Atari Centipede

[Morty]

Hi,

Just thought I would post some pictures of progress so far on the Centipede upright that landed in the UK last week


Chris did a great job of packing, nice and safe




After USA -> Germany -> Belgium -> UK
Finally in my back garden for a quick clean up, this is it upon arrival




Damage to the wood:(  (done along time ago, it came in from the USA like this)
But I am happy, i'm better at woodwork than electronics..




USA serial stickers all intact, great for Atari fan like me
I've been searching for an upright US version for a while now, plenty of Irish ones around but this was what I wanted
Front/rear/PSU/ARII/monitor serials all match, only the game board has been changed




Ready for some resto work, screen printed CPO on its way from the USA now (and one for Chris's Centipede also)




All present and correct.. really clean metalwork, this cab has never been near water, not seen one this good before, very original





"Coin-Op Division" routing tag

[Morty]

Time to give it a try..

No pictures i'm afraid but I plugged it in (making sure 110V !!) and checked the voltages on the game board, all look ok
Screen is all white, so tried a Millipede pcb i bought many years ago, still the same

So I have a G07 waiting for me to restore my Missile Command so I give that a try
Amazing.. the game board that was in it works.. WOW!!!!




So i think.. hey, lets just get this working for some gaming fun before I restore it, so monitor swap..




G07 in




Connect up the G07 and test






Original PCB does have a slight issue with the player, it does not seem to move up and down completely and a bit of the graphic appears near the top of the screen, maybe RAM issue, will investigate later
For now i plug in and "Test" the Millipede pcb until 3am..

[level42]

Cool to see a US version for a change.

You can easily rewire the plug with the yellow wires on the power brick to make it run on 230VAC so you don't need a step-down transformer.

The best thing you can do to a Centipede is order a new ball and new rollers and bearings from Bob Roberts. His rollers are stainless steel (compared to others) and he greases them and breaks them in with a drill so they are ready for smooth and fast play.

I love little  things like that factory paper inside.

Congrats !

[Morty]

Hi,

Yes I will change to 230, need to dig around to see if i have the correct plug, if not then i will have to rewire the yellow one

Funny you should mention the trakball..




A guy called Chris spoke to a guy called Bob and he sent me some goodies..




Fitted




Super smooth, really nice

[level42]

Bingo !

LOL  


Gotta love the smell from the stuff Bob uses to grease the bearings....it's a wonder they pass customs at all

[smarty]

Looks alright doesn't it  Shame its had that knock on the left side, It will scrub up well no doubt.

I got 52K on my Centi cabaret last weekend my best score for a while, its a great game, love the side art on the full size upright.

[Luigi]

wow, this is the most worn trackball I have ever seen  

Nice machine...how are you going to do the woodwork?

[Q*ris]

Funny feeling to see that machine I've been sitting on for too long, now in another location.
I'm really happy that it goes to a real collector who will at last give it the resto it deserves.
And hopefully that will give me a great big kick in the butt to start restoring mine.
  Parts are already on their way!
While the wait I'll stole ideas from this post, if you don't mind Morty  
So please, keep up the good work to keep me inspired! (staying up to play until 3 AM is already very inspiring actually  )

[Morty]

Been really enjoying playing the Millipede pcb in it, hopefully I will get the time to look at the Centipede PCB so i can "downgrade"!

The best thing of all was my 8 year old boy who kept saying "can i play on that new game?", so the xbox etc got ignored and he played 1980's style. He was really good and picked it up very quickly, yay, another one addicted

Been doing more small jobs like replacing the ballast, got the monitor repair arranged (will be a few weeks)

So soon I will try the woodwork repair. Planning on cutting some chipboard to the correct thickness, routing a straight edge on the original cab (1/2 way though the thickness) then glue it on
Then i will route round to match the new wood to the profile of the existing wood (using a router bit with a bearing on the end). Then i will cover the new bit with a small piece of vinyl, hopefully the join will be almost invisible

Fingers crossed..

[Q*ris]

Wow, that sounds scary AND dangerous...   do it!  

[Luigi]

Do you know Superully's restorations and his secret weapon PONAL DUO?

Not sure if it would be helpful here. But I used it on my Journey and it did a great job!

[level42]

Regretfully Henkel has seem to given up on the markets outside of Germany as even we can't get this stuff here, let alone in the UK....maybe ebay ?

[Superully]

it IS on ebay, but that stuff isn't cheap! i always buy them in packages to get a better price - perhaps we should do a ponl duo groupbuy

[Morty]

I was going to use wood as that's what it was before the damage, you can see the texture through the vynil so it will be as close to original as possible

What is the PONAL DUO, a filler but what makes it special over say a car body filler?

[Luigi]

I have never worked with car filler so far. All I can say about Ponal Duo is: you can work with it like you can work with wood. You can sand and paint it, you can drill it and you can cut it for t-molding, etc.