Well, I did it. At least I think I did. I sent copious amounts of money to a person I have never met in a place I have never been using F&F on PayPal (apparently I like to gamble) in exchange for what could be a Sega Astro City. I wanted to start this thread not necessarily because we need another Astro City restoration thread, but to give you fine people a peek into my experience in buying a candy cab sight-unseen from overseas.
First, I know many people will ask "why didn't you purchase local? Why didn't you wait for more to come up that are already stateside?" and frankly, the real reasons are impatience and FOMO. It can be quite difficult to reach out and ask for stock. I'm not sure if it's because sellers have been burned in the past (wouldn't surprise me) or if most sellers are just too busy to handle a thousand requests for candy-cabs per-day; but, I was worried that stock will continue to dwindle and demand wouldn't slow. I'd rather purchase something now that needs work, rather than wait for a thread to be updated and buy something that, let's be honest, will still need work. At the end of the day, I want to have two cabs, so even if this one is trashed at least I have
something (I think...).
I have been watching Yaton Arcade's stock for the past few months while I wait to hear about any containers that have Astro's coming in. None of the threads I had followed were looking too hopeful and Yaton's stock was getting low. To the point where it was out of stock on everything he had listed. I decided to reach out anyway and he got back to me saying that he has one left in stock. I reached out to a few forum members and some arcade people on twitter asking for their opinions. Most of the feedback I got was "expect that thing to be trashed" and some outright telling me not to even bother. (I want to thank
@djsheep and
@hyp36rmax for their help on this. They had great suggestions for me). I also talked to a buyer of Yaton's who said "it will need work, but it will be as listed." I went back to Yaton's Facebook and asked for photos, videos, etc. He sent me some photos and I was a bit worried because I saw some rivets in the control panel which, I would assume, are there to fix a cracked CP (see photo).
So I asked for more photos and a video. He sent back a video which displayed no rivets (何?!!??). I was happy that the video didn't have any rivets in it but now I was a bit uneasy. I did a bit more digging and realized that the cabinet in the photos was different from the one in the video. Not my favorite thing to see, but I double checked and said "which one am I going to be receiving?" He assured me that the one in the video was a video he just took (which seemed true, he walked up to both sides of the CP to show no rivets or cracks) and that is the machine I will receive. I asked again about burn-in and he assured that the tube has no burn-in.
Here's a screenshot from the video:
Now, being the gambler that I now am, I decided to throw caution to the wind and make the purchase. I will admit that being told "F&F only" had me a bit worried. Yaton did mention, though, that he'd been burned 6 times because of people refunding their purchases. Now, does this mean that customers actually got ripped off? Does it mean some customers were expecting more than they actually got? Who knows, but if I were on his end, I would be frustrated. Even still, I decided to go ahead.
I'm setting my expectations super duper low, and if it comes to my door in as good as condition as it seems to have, I'll be happy as a clam. if it's worse, I won't be upset. It's an arcade that's almost as old as I am, what can I really expect? As you'll see below, I have a lot of plans for this cab and the tube is probably the only thing I'm
really worried about. Having no cracks in the fiberglass will be a plus; but, if I have to hire someone to do a bit of fiberglass work, I'll do it (or figure it out myself). I hope that this thread can give some people peace of mind when buying sight-unseen, or maybe help them realize it's not for them. Maybe some of you might just find it interesting. Hell, I don't know.
Here's the timeline. I'll make updates as I receive information:
January 15th: Money changed hands. Immediately after purchase he reached out and asked for my phone number, address, full name, and e-mail. Cool! I asked him if using WeChat would be easier and he said yes. He can only use FaceBook from his office so we switched to chatting there instead. He asked if I would like Chinese locks or if I prefer the originals and I asked him to reinstall the originals. He informed me that he will get that done by Thursday, then wrap it and put it in a crate (I paid extra for that) to hand over to the shipper. I also learned through WeChat he goes by James.
January 17th: I reached out as I hadn't heard anything yet. I let him know I'll be awake until about 4PM his time and to contact me if he needs anything from me.
January 18th: James gets back to me and apologizes for getting back late. He said he will try to ship again the upcoming Thursday (1/20) but the Omicron variant was closing things down in his city. We exchanged some niceties for a while. I won't share too much as to respect his privacy, but we found out we both have family in similar locations overseas (Kinda cool!). He told me that he can't head to work until he has his test results back as negative and they are testing the entire city. No worries! I then asked him a few questions about the shipping process. He said that he will wrap and box, the box goes to the shipper's warehouse where it waits for a full container. Once the container is full it heads to customs clearance and the shipping port. When it's past those, the container waits for a ship to arrive and then it moves to the ship. Ship will arrive in Vancouver port and then be trucked to my door. He apologized that it's a long process. He estimates about 3 months, but warned me Lunar New Year could push it a bit further.
January 21st: I messaged him as I hadn't heard anything yet.
January 24th: I get a message! He says "Good news: your cab has been sent to the shipper warehouse. Bad news: Shipper won't be sending anything until after New Year." I was just happy to hear it has made some progress. I thanked him for giving me an update and we had a nice little chat again.
