3D Printed Namco Reunion Dust Washer

I’ve been meaning the breath some new life into my Reunion Cab for over a year. Around a year ago I knew that would come in some form of the gaming experience provided by Bitkit. That part, was easy. Install the Bitkit. Install some ROMS - have fun.

Unfortunately, the controls on my 20yr Reunion cabinet sort of sucked.

For my Namco 20yr Reunion Cab, I really wanted spring-leaf controls. I play alot of Pac and I don’t like the clicky microswitches for Pac games.

The original 20yr Reunion Controller.

Groovy Game Gear sells a very nice spring-leaf-switch variant based on the dimensions of this joystick.

https://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=402

Unfortunately, it has one serious flaw. If you look at the pictures above, both dust washers have a ton of play between the shaft and the dust-washer-shaft-cut-out. For the original, this wasn’t such a big deal but the Groovy Game Gear remake’s E-clip is constantly popping across that gap. So, you guy the fancy joystick for super smooth operation and you get these random “catches” in the action as the dust-washer and the e-clip interact with one another.

3D Printer to the rescue. I design a 3mm dust washer that fits tightly against the ball-shaft, eliminating the e-clip nonsense. The one pictured here was printed on ABS and is working great so far.

Want the model to make your own? No Problem-o, check it out:
Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/88xnewifeacb15u/reunion%20washer%203mm.stl?dl=0

BitKit

Left the dust because - it is real dust. Collector dust. This way, you know it is real! :)

When I was growing up, my mom had this sister, that wasn’t actually a blood relative. Through the transitive property of whatever, that made her sister’s three boys my cousins. They were a bit older but were cool to me and I always liked to visit them.

I’d loose innocence by the centimeter every time we’d hang out.

In my memory at least, every one of them was a different avatar of a Jack Black character. They were raised by MTV and Basic Cable, Rock Posters on the walls of their cluttered rooms and the kind of energy you get with three teenaged boys resonating off of one another. I’d spend every car ride home mentally digesting another discovery in heavy metal or some sex-joke I didn’t quite understand yet but knew must be hilarious.

That tangent to express my notion that Bitkit was a secret all the cool kids knew about and I’m just now really discovering. I sort of feel like Bitkit is to my arcade-discovery as Queensrÿche was to my cousin-imposed music discoveries. I knew of the Bitkit, even had one tucked away for later-use for over a year..

But having the Bitkit tucked away is like hearing a single on the radio and playing it is like listening to the full album.

When I first was introduced to Bitkit and started to find out its capabilities as they pertain to specific games, large parts of it go unspoken, I suspect in a deliberate attempt to stay under the radar or not court the wrong type of licensing attention. In this post, I want to shine a little flashlight on the Bitkit. Not a bat-signal to wake the neighbors but maybe a bit of clarity for those of you who know where to look. I don’t want to blow up anyone’s spot here but I do want you to see the potential in this awesome little card and hopefully feel compelled to support the developer of it.

CraftyMech

CraftyMech is among a short credit-roll of stand out names in this hobby for creating awesome tools and being a positive influence. Back when I was struggling to find an MCR Compatible monitor to finish out my Tapper, a friend suggested this neat little tool that I just absolutely had to have. The tool, was the CraftyMech TPG.. I knew the name CraftyMech from numerous helpful KLOV posts and some Broken Token Podcasts.

The TPG is an essential tool for monitor troubleshooting and dial in. Really glad I bought it!

Anyway.. back to Bitkit. Bitkit is a JAMMA-based FPGA of various popular early arcade hardware. If it had a Z80 (even.. 3 of them..), the Bitkit is probably technically capable of playing it. It is sort of similar to the popular JROK-designed wSYSFPGA Multi Williams PCB or the Clay Cowgill designed ArcadeSD PCB (although ArcadeSD is actually really-good emulation, not FPGA).

In a sentence: It is a modern board that can mimic (note, I didn’t use the work emulate) classic arcades with near perfection.

