Alien Syndrome Doldrums

Alas on to the boring stuff, or perhaps very boring, depending on your personal interests.

As much as I don't enjoy working with the coin doors, it's something that just has to be completed.  This one had been lightly coated with flat black spray paint.  I can't say I blame the previous owner for this, its a quick way to tidy things up.  Still the door had its share of scratches and dings, and you could see where over the years, many people tried and possibly succeeded in prying open the doors with a screwdriver.  The coin return buttons were wrong, they were from an Atari cabinet, and the 25 cent paper inserts had been soaked in soda at some point.  Leaving it like this just wouldn't be setting a good example for the young folks.

I started by removing the coin door and taking it completely apart.  The coin box was also pretty dirty and had some rust spots on the inside.  I saved the old coin door label and after cleaning up the coin box, glued it back into position under the test and service switches.  I soaked the yellowed plastic coin bucket in bleach water over night, and this brightened it up considerably.

For the individual coin doors, I used a small tack hammer to level out the bent edges and any dents on the front, then painted them with one coat of Rustoleum Hammered finish and then a coat of simi-gloss black.  Obviously the best course of action would be to have this sand blasted and powder coated, and I sometimes do that, but this time I decided to take the quick and dirty route.

I soaked the coin return and coin slot parts in soapy water over night and did my best to remove the remaining spray paint, then treated the plastic with Marine 303 vinyl protectant.  Digging through my stash of arcade parts, I found a new set of red coin return buttons that worked perfectly for this version.  I soaked the springs and other lightly rusted screws in vinegar for a few hours, and this removed the rust.

For the various parts of the coin return brackets, I decided just to clean them up, and reassemble.  I learned by asking the folks on KLOV, that this yellowish/gold finish is zink with yellow chromate.  Things of this era were plated with zinc and chromate, but several years previous to this, from what I learned, they were using cadmium which is relatively dangerous to handle.  You certainly wouldn't want to start sanding it or handling the parts without safety equipment.

Whenever I start cleaning up a cabinet for the first time, I save any unidentified parts I find laying in the bottom of the cabinet.  This turned out to be good practice, as the coin door was missing some parts, and I was able to locate them in the random bits I had previously saved.

None of the cam locks came with this cabinet, and the back door, as usually happens, was being held shut with drywall screws.  So for the coin door, I ordered a 4 pack of 7/8" cam locks with matching keys from Amazon.  On the inside of the top door, the original extra key hook was still in place, so I added a set of keys there for originality.

Using some Bondo spot putty, I patched and sanded up the holes and any deep scratches on the back door, then repainted with a water based black satin paint, using a foam roller.

Over the course of a few evenings, I rewired the inside of the cabinet. After running the wire harness through the dishwasher it was sparkly clean.  Using the pictures I took months ago, I was able to route the cables to their original locations, and used identical tiny white zip-ties to reattach everything.

With everything else done, I couldn't avoid the control panel any longer.  I knew this part was going to be tedious, and I had been dreading it.  It actually looks good in this picture, but the plexiglass panel in the instructions area is cracked and damaged, and there are various holes from the previously attached clear plastic cover.

I began by placing the panel in the sun to heat up, and then did my best to peel off the old overlay.  To my surprise, most of it came up relatively easy.  It was the colored bits that posed the most problem.  I used a narrow paint scraper and removed what I could.

This left me with a control panel and a thick coating of adhesive.  After trying various things, I settled on placing the whole panel in a plastic bin, and coating it with a product called CitriStrip.  After soaking in CitriStrip overnight, the adhesive was easy enough to scrape off.  I then had to scrub the panel down with Dawn dish washing detergent.  I cleaned up a few rust spots with sand paper and prepped it for applying the overlay.

Lastly, I approached the matter of replacing the plexiglass control panel windows.  These allow light to shine through, and illuminate the instructions and the Sega logo on the front.  It's a nice touch, but the thin plexi panels didn't fair so well over the years.  The largest one was cracked and badly damaged.  I set about trying to 3d print a replacement for it.

I modeled it up in Fusion 360 then printed it in a clear PETG filament.  Obviously it wasn't going to be clear, but I think it will work well enough.  After three attempts, adjusting the thickness and dimensions, I managed to get a perfectly fitting piece to replace the damaged panel.

