What's new
Do you have one from there? Can you verify that it's legit with a blacklight, by chance? The green ink should be UV reflective.

Yeah I have a spare here. They’re definitely original. They’ve had them for sale when SEGA still had NOS available in Japan. The backing paper and everything matches fine. If I get a minute I’ll take a photo in my EPROM eraser as it’s the only UV source I have.
 
@mikaeltarquin — here’s some pics. Aside from the UV, you can also tell they’re legit because there’s the little shiny glitter in the label. I’ve also compared with my cabs just then. Perfect size and fonts against my old labels. These are just brighter and pop more being brand new. I would replace them on all my cabs. But it’s a waste seeing most of them are fine as is. Hope this helps.

464BA651-8FA9-498A-96CC-002EBD1BC9A9.jpeg

48035278-593C-4487-A4EC-5235085DB207.jpeg

1659E113-97B4-4F81-AC51-3F653BCBD950.jpeg
 
It's weird to me how people mess this stuff up so badly. I mean, it's really not that hard to do it right. It's a simple design, there aren't that many details to pay attention to.

These are some stickers I made for my arcade's brand, just for fun. Even with the text change I bet they're more accurate to the original than either repro you showed lol.

ED1RGJRU8AAG9ZJ.jpeg
lmfao can i get 2 of these?!
 
@mikaeltarquin — here’s some pics. Aside from the UV, you can also tell they’re legit because there’s the little shiny glitter in the label. I’ve also compared with my cabs just then. Perfect size and fonts against my old labels. These are just brighter and pop more being brand new. I would replace them on all my cabs. But it’s a waste seeing most of them are fine as is. Hope this helps.

464BA651-8FA9-498A-96CC-002EBD1BC9A9.jpeg

48035278-593C-4487-A4EC-5235085DB207.jpeg

1659E113-97B4-4F81-AC51-3F653BCBD950.jpeg
Amazing, thank you yes this is perfect
 
Thanks for the TIP. Actually I was worried that I messed up after the Vinegar phase.
Some parts still developed a rust patina afterwards, even after a 2nd soak.

I might try Chemical Guy's polish afterwards. And by the way, beautiful Astro!
As I clean the Blast City and Net City I'm rinsing and thoroughly drying the metal parts immediately after the vinegar soak and this helps reduce the "flash rust". I don't need to scrub and polish as much. I also noticed a few rust spots in my Astro yesterday so now I need to go through and add oil or something to those parts.
 
the metal cable tie inside the coin mech door is for the coin box key ...afaik
That sounds right. I thought I was missing something but the Blast City has it too.
 
Your restored AC looks amazing. Great job!!

May I ask where you got the astrays and keyrings? I've also got an AC and would love getting them too :)

Thanks!
 

Attachments

  • Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-3.jpg
    Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-3.jpg
    157 KB · Views: 80
  • Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-5.jpg
    Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-5.jpg
    174.1 KB · Views: 75
  • Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-1.jpg
    Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-1.jpg
    147.9 KB · Views: 75
  • Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-6.jpg
    Sega-Astro-City-100-Yen-Insert-Coin-decal-6.jpg
    176.6 KB · Views: 78
I have some updates. First the boring stuff: I wrote previously that I saw a bit of rust inside the cabinet. I thought I could get away with soaking all the metal in vinegar and it wouldn't rust again. Well, it is rusting again, or it could be flash rust due to me not cleaning the metal properly after the vinegar soak. Either way, I don't like it. Even the lock parts that I bought from Yaton are rusting and I didn't do anything to those since they were clean when I received them. He must have done some rust treatment before sending them to me and that's why they looked clean.

IMG_7059.JPG
IMG_7053.JPG



So, I pulled all the metal parts out that I had soaked in vinegar before, then gave them another vinegar soak. But this time when I pulled the parts out of the vinegar I immediately put them into a bucket of water mixed with baking soda to neutralize the vinegar. Next, I rinsed the parts with hot water, then quickly dried with a towel and a space heater. Once dry, I sprayed each piece with either two coats of CRC Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor or CRC 3-36.

IMG_7077.JPG
IMG_7080.JPG

IMG_7078.JPEG


I saw that some people used a re-plating service and that's obviously the proper way to do this. I chose the much cheaper do-it-yourself method and I think it will be sufficient. I did this back in February and all the metal looks good. Two drawbacks to this much cheaper method is that the corrosion inhibitor stinks and is sticky. This goes away after a few weeks but not 100%. My one concern is the coin chute. The inside was badly rusted when I received the cabinet so it needed the vinegar treatment. I sprayed the inside as best I could with corrosion inhibitor, but I don't know how durable this stuff is. I hope my coins aren't going to slowly wear down the inhibitor as they roll and slide down the chute.

While spraying the parts I realized I didn't take apart the coin eject button before. The spring inside was badly rusted. I cleaned it and sprayed with CRC 3-36.

IMG_7090.JPG
IMG_7093.JPG



The paint on the cabinet is still good except for one spot where the control panel base upper half touches the hinge when opened. This is my fault for not spraying paint directly on and over the edge. I'm a little surprised to see that all the layers of paint were chipped off, even the primer. But Duplicolor products aren't the best and not guaranteed to be compatible with the cabinet resin and 2K clear so it's not too surprising. Other than that the paint is all still in good condition and looks the same as it did last year.

IMG_7812.JPEG


After painting some parts on my Blast City, I brushed some of the leftover paint on the damaged area (and over the edge this time). I used better quality primer and paint, then 2K clear. Much more durable now. I also resprayed the coin entry since it had cracked when I over tightened the screws.

