My long overdue Capcom Impress Restore Project

[Rasubosu]

Hello everyone! Going to post about my Capcom Impress project that I worked on this year while working on my Super Neo 29 that I detailed in another thread. If you haven't seen me spam General Discussion about it you can check it out here.

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...ong-overdue-Super-Neo-29-restore-project-post

I promise this won't be as long as my Neo 29 restore because there really wasn't as many steps.

So about 5 months into the Super Neo 29 project my homeboy from the now defunct Family Fun Arcade hit me up saying someone had an Impress for sale. He had recently picked up an Astro City shell from the same guy on the cheap and sent me the photos of this poor Impress covered in grime and filth.

After messaging the seller for a bit I meet him at this Recycle Yard in Los Angeles where he shows me the Impress. It had been sitting outside (under a covered area) for a couple of years. Surrounding it was mud and dirt and lots of mechanical parts and junk. This was at the start of lockdowns in LA so it was kind of weird driving through LA while it was empty. The cab was just nasty looking. So dirty. Poor little feller.









After haggling we got the price down to $100 bucks plus $40 for a 2 slot board with 2 games.




Unfortunately the games were bootlegs and the 2 slot didn't work, still not bad for $40. While not important to the story the 2 carts were sold to become conversions and the 2 slot was fixed.

Luckily the IMPRESS panel was still there. Only thing far as I could tell that was missing was the CAPCOM sticker that sits under the light up IMPRESS panel. I'm sure it is still somewhere in the mud at that recycle yard.



Got my buddy to help me move it down to San Diego. We decided to try and get all the spider webs off the bottom before we left.

 

[Rasubosu]

Once I got it home I had to wait a few days before I took it apart. The Impress has torx security screws in a lot of areas so I had to get the right bit to start unscrewing. For anyone who needs it the correct size is T-20, same as the size needed for CPS2 boards. Because of how nasty this looked I didn't even dare try to turn it on and risk shorting anything at all. I figured I'd try to clean it up and get everything recapped before trying to power it on. I would go on to have this cab for months before actually powering it on.

The first panel I took off was the rear handle panel. Since this cab has yellowed significantly I had to decide on if I would try to whiten the plastic or paint it. Seeing as how the Super Neo 29 was such a pain in the ass to paint I decided I didn't want to deal with painting even more stuff. So, whitening it is! At least the insides were white still.






After doing a lot of research I decided I didn't want to use chemicals as they could damage the plastic. I know people use retrobrite and other things like peroxide to get the bromine yellowing from the flame retardant chemical used in the plastics but all the things I've read said that the plastic would yellow again over time and that this process actually made the plastic more brittle and prone to cracking. Some people don't care for the short term but the point of this project is restoration for long term. Almost the entire cab is made out of plastic which is probably why you don't see too many of these cabs floating around. Many were probably lost because they cracked, which they do pretty easily as they are super heavy and the plastic isn't that strong.

It was then I saw an experiment that Digmac from this forum was running on consoles. Instead of using chemicals he tried just sunlight exposure to de-yellow and got spectacular results. Following his advice I left this rear panel out on top of my car at work for a few hours and got immediate results.

Before




After



That looks great! And that was only outside for about 3-4 hours at that point under direct sunlight. I wondered how a few days out in the sun would work out.

Huge difference, the panel was the same color as the rest of the cab originally.

 

[Rasubosu]

Now to tear apart the rest of the cab.

The cab had a Blast City panel that was pretty grimy. I cleaned it up, got the rust off, and subsequently traded it off to another forum member here, don't remember his handle sorry! I know the cab doesn't have a panel anymore but I was confident that I would be able to find an original panel fairly quick because I had seen some in Japan a few months before for pretty cheap. I was wrong kind of, but oh well. You can see some of the Super Neo 29 parts in the background as this was being worked on at the same time. I don't ever want to be restoring multiple cabs at the same time ever again lol.







Once I started opening this up, the insides were just as dirty as the outside. Maybe even nastier!






I couldn't pinpoint what the smell was but eventually I figured it out. Rats. Rats had made their home inside the cab, behind the monitor, inside the body, and inside the speaker enclosure. In fact you can see rat feces and scraps of random things they brought in to make a nest. Rat feces and urine was probably what I was smelling along with mud and stale water.




Removed the monitor which looked like it was in good shape. It lived on my couch for a few months.



More of the nasty insides here.

 

[Rasubosu]

Taking this thing apart was interesting. The base is 2 parts, the plastic outside and a metal inside. Wish they made the entire cab out of metal or fiberglass because the plastic cracks so easily.

The screws had rusted so bad some of them broke.




After pulling it all apart now was time to hose it down. I hosed down the dirt and rat spunk and used copious amounts of Purple Power to clean it up. Thanks to Shadowkin for the recommendation on Purple Power, he puts that shit on everything.










After washing I laid everything out to dry.





Gathered the chassis, PSU, Q-Sound, and jamma connector for recapping and rewiring. Thanks to Shadowkin for all his awesome work. There was also some random bell toy inside that I decided to keep with the guts of the cab.

