Weche 'Ok Baby' Arcade Cabinet Restoration

[coming2u]

Hi Everyone,

I though I would make this thread to share my work on an OK Baby cabinet I bought at auction. I would say my experience with arcade cabinet repair is minimal at best so be prepared to see ugly fixes and mistakes along the way.

The Cab:

• The cabinet was listed with no PCB but the CRT came on during the auction.
• The outside was clearly dirty and I was hoping it wouldnt need a ton of cleaning (wrong).

First things first, the outer cleaning:

• Did a pass with vinegar/water mix
• Next pass with rubbing alcohol
• (no pics yet, I have started working my way across with a magic eraser which has worked quite well)
• Pic of some lovely smokey residue:
• 

I decided to try giving an ozone machine a try at neutralizing the smell from the cab as its overwhelming in the garage. Since I use my garage as an office during the day, this meant taking the cabinet outside and getting creative. I grabbed some painting dropcloths and made a quick ozone chamber on my porch. While it has helped mute the smell a little I think I need to give it another run, but first I'm going to work on cleaning out more of the inside and gutting the bad parts first.

Switching gears to the guts:

• The cabinet apparently had a home in China based on a sticker slapped on the front and the coins I found sprinkled inside the bottom of the cabinet. I guess they bounced out of the coin tray.

I decided to work my way inwards, and get the control panel in order. I've ordered a new control panel overlay online, once it arrives and I confirm the quality I'll definitely link the shop.

The panel definitely had water damage so I'm guessing this cab got its fair share of abuse, so I'm currently in the midst of removing the rust and then spraypainting some protective paint on the panel.

More to come, hope you enjoy!

 

[Zepherino]

Nice! Keep an eye around the corner between the controls and the main body. OK Babies tend to crack there (same issue as Astro City), and I saw a lot of cabs with this sort of damage from where I assumed you sourced this (Captain's sticker = I'm 99% sure this is a KC cab).

For cleaning, try a heavy degreaser like Purple Power. It does wonders for cleaning nicotine stains and other grime.

I'm pretty sure Alberto makes high quality repros of the control panels that include the original graphics

The PSU may require some attention. From the several cabs I had a look at, they tended to have the power units removed and replaced. It somewhat makes sense since these cabs likely had a transformer for 220v at some point.

 

[Hackcell]

OKBs are sturdy af. If you install a nanao monitor and a sega model3/naomi audio amp, you'll have a helluva machine. Mine has a 200 watt psu, a naomi audio amp and a ms9-29 chasis. I'm planning to replace the ms929 to use it with an astro I'm planning to restore and to install a WG D9200 to make it tri sync.

 

[kikaso]

The wiring harness might need a good cleaning to get rid of the cigarette smell.

Looking forward to seeing more!

 

[PASTBLASTER]

Great start. Looking forward to this one!

 

[notsonic]

I have a really weird Ok Baby that's been fully gutted and rewired a few times over. I'm interested to see what an original one looks like.

 

[coming2u]

I have a really weird Ok Baby that's been fully gutted and rewired a few times over. I'm interested to see what an original one looks like.

Ask and you shall receive, but first a mistake!

While removing the control panel, the locking piece on one side snapped the two plastic mounts it had. Fortunately, the break was clean but I could tell the plastic hasn't aged well and is more fragile. I super glued the pieces back then added some JB Weld on the outside of the plastic to reinforced the fractured area a bit (red lines mark where it snapped).

As for the insides:

• The power supply looks like it is newer, so possibly not original

• You can see the harness here in these 2 pics, I've already tossed the old buttons and joysticks, they were soldered directly to the harness

• The TV looks alright (without having removed it from the cab. I've read that it can be rotated for vertical setup, but it has to be removed from the cabinet entirely to do so. The two pull handles on the front there simply taunt me for now. There's an intact fluorescent tube for the marquee in the back as well. Who knows if it will turn on?