FPGA

To understand what separates boards like Bitkit from the old 60-in-1 Chinese pirate rom PCBs, you need to at least understand what FPGA is. Field Programmable Gate Array’s are user-customizable chips that can be programmed to mimic other hardware.

Imagine the original Atari Centipede boardset where you have a main game board and an audio board / amplifier. The Atari Centipede PCB had something like 32 distinct IC’s, half a dozen ROMS, 3 distinct classes of RAM in 11 different configurations, a micro processor, host of capacitors, transistors and resistors.

Well, if you have sufficient IO & behavior specs for all of that hardware you could arrange it all into a workflow in something like MatLAB and essentially design the entire Centipede PCB as a bin-file that can be flashed into a single chip or chipset. That chip/chipset is the FPGA. Any code the game might have used is missing but you would have recreated the entire hardware platform with the benefit of modern chip design and a placeholder to insert the game code in a ROM slot.

That’s about where my knowledge stops. I do know a dozen or so programming languages from three decades but if you brought me a chip or a populated circuit and said “fPGA this thing” - I wouldn’t know where the F to begin. I’m just going to assume as always that step 1)Drink Bourbon. From there, I’m out of my experience.

In the same way I once blew the mind of a C-Suite exec by explaining on a plane ride to China that I had a near-enough copy of their AS/400 dataset on my cheap laptop, if you really stop and think about it:

We can put 8 billion transistors in your $700 iPhone. We can put 92 billion transistors in a $9,000 industrial fPGA. Of Course we can put a couple million transistors in a $18 FPGA chip like the Spartan-6.

Bitkit, Specifically

On the surface, Bitkit targets some lesser-known titles from the 80’s; games you aren’t likely to see the Stranger Things kids playing or see referenced in 80’s pop culture digests. CraftyMech’s original release of the Bitkit card targeted the SNK 6502 arcade hardware that was used for games like Nibbler, Vanguard, Pioneer Balloon, Satan of Saturn, Zarzon & Fantasy.

Since that initial release, the developer has added support for Pac-man arcade hardware to bring in games like Lizard Wizard, Abscam, Eyes, Pac. I’d personally like to see Van-Van-Car added. I love that game for some stupid reason.

Within a year, the developer added (a targeted subset of) Namco-Galaxian arcade hardware to get games like Scramble, Jump Bug, Amidar, Anteater.

By the end of 2020, he added support for Galaga-alike hardware, which opens up future potential for 3xZ80 games.

Bitkit, Reunion. Reunion, Bitkit

The 20yr Namco Reunion cabinet is an odd duck. Galaga’s sounds were just a little off in ways I’m not experienced enough to describe and the decision to hide Pac-man on the game board only to be accessible by a sequence (Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left) is bizarre to me. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

The Reunion PCB isn’t known for extreme durability and reliability, either. The giant vertical-orientation monitor makes it novel, as well.

It may be the perfect cabinet for Bitkit.

The Bitkit came in a USB model originally and now comes in a Bluetooth model. You initially set up the card (upload game roms, download and upload High Scores) from a well made Windows or MacOS app, Bitkit Manager. I have one of each type of card and my general impression is that while Bluetooth sets up easily and works well it does have range limitations, at least for my use-case. I’d hoped to be able to connect from a tower PC in my Gameroom that is 9 ft, 6 in from this cabinet without obstruction. It did connect but the transfer times were painfully slow. It would take over an hour plus multiple re-attempts per ROM file upload.

For comparison, I can use an xBox One Controller on the PC from the same distance and bluetooth transfer between IOS and Android devices in that same distance. All that said, I don’t necessarily fault the Bitkit for Bluetooth range, it is possible that by placing the Bitkit farther from the monitor chassis frame I could have improved the distance but I didn’t feel like redoing all of the cable management in the cabinet, at least not right now. Long term, I’m either going to need to drag a USB extension cable with another bluetooth radio nearby the cabinet or switch it over to my USB spare. All doable and unique to my gameroom layout.

