JohnRambo'sKnife
Champion
Not that it helps now, but maybe for future use - I've had great results with naval jelly. It's nasty but not that nasty and rinses with water. Will take off what a wire brush won't and no flash rust effect.
Sega Astro City - Restored
- Thread starter Thomas
- Start date
Thomas
Professional
I also bought one of the new old stock insert coin stickers mentioned earlier. I procrastinated putting it on for months because I knew I'd have trouble. I'm not good with stickers and decals. The new sticker from arcadeartrepro looks good but I already bought the original one. Arcadeartrepro also has a new billboard for the Astro City that looks good. The only difference I see is that the green area looks brighter.
I applied heat to remove the old sticker and started picking at the corners with a metal spudger but it wouldn't lift. So I kept turning up the temperature and applying more heat. Eventually I was able to lift the old sticker but I also singed my paint a little. Then when applying the new sticker, it wasn't straight so I lifted it a little to adjust and that caused a few blemishes. I'm not good with stickers.
I also applied the reproduction screw sticker that I bought to the service door. And it's crooked, of course. The others aren't perfectly straight either so that's okay. As I wrote before, this sticker is perfectly replicated except that the silver text is very reflective. So sometimes I'll look at it and all I can see is a solid black rectangle.
I grounded the left and right instruction holder bolts and the control panel base hinge. The wiring diagram in the manual doesn't show the hinge being grounded but I did it anyway. When I tested for continuity, some of the control panel bolts weren't grounded and I needed to tighten them more and further warp the control panel overlay, unfortunately. While adding these ground connections I realized that I had the wrong lock on the control panel base. The lock on my coin mechanism door allowed the key to be removed when unlocked. That lock should be one of the two locks on the control panel base. I've been unlocking it with two keys, so I switched those. Only one key needed now.
I repainted the monitor bezel. Details here: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/working-on-a-sega-blast-city.20583/post-343415
Lastly, I bought a reproduction marquee holder from arcadeartrepro and printed a few things using Nations Photo Lab. This was the first time I've printed something using an online service where the prints I received looked exactly the same as they appear on my PC monitor. As far as I can tell, the original Super Street Fighter II X marquee that would have been placed in the Astro City marquee holder is the two instruction cards. This isn't too exciting so I thought I'd try the black poster instead. The problem with this is that the marquee holder is too reflective so dark colors won't work. The black poster becomes obscured under light reflections. I have the original instruction cards so I put those in the marquee holder. Since they are originals I got extra nerdy and found some jumbo size Pokemon card sleeves to put them in. And I'm glad I did because I dropped one and damaged the sleeve instead of the card. To add more excitement I stuck a matboard print of the SFIIX logo on top with Blu Tack. I also have matboard prints of the move strips but I'm not sure what to do with those yet. I don't really like the cluttered look of having stuff all over the cabinet and stuck to the top and bottom of the monitor bezel.
That's all the updates. I don't have any other plans for this cabinet other than to play it (although a light for the marquee might be nice).
I applied heat to remove the old sticker and started picking at the corners with a metal spudger but it wouldn't lift. So I kept turning up the temperature and applying more heat. Eventually I was able to lift the old sticker but I also singed my paint a little. Then when applying the new sticker, it wasn't straight so I lifted it a little to adjust and that caused a few blemishes. I'm not good with stickers.
I also applied the reproduction screw sticker that I bought to the service door. And it's crooked, of course. The others aren't perfectly straight either so that's okay. As I wrote before, this sticker is perfectly replicated except that the silver text is very reflective. So sometimes I'll look at it and all I can see is a solid black rectangle.
I grounded the left and right instruction holder bolts and the control panel base hinge. The wiring diagram in the manual doesn't show the hinge being grounded but I did it anyway. When I tested for continuity, some of the control panel bolts weren't grounded and I needed to tighten them more and further warp the control panel overlay, unfortunately. While adding these ground connections I realized that I had the wrong lock on the control panel base. The lock on my coin mechanism door allowed the key to be removed when unlocked. That lock should be one of the two locks on the control panel base. I've been unlocking it with two keys, so I switched those. Only one key needed now.
I repainted the monitor bezel. Details here: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/working-on-a-sega-blast-city.20583/post-343415
Lastly, I bought a reproduction marquee holder from arcadeartrepro and printed a few things using Nations Photo Lab. This was the first time I've printed something using an online service where the prints I received looked exactly the same as they appear on my PC monitor. As far as I can tell, the original Super Street Fighter II X marquee that would have been placed in the Astro City marquee holder is the two instruction cards. This isn't too exciting so I thought I'd try the black poster instead. The problem with this is that the marquee holder is too reflective so dark colors won't work. The black poster becomes obscured under light reflections. I have the original instruction cards so I put those in the marquee holder. Since they are originals I got extra nerdy and found some jumbo size Pokemon card sleeves to put them in. And I'm glad I did because I dropped one and damaged the sleeve instead of the card. To add more excitement I stuck a matboard print of the SFIIX logo on top with Blu Tack. I also have matboard prints of the move strips but I'm not sure what to do with those yet. I don't really like the cluttered look of having stuff all over the cabinet and stuck to the top and bottom of the monitor bezel.
That's all the updates. I don't have any other plans for this cabinet other than to play it (although a light for the marquee might be nice).
Thomas
Professional
That might be good. But I think a protective coating is still needed after taking off the rust. I'm not sure if my rust was real rust or flash rust.
mR_CaESaR
Champion
Man, I think this goes down as the most epic restore of an Astro I've seen. I've said it multiple times to you already, but well done man.