So that's all for now.  I'll save applying the control panel overlay for a day when I'm totally rested and ready to take it on.

Alien Syndrome Side Art

So fortunately I was able to track down some reproduction artwork.  Through a guy, who knew a guy, I had ordered new side art, a new control panel overlay, and a custom bezel.

The side art went on perfectly and without air bubbles or any other grief.  This can go badly if not done correctly.  I used the "wet" method by soaking the surfaces down with a spray bottle of water with just a tiny bit of mild soap.  This allows for a small amount of adjustment and with a squeegee I was able to work out any air bubbles with ease.  The artwork looks fantastic and you can see the colors really make this cabinet stand out.

After this I made a trip to Lowes, and purchased a new front glass and new 18" fluorescent tubes for the marquee.  

A quick check in the Alien Syndrome manual shows the original glass as 23 9/16" by 23 9/16".  They have thin window glass at the local Lowes, and they will cut it for free, which is a plus.

For the bezel, I didn't want to apply it to the glass.   I opted instead to purchase a 24" wide sheet of picture matting in white.  I then applied the artwork to the matting and using a new blade in an Exacto knife, I managed to cut the center square and sides out ( and my finger), leaving just the artwork, now on a nice card stock.  The bezel, while not original to the dedicated cabinet, really makes the game look sharp.

After this I cleaned up the metal box where the power cable attaches to the cabinet, by sanding it down and cleaning up any rust.  I then painted it with a gold metalic spray paint similar to it's original finish.  I replaced the power cable and rewired the 120V power lines going to the front control panel light, and the dual fluorescent light fixture in the top of the cabinet.  I checked the fuses and found that one was blown and neither matched the recommendations in the service manual.  Looking through my stash of 250v fuses, I found a 4 amp fuse for the lights, and a 5 amp delayed fuse for the main power input.

After replacing the power switch and replacing some of the old power cables, I decided to mount the marquee and test out the lights.

It's going to be a real beauty!

Game Gear Bender

So after modding my old Game Gear, I started thinking about smd ceramic capacitors.

Everyone talks about the bad capacitors Sega used in the Game Gear, which just seems odd to me.  Seeing how it goes without saying, old equipment, will likely have leaky or dried out capacitors.  This got me thinking about using ceramic capacitors, both for their longevity, and reduced size.

After studying the offerings at Digi-Key for what seemed like hours, I pieced together what I hoped would be suitable replacements for the electrolytic values.  Wherever possible, I kept to the larger smd sizes of 1210, 1206, and I think some were 0805.  These would still be large enough to span the solder pads on the board, and although very tiny by most standards, easy enough to solder with my limited equipment.

Since there's a significant price break for ordering 10 or more pieces, I decided to just get enough to do 10 boards total.  I got on ebay and ordered a few "for parts only" or "broken" Game Gears.  They arrived about the same time the capacitors did, and I got to work cleaning off the old smelly caps, and getting the board nice and clean.  The new caps soldered in place with ease, I mean much, much easier than the previous through hole caps, which saved a lot of time and frustration.  I was enjoying the process so much I ordered a couple more, and before I knew it I had around 6 or 7 working systems.  For kicks I even purchased a few of the rarer colors.  Shipped from Japan as non-working, "Junk" was the word they used in the description.

In the above pic, you can see there are just three connectors between the top and bottom half once the screws are removed from the outside case.  To the top left is a small power board which takes the 9V from the batteries and feeds out 5v, and 34v to the main board.  The power board has just three through hole caps.  Sometimes the AC adapter jack is bad or shorted, which keeps the system from powering on.  

To the top right is the sound board, these have surface mount electrolytic caps, I chose to replace them with similar Nichicon surface mount electrolytic caps.  I suspect they are a better choice for audio circuits.  On one board, I still couldn't get sound after replacing the caps, and it turned out to be a bad earphone jack.

 To the top left of the main board is a 20k thumbwheel potentiometer used to adjust the screen brightness.  As of now, I haven't been able to source these from anywhere online, perhaps a surplus store somewhere has them?  I accidentally melted one of these by getting too close with the soldering iron.

The CPU, for those interested, was a custom Z80A, running at the screaming fast speed of 3.58MHz!