All that said, Bluetooth is cool if you are within a few feet of the cabinet. Once I resigned to carry a laptop over to the cabinet, the setup went smoothly. There is rumor of an IOS or Android version of the Bitkit Manager App - that would solve my distance snafu with style, here’s hoping it happens I have spare iPads and Android tablets coming out of my ears from past dev projects.

The on-screen setup menu system is well appointed but not cluttered, self explanatory features for enabling the ability to boot straight to a game, rearrange or hide game slots and assign buttons. The BitKit is sold as a home-use JAMMA card, so there aren’t pricing options to adjust through menus but since it is full-hardware FPGA on a JAMMAS harness, the coin up buttons do still trigger a credit advance in games I’ve tried. That’s handy if your game room has tokens or a bucket of quarters for guests to play out of.

The game selection menu system is a carousel style left or right selection of the game title art. It has an appealing star field and simple font selection that feel right for this era of games.

The Bitkit can be put in single game mode and set to boot to a particular game, making it a handy solve, alternative or replacement for older hardware, in a pinch. MsPac board on the fritz? Get a Bitkit. Galaga acting up? Get a Bitkit. I have a friend right now with a stack of problematic Bosconian PCB’s patiently waiting for support to come to Bitkit.

In my cabinet, I have the Bitkit booting to menu and with the full romset and exploring some of these lesser known games will be a large part of my Q1. In Summary: I freaking love this PCB.

Got a Bitkit and looking for roms? Let me save you some time. Go here -> Bitkit/Roms

3D Printing Monitor Adjustment Tools

CRT Adjustment tools are often made from Nylon or Plastic. Being a natural insulator, it decreases your changes of shorting out something within the monitor chassis. Being made from the same material as the adjustment pots, it prevents you from damaging the on-board adjustment pots with sharp metal tools. Finally, some adjustment coils (like the horizontal width adjustment coil on common G07 & K4900’s) are often ferrite core - metal tools can demolish them.

Before I set out to create one, I did a quick search and found this set:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1802360/files

2.5mm is close enough to the .100” adjustment tool for a horizontal width coil adjuster.

I scaled it on the y-axis to give myself a little room to maneuver around the yoke assembly.

Slot head for nylon adjustment pots

For the nylon adjustment pots, a small flat-head tool is handy.

I found this one and scaled it down to about 25% of the original design size.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3916160/files

3D Printing Connectors

The connector dilemma.. How often when working on games do you find yourself in the position of “dangit, I need connector x in order to be able to proceed.”

On the hack side of the decision matrix you can go with twisted connections, solder and shrink tubed, electrical tape or wire nuts.

On the OCD side of the decision matrix you place an order for the connectors, pay $8 in shipping for $5 in parts and have to wait a week for them to arrive so you can finish your task.

Eventually, you end up with something like this. Varied pins and housings. Some for DC applications, some for AC applications.

Once you get bitten by the “I need this one part” bug enough times and you end up over-buying spares or mixed-lots that include dozens of varieties of pins and connectors.

Cost Considerations

$.14c in material cost for a connector is a pretty decent deal.

Working on Ice Cold Beer, I recall paying ~$8/each for the 18 position dual-leaf PCB edge connector housings and around $70 for 30Au Gold 22-26AWG pins. (Sourced from arcadepartsandrepair.com )

Working on my first pinballs (Data East Star Wars, Sega Star Wars) I recall waiting a week for appropriate .156 IDC connectors or .156 molex-equivalents to improve interconnect reliability.

2 or 3 position Molex connectors are often used in arcade / pinball power or modding situations. I’ve paid $.50c up to $2 for individual Molex connector pairs. $.14c for a 3D printed pair in under an hour is pretty nice!

Originality Vs Pragmatic Convenience

Detail-oriented collectors might focus in on sourcing exactly the right connectors, something like the Red AMP connector that was manufactured in the middle-80’s. Profit-oriented operators would often direct-solder wires to board pins or use electrical tape and shrink tubed solutions in order to keep their amusement machines in service.

