I obtained a Namco Point Blank cabinet a few months back from a local guy. He had a small (FREE) arcade as part of his business, but several of the units were non-functional. According to him he had purchased the Point Blank cabinet in auction, had it delivered and it never worked, so it had sat in the corner barely used. That accounts for the condition of the unit and the very low game count. However, it was sold as spares / repair to me with faulty guns. It's taken over a month for me to find the time to do this, but I decided to trace every wire in the unit after swapping the guns over, reconnecting a lose connection and discovering both guns worked in one position (i.e. if I swapped 1st gun onto 2nd gun cabling it worked). Last night I found a very thin red wire with a cut in it, replaced the cable and hey presto! Given the cabinet a clean and here we are, a working Point Blank cab!
Good job! :thumbsup: It's great when you get a straight-forward one like that. Shame it doesn't happen more often :-( heh.
I have the same issues with my cabinet. It needs some new wires, soldering and joysticks, but finding the time to do it has been hard and my wife made me put it in the garage instead of the spare bedroom. I live in Arizona in the states and working in the garage is not fun when it is stuffy and 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Have fun playing your new cabinet!
Our issues are similar, yet in two very opposing climates. My garage thermometer was sitting at -5 when I was in there working. I had a small convection heater running, a pair of gloves and thick clothing and STILL I was freezing my nuts off! Well worth the effort though. What cabinet you "working" on?
Yeah the freezing cold is just as bad as the heat. I feel for you. I am restoring an old Gauntlet cabinet that had been turned in to an Amazing Spider-Man. Actually, as my first step, I just want to play Amazing Spider-Man with 4 players, but only 1 of the joysticks works completely, the others are sluggish and one doesn't work at all. It looks like it will be fun and I want to play it before I pull the board out.
Oooooo, Gauntlet - nice! Is it the original, or one of the revisions? Luckily for you the Amazing Spider-Man boards will probably sell quickly and give you some money to plow back into the cab.
It is an original Gauntlet cabinet. I had to peel away the gooey Spider-Man add on stickers to reveal the original artwork. That took forever to do without ruining the Gauntlet artwork underneath. Amazingly though the Spider-Man artwork helped to preserve the Gauntlet art beneath. Sadly the joystick board was re-drilled for the Spider-Man buttons so I need to find a decent auction to get a new joystick board. I found one about 6 months ago that was pristine, but I was running short on cash (it went for about $200 - but it was an original in pristine condition). I might not sell the Spider-Man: The Video Game boards because it was made by Sega and I have a special place in my heart for all things Sega. It might also be cool to put in another home built cabinet later on.
excellent work. That's basically how I get 80% of my electronics for less than what it's worth. I buy stuff as "broken" for next to nothing and usually figure out how to fix it. Broken arcade style joysticks are the best. The buttons and casing on those things are worth more than the pcb inside. So if you do actually get one with a blown pcb....then who cares.....replace it with whatever you want!
Very cool cab! I love Point Blank, must have spend hundreds on it when we had them in NNJ. Good to hear your fix was pretty straight forward, it usually isn't with electronics. Yeah, sweet score on the original Gauntlet cab. That Spiderman game is pretty cool, definitely worth getting all 4 players working. I totally agree, I would hold onto the Spiderman board. ^_^_^