 In the very center of the board is the screen backlight, which seemed to be the achilles heel of the system.  I suppose at the time these were made, white LEDs either hadn't been invented, or were too expensive.  So they used a tiny fluorescent tube, along with the tiny little transformer, and the system chewed through 6 AA batteries in just a few hours of game play. 

My small hoard of refurbished systems

Check out the Game Gear TechWiki at Console 5 for easy to read diagrams and component lists.

They also have a nice downloadable Game Gear Service Manual, which could come in handy.

My parts list from Digikey ( use at your own risk, this is only experimental ) :

Manufacturer	Digi-Key Part Number	VA1 Twin ASIC	VA1 Single ASIC	Unit Price	Description
TDK Corporation	445-13044-1-ND	C1	C1	0.759	CAP CER 33UF 6.3V X7S 1210
TDK Corporation	445-8036-1-ND	C49	C43	0.564	CAP CER 22UF 6.3V X7S 1206
TDK Corporation	445-11744-1-ND	C35	C45	0.584	CAP CER 4.7UF 35V JB 1206
TDK Corporation	445-14671-1-ND	C37	C47	0.807	CAP CER 68UF 6.3V X5R 1206
TDK Corporation	445-6017-1-ND	C39	C49	1.139	CAP CER 100UF 4V X6S 1210
TDK Corporation	445-14852-1-ND	C44,C45	C54,C55	0.345	CAP CER 0.47UF 50V X8R 1206
TDK Corporation	445-1437-1-ND	C31	C68	0.763	CAP CER 100UF 6.3V X5R 1210
TDK Corporation	445-7644-1-ND	C3,C6,C48	C4,C11,C14,C42	0.159	CAP CER 10UF 16V X5R 0805
Nichicon	493-2088-1-ND		C1,C2,C3 Sound	0.217	CAP ALUM 100UF 20% 6.3V SMD
Nichicon	493-9593-1-ND		C5,C7 Sound	0.214	CAP ALUM 47UF 20% 4V SMD
Nichicon	493-10444-1-ND		C5 Power	0.219	CAP ALUM 22UF 20% 35V RADIAL
Nichicon	493-17696-1-ND		C11 Power	0.299	CAP ALUM 100UF 20% 25V RADIAL
Nichicon	493-11812-1-ND		C13 Power	0.402	CAP ALUM 820UF 20% 6.3V RADIAL

While most of the cheap consoles I purchased only needed the capacitors replaced, and a little cleaning, a few were in awful condition, some perhaps beyond saving.  One had screen damage, so I may just order up another McWill LCD kit for it, and hope for the best.

One curious thing of note, during the few years these were being produced, mostly between 1991 and 1994, there were many versions, and revisions.  Also they were manufactured in Taiwan, China, and Japan, with all of them having their own quirks.  I made every effort to jot down notes on each one, and managed to keep the sound boards and power boards together with their original main board.

The humble Sega Game Gear, just gets no love these days.

Game Gear Mods

Over the last couple of weeks I've been geeking out over my old Sega Game Gear.  I think it all started when I decided to drag out an old Nintendo Virtual Boy to show to Kylie's boyfriend Owen.

There in the same plastic storage bin, was the old Sega portable from 1991.  I rounded up six double A batteries and fired it up, expecting to play a few rounds of Sonic.  Well I couldn't get a picture on the screen, and no amount of nudging the cartridge around and powering on and off would produce signs of life from the little system.

This got me curious to know if anyone out on the "cyber", was doing any hacks/mods for the Game Gear.  So a few minutes later I found mention of the "McWill" LCD mod.  There were also new glass screens available, and cap kits.  I eventually settled on ordering parts from console5.com.

When I cracked open the case, I noticed several screws were missing.  It was also clear that someone had already done a capacitor swap on this console.  I recall buying this one at a yard sale many years ago, and it worked when I first brought it home. 

Swapping out the caps was pretty simple.  Besides the main board there are two other boards in the system, a tiny audio board and another very small power supply board. The kit I ordered had thru hole capacitors for everything except the sound board.  Hardest part was just getting the new capacitors mounted in such a way as to not interfere with the bottom half of the case when reassembled. 

I also swapped out the scratched up plastic bezel for a clear reproduction glass version. 

Happily this got the whole system working reasonably well again. 

