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Finally locked onto a
Dragon's Lair Laserdisk on Ebay. After being outbid on countless occasions
I was beginning to seriously doubt ever getting one of these.
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StarCom's Dragon's Lair
a Pioneer Laserdisk.
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Sony LaserMax as purchased
from Ebay. This should do great for the player. It's an LDP-2000. Couldn't
find this anywhere on the player but looked at a few pics of Sony players
and this matches right up.
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Finally! Locked onto
a cabinet from a great guy; Tony Etzler. He had an extra cab and very
generously gave me it just to get it out of his house. Apparently he came
across one in better shape. After experiencing problems with arrangements
in pickup he even helped us roll it out of his basement, loaded it onto
his pickup and unloaded at my place. Thanks Tony!
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The cabinet amazingly
came with quite a lot of hardware being it was free and all.
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This angle shows how
someone had actually hacked off the Marquee straight and painted the sides
blue for some strange reason.
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The Marquee bezel fixture.
Lots and lots of hardened adhesive.
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This shows a better picture
of barriers of adhesive.
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This has been cut for
some reason. May need new wood here.
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Another shot of the straight
cut and hack job.
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If you'll notice, the
bottom front wood has been cut and hacked up as well as braced. New wood
needed here too.
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Even the speakers are
there as well as the speaker harness. And they are in fairly good shape.
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Bottom drawer and some
hardware.
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Can't imagine why it
was painted blue. Fairly certain there is no sideart underneath. Tried
a little 3M Safest Stripper, wouldn't cut it. Going to try some regular
stripper.
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Adhesive remover won't
cut through all the adhesive. Never ran into that issue before. Tried
a dremel and polish bit as well as Goof Off and even Paint Thinner. This
is an hour into it.
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Only 1 thing left to
do. Get the sander out and start sanding it smooth.
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Finished with the sander.
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Close up of the bottom
front section
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Home-made Marquee brackets
tack-welded and glued. Not sure if I'll use these.
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NTSC Encoder card.
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Coin door and frame along
with all the coin mechanisms minus the harness.
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The coin door has been
drilled for some reason.
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Even included the Coax.
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Electrohome G07 Monitor
without a Chassis. Need to pick one of those up.
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Removed the Scoreboard
to find that it had been painted on the reverse side.
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I don't think I did this.
But I used Goof-Off to remove the paint. This piece is unusable.
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Removed the old T-Molding
and starting to remove the old overlayment material. So long blue boy.
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Using a heat gun is the
only way to do this. About an hours work total time in removal. Burned
fingers are normal wear on this job.
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Completed removing the
old overlayment on both sides.
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Both the upper and lower
Marquee wood has been removed to recut new.
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looking pretty bare.
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During the removal of
the front panel I accidentally broke a piece off the side panel. Now I
need to do a front and side panel both.
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Going to recut new wood
for the front panel.
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A little surgery here
to avoid anymore side panel screw-ups. Not sure whether I'll keep the
side panels or not, the edges are pretty bugered up around the bottom.
But we'll see how this goes.
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Front panel removed as
well as some blocking. Going to replace the blocking with 3/4".
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For right now I'm going
to try glue and some bondo. May change my mind later and just cut new
sidepanels.
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Removed the old shaded
plastic overlay from the scoreboard slot. It was pretty scratched up and
had some paint spots in it from the old painted-over Scoreboard.
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The old worn plastic
LED display bezel. Looks like shaded overhead transparency material held
on by some light glue. May be hard to find a replacement.
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Tony Etzler again comes
through, said he had two spare CP's and offered them to me. To say the
least I took both! Thank you thank you Tony! The blue CP seems to not
fit the cabinet, just an 1/8th or so difference. But the upper fits like
a glove.
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Comparing the two there
are minor yet major differences. The one to the left has a better fit
to the cabinet. Where the right one seems wider. Also notice the upper
CP bracket differences . The right CP is also a beefier sheet metal. Looks
like an original stick included.
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Decisions decisions,
which one to restore to DL. Not sure but it seems the right one is a reproduction
and the left OEM. Either is going to take some work with hole filling
and with the left, hole filling and unbending some minor kinks and hoping
they don't show up.
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Removed these CP brackets.
I don't think these are original at all.
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I'm not real happy with this
material. It's so thin. Here's after removing the adhesive and sanding begun.
Still some adhesive lingering. The piece is a little warbled because of
it's thin metal. It could be made to work though with a hammer and anvil.
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Checking out the other
CP, I come across this. Looky what's underneath. Screenprinted directly
onto the piece. This is an original.
