Hello all,
I'm located up in Calgary, Alberta and just started getting into Arcade games. I joined the forum a few days ago. Started watching John's Arcade a couple weeks ago.
I grew up around arcade games and we had a 1977 Gottlieb Gridiron EM Pinball machine. After I moved out, my parents gave it to my Uncle and I never saw it for many many years. Until about 2 years ago he called me and asked if I wanted it. I picked it up to find it was in pretty rough shape. Coin door pryed open and wiring messed with inside. Since I am an Electrician, it was fairly easy to fix the wiring, replace a few relays and get the game playing properly again. I also tore down the playfield, cleaned it all up replaced all the posts and rubbers. Coin door was easy to repair as the parts were fairly easy to come by.
A few weeks ago a PGA Tour arcade game came up for sale so I jumped on it for $25. My plan is to turn it into a multicade with a Raspberry Pi (RetroPi) I have no intentions to make a huge control panel, just a simple two player control panel with 6 buttons per player.
But now I put that on hold as I just acquired a Satan's Hollow cabinet for $40. It has been converted to a Jamma cabinet, but the original harness was still inside and the side art looks pretty decent. I have since removed the control panel, got the generic overlay off and the original Satan's Hollow overlay off. The original holes for the JS and buttons are still in place, with a bunch of added holes for the Jamma conversion. Our shop is right next to a welding shop and I talked to a welder over there and he is going to weld blanks into the control panel for me.
I am currently trying to locate a Satan's Hollow joystick. I am most likely going to get a HAPP heavy duty 8-way, build a restrictor plate for 2 way control and put a Groovy Game Room handle on it. Or if I can locate a Tron, Gorf, etc joystick I will use that with the Groovy handle.
What is going to be my biggest concern is locating a PCB for Satan's Hollow, I do see one on eBay, but $500 seems quite high to me. I am not sure if I can use a Tron PCB (or any MCR2) and get new ROMS burned for Satan's Hollow. I am currently doing research into that.
I'll probably be asking some stupid questions, and maybe things that I have been covered before. I will do my best to search for answers before I post a topic with a question.
-Mitch