Mrhide
Legendary
Love the card repro art .... even If I removed these awful coin boxes!
Maximum Tune 3DX+ Restoration/Refurbish
- Thread starter trashedcabs
- Start date
trashedcabs
Professional
This has been on the backburner for a while. The original pair has gone to a number of events here in the PNW in the meantime while I've worked on other projects. Things have accelerated quite a lot since last posting.
First side adventure: I purchased a single US MT1 cabinet from a local auction for $320 all in. It has certainly seen better days.
Digging into its history, the cabinet started life as MT1 and was located at B&I Amusements in Lakewood WA. At some point, it was upgraded to MT2. When B&I closed in 2013, it went to a local auctionhouse where it was purchased by a local operator. It was in a Fred Meyer (supermarket) in University Place, WA where it was running MT1 again, when I assume a pipe burst over it and it received significant water damage. It was then sent back to the same local auctionhouse where I purchased it.
Everything worked... somehow. Looking over the Chihiro, it's been serviced before by Speedy's and has several replacement caps and the clock cap pulled. There was a 680uf cap by the video output that was leaking. After replacing it, the board fired right up.
The cabinet itself was too far gone to save, so I decided to crowbar it and save everything useful. Having the wooden American cabinets next to the all-metal overseas cabinets really highlights just how crap the ones we got were compared to the rest of the world. I mostly bought it for the Chihiro anyway, which is worth about what I paid for the whole thing.
The monitor had the worst burn I've seen outside of old 80s games, clearly making the MT1 and 2 title screens visible even during busy gameplay. All the guns showed low emissions on the sencore. The tube will be recycled, as I already have a stockpile of 68cm donors. The chassis had also clearly been swapped multiple times. The frame and wiring showed it came with a PFX originally, but someone swapped in an E31S chassis, which had the typical bad caps these all have. The chassis lives on in a Gauntlet Dark Legacy I purchased at a local pinball show and refurbished. I recapped it, paired it with a fresh Samsung tube from a TV and a regular E31S curved yoke. Lovely VGA image on that one.
Since the water damaged cab provided me with a PFX yoke, I finally decided to fix the convergence issues on one of the monitors that's been bugging me for ages. I was never able to get decent convergence on the LG tube I was using. Luckily, I found a Sylvania TV for $40 locally with a Matsushita A68LZU185X--a perfect match for the PF and PFX. Easiest setup ever, whole tube swap and setup took me maybe an hour total.
I also purchased a pair of used side plastics from someone who had them extra. No more cracked corners.
Second side adventure: One of the locals had a pair of beat up US MT3 cabs which I purchased for $300. Couldn't resist at that price! I took the computers, card readers, marquees, monitor frames (they had LCDs zip tied to Toshiba PF frames), wheels, and some random other parts. I gave the rest to my friend who's going to convert them to run MT6.
First side adventure: I purchased a single US MT1 cabinet from a local auction for $320 all in. It has certainly seen better days.
Digging into its history, the cabinet started life as MT1 and was located at B&I Amusements in Lakewood WA. At some point, it was upgraded to MT2. When B&I closed in 2013, it went to a local auctionhouse where it was purchased by a local operator. It was in a Fred Meyer (supermarket) in University Place, WA where it was running MT1 again, when I assume a pipe burst over it and it received significant water damage. It was then sent back to the same local auctionhouse where I purchased it.
Everything worked... somehow. Looking over the Chihiro, it's been serviced before by Speedy's and has several replacement caps and the clock cap pulled. There was a 680uf cap by the video output that was leaking. After replacing it, the board fired right up.
The cabinet itself was too far gone to save, so I decided to crowbar it and save everything useful. Having the wooden American cabinets next to the all-metal overseas cabinets really highlights just how crap the ones we got were compared to the rest of the world. I mostly bought it for the Chihiro anyway, which is worth about what I paid for the whole thing.
