arcade

All posts tagged arcade

I find it hard to believe I’ve had my Galaga machine now for over 3 and a half years. This machine is where it all began for me. Seems like yesterday I was constructing it and playing it for the first time. Before this project, I would struggle to hang a picture on the wall properly. I’ve since gone on to build and restore several arcade machines and I now find myself wrapped up in Pinball restoration and repairs. Time flies all too fast. Recently I purchased a 4/8 restrictor board to install into this machine and decided to fix up two other issues at the same time.

Over the 3.5 years, the machine has held up really well. Even with two young kids in the house, there is minimal cabinet damage and marking. The coin slot has survived a few scares as the kids loved to insert anything they could find into the slot (and if they were lucky, it would pass straight through and come out the return slot – which made doing it again even more appealing).

Galaga
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The control panels were next to be done. As with my previous projects, I decided to put a layer of acrylic over the artwork to help keep it clean and extend its lifespan. Plus I think it gives a nice finish to the control panels. As you can see with the P1 and P2 start buttons, I went with different buttons to ensure everything fit and was not overcrowded on the right.

I also extended to the top of the control panel to allow for a strip of t moulding to sit at the end (as I did with my Donkey Kong cocktail) which should give it a nice finish. Note: I still need to add the t moulding to the control panel front and sides – just waiting on it arriving. I’ve ordered both light blue and light green (Galaxian) and will see which one looks best.


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About two months back I decided I’d have a crack at improving my pacman score. I always enjoyed pacman as a kid, but was never any good at it. It’s a game I wanted to be good at, but never took the time to learn. I’ve decided now is a good time to learn the game and maybe push for a perfect game 🙂

My highscore started at around 45K mark. After some practice over the month I began to pass the 75K mark consistently, then finally broke the 100K mark. More practice saw my score climb past 150K and on towards 200K.

On my last real attempt, I managed to pass the 200K mark and land a nice 219K game.

Still a long way to go for a perfect game, but I’m enjoying Pacman more than ever and hope to continue the quest over the coming months.

Almost 6 months ago, I put a 90% complete fight stick project aside to continue work on a Donkey Kong cocktail cabinet with the intention of finishing it off a few weeks later. Today, I finally put the final touches into the fight stick and can now consider the project complete 🙂

A few nights back I decided to get the project finished. First up was making sure the fight stick itself could be recognised by a PC and PS3. This failed to work. The closest I could get was a windows error saying the USB device failed to load. After some testing and investigation, it looked like the USB connector on the Dual Strike PCB was to blame. A closer look at the USB (Type B) port showed one of the internal pins had been squashed back, ensuring a bad connection. Looks like at some point the port had something lean against it, and cause the pin to come lose. I got out the soldering iron and took it off the board. It probably isn’t clear in the image below, but the top right pin (inside the port) has been lifted up and is completely loose.

A replacement part was found at Jaycar for only $3. I added it to the board, connected up the PCB to the PC and success.
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