Mark Young

Software. Microcontrollers. Beer.

Some Arcade Rebuilds

I spent a good chunk of 2021 rebuilding arcades for people

If you’re going to send me hate letters for pandoras box: go ahead and hit the back button. I made these for people who dont want a bunch of arcades, so every single one of these was pandoras box.

I’ll share some before and afters:


An atari centipede (already JAMMA) in mostly good condition.
* Turned into Pandoras box
* The CRT was bad, they wanted it LCD
* They wanted to just turn the marquee blank
* The 6 button wiring harness was a joke
* I wanted to keep the steel control board so I welded back all the button holes and redrilled and added some nice polylaminate artwork over it


A knock off galaga
* Turned into Pandoras box
* The control panel was hacked together on 3/4” MDF
* A real fire hazard internally
* CRT was bad, but the glass was good. The “marquee” was just paint on the backside: easily removed with acetone
* Wood was mostly saveable minus the water soaked edges/corners. Fixed with lots of sanding and bondo.



A Stern Berzerk in absolute terrible condition
* Turned into Pandoras box
* This took 90% of the time just to sand.
* All the wood is pressed wood that had started to come apart at the bottom. Had to cut it all off and fix with bondo
* Custom cut a new control panel from 3/4” MDF
* The CRT was bad, replaced with a monitor inlaid into a new 3/4” MDF with a router for the bezel cover


Knock off WWE Wrestlefest turned Survival Arts
* Rewired to CHAMMA, added pandoras box
* CRT was still in great shape, no glass and didnt have the ability to cut plexi. Sold at a yard sale
* CPO was hacked together with plexi over it. Cut all new 3/4” for the 6 buttons, kept the hardware + plexi
* Repainted, 3d printed a “MAME” marquee and glued to a new marquee


Zaxxon hacked into a poker game
* Disgusting estate sale find.
* Contained dead rat
* CRT was saveable with some magnet work
* Recut new CPO from 3/4” MDF and wired to CHAMMA with pandoras box
* Kept all artwork and 90s style fake wood laminate
* 3d printed a cover for the front hole (not pictured)


Completely empty MK2 shell
* Stole CPO from another similar Midway shell
* Customer wanted light up LEDs which required hacking up all the button PCBs to separate the ground and voltage and wiring them to the +5V on the CHAMMA harness
* New LCD built into shell from a 32” TV


Gem fighter
* A dynamo cabinet turned into gem fighter
* They wanted mrs pacman marquee and a generic multi-game CPO - a nice polylaminate one with zelda, donkey kong, pacman etc
* Wood was originally in great shape, CRT was bad. Said fixable but needed a complete overhaul. Used an LCD to replace.
* Paint touch up, replacement locks


Custom 4 Player from MK1 cabinet
* MK1 cabinet modified to fit a 4 player CPO
* Built dimensions to fit, using custom latching system to remove (does not fit through a standard door as-is)
* 2 Players are to CHAMMA harness as usual, the other 2 players are USB into pandoras box. Worked surprisingly easy
* Wanted it galaga themed, so galaga marquee and side artwork ordered to fit
* Original 25” CRT still worked great, added plexi