Hellomat - Classic Arcade Cab Restauration

Hey ,

got some of this hell-omaten. Since I`m collecting classic arcade PCBs I need some universal cabs that can carry my old electric "scrap" ;)

Hellomaten are very welcome, coz:

- The`re small
- Jamma (most of them are wired to jamma, not factory default)
- Tat'able (horizontal or vertical telly mount)
- 1 player or 2 player panels
- simple wiring

The red lamp on the right hand side as cab topper is absolute unique :)


Found some PCBs in the Cabs, most of them was defect. I was glad I found a Tetris for testing purposes.


Last weekend I invited PRC (aka punkrockcaveman) and we start right of at 22 o'clock on saturday evening. He organized from Apfelanni some spare Grundig tellys. Current state of the 4 Cabs

Cab #1 - Monitor issues, seemed like sync signal issue, Panel joystick defect
Cab #2 - Turned on, Chassis is on flames after 20 seconds. Then Dead
Cab #3 - Turned on, black picture
Cab # 4 - Turned on, 12V PSU was burning.

Lessons learned : PLEASE TURN ON THE CABS OUTSIDE IF YOU LIKE YOUR HOUSE!!!!

This weekend: Repair of Cab#1 and Cab#2

Story of Cab #1 is told very fast.

Tested one PCB with a MAK (ie. use MAK STRIKE). After successful testing we had a test board.

Open the PCB rack and put in the tested PCB. Everything was fine after adjusting the sync signal knob. Pretty easy. 1,5h time needed, first hellomat is repaired.

Cab #2

opened the backside, discharged the telly (do not this without appropriate knowledge. It can badly hurt you). Disassembled the old defect chassis

Hantarex.



disassmbled the telly with monitor frame.




Rip of the new telly case.



Discharge it. Wait. Discharge it. On this one we had to discharge it 5 or 6 times, inbetween with 10 minutes break.

So far we`re on good way. But normal use TV are not intended for using in an Arcade Cab. Imagine following situation.

Cab is off and gets powered. Normal TV then jump in stand by mode. Arcade Cab TV turn on directly by powering on.

So we`ve made a little hack




We bridged the standby to on switch with a little yellow wire. So after powering on the chassis, Telly goes into standby and then immediatley in on mode. That`s it.

Additionally Normal TV do not jump in RGB Mode or SCART mode by default.

So we had to built an own scart connector:

- Pin 7 = Blue
- Pin 11 = Green
- Pin 15 = Red
- Pin 5, Pin 9, Pin 13 = GND
- Pin 20 = Sync
- Pin 16 = Select RGB mode. Wire with 100 ohm in line with 5V (Arcade PSU are adjustable at 5V).
- Pin 8 = 12V select AV (descrambler)



screw the things together again.





So after installing the modded chassis, assemble the Telly



After test the picture turns out great. Adjust the pic on the chassis settings.


oila, refurbished Hellomat is born. :)

Repair time about 3 hours.

Tools : Drill, screw driver, soldering station, multimeter.
Replaced Parts: Chassis, Monitor, Control Panel
Estimated knowledge level : Expert, because discharging the telly is very dangerous.

Have fun