Club Kart Prize: The Ongoing Project

MrVestek

Hi all!

@Inviere suggested that I start a new thread for this… so here I am!

I recently purchased a Club Kart Prize from @dav09 that's in a bit of a state of disrepair, but I knew that when purchasing it. Through a random stroke of luck it turns out that this machine actually used to live in my original home arcade of Atari/Play Expo in The Square, Tallaght years ago. Confirmed by the type of price sticker on the unit as well as two gambling licenses that I found on the unit (that expired in 2007, so it's been in storage since then it seems).

Anyway let's start off with the fun job of disassembly that myself and three other friends had after the unit arrived. There was no way we were carrying it up two flights of stairs with awkwardly places doorframes otherwise.

The unit arrives:

The disassembly begins:

Trying not to kill myself with my home made discharge probe:

She even manages to get some video of the "not killing myself" action!

https://youtu.be/hu9Er2h_AU4

Stupidly I didn't realise it'd be much easier to remove the control panel if I had taken the screen bezel first, so here I am awkwardly trying to get at bolts that are proving really difficult to undo:

It started spitting a bit so out came the tarp for us to work under for a bit:

Monitor and subwoofer finally removed:

Then came the job of removing the rest of the frame from the base:

That was that!

We managed to get it all up to the flat in bits and pieces from then on in.

I'm currently in the process of making space for it in the flat and cleaning it up as best as I can (not sure if I want to sand blast / repaint any of the parts yet as some of it has rusted after being in various lockups for the past 17 years or so).

I'm also toying with the idea of completely redoing the livery and respraying the control panel and bezel to yellow to convert it into a crazy taxi but I'm not sure if I want to go that far yet, honestly haven't decided.

I also want a functional coin mech but trying to decide where to put this will be difficult as it originally had an external coin mech in the hopper mechanism for payouts. I don't plan to reuse this (and can't anyway as some of the cabling is missing) so I was thinking if there's room that I could make a cutout in the control panel portion to the right of the subwoofer for a coin mech in there but the problem with that is that I would then also somehow have to cut an extra hole from there into the coin box enclosure for the coins to drop in… but then I'm also left with the existing coin box slot being completely exposed, unless I also cut some of the previous mounting to try to keep that intact but the coin chute direction would be going off to the wrong place if I do that.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing a New Net City type job and putting a coin mech inside of the CP itself and then running some kind of ducting from the CP down into the existing coin slot, maybe with 3D printing or something along those lines.

Plenty of options anyway.

Yes I could just leave it on freeplay but I do enjoy the nostalgic feeling of "inserting coins".

I also have a replacement steering wheel on the way from China as the existing one has some rubber missing and has gone all gunky and gross in parts. I've tried cleaning it with soapy water and WD-40 and it came up clean enough but is still gunky and isopropanol isn't doing the job.

Anyway I'll keep you folks updated with the progress when I have the bouts of energy to tackle is as I'm still figuring out my chronic fatigue issues.

Random but I'm also hoping that if I can sell the Naomi 2 (I already have one) from this, the Club Kart Prize cart and hopper board (which is Naomi 1 based and can easily be converted back into one with a firmware chip swap) that I can actually break even on this, probably wishful thinking though as who knows how much call there actually is for those.

I also have a lead on a Route 66 pedal floor with appropriate seat which should easily be compatible with this unit.

Inviere

Fair play, there's a notable amount of work in disassembly, deep clean, and reassemble. Should be all worth it in the end!

Re the coin mech, fully agree having a functional coin mech steps up the experience a nice bit. Free play is handy and convenient, but dropping a coin for a credit adds significantly to the experience.

o1s1n

Lovely looking cabinet, that's some speaker in the base!

Was it in working condition when you bought it? So in theory should all be working fine once it's reassembled?

Fair play for the outside disassembly by the way, I've thankfully never had to do it myself.

dav09

Fair play glad it's gone to a good home and good to see you getting more use out of it than me.

