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02.05.2006 - Finished?

Finished up a couple of things this afternoon. First and foremost, I was able to get the P2 start working by rearranging the connector wires. I also bought some 1/4" carriage bolts and wingnuts (which I spray-painted black) to secure the control panel.

The rest of the project is cosmetic: paint the coin door, add a lock to the coin door, replace the t-molding, fix some paint chips on the front and side.

01.13.2006 - Redemption

Finally, finally! After nearly 10 months, the Asteroids Deluxe lives again. Special thanks to Bill Eqsuivel for shipping a new power regulator from San Jose, CA.

Now that the game is working, I need to flip some dip switches and move the cabinet into the bar. So...I guess it's time to move on to the next project. A Galaxian? A Galaga? Sinistar? Star Castle? So many options...

11.22.2005 - Testing Resumes

I've finally resumed testing on the power regulator board replacing my old analog multimeter with a Fluke 87 III. Now, I can more accurately not understand what the problem is!

I'm still running into the same issue with the video eventually fading out. The +5VREG test point on the power regulator reads 7.6V for a while and eventually ramps up to 8.5V so I think part of the problem lies on that board. I'm sure there are still problems with the video board (since we replaced a burnt cermaic resistor), but since there were fried components on the regulator my hunch is that resolving that voltage issue will put me a lot closer to getting this machine back in working order.

06.22.2005 - Video!

Finally got around to pulling the video board to take a closer look at it. There was obvious damage to one of the large 3.9 Ohm ceramic resistors on the board (43X0401-051). Radio Shack didn't carry anything that large so I scoured the internet and finally found the part for $1 at Surplus Sales of Nebraska. Since the minimum order was $10, I grabbed a few extras in case I burnt them out and also a spool of solder.

After putting the resistor back on the video board and replacing it in the cabinet, I'm able to get video for a few seconds before it fades. The bright spot is still in the center of the screen and it connects to each of the on-screen graphics (i.e. asteroids, ships, etc.) by a slightly faded line. I made a couple of short videos of the problem: Self Test (5.8M); Self Test (6.5M); Play Mode (7.9M).

06.13.2005 - Lights!

After closer inspection of the speaker/light fixture, I noticed that the bulb on the back was a blacklight instead of a plain old flourescent. A quick trip to Home Depot got me a new 15W 18" blacklight and 2 15W starters.

Tonight, I installed the starters and powered the machine up and...LIGHTS! Beautiful lights! Now, I just have to wait for my GE47 coin door bulbs and some time to fix the monitor.

The game still plays great blind, it's just a matter of time...

06.04.2005 - Electronics Repair

My friend Trent came over to help fix the problem with the power supply. Last week's inspection revealed a problem with the 2n3055 transistor and a 100 ohm resistor on the power supply. Looks like the thing got pretty hot when it finally fried.

After replacing those and resoldering a couple of other joints, we got a red light on the motherboard and a lot of static sound from the speakers. A flashing red light on the P2 start told me that at least something was working. Once I pushed the button, the game started playing blind -- that is, still no monitor. The annoying static bell sound from the speakers ended up being a switch on the coin-door...looks like an alarm of some sort?

Now that we have the game booting, it's time to look into the problem with the lights and the monitor.

04.25.2005 - The cabinet comes home...

As long as I can remember, I've been interested in video games. I can remember bumming quarters off of my Mom to play Galaga at the local bowling alley. I was there in line to play when Street Fighter came out. I had an Atari 2600, Nintento, Playstation and most systems in between. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when my friend Bobnsteve said he had located an arcade cabinet. An Asteroids Deluxe. The owners said that I could have it if I could cart it away. (woohooo)

Armed with an appliance dolly, Red, Bobnsteve, and I went to retreive it from it's basement home. Getting it out of the tight basement and into the van was tough enough, but getting all 200 lbs down the 13 stairs to my office made us agree (in blood) that we're never to move it again.

Upon first inspection, the game seemed pretty much in-tact. Plugging it in did nothing however, so we started poking around. The back door lock didn't have a key, but a screwdriver sufficed. After poking around, we discovered that the plug wasn't actually plugged into anything. Naturally, I was exciting thinking that the only thing wrong with it was a simple plug. No dice...the plug didn't help.

We found all of the manuals in the coin door box, unfortunately soaked in what smelled like animal urine. I quickly moved those to a sealed plastic bag and went for the Lysol. Luckily, the manuals and schematics were available online.

Fingers crossed that some day this game will live again...