I was doing some monitor work this past week and was thinking about how much I wish I had a mirror to help me adjust my monitors. Anyone that collects games knows that adjusting monitors is a real pain without a mirror. Nearly all monitors have the adjustment controls on the back of the monitor chassis, accessible only from the back of the cabinet. The problem is that you can never see the screen from the back while turning the adjustment pots. Arcade techs and operators all had really nice mirrors on stands that they could stand in front of a cabinet, allowing them to see the screen while adjusting. Not really the most practical thing for a homeowner to keep lying around.

Over the years I’ve used all kinds of methods to try to see the screen while adjusting monitors. Sometimes I get lucky and can reach around from the front to adjust while still seeing the screen. Other times I’ve had someone hold a mirror for me. Well after several years collecting I’ve had enough. I started researching what other collectors were using. I came across a great thread on the KLOV Forums that talked about different mirrors that people use. One guy, “FrizzleFried”, had a great idea for a clamp-on mirror made from a clamp-on lamp and a hand mirror he picked up at Walmart. I decided to see if I could find some good parts at my local Walmart and make my own.

I was able to find both parts I needed at Walmart pretty easily. I was pretty happy with the mirror because it was pretty big and the rectangular shape would really work well with showing a monitor. I wasn’t stuck with a round or heart-shaped mirror! Also, if you plan to do the same thing, make sure you get a clamp lamp with rubber pads in the clamp. This will prevent possible damage to your cabinets’ artwork.

Less than $10 worth of parts!

This lamp had really nice rubber grips

The first step was to take the light fixture off of the lamp, leaving the clamp and flex arm. It was tough to get a wrench into the light cone to take the cone off of the arm, but I eventually was able to remove it. I cut the wiring to make it easier to pull off.

As bad luck would have it, the threaded end of the flex arm had a larger diameter than the hole in the mirror handle. Worse, it was shorter than the thickness of the handle. I ended up having to drill the hole in the handle larger, and cut down the thickness of the mirror handle to allow me to mount it to the flex arm. After some time with a drill and hacksaw, I had a clamp-on mirror.

The only problem was, as you can see in the above picture, the flex arm was not strong enough for the weight of the larger sized mirror I purchased! I cut some coat hanger wire to fit into the flex arm, and that ended up being the additional strength I needed. It now works perfectly!

Coat hanger wire is as handy as duct tape!

I bent the ends of the wire to hold it securely in the flex arm

Fits great onto the side of an arcade cabinet

What a great view!

I’m glad I finally made one of these. I can’t believe I hadn’t done something like this sooner. It really makes a difference when working on monitors. If you would like to see more pics, and pictures of some other test equipment I’ve made, check out my Test Rigs Photo Gallery.

I wanted to share a tool I’ve been using for the last year or so. It’s called Sketchup and is available free from Google. It’s a really easy to use 3D modeling tool. Google has worked this tool into Google Earth, and thousands of people have been modeling buildings and other structures to help make a 3D modeled Earth.

A great use for this tool is to help layout your gameroom or arcade. There has been an effort for the last couple years to build an online repository of accurately modeled arcade cabinets for use in Sketchup. There are quite a few collectors that have contributed models to Sketchup. I’ve done a few common cabinets, and then made custom cabinets to match some of my converted games. The real Sketchup Arcade pro is Sean Newton, who has contributed over 400 accurately modeled arcade cabinets. His Google name is Gozer and all of his cabinets can be found in his Arcade collection.

Basically how Sketchup works for designing an arcade is very simple. First, you draw the layout of the walls in your gameroom. After that is set, all you do is import the games you need from the 3D Warehouse, which is Google’s library for sharing Sketchup Models. Once you have the cabinets you need in your gameroom, just move them around to try out all different kinds of arrangements. It’s pretty fun to see the layout without having to move the real, heavy cabinets.

KLOVer ‘orion3311′ has put together a great instructional video showing the basics to putting together an arcade layout in Sketchup. This is a great place to start. I’ve embedded the video below. Also, Google has several video tutorials showing how to use the software. There are all kinds of features to try out once you get familiar with the program.

Here are some shots of my planned new layout. I was able to figure out how to get the Time Pilot and the Centipede into the gameroom without taking up additional space. Sweet!

Here are a few really good links to find out more:

• Google Sketchup Download Page – Start here!
• KLOV Sketchup Modeling Thread – This is the best place for all kinds of information on modeling your arcade
• My Arcade Cabinet Model Collection – I’ve got a few decent ones in here, and a few of my oddball conversions
• Arcade cabinets by Gozer – Sean (Gozer) Newton has put together a ton of great cabinet models. There are over 400 as of this writing.

