Here’s a shot of the score:

Here’s a shot of the high score:

Just in case you wondered how that compared to the Twin Galaxies World Records, it would come in 22nd which really isn’t anything impressive. Now if I could hit Seven Million points…

Then I painted the entire cabinet with primer:

Once the primer was dry and the cabinet was sanded smooth, I painted it black.  I used Rustoleum Semi-gloss Black with a foam roller.  However, I ended up accidentally getting the oil based paint, not latex.  I was really happy with the results of the paint, but cleanup was a bear.  I think I will stick with Latex on future project.  This cabinet really stinks from the paint!

I ended up taking the ventilation screens off of the back doors so I could paint them.  They were starting to corrode, so a fresh coat of Rustoleum will help them to last longer and look better.

After the paint dried, I brought the cabinet into my basement.  Much easier to move a full size cabinet when there is nothing installed in it.  Once I got it downstairs, I installed the new sideart.  This was really tough!  The sideart was tough to work with.  I ended up trying the “wet method” of installing it, using water with a touch of soap in it to coat the adhesive.  This allows you to reposition it when placing it on the cabinet.  Has to be perfect!  Once the artwork was in place, I used a squeegee and a wet towel to squeeze all of the water out from under the artwork.  Ended up working great!  I was really nervous spraying water on adhesive. 

After the sideart installation dried, I moved the game into it’s place in the gameroom.  I have it on the end of a row of games, so I had plenty of space to finish assembling it.  It took a long time to assemble.  This cabinet is one of the most complicated designs I’ve seen.  Since it is probably one of the coolest classic cabinets, it was worth the extra work.  There were so many screws and brackets I was sure I would miss something somewhere.  However, it went smoothly!  I put the movie Tron in my DVD player to watch while I was working on the game.  Didn’t really add much to the project, but it gave me an excuse to watch it again.

Speakers reinstalled and ready:

Back view of the cabinet:

Repaired and painted test and volume controls.  Had to hammer this one out for a while to straighten it out.

Watching Tron while assembling the game:

Here’s the picture of the final assembly.  It’s not 100% completed yet.  There are a few final things I need to do, that I will list at the end of this post.

Here’s a quick screenshot of the freeplay chip that I installed.  Works great!

There are still a few things I need to do before it is totally finished.  

1. New t-molding
2. Midway kick protector (vinyl)
3. 2 white fluorescent bulbs
4. Repair coin door (find missing pieces) and add bulbs
5. Cap kit – the monitor “jumps” after it’s been played for an hour or so.
6. Touch-up the black paint

The damaged corner wasn’t too bad:

There were also a couple places where it looks like a previous owner had to do some cabinet repair.  There are several screws through the side to tighten up the joints.  I ended up pulling each of them out and counter-sinking them so I could put wood filler over them.

Also removed a metal ID tag put on by the original operator:

Removing the side art turned out to be really tough.  I was surprised how thin the vinyl was.  I heated it up with a heat gun and used a putty knife to pull it back.  This just ended up spreading the old adhesive.  I was able to pull it off piece by piece with just a bit of heat as I went, but after I pulled a corner loose with the putty knife.  Had to repeat that many times to get all of the side art off.  It was VERY brittle, so I needed the heat gun to soften it a bit.  However, just a little too much heat would cause the vinyl to stretch out and break off.  Had to go slowly to make the least amount of mess.

As soon as I started, I knew this would be a pain:

Almost there…

What a mess!

Tron and Sark’s Last Stand…

Just for fun, I kept Tron’s head and put it on the side of the monitor frame.  Tron will be trapped inside this game forever!

After a long time, I got the art off of the cabinet.  I then used some mineral spirits to removed all the globs of leftover adhesive.  After a quick sanding to prep the finish, here’s what I have:

Decided to fill in the problem spots with some “Rock Hard Wood Putty”.  This was recommended in an old site post that I came across years ago. This stuff works great on corner repairs. However, it did NOT do a good job with the scratches and dings. Going to have to get some Bondo after all. I used this to fill in all the bad spots, but then when I went to sand it, it was too easily pulled away. Here are some pics anyway:

Had a bunch of screw holes in the top. I’m guessing this was one of the early Tron’s that had an extra monitor on the top to show off the gameplay. Wish I had another one for it. That would look cool!

The corner with some wood putty in place:

Finally, I had a busted out back door lock hole. First I thought I’d try to put the remaining putty I made up into it, but then decided to cut out a square around it and replace it with solid wood. Here are a couple pics. I still have to wood fill the joints, and sand it, but it will come out much better this way and be more solid.

