5/4/2004

Monitor Installation

Happ Controls was running a sale on 19" Vision Pro 2 shelf monitors, so I picked one up while the price was right. It looks great, has a remote adjustment panel, and was up and running within minutes.

Not a perfect plug-and-play solution, as it has a standard 110V plug on the end.

Bright colors and a lack of Ms. Pac-Man tunnels from the burn-in makes for a whole new game.   A giant leap forward. Note that the coin door is missing - the mechanism holders fell apart... something else to fix.

5/17/2004

Monitor power cleanup

Getting a new coin mechanism retaining bracket from allowed me to finally finish off the coin box. Growing increasingly tired of plugging in the monitor every time I wanted to turn the machine on and frustrated with not being able to find the matching connector that Happ used for the monitor power cord, I wired a socket inside the cabinet which was hooked to the main switch. Now the monitor simply plugs into that socket and gets power when the game is turned on.

For those wanting to do something similar, here's a short explanation of the typical 110V AC wiring found in the United States: The colors *should* be standard, though, as always, you may want to check your game's wiring diagram to verify. The green wire is the ground, which goes to the bottom round terminal. The white wire is the "neutral" wire, which goes to the larger (left when the ground is on the bottom) of the two parallel terminals. And finally, the black is the "hot" wire (NOT the ground as common in DC wiring!), which goes to the smaller of the two parallel terminals. Be smart and make sure everything is unplugged before you start touching high voltage (and high current) wires!

A power socket for the monitor cleaned things up nicely and makes turning the game on much more convenient.

5/28/2004

Corner protector installation

I finally got around to installing a couple of corner protectors for the back. Though perhaps not the most visually pleasing, it looks a lot better than flakey pressboard and will ensure that the damage does not spread when the machine gets moved around.

These metal corner protectors will stop cabinet damage.