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Nice adventure, i wanto to see how it´s going with this Astro City from Yaton. My Astro have also a little crack un the right side, but i didnt fix it yet. Maybe i will fix in the future. The japanese used the control panel like a chair, and this is the reason for those cracks?
Anyway, please update your purchase´s adventure when you have new info :thumbsup:
 
Really looking forward to reading about how much the audio improved with the Logitech speakers. The info for the replacement parts is much appreciated, as I've been wanting to do a similar mod on my own Astros for years. Just found a cheap second stereo amp w/subwoofer locally and I'm waiting on my own Logitech drivers to arrive. Excited to finally do this as a quality of life improvement for these cabs!
 
Nice adventure, i wanto to see how it´s going with this Astro City from Yaton. My Astro have also a little crack un the right side, but i didnt fix it yet. Maybe i will fix in the future. The japanese used the control panel like a chair, and this is the reason for those cracks?
Anyway, please update your purchase´s adventure when you have new info :thumbsup:
I’ll definitely continue updating! In order to keep people’s inboxes from blowing up, I’m adding small updates to the main post and then I’ll add order arrivals etc. as their own posts.

You’re right about the CPs! It seems it happens from people sitting on them. As far as I know, the best fix is to reinforce it from the inside and then use fiberglass repair material to fix the crack. Hoping I don’t need to do that to mine, but we will see!

Really looking forward to reading about how much the audio improved with the Logitech speakers. The info for the replacement parts is much appreciated, as I've been wanting to do a similar mod on my own Astros for years. Just found a cheap second stereo amp w/subwoofer locally and I'm waiting on my own Logitech drivers to arrive. Excited to finally do this as a quality of life improvement for these cabs!
I’ll do my best to get a comparison of the audio. I don’t have an amazing microphone, but I’ll absolutely do some testing with my little Blue Yeti mic. Hopefully it’ll capture the difference well enough. Congrats on the amp! I may do that eventually, but to run 2.1 I need a bit more voltage and I’d like to keep everything inside the cab. A sub would sound so damn good, though. I’m jealous.

Once I get the cab, I plan to do very detailed posts about each step. I’m also contemplating doing a vlog. It’ll be nice to have even if I’m the only one that watches it, lol.
 
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Got some stuff today:

- Degaussing coil: I figured I’ll need this at some point. Probably not often, but it doesn’t hurt to have one laying around. Mine took a hit during shipping, it sounds like. There’s definitely something plastic rolling around as I handle it; but, it worked on a CRT we have here! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- Skateboard wheels. I’m glad I got two Astros. Now I have a use for all four 😀

- JNX CPS1-2/3 to Namco 11 kick-harness adapter. It unfortunately doesn’t fit on my Namco 11 board, but I think maybe shaving a bit off of the PCB will work. I’ll see.

Edit: shaving the board a bit worked just fine. I finally have all buttons for Tekken 2, ha.
 

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Who did you use for buying the restored cab stateside? Hopefully not Overcome Arcades - they burned me last year.
 
Horacio is legit, he's been in this game a long time.
He really is. I told him months ago I was in the market and he reached out to me so I was grateful he remembered. My fiancé and I are going to get an AirBnB and drive out to pick it up — Make a little weekend trip out of it. We’re really looking forward to it!
 
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Just wondering, why the degauss coil? Does the one integrated into your monitor not work? I’d just fix the PTC on the chassis instead of do it externally. No arcade monitor is designed to require an external coil.
 
Just wondering, why the degauss coil? Does the one integrated into your monitor not work? I’d just fix the PTC on the chassis instead of do it externally. No arcade monitor is designed to require an external coil.
Just to have one in the tool set. I’m sure the internal will work just fine; but I figured if I’m buying arcades, I’ll be buying / working with other CRTs and cabs down the road.
 
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Just to have one in the tool set. I’m sure the internal will work just fine; but I figured if I’m buying arcades, I’ll be buying / working with other CRTs and cabs down the road.
Ok, that makes sense. Just wanted to make sure another person wasn't buying one because "the cab requires it!" - something I've heard a lot of times, when I think it's really just that the monitor was broken!
 
Ok, that makes sense. Just wanted to make sure another person wasn't buying one because "the cab requires it!" - something I've heard a lot of times, when I think it's really just that the monitor was broken!
Haha no worries. But hey, I am new to the hobby so I appreciate the questions.
 
I’m sure many will disagree, but IMHO, a proper step down is crucial part of running any piece of Japanese hardware that the manufacturer intended to be run at 100v. Most people will say “well Iv run mine for x years and don’t have issues” but look at it this way: Wall voltage differs wildy from home to home, sometimes even room to room and even on a good day you are running all of the hardware with an additional 20% voltage and potentially reducing the life space of certain components. Yes most components will be rated much higher than running levels to protect for surge and variance. I believe it’s a very small price to pay to ensure everything is running at proper levels and has the maximum amount of life in the long run. Iv run every single cabinet I owned and sold over the years strictly on metered 100v stepdowns.
 