I then took the parts into work and media blasted them while on my lunch break.  Turned out really good!

I then tried to paint the coin door with some Rustoleum Hammered texture paint.  It looks good if done right, but I screwed up the first try by not holding the can the same distance from the panel each pass.  This caused it to be applied thicker in certain areas.  You can sorta make it out in this picture:

I then had to reblast the parts.  This ended up being VERY hard to remove.  After I cleaned them all up again, I repainted and it turned out great.  Ended up putting about three coats on, with a coat of regular black in the middle to get it to come out darker.  It still is a bit light for “black” paint but I think it looks cool.

Started working on the Tron cabinet today. I needed to disassemble it so I could paint it. Taking this thing apart will also make it much easier to clean thoroughly. This cabinet is probably the most complicated cabinet I’ve ever worked on.

I took a few pictures along the way:

Here is the art that shows the MCP through the shroud over the monitor.

This is the view from behind the cabinet through the shroud window where the MCP art usually sits.

Here is a shot of the lights near the control panel, with the panel removed.

Front view without the shroud.

Front view fully disassembled

Back view fully disassembled

Volume and test control bracket – severely bent up

After disassembling the cabinet, I focused my efforts on cleaning up the bottom inside area. This is where the AC power components (mounted on a piece of plywood) and the main game PCB boards are installed. I was able to really cut back on the amount of AC power components there were in the cabinet since many of them were used to feed the old power supply board that I replaced with a switching power supply converter kit. This really cleaned up the area well, and even gave me a nice place to mount the switching power supply. I took apart the whole assembly to sweep off 25 years of dust and grime, and to organize it a bit better. Here are some more pictures of the progress.

AC Power assembly board without components replaced by Switcher kit

Components replaced by Switcher kit – not longer needed!

AC power assembly board all cleaned up and put back into the cabinet.

Here’s the “guts” of the game all cleaned up and ready to go!

Another shot of the inside bottom of the cabinet.

Closeup of the Switcher Converter kit mounted on the cabinet wall where the old Power Supply used to be.

Now that I have the game working, it’s time to get the cabinet restored so I can take it down into the gameroom. I decided to start with the control panel since it was the easiest thing to take off and work on. I’ll tackle the rest of the cabinet later!

Overall the control panel was in pretty good shape. I was happy to see both controllers on it were intact with no damage. Everything was just pretty dirty from 25+ years of play.

Underneath the panel, the controls were pretty clean. There is some visible corrosion on some of the metal in the joystick assembly. I decided I’d disassemble it completely, sandblast the black parts, and repaint them.

Bottom of the control panel

Closeup of joystick assembly

Closeup of spinner assembly

To take the joystick apart, I needed to pick up some security bits. The bolts on the joystick handle used a smaller bit than what I already had. Picked up a nice bit set at Harbor Freight for under $5. They were on sale. The quality of their tools is not the greatest, so I had to pick through quite a few sets to get one with the security holes properly centered.

Once I got the bits, then the real work began. Of course the bolts had to either be stripped or rusted out to where I couldn’t get the security bits to fit them properly. Of the five bolts in the joystick handle, only one came off easily with a security bit. I ended up getting a second bolt out after about 20 minutes of fighting with it. The other three were no-go. I then got out a dremel tool and ground down the security pin in the center of the bolt. That helped me with two more (after a tough fight with each). The last bolt would not come out no matter what I did. Ended up drilling it out. Wasn’t too tough since I already ground out the security pin. The hardest part of any of this was knowing how careful I had to be. One slip could have ruined the plastic pieces. There has been some talk about them being reproduced, but I haven’t seen them become openly available yet. Thankfully I was able to get these bolts out without any damage to the plastic handle pieces.

Here’s what was left of the security bolts

The rest of it went smoothly. Here are a few more pictures of my progress:

The final disassembled mess!

After getting the panel disassembled, I started cleaning things up. The control panel overlay cleaned up really nice with Simple Green and a toothbrush. I was debating whether or not to buy a new reproduction overlay, but I think I’ll keep this one for a while. The graphics are clean and bright. The only issue I see with it is that there is some cracking of the overlay in the bends. In the pictures it looks really pronounced, but in “real life” you can’t even see it without looking very closely at the right angle. I may someday replace it, but for now that’s money I don’t have to spend. After I cleaned up the CPO, I treated it with a product called C-POP. It’s basically an Armor-all type product sold for game panels by a company called Classicade. I bought it a few years ago, and love it! Not sure if they still sell it, but they still have their website out there. I’ve used it on all of my panels and it really makes them look nice.

