This article is to describe how to connect an All-In-One arcade control panel to an existing upright arcade cabinet.

Please note, we do not have any affiliation, sell or offer warranty on items contained in this post as this is just a reference guide for those interested in building your own machine or upgrading a previously purchased machine.

Items you will need:

1. Upright arcade cabinet with working CGA monitor.   The cabinet must be of style that can support a full size control panel with 2 players.
2. Sound system with 3.5mm stereo input connector.
3. All in one arcade control panel – such as one of the following which can be purchased on Amazon, eBay etcPandora’s Key 7 : https://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Console-1920×1080-Players-Controller/dp/B075V86Z2Z/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1542119055&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=pandora+key+7Note, the game console above must have VGA output and sound output.   There are many brands and variations to these controllers.  Get what looks best for you and check the video reviews.   The latest version of the “Pandora” series is “7” – which seem to have a faster emulation board.

    

4. VGA to CGA converter https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1NV3629034&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-Tomorrow+Top-_-Media+Converters-_-9SIA1NV3629034&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv-_x-dDR3gIVzrjACh021Az0EAQYAyABEgIGA_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds     or   http://www.hollandcomputers.com/data/Images_Additional/arcade%20game%20parts/ra-vga-rgb-converter%20vga%20to%20cga%20instruction.pdf
5.  Tools, hardware and a little ingenuity to mount the control panel and wire up the components.

Here’s the quick guide and overview

The all-in-one controller comes with games and is self contained.  All it needs is a TV monitor (HDMI which brings in the sound) or you can connect external components.  This is what we will do using the arcade CGA monitor and the external sound system mounted in the arcade cabinet.

Most arcade games have a CGA monitor.  It is not directly compatible with VGA outputs.   The game console has a VGA output, so we must convert it to CGA.   This is where the VGA to CGA converter comes in.

Additionally, sound must be connected.  The game controller has a 3.5mm stereo output connector.   This can go directly to a 2.1 PC based speaker system, many of which are mounted already inside arcade cabinets.

The VGA to CGA converter takes 12V DC power top operate.   Connect a VGA cable from the output of the game controller to the input of the converter.   Then the CGA output needs to be connected to the arcade monitor.   Many arcade monitors already have a VGA to CGA cable, but it is not a converter.

The game controller, VGA to CGA converter and your arcade game cabinet all need to be connected to AC power.  Many cabinets have a power strip inside where all the components can be connected.

Mount the game controller where the old arcade game controller was.

Adjustment – the VGA to CGA converter most likely will need to be placed into 640×480 output mode, otherwise the output will not work.  There are menu buttons on the converter to set that mode.

Use the most recent game controller that you can find in order to get the fastest and bug free games.   Many older systems did not work well, and while they came with lots of games, many did not function.  Use reviews on the internet to decide which is the best model for you.  Just make sure that whatever you choose, has a VGA output… which I believe all do.

I believe many of the game controllers can be connected to both a modern TV and use VGA out at the same time, for easier debugging and setup.

“Will you challenge the Black Knight Again?”

One of the great masterpieces of the 80’s – Black Knight pinball.

This machine went under pretty reasonable surgery:

• Cabinet and backbox stripped to wood.  Repaired and painted with a 5 stage automotive process.
• New mirror backglass – a very high cost item
• All new internal circuit boards
• Play field stripped down, leveled, cleared and painted BLACK.  New graphics installed and sandwiched between automotive clear.
• Full LED conversion
• New plastics everywhere!
• New flipper mechanisms and hardware!
• New legs and misc hardware inside and out

This is another “grail” pin that I’ve always wanted to own.  So after some searching, I was able to find an unrestored version that needed some help.  Unfortunately, before I was even started, a good friend of mine wanted to purchase this machine when it was finished.   Oh, well… can’t keep them all!

The original machine was in good working order, technically.   It had already was partially torn down for restoration, but the job ended up being to big for that owner.

In the end, here’s the final restoration notes and custom upgrades:

• Full Cabinet tear down, sand, repaint and new graphics applied
• Freshly re-plated shooter gun from a fellow pinball restorer *who recently departed this earth*   So this machine hopes to honor his life.
• New DMD display
• All boards pulled and re-worked.
• Display panel was early production, and had the prototype inserts already milled out… So we added back the circuit to light them up.
• Playfields were stripped, repaired, recolored in some areas and many many coats of automotive clear.   This plays very fast now
• New clear ramp installed
• Propellor mod added to plane
• Additional LED lighting added to fighter plane
• Additional LED lighting added to mini playfield
• Additional LED lighting added to IDOL
• Opto circuits repaired (idol, trough etc)
• LED lighting added to shooter lane
• Full LED lighting and under cabinet flasher effects
• Custom 2-tone legs to match cabinet graphics!
• New plastics as necessary and all new standoffs

Last but not least

We topped the machine off with a NEW in the box – Indiana Jones bush knife – originally licensed from LucasFilm for the first release of the original movie.   It was custom mounted on heavy magnets (so that it would not be marred / damaged and could be removed easily).   Under-lit by color chosen LED lighting.   It’s a sight!

