A noobs adventures in cab ownership!

[ChrisBEANS]

Right... completely rewired the CP (well, 1p side so far, anyway!).

All good there.

New EL panels ordered.

I’ve hit a wall though... I absolutely cannot dial the brightness/colours on the monitor in correctly.

If it’s bright enough, then blacks are red, no matter how up or down I dial the R gain. Then I faff some more, and if blacks are black then it’s washed out, or too dull, or something else odd.
Plus, it doesn’t seem consistent between games or even screens in the same game.

Is there still such a thing as a CRT calibration service in 2021?? (Google suggests not)

[thegreathopper]

Have you also found the RGB cutoffs?, these are just as important as the gains, you will need to adjust those to get nice blacks and grey with no colour.

A board with a good colour test will be very helpful, I found Capcom CPS2 has a nice test grid and pattern which makes setting up a monitor easy.

[ChrisBEANS]

Have you also found the RGB cutoffs?, these are just as important as the gains, you will need to adjust those to get nice blacks and grey with no colour.

A board with a good colour test will be very helpful, I found Capcom CPS2 has a nice test grid and pattern which makes setting up a monitor easy.

The UniBIOS HW test is pretty good to be fair.

Has a screen with an RGB gradient.

I’ll have a crack with the cut offs, but they seem to just spin. They might be knackered...

[thegreathopper]

If they just spin that’s not good, you will not get good colours without the cutoffs.

Must check out the unibios test screen, is this a new thing in V4! Sounds good I like a nice test pattern

[thegreathopper]

Did you manage to nab one of the NOS polos yesterday, that’s probably what you have in your cab.

[ChrisBEANS]

No!! Didn’t even see them!! I’d have definitely had one

[ChrisBEANS]

Genuine question...

Does anybody commercially calibrate Arcade CRTs??

After a lot of faffing on the U4, I got it to a spot I’m really happy with.

On the Electrocoin, I’ve faffed for HOURS, eventually getting it to about 90% how I think it should be, and in trying for the extra 10% I end up knackering it. Rinse and repeat. I’ve lost patience tonight.

Surely someone does it?

[cools]

Get the chassis serviced.

[ChrisBEANS]

I think that might be the move here...

I take it @grantspain is the man for the job?

[thegreathopper]

Genuine question...

Does anybody commercially calibrate Arcade CRTs??

After a lot of faffing on the U4, I got it to a spot I’m really happy with.

On the Electrocoin, I’ve faffed for HOURS, eventually getting it to about 90% how I think it should be, and in trying for the extra 10% I end up knackering it. Rinse and repeat. I’ve lost patience tonight.

Surely someone does it?

You been in an arcade in the UK recently? The one I pop in to occasionally in Soho I think has a grand total of zero crt’s. I did ask a Bang & Olofson engineer recently on a service visit if they still fixed Crt’s and he said not for years and could hardly remember the last one he did.

Cools suggestion is a good one, when the chassis has been serviced, setting up should be pretty straight forward. There are some good videos online to give you some tips.

Perhaps if you pay Grant enough he will do a home visit and set them up for you.

[ChrisBEANS]

Genuine question...

Does anybody commercially calibrate Arcade CRTs??

After a lot of faffing on the U4, I got it to a spot I’m really happy with.

On the Electrocoin, I’ve faffed for HOURS, eventually getting it to about 90% how I think it should be, and in trying for the extra 10% I end up knackering it. Rinse and repeat. I’ve lost patience tonight.

Surely someone does it?

Perhaps if you pay Grant enough he will do a home visit and set them up for you.

I’m too new to know if this is a joke...?

I’d be more than happy to do that!! Once they’re finished, I’m keeping these machines probably forever, and they’re probably the only machines I’ll ever have too, so I’m fine with investing in them now so they’ll be tip top and last as long as at all possible.

[ChrisBEANS]

No opportunity to do much that warrants a photograph or two...

Just by way of an update for anyone interested, and a bit of a check list for me, here’s what I think is left to do...

Electrocoin:-

Monitor calibration/chassis service/both

Wire up 2p side of the CP

T-molding on right side

Paint MVS ‘cage’

Replacement mini marquee EL panels

Replace fan on chassis with MUCH quieter fan (is this even a realistic thing to do??)

Replace fan on PSU with MUCH quieter model OR replace PSU.

Reinstall memory card module

Coin button below CP

Seek advice on touching up the scratched and scuffed side art



SNK U4:-

New wooden board to accommodate the larger replacement four slot

Install repro memory card module

Add a switch to the very loud fluorescent tube on the mini marquee panel

Have screen surround, CP housing, coin door and front door sand blasted and powder coated.