I've done a lot work work with mechs attaching all different onces, card machines, etc. its usually very straightforward with this likely just a Sega credit board so either plug into that and use the N/C or N/O channel and power it with 5 or 12v. I have plenty of mechs if you need one sent up. One of those chinese coin comparator S10 ones might be handy if it fits (I know it does on regular Naomi's). You probably have a similar 8 pin cable which can be spliced to a coin comparator to this. https://www.geldbearbeitung.at/en/Payout/Coin---token-dispenser/Interfaces---Cable/Hopper-to-coin-mech--cable-assembly.html

As with the monitor if you still have issues with the green drive pots let me know happy to swap for another.

Looking forward to seeing how this goes :)

MrVestek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122478459#Comment_122478459

Cheers mate I appreciate it. There is some burn in on this screen that isn't very visible when something is actually up and running on it and like I said I bought it knowing that it was a fixer upper so I have no issues with resoldering the red pot on the neckboard tbh.

The hopper board did come with a Klingon coin acceptor so I just have to figure out how to get that all cabled up essentially. I just have no idea where to put the actual coin mech itself. I do have one on the way from AliExpress that wasn't actually that expensive but I do appreciate the offer of sending one up. I'm probably only going to use the actual housing for the coin mech and just 3D print an anyacceptor like I did with the Blast City so that I don't have to deal with reconfiguring stuff to accept certain token / coin weights which can be a nightmare I find.

I'll figure it out anyway. Thanks for the tips!

MrVestek

Actually I take that back, it's not a Klingon board it's one of these:

There was a harness in the machine that goes from one side of this to two amp connectors that were just left dangling. Whatever they were connected to inside of the coin acceptor / hopper control unit isn't actually in there anymore so no idea what kind of cable hardness is actually required for it. I think JP3 was for power.

MrVestek

Ok actually upon further inspection it seems that the rest of the wiring was inside a part of the hopper unit that I hadn't taken apart yet. As can be seen here:

That's the other half of the amp connectors.
Weirdly enough there's a camlock switch on the front of this that appears to be acting as an on/off switch as far as I can tell.

Here's the other end of that wiring that goes to, I assume, some kind of coin acceptor although I don't recognise the connectors:

The type of coin validator that I ordered literally just has a coin switch on it, same style as in my Blast City so I have no idea how to wire any of this up tbh, or even if the extra wiring on the harnesses here are even necessary if it's not doing coin payouts.

Help? :-D

MrVestek

Actually nvm. @dav09 helped me out there on Whatsapp. I now know how to wire the coin acceptor switch directly into the JVS harness so I'm just going to do that and bypass all of that nonsense.

dav09

Happy to help! Yeah like mentioned if anyone ever get confused by some mad coin mech wiring they're always just ground, 12v and then usually n/o or n/c, which I usually figure by touching the correct signal wires together (just make sure you know you're not going to short and you know which is which) or from a diagram if available, and if you can't figure them out go straight to the coin pulse off the I/O. Or sometimes have multiple channels to the credit board so find the 1 euro channel or just the coin out from the creditboard. This will be an interesting project looking forward to seeing the end result.

The_B_Man

I always have a morbid curiosity looking at people discharge their CRTs. 😂

So if there was a charge there, would your laptop have been fried? From what I understand, you've attached your screwdriver to the metal frame of the CRT. Where does that potential charge dissipate to? Would it not go to ground the easiest way possible? Your cab is on pallets there so would it have gone through them or found your laptop and had its way with that?

I have a handful of CRTs and was looking at recapping them, but put it off until I understood this process better. I was reading guides online that said I can attach a crocodile clip to my screwdriver, and another end to the frame of the CRT, but I didn't understand where any potential charge would go. Would I not have to have the CRT plugged in so it's earthed? Any video I've seen online, it just seems that the charge goes back into the frame and just dissipates into mid-air, which confused me enough to not do it!

MrVestek

As far as I understand it I was shorting the anode to the metal ground of the monitor chassis itself.

I had already disconnected the cables (including ground) from the rest of the chassis so it would have just shorted to the metal in the monitor chassis itself and not gone through the rest of the unit if there had been a charge.

I… I think?

That was my work laptop anyway so if it accidentally got zapped I wouldn't care so much. :-D

The delivery came earlier than it was supposed to that day so I still needed to keep an eye on work stuff as I was disassembling the cab. Not gonna lie, that was super stressful but it is what it is.

