(Cross posting my post from KLOV- mainly because I see a lot more posts about print club stuff over here!)
Backstory:
Was out at CORGS-CON in Columbus last weekend, me and friends had brought out a 16 foot truck full of games for people to play (various consoles, a full 10 station Steel Battalion LoC network multiplayer setup, Cursed Halo LAN, some various Candy Cabs, Japanese imports, and Gachapon).
While in a new city I always poke around on FB marketplace/ CL to see if I can find anything cool.
Well I saw this Sega / Atlus Print Club machine that really piqued my interest
Figured I had a truck already and am in town, so I do some research and there are some drawbacks about not being to source the consumables for them easily/ at all, but on the other hand there’s Pepsiman photo frames so I decide to reach out about it.
Unfortunately the seller isn’t available before I leave town, and I resign myself to not picking it up </3
I think about the machine all weekend while working the con. When I get home, I do a little more research on the machine, mainly to find this machine is way underdocumented, and that it looks like once the consumable proprietary cartridge and paper well ran dry, people started storing, gutting the ST-V parts, or even junking these cabs.
Guess this fires me up. So I reached out to the guy about driving another 16 hour round trip back to Columbus. The seller was really great to work with and we coordinated a time for mid week, I drove alone and the seller and I loaded this 400 pound metal monstrosity into my SUV (just barely)
Got it home, was able to relatively easily get most things running, and am going to try and source some solutions about a sustainable printing option here in 2023.
—-----------------------------------------
Repair Log:
Screen was a solid color and no image (as advertised), playing with the flyback gave me a faint image and retrace lines.
Let it run for a bit and fiddled with pots, finally reseating the neck board and with some more flyback adjustment the monitor now looks great!
Don't think this machine got a ton of use.
Was able to get into menus and start playing with the camera and printer menus. Now to just find a way around Sony's proprietary bullshit, I think it's going to think it needs a cartridge to start the game.
Time to give this thing a deep clean while I source a manual (none online so I had to buy one) and some parts to take a stab at this thing. It’s truly a beautiful machine, very intricate wiring and engineering in here, and built like a tank
As for printing, the official kit model number was an Atlus ATLUS20U-00. Can confirm that this print kit is just a rebranded Sony cartridge and paper for the Sony YP-2301PT thermal video printer inside.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a spent cartridge in there to get a model number off of,
Looks like it’s a set of die cut sheets and a cartridge. Sticker sheets will be easy to reproduce, just going to need to find a cartridge solution.
Also in the service menus there were self tests for three printers:
Sony YP-1201
Sony YP-2301 (every printer I have seen in a print club has been a YP-2301PT)
CP-710 (Mitsubishi CP710 series printer after checking this thread)
Going to find out more once I get the service manual. Would be nice to have printer options.
Possible Kits to try (for Sony YP-2301PT):
UPC-2045 (saw a sold Yahoo JP auction with a Sony YP-2301PT with that ribbon in it)
UPC-2010 (Paper isn't sticker paper but for ultrasounds but the cartridge may work)
Kits tried:
UPC-S16 (same die cut sheets, ribbon looks the same) cartridge is not right size
UP-3000 cartridge is not right size
VPM-P50S16A (looks similar split sticker sheet and ribbon)
Also working with someone much smarter than me to see if maybe spoofing signals off the CN20 and CN32 connectors would allow us to use other (newer) hardware.
Currently have a service manual coming in the mail (couldn't find one online) as well as a UPC-S16 and VPM-P50S16A kit to start some trial and error and get some more details and diagrams to work with.
Want to document as much as I can, this machine is quite a beautiful piece of work and would love to contribute some documentation to this very cool retro hardware. With how culturally successful / popular the print club was in Japan, and how Purikura is the precursor to selfies and photo filters, and one of the main reasons front facing cameras were added to cell phones, I figured it would be a good addition to my current candy cabs!
If anyone has tried anything in their restoration journey of these machines I'd love to hear!
I've got a few things coming in for the machine, a
"Serviceman Manual" (Manual 420-637
and have that coming in, but it looks like there may be two others in English
A "Parts Catalog" (Manual 420-6381) and an "Owner's Manual" (Manual 420-6379)
If anyone has any leads on these other two manuals, especially that parts catalog, I'd be super grateful!
I also have a Mitsubishi CP700UM that has an RS-232C port coming in and I messaged the Arcade Boneyard about buying their Mitsubishi CP710 from a neoprint partout. Going to test as many options as my wallet can provide at the moment and seeing if the CP700/710 series works would be great as both the Neo Print and (likely) the Sega Print Club are compatible with that printer. I want to have a few options on have that my retro computing expert can play around with on that serial RS232C connector.
