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Fully restored
As acquired
As acquired
Note rotate-able monitor
PCB drawer
New rear lower vent
Heidi & Jim play Time Soldiers at my 30th birthday party
Fully restored
Closeup
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The acquisition
I purchased this cabinet as a working (albeit scruffy) "Gal's
Panic" game at the end of June, 2001. A pinball
collector had purchased a lot of several video games, bartop games,
and a jukebox from a local operator in order to get a specific
pinball game that he wanted. He didn't want to keep the video
games, and I responded to his forsale ad. [Thanks, Jim!]
I visited him one evening to look over the games. I chose
this Gal's Panic machine as being a good, generic JAMMA
cabinet. Noting the Taito sideart and burn-in on the monitor,
I checked KLOV when I got
home. Sure enough, this had originally been a Double
Dragon.
Talking a pickup-owning coworker into helping me [Thanks, Dave!],
I returned a couple days later. In addition to this DD cab, I
also bought a non-functional Dynamo Solitaire Challenge cabaret
cabinet to turn into a MAME machine.
We shoehorned them both into the back of an Isuzu truck, thoroughly
tied them down, and started the nervous drive back to my
place. About a mile down the road, we lost the piece of
tempered glass from in front of the DD cabs' monitor [many tiny
pieces]. A while later, we stopped to better secure the back
door on the DD cab. Upon arrival, I borrowed an appliance
dolly, and we soon had the two cabs in my kitchen [where they would
stay for several weeks!]
Of course, we then had to rest a bit while playing the
game... ["Oh, you big boy!" #ahem#]
So, what did I get myself into?
- Solid, full-size upright video arcade game cabinet.
- Wells Gardner 19" K7000 monitor. (working, original)
- Gal's Panic PCB (working) and marquee
- Coin Controls dual coin door (working)
- Convenient front pull-out drawer for the game board
- Original control panel converted for use with Gal's Panic
- Monitor could be rotated to be either vertical or horizontal
What now?
Well, the entire machine was pretty filthy inside and out.
The sideart was in pretty good shape except for some small scrapes
and scratches. There was a mysterious pattern of 6 bolts on
the left side of the machine along with a couple small holes.
There was a large hole on the front - probably from a security
bar. The monitor needed adjustment. The machine worked,
but some of the wiring looked questionable and slightly flaky.
The monitor had an impressive yellow film on it. The control
panel was original, but the DD overlay had been covered with black
vinyl and a hacked-up piece of plexiglass. All the original
controls were gone - replaced with two 4-way joysticks and one
button per player. The two coin mechs were independently wired
at the coin door, but they were evidently jumpered together
somewhere in the wiring harness. The cardboard monitor bezel
was original, but the DD side had been spray-painted black.
And so it begins...
I did a lot of stuff - here's what I still remember.
- Vacuumed entire cabinet. Scrubbed exterior. Used
vinegar solution to remove cigarette smoke residue from monitor
screen.
- Removed useless carriage bolts. Plugged and filled all
holes. Filled all gouges
- Replaced marquee bulb, starter, and starter socket.
- Cleaned up coin door wiring and replaced light bulbs.
Unplugged the coin counter.
- Cleaned up internal coin switch wiring. It looks like
the cabinet once had an external bill validator grafted onto
it. Wired each coin mech independently into the JAMMA
harness.
- Had a new piece of plexiglass cut to replace the smashed front
glass.
- Added two new cooling vents to the cabinet, one in the lower
back and one in the top.
- Used model paint to touch up the scrapes. Screwed up and
used flat paint on the sideart, so I ended up brushing a gloss
clear coat over the sides once I was done.
- Cut the internal wood platform covering the pcb drawer in half
to make it easier to remove. Added cooling holes in this
platform to allow hot air from power supply to escape.
- Cut a new monitor bezel out of black foamcore.
- Acquired, cut-down and installed a SAR - Search And Rescue
marquee.
- Installed all new T-molding.
- Replaced the power cord.
- Installed latches to replace the screws holding on the back
access door.
- Stripped down the control panel, put on black marble contact
paper, all new pushbuttons, new plexiglass, but kept the 4-way
joysticks (for now).
- Built two new control panels
- one with LS30 rotary joysticks and 3 buttons per player, and
one with 8-way Super joysticks and 6 buttons per player (Street
Fighter layout). It takes only a minute or two to swap
control panels.
- Added extra wiring harnesses inside the cabinet to handle the
LS30 joysticks and JAMMA-Plus "kicks" extra buttons as
in MK and SF. These go from below the control panel down
into the pcb drawer.
- Added two tiny, black pushbuttons just above the coin
door. These are wired to act as player 1 and player 2
credit buttons. [I didn't want to use quarters all the
time, and I didn't want to set all my pcb's on "free
play".]
Let's have fun!
I've acquired a bunch of game boards
from Ebay and places like Video
Connection. I've focused on games that use the LS30 rotary
joysticks and on vertical shooters. I've also acquired a bunch
of marquees.
The first major test of this machine was when my niece came to
visit me. However, the BIG test was at my 30th birthday
party. My guests spent most of the evening playing SAR, Time
Soldiers, and Heavy Barrel.
Double Dragon?
I acquired an original DD monitor bezel, DD pcb, DD marquee, and
a reproduction DD control panel overlay off Ebay. I replaced
the 4-way joysticks in the original control panel with new 8-ways
and restored the panel to original DD appearance. I can return
this cabinet to an original, dedicated Double Dragon at any time by
rotating the monitor to horizontal and installing all this
stuff. Someday.
The future
- Replace all the pins in the JAMMA connector - hope it solves
occasional flakiness.
- Replace power supply
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JAMMA
Cabinet