Still I couldn't help thinking about doing that McWill Mod.  The screen on this old system is horrible by today's standards.  It's washed out, and hard to see.  On top of that, mine just wasn't working as well as it should, it would often jump in and out of brightness levels, making it impossible to enjoy. 

I took the plunge and decided to go with the new LCD screen. If it was as good as the reviewers were saying, it would be worth it.  Plus I was looking forward to the challenge.

Needless to say, it was quite a challenge.  The install took me the better part of Sunday, although I took my time, and tried to make a tidy job of it. I also installed the optional VGA out port.   McWill did an amazing job with the hardware and documentation.   If you have the patience, and are good with a soldering iron, have a go at it, at your own risk of course.

Alien Syndrome Cabinet Restoration

In an earlier post I mentioned this cabinet wasn't in the best shape.  Normally, if the damage isn't real bad, or the side art is just pealing up around the edges, I'll just have a go at cleaning up the cabinet and getting things looking acceptable.  For this game, since it has a unique look, and a really awesome design, I've decided to do a full restore of the side art, and laminate sections.

Having a quick look on KLOV, there were a couple of excellent documented restorations of this same cabinet.  Seeing how good they worked out, I took the same route.  I ordered up 3 sheets of WilsonArt vertical grade satin/matte laminate in black.  If you're careful you can get by with just two sheets, luckily I had three, because I had a few accidents.

To remove the artwork and vinyl coating I used a product called Quick-Strip.  It gets globbed on, since it's a gel, and really just eats away at whatever it touches.  So in about 20 minutes, the black covering started to bubble up and wrinkle.  Then I just used a scrapper and worked it up as best I could.   I should mention that I used painters tape around the edges to keep the Quick-Strip from dripping down over the sides.  Also, I wore a respirator, but I ran out of plastic gloves.  I would recommend using gloves, since afterwards, and for about 3 days, I didn't have much feeling in the ends of my fingers.  And this was with touching it very little, just enough to pull up small sections of the rubbery vinyl.

You can also see that some of the edges had the usual water damage, and bangs and bruises.  For those I mixed up several batches of Bondo, followed by careful sanding.  The lower back corners were almost completely gone, and those needed built up and shaped to look original.  This whole process took several days.

If you've never applied laminate, you're in for a treat.  While it absolutely blows away any finish you can usually achieve with paint, it's a pain in the butt to get right.

First thing is it comes in a 4x8 sheet, which is somewhat fragile, you can't bang it on anything, or bend it too much, or it will crack or snap.  You then need to cut a piece from the sheet, which is approximately the size of your surface, again being careful not to break or crack the laminate.

Perhaps there are better ways, but I used a contact cement.  This stuff gets painted on both the cabinet and the back of the laminate, then left to dry for about 25 minutes.  Once that's dry, you have to "carefully" bring the two surfaces together.  The moment they touch, it's game over, that stuff wont come loose, and there is no adjustment possible.  So I used a few wood dowels between the two surfaces, then pulled them out one at a time once the alignment was correct.  Oh, and almost forgot, if you have even a spec of dirt, a bit of saw dust, anything between the two surfaces, it will show as a bump when finished.  Ask me how I know.

Once the laminate is applied, I used a roller, designed for pressing down laminate, and rolled the whole thing over and over with a good deal of pressure, again being careful not to crack the edges.

Lastly the whole outer edge was cut using a tracing router bit.  That's the easy part.  Notice I don't have any pictures of the previously mentioned steps, that's likely due to the frustration I was going through.

One trick I learned, don't apply the contact cement with a paint brush, use a flat spatula type spreader, and just pour a small amount on the surface and quickly spread it around.  It's much easier, and you can get a much thinner layer down, much faster too.  Just don't let the lady of the house see you sneaking out with the spatula.

Once the laminate is all on and neatly trimmed, it's a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  Sorry about those pictures,  I was dodging rain showers most of the time just to get this done.

I also patched up those damaged areas on the inner panels above the control panel area.  One of them actually still had a large piece of screw still embedded in the surface.  To repair this damage took several days of sanding, and filling with Bondo putty, and more sanding.  Followed up with layers of high-fill primer, and more sanding until it was smooth, then several layers of satin black enamel paint.  Here are a few before and after pictures:

Now that the cabinet issues are sorted, it will receive a good cleaning inside and out, in preparation for the new reproduction artwork, which should be on it's way soon.