Space Battle Hoei Restoration

[biglouie]

By way of an update on the Original PCB search (in case its of interest)..

The game is Space Battle by Hoei International. 1980. Much confusion, not helped by THIS KLOV page which shows a couple of Space Battles.

More on Hoei International HERE, but....

Founded by Japanese businessman Yasushi Matsuda as Hoei International in April 1977. Its poor reputation led to its name being changed to Coreland Technology in 1982, becoming a contractual developer for companies such as Sega. Coreland was majority-acquired by Bandai in 1989 following severe financial difficulties and renamed Banpresto, becoming Bandai's arcade game division.

The PCB that came with the cabinet was DOA, currently being looked at by someone talented.
I found the above PCB from @penrhos
The 'speech' PCB was missing. @penrhos to the rescue again! Works! Images above in thread of those boards
"May" have an issue with sound effects being delayed and a bit of screen wobble that I need to look into.

I dumped the ROMs as it wasnt in MAME and its now available for MAME, all Paul Arnolds work, not mine. HERE for download.

I picked up the cabinet from Maidstone. Owner had bought for his grandkids 10 years prior, they couldn't give a toss about it and he was selling as Space Invaders. The instruction cards and CP all said Space Battle. I couldn't find anything about the game while on my phone at the pick up, so I took a flyer on it, thinking very little of it as I was just after a cocktail cabinet for a project refurb. Brought it home to rapturous applause from the wife.

That was back in December 2021, around Christmas eve.. 2 years ago.. Man, time flies..



Pic 2 : You can see the screen garbage.


Pic 3 : It was a little banged up.

It had seen better days. Glass was very scratched, no corner brackets to hold it down. The under glass art work was faded and taped up with sellotape. The edge banding was missing in parts. No coin box, and no back panel. The adjustable feet were missing. CPs scratched to f**k. Seemed to have two different coin mechs. The sticks were heavily grooved where they had been rubbing on the metal CP, making the sticks very wobbly. The machine "felt" curiously unsymmetrical across its width.

So I set about striping it down, lifted the monitor out and took to Grant. More on that monitor in a while. The cause of the symmetry issue? The cabinet had previously been one leg down! Looks like one of its legs had been smashed off. (Maidstone can be tough, you need your whits about you). Previous fix? Make a panel and screw it over the broken area and re-drill. I removed that and found this...



Pic 4 : When I removed the new side panel, this was underneath.

As you would expect it needed some strengthening and inserts to allow M6 bolts. On the inside, the coin box obscures the screws, tricky to solve. I suspect that is why someone didn't fancy having a go at this in the first place. Fair play, it was a PITA.



Pic 5 : The screw inserts going in (the one above was a much bigger hole and needed more work, I used epoxy filler in the end I think. In the second picture you can see the issue inside, difficult. That wooden coin box support did not want to come out, it wasn't a case of simply removing that wooden block on the bottom.

I striped the rest of the inside of the cab clean


Pic 6 : After cleaning out and sanding the inside. And the before shot

Then it was the usual, fill, sand, prime and paint job that we all know and hate.

 

[biglouie]

Prime and paint.



Pic : You can see the side panel is missing.. Sprayed it all black. I used the HVLP spray gun. I am sh1te at spraying and it could probably do with another 5 coats, but if I'm honest, I got bored of painting.



Pic : I couldn't see any evidence of a hinge for the side panel, so I had to pin in supports to prevent the panel from falling through. If I did it again, I'd probably put a piano hinge along the bottom edge.



As I had striped the cabinet of all its metal parts, I sent them off for powder coating. The above is the control panels, legs and the coin box surround. Always love it when the stuff comes back from powder coating. Looks great. I also took the feet off and sent them to be chromed. They look bloody fantastic on the cab now, more on that later, but still missing adjusters. The hole is 8mm, so I bought M8 feet. That was too small, so waiting on some 3/8" ones.



Pic : Offensively mismatched coin plates, at least they are on the right way up! . But thankfully now 'more' fixed. You can also see the new trim for the edge in this shot. 25mm annoyingly. But this stuff does the trick, if a little sketchy round the outer corners at the moment.

