Monkey Harriers

I picked up a Monkey Ball GDRom on the shmups forum recently (thanks fuko!). Normally this requires the expensive "banana panel", but given I have a Planet Harriers cab with analog stick, I figured it should be compatible - not to mention a lot less phallic than a banana stick.

Swapping out the Hikaru for a Naomi GD was no problem at all, everything hooked right up perfectly! Booted up the game, calibrated the analog stick, and gave it a spin, only to find the vertical axis (up/down) on the analog stick was reversed. Not sure why Planet Harriers analog controls would be any different than other Sega games, but hacking some disconnects for the vertical pot and swapping the wires around solved it quickly.
    
Obviously Planet Harriers is a much better game, so I won't be keeping Monkey Ball in there for long, but it does make for a nice change of pace, and I have always wanted to play the original arcade version of Monkey Ball. :) It's also fitting that both games were developed by Sega's AV division.

More D9200 neckboard problems

The Wells-Gardner D9200 continues to be a source of problems for me, despite the neckboards being modified per this service bulletin. Its no wonder these monitor chassis were recalled a long time ago.

You may remember me fixing this issue before when some of the colors would randomly stop and start working. But this time, rather than loosing colors, the Red gun seemed to be stuck on at 100% and wash out the other colors. I confirmed this by going into the digital controls and trying to lower Red to no effect.

Following the neckboard schematics I visually traced the Red signal pathway through the components, and spotted this bulging/blown transistor at Q203.

According to the schematic, Q203, which is a KSP2222A transistor, is what limits the Red signal, so I'm sure its the culprit in this problem. I placed an order with Mouser Electronics for a bunch of these, and a few more NTE2501's just in case. :)

[11/17/10 Update] Well that didn't fix it, so back to troubleshooting. :( [/update]

Planet Harriers Highscore

Beat my last highscore by a little over 100K. This time you can see how armed to the teeth I was when I hit the midpoint Star Shop on Stage 4.

Didn't help me much as the second set of enemy after the midpoint are the suiciding turtles, that you need to shoot down + extreme dodge all within 1 second of spotting them on the screen or its an instant hit taking 1 full heart. I think I must have gotten down to the last turtle that nailed me here giving me this 571K score.

DJK - 571,939 - Stage 4 (Lavaa)

Planet Harriers highscore

Played one credit today and had only a slight improvement. I really need a strategy if I'm going to get past stage 3. There are some guided missle attacks which are just unavoidable if you can't takeout a majority of the enemy before they fire.

DJK - 464,177 - Stage 3 (Lavaa) - X

New Planet Harriers highscore

With my PH machine repaired, I jumped in for two test runs, and beat my last highscore by a little bit. I still died in Stage 3, around the same place, only difference was I entered the stage maxed out on everything and with 6 hearts!


I'm just realizing that some of the projectiles are guided! So you need to keep your player moving to avoid them. Only problem is if missiles are fired from opposite sides of the screen, which is when you have to do some fancy roll maneuvers (mentioned before that only work if the stick is calibrated properly).

DJK - 445,570 - Stage 3

Planet Harriers monitors fixed!

During the last Bay Area Shmupmeet, Segasonicfan pointed out what might be wrong with my Planet Harriers monitor colors. Turns out these are both Wells Gardner D9200 monitors, which apparently have been discontinued because they were poorly designed. It seems the neckboards would fry some transistors used to buffer the R/G/B video signal to the tube.

To confirm this might be the problem, I did a quick test. I swapped the neckboards between both monitors, and sure enough the color problems also swapped. Segasonicfan pointed out these three transistors as the culprit, which just so happens to have some burn and resoldering underneath, a clear indications that they have been replaced before.


Being the original transistor used is pretty uncommon, I was able to fine a suitable NTE replacement. I think I'll have to order a couple more just in case any other colors go out on me. Now finally I can actually get back to playing this cool game!

First Planet Harriers high score

My first high score posting for Planet Harriers. Lavaa is stage 3, and I barely got half way though, so lots of room for improvement.

Planet Harriers' Analog Joysticks

Ok, so first thing to fix on my Planet Harriers cab were the analog joysticks. The ones that came with the cab were completely destroyed. One of them even had its metal shaft bent at a 15 degree angle, probably from some pissed off punk getting his revenge.

Upon opening the control panel, I found a large pile of shredded rubber and small white plastic pieces everywhere. It looked like both sticks literally exploded. After taking things apart, I found that the plastic bits were from a sleeve that fits around the central joint of the joystick, connecting to one of the analog pots. I can't imagine this holding up to the abuse in American arcades. The shredded rubber was from the stopper at the end of joystick shaft, used to regulate the throw distance. There was also a ton of dried up grease which was supposed to prevent the shredding, but didn't seem to do a good job.

I called a local distributor to get a quote for replacement sticks, and best he could do was $175 per stick for Happ replacements. I didn't even want to guess what Sega would have changed for replacing these with original ones. Anyway, I found what looked like the exact same Happ sticks on ebay (marked new/overstock) for much cheaper (thank you ebay!) I got the new sticks in the mail, and they felt pretty stiff, this is actually a good sign, as I wanted accuracy, not loose analog sticks thats don't return to the center.

The mounting points on the plates were exactly the same, so no problem fitting them to the control panel. The only difficulty was in the proprietary Sega connectors. I rigged my own connectors and started up the machine, only to find they would not calibrate correctly. Apparently not all 5K pots are the same. So I then decided to pull out the original Sega pots, put them in the Happ sticks, using the original connectors, and low and behold it works!

Here are pics of the original stick, then the Happ ones I bought, and then what it looks like mounted in the control panel. I may try to attach the rubber boot to the Happ sticks, but it would require me to drill holes in the mounting plate...not sure if I feel like doing that at this point. I also have to tweak the center line of each pot to get the game to accurately perform the extreme left/right dodge maneuver, vital to playing the game accurately. I really can't imagine American arcade operators going to these lengths to make the game this playable...which also tells me why some people found the controls lacking.

Planet Harriers

Planet Harriers came out in 2000/2001. Everyone was praying for a Dreamcast port that would never happen. There was a cab near me in Milpitas at the Van's Skate Park, but I think I only played it once, at $1 a credit. When it comes to playing arcade games for money, I'm a total cheapass gamer!

After it was confirmed that Planet Harriers was not coming out for the Dreamcast (or Gamecube), I went back to that arcade to try playing it some more, but the place had closed down. I'd never seen this cab anywhere since then, so I was not going to pass up an opportunity to buy this rare beauty at a good price. And then it happened! Of course I didn't get such a great deal on it without there being some problems that I'll have to fix. First problem being both analog joysticks were completely shot, and then both monitors had either the red or green color cutting out at random times. With Spy Hunter now behind me, let my next big project begin!