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Can't imagine anyone
drilling holes in a DL for a karate game. After adjusting the mounting
plates the piece fits good and snug. Lots beefier metal than the other.
I think I'll use this CP, but it still needs some work hole filling.
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It's not all warbled
and it's made of a stronger material. The other must be some cheap reproduction
work because the material is definitely not the same between the two.
Well it's off to the sandblasters to get this down to the bare metal first
before repairing the holes. Shame to lose the original screenprinting.
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New chipboard cut 3x4"
and stapled in position. Apparently this holds the plexi in place from
sliding up under the Control Panel. I placed this level but may have to
move it up if it doesn't work out.
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Holes sealed with elmers
wood putty both inside and out.
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bondo used to seal the
crevice at the previously broken joint.
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Looks like a job for
Bondo here on this front corner.
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Going to remove both
these boards and recut new. Also needs a set of leg levelers as well as
new foot nails.
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Bottom rear corner looks
pretty bad. Matter of fact the whole bottom looks bad. Pretty rounded
out on all corners and bottom edges. Have to get good clean edges for
the covering material to bond well.
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Keeping the old front
panel sections handy for accuracy in cutting even though I have all the
measurements. Couldn't get any verification of measurements from www.dragonslairproject.com.
Nobody wanted to check my measurements. Odd, they ask for cab plans-yet
noone can check a single measurement.
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4 Nail plates having
their nails removed by the bench grinder. These will serve as underlayment
before bondo'ing the control panel.
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The Laserdisk rails removed
and cleaned. A shot of silicone lubricant along the tracks, wheels and
bearings.
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Speakers having been
cleaned with the kitchen sinks' sprayer. Lightly towel dried and left
to air dry.
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Bondo applied to entire
bottom most portion of the cabinet in layers. Going to have to flip the
cab to get the other side of this front corner.
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The front bottom corner
gets some special attention.
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The original Dragon's
Lair monitor. No monitor frame came with this monitor.
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Picking up my Stargate
project near Cleveland, the gent had given me this monitor with a badly
busted neck tube and board with heavy burn of Pacman on the front. The
frame from this monitor will do nicely. Guess it pays after all to be
a pack-rat.
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Monitor transferred to
frame.
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Cut new wood for the
bottom Marquee using Jeff Kinder's plans. Needing some 5/8" ply for
the top Marquee.
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New stock 3/4" ply
cut for bottom of cab.
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New stock 3/4" pressboard
Front Cabinet Panel cut.
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New 5/8" plywood
cut for the Top Marquee.
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Sanding down the entire
right panel.
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Putting the groove into
the side panel for T-Molding.
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Test fit of the front
panel to cabinet. Going to have to cover this first before making it permanent.
Needing the last tool in the cabinet shop. A Router. Would prove very
useful for finishing this piece off by cutting out the coin-door.
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Getting near time to
order some covering material for this ol' girl. Flipped the cab over on
it's right side to work on the left.
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Blocking stapled to the
lower marquee.
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Old blocking removed
and replaced with new pine on the inside sidepanels and the bottom of
the speaker panel.
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Call me silly, but I
threw a coat or two of Kilz sealer on the bottom of the cab for added
protection.
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Portions of the rear
cabinet get a good inspection and Bondoed some rough spots as well as
the rear access panel.
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After the primer coat
I then applied a couple coats of Glidden Black Exterior Latex. Afterwards
I then applied 4 gliders and nuts for the Leg Levellers. Found the Nuts
at Lowe's and the Glides at Meijers.
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Also sanded down and
painted the rear access and the upper marquee panels.
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The upper and lower support
panels also recieved a coat of exterior latex.
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Table saw and router
used to build a new panel for the cabinet's pull-out drawer that holds
the laserplayer. The original had been hacked up pretty good.
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Routered the coin-door
entry.
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Resoldered the video
cable to the connector.
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Looks like there's some
damage here to this video board. Looks to be a horizontal width coil of
some type that will need replacing.
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Control Panel being stripped
down to the metal. Crossing fingers I can find a CPO now that Philippe
Bourbon is giving up on repros.
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Terrific looking Cinematronics
Coin-door label sent to me from James Goiffon with just a request for
a donation of your own choosing. Sent me two of them. One for my Space
Ace project and one for this Dragon's Lair. Thanks James!
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07/28/2003 Recieved the
Dragon's Lair Marquee from Arcade Renovations. Absolutely beautiful piece
of work and well packaged. Needing the CPO and Sideart to complete the
set.
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Recieved the Leg Levellers
from Arcadeshop and ready to install.
