Help! Need TRON arcade photos

[Nebulon]

The upper-rear light assembly on my TRON (1981/1982) upright full-size machine went haywire and I took it to an electrician. He did some weird stuff to it and now it's pretty different than it used to be. That, and his repair job didn't work for long.

 

So now I need to fix it. The problem is, I don't have any reference of what it looked like originally.

 

Please -- if there's someone out there who has access to one of these machines in its original factory configuration (and likes taking techy photos) -- I really need pictures of the light assembly that's at the back of the machine at the top. No need to remove it. All I need to see is on the under-side of the L-shaped silver bracket. The panel that reveals this is the top-rear wood panel (the one with the key-hole in it). Please be careful not to touch the back of the cathode ray tube. The tube's set quite a way in there, so that shouldn't be an issue. Of course, if you're an owner of one of these, I'm reasonably sure you're already well aware of this.

 

What I'd need are:

 

- Photos of where the wires go into and come out of the Corcom filter.

- and where the wires enter and exit the ballast.

- Perhaps a picture of the ends of the light fixture.

 

Thanks a bunch!

Edited June 28, 2014 by Nebulon

[+Mitch]

If I have time tomorrow I'll try to snap some pictures for you. Though you may be able to find what you need faster by checking Google images.

 

Mitch

[+Mitch]

Let me know if this is what you are looking for.

 

Mitch

[racerx]

Let us know...I can pull mine out and grab some pics as well.

[Nebulon]

Let me know if this is what you are looking for.

 

Mitch

Ah. Thank you! I'll take a closer look at those later today. Is that 2 or 4 wires attached to the ballast shown there?

[Nebulon]

Let us know...I can pull mine out and grab some pics as well.

Actually, yes please. It would be good for comparison.

 

I'm especially interested in photos showing the wires entering and leaving the ballast and the Corcom filter.

[+Mitch]

Ah. Thank you! I'll take a closer look at those later today. Is that 2 or 4 wires attached to the ballast shown there?

 

It's two, here's a more closeup of the ballast. Sorry it's slightly blurry.

 

Mitch

[Nebulon]

 

It's two, here's a more closeup of the ballast. Sorry it's slightly blurry.

 

Mitch

Thanks very much for that! After looking at this new photo, it looks like there's hope for my good ol' TRON machine yet.

 

The electrician replaced the ballast that you see there with a larger ballast with four wires. It worked, but then the Corcom filter died. I pulled the filter out of the loop and it stopped working. Then someone else did some work on it, and it worked for about five minutes. It seems that the ballast he used started to flake-out somewhere along the line. Now the wiring is looking pretty different than it did originally.

 

The good news is that I managed to source out a replacement filter and a ballast from a Bally slot machine. The ballast looks just like the one in your photos (makes sense, since it's a Bally Midway machine after all).

 

So, the next thing is to make sure I wire everything back up properly again.

 

[+Mitch]

I think I picked up a replacement ballast for my Star Wars marquee light from Home Depot.

 

Mitch

[Nebulon]

I think I picked up a replacement ballast for my Star Wars marquee light from Home Depot.

 

Mitch

Thanks. I've been meaning to check there. Is you ballast one with a built-in starter? I see that the dude who worked on mine pulled the original ballast and separate starter socket right off the bracket and replaced them with a self-starting ballast. It also seems that there are 4 wires coming out of the self-starter ballast and only 2 wires on the original ballast.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Nebulon

[+Mitch]

Nope, it was an exact match for the ballast. They should have starters as well. If all else fails you can always pick them up from Bob Roberts.

 

Mitch