The monitor had the worst burn I've seen outside of old 80s games, clearly making the MT1 and 2 title screens visible even during busy gameplay. All the guns showed low emissions on the sencore. The tube will be recycled, as I already have a stockpile of 68cm donors. The chassis had also clearly been swapped multiple times. The frame and wiring showed it came with a PFX originally, but someone swapped in an E31S chassis, which had the typical bad caps these all have. The chassis lives on in a Gauntlet Dark Legacy I purchased at a local pinball show and refurbished. I recapped it, paired it with a fresh Samsung tube from a TV and a regular E31S curved yoke. Lovely VGA image on that one.
Since the water damaged cab provided me with a PFX yoke, I finally decided to fix the convergence issues on one of the monitors that's been bugging me for ages. I was never able to get decent convergence on the LG tube I was using. Luckily, I found a Sylvania TV for $40 locally with a Matsushita A68LZU185X--a perfect match for the PF and PFX. Easiest setup ever, whole tube swap and setup took me maybe an hour total.
I also purchased a pair of used side plastics from someone who had them extra. No more cracked corners.
Second side adventure: One of the locals had a pair of beat up US MT3 cabs which I purchased for $300. Couldn't resist at that price! I took the computers, card readers, marquees, monitor frames (they had LCDs zip tied to Toshiba PF frames), wheels, and some random other parts. I gave the rest to my friend who's going to convert them to run MT6.
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trashedcabs
Professional
Now for the big news: I purchased a pair of 3DX+ from China, because it was the only way I could find another pair at the time. Japanese distributors don't usually have them in stock anymore, and want too much for them when they do.
This proved to be an incredible mistake. The importer I purchased from was in New York, and I'm in Washington state. Cross-country freight is not like I remember it being pre-covid, and it cost me far more than the base cost of the machines to freight them across the country. I did get some pictures of how they looked before purchasing, but they were still in the shrinkwrap and not super great quality. When I arrived, they were simultaneously better and worse than what I expected.
The bad:
I never power on projects until absolutely everything has been gone through. First thing to look at were the monitors, since that's kinda my thing I guess. They're very crusty, but one chassis did power on and work just fine. The other... well it has issues.
Hmm wonder where the filter cap went? Upon further inspection the board was clearly dropped. Several components were ripped off or missing. The short of it is that after cleaning it, putting a filter cap back in and a full cap kit and reflow, it did come to life with some other issues such as no OSD sync, width problems, and a burning smell when running in 15khz. I was able to fix the issues and use the monitor in a Dance Maniax I have been restoring. I have a 100% burn-free Toshiba PF to use in the wangan. At some point I'll post a big multi-monitor repair log thread with all the monitors I've fixed this year with details.
The computers both got taken apart and cleaned. They also had some issues, but they work just fine now. One of the hard drives look like it was hit with a sledgehammer, not sure how that happened! Also, one of the CPUs was glued in on the sides.
This proved to be an incredible mistake. The importer I purchased from was in New York, and I'm in Washington state. Cross-country freight is not like I remember it being pre-covid, and it cost me far more than the base cost of the machines to freight them across the country. I did get some pictures of how they looked before purchasing, but they were still in the shrinkwrap and not super great quality. When I arrived, they were simultaneously better and worse than what I expected.
The bad:
- The controls and dashboard are much rougher than expected
- The stickers are rough
- The paint has been very poorly spray painted all over
- The side plastics are basically destroyed
- The tubes have barely any burn
- The bezel, topper, seat, inside are in much better condition than expected
- Very little cigarette tar and rust
- It does appear to be nearly identical to the Asia and Japan cabs
I never power on projects until absolutely everything has been gone through. First thing to look at were the monitors, since that's kinda my thing I guess. They're very crusty, but one chassis did power on and work just fine. The other... well it has issues.
Hmm wonder where the filter cap went? Upon further inspection the board was clearly dropped. Several components were ripped off or missing. The short of it is that after cleaning it, putting a filter cap back in and a full cap kit and reflow, it did come to life with some other issues such as no OSD sync, width problems, and a burning smell when running in 15khz. I was able to fix the issues and use the monitor in a Dance Maniax I have been restoring. I have a 100% burn-free Toshiba PF to use in the wangan. At some point I'll post a big multi-monitor repair log thread with all the monitors I've fixed this year with details.
