Randy's Refurbishment - A Blast City Restauration

[ninn]

Yesterday, I cleaned up my PSU. I wanted to silence the fan.

---

I thought, that - if the psu is just a bit dirtier than the cab itself, it would be full of dirt, dirty beyond believe.
so I took it out and took a look: I was true.

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I found the right way to remove the PSU pretty quick: Remove the four outer screws, slide out. nice!

It looked like cotton candy of the undead.



Gross ...


Took my (ok, her ) dustbrush and a vacuum cleaner, and started dusting it.
This was no funny work.





After that, I removed the fan to get it clean too.
Something rattled when the fan rotated, even at low speed. It stopped rattling after I removed the compressed grind with an obsolete analog toothbrush. ...



Used some WD40 too. It rotated a lot better now. Nice metal blades btw.

Ok, lets build it together again...



... gave it a quick scrub with some soda cleaner, which made it shine again. My dishwashing sponge scartched the surfce, but I did not care at all. Must be the weakest metal I#ve ever seen, "scratched by a sponge"...


Anyhow, It was clean now ... but, would it still work? Would it be more silent?

I turned the Cab on, ---- and ---- it worked!

Is it more silent now? Nah - not really. ... I found that it became a little better, a little less noisy. Instead of sounding like a plane taking off, it now sounds like a plane taking off in medium distance .. still too loud for me.

I want it as quiet as my NAC, which got no moving parts at all.


Glad I took the measurements of the fan.
I have never been in the overclockers scene, so I dont know which fans are good or where to get them ... but It should not be too hard to source a replacement that is a lot less noisy.

[cools]

You shouldn't have used WD40, it's not a lubricant. That's probably why it's noisier than before. If the bearing wasn't already dead then oiling it properly will silence it and extend the fan life. If oiling it now doesn't sort it out then you need to replace the fan as the bearing is gone.

[ninn]

I know it is no lubricant.
It is quieter than before.
I dont think i reached the bearings at all.
I was not sure how to open the fan.

I dont think it the bearings are dead or broken. I think it is the normal noise of a Blast City.
It is just too noisy for me.

[cools]

Normally you flip the fan over and remove the sticker from the back, then put a few drops of oil in there and work the blades for a bit, then a few more drops as it seeps through, then soak up the excess with some paper and apply a fresh bit of tape...

[ninn]

Cool! Thanks!
I will try that tonight!

[emphatic]

It looked like cotton candy of the undead.

You have a way with words, man.

[meijin]

It looked like cotton candy of the undead.

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Gross ...

It looked like mine and maybe like most of the other Blast users
I also couldn't reduce the noise level significantly, but on the other hand I got used to the fan's noise and it doesn't disturb me any more.

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[crunchywasp]

It looked like cotton candy of the undead.

Nice job. I actually really enjoyed stripping and cleaning out my Blast PSU

The fan was completely goosed so I just replaced it with one from a spare ATX supply.

[dgame]

This should work as a replacement for the Blast City power supply fan:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... ts_id=2671

Source: http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthrea ... ost3603072"

Hi all!!

I recently replaced my blast city power supply fan. Direct plug and play. No splicing needed. It took about 10 mins.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... ts_id=2671

I can't take credit for this... I actually saw this posted a while back, but can't find the original post.
(and don't hold me responsible if your blast city blows up.... mine's been working fine after the fan replacement)


---Quack.

[urbanledge]

Having just put a fan in my BC i can tell you they'll all be loud.
I ended up putting a 100ohm resister in series with it and that made it silent but kept the airflow.

[richy13]

Did you know that's not a original stock sega blast psu?

I think it's a Sun version could be wrong tho.

[ninn]

Mejin's picture got me thinking.
My fan is definitely larger than 8cm, and it looked different on the inside compared to mejin's one.
It works very well though, and 5V is spot on. Will measure -5V next time.
Yes, it states SUN on the Case. Where did it come from?

Als long as it works, I am quite happy.

btww:
I oiled the fan, and it became definitely more silent. It is still too loud.

[codecrank]

woaaaa, what a shinny bezel you got.

man I need to bust out the novus and do that on my bezels !