To follow up my post on finishing up my Crystal Castles, I wanted to show how to clean up a really nasty, dirty cabinet. When I got the Crystal Castles, it was sitting in a barn and was filthy. Dirt was caked on from over 20 years of use. The control panel was especially dirty and ground in.

Here’s what I started with:

Here’s a shot of the control panel. Notice how bad the dirt was!

I tried to clean it with several cleaners and sponges. The most effective cleaner I’ve found in the past was Simple Green. It would do a good job without damaging the artwork. However, even scrubbing this cabinet a few times still only got it a little cleaned. Even soaking the control panel with Simple Green for several minutes wouldn’t break away the grime that was ground into the overlay’s texture:

The sideart even looked terrible. You’d think vinyl sideart would clean up easy, but it didn’t:

In the past I’ve read on the KLOV forums that the “Mr. Clean Magic Erasers” are a good tool for cleaning arcade game artwork. The Magic Erasers are a special foam pad that when wet supposedly do a great job taking off stubborn dirt. They work by lightly buffing out the stains with small foam pores. I decided to give them a try on my Crystal Castles since it was so dirty and dingy. The cleaning pads were originally made by Mr. Clean, but there are several generic versions in the stores now. I used Walmart’s Great Value brand on my Crystal Castles.

I started with the sideart. It took some scrubbing but I was able to really make a difference! It removed everything without damaging the artwork. It even removed some of the really large scuff marks and marks from other things that have banged against it over the years.

Here are a couple comparison shots, before and after:

As you use the erasers, they start to wear down and even break apart. I ended up using almost an entire eraser on each of the sides of the game. There is a ton of artwork on this cabinet that needs cleaned! Good thing I bought two 4-packs! Here’s a shot of one after I did a full side, and a new one right beside it:

After the sideart, I started on the marquee on top. The marquee is printed on vinyl just like the control panel. It is textured, which really ate into the erasers. I ended up using a full eraser just on the marquee. The texture really held the dirt in, but I was able to clean it up really nice. Here is a pic showing how it looked halfway through the cleaning. It was tough to clean textured vinyl!

Here is a close-up of the marquee to show how clean I was able to get it:

Now the hardest part – the Control Panel. This was obviously the most ground in from over 20 years of dirty hands playing the game! This took over two erasers to scrub out. I was able to get just about all of the dirt out of the panel. There is a little still dirt and some rust from the bolts around the trackball that I just couldn’t break free, but overall it looks great. Too bad there is a big scratch in the overlay itself. Someday I will replace it with a reproduction overlay.

Here are a couple shots of how it looked halfway through:

I even had some help with this. My daughter loves to help fix up the games with me!

After spending several hours with a couple boxes of Magic Erasers, I had a really nice looking cabinet! I finished up the cleaning job with a little C-Pop on the control panel. I bought this stuff years ago and I don’t think it’s available any longer. It’s a lot like Armor All to make the vinyl shine and protect it. I’ve used it for years and it’s great stuff! It really makes the panel shine and isn’t greasy when you’re playing the game.

I’m really happy with the results! I love when I can get a game and not have to spend hundreds of dollars getting it into good condition to add to the arcade. Check out the Crystal Castles Photo Album for more pictures of the restoration of this game.

This week I did a few minor repairs to my Frogger while I was on vacation. I had a few parts I recently purchased from Bob Roberts to install, so I took a few hours this week to get some stuff accomplished. First, I needed to install a cap kit. The monitor picture was fuzzy and lacked some clarity. I like to install cap kits for the monitor of any new game I get. It helps to improve the picture and freshen up the image. It’s also really cheap to do! Turns out that I did not buy the right kit. I picked up a kit for a 20″ Sega monitor, which is what I thought this was. Turns out the monitor is even older than the one I thought I had. I spent a couple hours listing out all the caps on the monitor, and turns out I had enough with the kit I bought, plus a few other spares, to replace all of them but five. I’ll pick those up from Bob later on. I took a few pictures and documented the caps I did replace, and sent them to Bob in case he needed them.

After installing the cap kit, I replaced the broken Degauss button inside the coin door. Bob had a full switch panel that he sent me, so I pulled off the nice volume knob and the degauss switch and installed them on the switch panel in my Frogger. They worked great!

Finally, I’ve been really bothered by how back the monitor looks inside the game because I am missing the cardboard artwork bezel. I eventually would like to pick up a new one from Arcadeshop, but until I have the money to do so I thought I would make one from a couple pieces of black posterboard. I reviewed pictures of the original Frogger bezel that I don’t have, and figured I could make one very similar. The bezel lays over the monitor, and has some support pieces underneath to hold it flat and tight to the curve of the monitor. The top of the bezel angles upward, and covers about a 7″ vertical gap against the back door of the cabinet. The real one looks really nice in photos I’ve seen, but I just want to hide the monitor and frame.
I spent a couple hours measuring and cutting posterboard, then I glued all the pieces together. I used some masking tape on the backside of all the glued joints to hold them in place while they dried, and as extra reinforcement.