The computers both got taken apart and cleaned. They also had some issues, but they work just fine now. One of the hard drives look like it was hit with a sledgehammer, not sure how that happened! Also, one of the CPUs was glued in on the sides.
trashedcabs
Professional
Ripped out the step-down transformer and all the power supplies and found some more funny operator hackjobs. Yep, power supply held in place with hot glue.
Found the missing filter cap, was wondering where that went haha
Found the missing filter cap, was wondering where that went haha
trashedcabs
Professional
Working on fixing up the horrible paint "touch ups". The paint on the China cabs are like one shade darker than the JP ones, but it looks fine in real life. Certainly better than before. I also applied PPF so they don't get scratched up when we move them around.
And finished up scanning and retouching the faded marquee. I will release the full size after I get some printed for myself.
And finished up scanning and retouching the faded marquee. I will release the full size after I get some printed for myself.
trashedcabs
Professional
I have an arbitrary goal to get these on and playable by Thanksgiving. Not perfect, but at least to where you can sit down and play them and have all the basic functions work and generally look acceptable. Still have a big list to get through but I am making some progress.
No more wei-ya and hot glue combo. New meanwell and TDK power supplies with cleaned up harnesses. Since the step-down was removed I used terminal blocks for power distribution and an isolation transformer for the steering board. The steering board uses a linear power design and must be isolated. Oh yeah, I also drilled a hole for an ethernet coupler and removed the rust from the rear power panels, just like the other one. I'll clean up the wiring later.
First boot. Tube looks great! Bright and sharp with only a small amount of insert coin burn in the bottom right.
Spent way too long chasing a very non-descript "PCB error" and crash during the steering test. Swapped every PCB and chased all the wiring, but it ended up being caused by a simple bad steering pot. In the process I also swapped the motor with a spare, and was shocked that my replacement motor was significantly stronger. The brushes looked pretty nasty on the motor I pulled out, so might be improved with some new ones and a cleaning. The other motor is fine and feels just as strong.
One of the steering boards ended up being bad. I swapped in a spare to get it going for now. I recently won another spare on YAJ as well as two brand new wheels. Now I have 3 really nice wheels. Neither of the amps are working, but I have been considering upgrading the amps in all my cabinets to the cheapo ZK-TB21 3 channel amps anyway, since the stock amp only offers a weak 40w RMS woofer channel. The little midbass "woofer" is also only rated for 20w, so that is something I want to upgrade as well.
EDIT: fixed the amps after writing this, just bad voltage regulators used for the preamps
I also fixed a 7600GS from an N2 which had blown high and low side core VRM mosfets and a shorted diode. Didn't have the right surface mount part for the low side so I bodged on something from the parts bin.
Marquee prints should be happening this week. I'm working on the shifter bezel sticker and rear seat slider warning sticker now.
No more wei-ya and hot glue combo. New meanwell and TDK power supplies with cleaned up harnesses. Since the step-down was removed I used terminal blocks for power distribution and an isolation transformer for the steering board. The steering board uses a linear power design and must be isolated. Oh yeah, I also drilled a hole for an ethernet coupler and removed the rust from the rear power panels, just like the other one. I'll clean up the wiring later.
First boot. Tube looks great! Bright and sharp with only a small amount of insert coin burn in the bottom right.
Spent way too long chasing a very non-descript "PCB error" and crash during the steering test. Swapped every PCB and chased all the wiring, but it ended up being caused by a simple bad steering pot. In the process I also swapped the motor with a spare, and was shocked that my replacement motor was significantly stronger. The brushes looked pretty nasty on the motor I pulled out, so might be improved with some new ones and a cleaning. The other motor is fine and feels just as strong.
One of the steering boards ended up being bad. I swapped in a spare to get it going for now. I recently won another spare on YAJ as well as two brand new wheels.
Now I have 3 really nice wheels. Neither of the amps are working, but I have been considering upgrading the amps in all my cabinets to the cheapo ZK-TB21 3 channel amps anyway, since the stock amp only offers a weak 40w RMS woofer channel. The little midbass "woofer" is also only rated for 20w, so that is something I want to upgrade as well.EDIT: fixed the amps after writing this, just bad voltage regulators used for the preamps
I also fixed a 7600GS from an N2 which had blown high and low side core VRM mosfets and a shorted diode. Didn't have the right surface mount part for the low side so I bodged on something from the parts bin.
