Konami Windy I & II Restauration Project

[SpecialWhenLit]

Hi !

First post here, not sure i f this is "Project Showcase" yet or more "Project Ideas" but anyway

Long story short, I have 2 Windy Cabinets (the 1 & 2) which have been hibernating in my father's basement for the past 10 to 15 years. They were in working order last time they were fired, but in need of a good refurbishing to be fully enjoyable.

I also have a lot of spares with them, especially for the Windy 2 where I have basically a second set of electronics (PSU, Monitor Chassis, JVS converter), 3 original marquees, japanese stools...

Spares I bought back in 2011 from Sanwa :



Original windy panels to use as reference :



Headers (Also have the blue one from the Windy 2 not pictured) :




Before working directly on the cabinets, which will more likely be for next spring, I would like to start making new contol panels. I plan to do following :

- 1L4B + 2L8B with the pink scheme of the Windy 1 --> To play classic JAMMA / Konami and Neo-Geo MVS.
- 1L6B + 2L12B with the blue scheme of the Windy 2 --> Capcom CPS here.

For the Windy 2, no issues I have the two original Sanwa NOS stainless panels what I will be using. Now for the Windy 1 I would like to do exactly this button layout for both the 1 player and 2 players panels (this is from the Konami manual BTW) :

I saw this layout refered to as "Sanwa Licensed Astro City 2L8B Panel" (Which is different than the Official SEGA 2L8B panel, or the Vitrual Fighter 3 layout) :

- So the question is : where to find new panels that will conform exactly to this layout (both 1 player and 2 players), an show a similar quality to my original Sanwa 6 buttons panels ? I guess obtaining this layout directly from Sanwa is clearly inpossible these days ?

- And the second question obviously is where to obtain the reproduction overlays for all 4 panels ? Who's making the best repros these days ? I would like to the as close to the genuine models, which are very slick and glossy.

- Sticks and buttons will be classic Sanwa of course, I need to check what I have already and buy some move. Maybe reinforced swtches as well. I migh use SEGA yellow for the start buttons, I always found the green from Konami to be too weird.

- And who's making good harnesses these days as well ? I saw I guy selling on eBay specifically for the Windy. Also have Sanwa harnesses as spares here, but not sure if the Konami standard is different from SEGA ?

Thanks for the inputs !

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

That’s great you have many spares. Those panels in that condition are almost unseen nowadays and marquee holders are equally as rare and very expensive. If your Windy II chassis is the original Toshiba 7534 and you have a spare as well that’s a real plus.

Maybe @alberto1225 PM’d you already, but he would be able to sort you out with great quality panels according to your requirements. He provides both the panel and overlay. Just order ASAP ‘cause his work is in demand.

If you wanted to fast track the Windy I panel and save a few hundred dollars you could just get the plain overlays from here and use your Sanwa Blast City panels.

https://arcadeartrepro.com/?s=Windy&post_type=product

Then just Dremel out holes 1,2,3 & 4 - not quite the straighter style button layout but something to consider if you’re on a budget and don’t care about keeping the Sanwa’s original. These are not glossy overlays but textured - but @joeks Barry (the business owner) does glossy polycarbonate overlays for other cabinets so maybe shoot him a message and see what he can do.

eBay is the only place I recall seeing new harnesses for the Windy’s. It seems to be decent stuff. A massive time saver if you can’t be arsed getting all the stuff required to make your own - but you’ll pay for the privilege.

Good luck with the machines. I’m restoring one myself so will follow with interest.

 

[joeks]

I can also make the Windy CPO's the way i make my SEGA panel overlays these days, on thin Polyester (glossy, flexible and about 0.4 mm thin). They come with 3M self adhesive on the back side.
Don't have them pictured on the website yet though.

 

[SpecialWhenLit]

Thanks a lot for the inputs ! Indeed happy to have spares around as I've seen prices going crazy (Saw the Windy plastic header/topper fetch 100K yens on Yahoo! Japan)

The SANWA Licensed Blast City Full panel is seeing some use on a friend's Blast City for the past decade already

As for my 4 buttons setup, I'm really looking to recreate the genuine Sanwa layout I pictured, to me it's be best for MVS games and close to what SNK was using on their cabinet (Although SNK used Seimitsu...).

Also the layout is specifically pictured in the Windy manual, so why settle for anything different ?

Additional pics here :

I contacted Alberto already, will get in touch with Barry as well !