Acquired a relic from the past - DONKEY KONG

[Retro95]

I've been in the market for an old fixer upper to rebuild on the weekends. For quite a while now.

I liked the idea of getting a arcade1up cabinet from best buy but I'm 6'4" and need a full size cabinet to game on.

My dad helped me track down an original Donkey Kong cabinet with all the panels and controls in tact.

It's missing the decals on the side but I can easily reapply those.

It needs some work... All the caps on the board are either leaking or completely falling apart. Wiring probably needs to be redone and I'm sure the power supply is beyond recoverable.

I'll update this thread slowly over time as I attempt to repair the original board and controls and get it working.

Worst case scenario I'm gonna put in a multicade jamma board, or a raspberry pi and get some emulators on there if the original board can't be repaired.

 

[Customledmods]

Dude that is sick! Good luck on rebuilding it.

 

[Wesk]

Nice find. Also if you put an LCD in that thing I'm going to have to ban you.

 

[Y2K]

I've been in the market for an old fixer upper to rebuild on the weekends. For quite a while now.

I liked the idea of getting a arcade1up cabinet from best buy but I'm 6'4" and need a full size cabinet to game on.

My dad helped me track down an original Donkey Kong cabinet with all the panels and controls in tact.

It's missing the decals on the side but I can easily reapply those.

It needs some work... All the caps on the board are either leaking or completely falling apart. Wiring probably needs to be redone and I'm sure the power supply is beyond recoverable.

I'll update this thread slowly over time as I attempt to repair the original board and controls and get it working.

Worst case scenario I'm gonna put in a multicade jamma board, or a raspberry pi and get some emulators on there if the original board can't be repaired.

View attachment 28587

Oh we'll get that board repaired, I think the collective here will never let you put a Raspberry Pi in there

Great find though! I can't wait to see the progress you make on getting this restored! It actually already seems to be in pretty good condition, and I'm sure this cab has a lot of documentation for it.

 

[Retro95]

Nice find. Also if you put an LCD in that thing I'm going to have to ban you.

Hahahaha I totally was only going to do that as a last resort. I'll try my best to get a CRT panel of course.

Are CRTs easy to come by in Australia?

Oh we'll get that board repaired, I think the collective here will never let you put a Raspberry Pi in there

Great find though! I can't wait to see the progress you make on getting this restored! It actually already seems to be in pretty good condition, and I'm sure this cab has a lot of documentation for it.

Yeah the raspberry pi thing is the ultimate last resort just so the cabinet doesn't go unused.

I'm sure with your help I can get it working!

 

[Wesk]

Hahahaha I totally was only going to do that as a last resort. I'll try my best to get a CRT panel of course.

Are CRTs easy to come by in Australia?

Not particularly easy but not impossible. Australia is a big place with a small CRT population and most of the time a CRT you're probably after is over 2000km away.

 

[Y2K]

Not particularly easy but not impossible. Australia is a big place with a small CRT population and most of the time a CRT you're probably after is over 2000km away.

Important thing to note is that you'll likely want a specific arcade tube as well, which from my understanding is the Sanyo 20EZ/EZV 19" chassis. You might have a lot of difficulty getting a generic tube working if you can't find that. Did this cab not have a tube?

 

[Retro95]

Important thing to note is that you'll likely want a specific arcade tube as well, which from my understanding is the Sanyo 20EZ/EZV 19" chassis. You might have a lot of difficulty getting a generic tube working if you can't find that. Did this cab not have a tube?

It's got the original tube panel, but the whole system isn't working. At this moment can't tell if the CRT is shot or not.

I'm gonna start with replacing the power supply, and taking some resistance checks on everything, then seeing if I can get it to boot.

I'm picking up the cabinet Tuesday morning. I'll send you all some juicy photos of it's innards once I get it

 

[Wesk]

Important thing to note is that you'll likely want a specific arcade tube as well, which from my understanding is the Sanyo 20EZ/EZV 19" chassis. You might have a lot of difficulty getting a generic tube working if you can't find that. Did this cab not have a tube?

MikesArcade.com - Color Inverter and sound amplifier board

Color Inverter and sound amplifier board

www.mikesarcade.com

Should allow for basically any 15khz tube.

 

[Y2K]

MikesArcade.com - Color Inverter and sound amplifier board

Color Inverter and sound amplifier board

www.mikesarcade.com

Should allow for basically any 15khz tube.

Great find! I did see this as well but it seems oriented for generic arcade monitors but I suppose could be adapted for a RGB modded consumer tube with some effort. The 20EZ tubes are great tho and I'm sure can be made to work with some effort if it's not working already!

 

[Wesk]

Great find! I did see this as well but it seems oriented for generic arcade monitors but I suppose could be adapted for a RGB modded consumer tube with some effort. The 20EZ tubes are great tho and I'm sure can be made to work with some effort if it's not working already!

No reason you couldn't use an RGB to component or composite adapter in line to use on whatever tube you have.

 

[Retro95]

Phew it was a long day of hauling this thing around but it was worth it. It's about 225 pounds. Getting it up some stairs was.... Fun.

After trying to power it on. I confirmed it was dead. I checked the obvious thing first, fuses. Found one of the main fuses had some nasty oxidation on one of the contacts. Scrubbed it off with some cleaner and a tooth brush, popped the fuse back in, and to my complete surprise it booted!

Still have 1 glaring issue though. The CRT image is wavy from left to right.

Could be an issue with the power supply or transformer. Maybe an issue with the sync signal? I hear a lot of noise on the speaker while the machine is just at the high score screen not playing any music.

I'll goof around with it some more on a weekend. As promised, some dirty photos of it's innards:




The keys were lost for the rear door. I got replacement cylinders but I gotta drill the rear door out to get better photos/access to the boards and CRT. These photos were taken through the coin slot door.

FUN FACT the coin counter has been used 75,066 times! I just find that incredibly neat!

 

[Y2K]

Awesome, glad the game boots! Next step you should do is pull all boards out, clean them up, and recap them. Recapping the CRT driver board might fix the issues you're having, or if not, at least help narrow down the list of potential issues to troubleshoot. I believe you can find cap kits for the sanyo arcade monitors pretty easily.

 

[Retro95]

Yeah these boards need a good ol' scrubbin for sure.

I agree, definitely no downside to recapping all the boards. Especially at over 40 years old. Should improve a lot of things even if it doesn't resolve the wavy issue.

I'll see about getting a replacement kit on order.