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A little soapy water
created with some Dawn dishwashing detergent and warm water. This should
help with minor adjustments when applying the Marquee to the plexi.
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And here we go. You just
have to dive right in and gathering alot of testicular fortitude beforehand.
I probably put a bit too much soapy water on this plexi and the artwork
starting off.
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This really had me worried
as I started from the left and worked my way right. It was really way
too sloppy, but eventually and while wiping across the top with a damp
towel several several times, it finally began to set.
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It did help however that
the plexi was clear as you could see where the air pockets were and gently
ease them out with your hand from the opposite side.
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Trimming excess material
from the overlay using the plexi as a guide.
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Finished trimming the
excess material off.
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The finished product.
I'll have to admit I was sweating bullets for a while. Be careful not
to put too much soapy water on when you do it.
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In keeping with 'restoration'
I replaced the staples with new. The original purpose of these were to
keep the nuts from backing out. I used regular staples and rebent, cut
and form them individually to the desired length. Using a hammer to drive
them in, all 8 were applied. This was a huge waste of time as you'll see
later on in the project. One of the staple-nuts came right back out after
moving the cabinet around a bit. Don't waste your time with this. Use
the Leg Leveller brackets as sold by Arcadeshop.com. Yea, 4 bucks a piece
x 4 , but they're very durable and provide the tops in hardware strength
and will STAY there.
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The arcadeshop Leg Levellers
were then screwed into the nuts. It's now about time the overlayment material
arrives from my friend Jeff Kinder over at the dragonslairproject.com.
If there's anything Dragons' Lair you want to know, he is the man to see!
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The overlayment material
arrives from Jeff Kinder.
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Jeff had precut the material
for my front panel and marquee. So I was able to just lay the material
over and begin applying it.
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Front Panel turned out
beautiful.
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Left Side Panel covering
begun. Started application at the bottom and worked my way to the top
being sure to keep all air pockets out.
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Left Panel finished and
looking like new. Right Panel was then completed in the same manner.
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Decided to recover a
portion of the inside towards the front Panel of the cabinet.
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Covering complete.
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Wood Glue and Staples
used to fasten the front panel to the cabinet.
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Covering being placed
over the last remaining piece. The lower Marquee wood.
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Piece finished, trimmed
and ready to be placed in the cabinet.
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Lower Marquee wood stapled
in place.
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Upper Marquee then secured
to the cabinet.
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Completed recovering
the cabinet. Cabinet restoration nearly complete. Have to apply new T-Molding
and start working on the laser player drawer.
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Wiped down the cabinet
interior with an armor all wipe.
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Cabinet looking pretty
fresh and new.
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Speaker grills repainted.
Unfortunately while drying a white haze formed. After going to weather.com
it was found that the humidity levels were at 93%. I'll have to sand and
repaint these.
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Robbing the Cinematronics
coin door off the Space Ace project. Pretty dinged up and a couple holes
drilled.
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A shot of the wiring
for reference in reassembly. This harness will remain with the Space Ace
unit but it's a good reference.
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The LED indicator board
fastened to the rear of the Dragon's Lair cabinet with two screws.
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LED indicator secured
awaiting me to find some kind of tinted covering material that goes over
the top. Need to find a source for this stuff.
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Discovered a new use
for a butter cup cap. Sanding the Cinematronics logo clean for the coin-door
insert.
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Switching gears to the
Control Panel. 2 Ton Epoxy used to fasten a few plates to holes that are
later to be filled in by bondo.
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2 Plates finished and
the application is going smoothly.
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Finished with the epoxy
application for the inner CP plates. Allowing 8 hours to dry.
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Stapling the monitor
bezel in place. Yea there's a little bit of moisture on it as I just wiped
it down with a wet cloth.
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Test fitting the monitor
plexi. Very snug fit. Going to take this inside for a good buffing and
polishing with some Novus #2. Found that I really should have used a 5/8"
piece of wood rather than the 3/4" I made previously to hold the
plexi in place.
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Bondo applied over the
non original holes that were drilled into the Control Panel.
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Electric sander used
in sanding the bondo down. 80 grit sandpaper from Walmart at $4.00 bucks
for 3 sheets. Sheesh-and they say low prices..always? But it's good stuff
so I stick with it on all projects.
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Second coat of aluminum
applied to the control panel. Sun dried. Lima currently has an infestation
of japanese beetles imported to kill some other pest. Now THEIR the pests.
Took the work inside shortly after this shot as there were just too many
flying pests looking for a landing area.
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Test fit of the control
panel.
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The Control Panel Overlay
from Arcade Renovations arrives! Very professional and care in packaging.