I’m sure many will disagree, but IMHO, a proper step down is crucial part of running any piece of Japanese hardware that the manufacturer intended to be run at 100v. Most people will say “well Iv run mine for x years and don’t have issues” but look at it this way: Wall voltage differs wildy from home to home, sometimes even room to room and even on a good day you are running all of the hardware with an additional 20% voltage and potentially reducing the life space of certain components. Yes most components will be rated much higher than running levels to protect for surge and variance. I believe it’s a very small price to pay to ensure everything is running at proper levels and has the maximum amount of life in the long run. Iv run every single cabinet I owned and sold over the years strictly on metered 100v stepdowns.
There is nothing in any Sega Cabinet, at least from the Aero City onwards, that cannot handle US mains voltage.
 
Pretty cool thread to follow, I've been having a hard time finding an Astro City after contacting some sellers in my area so I was curious about how purchasing through Yaton would go despite all of the mixed reception I hear throughout different communities.
 
Pretty cool thread to follow, I've been having a hard time finding an Astro City after contacting some sellers in my area so I was curious about how purchasing through Yaton would go despite all of the mixed reception I hear throughout different communities.
Well I’m glad to be helping a bit by de-mystifying the process for you! Lunar New Year celebrations end tomorrow, so shipping should start moving along.

I’ll update as soon as I speak more with James.
 
Yeah I ordered some stuff from him January 25th and tracking has not moved since their New Year.
 
Yeah I ordered some stuff from him January 25th and tracking has not moved since their New Year.
Yeah, I'm sure things are finally going to start moving this week or next. Lunar New Year usually ends on the 15th... and I think we can all attest to the lack of drive we have after the holidays haha.
 
Great post! I bought a U4-25 from Yaton a couple years ago and it's been mostly fine, though not a fan of how he repaints things and puts crappy repro decals on, not sure if this is how your Astro will be. Also the original Fluorescent bulb may be replaced by some LED rig that looks... not great. I may be one of those chargebacks he's complaining about, though not for the cab. I bought what was claimed and photographed as a genuine U4-25 control panel (cab came with one of his dark blue repros) and received another repro, this one with just a badly printed textured sticker of the panel art. I asked to return it because it wasn't the claimed/photo'd original panel and he blocked me with no response. I had to then explain the situation to ebay to get refunded. Sad because we had a good rapport during the cab purchase and I had no complaints. EDIT: Just found Yaton's welcome thread, and apparently "arcadefunny66" is not him, so don't want to misplace blame for the panel situation.

When he says "no burn" he means it, which is good. The cab may be set up for Chinese 220V, with the applicable stepdown hacked in so be sure to remove that. Check the monitor connections carefully, and check for bad soldering on the chassis. I had some monitor issues that were cleared up by a simple reflow and re-seating connections. Levers may be horrible zippys and buttons will be "whatever". The faston connectors in my panel were like, crimped onto the tab contacts with pliers or something, I had to pretty much build an entire new control harness.

Here it is after finally finding a genuine panel, the correct Omron buttons and LS-32s, some marquees I had around, and some repro decals:

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EDIT: Also want to mention how painless the shipping was, right to my door, tracked containership. This was 2019 so it was also pretty cheap, though it may not be now.
 
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Time for an update!? I think so!​


Hey Everybody, sorry for my long hiatus. To give you an idea of what's been going on the last few months:

February 9th: Received the keys to our new home! My fiancé and I sold our house in November of 2021 and closed in January 2022. We finally got the keys after a lease-back on the 9th.

February 10th: Laid off from my job. Yes, you read that right. The day after I got the keys to my new house (which I purchased through the 'tech-driven' real estate company I was employed by) myself, along with 70% of the technology team, were laid off. This sucked and meant I had to start a job hunt immediately and also take a lot of the work that we were going to do to the house and put it on my plate. This ended up being a blessing in disguise as I landed a new job which is a 30% bump, but house work took up a LOT of time.

Feb 11th - Now: We got moved in, finally finished unpacking our last boxes, and I've been training like crazy with my new job. They are a great company that has taken me on for my DevOps experience and has said "take the time you need to learn TypeScript." It's been busy!

As far as arcades go:
1. I'm still waiting on the Yaton cab. I'm sure it's in transit somewhere, but I heard James is not feeling well based on some other posts around here. I hope he's doing ok! That explains his absence.

2. Once Horacio finishes the other cab I purchased I will head out to CA to pick it up. Hopefully it'll fit in the back of our Jeep Cherokee!

3. I received some arcade stools on March 10th from Arcade Shock. So far they are great, but I haven't sat in them very long since I don't have any cabs yet. I'll make sure to report back when I have more time in them!

4. I received a second MiSTerCade from @misteraddons. It's working great and I'll be making some updates to the MiSTerCade Mount/Brace I designed. He did a great job with the bottom plate that reduces the flex on the board, so my changes will be small and printing/using it will be purely for aesthetics.

Thanks for stopping by!
 
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