Time Pilot Problems

Well, I got a chance to dig into my Time Pilot a bit more in the past few nights. There was a problem with the old joystick (so I thought)- when moving the joystick to the left, it would have no effect to your ship onscreen. I thought this was simply a joystick problem since the old joystick was a Happ Universal stick that had been slapped on there. It was rusted, the microswitches were beat, etc. I bought a converted Time Pilot control panel (converted to a Gyruss) off of a KLOV member because it had a Monroe joystick in it. The Monroe is the "official" joystick that came with Time Pilot. I was really excited to find the control panel for the price- the Monroe stick alone was worth it! So I plugged the panel in and still no movement left. Dammit. I checked from the leaf switch to the board and I have continuity every step of the way. I then switched another direction with the left direction and still no left movement. I posted for help on KLOV and a few of the guys are pretty sure it's a board problem. Dammit again. So now I can troubleshoot the board on my own, I could send it to someone to fix, or I can buy a new board- none of which I am thrilled about!

Astro Invader Added!

I had been emailing this nice lady back and forth about a "video game- the type that is used in bars." I was the second to call about her Craigslist ad last week and she said that she had someone else coming to pick it up. We chatted for a few minutes and I let her know that I collect and restore these as a hobby and if she didn't get rid of it to call me. Well, as luck would have it, I got a call the next day and the person coming to pick it up never showed (big surprise). I ended up being able to pick it up tonight for a grand total of $30! Not sure what I will do with it yet. I am getting good readings from the power supply and it might just be a monitor issue. I'll dig into it a bit more when I get a chance.

Father's Day Arcade Work

Besides the great gifts and time spent with the family on Father's Day, wifey decided to let me do what I wanted- work on my arcade games! I spent about 4 hours in the garage yesterday doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

First, I cleaned up my red tent. It looks nice, but I'm not declaring it "game room ready" just yet. I'm waiting on some new plexi for the instruction cards, looking for 1 button of the correct color and I might remove the control panels and re-paint them. There is a bit of rust where you would rest your palm.

Next, I began transferring my Time Pilot from its current cabinet to my Tri-Sports cabinet. The Tri-Sports is in a Centuri cabinet (used to be a Vanguard) that is in much nicer shape than my Time Pilot. I removed the entire Time Pilot harness, power supply, monitor and coin door and installed it in the Tri-Sports cabinet. I now have an empty Centuri cab with a G07 monitor that will be perfect for a 60 in 1 multigame.

As part of the Time Pilot restoration, I removed the old, beat up control panel overlay and prepped it for the new overlay installation. After scraping, sanding and using Goo Gone, it is now down to the bare metal and ready for the new cpo. I am using a bootleg cpo until I can find a NOS cpo. I think the bootleg one is pretty cool:

I also plan on putting new t-molding on it- I haven't decided on the color yet. Down the road will be the side art as it has not been reproduced yet. I have a very nice marquee and an average bezel installed. After the cpo is installed, I'll cap the monitor and it will be "game room ready."

Got My High Score on Excitebike Tonight

Wifey was working out and the kids were in bed so I thought I'd pop down to the garage to get a few games of Excitebike in. I only played one game of Excitebike, since I got my highest score ever- 167,000. I didn't want to ruin it by playing again and not qualify for the 3rd race or something, so I shut 'er down for the night. Not bad for only playing about two dozen games since 1984...

Centipede Has Been Added!

Much to the "delight" of my wife, I have added a Centipede to the garage today. I bought it off of a nice lady that told me the story of her dad and how he loved to tinker with it when he was alive. Now that I will be tinkering with it, I hope I can get it to work! I got it home, plugged it in and out came a horribly loud beeping noise! Wow was it annoying! I'm thinking it has something to do with the audio regulator board, as these seem to go quite easily on the Atari games. With some help from the forums, I hope for this one to be a quick fix. I'm debating whether or not to replace the side art. Stay tuned...

Sold the Dynamo

I've been emailing back and forth with a local guy who was looking for another Dynamo cab. I picked up the huge-ass Dynamo below and planned to make some type of rotary joystick JAMMA cab. It came with Ikari III: The Rescue in it (horrible game) and that prompted me to pick up more PCBs that use the rotary joysticks. Unfortunately, Ikari III is a horizontal game and my favorite rotary joystick game of all time is Heavy Barrel, a vertical game. I suppose it wouldn't take much to rotate the 25 inch monitor that was in it, but the cab was a bit beat for my tastes. So I stripped the joysticks, Ikari PCB and marquee for a future rotary joystick game project. Even stripped of these parts, it turned out to be just what this guy was looking for. He came by today and we crammed this 350 lb. cabinet into his dad's old Toyota RAV-4. What an adventure that was! We ended up fitting it and he drove away happy. The monitor was crisp and probably ended up being a pretty good deal for him at $100.