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A beautiful piece of
artwork. I ran this and the control panel down to SignPro graphics for
them to apply it.
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Prepared the work surface
for the sliding drawer. Removed the old hacked up rear panel and about
50 staples.
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Blocking material and
new rear panel cut and routed.
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Staple gun and carpenters
glue used to apply the blocking material and rear panel.
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Added the ply stopper
to the rear drawer panel. Something that wasn't there when I recieved
this cabinet. Now the drawer stops when it's supposed to.
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Outer surface primed
and painted.
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A beautiful control panel
test fitted onto the cabinet.
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Side panel screw hardware
wire brushed and painted.
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Took some information
off the air filter to try and find a replacement. Eco-Air 10x15x1
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Finally the last piece
of Dragon's Lair reproduction artwork arrives. Well, almost. Still needing
a Scoreboard repro plexi.
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The old Masking tape
positioning trick. Positioned it where I wanted it around 16.75"
from the Top and 2.5" from the rear.
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The Lamination roller
did a fantastic job of rolling out all the bubbles. A sqeegy would pull
on the label too much. Learning from past mistakes I only applied enouph
of a mist of glass cleaner to coat the rear of the label lightly. I did
not apply more to the vinyl covering. I initially rolled any bubbles out
with the protective covering over the sideart.
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Afterwhich, the protective
covering was carefully removed and another heavy roll to get out any remaining
air pockets.
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Cabinet flipped and process
started over again with the other side. The old masking tape positioning
trick. Cut the bottom half of the adhesive backing off, adhering the bottom
half, rolling any air pockets out, then removing the top half of the backing
material.
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Lightly coating the exposed
adhesive backing with glass cleaner for the top portion.
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Removing the protective
covering and preparing to roll the other side.
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DOH!!! So much for the
experimental application of the original hardware. I rebondoed this and
redrilled the hole then repainted the surface. Hammered the staple nut
in place. If this doesn't work out I'm going to have to pick up some regular
leg leveller brackets from Arcadeshop.
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The finished sideart
as applied to the cabinet.
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Monitor mounting brackets
fastened to cabinet with washers and snug tightened. I was careful not
to overtighten as to allow the bolts to turn, this would wrinkle or blemish
the sideart.
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Monitor mounted in cabinet
with 1/4"x 3/4" bolts, washers, lockwashers and nuts used to
secure the monitor to the mounting brackets. Since the monitor and hardware
didn't come installed with the cab there was some guesswork used here
in what size bolts were originally used. Very difficult to install as
there's very little to no finger/hand room and we wouldn't want to install
the bolts upside down now would we?
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With the help of Daphne
I'm able to actually play the Dragon's Lair Laserdisc as if it were the
game. This gave me a good accurate method to test the disc and player
seek times rather than just watch it full length on a regular TV set albeit
somewhat clunky and not as responsive as the full arcade cabinet version.
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No video problems at
all. No scratches and no problems. Laserdisc and player (LDP-2000) test
out great!
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After revisiting the
Air filter issue I called the ECO-AIR company to find they had no stock,
wanted me to call another office on the east coast and that they were
able to make a custom filter. That spells=$. Talked with Michael Fox on
this and he found this site Complete
Air Filter solutions and I tend to opt for the HI-E 40 at $5.95 per
filter. Seems the best replacement for this part. After all these cabinets
are not air-tight but this may keep the worst of the dust out.
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Michael Fox, a one stop
complete source of information on Dragon's Lair components also passed
along that Gainger carries a replacement fan filter. Part #4YD78 for around
$3 bucks. Thanks Michael!
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Tony brought over some
parts from a Dragon's Lair project he had around Christmas time. Despite
my best efforts with Novus #2, I couldn't get all the imperfections out
of it.
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The volume and coin counter
switch was part of what Tony had brought over. Here is a shot of it before
any work. I've seen images of this with a brushed metal appearance however
this doesn't appear to have or ever had that finish. A bit of rust and
decay has set in so it's off to the sandblaster as soon as the parts are
all removed.
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After blasting, priming
and painting I reassembled the unit as it appears here. I placed the default
off location of volume switches directly downward.
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The rear of the unit.
Noted from a few other pictures that the coin counter gets attached to
the main volume switch harness molex connector.
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Here the pins have been
inserted positive and negative into the top middle and center left rows
with male pins.
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Moving right along, the
Dragon's Lair coin-door is sandblasted to remove the old and worn powdercoating.
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Sandblasting finished,
the frame and coin-door are coated with primer and then sanded. Bondo
applied to defective areas, hardened and then sanded. Final coat of primer
applied to surface.
