Zaccaria/SeeVend Hustler Restoration

Background

This game was aquired out of a bulk raid purchase from a German warehouse.

24/10/2015 - Castors

Whilst not originally high on my list of games to restore given it's limited appeal it was the last game in the 2nd row and missing it's feet putting it at risk of damage each time it was moved. Since I needed to put castors on it I decided to fetch it home to fully restore it.

31/10/2015 - Initial assessment

The exterior of the cabinet was in good condition and complete with original marque and control panel overlay. The back door was present with it's label in tact. This cabinet didn't have the usual black trim base on the bottom - it didn't look as if it was ever present and thus likely left the factory this way. The cabinet also didn't have a Zaccaria labelled coin door that I suspect was intentional for SeeVend destined cabinets.

The control panel & German instruction label looked in good condition. I wasn't sure if the joystick restrictor plate was original or not but it did look like it was originally 2-way but hacked to be 4-way. The marque looked in good condition as did the front glass. Of course everything was dirty. The game also had a couple of labels attached - one on the side for "August Barnert - Spiel- und Unterhaltungs- Automate" that appears to be the operator and one on the monitor surround "Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle - jugendfrei - VDAI VIDEO" that appears to be a game rating.

Inside looked mostly original, complete and intact. All the factory labels looked present. The serial numbers on everything all matched.

The power supply looked in reasonable shape (the fan had been disconnected) and the game PCB looked like a bootleg but has the SeeVend "S" label on it and thus is presumably original in this cabinet. The soldering on the edge connector was pretty poor so I suspected this had been redone at some point.

01/11/2015 - First power-on

The cabinet had a European power plug that I changed for my standard IEC-C14 style that I'm using for 240V based games. Internally, the game was set for 220V that I changed over to the 240V (labelled as 245) for use with my 240V step up transformers.

First power yielded excellent results with monitor, game board, marque lights and coin door lights all operational. The game itself also played fine with working sound. One obvious problem was that the monitor needed degaussing - the degaussing circuit was working but it didn't clear the discoloration. Having never encounterred none-self correcting magnetization before I'd not yet needed and thus didn't own an external degaussing tool so I ordered one off Ebay.

01/11/2015 - Oxo Deutsche Marks

Inside the front the cash box was missing and in its place was an old German Oxo time with a few old Deutsche marks inside.

03/11/2015 - Fan replacement

A previous owner had already unplugged the original factory fan (no suprise there) so I built a replacement fan assembly and fitted that into the cabinet. The replacement is a 240V ADDA AA1282DB-AT with four 3/4" L brackets and the power connector cable reused from the removed original factory fan.

04/11/2015 - Lock replacement

The cabinet locks were not Zaccaria ones and I replaced them with my own "standard" HAPP A05 series locks.

05/11/2015 - Credit button

For ease of use by the public at the show I made up a credit button assembly based on a 3-way button to match the NC/NO inputs that the the early Zaccaria credit board uses.

06/11/2015 - Manual scan

Scanned in the technical manual and supporting paperwork.
300 DPI Hustler Technical Manual scan (25.7MB).

06/11/2015 - Control panel dissassembly & cleaning

Removing the control panel revealed a pair of additional wires that ran from the joystick to the game board edge connector. Aside from that the original wiring looked complete and intact.

After dissassembling and removing the joystick it became clear that the cabinet originally had only a 2-way joystick that had been replaced with a 4-way at some point. That replacement had also involved gouging out the up/down hole in the wood, overlay and top restrictor plate. The manual doesn't state the type of joystick that was fitted originally so I decided to clean it all up and reproduce a new 2-way to restrictor plate to restore the 2-way look and feel.

06/11/2015 - Odd magnet

An odd old speaker magnet had been tied to the frame of the monitor. I don't know for sure what someone was trying to accomplish but my bet would be something to do with the none-self corrected magnetization artifacts on the monitor. I removed it.

06/11/2015 - Monitor glass removal

No problems removing the monitor glass. There was some old tape along the top that I removed from the glass. Someone had cleaned it before but thankfully hadn't damaged the artwork (I never touch the artwork).

06/11/2015 - Monitor surround removal

The monitor surround looked like it had never been removed before though some of the lower staples had rusted away to nothing. It was very dirty, however.