I picked up a Heavy Barrel PCB, bezel and marquee a few months ago. I'm now on the lookout for two more vertical PCBs that use the rotary joysticks: SAR - Search And Rescue and Time Soldiers. I might even tear my P.O.W. cab apart for this project...

I picked up a Nintendo Red Tent!

I've been emailing back and forth with a local guy that has a ton of video games. We've talked about the games we like, our wants, what we have to trade, etc. Ever since I became a member of the KLOV forums, I've been intrigued by Nintendo's sit-down Vs. System affectionately called a "red tent." First of all, Super Mario, Excitebike, RBI Baseball were some of my favorite games back in the day- so why not get one of these cool-looking red tents with two of my favorites? It finally happened when the local guy emailed me letting me know that he needed some space and would sell one to me for cheap. I jumped on the opportunity and went to pick it up last night:

What a great machine this is! I popped a few quarters in and played a few games of Excitebike before wifey came home. I can't wait to move this one into the game room, pull up a stool, have a beer or two and play for a few hours!

Arcade Game Key Chains

Back in the Spring of 2009, to keep wifey off my back about my new hobby- I needed to find a way to fund it. I came across a few posts on the KLOV forums about key chains for your arcade game locks. I made photo key chains before for giveaways at my kids' birthday parties, why not make arcade game key chains for peoples' collections? That was in April of 2009. As of today, I've made over 2000 key chains for collectors all over the world (and I do mean "world"- collectors in New Zealand, Austalia, Europe and Canada have my key chains!)

I have a streamlined process that enables me to keep the cost down and the assembly time to a minimum. Click Here for a thread over on KLOV about them. $2.00 each- not too bad, eh?

Time Pilot memories...

What great memories this game brings back for me. It reminds me of my youth, tagging along with my dad to his weekly bowling league night. He would bowl, I would play video games. I'd be out of quarters in no time and run back to my dad- he'd give me a couple more bucks and tell me to, "Make it last!" Well, Time Pilot was one of the games where I would "make it last." I could make it to the flying saucers regularly and (if I brought a friend that night) my buddy and I would go back and forth trying to beat each other's score. Even though Time Pilot is not a highly sought after arcade game by most, it was for me. This is what collecting arcade games is all about for me- the memories. So late last year, I picked up a Time Pilot for $125. The control panel is hacked to hell and the cabinet needs some work but the monitor and pcb function just fine. Since I picked this up, I've been slowly accumulating parts for it- NOS joystick, bezel, control panel overlay, coin door, etc. I am also in the process, with a few other KLOV members, of recreating the side art. I hope to have this one restored and in the game room by the end of the summer. The side art will come later...

My "Game Room"

My family and I purchased a new house in August of last year. I was just getting into collecting arcade games and I only had one game at that time, so a large finished game room/basement wasn't in the front of my mind when looking for a house. Fast forward to present day: the house we bought is a nice size (4 BR, 2.5 Bath) with a nice size yard (1/4 acre) for my family and I. The one complaint is the small-ass finished "game room" area. It seems like the builders just threw together a small finished area with the leftover space off of the garage. The house is only 10 years old, so it's not like everything was retro-fitted- it was actually planned in the build. So off of the attached 2-car garage is my carpeted "game room" with a total square footage of 132 sq. ft.!!! What a waste. To rub it in even more, the laundy room behind the game room is 225 sq. ft. They actually made the laundry room larger than the game room?!?! For now, I'm stuck with my 11 x 12 ft. area to stick a few games in. The rest will stay in "my side" of the garage. Down the road, the plan is to bust out the walls between the game room and laundry room and have a finished game room in the neighborhood of 12 x 26 ft. Hmmm... how many games could I fit in a space that size... carry the one...

Karate Champ Complete!

I bought a Karate Champ arcade game in April 2009 for $125.00. For me, this is a game that brings back all the memories from my time spent in the arcades "back in the day." My buddies and I would spend most of our quarters on this game. Karate Champ was the 'Mortal Kombat' of its day.

I was super excited to get this game- and it was in nice shape too! A little magic eraser, simple green and time and this game looked better than the ones we played in the arcades. It did have a cracked marquee, a very faded, washed out on-screen image, no coin door or marquee lights and peeling side art.

This past weekend I attempted my first cap kit- with success! I recapped the monitor and now the colors are bold and bright:


What a difference from when I purchased it. I also headed to the auto parts store to pick up replacement bulbs for the coin door, put in new CFL bulbs for the marquee light, installed the marquee that I got off of the KLOV forums and... TA DA! Karate Champ is ready for the game room! I'll keep an eye out for NOS side art or purchase some repro art, but that's down the road. One down, six to go (with more purchases along the way, of course.)