the old cabinet in case someone wants to take on the challenge of restoring it. I hate to see it get thrown away. That artwork is awesome!

AJ helped pull all of the good parts from the old cabinet.

After two years of owning a Centipede, I am getting close to having it in the gameroom. I can’t wait!

They haven’t been this close to each other since leaving the factory!

Check out the Centipede Photo Gallery for even more pictures.

I made sure I took several pictures to show how easy it is to rebuild a trackball. Trackballs wear out badly, and this one was virtually unplayable in its condition. Here are a couple shots of the trackball and the rollers inside before replacement:

Basically these are really easy to work on. Just remove the six screws holding the shell together, and pop off the top of the shell. The ball and roller assemblies lift right out. Two of the rollers have the encoder wheel screwed into the side of them. Just remove the small screws holding those on with an allen wrench. Just be careful not to bend the encoder wheels. Those need to be perfectly flat to work the best. The repair kit I purchased from Bob includes the three rollers, and six sealed bearing assemblies. I also purchased a new white button and a new “snow white” trackball because I liked the look of it more than the offwhite ball, and my old one was really scratched up and worn.

Here are a couple comparison photos of the parts:

Then just put the trackball back together and here’s what you get:

Here are the original Craigslist photos:

Centipede and Crystal Castles are both games that I really enjoyed in the 80′s. I was glad I had the opportunity to add these to my collection. They were both pretty beat up, and were really dirty from sitting in a barn for the last several years. They looked complete so I figured I would be able to get them going pretty quickly.

I had to make two trips to pick them up. I was glad that I only had to drive about an hour each direction to get them. I hauled them in our mini-van, so I can only take one game at a time. Once I got them home, I started testing them to see what worked and what didn’t.

Centipede:

The centipede was dead. I turned on the power and saw nothing happening. I did a quick check of the fuses and found one that was blown. Swapped it out, but still didn’t get any life from the game. I did notice that the LED on the board was lit, so I knew the game was getting power. I tested the voltage going to the board and it was correct. The monitor neck tube was not glowing, so I knew it was dead. Since I knew the Crystal Castles monitor worked, I pushed the games close together and hooked up the Centipede video cable to the Crystal Castles monitor. The game worked great!

Looking around inside the cabinet, I saw three distinct game boards mounted to the inside. If I remembered right, Centipede only used one

I plugged each of them in, and there were three games! I had fully working game boards for Centipede, Millipede, and Bulls Eye Darts! I’ll probably keep the Centipede and Millipede boards. The Bulls Eye Darts board was a converted Centipede board. It is the one with the add-on daughter card in the picture above. If anyone is interested in trading for this board, please let me know. Plugs right into a Centipede cabinet. Looks like a pretty cool dart game for a trackball cabinet.

Bulls Eye Darts (sideways on my horizontal Crystal Castles monitor)

The first thing I did to this cabinet was to spend some serious time cleaning it up. It spent several years in a barn, and was pretty beat up. The front edges of the side panels by the marquee were busted up, which looks to me like the cabinet was dropped on its face at one point in its life. I found some broken marquee glass inside, so I’m sure that’s what happened. I’ll have to repair that wood and smooth it out with some bondo to build it back out.

Most Atari cabinets were made out of 3/4″ MDF particle wood. This stuff absorbs water like a sponge. the other problem is that it also absorbs moisture from the air if in a damp environment, which leads to swelling along all of the outside edges of the side panels like you see below. I will have to sand this down, put some wood hardener on it to strengthen it up, and smooth it out with some bondo. I hate having to repair moisture damage in MDF cabinets!

After I took off the marquee, which had peeling paint, I discovered a mouse nest. It smelled horrible in the cabinet from all the mouse urine. I even found the *dead* mouse! Yuck! I tried to clean out everything, and even bleach the smell, but it didn’t really help. I decided I would bust out the horizontal board with the speaker grill to make a new one. Luckily, I had a replacement speaker and light assembly to replace the other board that was badly soaked in urine!

Mouse nest tucked in behind the marquee light.

Nasty! Notice all the swelling in the MDF. This stuff is a sponge for mouse urine!

The other part that took some work to clean was the control panel. The trackball would not even roll. I tried to clean out the trackball and lube the bearings, but the rollers were badly worn. I will rebuild this with a handy trackball rebuild kit from Bob Roberts real soon! I was able to get the rest of the parts pretty clean, and the overlay cleaned up really nice. And of course, no more mouse urine runs on the the inside of the control panel!

More nasty mouse urine!

Pretty dirty!

Much better!

All reassembled, waiting for new controller parts.

To repair the monitor, I installed a G07 repair kit I bought from Bob Roberts. It included a new flyback, which I never replaced before, and a full cap kit. After installing all the new parts, the monitor came on but it was all blue. I checked some diagnostics flowcharts I had, and swapped out a couple transistors that were supposed to fix this problem. Still nothing. I finally spent an extra hour or so looking at all the components, and I saw the the diodes on the bottom of the monitor chassis were mounted backwards. I turned them around, and the monitor worked perfectly!

WAY too much blue in the monitor’s picture!

After replacing the transistors that were supposed to fix this, still looks the same.

Finally got the blue to be normal!

The picture looks really good.

The Street Fighter 2 board that I use for testing has a really nice dot pattern to help adjust the image size and convergence.

Here’s the real game playing on it. Still have to make some size adjustments, but it looks great!

Well, I still have plenty of work to do on this thing. I have to finish replacing all the controller parts that are worn out. I need to tune in the monitor to make the picture to look as good as I can. Finally, I have to repair all the cabinet damage and replace the boards I removed. Once all that is done, I’ll finish cleaning it up and take it down into the gameroom. More to come! I’ll also start working on the Crystal Castles after this one is done, so expect a full update on that machine too.