I’m not wholly opposed to a wire nut or compression slice with the justification that most of the wiring in our homes use these methods inside of electrical boxes for switches and plugs.

But mostly for arcades and pinballs I try to use connectors when it makes sense.

Finding Models

Connector-housings are actually pretty easy to “eyeball and approximate”. Taking measurements or looking at the spec, there are alot of connector-housing models on thingiverse to support peoples’ electronics projects. The two sets I found below were some of the most impressive in terms of quality and closeness to originals.

3-pin Molex
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139433
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4131380

2-pin Molex
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139450
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139409

Searching around, it turns out the CAD models for Molex (and other) connectors are available from the official sources

For example, the commonly used .093” pin connectors often found on the AC lines of arcades:

Plug Side
Receptacle Side

Broader categories
- you will recognize alot of these from wiring harnesses in cars, common appliances in addition to arcade and pinball uses.

AMP Dual Leaf 28 Position (like a JAMMA card edge connector)

The file formats are common CAD formats that can be converted to printable .STL files pretty easily.

I’m not sure around the legality of using them but for the sake of this post we are going to assume hobby use one-offs won’t be a problem.

Finally, GrabCAD has a really handy library of all sorts of engineering CAD models, connectors included.

FINDING THE CONDUCTORS

There are so many different connector and mating-conductor standards used in Arcades & Pinballs, I’m not going to even attempt a comprehensive list but here are a few that you will probably run into frequently.

MOLEX .156

Molex .156 are often used in Arcade monitors (RGB, G, Sync) connections. The .156 size is also what most Bally, Williams, Data East, White Star, Sega and SAM Pinballs use for power interconnects. Though the pinball applications are typically as IDC (vampire tap-style) connectors. Molex is a solid upgrade and will mate perfectly with the .156 header pins on those boards.

https://www.aaarpinball.com/TwilightZone/TwilightZone.htm

https://www.flippers.be/basics/101_general_illumination.html

Some sources I like for these pins and connectors:

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.156%22

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/156-kk-molex/

MOLEX .100

Yellow one is .156 spacing, red one is .100 spacing.

http://www.ukvac.com/forum/connector-idsolvednow-id48-drive-board-versions_topic359385.html

Molex .100 are often used for lower voltage interconnects or in cases where component spacing was tight on the original board designs. Stuff like, Controlled Lamp to Cabinet Harnesses for Pinball and IO interconnects on some arcade cabinets.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.100

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/100-kk-molex/

MOLEX .093

https://primetimeamusements.com/tech-tips-monitor-issues/

https://www.pinballlife.com/power-tap-and-8-way-power-splitter-board-for-williamsbally-wpc-pinball-machines.html

Molex .093 are very commonly used in 2 position and 3 position AC applications in arcades. Usually from a power tap before the isolation transformer running to the marquee light.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=.093%22

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/093-molex-connectors/

AMP and MOLEX Leaf Connectors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WYi6_xv1mSY

https://www.instructables.com/install-a-JAMMA-harness-in-an-arcade-cabinet/

These edge connectors are the basis behind the JAMMA 56 pin card-edge connector found in many arcades.
Taito’s Ice Cold Beer uses three partially populated 36 pin card-edge connectors. I’ve also seen them used as beefy interconnects between some multi-board stack arcade PCBs.

https://www.arcadeshop.com/search?q=edge

https://www.arcadepartsandrepair.com/product-category/connectors-sockets-pins/edge-connectors/amp-twin-leaf-edge-connectors/

That’s enough to get you started though there are obviously others. As like most things in the electrical component space, you can also find these things at mouser.com, greatplainselectronics.com, digikey.com and other electronics suppliers. Personally, I try to support arcade and pinball specific suppliers when shipping is convenient and pricing isn’t out of hand.

