Japanese STARBLADE Saved From Oblivion

[ataritoobin]

I caught wind of a Japanese Namco Starblade machine that was heading for the dump.  

Trouble is, it was a state away.  I'm completely out of room.  What to do?  SAVE STARBLADE!  

I have a friend nearby the game's location, but it was just too big.  I wouldn't be able to make it out there before the game was dumped, so I arranged for a shipping company to pick it up.  The owner went way over and above to help me out with this, and even wrapped it with cardboard and shrink wrap  .  Arrived safely, as described with no surprises.  Big thumbs up.


One week later, the poor delivery driver was sent out alone with a liftgate that was narrower than the game.  We were able to get it braced as it came down to safety (350kg  ).



The game is too tall to fit through the garage door!  I removed the upper monitor shell and was able to just make it in.

Here she is next to her older sister:



Dirty!  Unfortunately, it sat in a shipping container for at least 10 years.  Mirror intact!  There is some plastic damage on the rear left "tail light."



Some rust, lots of dirt.



Spare parts!  A couple of bulbs for the rear monitor section.



Seat damage.  Oddly enough the seat design is nearly identical to the Pole Position seat  



This indeed is heart breaking    The area with the most moisture/rust:



The power supplies are for sure shot.  The PCBs, from what I could tell didn't look too bad, but I understand they're already finicky in the first place.  The cage screws are rusted stuck.



The original Japanese instruction sheet was peeled from the inner-side of the cabinet and stuck to the top of the cabinet.  I suppose the operator didn't want to "confuse Americans?":



After a few hours of cleaning, it's actually in much better shape than I anticipated:





So - long road ahead.  Especially electronically. Totally worth it!  

[Belike]

That is the real Arcade spirit!!!

[DarthNuno]

MAKE SPACE FOR STARBLADE!!! The flyer says it all! 

Wooaww! The Japanese version is the coolest one! I'm jealous! They are really cool stickers and artworks on it... and what about the huge UGSF sticker! I'm in love!

For a cockpit supposed to be dumped, it's in a very nice condition! Don't be shy to post a maximum of pictures of the beast, we don't have a lot of information about that Japanese model of the best space rail shooter ever done (except Galaxian3 of course, but both are from the same 'family') 

(oh, and by the way I recently scored an second Starblade [for parts only]...but it's an other story 'in the pipe'  )

 

[ataritoobin]

Thanks guys  !  Make space for Starblade indeed! (I look forward to your next Starblade thread, Bruno!)

I'm hoping to restore this as least invasively as possible.  I don't think I'll wind up painting anything aside from the inner cabinet (remove the rust and shoot a clear coat plus some black overspray, as the original appears to be) and probably just the very top flat surface of the platform and the speaker grilles.

Some observations:
 - Unlike the yellow models, it doesn't use the PC style power supply, but rather separate Sanken +5V 20A and +12V 2A switchers, which are still available in Japan.
 - Is there no transformer in this cab?  It's the first cab I've seen that doesn't use one - doesn't look like there is anything to connect to one, nor any signs there had been one.
 - The Nanao MS8-25FAN3 is encased, so I imagine it has its own isolation transformer.  Will take a closer look once I get it down.
 - The secondary fuse on the monitor is blown.  From what I've read online, this seems to indicate the HOT has failed.  From what I've also read, folks have replaced the HOT only to power it back up and find the vertical deflection to have gone out, again blowing the HOT and fuse    Before I even try to replace the fuse, I'll check/replace:

EDIT: Glad I double checked my parts on my monitor - the schematic I could find was for the 26" model which has different parts!
  Q533 (D1887/NTE2354)
  Q901(C3306/NTE2308)
  C332 on neckboard (10uf 250v)
  R903 (330 Ohm)
  R904 (68 Ohm)
  Q401, Q402 (2SD1136/NTE375)
  R433 (2.2k Ohm, 1/4w)  
  D431, D432 (1SS133/NTE519)
  C537 (4.7uf 100V)
  C433 (10uf 25v)
  2A 20mm Fuse

- 100 Yen "coinage" insert from coin mech is missing.
- 2 oval coinage stickers seem to have been removed from the face of the coin door
- Coin door was pried open at some point  I started to get this bent back into shape.
- One power supply has a capacitor rolling around inside of it and the other has crust on all the resistors.
- A few bolts around the cabinet are rusted/broken/missing, and will need to be replaced/drilled out.
- At least two bulbs in the rear area are burnt out, one is missing, but there were two spares in the bottom of the cabinet.  I suspect the strobes are bad  