January 29th: I got a message from another seller in the US who let me know they got an Astro City in stock. They will be restoring it and selling it to me (they don't sell cabs un-restored). After some conversations with my fiancee, she told me to pull the trigger. I want two cabs so I can use the mister vs. and hopefully get a versus setup for SFIII -- so she said to stop thinking and just buy it! It should be ready in March and we'll drive out to pick it up. Pretty exciting! I'm also happy because this means I'll have something working while I'm restoring my other astro. My wallet didn't enjoy it as much, though.
Feb 3rd: Ordered some parts from DigiKey and Mouser. I bought a bunch of AMP-UP connectors and some Faston connectors. I am not sure if I will actually need all of them, but I needed to order some things anyway and didn't want the shipping cost to go to waste. Some of the main things I already have uses for:
- 4Pin AMP-UP for connecting the amp to the speakers
- 12 Pin AMP-UP and 9 Pin AMP-UP. I'm not sure which PSU my cab will have, so I bought both of these so that I can pull 12v from the PSU (and probably 5v for the LEDs if I decide to use them)
- AMP-Up Pins (male and female, both sizes)
- Ring connector for grounding the cab
- Spade connectors for the new grounded cable
- .205" Faston. This is for the Logitech speakers as one of the lugs is .110" and the other is .205". I'll remove the .110" from the harness and replace it so that it looks "factory".
This page from GateNinety was really helpful for finding the AMP-UP connectors
May 12: I contacted James a few days ago to see if he has any updates on the status of my Arcade. James informed me that 23 total machines shipped out in January and so far 17 have delivered... oddly, mine is not one of the last few that need to be delivered. OOOOOF!!! James asked me to give him a couple of days to get in touch with the shipper and track down my cab. There are 2 likely scenarios: 1. mine left on a different container than most of the January orders due to Lunar New Year. It's just a bit behind and still on the way. 2. It's lost or confiscated by customs. James was very clear that if it is lost or has been confiscated he will fully refund me or re-send another cab. I really appreciated that he was upfront about that and willing to work with me. Am I bummed? Of course; but, I am sure it'll all work out in the end. I'm just bummed I don't have a cab yet. I should be hearing back from him tonight or tomorrow and I'll follow up with more updates.
June 8: SAD NEWS. James contacted me and let me know that the shipper he used had a bunch of undeclared items on the container that held my cab... the container was confiscated and the cab will likely be destroyed
. I'm really sad about that; mainly because it's such a waste of cool technology. I hope that it ends up at an auction or something because it would be such a waste for customs to destroy it!
The good news: James offered a full refund or to send another. I was really appreciative that he had no hesitation to send my money back. I thought about doing so and going through Ground Zeroes instead (who I will definitely be buying from in the future. I had a short chat with them and they seem great!), but in the end I opted not to. Going through GZ would cost me an additional ~$700 or so. If I can save that $700 and put it into the restoration, I'd prefer that route. This sets us back quite a bit but James' new shipper has completed 3 successful deliveries and they're faster than the previous shipper. Hopefully I'll have a cab at my door within 80 days or so. Fingers crossed!
Patience is a virtue, they say
List of To-Do's for the cab:
- Upgrade speakers and add a stereo amp (speakers are on the way. Amp is here and ready).
- Completely disassemble and clean
- Re-cap all the things
- Re-plate all the metal pieces.
@stringbean gave me some good information here.
- Sand the paint down
- Send to a shop to have it painted and cleared.
- Replace all stickers and art
- Replace all the buttons and joysticks (already purchased and waiting)
- Order from panels from Alberto. I'm going to do 2L12B and 1L6B configurations
- Refinish the marquee using the
@FluxChiller process
- Put LEDs in the control panel (ehh). I bought both clear and solid buttons in case I hate it.
- Replace the marquee light... maybe. I'm waiting on this one. I want to make sure everything I do can be powered by the internal PSU instead of running wires out the back.
- Pull the ol'
@Softdrink and put in a service light. I am going to use LEDs for mine and use a Normally-Open Reed Switch so that it only comes on when the service door is open. I thought that'd be fun. I should be able to pull 5v from the PSU and then run a battery backup for when the PSU isn't on.
- Ground the cab (duh)
- I
may build my own harness as well. It depends on how over it I am once I finish everything else, though.
Some questions I have:
1. Are you guys in the US using step-downs to get to 100v? I'm not actually too worried about the PSU, but I worry for the CRT. Any reason I should be?
2. I have this idea to make a mono/stereo switch. Has anyone done this? I believe I could wire in a 4PDT switch and connect the parallel mono setup from the cab into the switch then wire the line-out from the amp so that I can go between the two. Am I going down a road that shouldn't be travelled here? This would really only be for cosmetic purposes.
I'm pretty sure I have more questions... I will come back if so.
In the spirit of transparency, I'll also keep a budget here so you can get an idea of cost (in USD rounded up to nearest dollar):
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope this can help people get a clearer understanding of the purchase process. And it's a lot easier to watch some idiot possibly lose $1800 than do it yourself
(I’ll post more detailed photos of the machine tomorrow)
.
not worth it, lol.
