The Broken Joystick

A while back I picked up a side of repo Qbert sideart with a flaw in it for cheap ($20 maybe?). I had the bright idea to frame it in a poster frame and use it as an arcade wall decoration in a poster frame.

Unfortunately, the paper I used as the background wrinkled and looked crappy. So, I had the bright idea to buy some yellow spray paint…

and paint the wood background to look like a qbert cabinet…



It took only a few minutes to dry and I popped in the sideart. man, it looks good (IMO)…



The lines you see in it now are just reflections in the glass. it looks great, honestly!

I picked up the restaurant booth today. It’s almost perfect. Just the right size – not too big. I could do without the brown but it will do. Gonna rearrange the arcade this weekend and make room for it.

I also played around in the arcade tonight and I got my Konami NBA Play by Play kit working! Turns out a dipswitch was flipped. Cool. Not as fun as NBA Jam, but I played a few games of it. Cool PCB setup with mini I/O boards to connect P3 and P4 and USB ports to hookup a separate cabinet (I think) and VGA output even.

I’ve been wanting a restaurant booth for the arcade for a while and it looks like I finally found one for FREE on Craigslist! He was asking $25 but said he’d give it to me. I’m going to pick it up tomorrow. It’s kind of an ugly brown but it looks like it’s in good condition. I could redo the vinyl if I wanted but may leave it. I need a table now.

I had 5 switching power supplies of unknown state. A guy at work (Scott) who also collects, tested them all for me. Three worked so he kept one and I kept two – so now I have two extra working power supplies. YAY! I may need one to fix Tapper.

Man it’s frustrating when you don’t really know what you’re doing.

I posted this to RGVAC and the klov forums:

Quick backstory:

My Centipede worked 100% 2 years ago. I pulled the working PCB to use to test another cab and then put it in a box that was fairly well protected. I ended up pulling the monitor too for another project. I go to put it back together and she doesn’t work now.

I had the PCB set to free play. When I power it up blind I see the start buttons are staying on and not blinking. I check some voltages and turn the voltages down a bit and now the buttons do blink. I can hit one of the start buttons and it stays lit. I get NO sound at all. I hook it up to a monitor (then another then another) and I get the pic you see above.

Basically, it’s a green line through the middle that moves a bit randomly and then a thicker red line that sometimes stays at the top or bottom and sometimes scrolls through. No sign of any Centipede graphics at all.

If I press a start button it stays lit and eventually goes back to both blinking which makes me think the game is actually playing and eventually all lives are lost and it goes back to blinking.

I tested the voltages on the PCB next to the connectors and got this:
+5 = +4.85
+12 = +11.53
-5 = -5.36
+22 = +24.1
-22 = -24.5

That’s pretty much all I know to do now. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what to do next? I don’t know if it’s my cabinet/voltages or the PCB that has the problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Worked today on the monitor in the multigame. I could not get a picture on it. Power going in was fine. Used my JAMMA test rig to send a signal to it too and got nothing.

I ended up swapping in a different monitor that’s crystal clear and no bun-in. Looks great. Have to figure out what to do with the control panel now (layout/art/etc.)

I also fixed my adapter for my Apple monitors I use for testing arcade signals. I resoldered a few connections and it works again.