All in all the disassembly took about three hours I'd say in between breaks and runs to woodies for tarp and gloves etc.

Inviere

Yeah it's basically a large capacitance charge, so once released, it'll be a one and done type thing (I think?) ...theres no continuous charge there.

Its an interesting question though, if there's no clear path to ground, where the hell does the potential energy actually go once it's given a path to the frame?

MrVestek

Although actually upon looking at my own video again the laptop was hooked up to power at the time so if there was some kind of ground fault that I hadn't anticipated then it would have gone through the laptop straight into the charger and into the earthing wiring of the flat's electricity system.

So that would have been safe enough I think. Might have just caused it to trip the main breaker I think.

I dunno. I didn't kill myself anyway that's the main thing! :-P

Of course it's been energised since then so… and I'll need to discharge it again when trying to remove the neckboard so erh… yyyyyeah.

o1s1n

Here's a great explanation of what's happening. It's not so much sending a charge to ground as it is equalising a massive capacitor:

There is a charge that builds up on the inside surface of the tube and an opposite charge on the outside, with the glass itself as the insulator, and all you're doing is equalizing that charge. Strictly speaking you're equalizing between the inside of the tube and the aquadag coating on the outside, but since the monitor frame is connected directly to the dag it's fine (and easier) to connect your discharge tool to the frame. The charge goes from the inside of the tube, through the tool, through the frame, and to the outside of the tube.

The charge doesn't want to go to ground like it does in a live circuit, it wants to equalize between the two surfaces of the tube, and so connecting to earth ground is largely useless. So if you connect to earth ground or cabinet ground rather than to the monitor frame, it's not "draining" to earth ground, it's circling your entire monitor and/or game before it can return to the aquadag. Essentially you're putting everything else that's also connected to earth ground in the circuit, and risking damage to any of those components.

So, for safety reasons and in order to present the lowest risk to other components, I recommend the shortest (pun again intended) route possible, and that's from the anode cup to the monitor frame.

Inviere

Brilliant, cheers for that @o1s1n

The_B_Man

Ah OK, understood now. Thanks!

MrVestek

I always figured you were shorting to ground in order to drain the flyback. The more you know!

The_B_Man

The funny thing is, I'm sure there's collectively been a lot of CRTs dismantled by people on this forum, with very little knowledge about what actually happens! 😁

BGOllie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122479974#Comment_122479974

there's no voltage stored in the flyback so once turned off it's harmless. There's a (sometimes a few) large high voltage diode in flybacks too so no voltage can travel from the anode (the cup ) back into the flyback too to prevent any sort of discharge back into the circuit .

Once turned off the voltage stored inside the tube typically discharges through a large resistor slowly so the voltage stored is often much lower that the 25kV sent by the flyback (on say a 19inch monitor) when in operation.
There's an idea that the large voltage stored in the tube after it's been turned off can kill you . While technically not impossible it's more likely that it'll give you an unpleasant brief shock , I've been zapped MANY times. It's unpleasant but not as bad as, say, a taser (these go to 50kv! ) and and the risk is more that you'll drop the CRT or hurt yourself falling after the fright of the zap, drop the crt over yourself …etc…

The real risk when operating a CRT comes more from two things people overlook:
- The large filter caps on the mains section. These often need to be discharged too and have a high capacitance at voltages of 400v or more. these can actually give you a far nastier shock especially since you often touch those while working on the chassis itself. Make sure you discharge those (just bridge the legs with a big insulated screwdriver)
- The real danger is the 220v live voltage running through the mains section of an open frame chassis. The scenario is you send power to it, nothing happens, monitor is dead, no noise. You then forget the machine is on and start handling the chassis with your hands. 220v will grab you, freeze your muscles and not let go . There's actually more stories of people being bitten by CRTs like that than through the flyback anode

MrVestek

Oh I'd never work on a crt with the power still connected, that's just asking for trouble.

I didn't think about discharging the caps on the board though, sounds like that's a good idea for when I want to work on the neckboard.

Shorting them to the frame itself should suffice, right?