- Joined
- Apr 26, 2010
- Posts
- 500
I just got my New Astro City cab today that was purchased from coinopstore.com (avidcollect on klov). I did some research and found both good and bad things regarding this seller, so I figured I'd take a chance and order one. I went with H&L for my shipping, which was one of the options given to me.
Here it was just dropped off by the delivery guy. It looks like the pallet it was on (wheels were strapped to the pallet, which was good) cracked under the weight on one side, so the whole thing was leaning against one of the boards that boxed it in.
So other than the cracking pallet issue, it was packed pretty well and did not sustain any damage during shipping.
I hooked up a jamma board (SSF2) after taking all the bubble wrap off to test it before I started messing with any of the insides. Here's the obligatory child-with-new-cabinet pic (my four year old niece).
I'd read I would need to add a ground to the unit, so my sister's boyfriend, an oil rig electrician, and I but the end of the power cable off to see if there was a ground wire running inside the cable, hoping maybe it just wasn't connected, which there was none. I know some about wiring, but he's much better at it than I, so we just cut the end off an extension cord, attached it to the power panel inside and pulled the ground from the inside of the cabinet, then attached a new plug to the other end of the extension cord. Was very simple.
Then came the joy of wiping all of the grime off. I know it's pretty tough to find a japanese cab that doesn't smell like smoke, and mine was no exception. I flipped the control panel open and, while it worked fine, there was a ton of dirt inside. Cans of compressed air were no match for this stuff. It just needed to be wiped off by hand. I' sure I spent at least an hour wiping down the inside of the control panel over and over.
Once I got that done, for the most part, I pulled some of the panels off and got into some of the nooks -- revisiting the control panel area several times. I pulled the video remote and cleaned it with a can of electronics cleaner.
Many hours later, we took it into the house. It was MUCH easier to take upstairs than my 25" Dynamo cab. Here's someone showcasing it...
and playing it, once more..
The cabinet was originally priced to me with a three button two player panel, and I paid $25 extra for a repro six button two player panel (2 players, 12 buttons total). The panel has no overlay at all on it, and actually looks kinda cool. I've got some vermilion buttons with black mounts and vermilion joystick tops, as well as two orange buttons with black mounts for each player (to do the 4 buttons one color, 2 another color layout), which I think will look pretty good with the mirrored surface. I may get it laser etched, but I'm not sure what I'd get on it just yet.
Here's a picture of the control panel after I got most of the dirt out. The black stuff on the inside of the left corner is where it had somehow been rubbed down to the base of the material.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. The 29" monitor feels HUGE compared to the 25" in the Dynamo that I've been used to playing on for the past 10 years. The machine has cleaned up pretty well, but as always, it still needs more work, but it is in a more presentable condition now. The monitor doesn't appear to have any burn in and looks great, but the contrast is set at max already, so I'm anticipating it will need a repair at some point [EDIT: I just needed to adjust the settings on the neck/chassis, looks amazing now]. I didn't receive any extra button harnesses even though I paid for the extra repro panel to be included (at least it came with buttons). Also, to open the control panel, you have to unlock two locks at the same time, and the key cannot be removed while the lock is unlocked. I was only sent one of these keys, so I had to remove part of one of the locks so I wouldn't have to keep bending the control panel to get it open (unlock one side, pull up that side and then relock it, then go to the other side and unlock it). It's not too big of a deal since I'm not going to be using this to make money, but it would've been really nice to have the extra key. I've emailed the seller to see about getting an extra key for the other lock. The coin mech works, but the usual coin slot on the control panel is smoke stained and has a few cracks, so I'll want to replace that as some point.
Overall, it's a pretty nice little cab after cleaning it up.
EDIT: I emailed the coinopstore.com guy about the missing key and he promptly mailed me a second control panel key via USPS priority mail. Got here quickly.
Here it was just dropped off by the delivery guy. It looks like the pallet it was on (wheels were strapped to the pallet, which was good) cracked under the weight on one side, so the whole thing was leaning against one of the boards that boxed it in.
So other than the cracking pallet issue, it was packed pretty well and did not sustain any damage during shipping.
I hooked up a jamma board (SSF2) after taking all the bubble wrap off to test it before I started messing with any of the insides. Here's the obligatory child-with-new-cabinet pic (my four year old niece).
I'd read I would need to add a ground to the unit, so my sister's boyfriend, an oil rig electrician, and I but the end of the power cable off to see if there was a ground wire running inside the cable, hoping maybe it just wasn't connected, which there was none. I know some about wiring, but he's much better at it than I, so we just cut the end off an extension cord, attached it to the power panel inside and pulled the ground from the inside of the cabinet, then attached a new plug to the other end of the extension cord. Was very simple.
Then came the joy of wiping all of the grime off. I know it's pretty tough to find a japanese cab that doesn't smell like smoke, and mine was no exception. I flipped the control panel open and, while it worked fine, there was a ton of dirt inside. Cans of compressed air were no match for this stuff. It just needed to be wiped off by hand. I' sure I spent at least an hour wiping down the inside of the control panel over and over.
Once I got that done, for the most part, I pulled some of the panels off and got into some of the nooks -- revisiting the control panel area several times. I pulled the video remote and cleaned it with a can of electronics cleaner.
Many hours later, we took it into the house. It was MUCH easier to take upstairs than my 25" Dynamo cab. Here's someone showcasing it...
and playing it, once more..
The cabinet was originally priced to me with a three button two player panel, and I paid $25 extra for a repro six button two player panel (2 players, 12 buttons total). The panel has no overlay at all on it, and actually looks kinda cool. I've got some vermilion buttons with black mounts and vermilion joystick tops, as well as two orange buttons with black mounts for each player (to do the 4 buttons one color, 2 another color layout), which I think will look pretty good with the mirrored surface. I may get it laser etched, but I'm not sure what I'd get on it just yet.
Here's a picture of the control panel after I got most of the dirt out. The black stuff on the inside of the left corner is where it had somehow been rubbed down to the base of the material.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. The 29" monitor feels HUGE compared to the 25" in the Dynamo that I've been used to playing on for the past 10 years. The machine has cleaned up pretty well, but as always, it still needs more work, but it is in a more presentable condition now. The monitor doesn't appear to have any burn in and looks great, but the contrast is set at max already, so I'm anticipating it will need a repair at some point [EDIT: I just needed to adjust the settings on the neck/chassis, looks amazing now]. I didn't receive any extra button harnesses even though I paid for the extra repro panel to be included (at least it came with buttons). Also, to open the control panel, you have to unlock two locks at the same time, and the key cannot be removed while the lock is unlocked. I was only sent one of these keys, so I had to remove part of one of the locks so I wouldn't have to keep bending the control panel to get it open (unlock one side, pull up that side and then relock it, then go to the other side and unlock it). It's not too big of a deal since I'm not going to be using this to make money, but it would've been really nice to have the extra key. I've emailed the seller to see about getting an extra key for the other lock. The coin mech works, but the usual coin slot on the control panel is smoke stained and has a few cracks, so I'll want to replace that as some point.
Overall, it's a pretty nice little cab after cleaning it up.
EDIT: I emailed the coinopstore.com guy about the missing key and he promptly mailed me a second control panel key via USPS priority mail. Got here quickly.
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I just decided to completely remove the coin slot thing for now, though, since it looked ugly. Will get one later from segashed.
