Arcade Cabinet Projects

Various arcade related projects

While I’ve been enjoying my Pole Position restoration, I have been getting the urge to construct a new machine again. I recently acquired a few different PCB’s that would go great in a new cab. I posted about the Mortal Kombat 1 set a few weeks back, but I’ve put that on hold for the moment as I’m undecided on what sort of machine it will go into (a replica upright, or a custom themed lowboy). Meanwhile, another PCB was screaming out to me to go into a machine – Arkanoid.

While I don’t find Arkanoid to be overly exciting as a game, the fact it uses a spinner makes it different to other cabs I’ve build, and some of the original Taito cabs are pleasing to look at.

Arkanoid PCB

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Today, I finally completed the project. After having the machine split in 2 (thus unplayable) for so many months, I put the finishing touches on the front half today and joined it all back up for a game.

The first step was to remove the existing decals from both the left and right front panels. As it was, some of the decals had already come off. In some places there were chips missing from the side panels and even what look like burn marks (assuming cigarette).

Left panel start
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It’s been awhile since my last update on my Pole Position cockpit restoration. With some Christmas holidays on my side, I decided to start working towards completion. Over the last few months I had been gathering the last bits I needed to complete the project. The artwork arrived, the paint was purchased and a few minor parts were sourced. There was still quite a bit to do on the machine, so I decided to split the remaining work into two sections – basically the front half and back half of the cockpit.

To start with, I decided to focus on the back half of the cockpit and get that 100% complete.

The first step was to fix up the broken corners on both side panels. These had broken off at some point in the past – maybe by vandals, maybe just from movement between owners or locations. Anyway, some builders bog came in handy here to redo the curved corner. Once it had set, I used the router to cut a new t moulding slot (not shown).

Broken corner fixed
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Something I’ve wanted to get around to for awhile was giving some attention to the pedal assembly. I mentioned in an earlier post some issues I saw with it, and figured I would make the time to deal with it now while waiting for artwork and t-moulding to arrive.

When I tested the machine out before buying it, I did some light testing of the pedals (among other things). Both pressed OK, although could use some servicing. Trying them out in game, the accelerator worked fine as I could race around the track. The brake pedal seemed to be OK too as my car would slow down, although not as quickly as I expected. The machine was being sold as 100% working, so I left it at that, with the knowledge I’d need to give the pedals a clean and some grease/oil..

After getting it home and starting work on it, I eventually got my head into the back of the cockpit and began to inspect the machine much more closely. I decide to put the game into test mode (there is a handy switch for this inside the rear of the cockpit) and test out all the controls to see what they showed on the test mode.

The brake pedal gave no response.

Strange I thought – the car slows down when I shift my foot onto the brake and slows down when pressed. I stuck my head into the back of the cockpit once more to have a look at the rear of the pedal assembly, specifically the brake. It would appear the pot that connects to the brake pedal is no longer attached and had not been attached for some time. What I thought had been the brake slowing the car down was nothing more than me taking my foot off the accelerator (which explains the unresponsive feel of the slow down).

As you can see in the image below, the pot is not attached to the brake pedal.

Pedal Assembly Start
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One of the first issues I noted with the pole position machine was the condition of the screen acrylic and it’s lack of proper artwork. I wanted to address this as a priority, but it has taken a little bit of time to get around to it. This was the state of it when I first picked it up:

Screen artwork start
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