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The coinbox after sandblasting,
is primed.
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Coindoor and frame are
both applied with crinkle coat paint. An experiment as an alternative
to powder coating.
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Coin door and frame are
reassembled. A coin-door lock will need to be purchased yet.
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Coindoor and frame are
placed into the unit. The harness will be built after the main harness
is applied.
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Scoreboard plexi arrives
from arcade renovations, packed with care.
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Rails arrive from Byron
Reich byron@hdbellmore.
Compretty raw looking, but a great reproduction nonetheless. Hard to find
item but he makes them himself.
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Rails painted with $14.00
Harley Davidson aerosol crinkle coat paint. I didn't really like the results
of the other $7.00 paint store aerosol crinkle coat paint so this is a
further experimentation. Had to hit it about 3 times from a distance to
get a spatter pattern before any texture started to appear. Someone on
rgvac suggested using a stone textured paint first, then the overcoat.
I'll have to try that next time.
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Marquee mounted with
new rails. Drilled holes for screws that were dipped in gun blueing solution
a few times.
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Correction: Not hard
to find; IMPOSSIBLE to find a suitable replacement material. Sample of
the material sent to a photo house out of Canada for matching. Planning
on buying some material in bulk if they can. Then cut it and resell it
for this purpose.
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The used old DL scoreboard
plexi. Perhaps someone else can use it.
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A great replacement joystick
for Dragon's Lair from Valco Sales
and for only $18.95 it's a real bargain! An added bonus is the lack of
a brass retaining shaft that was nearly impossible to get off on the old
one. Complete with all 4 leaf switches.
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Beginning the process
of joystick assembly.
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Stick mounted with carriage
bolts.
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A shot of the finished
mount.
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Recieved a sample comparison
from a distributor for the material that sits between the scoreboard and
LED. Original is on top. Light meter testing revealed a 2 stop difference
between no Poly Filter and with. The original is slightly more brown tone,
but age could cause this. This is the closest match yet.
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Didn't know this before
but the fan for a Star Trek pcb cage is the same fan used on a Dragon's
Lair exhaust. A Torin T450. This will be pulled and placed in the Dragon's
Lair cabinet.
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The TA450 fan was removed
from the Star Trek board casing. Cleaned and tested with a 110v power
supply. Placed in service inside the DL cabinet with 4 new 6mmx2.5"
stove screws and nuts as purchased from Menards.
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The outer protective
cover for the fan also was attached as purchased from Grainger.
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A strikingly close match
to the bronze tone of the original Dragon's Lair scoreboard material.
The material still has the white backing attached before applying. The
main difference here is the material rigidity. It is a melleable vinyl
material. Each sheet is cut 8-1/2 x 6" and can be purchased here.
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After the protective
backing is removed, the new covering material is applied by about 1/2"
coating of Elmers rubber cement on either side of the scoreboard panel
.
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Scoreboard plexi is test
fitted. Need to pick up some carriage bolts of the proper size. 10-24
x 2"
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Dragon's Lair power supply
arrives from Quarterarcade.com. Looks to be in excellent A1 condition.
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Ordered 100 10-24 x2"
carriage bolts, washers and nuts from Fastenall on Thursday. They arrived
the following Monday. Perfect match for the DL scoreboard/speakers. I
haven't been real pleased with the Gun Blueing method. You could never
get the polished look and it took 4 times longer than just painting the
screws. Got the speakers, grills and score panel mounted to the cabinet.
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The finished score display panel.
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Applied new leather T-Molding
to both right and left panels.
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Fabricating a 12x12 plated
steel sheet for the power supply/isolation transformer mounts.
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An original galvenized
plate from which to make a template and drill the holes with the drill
press. The original plate came from a Space Ace project cabinet.
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The conversion standoffs
were removed from the cabinet and new grounding plate test fitted.
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Beginning the wiring
harness phase. Mounted the volume control and coin counter.
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Coin tray gets a shot
of rustoleum Semi-Gloss black.
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I wasn't real happy with
the grounding plate that I'd made earlier that mounts to the side of the
cabinet. The material just wasn't thick enouph and would tend to sag with
the weight of the PS and transformer as it was mounted to the inside cabinet
sidepanel. I ended up taking what I had, the original SAand the created
sheet to a metal fabricators to have them make an exact thickness replacement
sheet. The PS mounts perfectly to it using carriage bolts.
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Some (4) nylon spacers
were used to prevent the power supply from bowing as it was tightened
to the sheet metal. These were purchased from Lowe's and are 1/2 x .375
x 5/8.