Coin button to fill the missing coin entry on the CP housing.

Cosmetic solution to dents around coin drawer

Investigate custom EL panel arrangement for U4 (already in motion)

Possibly replace the speakers, and if so, possibly add an amp.


Then, actually play some games!!! Might even look into streaming again.

Any other improvements or anything practical or obvious that I’ve missed, I’m very open to suggestion.

[ChrisBEANS]

Right, after an absolute shedload of dialling in I’ve got the colours and contrast right.

All good.

However, it’s just not bright enough. Notices more in some games than others, but it’s definitely too dark.

The brightness is at max, and the ‘screen’ dial is where it ‘should’ be (I.e. with the video cable unplugged from the chassis, it’s tweaked until the screen just turns black).

The only way to get the brightness any higher is to turn the screen dial up, but this of course means blacks aren’t black anymore.

No amount of tweaking RGB gains and cutoffs can eliminate that, and in any case, after a colossal tweaking session I’ve finally got the colours correct.


Is this something that a chassis service is likely to correct, or is there something else I’m missing?





Edit: In all of this, it's easy to forget that the whole point is to play these games!!



0 continues (1 death) Still got it!

Should have all but the replacement EL panels done on this cab by the end of today!

[ChrisBEANS]

Some quality of life stuff today that has made a massive difference!!

Swapped out the extremely loud (and probably 30 year old) fans from the chassis and PSU for nice new high pressure and silent Noctua fans.





New board for the U4 too to accomodate the larger four slot that replaced the knackered one... didn't think anyone would be particularly interested in seeing a piece of MDF though

[ChrisBEANS]

Get the chassis serviced.

All arranged

[ChrisBEANS]

Big day today!!!

Firstly, due to my (probably irrational) fear of breaking the chassis I've been putting off removing it.

Thanks to perfect step by step instructions from Grant, it came out without incident or any reason to be as fretful as I've been!!



PSU removed too for service.

It is currently cranked to the max and the board gets 5.08v when turned on, however after a few hours it drops to 4.98v (higher on a four slot, which I did to test).

The six slot remains stable and works perfectly, but it can't be good to have a PSU that does that, right??


Hopefully post service, my screen will be bright and vibrant, and the PSU will last another 30 years

Grant's advice is in the link below if it's of use to anyone:-

DisplayCollapse view

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43090

Second big thing of the day, is something I imagine I'll live to regret...

I bought three cabs within in a couple of days.

U4 because I really wanted it, six slot because I hadn't realised that there was such a thing as a UK built/made version and it looked like it needed love, and finally a Blast City so that I could complete my Metal Slug arcade collection and play MS6 on a 31kHz screen.


After a while, I realised that taking on three cabs at once was silly, and without disassembling the whole thing then getting the Blast upstairs was impossible.

My heart is with the Neo Geo stuff, and so the Blast is off to a new home.

It's currently sitting in the living room awaiting @ATREE to come and scoop it up



I'd love to keep it, and restore it a little, but I've bitten off more than I can chew with three cabs and I have to be realistic

[aerobert]

It's easy to burn out quickly. Good decision to sell it, you will have opportunity to buy another Blast down the road.

[thegreathopper]

Wow that is a really old chassis and power supply, I do recall my first ever Jamma cab was fitted out with that kit.

I hope it looks better after a service, good luck

[ChrisBEANS]

Fingers crossed!! If it comes back bright and vibrant I’ll be absolutely ecstatic!!

If it is an old tube that needs replacing, is there any chance whatsoever that I’ll find one?!?



Also, an issue I have with the six slot board... with the volume slider all the way down there’s still volume. It’s not even particularly quiet. With the volume up it gets very loud as expected.

Opposite problem with the headphone volume. Even when cranked to max it’s very quiet.

I’m guessing that this will be due to the potentiometers being old and crappy, but my question is, is it something that a well intentioned noob with a soldering iron can fix, or should I leave it to the pros?? (Or live with it, which is very much an option!)

[thegreathopper]

Could be the pots, those slider 2 stereo pots on MVS do go wrong. You could try cleaning the tracks but sometimes that makes it worse as all the grease goes and they they crackle. I have never seen these for sale although I do recall swapping out t(enpots from a broken board, thousands of those around.

I was impatient when I had a couple of old cabs with grey, dim and hard to focus screens and ended up ripping out the old Hantarex power supplies and monitors and replaced with new, unfortunately new monitors are very rare now.

You may be lucky and your CRT’s have some life left in them.