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Arcade & Retro Repairs & Mods, all new recipe, with no added MSG...
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Started the arduous task of cleaning out 20+ years of gunk from the Club Kart Prize that I purchased off of here recently.
(Yes, it's currently in 500,000 pieces all over my flat right now).
Cleaned up the inside of the base unit, the subwoofer / test service unit and the the steering wheel CP.
Here's what it looked like before I started:
Just to clarify, those are the before pictures! :-D
Here some of the pieces are after a cleanup last night:
Will likely work on the frame and monitor bezel later today. The screen itself just needs a bit of a dusting and a wipe with some glass cleaner.
I also need to do some work on the screen itself as the neckboard seems to have a bit of an issue with the reds being dialled up far too high.
Every other pot on the neckboard works apart from the one for red so I'm going to assume it's a cold solder joint that I just need to reflow.
If I have the energy this weekend I'll make the extra space in the flat that I need by moving some stuff around to give me the space to finally start putting the unit back together after its initial disassembly to fit it up the two flights of stairs.One of my mates that helped me to disassemble the unit actually documented the disassembly too, would anybody be interested in seeing that?
I could easily throw it into an Imgur album as I think posting 20+ pictures on here would be annoying to view on this platform.1 -
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34782
Any of you guys ever try doing a bit of work on a VCR?
I've had a 1985 Mitsubishi HS-337 in the attic in storage for a few years, it's the exact same as the one we had when I was a kid. Might remember a while ago my mam found the remote for it in the coal bunker in the garden - I cleaned it up and it was registering inputs on the VCR. Delighted so I was.
The VCR was switching on but wasn't accepting tapes. More than likely just needed the belts changed.
Bought some replacement belts for it last week. From these guys:
Lucky there weren't too many in this one, only three.
Should have been a quick enough change, however there's a bit of an issue with this - the old original belts from the mid 80s turn to a substance that can only be described as putty.
I took the back off and there were bits of belt everywhere. It's absolutely horrible stuff. You see the below, pick it up and it just turns to mush in your fingers. Was clogging up loads of the mechanical parts. Had to spend ages cleaning it all out.
You can really see how bad it is here simply by how black my fingers are from picking it all out.
One of the new belts in and working.
Reassembled to see how we're fixed and so far so good, it's now accepting tapes, prepping them for playing and also ejecting perfectly
BUT!
We now have a 'DEW' warning on the display. It's actually really interesting discovering more about the tech as you go along. VCRs have a moisture censor in them as exposed tape will actually stick to the drum if it's in any way wet resulting in your tape being chewed up.
I'd assumed it was because I took it down out of the attic and some moisture had built up, so tried drying it out with a hair dryer but no look so far. Am hoping 24 hours later it may have solved itself.
If not, it might be the moisture censor having gone bad. I was looking through some PCB schematics last night to see if I could figure out which component it actually is but no look so far. Saw a few internet forum entries about the topic saying it looks like a small grey square about half the size of a postage stamp with two wires coming out of it but there's nothing like that visible at all.
If it has gone bad, you can potentially replace one or even just bridge it to bypass the thing entirely. Just have to locate where it is!
We'll see how it goes anyway sitting out for a bit longer.. but yeah! Interesting to play about with. Another thing I didn't know is there's a little infared censor post inside the main tray that shoots a beam across. When you break the beam putting the tape it it tells the deck to engage the gears to accept the tape the rest of the way. I thought maybe that had broken but could see the infa red light out of it by looking through my phone camera. Mad to think stuff like that's still working almost 40 years later.
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34782
After another couple of hours this evening searching high and low for this dew sensor I finally found the bloody thing!
See the two blue cables? It's the tiny grey tab connected to them beside the motor. Was hidden away under some shielding.
Apparently there's no set place where these things are located machine to machine, it can be fairly random.
Traced it back to its PCB and did the usual cleaning / reseating connectors but no joy.
I removed it entirely and replaced it with a single wire bridging the connection but it just results in the whole unit shut down. On the plus side though hopefully that means the actual circuit is working, just the little detector that has gone bad.
I think you can still buy them so will try sticking a new one in and see how it goes.
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It looks like a old photocell! KeRbDoG is right, I assume the resistance lowers the damper it gets so disconnecting it would make sense. Even a squirt of IPA on it to dry out any moisture may help. If you can find its data sheet, it should show the expected resistance values.
Added close up photo. Looks like carbon paint, basically a resistor. I would not be shorting this out, may cause more damage.
When is the money (including lost growth) Michael Noonan took in the Pension Levy going to be paid back?
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a few weeks back I made myself a small 3d printed mod to fit a 4.3 inch composite screen on a PcEngine .
Comes with a small audio amp and small speakers
I posted the model and all the aliexpress link to all the parts on thingyverse if anyone fancies trying to build one :)https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6707757
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tbh, keeping it barebones might make a whole lot more sense. Could print this 'barebone' tray which means you still use the GDEmu SD card slot, keep the airflow around the machine/psu and not risk the chance of an SD card falling into the console when inserting or removing it :D
Update - works great!
On the game, yup - it kicked into the opening song. Games need to not take themselves seriously more often!
Post edited by KeRbDoG on1 -
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34782
The absolute gent that is Kerbdog printed out one of those Dreamcast trays for me, it indeed works a charm and is super easy to install. Thanks dude!
First piece screws down under the GDEMU.
Second piece clicks into the lid to form this shape
No more gaping hole in the console.
This should redirect that much needed cool air from the fan back to the PSU
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34782
Haha! I was thinking exactly the same thing. Can't help but think of mint when you see blue specks in white like that.
Have any of you guys ever tried Novus acrylic and plastic scratch remover? It's fantastic stuff.
I've had an old marquee that came with one of my cabinets aeons ago and it's always been scratched to bits. It's ancient so to be expected.
The scratches were actually making the light refract and really impact the clarity.
Bought myself one of these kits:
It's a three stage kit. First you apply the deep scratch remover, than a fine scratch remover and finally a buff/sealing coat at the end.
There are still some deep scratches but it's dramatically improved the clarity.
You can really see the light spreading out through the whole marquee rather than getting trapped in all those scratches under the artwork in the first photo.
Been looking around the house now to see if there's anything else I can use it on 😁
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Novus is good stuff alright. If you get yourself some VuPlex and polish and buff that acrylic you will see an even bigger improvement (as well as adding a layer of protection to it).
I always make sure I have a good amount of Novus, VuPlex and 303 protectant as there's always something that needs one of them in the retro collection.
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Amiga 600 had a broken disk drive head so decided to get a Gotek-On-Pills floppy emulator for it, they're a little more expensive than a regular gotek but have support for OSD & keyboard control built in.
Typical with these things, fired it up to discover no audio :(
Thankfully finding the culprit was fairly simple, burnt opamp was a good clue..
Lash in a new one and swap out the caps for SMD ones, was recapped when I got it but ah they didn't look correct. Probably could have fitted the opamp a bit straighter but works well enough :)
The gotek is great, nice to be able to use the keyboard to cycle thru the list of ADF's. The OSD does stay on a bit too long for my liking, need to take a look to see if its configurable or have to resort to firmware tweaks.
Haven't fixed anything in absolutely ages, even my Hakko was plugged out been so long since I'd used it. Hopefully the Saab clutch will be as easy :)
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