Marquee prints should be happening this week. I'm working on the shifter bezel sticker and rear seat slider warning sticker now.
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trashedcabs
Professional
Knocked out the bezel art tonight. I still need to do the shifter inlay and seat rail warning sticker. I have some NOS art sets coming, so that should give me perfectly clean examples of side art to scan to save cleanup time. I do plan on doing the pops eventually as well, since they're included with the art sets.
Mrhide
Legendary
You’re doing a great job… still would like to know what to do when the hard drive dies
trashedcabs
Professional
Got my marquee test prints today. Looks really close to the original except the green isn't as vibrant and the whole thing is a little dark. I'll have to work with a print shop and try again, probably once the side art is done.
My buddy is working on packaging up something, he's a lot more familiar with linux systems than me. The Chinese cabs don't have matching drives, so we need something otherwise the games can't link. He definitely owes me some favors.
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trashedcabs
Professional
Working on the dashboards over the holiday break. Looks like someone tried to repair corner cracks on both of these, but they just caked it with bondo and didn't reinforce it, so they cracked again.
Used some scrap ABS and my iron to melt in some new plastic behind the crack. I sanded away all the filler I could and added some on the front as well. It's ugly but super strong; I gave it a lot of force trying to bend and snap it but it held just fine.
On these dashboards, the artwork adhesive wasn't as strong, so I was able to remove it without issues. I have some really thin strong double sided tape on order to reattach them.
New filler on, more sanding. Feels pretty smooth, did another pass with 600 grit after this shot.
It's now nearly freezing outside here, so spraying anything is gonna suck. We're just gonna send it because it's not gonna get better any time soon.
Looks good so far. I have another can of 2k matte clear arriving tomorrow, should have these dashboards wrapped up this weekend. I also took care of a couple small cigarette burns while I was doing this. Nothing as major as the previous two had though.
Used some scrap ABS and my iron to melt in some new plastic behind the crack. I sanded away all the filler I could and added some on the front as well. It's ugly but super strong; I gave it a lot of force trying to bend and snap it but it held just fine.
On these dashboards, the artwork adhesive wasn't as strong, so I was able to remove it without issues. I have some really thin strong double sided tape on order to reattach them.
New filler on, more sanding. Feels pretty smooth, did another pass with 600 grit after this shot.
It's now nearly freezing outside here, so spraying anything is gonna suck. We're just gonna send it because it's not gonna get better any time soon.
Looks good so far. I have another can of 2k matte clear arriving tomorrow, should have these dashboards wrapped up this weekend. I also took care of a couple small cigarette burns while I was doing this. Nothing as major as the previous two had though.
CamoYoshi
Student
My buddy is working on packaging up something, he's a lot more familiar with linux systems than me. The Chinese cabs don't have matching drives, so we need something otherwise the games can't link. He definitely owes me some favors.
Proof of concept in a Debian 12 VM... Just waiting on some hardware to test with.
Attachments
trashedcabs
Professional
Some more progress over the weekend. Finished up the shifter bezel sticker so I can apply new ones after getting the bezels spray chromed. Started refinishing the stainless floors so I can get the seats back on, and got the rears all wet sanded and polished and PPF applied. Hoping to get the stainless all done tonight so I can get the pedals back in.
trashedcabs
Professional
Haven't made a ton of progress this week, but the refinished dashboards are back on. Received another really nice condition wheel from YAJ, so we're now at 3 out of 4 wheels in nearly perfect condition. I have two more on the way.
Anyone want some really beat up wheels? Lol
Anyone want some really beat up wheels? Lol
trashedcabs
Professional
Finally finished up all the stainless. Not perfect but it's a huge improvement. The pedals themselves were quite rusty, since they're a mild steel with a chrome plating which has worn away. I did the best I could to clean them up, but eventually they will rust again. Maybe at some point I'll get them re-plated.
The rubber seat rail protectors were totally missing, so I cut some new ones.