Tales of the Arabian Nights (TOTAN) pinball is one of my “grail” pins… meaning, a machine that I’ve been looking to own for quite some time.   These machines are very hard as most collectors hold on to them forever.   These machines are considered the most beautiful pinball machines ever made due to the machine layout, style, music and theme.

We were lucky enough to actually have 2 machines to restore.   They both were in reasonable shape considering, but suffered horribly from incandescent lamp burn and the resulting heat damage.   The heat from the standard bulbs over time charred the play field and dried out the inserts causing them to lift off the play field.

 THIS GAME IS FOR SALE

Cabinet Restoration

• Original artwork was salvaged.  Color keyed repairs and wood damage repaired.
• clear coat re-applied over entire surface to lock in the repairs and prevent any further sun damage and abrasion wear
• New legs, misc hardware, buttons
• Restored coin door

Circuitry Restoration

The latest release of the WPC series of circuit boards have become more reliable with less parts with one exception, the power driver boards.  Williams did away with separate bridge rectifiers and went with cost effective power diodes to do the same function.   However, these items do not disperse heat well at all.   Ironically, the diodes that drive the general illumination (that did all the damage to the play field) also caused a lot of heat damage on the driver board.    Anyone who says LEDs don’t save pinball machines are crazy because if this machine had been converted earlier, all of these repairs would not have been necessary.

Playfield Restoration

The play field was fully dismantled and cleaned.   All inserts were cut out, cleaned and leveled.  Multiple series of automotive clear coat and water slide graphics were necessary to get the play field flat and ready for paint work repair.   The burned natural wood area was re-colored and hole damage was repaired and painted.   Multiple airbrush layers were locked in with more automotive clear (I can’t even count how many)… and finally the whole play field was final wet sanded and buffed.

The following items were also upgraded

• Wareroom rail was epoxy coated white for a different look as was the skill shot
• Scimitar blade was plated in nickel for an unbelievable look
• New apron
• All new plastics
• All new ramps
• All LED conversion
• New pop bumper assemblies
• New rubber and balls

Before and After

Robot Girlfriend 1.0

Pretty much since the beginning of pinball time, women have been depicted on pinball machines to allure the typical patrons.  However, none were so popular as Bally Xenon from 1980. This machine was not only futuristic looking, but employed cutting edge technology that still surprises tech-heads today with what the Bally engineers could accomplish.

Xenon was based off the Bally’s recently designed microprocessor based pinball machines, but stepped it up with the following additions:

• Auxiliary processor controlled lamp driver board to accomplish a dramatic light show in the cabinet back-box.   This back-box also housed 2 custom back glasses that gave the game a 3D look and feel.  The animation inside the glass would change style and tempo during the game to give a sense of excitement and urgency.
• Actual sampled audio along with synthesized voice and music.  This machine was known for it’s sexy call-outs during the game and in attract mode.   This was leagues ahead of it’s time.
• 2-ball multi-ball via the acrylic clear tube suspended above the playfield.  This tube was also lit with chase-lights.

Restoration

We purchased this game at least 3 years ago and have been collecting parts for this particular restoration.  This has been a back-burner plan for a while, but finally got around to doing the job as originally intended.

Cabinet and backbox

• sanded down, repaired and sealed
• 4 stage automotive paint (base, 2 colors and clear coat) inside and out
• New stainless / chrome hardware including (coin door, side rails, legs, bolts)
• New speakers, flipper buttons.

Circuitry

• All boards pulled, reflowed and repaired.
• Plasma displays replaced with new LED displays for long life and less heat
• New MPU board for error free play and no battery issues – ever

Playfield Restoration

• Game completely stripped.  Play field sanded down and repaired.  Multiple stage repaint and re-graphics applied (sandwiched between layers of automotive clear)
• All new plastic parts (except original graphic pieces that were in excellent condition)
• Full LED transformation in play field and back box
• New acrylic multi-ball tube
• Blue LED multi-ball tube chase light conversion
• Williams WPC flipper conversion (to make this game play fast and reliable).   Way better design than the old Bally flipper mechanisms.
• New pop bumpers assemblies and caps
• Original glass!!! PERFECT condition.  This was a nice surprise.

