Sega Aero City Rebuild

[bartre]

Hey all,

I received an Aero City and a Vewlix L yesterday, mondo excited, but the Aero needs a bit of loving to get it where I want it.
Some things that are missing/need done/replaced, and a general list of questions about the cab.

1. There's no light fixture in the top by the speakers, anyone know where I can get an appropriately sized replacement, and what's the type of plug for the power I'll need?

2. I'm struggling to find information on the stock wiring, this particular cab was converted to Jamma via a complete rewire, so I'd like to see about putting it back to stock, at least in the sense of it using the original power supply and general wiring. The edge connector that most of them have was pulled, and I don't really do anything pre-jamma, so I'd leave that.

3. Does anyone have a picture handy of the power area? my cab just has a 3 prong cable spliced in through a hole in the back, so i'm a bit worried by that.

4. Was the original side art painted on or a vynil? it's painted on mine so I'm curious if I should go to the trouble of messing with it (the cab has been repainted already)

5. What size are the screws that hold in the MS8-26 monitor chassis? there weren't any on mine, and I can't find any that fit floating around the bottom of the cab.

6. There are no wheels on the back of this cab, does anyone know of a good replacement and what type of screws I should use?

Finally, a cab pic (glass is just off)-

 

[Neodogg]

Good luck, looking forward to seeing the progress...

 

[bartre]

Just a small update today, working on cleaning and disassembly for now.
Did some digging on the Grommets mentioned in opt2not's thread, ordering 50 (the most economical, but still way more than I need) is $35.
I don't really need them that bad, but I figure it'd be nice to have.
I found part # GRO031031A on mouser for way cheaper than appears to be the same thing.
Unless anyone smarter than myself sees something I don't, I'll place an order for a bunch in the coming days, but there's an 8 week lead time.....

During my teardown, it looks like one of the mounts for the leveling feet broke loose inside the base, any ideas how to get in there or a workaround?

That aside, I've pulled everything apart and getting ready to get some quotes on a repaint.
I'm either taping the screws into the misc parts they match with, or labeling them and taping them inside of a spare notebook so my forgetful self doesn't lose track of what goes where.

setting stuff aside, I decided to clean up the marquee topper, came out pretty good, but there's some overspray from when the cabinet was painted last, all I tried was some simple green and a plastic razor, but that did minimal good, if any.
gotta figure out a better way to get the paint off.

 

[Neodogg]

you should be able to find those grommets at any Big Box/hardware store...in stock. Granted the cost is going to be slightly more...

Amazon has some... 5/16 Grommets

How many do you need? I might be able to order from Hillman. Is that OD or ID for the 5/16?

 

[bartre]

These are the grommets originally linked-
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-us/p/grommets-standard-tpe/gr3105a

These are just used as a bit of safety for the glass, 4 of them is all thats needed

 

[Neodogg]

If you only need 4, I'd go to Lowes/HD/Menards... <$5?

 

[bartre]

Alright, went ahead and ordered some from both. just what I need from Essentra to get me going and a backorder with Mouser just to see how they compare.
Talked to every powder coating shop in town, only one is willing/able to do it out of the shops that responded to me and they quoted $6-700, largely due to the fact that they'd have to contract out the sandblast for the main body.
Oh well, that's life I guess, at least I know what my tax return is going towards lol.

What kind of finish was on the Aero originally? Glossy? Matte? Semigloss?

Also, one of the nuts for the leveling feet is broken loose inside the base, can't think of any other way to get to it and have it re-welded other than cutting a hole in the top and coming at it from that angle.
Any suggestions there?

I've got a rebuilt power supply, locks, tangs, and some other bits coming courtesy of some friends, I'll keep y'all posted as more gets finished.

 

[Kavas]

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/kavas-sega-aero-city-restoration.11463/

 

[misu]

It's a bit hard for me to tell, but why are you wanting to powder coat the cab? The paint condition on you're Aero looks decent. I generally like to keep the original paint unless it's real bad or rusty (like my rust bucket Aeros xD), though I'm all for powder coating if people want to, but it makes me a bit sad to see the original stickers and paint go.

If you decide you don't want to powder coat, I've got some new old stock stickers that go around the control panel. I wasn't planning to sell them, but I've got a few spares and wouldn't mind letting one go to restore a cab with original stickers and missing it's control panel stickers. If you do decide to powder coat, you're better of just getting a repro sticker so that all you're repro stickers perfectly match.

 

[bartre]

It's a bit hard for me to tell, but why are you wanting to powder coat the cab? The paint condition on you're Aero looks decent. I generally like to keep the original paint unless it's real bad or rusty (like my rust bucket Aeros xD), though I'm all for powder coating if people want to, but it makes me a bit sad to see the original stickers and paint go.

