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Another 00's MAME Victim - Egret 29 Restore

Novus makes some magical stuff.

I've also seen a lot of marquees on Yahoo lately, typically in very good shape. I bought one and its as close to NOS as I think you'll get.
 
o1s1n said:
Regarding that scratched up marquee, check out the Novus three step acrylic / plastic scratch removal and cleaning kit.

I had a very scratched up marquee that I managed to get from this



To this. without too much effort:

Still has some of the deeper scratches but it's like night and day, actually diffuses the light properly now:
Click to expand...

Cool cabinet! The Candy 25 is one of my favorites with the best rotation mech of any cab.

If you want to take it the next step, wet sanding and polishing can restore even very badly scratched transparent plastics. Here's a couple OEM Astro toppers I salvaged by wet sanding 800-1000-1500-2000-3000 and then machine polishing with a heavy compound and finishing with Novus 2. Here were the auction photos from the bulk lot I won:


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And here's each one after, respectively. Second one has a crack and some stress marks still but totally useable:

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one of these days I'd like to 3D model a replacement panel bezel that fits a standard Sega style panel
 
Many hours of tracing and cutting and crimping later, the second wiring harness is done!!! This means the original can go back in the cabinet.

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It's assembled as far as it's gonna be for now. A friend tipped me off to gray wire tiedowns which appear to be exactly the same as the OEM ones used by lots of arcade manufacturers. They are by a company called Nix and the part numbers are UL-13G and UL-18G. After a lot of looking at reference photos, I think I was able to get the wire ties in the correct spots. Everything powered up and I could hear the game running, but considering the cabinet was working in the state it was sold to me that's not really surprising.

Previous owner hacked up an oddly short power cord to add a rope light so I fixed it with a proper gray cord of a decent length. I did change the power wiring a little bit so the rear power switch also cuts off the service outlet, which I know isn't factory, but I really don't like anything being live when the switch is off. I can also use this to add a subwoofer later, which I do in all my cabs.

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New fixture was dirt cheap and illuminates everything nicely. Color temperature is too cold for my liking but I'm not in a hurry to replace it.

I've ordered caps for the factory power supply, buttons and sticks, as well as samples for the blue vinyl and the rubber mat. I did recap the chassis months ago but never tested it, so I did that just now and it powers up and everything works but the horizontal output is noisy, like the sync is bad even though it's not. I will have to look into it tomorrow.
 
Ever since I hit the opamp with cold spray it hasn't wobbled, so I decided to install the monitor today. Once the replacement part arrives from China in a few weeks I'll take the chassis out again, but it's real annoying to get to the anode cup with the rotation mech in the way.

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At the moment I'm pretty much just waiting for parts to arrive and this thing can be done fairly quick. Orafol Traffic Blue looked very close for the blue stripe. https://metrorestyling.com/products/oracal-gloss-traffic-blue-vinyl-wrap-970ra-057

After a lot of deliberation I decided to pay up and won that complete control panel assembly on YAJ. I'm not happy about the insane hammer price, but I am happy that it will save a substantial amount of time and headaches. I won't need to spend dozens of hours finishing up the CAD work, headaches getting fabricators to answer the phone and actually work with me, time and money iterating parts that don't fit right, etc. I can pretty much just refinish the plastic housing, bolt it up, and call it done. This is the last major arcade project I have on my plate since I overloaded myself with stuff a few years back and I'm excited to get my life back.

Gonna be eating ramen for a few paychecks though.
 
trashedcabs said:
Ever since I hit the opamp with cold spray it hasn't wobbled, so I decided to install the monitor today. Once the replacement part arrives from China in a few weeks I'll take the chassis out again, but it's real annoying to get to the anode cup with the rotation mech in the way.

IMG_2362.JPG



At the moment I'm pretty much just waiting for parts to arrive and this thing can be done fairly quick. Orafol Traffic Blue looked very close for the blue stripe. https://metrorestyling.com/products/oracal-gloss-traffic-blue-vinyl-wrap-970ra-057

After a lot of deliberation I decided to pay up and won that complete control panel assembly on YAJ. I'm not happy about the insane hammer price, but I am happy that it will save a substantial amount of time and headaches. I won't need to spend dozens of hours finishing up the CAD work, headaches getting fabricators to answer the phone and actually work with me, time and money iterating parts that don't fit right, etc. I can pretty much just refinish the plastic housing, bolt it up, and call it done. This is the last major arcade project I have on my plate since I overloaded myself with stuff a few years back and I'm excited to get my life back.

Gonna be eating ramen for a few paychecks though.
Click to expand...
To get that anode cap on easily, i rotate the monitor to tate. Its much much easier getting it from the side with the hood open that way.
 
Time is money, as they say. I agree that it is a lot, but I also agree that buying it to save the time and the headaches was probably the right call.

Looking forward to the finished product!
 
I got the blue stripe on and it's looking great. Cut some vinyl for the speaker inserts and the Taito logo. I did adjust the top screw holes on the speaker inserts afterwards, they should be acceptable and you won't see them behind the grille anyway. Here are the files in case anyone needs them for some reason:

https://drive.proton.me/urls/Z9G2G24M2M#Iq8NODpTtnwJ
https://drive.proton.me/urls/CVBKGZK7PR#XdfDRlBcSd8n

Control panel assembly shipped from my proxy just now--hoping to have it by the end of the week. :)

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I added the colored taito logos to the speaker backs on my E29 as well, it looks so good I don't know why Taito didn't do it in production.
 
crazy. He must be stock piling Egret parts. I bought his 2nd E2 panel (the first one I lost the bid on and i bid a ridiculous amount)
 
Ziggy Cheetos Dust said:
What’s the cutting machine @trashedcabs? Looks handy for all sorts of restoration needs.
Click to expand...

It's an old Cameo. I've been wanting to upgrade to a newer one that has an optical sensor for automatic alignment but I don't use it very often.

bgwelistyl said:
crazy. He must be stock piling Egret parts. I bought his 2nd E2 panel (the first one I lost the bid on and i bid a ridiculous amount)
Click to expand...

FWIW a LOT of these cabinets got scrapped or exported out to other countries in the 2000s. My understanding is that while Japanese operators don't typically keep full machines around for long because space is at a premium, they do often stockpile parts.

I'm pretty confident this one will get no bids and get relisted for less. It's also in worse condition, particularly the top start button panel which is faded.
 
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Control panel arrived early. Wahoo

It's in pretty great shape for its age. There are only 6 burns and one gash on the front edge, and there is some minor rust on the inside. I'll probably touch up the paint in a few spots but leave it as-is until I bring another batch to the powder coater.

Next week when I have some time I'll work on cleaning up the plastic housing and getting that painted.
 
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