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Pana Custom supergun - Stripdown

penrhos

penrhos

Grand Master
Joined
Sep 25, 2015
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Location
Leicester - UK
I bought a broken PANA Custom supergun from YAJ as it wasn't getting any bids so the price was nice and low. So for the grand sum of 9,800 YEN (inc postage & fees) it was mine. It sat in SMJ storage for a month while I picked up some other bulky goodies and then I sea freighted the lot back to the UK.

62 days later it was sat in my garage ready for a rebuild.

Initial checks weren't good, one auto-fire switch was missing,two fire buttons jammed when you pressed them and there was no +5V when you powered it up. Worst of all the front edge had black duck-tape covering a whole load of rusty mess.
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Pop it open and all the internal wires are soldered onto the pins for the switches - So I'll be getting the soldering iron out to fix that little lot, good job I've got a working one I can use as a map when I reconnect everything.
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A quick clean inside and all's good, no rust, nothing is missing. I've already swapped the power lead for a UK one with an Earth connection in this picture.
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As I'm in the UK - Flick the two switches from NTSC to PAL for video output (encoder does s-video & composite video output, there's also an RGB output on an 8-pin din on the side).
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Another reason I like the PANA's they have 110/220 switchable PSU's inside - so slide the switch across to 220V and you have a UK spec supergun - simples!
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On the end you have the edge connector and all the adjusters & leds - Autofire speed & indicator, RGB+Sync adjustments, Speaker on/off, stereo/mono switch, volume pot. A headphone socket & the RGB output socket.
When switching it on only the +12V & -5V leds were lit (so no +5V output).
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Another thing I love about the PANA - all power lines are fused and the one for +5V was blown, swapped it for a fresh fuse and everything is working again!
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So that's the electrics & insides sorted - what about the outside?
 
First I stripped off the tape & sanded down the rust and grime, masked off the upper half of the panel and tried respraying just the leading edge - it looked shite so to plan-B

I removed all the buttons,switches & sticks and stripped it back to bare metal using Nitromours. Put rust treatment along the front edge and gave it two coats of primer, followed by a couple of coats of matt black paint.DSC04429 (Large).JPG

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I still wasn't quite happy with the finish so I thought of "muddy" on J+ and UKVAC and picked up a repro' Electrocoin CPO.
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After a bit of a fiddle and 30 minutes with a craft knife to cut all the holes and trim off the excess

Player 1 - Sanwa OBSF30's in pink - Sticks are LS-32's.
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Player 2 - Sanwa OBSN30's in Green - Sticks are LS-32's.
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Another 30 minutes of careful trimming with a craft knife for ventilation slots along the back.
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And new rocker switches for the auto-fires & square push-to-make buttons for P1-start, Credit, P2-Start.
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And I think we're getting there.
 
An hour or so of soldering to reconnect all the buttons - good job I have another one I could reference for all the connections.

Player-1
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Player-2
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Reconnect to the PCB on the end so buttons are connected to the edge connector.
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Put it all back together and plug it into my trusty 1084S via RGB
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Stick a JNX Atlas on the end of the JAMMA loom and plug into a Pandora-3 for a bit of testing, tweak teh +5V a little...
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And we're good to go.

Next project - Dead PANA custom to VGA Supergun.
 
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I have one of these things...but the power supply went and it was annoying trying to get another to fit. I do like the speaker on them - though mine plays a bit low.
 
Nice job!

Not to keen on the colour choice, but that's preference. :)
 
Nice!

I guess I'm more a fan of matt black finshes, but looks much better than the original one anyway!
 
I think it would look better with red buttons & balltops - but I only had 8 of those spare, I do have enough of the black/grey Sanwa's but they didn't look right on the red/black/blue background. If I swap them it'll either be for plain red or red with a black surround.
 
Nice. I got a Sigma Raijin sitting around that needs the same treatment. Maybe I'll get to it after the holidays.
 
Very cool. Glad to see it's properly earthed, I own a Vega 9000dx and it wasn't earthed, friends Sega Boardmaster is the same. Wonder if anyone's ever been hurt using these things in Japan?
 
It's nice priced! "unfortunately" I have more than enough Superguns and arcade panels.

I guess you are going to sell it quick anyway ;)
 
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That's why I'm selling a couple - When you have 9 superguns sat on the shelf and tend to use the same one all the time it's time to thin out the collection and sell some of the duplicates.
 
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