If you decide you don't want to powder coat, I've got some new old stock stickers that go around the control panel. I wasn't planning to sell them, but I've got a few spares and wouldn't mind letting one go to restore a cab with original stickers and missing it's control panel stickers. If you do decide to powder coat, you're better of just getting a repro sticker so that all you're repro stickers perfectly match.

I appreciate the heads up man.
Sadly, the paint on mine isnt original, and theres no stickers on the sides or CP, just a couple of the detail stickers that have various levels of paint on them.

That and theres some noteworthy rust here and there :/

 

[misu]

Oh god. I got deceived by photos. Sandblast that sucker and get it nice and clean! xD

 

[misu]

For reference, hese are my rust bucket project Aeros that definately need to visit the powder coat shop xD.

I typically like to keep my cabs on original paint unless their really bad, but the paint job on your Aero seems to warrant getting a new coat~

 

[Bluetear]

These are my rusk bucket project Aeros that definately need to into powder coat shop xD.

That project shed looks to be pretty well stocked. At least 6 restoration threads possible from that lot. Nice collection, @misu.

Sorry I don't have any useful Aero advice, @bartre, but it looks like you're well on your way to a beautiful cab. Looking forward to following the rest of the thread.

 

[misu]

Most of them aren’t projects ;P. I will admit the cabs that need work are starting to pile up. Currently six candies need work on done on them for them to be playable, but luckily 9 are still happily running fine~

Though I don’t want to take over Barte’s thread so this will be the last post of my things xD.

That project shed looks to be pretty well stocked. At least 6 restoration threads possible from that lot. Nice collection, @misu.

Sorry I don't have any useful Aero advice, @bartre, but it looks like you're well on your way to a beautiful cab. Looking forward to following the rest of the thread.

 

[bartre]

Nice looking garage there @misu !

on to the subject - I have a couple questions on the MS-8 in my cab.
Does this monitor require an ISO Transformer? there wasn't one in my machine; and it seems to work fine without but long term I'd like to know
Does anyone have the part numbers for the power and Video connectors on the Aero?
again, my cab was completely rewired, so I'd like to add the connection back to allow easy removal via an inline Mate N Lock connector or something.

On to what I've done (not a lot of pictures sadly)
dropped off the baseplate unit with my welder to have the leveler feet mount welded back on
finalized everything with the powder coating guy, just waiting on the base to come back to me
got a new power supply (already rebuilt even!)
and finally, i'm putting together an order for a crap ton of JST/Molex/MNL connectors

 

[misu]

Nice looking garage there @misu !

on to the subject - I have a couple questions on the MS-8 in my cab.
Does this monitor require an ISO Transformer? there wasn't one in my machine; and it seems to work fine without but long term I'd like to know
Does anyone have the part numbers for the power and Video connectors on the Aero?
again, my cab was completely rewired, so I'd like to add the connection back to allow easy removal via an inline Mate N Lock connector or something.

On to what I've done (not a lot of pictures sadly)
dropped off the baseplate unit with my welder to have the leveler feet mount welded back on
finalized everything with the powder coating guy, just waiting on the base to come back to me
got a new power supply (already rebuilt even!)
and finally, i'm putting together an order for a crap ton of JST/Molex/MNL connectors

The monitor does not use an ISO transformer to my knowledge.

I’m not sure there was part numbers for the connectors on the aero cables. You essentially had all the cabs cables come into this smaller edge that was popular at the time and that smaller edge got adapted to a jamma edge. But if you need photos of anything specific, I can get a light down here and take them for you.

 

[bartre]

Yeah, sadly thats dead and gone in this cab.
I'm mostly wondering what these
Parts are, I think JST VH and EH?
But there's sub types on each that has me worried about buying the wrong kind

 

[bartre]

Small update today.
Dropped off the metal to get powder coated, we're in motion.

Still waiting on my jst connectors, but I have just about everything else.
I'm going with a 1p panel in this one so I built up the cp harnesses-

I'm going to see about adding stereo to this cab cuz why not

 

[bartre]

Today's project - rewiring the power supply unit to stock (or at least stock pinout)

also cleaned the original wires that were still intact since they were scuzzy.
tested voltages and all is well!

Next project is to rebuild the connector for the monitor power and degauss.
Where does the Degauss connector go? I got mine without it hooked up and looking at the manual has thus far been unhelpful.
I find it here-

but looking at the chassis, all I see are some metal heads in that area, similar to those used for the yoke connector and degaus coils.
is that what I'm supposed to use?

 

[bartre]

Okay, got everything back from the powder coater today, came out real nice-

Now begins the task of reassembly and rewiring.
Next up, I need to get the overspray off of the marquee, any tips?
Would citristrip be a good try, or is there something better?