A Note ABout Materials

Did you know PLA thermoplastics come from corn? PLA is formed from the sugars in corn starch by immersing corn kernels in sulfur dioxide which breaks down the corn into starch, protein and fiber components. Sort of like a fermentation process.. The oils are extracted into long-chain polymers that behave similarly to fossil fuel byproducts that can be made into plastics, polystyrene and textiles.

The most common thermoplastics used in 3D printing tend to be great insulators. The exception being, any filaments that might be reinforced with metal fibers and some carbon-fiber composites. Heat is the largest concern. You wouldn’t want to use 3D printed connectors in a service environment where it might be exposed to heat greater than the material tolerance.

src: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/materials-guide/properties-table/

PLA is a solid electrical insulator but only within a nominal temperature range. You can use PLA but understand that applications above 125F degrees carry risk as PLA starts to break down and loose structure at higher temperatures.. A moving truck or storage unit can reach temperatures of 120F degrees. You can use PLA to print connectors but it isn’t the first choice for electrical applications.

ABS can keep its properties above 200F Degrees. going to have similar temperature properties to PLA but a flatter melt-curve at the melting temperatures. (It will deform less)

PETG falls between PLA and ABS with support of temperatures up to around 160F degrees.

Nylon, which also support 200F+ Degrees (often much more) is commonly used in electrical applications. Wall plates, even some electrical wall boxes are constructed from Nylon or Nylon composites.

I make most of my connectors from Nylon, ABS, PC, or sometimes enhanced PLA. (ToughPLA or PLA+)

More ICB Improvements

This will be my last post regarding Ice Cold Beer for awhile.

If you are new to this post thread, here is some links to the earlier portions of my journey with this game for context.

Ice Cold Beer (November 2019) - Where I chronicle getting the game in July and working through a myriad of issues to get it playing. The “Happy Ending” was premature, it turns out.

ICB EPROM Shenanigans (July 2020) - In this post, I take an improbably long journey through Murphy’s Law following what ended up being a dead end troubleshooting theory.

ICB Restarts (Conclusion) (August 2020) - In this post, I conclude repairs on the wiring harness and finally have a working PCB.

..and finally this post (the one you are looking at) where I finally get to put in a little detail work on the game and get it to a stable point.

Finally free of frustrating and transient board problems, I spent some time putting some finishing touches on Ice Cold Beer.

Awhile back I ordered new motors and belts from Marco, as well as new motor limit switches from Arcade Parts and Repair.

The closed gearbox design makes a tremendous difference in terms of motor noise from the game. I don’t know where Marco sources these motors but just one note, there was a polarity marker (red dot) near one of the terminals and I found that the polarity was actually reversed from what my machine expected. That tells me these motors, at least were probably used in other games, too.

My original glass has some minor but annoying damage to the art at the bottom near the ball release lever and at the top near the light bulb. I wrapped up the old one in packing material and stowed it away for later and ordered a new one from Phoenix Arcade.

While I waited on the new glass, I spent some time tumbling some of the remaining parts and polishing the ball-bar. For the life of me, I don’t understand the rust / oxidation on this game. Many screw heads were perfectly clean but the portions of the threads that were engaged in wood were rusty. Moisture in the wood? If so, odd that it didn’t seem swollen anywhere.

I installed new felt in the channels (used this stuff) and I polished out the ball bar as much as I could without removing the plating. The ball bar parts are hard to come by. People sell 3D printed copies of the plastics but the brass bar itself seldom becomes available.

Looking better!

It isn’t perfect but definitely coming along nicely.. For me, it is time to take a break from fixing this game and move on to something else for awhile!

