RGB modded TV transplanted to my first cabinet!

Scored myself a full day in the shed on Friday before last thanks to the Waitangi Day public holiday here in NZ. My girlfriend had to work (poor thing) and the weather was dreadful in Dunedin. Basically, conditions were ideal for an uninterrupted, guilt-free geek-out!

To set the scene, I scored these two New Zealand flavoured cabs from Trade Me back at the start of December 2014. I paid a measly NZD $25 for both! The owner had planned to restore them but decided to abort the project. The lot didn't include monitors or game boards but it did include control panels, marquees, glass panels and a couple arcade power supplies:

Two gutted Coin Cascade cabinets

So, the mission since then has been to find a some CRTs that would fit the monitor cutouts...

After wasting some time trying to work out why WinModelines wouldn't let me set C-Sync for on my laptop anymore, I decided to try an upgrade to my RGB insertion hack I'd been planning for a while. I wanted to see if I could get the Jungle IC in my TV to accept the composite sync signal directly instead of feeding it in via the RCA video input. The idea was that if I could get sync direct to the video chip, there'd be no need to switch to the AV channel in order to have the RGB signal sync.

RGB and C-Sync direct injection to the video processor IC

Along with the RGB and blanking pins on the Jungle IC, there are pins for an external CVBS sync input and also a voltage controlled AV input switch. After mapping out a place to patch into using my multimeter, I wired up a LM317 voltage regulator to produce a steady 8 volts.

Control voltages and RGB interfacing

After soldering it all up, I flicked the power to the chassis and it worked first pop! Excellent! This means the TV can now function as a dedicated RGB monitor. No need to switch the AV input. This is perfect for cabinet use since you don't have to do anything get the monitor to show RGB. It's just like a real arcade monitor!

Panasonic A48KXR98X tube

Philips chassis mounted in cab

Exton RGB 201 RXi for composite sync and level adjustment

So, how does the image quality of a $5 Philip 20PT138A TV with an RGB hack stack up against a SCART television or arcade monitor? Judge for yourself...

Final Fight title screen

Final Fight in game

After (quickly) hooking up an iPAC (the most expensive part of this project by far) I was finally able to play a game on a real-life cab (woohoo!). Once I replaced the fluorescent tube behind the marquee things really started to nail the vibe...

Dangling iPAC

Try This One!

Of course, there are a hundred things I still need to do before I call the project finished (speakers, dedicated PC, new microswitches, cosmetic clean-up, etc.) but I'm pretty stoked with the result!

Looking forward to mounting a vertical monitor in the other cab... should cover many bases.

Fernseher aus Berlin - Nr. 1

Once again, time has flown!

I only have a couple days left in Berlin and it's time to cut and run! Time to dump the TVs I've collected and update the blog with some findings...

My first Berlin TV wasn't anything particularly special except for the fact that it cost nothing and I only had to walk 3 mins down the road to collect it from a woman named Olga...

Convenience!

A short walk

Up the stairs

14 inch Philips

Philips 14PT1542/00

This little unit is a 14 inch Philips with analog controls. It has two trimpots on the chassis: vertical size and horizontal position. Although this doesn't allow for a huge range of picture adjustments, this combination is perfect for GroovyMAME. The vertical size control allows for the picture to be resized for 224, 240 and 256 line modes and the horizontal position control allows for any variance in horizontal centering.

Philips A34EAC01X15 tube

Vertical size pot

Horizontal position pot

Thanks to the small size this TV is great for playing vertical games since it can be easily rotated.

It's not an amazing TV but it's still very solid. It would be a great chassis to mount into a bartop machine because the chassis is a double sided PCB and therefore quite small. Neat!

A few quick screenshots taken with my phone:

WEC Le Mans 24 (set 1)
Konami, 1986
320 × 224 @ 60.000000 Hz

The Berlin Wall
Kaneko, 1991
256 × 224 @ 60.000000 Hz

Metro-Cross (set 1)
Namco, 1985
288 × 224 @ 60.606061 Hz

FREE SCART TVs! (Must go ASAP!)

My girlfriend's parents are coming to stay in a week's time and I have been told that my collection of SCART television must shrink before their arrival! Too messy, apparently.

So, I'll be giving away (or throwing away) the following:

Philips - Early '90s, 66 cm, analog chassis, Toshiba tube. Awesome, sharp picture. Like this.
Grundig - Early '00s, 68 cm tube, digital chassis, Philips semi-flat tube. Vibrant picture. Remote and manul.
Blaupunkt - Same as this one, without the pots mod. Tube upgraded to a nice A66EAK from a Loewe CT1170.
Sharp - 20 inch, PAL only. Australian made! Very nice! Check it out.

I'd rather not take all this awesome gear down to the recycle centre. :(

If you're interested, get in touch ASAP. I have to move this stuff before Friday morning!

Pickup only from Clifton Hill 3068, Victoria, Australia.

Gumtree ad is here.

The Hoarder of Suburbia

About 1.5 weeks ago I took a trip out the 'burbs to check out a few promising SCART numbers.

I was tipped off about this Gumtree seller by my pal Rob. The seller originally advertised a collection of 100 plus televisions. Of course, I thought to myself, "statistically speaking, there must be some SCART units in there".