 

[Rasubosu]

So I ended up leaving everything outside in the sun for a while to see if I could get the yellowing to disappear. Digmac had some great results on consoles like Saturns and Famicoms so I was hoping these plastic parts would whiten up a good amount.







So the results were good, the severe yellowing slowly faded and turned into a light cream. However, just sunlight would only get you so far, the whitening would plateau and the yellowing would stop once it got to a yellowish cream. The parts plateaued after about a week or so. I left these parts outside in the sun for a few months, maybe about 3-4 months. I don't remember anymore. During this time I had a lot of other things going on and wasn't in the mental state to even think about the cabs. Even after a few months the yellowing still didn't get any better so once I started feeling better I decided it would be time to wash everything off and put it together.






Compared to what it used to be that's a HUGE improvement even if it wasn't white. See the one above and below, you can see the improvement. Shoutout to Digmac again for the tips and getting me on the sunlight tip.




I had gotten the guts back from Shadowkin by this point so everything was ready to be assembled.





Connected everything together and for the first time in a long time the cab looked great. Now to power it on.



Once I flipped the switch I heard the CPS2 turn on and I could hear the game through the speakers. The fan on the PSU wasn't spinning but I could hear it was on. The monitor was blank and didn't turn on at all. The chassis was making some noise, more of like a buzzing sound. The light behind the Impress panel turned on though!



I hooked up the Q-sound to one of my CPS2 boards to see if the speakers worked. I don't know if I hooked it up wrong but all I got was a super loud BEEEEEEEEEEP that nearly blew out my eardrums. Not sure how to utilize the Q-sound, I'll have to do more research. Anyway, not sure what was wrong since everything was plugged in properly.



Shadowkin came over to take a look at everything and it was determined that the flyback on the chassis was probably what was the issue. The tube was not getting any power at all even though the chassis was getting power from the power supply. The flyback would make a buzzing noise but no electricity was getting to the tube. After doing some research it seemed like this chassis had a common issue with the flyback failing. Since replacement parts aren't available there was little chance of getting this fixed. The chassis is a Hitachi GML for a Toshiba tube and most people recommended doing a swap to a Nanao MS9 chassis. The chassis works with the stock tube with some minor connection adjustments and adapters from what I researched.

Now my attention was turned to finding a Nanao MS9 chassis. Thank goodness for friends of friends, I was hooked up with a MS9 AND a monitor that originally came from a DDR machine all for a really fair price. The monitor even has some arrows burned in but it was minor haha. Rather than messing around with connectors and using the stock tube we installed the new MS9 and monitor into the machine.

So here's something that I encountered putting in this new monitor and chassis. The Impress does not have a monitor frame so you really have to be careful with moving the tube. It's really easy to neck if you're not careful. We had to remove the frame from the replacement monitor and install the bars that were attached to the Impress tube that fixates onto the cab. Not sure if this was just this particular monitor but when we tried to install the tube in YOKO the neckboard would hit the PSU. No matter what it would not fit since that board was pretty big. I was planning on turning one of my candy cabs into a TATE setup anyway so this just made the decision easier. Guess the Super Neo 29 will be the cab that gets all the CPS2 and MVS stuff and the Impress was now going to be the vertical cab.

Once we hooked everything up now was the moment of truth. Will this new monitor work? Will the cab work just fine???




Success!! Here's Raiden on the cab. This cab is alive for the first time in a really long time!




Taking the cab for a test drive.





And that concludes the Impress restore. Who knew that sunlight would make such a huge difference! Hopefully the plastic will keep from yellowing again but only time will tell! Special thanks to my friend who pointed me to the cab, Shadowkin for the internal work, Digmac for the help on the whitening tips, and for everyone who took the time to read this journey. This has been a really weird year and to some extent restoring both of these cabs has helped keep me sane when they weren't driving me crazy trying to figure everything out. I'm just glad this cab didn't need as much work as the Super Neo 29. Now this cab will live on instead of being junked or forgotten in the mud.

Thanks for reading everyone!

 

[ebinsugewa]

nice work! the impress is probably my favorite cab that i own. that post-sun plastic is not really much more yellow than my cab which was luckily in pretty great shape when i got it. so shoutouts to the sun for lending its rays. glad this one could be saved.

 

[Rasubosu]

nice work! the impress is probably my favorite cab that i own. that post-sun plastic is not really much more yellow than my cab which was luckily in pretty great shape when i got it. so shoutouts to the sun for lending its rays. glad this one could be saved.

Thanks a lot!! I really dig the cab for sure, I much prefer this look over the more common Astros that most my friends have. Just wish the parts were as plentiful as the Sega stuff! Also kind of digging the light cream color that the cab has now, it's kind of pleasant and easy on the eyes.

Also, the speakers in this thing are so nice! Super heavy too, forgot to mention that in the original details.

 

[ebinsugewa]

I got mine from a guy with a base attached to it that would let it be used standing up like an American cab. It had a JAMMA bootleg Ms. Pac in it. I've seen another cab or two in this same sort of configuration. I've always wondered how it got that way.