Here are the results:

Completed Bezel (without the top vertical piece):

Backside showing the reinforcement:

Closeup of the reinforcement:

Before:

After:

I was flipping through some photos I took recently and thought I could spend a few minutes showing off a couple test devices that I use to help figure out problems with my games. I have two devices that I put together that are useful in testing both PCB boards and monitors.

Jamma Conversion Test Board

The first test device I use on a regular basis is my Jamma Conversion Test Board. I wired up a short Jamma harness to a bunch of terminal strips mounted on a piece of plywood. I then take edge connectors of different lengths populated with wires that have spade connectors crimped to the ends of them. I then can hook these up to the terminal points on the jamma board, creating a make-shift jamma harness. This allows me to wire up any board that can be converted to jamma with the normal power requirements. Then I plug the harness of the board into my jamma cabinet. I used this board to test my Frogger PCB last week. It works great and is really handy to test several boards without their cabinets.

My Frogger PCB wired up to the Test Board for testing in my Jamma cabinet

Jamma Arcade Cabinet-In-A-Box

My other device is something I came up after the third or fourth time I pulled parts together to try to test a monitor. I used to test monitors by putting the monitor on a bar stool, pulling an arcade cabinet away from a wall, and hooking the monitor into the cabinet for a quick test. This was difficult and dangerous to do. It was too easy to damage something by dropping the monitor, messing up wiring, etc. I figured out that could assemble the core components of an arcade game: Power supply, isolation transformer, controls, speaker, and wiring into a box. Then all I would have to do is hook up a Jamma PCB with a good test pattern, and a monitor, and I would have a working arcade game. My first box was made out of an old wooden coin box from a poker cabinet. It was made up of pressboard and got wet one day, which ruined the wood. My currrent box is just made out of a plastic tote. It is much easier to lug around, and looks better too!

Old Arcade-in-a-box

Backside of the old Arcade-in-a-box

New rig, top view

Inside view of the new rig

Using the new rig to test out my Centipede monitor after a cap kit

Both of these devices have helped me quite a bit. They were both really easy to put together and I highly recommend building them yourself!

Now that the busy summer is over, it’s time to try to finish up some of my Centipede work before Winter. I’d like to get this game down into the gameroom before it gets too cold to work on it in the garage.
The first thing I needed to do was to buy some more repair parts from Bob Roberts. Bob is a great guy and I often refer people to him for parts. He has several repair kits compiled for common problems. This time I ordered another part for the Centipede monitor since it was still not working as well and I liked. I also ordered parts to rebuild the trackball, because it was totally worn out and needed replaced or rebuilt. I received my order on Monday, and as always Bob included a couple surprises. He sent me a nice little mini-screwdrivers and a small bag of candy for Halloween!

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:

There is a fantastic page on the web covering the original Pac-Man. Jamie Pittman created a Pac-Man Dossier that covers everything you need to know about the Pac-Man arcade game. He has broken down the original program code, and provides a ton of facts such as how the Ghosts determine which way to move around the maze. The Dossier does not provide Pac-Man patterns, since there are already plenty of them on the Internet. What it does provide is crucial information that can be used to make you a better Pac-Man player.

Check out the site here: The Pac-Man Dossier

A friend of mine had a Super Mario Bros upright that needed a cap kit installed. I picked up a few Sanyo 20EZ Cap Kits from Bob Roberts a few weeks ago, and finally got some time to install one of them. Most of the old Nintendo cabinets used the Sanyo 20EZ monitor. They are one of the tougher cap kits in my opinion because there are so many caps, and the writing on the PCB of the monitor is congested. When installing a cap kit, a Cap Map is a really handy document. A Cap Map is basically a layout of the board showing where each cap goes. There was not one available for this monitor, so I made one up. You can download it at the link below.

Here is a quick picture of the board with the new caps installed:

Here is a link to the Cap Map: Sanyo 20EZ Cap Map

From time to time I mention buying parts from Bob Roberts. I just ordered some cap kits from Bob, and received a nice bonus – Halloween candy. The kids were all over it as soon as they saw it! Bob regularly sends free little extras, called lagniappe. It’s just one of the little things that he does that makes it fun to order from him. Bob is a great guy, and has a ton of knowledge. His prices are the best on the Internet for arcade parts, and he has a huge selection. Check out his site!

Now I just need to make time to install some cap kits!

I just wanted to let everyone know of a new site I found out about today through the KLOV Forums. Channelmaniac’s Arcadecomponents’ Old School Repair Logs is a new hosted discussion group that has a really nice breakdown of different repair topics based on game manufacturers and other information. It looks like I have a new site to reference when in trouble!