The joystick handle pieces, start buttons, and controller knob also cleaned up great. I may end up buying a knob sticker soon though. The sticker on it now is in fantastic shape, but for some reason looks punched out off-center. You can see it by looking at it. May seem a bit OCD, but I like it perfectly centered so it looks good when spinning!

I also noticed that the logo on the plate in the joystick handle looks like the paint is flaked off from the edges (you can see what I mean if you look clearly in the photo below). However, I noticed that the same paint is on the INSIDE of the plate. My guess here is that a bunch of these were stacked still wet, and the paint transferred to the inside of the one above it, and it pulled paint from the one stacked below it. Can’t really think of any other reason this could have ended up like this. So I will probably order a new one next time I order something from a supplier who sells them. Not going to make a special purchase just to replace it because it looks fine and is hard to see the flaw

After repainting the joystick base parts, reassembly went pretty smooth. I jumped on a chance to buy a “hardware replacement” set offered online in the KLOV Forums and now glad I did. Someone gathered sets of all of the individual screws, nuts, etc. listed in the Tron manual for the joystick assembly and offered these sets for sale. Really helped in reassembly, and looks great too. One set of parts not in the kit was the set of nylon lock nuts that hold the controls onto the panel, so I had to reuse the original nuts. The kit did include the security bolts used in the joystick handle, which was good since I trashed the old ones!

The finished product:

A closeup of the start buttons. Note how bright the CPO is! I’m really happy with it.

The joystick base with fresh hardware and paint:

Here’s a before and after comparison. Doesn’t look too dramatic in pictures, but it really looks different when you see it in person!

Before

After

Just wanted to drop a quick note that I finally got my Tron working 100%. Took many weeks of PCB, Power Supply, and Controls troubleshooting. From my last update, I had the game boards working completely, but my spinner optical encoder board was not working properly. The game characters turned clockwise no matter which direction the spinner was rotated. I bought a couple new optical sensors. I had to buy two because shipping was so expensive. Replaced the old one with a new one, and no change. I then got a spare optical encoder board, made for a different Midway game, from another collector (Thanks Mongo!). I swapped the IC’s from my board with the ones from that board, and STILL no change. Then I went through and tested EVERY circuit trace on the board to make sure there were good solder joints and traces. They all checked out. Finally, in desperation, I replaced the new optical sensor on the board with the 2nd new optical sensor I purchased. It worked! I ended up wasting hours on this thing due to a faulty new part. Fun!

One other quick Tron note: I ordered a Tron Freeplay chip from Hobbyroms.com. Should get it soon. I highly recommend this chip. It’s a great way to minimize screen burn from having credits sitting on the game. Hobbyroms.com has been great to work with as well. Just a tip if you do order one – let them know what ROM Revision date is listed on your roms. There are 3 or 4 versions and they have to send you the correct Freeplay revision to match.

I had to remove the Optical Sensor from my Tron Rotary Controller PCB. It was cracked and needed replaced. So I thought I might as well show how I did it. I was told that this component was very hard to remove, so I figured I should take extra care to make sure I can pull it out without damaging the board.

Tools Required:

• Soldering Iron
• New Solder
• “Solder Sucker”
• Desoldering Braid or “solder wick”

The following needs to be done with each pin of the component

1. Flow a slight amount of new solder onto the pin. This will help loosen up the old solder. Don’t put too much on, or it will be drawn down through the PCB hole and lock the component in from the other side.
2. Immediately remove the solder with the solder sucker. This is done by removing the soldering iron from the melted solder over the pin, quickly covering the pin and melted solder with the solder sucker, then pressing the button on the solder sucker. This causes the spring action of the solder sucker to suck all of the melted solder away from the pin. If this is done right (which takes a little practice) then there will be little if any solder left over.
3. Use the soldering iron to hold a small amount of fresh solder wick over the pin to draw out any remaining solder from the pin
4. Finally, GENTLY remove the component. There may still be some sticking of the pin to the contacts, so use the soldering iron to hit any stuck pins until they move freely. This is the toughest part, especially with components like IC’s that have rows of pins and can’t flex.

Here are some pictures that I took:

“Solder Sucker”

“Solder Wick”

Solder Sucker removing solder from hot pin

Using the Solder Wick to remove residual solder from the pin

Close-up of the pins after solder removal

Success! The component has been removed.

Here’s what the component looks like after removal. The pins are in great shape with no damage.