Pictures BEFORE and AFTER

In my little town growing up, there was an old brick building just under the rail road track bridge.  It had probably served as a dozen things in the past 100+ years, but I always remembered it being an old service garage.   One day, in likely 1982, it was converted into coin-op arcade.  I couldn’t believe it.   Thinking back, even then, I recall it being in a little sketchy of a location for kids, and not really the safest place to ride your bike… but things were different in the 80’s anyway.    I remember this place well.  It had a little hand-made bike rack out front large enough for maybe 3 bikes.  The concrete stairs up to the glass doors were old and crooked.  There were many rooms connected together and the floor was uneven.  The weight of the 50 plus arcade games probably didn’t help that old building much.     In the back, right in front of the counter with the attendant for coins, was the Tron machine.   It was likely their prized machine and it was obviously very different from all the others in the room.    This arcade was probably in operation for only a year or two before it mysteriously closed up.    That was the last time I had even seen this game, until now.

Now that I have restored many pinball and video machines of the era, can I truly appreciate how different this game really was.   Generally, when a machine is designed to go along with a movie, it suffers greatly due to the overhead of licensing and timing.   Of course, this game didn’t get everything that was desired and thus left out the Discs of Tron 5th game. However, there are many items so significant in this machine that it is worth noting.

First and foremost is the cabinet design.   It’s odd diamond shape cabinet was certainly not loved by operators because you cannot get a hand truck on the back very well.   It also had odd shaped wood access panels that I believe probably broke often.   So I imagine it was carted from the side and man-handled through narrow door frames.  However the shape goes very well with the theme and allows the monitor and enclosure to be very dark and roomy.

The control panel and surrounding plastics were very well designed.   Curved clear acrylic panels with fluorescent graphics were mounted above and below the control panel along with ultra-violet lighting to result in a very futuristic look.   The monitor bezel was designed to have a three dimension look and feel and an MCU graphic was mounted behind it to make you feel like you were actually inside the movie.   All of this extra plastic and tooling had to add to the game cost significantly.

Lastly, the circuit design was also very much ahead of anything of the time.   The power supply board also housed a battery backup circuit so that game scores would be saved.  This was a pretty complicated design back in the day.   It also served as a separate analog power supply for the audio circuit – which had 2 separate channels for simulated stereo sound to reduce audio feedback.

The game board itself was so complicated, that it required 3 separate, double sided PC boards and ribbon cables connecting both ends.  Needless to say, finding a working TRON board set is hard to do.     This game in general can be very expensive to build – easily twice as much than a comparable Ms. Pacman or Galaga machine from the same company released the year before.

Restoration

This machine was a trade in for a pinball machine that we had sold earlier in the month.  I took this trade in because I had been looking for a Tron machine for quite some time.   Of course, I was informed that the machine mostly worked and that it already had new side graphics (so that was a plus).

In actuality, the game boards were a complete loss.  They had burned traces and so much rework that they could not be salvaged.  I was pretty disappointed.  However the side graphics were applied pretty well and the cabinet was in excellent shape.

This machine went on to get the following treatment:

• New acrylic control panel surfaces (top and bottom)
• New control panel and spinner graphics
• New joystick
• Rebuilt coin door and all metal hardware
• New monitor
• Like new Tron PCB set
• New power supply adapter board (made to replace the old board with newer battery backup technology)
• New switching power supply
• All Lighting replaced by color controlled LED.   This allowed us to program the color of the MPU, marquee and acrylic pieces.  When set to slow fade mode makes you feel like you are actually inside the game.   It’s very cool.

The Bride of pinbot (BOP) is a unique machine in all of pinball.  This is the second in the Pinbot series, and arguably the best one of the group.  Only 8100 units were ever created.

This is the only pinball machine that shares the same circuitry as the legendary Williams Funhouse, and if you haven’t noticed, Funhouse has exploded in value by almost 2x in the last year.  We expect the unique nature of this game and lineage to follow the same value trend.

Bride of Pinbot shares much of it’s playfield similarities with Pinbot and Jackbot, where the right side contains the skill shot.  They also share the concept of a translucent mini pachinko style upper playfield on top of the 3 pop bumpers.  The rest is all unique to the BOP.

The main playfield toy takes up a good portion of the back of the game:  the 4 faces of the Bride of Pinbot. This object is a large spinning cube that also doubles as a mini playfield used to lock balls and show the state of metamorphosis.  The object of the game is to guide the Bride through her multiple stages in becoming human, to the dismay of her husband Pinbot.  Only videos can truly show what this is all about.  Add to this one excellent techno-inspired sound track and light show.   The special backglass is created to show lightshow animations as well as point values.

This game is fun and tough because of it’s quick ramps and short playfield area in front of the flippers .  Nothing like this game will ever be reproduced again.

