YAACRBP - Yet Another Astro City Restoration By Ploppers

[emphatic]

One part of the plan though, at least for now, is to utilize a PC + JPAC in the cab. So I went looking for a cheap but powerful and up-gradable PC. I found the Dell Optiplex 9010 small form factor PC, was only $85AUD (~ $60USD) which had an Intel Core i5 3470 (3.2ghz - 3.6ghz, 4 Core) with 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM, 250GB Spinning Rust HDD and optical drive. But more importantly it had room to add more RAM and also had a half height PCIE 3.0 x8.0 slot.

Will that fit inside the cabinet?

[cools]

Yeah, the Dell SFFs are cab friendly.

[Ploppers]

One part of the plan though, at least for now, is to utilize a PC + JPAC in the cab. So I went looking for a cheap but powerful and up-gradable PC. I found the Dell Optiplex 9010 small form factor PC, was only $85AUD (~ $60USD) which had an Intel Core i5 3470 (3.2ghz - 3.6ghz, 4 Core) with 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM, 250GB Spinning Rust HDD and optical drive. But more importantly it had room to add more RAM and also had a half height PCIE 3.0 x8.0 slot.

Will that fit inside the cabinet?

Yeah, the Dell SFFs are cab friendly.

Yeah cools has it right. But be careful though the Dell Optiplex 9010 has 3 versions. The 'Desktop', the SFF and the Ultra SFF. The Desktop is a mini tower, which probably won't fit, and the Ultra SFF isn't upgradeable with a GPU (think intel NUC).

Anyways, just for you emphatic





Thinking of mounting it to a wood PCB board and mounting the JPAC and stuff at the front. Anyways I'm just biding my time, hoping my impact driver gets here tomorrow, so I can get the cab ready for its sunday bath and scrubbing!

[Ploppers]

So I had the day off today and decided to get into it, using the Impact driver helped budge the stuck bolts but before I could get to the last 4 bolts on the back, the tip of the screwdriver bit in the impact driver completely sheared off!! Luckily, the last 4 bolts were easy with my ratchet.

We have SEPARATION!



Did a little cleaning inside the cab then vacuumed it!



I think I'll leave the back wheels on and the top brass monitor bar as I can wash around it, they're not blocking anything. She's all ready for her Sunday morning bath & scrub! Once that's done, next i'll grab a buffer/polisher go over the cab with a little white paint pen (just for the bigger black spots) and then buff her up all nice and purdy!



As a bonus, some Metal Slug 4 artwork and an assortment of nuts and bolts... Sadly no 100 Yen pieces, that will require a trip to the bank.

[emphatic]

That is a nice, small formfactor indeed. Good job cleaning.

[Ploppers]

That is a nice, small formfactor indeed. Good job cleaning.

Thanks Emph!

So I got up nice and early this morning, loaded the cab into the car, and drove down to the car wash. After about 40 minutes of scrubbing , rinsing and scrubbing some more we finally finished (Luckily it was raining so not many people at the car wash, and we basically could stay as long as we wanted!). Dried it off and brought it home, but not before stopping for a Steak and Cheese pie, mmmmmmmm....



Brought it back into the apartment and let it dry off some more. Looks, feels and smells MUCH better! As you can see I still have detailing to go, silvo on the steel foot and then paint pen some of the largest scratches and finally a buff & polish!

But for now;







Compared to before;



Anyways, that enough for today! Gonna have a beer and play some DoDonPachi on my laptop sideways.

Cheers all!

[geldra]

Nice! Cosmetically the shell looks in really good shape. And the side art seems in decent nick too.

[Inky]

Wow Ploppers good job so far, I'm looking forward to the continuing adventure!

I think I would have had a melt down with the goo-gone incident I hope it all works out.

[Ploppers]

Nice! Cosmetically the shell looks in really good shape. And the side art seems in decent nick too.

Thanks geldra Yeah, the actual structure seems good, theres a few cracks that I'm going to use some acrylic resin to reinforce like the bottom of back door hold has a crack in the middle, top monitor bar round screw in tubes have little cracks/gouges in them, and going to reinforce control panel sides even though the slight cracks don't go all the way through it couldn't hurt.

And yeah the side art is pretty decent, gotta fix a little bit of it but overall its not faded or majorly ruined.

Wow Ploppers good job so far, I'm looking forward to the continuing adventure!

I think I would have had a melt down with the goo-gone incident I hope it all works out.