Problem is, you need the same setup on the second astro
You may also need to sound deaden with dynamat so it doesn't rattle everywhere when the sub is going off
3rd strike will sound EPIC on that!
Problem is, you need the same setup on the second astro
You may also need to sound deaden with dynamat so it doesn't rattle everywhere when the sub is going off
3rd strike will sound EPIC on that!
Thomas
Professional
Thanks. Yeah, I can feel the vibrations in the control panel and I think some people would hate that. I keep the sub volume down so the rattle is minimal.
hatmoose
Enlightened
+1 for this. The time, effort and attention to detail is above and beyond, and the outcome is equally extraordinary.
mattsoft
Professional
Wow, you wanna come over and restore my Astro? 
Nice job and love these restore threads.
Nice job and love these restore threads.
Thomas
Professional
Nah, I'll pass. I'll let you do that on your own.Wow, you wanna come over and restore my Astro?
It's fun restoring these things but it takes a HUGE amount of time. And I still have a Net City to do.
I agree 100% with this! On that note, I used this thread to restore my NAC and can't express how much I appreciate the detail you've put into the restoration and thread. I learned quite a bit throughout the process so a big thank you!Nah, I'll pass. I'll let you do that on your own.
Hi Thomas,The speakers are easy to mount. No modifications needed. I think I needed to cut one of the speaker terminals to fit the original Astro speaker wire connector on it. Otherwise, no modification needed. These are a good alternative to the Logitechs but only if a 4 ohm capable amplifier is used. I'm guessing JAMMA audio is 8 ohm minimum, or maybe depends on the game. Not sure. The speakers also came with capacitors inline with the speaker wires which I didn't use since they are likely similar in value to the ones I'm already using.
And how do they sound? Mostly the same. So my theory didn't work out. They are louder since they are 4 ohm and higher sensitivity compared to the Logitechs. I don't need to turn my amplifier up very much to achieve adequate volume. Otherwise they're about the same. I want to say they are slightly clearer and not as harsh but I'm not sure since I didn't do any back-to-back comparison.
I thought about fitting speaker enclosures in the cabinet but that would be challenging and there's not much space between the speakers and the fluorescent light door. I badly wanted to fill in that 150Hz range that was very much lacking with these speakers, and I didn't want to add a cheap, small subwoofer to achieve that, but that's what I did.
Acoustic Audio PSW250-6
Finally I have acceptable sound. It's far from a HiFi experience but CPS2 audio isn't high fidelity to begin with. The sub was easy to connect because it has a high level input. I only needed to run an additional pair of wires from the Sure amplifier output into the high level input.
It took some time to find a sub that would fit behind the coin box housing. I saw some powered subwoofers that are sold together with PC speakers that would fit but those are seriously under-powered and must sound awful. The Acoustic Audio isn't something I would use in a home theater but for an arcade cabinet it's fine. I keep the gain set at around 4 and the crossover all the way up to 150Hz just to fill in that 100-200Hz range that was badly needed. The sub of course produces frequencies below 100 as well. If it had a high pass option I would cut frequencies below 100 since I don't want any of that low rumble. Since the sub is putting out frequencies up to 250Hz there is a localization problem (I can clearly hear high frequency sounds coming from above me and lower from inside the cabinet) but I don't mind. Overall I'm liking this audio setup. I can really turn up my Capcom games loud and get a full sound and for me it's a big improvement over the Logitech speakers powered by the CPS2 JAMMA amplifier.
With two audio amplifiers now inside the cabinet, I'm concerned about excessive heat so I added a 12V 60mm fan to the back where the three vent slots are. I noticed that the Astro PSU has an unused 12 pin connection for 12V and 5V, so I added an AMP UP 12 pin connector to the fan power wires to supply 12V to the fan. I did a quick search online and saw that 12V is mostly for powering the audio amplifier on JAMMA boards, and my fan only draws .045 amps so the PSU shouldn't have any trouble powering the fan. I didn't want to drill any holes so instead of screws I used thin cable ties attached to adhesive cable ties.
I don't know if this fan is necessary or how much cooling it provides but I feel better knowing it's there. I suppose I could measure the temperature inside the cabinet with and without the fan to find out. I did notice that after playing for about an hour the PSU case was quite hot so the next time I played, I unplugged the fan. The PSU was still hot so maybe that's normal.
Here's how it all looks inside. Everything is mounted with adhesive Velcro, even the subwoofer. This isn't adequate for transport in the back of a truck but otherwise should keep things in place.
I am currently working on a stereo mod based on your instructions. I purchased Logitech speakers and Kinter K2020A+ Limited Edition initially.
But now I saw your Pioneer speakers and I want to buy those instead. The Kinter K2020A says on the product page "Speaker Impedence 2~8 Ω"
Does that mean it supports 2-8 ohm speakers and I can use that with the Pioneer TS-A709s? Meaning I will get that extra benefit you mentioned vs the logitechs? Thank you.
Thomas
Professional
Before you buy another pair of speakers read this https://www.arcade-projects.com/thr...o’-cabs-the-crt-porn-thread.17486/post-377945
Sometimes the sound is too harsh and I need to turn down the volume. Depending on the games you play this might not be a problem.
If that Kinter can be used with 2 ohm speakers then it can be used with nearly any speakers. But 2 ohms is unusual. I think only car amplifiers go that low. I did a quick search for that Kinter and didn't see any impedance listed.
The only benefit of the Pioneer over the Logitechs is that they will be louder. The Kinter is only 20 watts RMS according to the Amazon listing (I don't see an impedance specified for this rating). Try it with the Logitechs first and if it's not loud enough then get the Pioneer speakers. Test it with the games you will play mostly.