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Did some research on
the power outlet and found that DigiKey still distributes an original
manufacturers part #6EF1F. The original is from a SA project that will
be put back in place. Now, as far as power is concerned, all that remains
is an interlock switch. I'm not
sure why an interlock switch was used in place of a normal on/off switch.
Going to look this up some more.
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An order to Mikesarcade.com
later, and I have the proper 2 Red and 2 White short buttons and 4 leaf
switch button holders. They fit perfectly on this control panel.
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Buttons installed and
the control panel finally has all it's parts except for the CP harness,
which I will need to fabricate.
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Fabricated new power
inlet panels for the missing one on this cabinet. Laser Cut precision
from an original on another cabinet to be restored to a Space Ace.
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Mike's arcade's safety
switch is just a hair larger than the original. The laser cut CAD file
for the original power panel was adjusted to accomodate this switch.
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The switch fits perfectly
in this new panel. If you need a new panel for your cabinet I had extra
made and they can be purchased in the online
store.
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Panel assembled. I found
the appropriate hardware at Lowe's. 4-40 x 1/2 SS Machine screws Pan Head
Slotted. #4 Lock washers internal tooth. 4-40 Hex Machine Nuts stainless.
The only difference from original was that the original screws were phillips
head.
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Power inlet panel placed
into service on the restored cabinet using two carriage bolts. Power outlet
to the right and the center prong faces upward.
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The power assembly is
mounted to the left side of the cabinet using 4 carriage bolts.
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9ft computer power cord
purchased from Office Max.
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Brand new Barrel
locks installed on both the front and back doors of the cabinet. Found a
good source for these at R&D Lock & Key just around the corner.
10 bucks a per. |
Dragon's Lair Main PCB.
Actually never got around to snapping a picture of this until now. Embarrassed
to say at this time that I THINK Tony provided this gem. Gave it to me
I believe around Christmas a couple years ago. By the time I finish this
restoration, it'll need restored again! But, this is what happens when
you start from scratch and one part at a time.
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I believe the very last
thing I need to get this fired up is a complete wire harness. Found this
golden nugget over on Quarterarcade.com for $125.00 plus shipping. A brand
new reproduction Dragons Lair wiring harness. If I could read the original
schematic a little better and had an electronics shop local to me I'd
probably make it myself.
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Whoops! Can't forget
the LaserAce laser disc conversion kit. Probably go ahead and get the
Sony LDP power adapter too. This little baby runs $225.00
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Package arrives from
Quarterarcade. Well packed and prestine condition. I did notice the designer
used a cherry switch much smaller than Mikes' Arcade's cherry switches
which I designed the power plate after. I swapped out the smaller unit.
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Apparently not as complete
as I had hoped for. No harness for the Coin Mech or the Control Panel.
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From what I've been told
by Shaun Woods, this wire is meant to go to a Space Ace expansion board.
So it's unused in Dragons' Lair.
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Didn't find a connector
on the main harness for the fan power.
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This pair is coming off
J2 of the power supply. This leads to pins 1 and 2 of the secondary/isolation
transformer. From there, pins 3 and 4 lead to the monitor power.
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The Control Panel and
Coin Mech harnesses both have this molex 9 pin connector. I'll need to
find the mating connectors for these to get both wired up.
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Really not certain why
this fan even has a molex connector on it. I removed this connector and
spliced into the lamp voltage.
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The Roms all say 4(1-5)-B
on them. Talked with Shaun Wood and he feels that they may just be sloppy
handwriting and should say U1-U5 on a Rev. B pcb. Good to know what Revision
your boardset is. I'll have to look it over more closely and see if it
says anywhere on the board.
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Yay! We have Marquee
lights. Neck tube glow. Monitor now has power, but no video signal.
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This is the current hookup
from the laserdisc player directly to this Encoder board that is mounted
just off to the left of the picture tube. Note the empty connector on
the bottom left. I'm not sure what goes here.
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Is this right? I soldered
the white wire to the second encoder board contact. But would like to
varify that this connection is good. Only the black wire existed before.
Still no signal to monitor though from the lasermax.
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Youtube video of Dragon's
Lair current state. 1 beep, then 1 dual tone. But this is without power
to the laserdisc player and no video from the pcb. Not sure what this
proves, but the pcb seems to be functioning at some level. There is no
LED on this pcb to show it's functioning.
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I couldn't get it to
work right running directly from the switch and line filter to the fan.
