Galaxians Cocktail - Fix it thread

[lesoleil70]

Hi All,

This one for once is not a cry for help, just posting progress so far.

Earlier this year I picked up a non working Galaxians cocktail.  Only yesterday I have had the time to really look over it and fire it up.

Turns out the game plays blind and the monitor is faulty.  To get the game up and running I've temporarily placed in a TFT (shock horror/get over it)

Monitor will be worked on

Here are some crappy vids showing the machine, and a few pics.

Game board has some graphics glitches, so if I have time this weekend I'll try re-seating chips.  The board is a bootleg running the Midway roms.

Video showing game playing blind - sound errors can be heard  - just cleaning the edge connectors fixed this.
http://youtu.be/C2oz5dZTbh4

Here we have a shite old TFT showing the game going via one of those 15khz to VGA jobbies.
http://youtu.be/_JZSiqHK8D0

And some pics for reference.






Next steps, try and fix the monitor - this will be my first monitor fix attempt, I can see a fine crack on the neck so this might be over already.we'll see...

I will not be able to live with this shitty TFT, impossible to see it in a cocktail, it's there just to get the game alive for the moment, nothing worse than a dead machine.

Luckily us Europeans have old CRT TV's that hook up  easily to old arcades via SCART sockets with very little fuss. So I already have a 14" donor portable TV on standby that I can always transplant into the machine, it will be   a mighty fine CRT display and will work perfectly for my needs.

And finally if you don't like anything you have read above, consider...

1) Have I charged you anything to read this?
2) If you don't like it, I don't give the f#@k
3) I work hard, I deserved this thread.

[Otaku]

1) Have I charged you anything to read this?
2) If you don't like it, I don't give the f#@k
3) I work hard, I deserved this thread.

Amen to our newly-found John's Arcade motto ;)

[knaagi]

Nice project. Please keep this thread updated. I sucessfully did a tube swap from a donor TV to an arcade chassis but i did not had to with the SCART socket. I just read all you have to do is connecting RGB,SYNC,+5V and ground from the PCB to the corresponding pins of the SCART plug. Will the TV chassis fit in there?

[lesoleil70]

For the R G B Sync & Gnd it's more than just the case of matching it up to the corresponding wires on Scart.
Because this is essentially a TV that is used to analogue tuning, it needs to be forced onto AV, so you need a power source also into the scart to switch the TV to AV.

...and even with that you need resistors etc....

so there's easy way's out of this.

1), buy a ready made lead , see the power lead, either connect to a pc power supply or wire yellow into +12v, black to gnd, red to +5v on your switching power supply, this ensures the TV switches to AV, no need for remotes or turning the channel over ;-)
 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VGA-RGB-TO-SCART-CABLE-1-6M-ADAPTER-EUROCONECTOR-for-JAMMA-system-/141494222409?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20f1b67e49

2), make one using this as a guide, now this is Jamma, but all you need to know is where your R G B Sync and video GND are, like on this Galaxians it's the clone pinout, but no matter it works the same. I learned this from some threads on DLF forum, opened up a lot of options where past options were fix it or LCD.
  

I go for 1 because there's a guy in Spain that makes excellent quality ones for very little cost in labor compared to the time I'd need to invest personally.

essentially by means of this lead I'm throwing a TV's guts in the thing. But the result is a superb CRT display.

Now I have no idea if you can do this with USA TV's, however in Europe this solution is very popular.

As for "will it fit" - sure I've matched the screen size up as 14" corner to corner, the plastic TV casing will surely have to go, speakers out, on/off switch permanently wired to on. I'll use the frame from the Sanyo monitor that was in there.

I've not given up hope on the original Sanyo yet though. 

[lesoleil70]

OK it's been ages since the last update. 

I've been toying with placing a TV in there, but my inaction only proved I was not happy with this solution, so I got a working 14" monitor.

So, that's in a box safe. The PCB is safe. Now to get to work on the sticks, buttons, woodwork, metalwork, but this thread is mainly about the panels.

Etienne is recreating the panels as alu decals, and I'm busy getting the measurements, really I have the easy job. I just documented the steps to remove the joystick and panel because it's very intricate and I don;t want to screw it up.

This one will look great;-)