Rotating the monitor in my arcade cabinet

[dave_wellington]

Hey

I'm looking at rotating the monitor in my arcade cabinet, it's currently horizontal, and I want to turn it to be vertical. It's an old style cabinet with a giant CRT. Taking out the control panel, the glass and the plastic framing, I can see the monitor is held in place by 4 big screws. The turn looks pretty simple, unscrew, pickup and rotate, rescrew. I checked the back and it looks like the turn shouldn't pull any cables or cause the neck of the monitor to hit anything.

So i've got a couple of questions.
Which way do I want to rotate the monitor? I plan to use it with an Ibara board I picked up off the forums (thanks kernow!), if that helps.
Do I need to discharge the monitor first, or will it be okay if I just turn it holding the mounting arms? The cabinet has been unplugged from the wall for at least a month.

Thanks everyone

[The Expanding Man]

I shall watch replies to this topic with interest - I need to rotate the monitor in my Blast City to vertical this week.

I have the operator's manual for the cab - it talks simply about disconnecting power, undoing the screws, and rotating the monitor carefully (preferably with the help of another pair of hands).

My online research talks about disconnecting things from the yoke of the monitor, and discharging the monitor by essentially shorting it to ground by way of a screw driver or nail in a wood stick, with an alligator clip lead attached to the ground. I couldn't find any clear tutorials about this, so I am somewhat cautious about trying this out, and minded to go with the much simpler instructions found in the cabinet manual.

[system11]

All cabs are different - pictures will help.

[njiska]

So i've got a couple of questions.
Which way do I want to rotate the monitor? I plan to use it with an Ibara board I picked up off the forums (thanks kernow!), if that helps.

Can't help you there but I'd love to know the answer myself.

Do I need to discharge the monitor first, or will it be okay if I just turn it holding the mounting arms? The cabinet has been unplugged from the wall for at least a month.

From my discussions with Rick Neiman of http://niemandisplays.com/ most display rotation simply involves powering off the display, rotating the frame and then degaussing it when it comes back on. If there's a lot of interference that the degaussing wand can't clear up you may want to make yoke adjustments or if it's minor use chevron magnets.

You should not need to discharge the anode.

[neorichieb1971]

anti clockwise.

[kernow]

Bear in mind if its an older cabinet it might rotate the wrong way for the cave board you've just bought

You might need to flip the yoke connection for the correct vertical orientation also. unless you rotate the monitor the other way if possible.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

For dave_wellington,

What kind of arcade cabinet exactly do you have? From your description, it sounds very vague at best. If it's an Taito Egret 29 or Egret II candy cab -- then with the built-in rotation mechanism, it ain't hard to tate the monitor at all.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[kernow]

Taking out the control panel, the glass and the plastic framing,

Its not one of those cabs ^_~

[neorichieb1971]

If when the monitor is horiztonal the image is the right way up, that means anti clockwise is the only logical rotation. Have you ever heard of a hori game being upside down?

Put Ibara on the cabinet and rotate it as required.

[Ed Oscuro]

If when the monitor is horiztonal the image is the right way up, that means anti clockwise is the only logical rotation. Have you ever heard of a hori game being upside down?

Sounds right (given the assumption that "old style" cabinets all can be rotated that way), but we still don't know the target boards for the machine which is where the problems start (or end).

[dave_wellington]

Here's a few snaps of the cabinet, it's was made by a company called Coin Cascade Ltd, which resides in Christchurch, New Zealand. Outside of custom cabinets, the majority of arcade machines I remember as a kid looked alike to this. I guess the guys in charge were too cheap to import official cabinets


Lens distortion makes it look a bit weird but it's not!


Monitor held up by 4 big screws. You can see the wooden frame supports TATE, and there are already holes for the screws in place.


Sorry, last one is blurry. It's an Orion monitor.

The control panel is a work in progress, mostly switched to sanwa but I need to drill some new holes to properly fit the joystick. AFAIK Ibara doesn't have a marquee, so i'll get something custom made. The idea of the cabinet is to have it dedicated to one game, and have me dedicated to that Kernow sorted me out with an Ibara board, so i'm pretty excited.

The main reason I ask which way to rotate, rather than just power up and see, is I'm still not sure if I can just rotate the monitor or weather it needs discharged first. I don't want to power up the cabinet if it increases the chance i'll get electrocuted when I do rotate it

Anyone have personal experience? Did you discharge, or just rotate?

[The Expanding Man]

I shall watch replies to this topic with interest - I need to rotate the monitor in my Blast City to vertical this week.

I have the operator's manual for the cab - it talks simply about disconnecting power, undoing the screws, and rotating the monitor carefully (preferably with the help of another pair of hands).

My online research talks about disconnecting things from the yoke of the monitor, and discharging the monitor by essentially shorting it to ground by way of a screw driver or nail in a wood stick, with an alligator clip lead attached to the ground. I couldn't find any clear tutorials about this, so I am somewhat cautious about trying this out, and minded to go with the much simpler instructions found in the cabinet manual.

I got off my arse and rotated my Blast City last night.

I just followed the instruction manual - no discharging.

Rotates anti-clockwise so that what was the bottom of the monitor ends up being the right side.

Be very careful - these things are heavy and have 40 000 volts waiting to pwn you if you slip up.