Thanks Inky! It certainly is an adventure haha

Yeah I did initially freakout (My girlfriend came in cause I was yelling), but after I found it was just parts of the colour, and the majority of it is black, I can just fill in the black areas and use some Vinyl Sign Acylic to add back in the colours (I was going to paint the colours back in but then it would be streaky).

[geldra]

Nice! Cosmetically the shell looks in really good shape. And the side art seems in decent nick too.

Thanks geldra Yeah, the actual structure seems good, theres a few cracks that I'm going to use some acrylic resin to reinforce like the bottom of back door hold has a crack in the middle, top monitor bar round screw in tubes have little cracks/gouges in them, and going to reinforce control panel sides even though the slight cracks don't go all the way through it couldn't hurt.

And yeah the side art is pretty decent, gotta fix a little bit of it but overall its not faded or majorly ruined.

Aye, I had to repair the sides of the front lower section (under where the upper control panel would sit). I used a fibre glass repair kit. I think it’s a pretty common bit of damage to Astros (guessing they’ll have been sat on at some point). Easily fixed though.

Mine had been riveted back together at some point so I had to undo that work and full the screw holes. On my “battle damaged” cab I just decided to leave the repair visible. Mainly because I’m lazy.

[Ploppers]

Nice! Cosmetically the shell looks in really good shape. And the side art seems in decent nick too.

Thanks geldra Yeah, the actual structure seems good, theres a few cracks that I'm going to use some acrylic resin to reinforce like the bottom of back door hold has a crack in the middle, top monitor bar round screw in tubes have little cracks/gouges in them, and going to reinforce control panel sides even though the slight cracks don't go all the way through it couldn't hurt.

And yeah the side art is pretty decent, gotta fix a little bit of it but overall its not faded or majorly ruined.

Aye, I had to repair the sides of the front lower section (under where the upper control panel would sit). I used a fibre glass repair kit. I think it’s a pretty common bit of damage to Astros (guessing they’ll have been sat on at some point). Easily fixed though.

Yeah thats what I plan on. Yeah, I got told years ago, if you get an Astro to check the sides where the control meets the body for cracks.

Mine had been riveted back together at some point so I had to undo that work and full the screw holes. On my “battle damaged” cab I just decided to leave the repair visible. Mainly because I’m lazy.

I had thought of that at one time, have rounded bolts on the outside I paint white and have the actual brace on the inside, but when I got this cab I think just the fibreglass repair kit will suffice

[geldra]

Yeah I just removed/drilled the rivets, kept the metal plate to put under the fibre glass in the hope it would provide a bit more strength and then weighted the cab appropriately so that it closed the crack and then applied the fibre glass repair.

I used a fine fibre glass filler (Big Boy) for the remaining bolt holes.

[poodude]

That's cleaning up really nice! I never had the guts to completely disassemble mine out of fear of cracking something.

[Ploppers]

Yeah I just removed/drilled the rivets, kept the metal plate to put under the fibre glass in the hope it would provide a bit more strength and then weighted the cab appropriately so that it closed the crack and then applied the fibre glass repair.

I used a fine fibre glass filler (Big Boy) for the remaining bolt holes.

Ah nice, thanks Geld! Yeah I think I might wedge a comb-like piece of metal into the fibreglass to maybe give it a little extra strength.

That's cleaning up really nice! I never had the guts to completely disassemble mine out of fear of cracking something.

Thanks poodude! Yeah that was definately a worry for me, but I just keep telling myself to take it slow and its a marathon not a sprint. But I've definately made mistakes haha.

[Ploppers]

Sorry for the lack of news, but i've had to work weekends and will do for the next 2-3

Once I washed my old JAMMA wiring harness it came out ok, but the actual Jamma connector is badly damaged and is super brittle :'(

BUT! I finally found ...



a NOS Jamma wiring harness! YAY! So that's on the way from Japan (along with my NOS CP).

Hopefully get some time off in lieu for my weekend work and be able to smash out some more progress!

[Gek36]

Nice find on the NOS JAMMA harness! Just curious, are those RCA cables meant for another arcade system or will they work with the Astro City?

[cools]

I think I actually have one of those astro RCA cables... been wondering what it was for.

[yosai]

Nice find on the NOS JAMMA harness! Just curious, are those RCA cables meant for another arcade system or will they work with the Astro City?

If you have an NVS-4000 PSU in your Astro they plug directly in to it. (bottom right)

dsc05569.jpg

[Gek36]

@yosai Nice! Thanks for showing me.

[Ploppers]

@yosai Thanks heaps for that. I was just wondering, because my Astro actually came with a the PSU mounted on top of an AMP. Would the new harness be usable with this amp?