Tested out some LED strips in the pedal box. Looks less blinding in person, and a nice effect.
Been missing a third monitor since I took the most burned tube for a less important project. Local marketplace has been totally dry of any donor tubes, until I saw this Sharp 27F631 with a proper Japanese-made Toshiba A68LXZ696X tube listed for $250 as a RARE RETRO GAMING TV. Haggled them down a substantial amount and picked it up. Got it home and immediately started yoke swapping with a spare PF yoke.
Needed to correct the label first.
About 30 minutes of very easy setup later, we have excellent purity and convergence. Yoke swaps are so easy when the tube and yoke are designed for each other. The tube is super bright and the dark coating gives it a very high contrast.
The tube still needs to be dusted off and bolted up to a frame, but otherwise it's a pretty much brand new PF now assembled from parts. The chassis works fine, but I'll do caps before it goes in the cab.
More to come.
The rubber seat rail protectors were totally missing, so I cut some new ones.
Tested out some LED strips in the pedal box. Looks less blinding in person, and a nice effect.
Been missing a third monitor since I took the most burned tube for a less important project. Local marketplace has been totally dry of any donor tubes, until I saw this Sharp 27F631 with a proper Japanese-made Toshiba A68LXZ696X tube listed for $250 as a RARE RETRO GAMING TV. Haggled them down a substantial amount and picked it up. Got it home and immediately started yoke swapping with a spare PF yoke.
Needed to correct the label first.
About 30 minutes of very easy setup later, we have excellent purity and convergence. Yoke swaps are so easy when the tube and yoke are designed for each other. The tube is super bright and the dark coating gives it a very high contrast.
The tube still needs to be dusted off and bolted up to a frame, but otherwise it's a pretty much brand new PF now assembled from parts. The chassis works fine, but I'll do caps before it goes in the cab.
More to come.
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trashedcabs
Professional
Still working on decals--just sent off a big batch of stuff to print. The Chinese cabinets don't have the wheel manufacturer sponsors on the bottom, and it was bothering me.
Ended up with a change of plans for the monitor. Picked up a cheap Race TV off marketplace that's been up for months, seller was acting weird so it was up for a long time despite the nice price. Opened it up to find a pretty much brand new Wei-ya M3129D with a single focus LG slimline tube.
I really don't like running these Wei-ya chassis, they are annoying to work on and have historically been very unreliable for me. Even this one in like-new condition is having issues. I put the chassis in a box as a spare and swapped over the Toshiba PB9929 I was planning on using. These late model slimline LG and Samsung tubes all struggle with focus, which is why I'm assuming most of them are dual-focus. Being that this is a single focus tube, the sharpness isn't nearly as consistent, but the 31khz image in game is still quite nice. Cranking up the HV pot helps the focus a bit. I will save the Toshiba tube for something truly special--not sure what that is at the moment though. Also considering selling it to recoup some of the crazy amount I've spent this month.
The box from Canada with the NOS artwork is finally moving and should be here next week. I was working with Barry from arcadeartrepro but he was unable to accurately reproduce the green color on the factory side art with his printer. I am looking into other options for printing the marquees and seat decals.
Ended up with a change of plans for the monitor. Picked up a cheap Race TV off marketplace that's been up for months, seller was acting weird so it was up for a long time despite the nice price. Opened it up to find a pretty much brand new Wei-ya M3129D with a single focus LG slimline tube.
I really don't like running these Wei-ya chassis, they are annoying to work on and have historically been very unreliable for me. Even this one in like-new condition is having issues. I put the chassis in a box as a spare and swapped over the Toshiba PB9929 I was planning on using. These late model slimline LG and Samsung tubes all struggle with focus, which is why I'm assuming most of them are dual-focus. Being that this is a single focus tube, the sharpness isn't nearly as consistent, but the 31khz image in game is still quite nice. Cranking up the HV pot helps the focus a bit. I will save the Toshiba tube for something truly special--not sure what that is at the moment though. Also considering selling it to recoup some of the crazy amount I've spent this month.