A good intro history to purikura / print club machines!
Backstory:
Was out at CORGS-CON in Columbus last weekend, me and friends had brought out a 16 foot truck full of games for people to play (various consoles, a full 10 station Steel Battalion LoC network multiplayer setup, Cursed Halo LAN, some various Candy Cabs, Japanese imports, and Gachapon).
While in a new city I always poke around on FB marketplace/ CL to see if I can find anything cool.
Well I saw this Sega / Atlus Print Club machine that really piqued my interest
Figured I had a truck already and am in town, so I do some research and there are some drawbacks about not being to source the consumables for them easily/ at all, but on the other hand there’s Pepsiman photo frames so I decide to reach out about it.
Unfortunately the seller isn’t available before I leave town, and I resign myself to not picking it up </3
I think about the machine all weekend while working the con. When I get home, I do a little more research on the machine, mainly to find this machine is way underdocumented, and that it looks like once the consumable proprietary cartridge and paper well ran dry, people started storing, gutting the ST-V parts, or even junking these cabs.
Guess this fires me up. So I reached out to the guy about driving another 16 hour round trip back to Columbus. The seller was really great to work with and we coordinated a time for mid week, I drove alone and the seller and I loaded this 400 pound metal monstrosity into my SUV (just barely)
Got it home, was able to relatively easily get most things running, and am going to try and source some solutions about a sustainable printing option here in 2023.
—-----------------------------------------
Repair Log:
Screen was a solid color and no image (as advertised), playing with the flyback gave me a faint image and retrace lines.
Let it run for a bit and fiddled with pots, finally reseating the neck board and with some more flyback adjustment the monitor now looks great!
Don't think this machine got a ton of use.
Was able to get into menus and start playing with the camera and printer menus. Now to just find a way around Sony's proprietary bullshit, I think it's going to think it needs a cartridge to start the game.
Time to give this thing a deep clean while I source a manual (none online so I had to buy one) and some parts to take a stab at this thing. It’s truly a beautiful machine, very intricate wiring and engineering in here, and built like a tank
As for printing, the official kit model number was an Atlus ATLUS20U-00. Can confirm that this print kit is just a rebranded Sony cartridge and paper for the Sony YP-2301PT thermal video printer inside.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a spent cartridge in there to get a model number off of,
Looks like it’s a set of die cut sheets and a cartridge. Sticker sheets will be easy to reproduce, just going to need to find a cartridge solution.
Also in the service menus there were self tests for three printers:
Sony YP-1201
Sony YP-2301 (every printer I have seen in a print club has been a YP-2301PT)
CP-710 (Mitsubishi CP710 series printer after checking this thread)
Going to find out more once I get the service manual. Would be nice to have printer options.
Possible Kits to try (for Sony YP-2301PT):
UPC-2045 (saw a sold Yahoo JP auction with a Sony YP-2301PT with that ribbon in it)
UPC-2010 (Paper isn't sticker paper but for ultrasounds but the cartridge may work)
Kits tried:
VPM-P50S16A (looks similar split sticker sheet and ribbon)
Also working with someone much smarter than me to see if maybe spoofing signals off the CN20 and CN32 connectors would allow us to use other (newer) hardware.
Currently have a service manual coming in the mail (couldn't find one online) as well as a UPC-S16 and VPM-P50S16A kit to start some trial and error and get some more details and diagrams to work with.
Want to document as much as I can, this machine is quite a beautiful piece of work and would love to contribute some documentation to this very cool retro hardware. With how culturally successful / popular the print club was in Japan, and how Purikura is the precursor to selfies and photo filters, and one of the main reasons front facing cameras were added to cell phones, I figured it would be a good addition to my current candy cabs!
If anyone has tried anything in their restoration journey of these machines I'd love to hear!
I've got a few things coming in for the machine, a
"Serviceman Manual" (Manual 420-637
and have that coming in, but it looks like there may be two others in EnglishA "Parts Catalog" (Manual 420-6381) and an "Owner's Manual" (Manual 420-6379)
If anyone has any leads on these other two manuals, especially that parts catalog, I'd be super grateful!
I also have a Mitsubishi CP700UM that has an RS-232C port coming in and I messaged the Arcade Boneyard about buying their Mitsubishi CP710 from a neoprint partout. Going to test as many options as my wallet can provide at the moment and seeing if the CP700/710 series works would be great as both the Neo Print and (likely) the Sega Print Club are compatible with that printer. I want to have a few options on have that my retro computing expert can play around with on that serial RS232C connector.
A good intro history to purikura / print club machines!
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