Restoration

We’ve restored a few Bride of Pinbot machines in the past.  Here are a couple restoration photo montages:

Summer 2012

Video

Winter 2012/2013

Bally actually came out with two versions of the Mata Hari pinball in 1977 and was right in the middle of changing technology from electro-mechanical (relays, contacts and basic operation) to solid state (circuit board with programmable memory and deeper rules).   This of course was their first iteration of solid state pinball, but they basically retained the design through most of the decade, so their initial iteration was a success.  Future machines were enhanced with digital sound and more advanced lighting – as seen on machines such as Xenon.

What makes this game very unique is the fact that it uses chime boxes to generate sound (same as the electro-mechanical versions) – which makes this a bell-ringer solid-state pinball machine !

Bally was at the pinnacle of pinball at this time and made some beautiful machines with thought provoking themes.  The colors and artwork on the Mata Hari is robust and seductive and makes for a wonderful piece of functional art.

Restoration

This machine came to us by way of trade in.  It wasn’t really worth that much as it was worn to the wood all over and had many broken parts.  Because of the theme, it was bumped up to the top of the list for restorations as I just wanted to see how nice we can make it (within reason).

The results are much nicer than I had planned.  Not only is it stunning to look at, but it plays fantastic.  I had no idea these machines could play so fast…

This machine went through:

• Cabinet stripping, sanding, repair and 5 step automotive paint process with clear coat protection
• Playfield stripped and sanded.  All new artwork, custom paint under the plastics and multiple coats of automotive clear coat.
• New plastic posts and rubber
• New plastic artwork
• New drop targets
• New flippers and linkages
• New Pop bumper assemblies and caps
• All metal polished
• Wood rails sanded and painted gloss cherry
• Full LED installation
• New PCB
• Repaired driver, transformer  and lamp boards
• New coin door
• New legs and hardware
• Near mint backglass with the unique dagger inscription

Pictures

Before

After Cabinet

After Playfield

Video

We were given a little bit of a challenge – restore a completely non-working Kiss pinball machine and keep it under market value.  Well, why not!

This machine was brought to us literally in pieces.   Since this is a Kiss pinball machine, everyone seems to have a place in their hearts for it.

Restoration

• Cabinet repainted (3 colors)
• Back box rebuilts, repaired and hand painted.
• Displays repaired
• Backbox wiring repaired
• New MPU board
• Driver board, transformer board, sound board, lamp board and AUX lamp board completely rebuilt.  Not one of these darned things worked right.
• Playfield stripped, sanded down, repainted, cleared and new graphics installed.
• All new playfield parts (except plastic artwork – which was flattened and reused)
• New legs and hardware
• New coin door
• LED conversion
• All metal polished

Inquire

We’re currently working on this level of affordable high-end restorations on the following machines:

Xenon

Eight Ball Deluxe

Pictures

The before and after pictures tell the real story here.

BEFORE and AFTER

Not many people have heard of this game, probably due to it’s low production numbers.  However, most people have seen and played it’s older siblings:  Bally Eight Ball and Bally Eight Ball Deluxe (1981).   The Eight Ball Deluxe is considered one of the best designed pins of the era and also has a universally loved billiards theme.

The Stern Sharkey’s Shootout is a re-release of the Eight Ball Deluxe pinball with modern technology:

• Better graphics on clear coated playfield
• DMD display and animations
• Better lighting
• Better rules and depth
• Way more reliable hardware
• Added ramps and playfield toys.
• Multi-ball

This machine also has some unique features:

• Magic Eight Ball – where it captures the ball and awards various prizes
• User controlled outlane pop-up save posts and center save post.   Use the extra flipper buttons individually (or pressed together) to pop up save posts.  This is a very unique and fun feature to pinball.

Drop Targets:

• The drop targets in this game are very well used.  Each target is associated with a ball number.  Play Eight Ball or Nine Ball as the game modes progress.
• In Trick shot mode, the game will set up and light certain targets (and drop the rest).

The truth behind this game:  originally this game wasn’t very special to me… because it played horribly.  The reason was that half of the game didn’t work correctly.  Once the machine was reconstructed with new parts, the game rules really showed.  By far, this is way better than the original game from which it was modeled.

Restoration

This machine, which upon initial view appeared that it only needed some cleaning and TLC.  Well, after finding out that much of it did not work made me understand why it came to me in the first place.

• Full teardown, cleaning and waxing of playfield.
• Full LED replacement
• Backbox color changing LED bar – we pulled out the ugly flourescent light and went with a color changing LEDs.  This was such an improvement!
• New DMD display
• All new drop targets and stickers
• New slingshots
• New EightBall motor assembly.  This is often ignored!
• Retextured legs and new hardware including cabinet protectors
• Refinished cabinet
• New molding
• New rubbers and balls
• All new pop bumpers and fixed and mylar in this area (this area gets a lot of use)
• Cliffy protector kit on hole.

The result is night and day… and from the pictures, you can tell this is a beautiful and  modern machine!

Pictures