IMG_7828.JPG
 
Now for the fun stuff: I enjoy the authentic arcade experience with one exception - the audio. I want my games to sound good. The Logitech speakers might be a little better than the Sega speakers, but they aren't great. Maybe they are okay in the enclosure that was designed for them (I haven't tested) but mounted in a large open space like the top of the Astro City completely removes the tiny amount of low end they could otherwise reproduce. Plus the sound is a little tinny and harsh when turned up. I thought some better amplification could help with the latter issue, and I wanted stereo anyway so I bought a cheap Parts Express amplifier (Sure AA-AB32971) and a volume control for it (Sure AA-AA11117).

IMG_7704.JPEG


To power the amplifier, I cut the end off of a power splitter cable, cut the ends off of the wires that connect to the AC power switch in the back of the Astro City, then crimped them together. This gives me two 120V outputs that are only active when the power switch in the back of the cabinet is on.

IMG_7709.JPEG
IMG_7710.JPEG
IMG_7711.JPG



To route audio from the amplifier to the speakers, I attached an AMP UP connector to one end of my speaker wires. Then plugged this into the speaker connector under the control panel. The capacitors are there to reduce the sub frequencies from going to the speakers since it could damage them and they can't reproduce those low frequencies anyway. I'm not sure how effective this is since small speakers often have a huge impedance spike in the 100Hz range which would drop the cutoff frequency of my 125uF capacitors very low, making them largely ineffective, or so that's my thought. I must be wrong since adding capacitors like this to tiny speakers is common.

IMG_7714.JPEG
IMG_7715.JPEG


I placed the amplifier and volume control on the coin box housing, attached with adhesive Velcro.

IMG_7745.JPG


How did it sound? Mostly the same, except now in stereo. Not surprising.

My next step in the quest for better sound was to buy different speakers: Pioneer TS-A709 car speakers. My theory was that car speakers are designed to be mounted in large open spaces (a.k.a. infinite baffle) whereas the Logitechs were designed to be in a small ported enclosure thus car speakers will sound better in the Astro City.

IMG_7758.JPEG


These are not magnetically shielded and that's not a problem. The speaker magnets cause a noticeable distortion on the monitor when placed within a few inches of the screen. Moved a few inches higher, the distortion goes away. The speakers are mounted another 6 inches higher from this point.

IMG_7853.JPG
IMG_7852.JPG
 
The speakers are easy to mount. No modifications needed. I think I needed to cut one of the speaker terminals to fit the original Astro speaker wire connector on it. Otherwise, no modification needed. These are a good alternative to the Logitechs but only if a 4 ohm capable amplifier is used. I'm guessing JAMMA audio is 8 ohm minimum, or maybe depends on the game. Not sure. The speakers also came with capacitors inline with the speaker wires which I didn't use since they are likely similar in value to the ones I'm already using.

IMG_7855.JPG


And how do they sound? Mostly the same. So my theory didn't work out. They are louder since they are 4 ohm and higher sensitivity compared to the Logitechs. I don't need to turn my amplifier up very much to achieve adequate volume. Otherwise they're about the same. I want to say they are slightly clearer and not as harsh but I'm not sure since I didn't do any back-to-back comparison.

I thought about fitting speaker enclosures in the cabinet but that would be challenging and there's not much space between the speakers and the fluorescent light door. I badly wanted to fill in that 150Hz range that was very much lacking with these speakers, and I didn't want to add a cheap, small subwoofer to achieve that, but that's what I did.

Acoustic Audio PSW250-6
IMG_7910.JPEG


Finally I have acceptable sound. It's far from a HiFi experience but CPS2 audio isn't high fidelity to begin with. The sub was easy to connect because it has a high level input. I only needed to run an additional pair of wires from the Sure amplifier output into the high level input.

IMG_7954.JPG


It took some time to find a sub that would fit behind the coin box housing. I saw some powered subwoofers that are sold together with PC speakers that would fit but those are seriously under-powered and must sound awful. The Acoustic Audio isn't something I would use in a home theater but for an arcade cabinet it's fine. I keep the gain set at around 4 and the crossover all the way up to 150Hz just to fill in that 100-200Hz range that was badly needed. The sub of course produces frequencies below 100 as well. If it had a high pass option I would cut frequencies below 100 since I don't want any of that low rumble. Since the sub is putting out frequencies up to 250Hz there is a localization problem (I can clearly hear high frequency sounds coming from above me and lower from inside the cabinet) but I don't mind. Overall I'm liking this audio setup. I can really turn up my Capcom games loud and get a full sound and for me it's a big improvement over the Logitech speakers powered by the CPS2 JAMMA amplifier.

With two audio amplifiers now inside the cabinet, I'm concerned about excessive heat so I added a 12V 60mm fan to the back where the three vent slots are. I noticed that the Astro PSU has an unused 12 pin connection for 12V and 5V, so I added an AMP UP 12 pin connector to the fan power wires to supply 12V to the fan. I did a quick search online and saw that 12V is mostly for powering the audio amplifier on JAMMA boards, and my fan only draws .045 amps so the PSU shouldn't have any trouble powering the fan. I didn't want to drill any holes so instead of screws I used thin cable ties attached to adhesive cable ties.

IMG_8108.JPEG
IMG_8112.JPEG

IMG_8115.JPG


I don't know if this fan is necessary or how much cooling it provides but I feel better knowing it's there. I suppose I could measure the temperature inside the cabinet with and without the fan to find out. I did notice that after playing for about an hour the PSU case was quite hot so the next time I played, I unplugged the fan. The PSU was still hot so maybe that's normal.

Here's how it all looks inside. Everything is mounted with adhesive Velcro, even the subwoofer. This isn't adequate for transport in the back of a truck but otherwise should keep things in place.

IMG_8113.JPG
 
Back
Top