John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

So I have the opportunity to pick up a vs hogans alley and a popeye cab on friday for what I consider to be a steal, 150 each, and have a few questions.  I've never owned a proper arcade cab, just a home built mame cab.  I've watched most of the John's Arcade youtube videos and think I am pretty up to date on the generic issues with a cab and monitor and what to do to fix them but is there anything out of the ordinary on Nintendo cabs that I should look out for?  The seller says that they are both in working order, but I don't want to get them home only to find out I got hosed.

2ndly, is the popeye cab compatible with any other nintendo boards?  I'd love to be able to buy something like the donkey kong switcher and put popeye + all the donkey kongs on it.  If anyone could hold my hand through this exciting time It'd be much appreciated. 

Both of those cabinets are horizontal monitor cabinets. You'd have to rotate the monitor to play Donkey Kong.

Are they both Donkey Kong type cabinets? If they are, and are complete, and they work, I would buy them without hesitation.

Just make sure they aren't hacked to hell and they are truly original working/unmolested games. If that's the case, you are golden. I love working on Nintendo cabinets. They are EASY, uncluttered, and LIGHT.

Nintendo uses Sanyo 20EZs, plan on a cap kit. Their power supplies are pretty reliable, even today and original.

The nintendo vs cab is very versatile for Nintendo VS. game switching. The Popeye one not so much.

Well I got both of them and they are in decent shape as far as I can tell.  ;D  Both have noticeable hum when turned on which I assume Is a grounding issue as both of the cabs are missing the earth ground on the plugs.  If not that I'm guessing there is a specific cap kit for the audio boards.  The popeye screen is in far better shape than the VS cab.  It has very feint burn in, which I am not too worried about as you only really notice it if you are specifically looking at it.

As for the VS cab from right to left the screen gets progressively darker and on the far left you can barely see enemies that pop up on screen.  You can however still hit them so I assume the monitor can't be that bad.  I have yet to open it up as the previous owner did not have the keys and I need to drill the back panel lock off, but I am hoping I can fiddle with the controls and get it back to normal.

I took the control panel off of the popeye to clean the joysticks and replace the buttons with the correct colors and am wondering if there is anything special about the little instruction card on it.  Mine has a dull brown tint to it and it looks to be just taped on whereas the rest of the CP is silk screened.  Is there replacements of just that that I can purchase or should I just print a new one?

We like piccies, can you post any?

Yep, here is an http://imgur.com/a/9hozV (http://imgur.com/a/9hozV) album of what I think are relevant details.  As you can see in the 1st pic, that is the monitor issue I see.  I'm not sure what I could adjust, if any, that would make it look better.  Also it looks like this was a conversion cab from a donkey kong JR if my badge reading skills are correct.  With that being the case, does the wiring look correct?  I have no idea what it is supposed to look like.  My next step is going to be removing the plexi and actually cleaning the monitor to see if it has any effect.

yeah that Hogan needs some caps...
theres a dude here that sells cap kits name ian.