Looking at the few images I could find online for this type of cabinet, it seemed the one on the right was original, so found a match for that. This cab is Hoei as mentioned. I believe some of these machines were destroyed due to a legal battle with Williams. That's not my own research and I couldn't find any further evidence of that, however, that might explain why there seem to be so few of them? I managed to find another Hoei cocktail on eBay, Star Castle, the same cabinet. The owner had restored it, and it looks to be a top job! They kindly shared a google drive with me of all their photos, so I could see what I might be missing. Think that's how I decided on the coin mech, iirc.



PIC : These didn't work and still don't

 

[biglouie]

Next, power. Generally looked ok, dirty, messy and rusty transformer, no switch. But it checked out for voltages on the way in and voltages on the way out. Slightly over, maybe 1 volt on the exit. I'm not really sure if that's an issue or not.

PIC : Before and after

I added a connector for the fan and also a connector for the AC in. So I could remove the transformer or isolate for when I come back to d a switch. I replaced the fuse and I wonder if that line box might be worth replacing. But everything checks out so I am leaving it there for the time being. I've also put the ground wire back in place, and scratched off powder coat where it needs to contact. Surprisingly insulating that powder coating.



I didn't really want bolts sticking out of the bottom, so I used 4 inserts which do the job of holding it down. Probably should have applied those from the underside so they pull through, but they are solid enough.



The degauss circuitry works and clears the screen if there are any issues. This is a before shot, it now has the ground safewty wire onto the bracket. I did wonder if that was causing the monitor wobble, as wasn't connected to that before.

With the parts back from powder I looked into the control panels. The new metal panels provided by @penrhos were in better nick than the ones I had on there, they looked like they have been key'd with quite deep grooves (the bad kind!)



Pic : Bad grooves and rusting metal surround.

Buttons were as you would expect, just a quick clean, the stick I have more issues with. Switches are all fine, no issue, but due to wear, its lose.



I started with a clean up.



PIC : Nasty groove in the shaft that I dont 'think' is meant to be there.My plan is to either fill it with some welding and turn it again, or just add a 3d printed "gromet" to slot into the CP that will keep the stick moving left and right with no play.

 

[biglouie]

With the CPs powder coated, sticks and buttons cleaned and all the contacts cleaned up, I put it back together and then had to reattach the metal graphic plate. This was more tricky, as it doesnt want to stay down.



But the tape is doing a reasonable job for now, I expect I'll need to remove this and reapply it. Which is a ball ache as the double sided stuff is a pain to get off.



So with controls back in, ground wire connected to everything, fan cleaned up, coin mechs in, electrics back in and fan grills all sprayed black, it was time to pop the monitor back in and pop the board back.



I checked the voltages at the connected, all looked good and after checking the edge connector 46,381 times to make sure it was the right way round for the power, I turned it back on for the first time.

Few observations.

1. My jacket is very scratchy on camera.
2. Collision detections might not be the best (the game not mine)
3. The wobble on the screen is annoying and I don't recall if it was there before I started this. I might need to see if Grant will check it for me
4. The explosion at the end, is very delayed.
5. When you go between levels, it seems to keep playing the tune and the background sound which doesn't seem right, but might just be poor game design.
6. "I am Number One" and thats always nice to be told.

That's where we are for now. Ive got some edge banding on the 25mm edge which looks good, but outside corners are not fantastic. Its a 25mm radius which is quite tight for the edge stuff. I've got some new glass on order which will sit on the top of the edge banding (its U shaped and comes over the top, keeping the glass supported and off the actual wood top.



I need to think about glass clips. It has holes underneath for clips, and I think they are a top and bottom lipped style from the pictures I have seen. I will need to get those made, because at 25mm plus the height of the glass and the edge banding, it will need something bespoke and then chromed.

I'll post a final update when all thats done and the new instruction cards are in, then its a bit of investigation to see if the board has faults or if that is how the game plays! Also, if you ever meet my wife, dont mention I posted that Ring Doorbell footage. She's not very proud of that content!

 

[biglouie]

So if this is how it plays in MAME from my original ROMs, then my board needs a little review