New Project – Sammy Atomiswave

It’s been a while since I had a new project 

A new thread means a new worklog for a new arcade cab! 

Back when I got the E2, I low key kind of knew that the OCD would eventually get to me and here we are today, the Blast City is up for sale and I’m now with a new cabinet that will pair up nicely with the E2 – the Sammy Atomiswave SD. It’s not EXACTLY the same, but the shape is the same, so the OCD is managed 

I used to say, the Blast has too much history and work for me to let her go and given that it’s my “novelty cab” for monkey ball and rhythm tengoku with Blast City specific wiring, I genuinely thought I was going to take it to the grave. Things change and going through 3 blast cities, I’m now wanting a bit of a sea change. I will deal with the custom blast specific wiring another way 

The image that used to trigger my OCD whenever I played 

I wasn’t really in the market for a new candy cab a few weeks ago, but I got told about an Atomiswave being in stock for a relatively decent price in todays world, albeit not working. Me being me, I’m a sucker for project cabs – it’s just my MO . Knowing the chassis was dead and knowing it’s a wei-ya, I was very apprehensive about purchasing – going from a Nanao to a Wei Ya isn’t the most ideal thing in the world.

The decision to lock in the purchase came about when I was able to secure a Toshiba PF tube and chassis which commonly found in Sega New Net Cities and Sega drivers with a Naomi/Chihiro/Lindbergh.

The cab arrived last week and upon first inspection, I was very surprised at how clean it was given its age.

No major body damage, decals intact, atomiswave head not cracked. The E2 version of this costs more than the whole cab 

External observations

As mentioned, the cabinet is in pretty decent condition, there’s some scratches on the bezel which I’m hoping I can Novus 1/2/3 it out, but if not and it’s really an eyesore, I’ll just sand it down and give it a paint of gloss black, there’s no speckle on the bezel, so a home job rattle spray should do.

Everything else externally is intact, the marquee holder is there (albeit incorrect screw/washer), the paint doesn’t have any major scratches/dents/chips or rust, the back door service door is in great condition, overall really happy with the purchase.

Internal observations

I didn’t receive any keys for the cab and everything except the coin bucket was unlocked, so I had to get my trusty “universal key” out again 

Just like the external, I’m surprised to see internally, it had original tangs, the wiring is all original and there’s no hacking and splicing up of the jamma edge, unlike my E2 which needed a bit of patching up.

I’ll need to make a new control panel harness, but that’s not too bad and relatively easy to do, the PSU wiring is all OEM but I’m missing the PSU cover and DB15 breakout board to allow 15/24/31k all through the single vga cable – no major biggie, I can always rig up something for RGB input

Chassis and tube wise, it’s the default Samsung A68QCP tube found in other atomiswaves with the Wei Ya M3129D. Chassis looks manky, but I’m not 100% sure what’s wrong with it just yet. Will get to it at some point

So the to do list will be as follows:

– Deep clean

– Cut and Polish

– Test PSU for 3.3v, 5v, 12v

– Test Monitor

– Test JAMMA and respective connectors (make a kick harness if required)

– Test audio

– Test marquee light

– Replace Locks

– Install new stick/buttons if required

– Install a stereo amp

– Maybe a speaker upgrade?

– Complete a monitor swap and potentially send the Wei Ya chassis to JOMAC to have as a complete kit backup