[cools]

Those pictures show it all. You're going to need to disconnect the wiring and neckboard before rotating the tube.

[dave_wellington]

Those pictures show it all. You're going to need to disconnect the wiring and neckboard before rotating the tube.

Really? explain further

[cools]

I'm playing safe. Doesn't look like there's much leeway in the wiring so if you're pulling the thing forward and turning it I'd be very concerned about breaking something.

Discharging it is easy. It's made out to be this big scary thing, when the reality is as long as you don't have metal touching skin on the tool you use to do it you'll be fine. The electricity isn't going to jump out at you. Once you've done it the first time you'll be wondering "is that it?"

[speedlolita]

*chuckles at how far over the 1p stick is*

[system11]

Should rotate clockwise without disconnecting everything, anticlockwise which is what you'll need, nah - I wouldn't chance it. The wires are all crossed over, they'll tighten up if you try to turn it anti, looking at the pic.

[Ed Oscuro]

*chuckles at how far over the 1p stick is*

Hey man, Kiwis have some big left arms.

Myself, I would just get a permanently vertical cab and use this one for horis.

[dave_wellington]

Agh, not what I want to hear. What i'd really like is a candy cabinet, but they're pretty rare around these parts.
Still determined, I might try rotating very slowly and have someone watch the wiring from the back. So long as I only touch the frame, no death right?

[kernow]

You're not going to die touching any of the tube, only the anode might give you a bit of a shock if not discharged, and then thats unlikely. Just take it slow. I'd personally still disconnect all wiring and discharge the tube just to make sure.

[dave_wellington]

Just to be sure, Ibara doesn't have a flip screen dipswitch option does it?

[system11]

Just to be sure, Ibara doesn't have a flip screen dipswitch option does it?

Unfortunately not. It still makes me angry thinking about it.

[dave_wellington]

So, I finally rotated it! A friend was supposed to come over today and help me do it, along with drill some holes in my panel so I can fit my sanwa stick properly, but when he didn't come, I decided to do it myself. After very carefully taking the screws out of the frame and with my other arm as far away as possible; touching the frame to see if it had any electrical charge, I started rotating the monitor.

What I learned was - monitors are about 3x heavier than you expect. I'm a pretty healthy guy, gym three times a week that sort of thing, but GODDAMN that thing is heavy! It took me ages to rotate the monitor.

Wiring wise, one connector came out, and the degauss coil cable was only just attached. I removed the degauss coil cable and rotated the coil so the cable would reach. The yoke connector that came out, I wasn't so sure about. There's two places it can fit in the arcade board. The only documentation I have on the board is the below image, not so useful.


(documentation - click for larger)

(monitor board, yoke connectors straight center - click for larger)

I found the yoke connector only fits one way, so I stuck it on "A", and booted the cabinet. Besides the high pitch noise the monitor makes, it also crackled a lot. The crackling lessened the longer it was on, but it still crackled quite often.
Looking at the screen, the graphics were messed up. The cave logo appeared, upside down and distorted. The game then proceeded to run, with distorted graphics. I powered down the cabinet and after some time moved the yoke connector to the second place it would fit ("B"). The game booted up the same way, I rushed to get the camera, and the moment I came back the screen turned off (though the machine was still on). I promptly turned the cabinet off. Doesn't smell so great in the back of the cabinet.

For now i'm going to leave it, and try again tomorrow. If anyone has any advice, please let me know. I know I need to degauss the screen at some point, but it's definitely not the issue I was having.

I think tomorrow i'll also swap out the ibara board for die hard arcade, just to be safe

[cools]

Umm, you rotated the degauss coil?

The yoke connector will go on either of those spots, it'll just flip the image around depending on which one it's connected to. Since the image was upside down, plug it into the other one.

[dave_wellington]

Umm, you rotated the degauss coil?

Maybe i'm confused. There's a thick black taped up wire that goes around the outside cabinet, and plugs into "D-COIL" on the monitor board. It's the wire you can see around the monitor in my monitor image above.
When I rotated the screen, the place where the wire came down and connected to the board moved up, and was no longer able to reach. I removed the wire from around the monitor, and reorientated it so it would reach the arcade board with no tension. Did I do wrong ?

The colours when it booted up looked _okay_, though it was difficult to tell :/

[cools]

Looking at the pics again, no you're okay. Normally they're fixed to the tube and a specific shape, yours looks to be different.

Get some pics up of it now.

[kernow]

Check your cab power supply voltages too (+5, +12). Its not going to sort these issues out at all, but you might as well do it before you put that lovely board in again.

[dave_wellington]

The game then proceeded to run, with distorted graphics. I powered down the cabinet and after some time moved the yoke connector to the second place it would fit ("B"). The game booted up the same way, I rushed to get the camera, and the moment I came back the screen turned off (though the machine was still on). I promptly turned the cabinet off. Doesn't smell so great in the back of the cabinet.

For now i'm going to leave it, and try again tomorrow. If anyone has any advice, please let me know. I know I need to degauss the screen at some point, but it's definitely not the issue I was having.

Got around to starting it up again, threw on Marvel Super Heroes because I wouldn't mind if that board died. No picture appeared on the screen, seems it might have blown. Sucks! Thanks for everyone's help anyway, hopefully i'll get hold of a much nicer candy cabinet sometime soon.