Tempest! (A Photo Journey)

About: Mario Kart Arcade GP & GP2

Game Details

Name: Mario kart Arcade Gp
Manufacturer: Namco
Year: 2005
Type: Videogame
Subtype: Driving game

Cabinet Styles:

• Upright/Standard

source: KLOV

Name: Mario Kart Arcade GP 2
Manufacturer: Namco
Year: 2007
Type: Videogame
Subtype: Driving game

Cabinet Styles:

• Upright/Standard

source: KLOV

10 Minutes with Mario Kart Arcade GP2

Mario Kart Arcade GP -> KLOV LInk
Mario Kart Arcade GP2 -> KLOV Link

ACQUISITION

“Thank you for your service, Mario Kart”

One of my cabinets came by way of a hookup through a friend in Birmingham. This cabinet still has a stock tag on it from asset inventory or from an auction perhaps. The inclusion of an NSN number leads me to suspect it may have spent some time on a military base or perhaps it just passed hands through an auction authority that frequently deals with US Government or Military items.

The other cabinet came by way of a miniature golf closure in Southern Mississippi. Both cabinets are in good shape, they have a few cabinet repairs here and there and some scuffs in artwork or missing decals.

Hardware

The game is based on the Namco, Sega, Nintendo Triforce platform. Typically a IBM power PC w/ 512mb of RAM roughly similar in architecture to the Nintendo Gamecube. The cabinet is a JVS wiring class, includes a Triforce CPU, a JVS IOS Interface Board, a force-feedback controller board & sound amp.

This game also includes Namco’s Namcam(2) camera, a gimmick to snap photos of the player to be used in leaderboards or as in-race identifiers to distinguish players from bot-racers.

The game originally shipped with a 29” CRT but I was forced to put in Wells-Gardner (the video mentions Vision Pro but my memory for these details is crap) 27” LED Monitors in order to get support for Mario Kart Arcade GP2.

Gameplay

The gameplay shares similarity in racing dynamics to the console Mario Kart games with key differences and Namco cross-licensed characters (pacman, ms pacman). The original game advertised 6 worlds and 24 tracks but they phoned-in the effort in that each world really only had two track variations and then environment or reverse traffic flow on those two comprising the remaining 12 tracks.

Mario Kart Arcade GP2 expands the track offering by adding deeper variation between tracks, bringing the total up to 8 cups & 32 tracks.

MAINTENANCE, VALUE, RARITY, FUN-FACTOR

These games are pretty rare and tended to be higher maintenance games when placed on location because of camera failures and force-feedback failures.

I’m not sure what they are worth but I have roughly $1400 in the Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 upgrade, roughly $900 in the monitors, $400 in force feedback repairs on top of an average price paid of over $3,000 each. With incidental repairs I’d put the total cost of ownership in the pair a little over $9,000. After about 4 years of ownership they continue to be the most-played-arcade games in our game room. Pinball-inclined friends like to comment:

“You could put three pinball machines in the amount of space these consume”

With that out of the way, I estimate that the Mario Kart Pair has gotten more play in four years than every Pinball machine I’ve owned over that amount of time; combined.

It isn’t just kids and friends of kids, either. Adults have been known to use it as a form of rock-paper-scissors or as a sobriety scale. (Legal Disclaimer: Accuracy of Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 to determine a person’s ability to drive safely has not been established)

Is it fun? Yep.

Review Shenanigans

In the coming weeks I’m posting a series of arcade and pinball reviews of games that are currently being fostered in the basement. Ten minutes (+/- a few minutes) with each game to talk about gameplay, maintenance or whatever comes to mind.

As I post them, I’ll go back and make the game entries below clickable.

Pinballs

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Attack from Mars
Medieval Madness
Indiana Jones The Pinball Adventure
Scared Stiff
Tales of the Arabian Nights

Arcades

Cocktail Table Arcade-SD Multigame
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 - Review completed on 4/19/19
Ms Pacman (Cabaret)
Centipede (Cabaret)
Donkey Kong (Multi Kong w/ Arcade-SD)
Namco Reunion
Tapper
Tron
Q*Bert (Mylstar FPGA)
Robotron (Multi-Williams FPGA)
Tempest
Mortal Kombat 4 (and MK1, MK2, MK3 w/ RiddledTV Switcher)

Console

Nintendo Entertainment System Online (Nintendo Switch Online Service)