Initial D Twin Restoration

[Setch]

Looking good Martin

Would have been nice to have shared the love...

Setch

 

[guddler]

Yes - didn't work out quite right in the end

I'll have to invite a few people down in the new year for some games methinks.

 

[trm]

Sounds like some excellent progress Am I right in thinking that boosting the tube fixed the convergence issues in the corners? I'm not sure if I misread or misinterpreted what you wrote but if that's the case then I might see about getting my Naomi tube boosted as the corner convergence is pretty ropey.

And I'll definitely be up for a game or two. At least you know that you'll have somebody you can beat

 

[guddler]

Am I right in thinking that boosting the tube fixed the convergence issues in the corners?

Ish. It didn't "fix" it as such. Essentially when you turn the "screen" control up, which I think I'm right in saying is the "grid" voltage of the tube the brightness blooms to a certain extent in response. This increase in blooming is fine when the voltage is down at normal levels (if, indeed, it happens at all) but when it get's too high it causes a bad knock-on effect on the convergence. And already poor convergence in the corners get's intolerably worse.

Basically the tube was very dark. P-Man's comment on IRC along the lines of "if you turn the screen control right up do you get a completely white screen?" confirmed this as the answer was a resounding "no".

What's happened then is that boosting (more accurately "cleaning / restoring") the tube has allowed me to get the screen control almost all the way back down to where the factory setting was - indicated by the red marks on the controls. Thus, in turn the screen is no longer blooming when it's at an acceptable brightness level and therefore the convergence is back to an acceptable level at the corners. My guess is that the convergence was never great straight out of the factory. It often isn't on 29" CRTs.

Remember golden rule no. 1 about CRT Rejuvenators - the process CAN kill the tube if the tube is already on it's last legs - however, it's not happened to me yet. I have only ever done half a dozen tubes though. P-Man's probably done a lot, lot more so he'd be better placed to indicate on success / failure rates.

 

[trm]

Cheers Martin. I'll have a think about it and try the screen control to see what I get - the Naomi was in pretty decent nick (no screen burn, usual scrote vandalism) so I'm not sure what kind of usage it got, but I suspect that if the screen control trick indicates a boost is required I might go for it - when I can get to somebody with the gear

Worst case I'll buy a Pantronix off AO

 

[guddler]

Right we are then - the horrible grimy cleaning is nearing an end and we're getting to the good stuff

I had to go back up to the office this evening and do a remote server upgrade for work so while I was waiting for Windows Update to do over 100 updates I cracked on and gave both the remaining sides and the speakers a good scrub up. This time though, I had some goodies too...

Right hand side all cleaned up nice and ready to go on:

And then, fast forward to the other side being done and both being bolted back on. RHS:

LHS / Cab shot:

When I ordered, originally I was only going to order 1 left and 1 right side seeing as they're right next to each other in the middle and you can't see them. At the last minute though I had a change of heart and decided that if in the future I split the machine and sell one half then it would be a bugger for the buyer if Sega had by then sold out of the artwork, which , let's face it is quite likely. It cost me a fair wedge more but I'm now thinking it was worth it.

Seeing how much of a difference it makes with the artwork I'm now feeling rather chuffed

Sadly, the most visible bits, the centre seat back (x2) and the instructions that go above the monitor bezel I've not been able to track down yet so they may need to be repro'd. We'll see. I guess there's no rush.

I also bought new stickers for the side of the bases (the Jap writing). One of them has a chunk missing and I figured if I replaced one and it was brand spanking new, then I'd need to replace the others as they'd look odd.

I bet when it comes to it I won't be able to get the old art off as well and as easily as the scrotes managed to when it was on-site

 

[guddler]

Well, no piccies at all now as I'm really into motoring on and getting it finished now but I went up there this evening and stripped down the remaining seat and cleaned it all up then re-assembled it, and the last thing I'm working on is the seat backs.

I've cleaned one up inside and out and repaired the splits to the top corners. I did that by firstly cleaning then splits up as much as I could. Then I cut a small strap out of the top of a margarine tub and super glued that in right near the edge to keep the crack sealed up nicely. Super glue really, really stuck well in this case. Then, once that was done I've mixed up some epoxy resin and covered the whole area of the crack with that to make it nice and solid.

I'm leaving that to cure properly overnight and then that's one seat back finished. I'll do the other tomorrow. I also need to fit the remaining piece of side art tomorrow.

On Friday DHL should be delivering my "new" (2nd hand, obviously) control panel so I should be able to replace the steering wheel with the chunk missing and the machine should be all nice and ready for the admins mini-meet that I'm hosting this weekend

I'll take some pics tomorrow.

 

[Ordyne]

Martin, sorry for chiming in late but do not waist your time trying to rejuvenate that crt, it will not work. I can guarantee you that, if it does improve it will probably last a few days/weeks. I think shane has seen this also. I've had countless 29E31S crt's that are bad, either washed out but normally with a predominant colour. If you can fine out a tube from a 29E31SJ would be good as they used toshiba tubes and not the Shanghai Novel rubbish.

Throw the CRT and put another in mate!

 

[guddler]

Hate to say it, but I rejuvenated both of them, and aside from a few hairy moments on one where I'd thought I'd buggered it, the bad, dark and out of focus one came up like new. Both still don't have desperately great focus but it's better than it was, and perfectly acceptable.

Played it Sunday, still seems to be holding well after 6 months!!

Just wish I knew why the force feedback goes into a hissy fit that sounds like it's self destructing at the end of every race on one side. I've got new belts and rubber bushings / stoppers, I just haven't fitted them 'cos I'l lazy. Actually, that's not 100% true, I couldn't work out how to get the metal away from the plastic surround. Then I got lazy...

 

[Ordyne]

You've been extremely lucky then, I junk any of these crt's that show bad as I've only ever had a couple of them that have been ok for any length of time. They seem to last a few days of up time and then go back to how they were.

 

[guddler]

To be fair, you'd probably not be happy with the focus on it at the moment. To me, it's acceptable, especially given the cost of two replacements (not gonna happen!). The main beef at the start was that the LHS monitor was way, way darker and out of focus than the other side. And it was pretty much at the extremities of it's adjustment.

What the boost seems to have enabled me to do is even them out so the LHS is no longer any darker than the RHS. I guess if I'm honest, it's a little more out of focus, but not terrible.

[EDIT]PS: I guess I should update this thread with some 'more or less complete' photos. I never seem to get enough crap out of the picture.guddler2011-07-13 15:43:27

 

[Outrun2]

Hey Martin, I know you don't have this cab any more, but did you ever get that feedback problem sorted out? The grumbling once the game finishes?