 

[Chempop]

Great restoration, always nice to see a cab get a second or third life. Enjoy your vert cab

 

[fake]

I'm impressed.

Also, I want a giant Carbuncle.

 

[Rasubosu]

I got mine from a guy with a base attached to it that would let it be used standing up like an American cab. It had a JAMMA bootleg Ms. Pac in it. I've seen another cab or two in this same sort of configuration. I've always wondered how it got that way.

Wtf that's wild. It all probably came from the same operator at some point, maybe they got a deal on some candy cabs and just ran with it.

Great restoration, always nice to see a cab get a second or third life. Enjoy your vert cab

Thanks!! Currently housing Mushihimesama Futari until I can get this damn Pi2Jamma working somehow.

I'm impressed.

Also, I want a giant Carbuncle.

I see what you did there lol. I found this guy in Japan, kind of hard to come by these days. If Car-kun was real I'd imagine this would be the right size.

 

[NERDtendo]

Nice work! Your plastics don’t look all broken like mine. I need a new wiring harness for mine. The previous owner hacked it all up to install a Pandora Box. I love seeing restore projects. Your end results are amazing!

 

[egg_sanwich]

Damn you've got some serious confidence taking on these nasty these cab restores! Glad to see another saved from the scrap heap, she looks like a beauty.

Now put up a futari score!

 

[Rasubosu]

Nice work! Your plastics don’t look all broken like mine. I need a new wiring harness for mine. The previous owner hacked it all up to install a Pandora Box. I love seeing restore projects. Your end results are amazing!

Thanks a lot I really appreciate it!! Yeah the plastic is definitely brittle on these and I did have a few pieces of plastic that I had to superglue back on around the bottom. I think the bottom gets busted up the easiest.

That sucks I've seen so many "modified" cabs where people do dumb hack jobs thinking they're "adding value" to a cab because they put a shitty multigame inside that barely works. Really makes me angry when I see good cabs get gutted and converted this way, especially LED screen mods.

Damn you've got some serious confidence taking on these nasty these cab restores! Glad to see another saved from the scrap heap, she looks like a beauty.

Now put up a futari score!

Haha, this was it. I don't know that I have another one in me (or my place). Only thing that will make me go through it all again is another mini Neo cab of some variety or a Capcom Cute. A Super Neo type 2 with the monitor up top would also make me do some thangs lol.

I've been so busy, haven't been playing Futari at all unless a friend comes over once in a blue moon. That's just my excuse though, I suck at the game so I'm not getting any scores worth mentioning lol.

 

[Ajax]

Hell yeah! Strong work, looks so good!

 

[yagamikun]

Great job with the restore! I love a good restore project. Congrats!

 

[NERDtendo]

Thanks a lot I really appreciate it!! Yeah the plastic is definitely brittle on these and I did have a few pieces of plastic that I had to superglue back on around the bottom. I think the bottom gets busted up the easiest

Did you use just regular Krazy Glue or did you use Gorilla Glue or something else?

 

[K-2]

That an amazing transformation! Excellent work!

 

[loegan43]

That's a true labor of love. Can't believe how well it turned out after looking at those initial photos of it sitting in the recycle yard.

 

[Rasubosu]

Hell yeah! Strong work, looks so good!

Thanks a lot! Took a lot of time but totally worth it.

Great job with the restore! I love a good restore project. Congrats!

Thanks! Hoping this will be my last but you know how that goes lol

Did you use just regular Krazy Glue or did you use Gorilla Glue or something else?

The exact type I used was DAP Rapid Fuse. Gorilla Glue is pretty good if you get the right one for plastic.

That an amazing transformation! Excellent work!

Thank you! Much appreciated!

That's a true labor of love. Can't believe how well it turned out after looking at those initial photos of it sitting in the recycle yard.

Thanks! I'm really happy with how it came out. I was afraid I was going to have to paint it some wacky color but thank goodness I didn't have to paint anything at all.

 

[ShootTheCore]

Fantastic restoration job! Now that's something to be really proud of!!

 

[Rasubosu]

Fantastic restoration job! Now that's something to be really proud of!!

Thanks! Definitely happy with how it came out

 

[MuKuro]

Hi, you have done a great job, the replacement monitor shold be a Toshiba pb6643 also known as D29CR55 it was the windy stock monitor and used on others konami cabs too, usually comes with a Toshiba tube just the same tube of the nanao ms9, most likely you had to mount the impress metal spacers at reverse side to fit the tube lining the bezel..
Just want let you know that if you will ever want sell your broken hitachi chassis I will like purchase it.

 

[Viewpoint]

Really impressive job getting this poor cab back into working condition.

 

[Lach]

You have done an exceptional job, truly a great thing to see as in the wrong hands it would likely have ended up at the dump.

Also I'd like to point out just how different the insides of the Impress are in comparison to something like an Astro. It looks very barebones, not at all what I expected. Really funny place to mount a power supply too, I like it.