Looking over the Magicom wiring harness guide I found both the lamp and
fan came off of PS2. So, I just tapped into the lamp harness to get my
115v. The fan is now running properly. need to figure out which direction
of airflow yet though. I'm thinking blowing air out. Click on image to
enlarge
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Molex connectors arrive
from Molex.com and were in business for creating a Coin Door and Control
Panel Harnesses. Here I'm creating the harness using 22awg wire, crimp
on clips and a 9pin molex.
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Coin door now finished.
Lights up beautiful, but not getting any coin up to the game. So something
may be up with the DL pcb.
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The 3rd Brontosaurus
laserdisk player. LDV-8000. Apparently this works with the LaserCon
LDP Player conversion card that I have yet to purchase. I'm going to leave
it packed up until ready for use.
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I recieved my Jameco order for the ribbons
and connectors for the scoreboard.
| Mfg |
Jameco Catalog# |
Mfg# |
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AMP Tyco
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525325 |
746285-3 |
| Jameco Valuepro |
643831 |
171-16-10 |
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With very little guidance
on this step. And restorting to my IT experience, I knew the red stripe
signified Pin 1. Pin 1 is usually the bottom left of any pcboard. I could
be off but as long as I hit pin 1 on both ends or variably both like pins
on both sides. Even if I were 100 percent backwards it would still work.
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Pin 1, red stripe to
left bottom. Now to give her a try.
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Well I think that's the
result I want.
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Picked up an RCA audio
video cable. I couldn't find just a video cable by itself so I had to
buy this, then strip the red and white lines off completely.
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A gold plated RCA to
BNC male converter. I know, the cable's not gold plated, but you do what
you can do, it was only a buck more.
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Now to test, a standard
dvd player hooked up to the NTSC card. When powered up, I found the G07-CBO
video cable leading from the NTSC was not plugged in. I plugged it in,
smelled burning and saw a resistor heating up white hot on the chassis.
Powered down. Apparently it also powered down my dvd player, so I'm getting
some feedback in the line. Regardless, no video. Ordered a G07-CBO cap
kit to start with. This monitor needs some work.
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Ran a brand new cap kit
and upgrade to the G07-CBO. Reinstalled the Chassis to find that it still
did nothing for the video. Still getting a black screen.
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I checked what had been
turning white hot beforehand R522. It seems to be ok now. But may need
to replace that resistor.
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To check out the NTSC
board, I removed it from the G07 and placed it in service in another cabinet,
pacman, known to have good video. Plugged it in, plugged in the DVD player.
To find that I got the exact same result. black video with some lines
towards the bottom of the monitor. It would appear the problem is in this
NTSC decoder.
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I have good 16v at P102
pin 1. All resistors look fine. No burn marks on the board. The only two
things it can be is the actual BNC hookup or this TDA3570 chip. A 28pin
$17.00 chip from Mouser.
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Won an ebay auction for
an NTSC decoder. Recieved it and compared it to the other card.
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This finally shows me
how this is wired per OEM factory. I also tried this card in DL and found
I got the same result. Pulled the DVD player and hooked it up to a TV
and found that my video had gone out on the player itself. WTH did that?
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Recieved a replacement
TDA3570 chip for a couple bucks on Ebay. The guy even threw in a socket
for it. Nice.
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Picked up a new $30 dvd
player, hooked it up and got a good video signal. Here the DL cabinet
is powered up and playing Battlestar Galactica
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Closer view of the screen
while a dvd is playing.
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I finally committed the
$150 to the LaserCon card after being contacted 3 times by Shaun Wood
on his 3rd run of Lasercon Conversion cards. I had to drop out of an Asteroids
Deluxe complete, non-working to afford this. But I figure, get what you
have fixed first before picking up more projects. As it is, this is a
7 year itch that needed completed.
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Unpacked the Lasercon
conversion card. Very complete with great instructions to follow in it's
installation. Everything you'd need to get a DL going.
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Readying the Dragons
Lair PCB for some work. First had to remove all the nuts from the Eprom
board and secure the Lasercon with it's included risers creating a 3 board
stack.
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5/16" nuts reinstalled
and lightly secured. Looking over the instructions for the next step is
to place the connection with the included ribbon cable to the main control
board.
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Going from Pin 1 to Pin
1 of the lasercon. I also secured the +5v as suggested to the leg of resistor
R22. I am now ready to go. I powered on and found that the Laserdisc would
freeze on the elevator sequence - wth?! Is it a bad Pioneer LDV-8000?
Holy crap! Reminds me I never tested this player.
