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 !

 

[SpecialWhenLit]

October 2025 --> November 2026

....

It took me a year or so get "somewhere" with the panels for this project, since something got done I feel like an update / encouragement to push myself to go forward is due

I approached both Alberto and Barry / ArcadeArtRepro to get this moving, it took a long while but eventually both delivered !

- Alberto was able to make two custom drawings based on the 4 buttons Sanwa layout I had posted above, (and that is officially pictured in the Windy manual, although never seen in the flesh), it took some back and forth and a wrong plate, but we pushed further and even designed a 1L4B panel based on the same layout.

- Then Barry was absolutely outstanding in understanding my needs and quickly delivered the perfect overlays to fit on all my plates (really highly recommended), so eventually we have :

2 Players 4 Buttons --> Windy 1
1 Player 6 Buttons --> Windy 1
2 Players 6 buttons --> Windy 2
1 Player 4 Buttons --> Windy 1

The rationale here was to dedicate the Windy 1 more to classing Konami Beat and Shoot-Them-Up + Neo-Geo MVS, whereas the Windy 2 would be more Capcom CPS 1/2/3 driven. Also this distribution was evenly allocating the colors between buttons (10 buttons per color).

Before someone says Windy start buttons should be green and not yellow, I am well aware, I just believe it looks much better in yellow !

I had NOS 1 and 2 player 6 buttons harnesses from Sanwa with the regular connectors already. When I inquired about getting some more I was told they were only being assembly for the newer SW68CAU type switch, so I figured I'd use these for the 4 buttons panels.

Below some pictures, but read next to see where I'm stuck

Hope you enjoy the pictures, they really came up great !!

Now why you don't see the 6 buttons panel being fitted as well ? Well, the little things that came in the way :

If you see the very first picture from the topic, and my stash of Sanwa spares from 15 years ago, you also see a fully fitted Blast City panel from them. And back then, they were assembling them with OBSF30-RG button (With the reinforced RS-GS switch that is labelled "G1"). I figured out I would "upgrade" to these buttons as well.

Since I had original OBSF30 buttons in blue and white, I ordered 12 "G1" switches to swap them, but little did I know they were not compatible ! You can fit a SW68CAU switch in an original OBSF30 button, but not the RS-SG switch ! The button itself is different.

So I have 12 reinforced switches laying around which will get no use but anyway, then I tried to order the OBSF30RG buttons in blue and white, only to realize white wasn't offered as a color for this button !!

I wanted to get done quickly and picked a pack of 6 OBSF30RG buttons in blue from eBay "LegendHK", and this was delivered :

(Their button on the left / Sanwa Japan on the right... not sure if counterfeit of high sunfade on a new product).

So I'm good for another order (every time shipping costs the price of the parts, I better make it right this time), hopefully the 6 buttons panels will be assembled by Christmas time.

Also, please someone confirm with wire clamp is correct on these panels in general, is it the UL13 or the UL18 size ? I can't get it right from the pictures.

TO be continued !