Ms Pacman Complete!

Finally, the "restoration" of the Ms Pacman game is complete and the game has been moved up to my daughter's room. I learned a lot of things in fixing up this game (such as there's no such thing as a "cheap" game when you are restoring).

Notice the 1/2 player buttons above the coin door. These are not "Pacman" authentic but were part of the cabinet as I received it. I opted to leave these buttons in place and keep them functional.

You can see in the picture that there are holes for the speakers. Once again not "Pacman" authentic, but this is how the cabinet was originally configured.

There's one thing that I did that was "wrong". Player one is to the right of the coin door, not the left as it should be in a true Pacman game. I'm also missing lights behind the control panels, another item that wasn't present in the game as I received it. I needed to get this game done so I could move onto other projects, and I can always circle back and includes lights when I have the time.

I had one major set back right before I finished everything. Upon closing up the game for the last time the neck board of the GO7 monitor was cracked. This is another indicator that this cocktail cabinet was not originally a Pacman, the neck board had left scratches on the back of the coin box frame.

This really bummed me out, I figured the neck board was shot and I had to find a replacement. Looking on eBay I saw some board sets for around $90. I opted to see if I could repair the neck board since I had nothing to lose.

Fortunately the neck board is single-sided, so I identified the breaks the traces and soldered up bridges using solid #22 wiring. This worked very well and I restored the monitor back to operation. You can see the result to the left.

While I had the system open I figured I'd address the edge connector issue. I had purchased an edge connector repair kit from Bob Roberts but since my connectors were in pretty good shape I was hesitant to modify the board. During one of the repair sessions the trace for the +7AC tore up (I'm sure it was in bad shape), so now I had no choice. Now I have solid connections as well as a newly rewired edge connector.

Now the only issue with the monitor is that the fan and transformers are unshielded so there's a slight wave. This "wiggle" isn't present when I have the game open, so I'm guessing it's due to the proximity (inches) of the components (transformer & fan) to the monitor. I don't have a lot of options in repositioning internal parts, so I'm going to live with this issue for the mean time.

The game is set to free play and the volume is at a tolerable level. So far the internal temperature seems to be in a good range and the fan, while noisy, isn't annoying. The monitor could still use a good tuning just to get the colors and sizing right, but it's playable.

Now I have to decide which game to fix next, I have a couple of options:

Defender - there's something wrong with the power supply, hopefully this would be quicky.

Battlezone - this game plays blind. I like vectors and I'd really like to get this one up and running.

Missile Command - used to work but now the screen is just showing test patterns. This game also needs some work on the trackballs, they aren't playing too well.

Space Invaders - no sound and the cabinet has water damage.

Defender is the game I have the most fun playing so I'm going to start work on getting this game back into shape. Hopefully it won't take long.

I have to get more games working. I have a self imposed limit of having only 2 non-working games, otherwise I can't acquire any new games. Space Invaders technically works, but with Defender on the fritz I have more than two (Battlezone & Missile Command) that don't work, so no more acquisitions.

For now Ms Pacman is in my eldest daughter's room. I have to admit it looks pretty good considering this was my first "restoration". This was not cheap, I'll post a complete break down of parts, but basically the sunk cost into this game is about $800. There were opportunities to reduce costs but the majority of the expensive items were related to creating an "authentic" PacMan/Ms Pacman game - purchasing overlays & underlays.

New harness

After some research I figured the most likely cause of the screen problems the Ms Pacman was experiencing. These are known as "hum bars" and generally can be traced back to poor power/grounding. The easiest solution is to replace all the fuse holder blocks to clean up connections. The second solution is to replace the edge connections.

I swapped out the fuse blocks and the problem remained, so I moved on to the more difficult task of rewiring the edge connector. Once again with another order to "The Real Bob Roberts" and I had two options in hand. One was a "hum bar fixup kit" that provided a new 22/44 pin molex connector. The second option was a completely new wiring harness.

The parts arrived 2 days later and started with the easier of the two fixes, swapping the molex edge connector. One by one I removed wires from the old edge connector and connected them to the new edge connector. For the power connectors I beefed up the wiring (to 18ga) and soldered the connectors to ensure a better connection. I cleaned up areas of the wiring where the previous owner had cut into wires to get access to ground.

This did the trick, the hum bars are gone. Based on my dialog with Bob, the harness my game has is not a standard Pacman/Midway harness, it's pretty clear someone retrofitted a Pacman upright into this cocktail cabinet.

So I'm almost ready to button up the game. I added a fan (there's a mounting for one, it had been removed) and rewired the A/C internals as noted in my earlier blog. My next task is to neatly install the wiring and install the new cocktail table glass with the new underlay. I'll include some pictures in a future post.

Getting there!

Today was a big day for the Ms Pacman day. In the past 2 weeks I've recovered the cocktail table using vinyl laminate I purchased from PartsExpress.com. For $20 you get 18 feet x 25", which is more than enough to cover the game.

This was my first time working with this stuff and it didn't come out perfect, but it's a lot better than the previous covering. I also put on new t-molding, and that came out pretty good. Overall the game looks pretty good.

Today was my big push to clean up the internal wiring. I opted to put a new power entry jack, an IEC connector. This is the connector type you see on virtually every desktop computer (see the picture).

I also added an "interlock switch" so if you open the cocktail table up the power is switched off. This is in series with a main power switch. And for added measure there's a fan, running of 120vac, to keep things cool. The cabinet has ventilation holes for this type of fan, but the fan was missing from the game.

I put everything back into the cabinet and then powered it all up, everything works! The only issue is that there is a slight "wiggle" to the display. So I've pulled everything apart and now I'm debugging this problem.

So I'm very, very close. Once I get rid of this wiggle I can put everything back into the cabinet and tie up the wiring harnesses.

So I have ordered some additional parts from Bob Roberts, the important one being a new filter capacitor for the GO7 B+ supply. I also ordered a shielded speaker, the existing speaker is unshielded and it's proximity to the monitor may cause issues.

I'm anxious to wrap up the Ms Pacman. I have several other games that need to be fixed (a Battlezone with monitor problems, a Defender with a power supply issue and a Missile Command cocktail that just isn't working any more).