I was able to cut the rear of the rusted backs of the screws from the PCB cage and remove the PCBs.  I don't have high hopes, but they look to be in surprisingly nice shape:






I also removed the rear electronics door so that the inside can be sandblasted.  I removed the fan (also had to cut the rear of 2 screws as they were so rusted )  This probably should be replaced  :




I was also able to safely get the instructions off of the top of the cabinet and into a temporary (obviously  ), proper position:



Next I plan to sandblast the PCB cage and the inside of the rear door so I can start putting things back together and testing them out.  I'll also start rebuilding the monitor, and I have two new switchers on the way.

[Belike]

This will be a hell of a job, but every minute you spend on this, worth the hassle.
The pcbs look promising indeed, I guess those eproms are "factory missing".

[ataritoobin]

This will be a hell of a job, but every minute you spend on this, worth the hassle.
The pcbs look promising indeed, I guess those eproms are "factory missing".

Absolutely!  

I believe those EPROMs are missing as designed, but I'm not 100% sure.

[ataritoobin]

Not too much new to report.  I found all the monitor components I was looking for, did some small cleanup today and removed the coin box section for dis-assembly/de-rusting.

I used some naptha to remove the crusty sticker gunk that was all over the right hand side of the marquee (apologies for crummy before pic):




I have a question for the UGSF team, if they don't mind:

What is the safest way to remove the monitor from the unit?  I see it suggested that 3 people help with assembly of the machine.

Thanks!  

[DarthNuno]

You can have a look at this topic for some high resolution Starblade pcb pictures.

Arf, your pictures host is still unavailable! I can host your pictures if you want 

[ataritoobin]

You can have a look at this topic for some high resolution Starblade pcb pictures.

Arf, your pictures host is still unavailable! I can host your pictures if you want  

Wow, thanks!  That will be very handy.  I may take you up on the image hosting  

Does anybody have a scan of the Nanao MS8-25 schematics?  I can only find the MS8-26 and MS8-29 schematics which are different.

If not, would someone be able to confirm the value of R905 (towards flyback/rear transistor) and R530 (near control knobs)?

[ataritoobin]

I removed the wiring and internal brackets so that I could start attempting to grind the rust down on the inside of the cabinet:


Rust city!


I had some assistance today and was able to get the monitor down from the cabinet.

The tube has a nice, dark tint (hard to tell from the flash):


While I had the help, we removed the canopy for cleaning:


Monitor chassis was removed:




Cleaned (small, dry paintbrushes and occasionally disinfectant wipes) and some parts replaced:


Q901 and Q533 were indeed bad, and R905 R530 are crumbled and unmeasurable  I've replaced a few of the other known trouble areas listed above.

[ataritoobin]

Anybody want to take a stab at these resistor values from these blurry pics I found online? 


R530 looks like it might be white, brown, red, gold?


R905 red, brown, gray, gold? Or is there one more value to the left?   

[ataritoobin]

I scraped away with various wire brush drill attachments to remove the rust from the PCB door:

Before:


In progress:


Interior of back PCB door with fresh "overspray" paint job, original coin door paint job in foreground for reference:


Coin box frame:


De-rusted and first coat.  I ran out of paint!

[ataritoobin]

Removed the upper monitor frame and cleaned up the surface area a bit (disinfectant wipes, followed by Novus 2.  Will finish with Novus 1 once I replace my now empty bottle ):





I suppose this is corrosion on the metal monitor bezel and not some sort of starfield pattern  :


Inside of the upper plastic:

[Etienne MacGyver]

Thats hardcore cleaning and resto there ! 

[ataritoobin]

Thats hardcore cleaning and resto there !  

Thanks, Etienne!

I scanned the coinage sticker that was in the bottom of the cabinet and thanks to a pic from a JAMMA+ member's trip to Japan, I was able to recreate the original stickers that were at some point removed from my door:



I cleaned up the inside of the marquee plastic.  Notice the "sun tan" from the florescent light:


Ground-down and sprayed the monitor frame:


With some help from my father in law, we were able to remove the remaining stuck screws and disassembled the PCB cage.


PCB cage wood  :