I shot-off an email and the seller said it'd would take a while to go through the collection but he'd get back to me. A couple months later I saw a bunch of SCART specific ads starting to appear on Gumtree to I got on it.

When I arrived at the address I knew straight away that I was about to meet a real-life hoarder:

The front yard

Now, I don't want to say anything disparaging about Richard because he was super-friendly guy that was very generous with his time. He let me test out TVs, remove their cases and take photos of the whole event. However, this collection of... stuff... was out of control!

This is one of the thing I love about the SCART Hunt: meeting all these interesting people!

Assorted junk

The TV stash!

The thing that lured me out of town to check out this collection was the presence of some vintage Philips units. Philips TVs with SCART are pretty rare in Australia. There are plenty of Philips TVs around but hardly any with SCART.

Also, these particular units were packing trimpots. My favorite!

Philips TVs

The owner kindly let me plug in my laptop and check out a few test patterns. One of the Philips was really good while the other had only fair focus and color.

I also tested a Loewe Profil (with the E3000 chassis). As you can see, it looked excellent! Typical of the E3000 chassis and Philips A66EAK tube combination.

E3000 lookin' sweet!

What surprised me about the Philips TVs was that neither had an actual Philips tube inside! Toshiba and Panasonic! Strange...

Type: 28GR6781/75R

Toshiba A66JMZ42X01(ZX) tube

Front view

Chassis view

Panasonic M68 tube

There were a couple other TVs I tried out (Fujitsu and Teac) but the Philips was the one I went home with. Looking forward to modding it with some external pots.

Fujitsu

Q: The ultimate MAME/SCART television? A: Quite possibly...

I've been trying to wind up my SCART hunting activities this year. It's been a fun adventure over the last couple years but I've been feeling that it's time to put my energies into my other pursuits (namely music)...

However, when you're sipping your first coffee in the morning a mint condition golden era Blaupunkt IS 70-101 VT M (with a Grundig CUC 6851 chassis) comes on eBay, well, what can you do? Click "Buy It Now" of course!

OMG!

This unit is the most startling SCART television I've ever seen. The original owner bought it back in '94 and it's still in mint condition. Did I say "mint condition"? Well, believe me, this things looks like it's straight from the shop! Absolutely incredible!

Image wise, the colours are amazing, the focus is sharp and there is zero jitter.

Internally, it's the SCART hunters dream: analogue pots! The chassis type is Blaupunkt FM 512.60 and it has plenty of trimpots inside. This is what I've found so far:

1. Vertical size
2. Vertical position
3. Horizontal size
4. Pincushion
5. Trapezium

There doesn't seem to be a control for horizontal position but I think it's a compromise worth making given how sweet the rest of the deal is! Also, the trimpots are on their own separate PCB. This thing would be so easier to modify! Simply remove the board to patch in the external pots! Way easier than the CUC 5360 board I modified:

Image adjustment board

The rest of the chassis is extremely clean! I can hardly believe it's this clean even without attacking it with an air compressor:

Clean chassis!

Also of note is the use of a 2-way speaker system, something I haven't seen in a Blaupunkt before:

2-way stereo speaker system!

The tube is an A66EAK which is not my favourite. However, with the contrast filter the results are actually pretty breathtaking (as the screenshots show):

Philips A66EAK220X01 tube

Another awesome thing is the input section: 2 SCART ports, 1 S-Video port and also composite input! Pretty handy for running multiple consoles:

The original owner was incredibly fastidious. He really looking after this baby. Check out how clean the remote is!

No sticky fingers here!

Even more amazing is the inclusion of the original receipt!


Check out the screenshots! These were taken using GroovyMAME on the "arcade_ex" monitor definition:

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (World 910522) (Capcom, 1991)

384 × 224 @ 59.6 Hz

Robocop (World revision 4) (Data East Corporation, 1988)

256 × 240 @ 57.4 Hz

R-Type (World) (Irem, 1987)

384 × 256 @ 55 Hz

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (World 4 Players) (Konami, 1989)

320 × 224 @ 60 Hz

Mortal Kombat (rev 5.0 T-Unit 03/19/93) (Midway, 1992)

399 × 253 @ 54.8 Hz

Rolling Thunder (rev 3) (Namco, 1986)

288 × 224 @ 60.6 Hz

Metal Slug - Super Vehicle-001 (Nazca, 1996)

320 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

Golden Axe (set 6, US, 8751 317-123A) (Sega, 1989)

320 × 224 @ 60.1 Hz

Bubble Bobble (Japan, Ver 0.1) (Taito Corporation, 1986)

256 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

Shadow Warriors (World, set 1) (Tecmo, 1988)

256 × 224 @ 59.2 Hz

As you can see, this is a pretty sweet unit indeed!

Here are some more goodies:

Blaupunkt IS 70-101 VT M (chassis FM 512.60)

Program display

Manual... in pristine condition!

The original newspaper ad

Original receipt! $2,000!

Repair receipt

Just to further empahsise how freakin' awesome this TV is, check out the following close ups:

Up close with Chun Li & E. Honda

Up close with Turtles & Foot Soldiers

That's it... this is the ultimate SCART TV! I'm finished!

Here are the original eBay photos:

Front

Front

Side view

Power switch

Top

Back

Back

Left side

Right side

Remote control

Rear connections

Back sticker