The box from Canada with the NOS artwork is finally moving and should be here next week. I was working with Barry from arcadeartrepro but he was unable to accurately reproduce the green color on the factory side art with his printer. I am looking into other options for printing the marquees and seat decals.
trashedcabs
Professional
The set of 3 NOS pops and side arts finally arrived today. What a sight.
This will all be scanned and released along with the rest of the art, including the B1 poster. Probably quite soon as almost every piece of art on the cabinet has been scanned or redrawn.
trashedcabs
Professional
Things have been slow on this--I'm mostly at the point where I have to wait for others now, or wait for parts to come in.
Bit of an old image but most of the pops have been scanned, even the large ones not in this preview. I'm only a few pieces away from having all artwork on the machine scanned or vectorized.
I received the prints for the seat base stickers--they turned out great, and the gray matches the originals almost exactly. Looks way better than the boring version without the sponsors.
The bezel prints also arrived. I really want to shout out Printmoz for having amazing support; they messed up the first print and their rep went out of their way to fix it and overnight replacements. The prints look great and the die-cut fits about the same as the factory art does. I'm thrilled to have all cabinets match.
My shifter collection needs some attention. I need to refurbish two shifters for the two new cabs, and at least one spare to have on hand in case something breaks.
Everything in the ultrasonic cleaner.
The top plates were very rusted, so they get soaked in evaporust and coated with the zinc spray for some protection.
There are a few wear parts in these shifters which contribute to slop:
-There is a delrin tip on the bottom of the chrome shaft, which is spring loaded and presses into a metal notch to create feedback. This delrin tip wears away over time as you can see above. New ones can be purchased from China for about $1.50 each.
-The metal notch plate wears down over time. Above you can see a VERY worn plate that's spent 20 years in a harsh environment. I have not found replacements for this yet.
-The delrin pivot in the middle wears down and creates a groove due to metal-on-plastic contact. These can also be sourced from China for cheap.
-The top gate wears away around the corners. This is not as big of a problem, but it does widen the gate openings creating some slop in 1-2 and 5-6 gears. These can also be sourced from China for cheap.
Something else I noticed is these shifters have quite a bit of front to back play in the left-right pivot, so adding a 10MM washer and grease significantly reduces this.
I'm currently awaiting another shipment of shift knobs and parts from China. I also received 2 more excellent condition wheels from YAJ, so all cabinets now have perfect wheels with no thumb wear, and I even have an extra!
Bit of an old image but most of the pops have been scanned, even the large ones not in this preview. I'm only a few pieces away from having all artwork on the machine scanned or vectorized.
I received the prints for the seat base stickers--they turned out great, and the gray matches the originals almost exactly. Looks way better than the boring version without the sponsors.
The bezel prints also arrived. I really want to shout out Printmoz for having amazing support; they messed up the first print and their rep went out of their way to fix it and overnight replacements. The prints look great and the die-cut fits about the same as the factory art does. I'm thrilled to have all cabinets match.
My shifter collection needs some attention. I need to refurbish two shifters for the two new cabs, and at least one spare to have on hand in case something breaks.
Everything in the ultrasonic cleaner.
The top plates were very rusted, so they get soaked in evaporust and coated with the zinc spray for some protection.
There are a few wear parts in these shifters which contribute to slop:
-There is a delrin tip on the bottom of the chrome shaft, which is spring loaded and presses into a metal notch to create feedback. This delrin tip wears away over time as you can see above. New ones can be purchased from China for about $1.50 each.
-The metal notch plate wears down over time. Above you can see a VERY worn plate that's spent 20 years in a harsh environment. I have not found replacements for this yet.
-The delrin pivot in the middle wears down and creates a groove due to metal-on-plastic contact. These can also be sourced from China for cheap.
-The top gate wears away around the corners. This is not as big of a problem, but it does widen the gate openings creating some slop in 1-2 and 5-6 gears. These can also be sourced from China for cheap.
Something else I noticed is these shifters have quite a bit of front to back play in the left-right pivot, so adding a 10MM washer and grease significantly reduces this.
I'm currently awaiting another shipment of shift knobs and parts from China. I also received 2 more excellent condition wheels from YAJ, so all cabinets now have perfect wheels with no thumb wear, and I even have an extra!
