Today I worked on lots o’ cabs! (The CRT porn thread)

[BuddyC]

Due to that ongoing pandemic that never ends, my favorite arcade bar in Oslo has been closed since November last year.
The owner, who is also a good friend decided to use this lockdown to renew, polish, fix and generally make it the best version of his arcade. When Oslo finally opens up, every cab and flipper will be good as new.

My part in this is basically to calibrate the shit out of every cab.

I am by no means a CRT Master, but I have the patience and some knowledge to maximize every monitors potential so they can look sexy as hell again. A fine tuned cab will be played more... or so I hope...

Since I get to work on a lot of awesome stuff, I thought it would be fun to share some pictures of our work in progress + pictures of cabs is always nice.

Maybe you can join us for a couple of beers and a game or two when Norway goes back to normal? Our goal is that Tilt arcade bar will be the place to be for the celebration! Enjoy some arcade porn

 

[BuddyC]

Started to work on this beast of a Neo Geo sitdown cab. Has a very nice 33” CRT with a intervideo chassis. Just needed some flyback adjustments and general geometry adjustments. Color was good and everything worked, So a easy start.

Picture looks nice! Baconstrip scan-lines!

First time playing with a Intervideo chassis. Pretty easy to use.

 

[BuddyC]

Sega rally 2 took a lot longer..... Main goal was to get all 4 screens looking as identical as possible... sucked, but result was quite good. Had to adjust convergence rings, add convergence strips, adjust flyback etc etc etc....

convergence rings were stuck, but a splash of isopropyl alcohol both cleaned and removed old crap that made them stick.

Grid before adjusting c-rings.... sucks...

After some c-ring love. Much better!

4 hours later, everything looked supernice! Forgot to take pictures of final results.....Edit! Added pictures

 

[BuddyC]

And as a teaser.... A very special seat arrived back from a full restoration.
A fully restored Turbo Outrun DLX will be very fun to work on!

 

[kikaso]

This is so cool.

Great idea to use this downtime to do underrated task like monitor adjustment. They look great!

 

[BuddyC]

Thanks! There will be a lot more cab-porn in the next couple of weeks

 

[BuddyC]

2 great looking cabs that was saved from a warehouse fire down in Italy.
Dirty as hell and no monitor to calibrate, but will be fun to make these work again! Ice Cold Beer fits quite nice in a bar....

 

[BuddyC]

Cho Chabudai Gaeshi just needed some minor tweaks, but it was fun to adjust and calibrate the table... since it’s a table....
Game is fucking hilarious.

 

[dewmansnk]

2 great looking cabs that was saved from a warehouse fire down in Italy.
Dirty as hell and no monitor to calibrate, but will be fun to make these work again! Ice Cold Beer fits quite nice in a bar....

Those Ice Cold Beer cabs are super interesting. I had never seen that playfield or side-art before. So much better than the plain yellow beer mug playfield. Glad you were able to save those gems, I am sure you will get them looking great.

 

[BuddyC]

Those Ice Cold Beer cabs are super interesting. I had never seen that playfield or side-art before. So much better than the plain yellow beer mug playfield. Glad you were able to save those gems, I am sure you will get them looking great.

I can’t take credit for saving them, but I will be fun to restore it back to former glory!

 

[nem]

Wow, I wish I had friends like you! Exemplary effort.

 

[BuddyC]

Next up... A epic row of Naomi Universals. Some games like Jambo Safari missing, but more will be added soon.

Monkey Ball

Had to completly rebuild the stick. Was nasty, but ended up working great..... for 5 minutes before one of the analog pots went to hell... Luckily we had a extra Sega pot lying around, so got it working with minimal effort and a little hacking.
Screen needs a recap, but everything else is working and looks ok. Will look fantastic after a full recap. To be continued.

 

[BuddyC]

Outtrigger

This one needs a lot of love.... Had to add a working I/O and harness. Wiring was a complete cluster-fuck, but was just for testing purposes. Will make it nicer next time... Probably....

Everything booted ok even though the PSU fan made a pretty hardcore growling noise (Needs some Noctua love) and I was greeted with this classy image...

Not hot...

A look around the back confirmed my suspicion...
Shanghai Novel tube with Sanwa chassis.... crap de la creme...

Need a full recap and a new flyback since the one in there lost focus after under 1 hour.... Luckily the arcade tech there ordered some backup flybacks a while ago, so this will be fixed.
To be continued....

 

[BuddyC]

Crazy Taxi

Ahhh.... Sweet Nanao goodness! How I love thee!
Turned down the flyback just a smidgen, adjusted the RGB cutoff and adjusted the focus. Great looking cab, working like a charm!

 

[BuddyC]

Custom Ikaruga

Calibrated this bad boy a couple of months ago. Still working like a champ and ready to rock! Needed some custom convergence strips for the corners and general TLC, but looks great!

 

[BuddyC]

Todays cab was a Street Fighter II Dynamo Cab.
Not in bad shape, but could be better.

Was hoping for a Wells Gardner, but got a Makvision.... Kind of a downgrade?

Colors was way of. Flyback was way to high... well everything was off...
Started from scratch and the results was pretty sexy.

Mmmm... scanlines...

 

[CoinFeeder]

Awesome work. This stuff always takes a lot of patience, which I totally lack

 

[West]

This is so cool to see, beautiful work. It really inspires me to gain more knowledge about monitors and how to maintain them. Ya know, without electrocuting myself.

 

[BuddyC]

This is so cool to see, beautiful work. It really inspires me to gain more knowledge about monitors and how to maintain them. Ya know, without electrocuting myself.

Thanks!
Learned a lot here at AP and arcade otaku. Read a lot of stuff regarding CRT safety and then bought a Astro that didn’t work... Had no other choice to learn how to fix shit... and then found out it was both fun and got a great sense of achievement getting a busted, dirty old CRT to shine again. Highly recommended

 

[BuddyC]

More interesting cabs and more calibration nerdy next week!
I have a date with a Rhythm Tengoku and a Point Blank....