[LegoYoda]

Ninn, awesome thread. After seeing the results from your Novus application I took a punt and tried to see if I could shift a mark on my Bezel that I thought was there for ever...

After Novus-1600.jpg

WOW! That stuff really works! So, SO much better and only after a quick 10 min application. Thanks for the tip!

[ninn]

Glad it worked - Novus is very nice stuff indeed ...

I got it, because someone else used it before in a similar thread [can't remember what thread exactly].
I think Novus is common knowledge on AO.

[stellarola]

Novus works for the Empire too...

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/1 ... -counting/"

Restore looks great!

[Barnacla]

(edit) I misunderstood the question ... but to answer short: Used a squirt, 'till it went all black and dry. then used another squirt.
superhard to photograph....

Beautiful result! Wowww!!!

[grendelrt]

Looking at the results of the scratch remover I dont know if it would work on my bezel. Does anyone know how to get what seems to be small cracks under the clear out? Its extremely hard for me to photo because when i use a flash they dissapear. I cant feel them with my fingers. I have an orbital buffer I was going to try with some compounds for car paint but wasnt sure if I was wasting my time.

You can see them in the sunlight in the below pic, the whole panel is covered in them.

[ninn]

yesterday, i finally fixed the odd coin-mech behaviour.

Symptoms:
some coins become stuck.

Abnormal high reject rate.

--

I had adjusted that coinmech so often now, and it still rejected coins. Not all coins, but about 20% to 30% percent, depending on Randy's mood.
I had to take a closer look, after my girl found out that hitting Randys side hard will let a stuck coin pass.

After I found some coins that became stuck, i took the whole coinmech out and had a closer look. The coin would not slide as easy near the magnet as the other coins. I found no defects on the coin itself, but it was repeatable at least: It became stuck every time.

I tried the usual screws, lifting the magnet once again - Inspected the coinmech further. I found out, someone had cut a piece out of my coinmech, exactly where the coin becomes stuck. I suspected it would stop it because of that. I took a knife and rounded all the surrounding corners, and gave the metal and plastic surfaces a good buff. Coins are sliding a lot better now!

I closed the door, emptied the cashbox on my floor and wanted to try all of them.

But: None of them worked, they were all rejected maybe 5-10% worked - wtf

Ok, how could that happened? [still have no idea] but i inspected the coinmech again. Tried to understand what makes the difference between reject slot and coin-up. Found another set of screws on the back (!). The very bottom one had a slider, fixed with a another screw. which seems somehow linked to that behaviour.

I moved the slider a little to the left, - now all 20cent coins pass.

A lot better that way.
No fear anymore not to be able to not insert a coin in-time.
Much better now!

[ninn]

Yesterday, I replaced the fan in Randy.



Old fan on the left, one of the new bigger fans on the right.



Back when I got my Blast City, I was really shocked when i found out, how loud a Blast City can be, just because of one single fan. But all my tries to get it quieter failed so far, some even exploded.

But at last week's fleamarket, I stumbled across two big fans that were labeled 220V. They were not metal-bladed, but they seem to run smoothly. At the cheap price of 5 euro, I grabbed both.


So, yesterday, I removed my powerbrick once again from Randy, unscrewed all screws and removed the fan, and - found out, that the new fans were thicker than the old one. As long as the new one fits, this should not matter, and I proceeded as planned. The Connectors fit. Screwed everything together again.

My hopes were, that even though the fan may be loud, giving it just 110 V [what the Blast delivers] will make it even more silent. Please, do not roar, my dear fan!

Plugged it in, and turned it on.









Success!!

The new fan are not super-super-silent, not that I expected that from second-hand-fans. but you can not hear it startup, - I thought of a loose connection at fist - and become "noticeable" about 15 seconds in, as it gathers speed. But, honestly, it feels, like there is no fans at all! Every gamesound will hide that humming bird.

It is so much of a difference to use the Blast now, so much better! Feels like sitting in front of the fanless Astro! So nice!!!


If you own a Blast, and the fan is loud, please-please replace it - it is not hard at all, and all you need is a screwdriver. Completely new experience!

I am happy!