06/11/2015 - CRT cleaning

The CRT was also dirty with some nicotene staining that needed a little bit of effort to remove (but I've seen much worse).

06/11/2015 - Surround cleaning

The monitor surround was cleaned with a wipe of a damp cloth. and then set to flatten out. I didn't remove the rating sticker, leaving it as-is. The only patches needed were around the lower staple holes and some reinforcement of the thin strip at the bottom of the CRT that had become deformed due to the disintegration of the lower staples.

08/11/2015 - Chassis HV repair

Whilst the monitor chassis was working there was some arcing noise from the LOPT that decreased when the HV wire was pushed inside - the HV cable was loose. Taking the cable out revealed that a couple of the jaws had become brittle and snapped off. Since the LOPT on this chassis is rare and working I used a small amount of tape around the HV lead to increase it's diameter and adjusted the end to make a longer 'point' at the end of the cable. With those two changes and a cable tie to further hold the HV cable down in the LOPT socket the HV connection was much improved.

09/11/2015 - Artwork scanning

Scanned in the Hustler marque.
600 DPI Hustler marque scan (8.2MB).

Scanned in the Hustler monitor glass.
600 DPI Hustler monitor glass scan (20.1MB).

Scanned in the Hustler control panel overlay.
600 DPI Hustler control panel overlay scan (7.1MB).

10/11/2015 - Reproduction joystick restrictor plate

I sent out a request to my local Seattle Metro Arcade Collectors (SMAC) group for ideas on reproducing a new joystick restrictor plate that yielded a recommendation for Front Panel Express as an option for making the plate. The company offers free software for designing front panels (Front Panel Designer) that can be used to design anything a CNC can mill out. This application turned out to be more than enough for the restrictor plate being able to not only express basic cut outs but also features such as curved corners and bevelled edges just like the original plate. It took less than an hour to enter in all the measurements, perform a paper check print and generate a price quote of $39 plue $6 shipping. It really was a great experience and I'm considering this in future as a way to make complete reproduction Zaccaria control panel overlays.

Reproduction joystick restrictor plate artwork (Front Panel Designer format)
Reproduction Hustler joystick restrictor plate.

11/11/2015 - Control panel cleaning

After cleaning the joystick, buttons and overlay the control panel could be reassembled ready for the arrival of the reproduction joystick restrictor plate.

20/11/2015 - Degaussing

The degauss coil arrived and was much bigger than I expected - I was expecting a small hand sized ring but what I got was a large heavy one foot diameter ring. However, it worked perfectly to remove virtually all the discoloration.

21/11/2015 - Repro joystick restrictor plate arrives

The repro joystick restrictor plate arrived from Front Panel Express and it was beautiful! The fit was perfect.

21/11/2015 - Joystick shaft repair

The joystick shaft had a groove worn into it due to the sharp rough corners of the gouged out original restrictor plate. This left a noticable "catch" on the right/left motion with the new reproduction restrictor plate fitted and I didn't want that groove to wear down the new plate. The MacGyver fix was to cut a small length of solder to fit into the groove and then secure it in place with heat shrink tubing. This arrangement reduces the groove and removes to the metal to metal contact making the tubing sacreficial to protect both the shaft and restrictor plate from wearing against each other directly. It's an experimental fix. The fully completed control panel with the new reproduction restrictor plate looked great :)

22/11/2015 - Joystick wiring restoration

It took a double take to realize that the extra pair of fly wires were not for adding up/down but for adding right/left. Given the poor soldering of the edge connector I suspected that the game was converted at some point and then converted back such that when it was converted back the original left/right pair became wired to up/down. Since up/down were not used, the original cabinet pair were tucked down into the cable guide. I removed the fly wires and restored the original factory left/right wiring.

24/11/2015 - Front reassembly

After 30+ years the foam pads on the monitor glass side walls had rotted away so I fitted a new pair. I refitted the cleaned monitor surround and reinstalled the cleaned front glass. Lastly the control panel was refitted to finish off the restoration.

26/11/2015 - Burn-in testing

A few full days of burn-in testing didn't encounter any break downs and thus the game was ready for show time :)