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Hooking it back up to
the TV, same results. I break open the top cover on the bench and clean
the optics. No improvement. Go into service mode and find an option to
Re-initialize the Eproms. Doh - it cleared everything out. So I go back
in and set 4800 baud 8N1 comms. This worked on the TV, now getting attract
mode and full play of the disc. Now if it will communicate with the lasercon.
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It's just playing the
entire disc at random. Taking a look at game Dips, I set it all for default.
I then set the Lasercons' dip switch opposite as it came to me, meaning
it's now set for a PR-7820. Whalla! Dragons lair now plays the attract.
EVERY 10 SECONDS. Ok, gotta turn sw1 - 1 to off, so it runs every 8th
sequence. Much better.
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Still need to recap the
NTSC card I believe. Way too much Chroma and washed out colors. I also
need to create a socket to plug in the laserdisc player inside the cabinet.
And I also need to create a CP harness. Am I ever going to get done with
this?
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Created a control panel
harness with the helpful page of Sam's Dragon's Lair. Very good documentation
and a smooth procedure.
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Wire ties clean up the
harness. It's now ready to mount.
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Now to get the Laserdisc
player running off the cabinet's power. I had all the parts onhand to
create a 120v socket.
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Tapped into the line
filter and it's running great. The next stop will be to try and figure
out why the monitors colors are all washed out and why the chroma effect?
I also found a portion of the laserdisc that is having difficulty, the
lizard king sequence. I've looked over and cleaned and polished the disc,
but not seeing anything wrong with it.
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I was getting alot of
skipping in one particular area, the lizard king, probably developed a
problem with the laserdisc, but it led me to also check the Eproms. I
found all but the 1st eprom had bad checksums. So I then erased them all
to reprogram them. Going with Rev. C eproms initially to see if that helps
however I may in the end go with the Enhanced because I'm never getting
the bridge sequence I used to back when DL was new. Still may need to
buy another Laserdisc if I can't find the bad spot, if there is one on
the disc.
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After erasing the 5 Eproms,
2764's I found that I could not reprogram them. Always got an error within
2% of writing, which then led me to have to re-erase. Ordered new 2764's
from arcadechips.com
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I had to send the board
off to Shaun Wood at Lasercon as for some reason, I lost my beeps and
the disc is skipping. Shaun offered to take a free look at it. Ended up
costing $50 to get the Eproms sockets and 40 pin ribbon header replaced.
I know that kind of operation takes alot of tedious work. But the laserdisc
has a bad spot on it, which is causing the skipping. Looks like I'll have
to find yet another DL Laserdisc. Thanks Shaun for helping me so much
with this.
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The old NTSC card needs some TLC. So
time to run a cap kit on it.
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C101-100uf25v
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C103-10uf25v
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C108-2.2uf100v
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C109-10uf25v
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C110-10uf25v
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C111-10uf25v
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C113-10uf25v
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C114-10uf25v
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C115-10uf25v
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C127-.22uf50v
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C128-.22uf50v
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C129-4.7uf50v
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C130-.22uf50v
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C131-1uf50v
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Cap kit completed. I
was able to run this cap job using caps I'd ordered for the Zaxxon pcb
caps I'd ordered some time ago. I had many spare.
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For some reason the monitor
was now out. I decided to replace the original flyback with brand new.
Purchased this from Chad at arcadecup for $25.00 shipped.
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The old original flyback
before removal. Really not sure if this is all that bad, but I've never
done a flyback before, so good learning experience.
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The brand new flyback
in place and ready to go. Now to throw the chassis back into the cabinet
and give it a try.
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I really had to mess
with the decoder adjustments ALOT to get a great image. I think this cabinet
is about ready to button up and place into service finally.
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I played a few test games,
but honestly I'm needing alot more practice even to get to the lizard
king level once again. I think I finally hit the spot that was skipping
with some Novus #2 and it seems to have resolved the issue. Hopefully
this disc is not going to ever skip again. They don't make them any longer.
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Powered it on a day later
and the monitor was dead again. Even after replacing all the caps and
flyback. I ran through a bit of the G07 flowchart. Tested a few voltages
and decided to replace both chassis transistors. Here, the 2SD870, the
Horizontal Output Transistor (HOT)
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These buggers are not
easy to replace. You have to unsolder and resolder wires directly to the
transistor legs - crazy.
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Swapped out the 2SC1106
power regulator transistor as well.
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During some voltage measurements
I accidentally grounded a ceramic resistor leg to the chassis frame, which
blew my F901 small pigtail fuse. Replaced this and ordered a few extra
to have on-hand.
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I now have video again.
Lets hope this covered the problem finally. The worst feeling is turning
on the arcade room switch and having a down game.
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