The plastic wiring holders are so brittle on the inside of the machine they snap when I touch them. I'll need to replace them. I've bought a new jamma harness and powersupply for the machine. I don't trust the dirty old power supply to not cause issues, plus the wiring in here is taped and soldered.

To wrap up today, I took a wire brush attachment to the control panel metal sheet (and sandpaper) to get rid of the surface rust and the adhesive from the overlay:

While its easy to see in the photo, my eyes did not see clearly how much more of the adhesive was left. I painted the panel to prevent further rust. Unfortunately the bits of adhesive that didnt get cleaned off do show as blemishes in the paint. I have time to go back and sand these off before the overlay gets here.

 

[Hackcell]

This is the original power/audio unit of the OKB.

 

[Mukuro_W]

Just curious about the monitor set... Which tube and chassis ?

 

[Hackcell]

Mine came with a wei-ya chasis. However I know they came with a rodotron-666 chasis and a samsung tube.

 

[notsonic]

I think the one I have is a very old version. It had a very curved and light gray tube. It was smaller than a 29" but bigger than a 25". I believe it was a Wei-Ya chassis. The chassis blew (it required an isolation transformer and it didn't have one when I got it) and I necked the tube while it was sitting around my basement. I don't think I kept either. I ended up putting in an MS9. It fits pretty well but it's a little larger than the original tube. I had to modify the mounting tabs on the cabinet's frame and the bezel is smaller than the maximum possible picture size, but you can just shrink it down to fit.

 

[nem]

I used to own one. It's a nice cab.

The monitor should be 28" / 66cm. Mine had a Hantarex Polo, but I'm sure it was replaced at some point during its life here.

 

[jermz1]

This is what my friend's Ok Baby psu and tube had.

 

[coming2u]

Snuck some more work in today between work duties.

Built a quick CRT discharge tool:

After several attempts at discharge (I'm a scared newbie) I took the monitor out removing the 4 mount screws:

It appears our Cab is Chinese but our TV is French. The board and flyback look intact , I don't see any cracks or bulging capacitors.

Next post - cleaning the inside. Let me know if you just want to see the end stuff or the steps along the way.

 

[adgenet]

I like seeing the steps along the way.
It makes the end result more satisfying since we can see all the hard work you put into it.

 

[nem]

Interesting! I guess these came with 29" monitors as well.

 

[bagheera369]

Very cool that you were able to pick one up.

As you've noted, be super careful with the plastics, as they do tend to get fragile with lots of UV over the years.

Here's a thread from KLOV, for an OK Baby I helped with the art package on, for a friend of mine.

He's still got the cabinet, and it's still rocking along too!!!

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/weche-ok-baby-project.311182/

 

[coming2u]

Very cool that you were able to pick one up.

As you've noted, be super careful with the plastics, as they do tend to get fragile with lots of UV over the years.

Here's a thread from KLOV, for an OK Baby I helped with the art package on, for a friend of mine.

He's still got the cabinet, and it's still rocking along too!!!

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/weche-ok-baby-project.311182/

After the first snafu there with the plastic I'm being very gentle with everything. I ran across that thread you linked and another restore thread somewhere on here where they did custom paint jobs.

I'm still debating doing a full repaint of the outside initially. I don't look forward to a complete tear down plus all the sanding. However I did find a couple YouTube videos of people using a "Rust-Oleum 2x" spray paint with success (and no sanding).

I think initially I want to resurrect the cab with an emulation or PCB if I can pick one up soon and then look at potentially repairing (lots of scratches and gouges) the outer plastic and repainting.

 

[bagheera369]

A mister is a good all-in-one solution....but if you want to talk pcb's...I'm in Texas, and have plenty. Send me a DM of stuff you're looking for, and I'll try to help if I can.

 

[XtraSmiley]

I don't know anything about restoring CCs, but why not just take the plastic body outside and pressure wash it (on low or just a hose)? Wouldn't that get the stains and smell out a lot better than your ozone thing?