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Anyone have a Tomy Mini Arcade/Cosmic Clash toy? Know how to take it apart?


sirlynxalot

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I bought a broken Tomy mini arcade recently. The space ships light up so some part is getting juice from the batteries, but no motors are moving, the record player isn't moving, nothing else is happening except that the space ships light up. Clearly I need to open this baby up - but there are no screw holes?

I managed to find out from some online sleuthing that I will need to take the side art off, but are there other decals I need to take off to get at screws? Any screws or clips I'm overlooking outside of whatever is beneath the side art? I don't want to remove any more of the decals than I need to since they look pretty cool.

This is the machine I'm talking about btw, its an 80s toy, all mechanical motors and gears and LEDs, no computer.
6089db2232bbdd7de44876da4c9d190d.jpg

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Wow, that's a great video that gives me a good idea about some of the parts that aren't working and how they should function. So, I just put mine back together with the screws and all, and all of a sudden it worked for about 5 seconds, it played some sounds from the record player and the laser shot once, but then it stopped. Right now on my machine, the ships light up every time and now that I put it back together, the ship reel moves appropriately and the machine makes plenty of mechanical noise (although the speed control doesn't do anything). Outside of the few seconds, the shot doesn't appear to work so I guess the cylinder isn't rotating when I press down the button, and of course the explosion backdrop isn't moving, and outside of the one instance, the sound effects aren't working either.

Mine is a little corroded inside, its clear from the battery compartment and inside, some batteries leaked at some point, but since it worked for a couple seconds, there might yet be hope :) I'm open to any ideas to trouble shoot the cylinder and record player, it worked for a couple seconds so its just a matter of triggering these parts and not necessarily that the components are completely broken. I'll open it up and poke around some more, it might just need some unsticking (the ship reel seemed to magically start working again after I manually rotated it a bit when I had the machine open.

Edited by sirlynxalot
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Wow I completely fixed it. The only issue was that the red fire button was not appropriately situated and a little piece on the back needed to be inserted into a hole in the main assembly. All the main action parts work now, the laser fires, the explosion occurs, and the sound effects work. The only stuff not working is the following:

-Speed control
-score counter (it'll flip multiple digits ahead in either or both columns when I score one shot, must be a problem with spring tension)

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Very cool to hear it's mostly working.

The speed control might be an issue with your "Pro" difficulty selector on the right hand side. They seem to get stuck in one position or the other and normal mode has the ships going a constant rate, "Pro" mode has them speed up and slow down randomly.

 

The score counter is admittedly a problem mine still suffers. The reason I can't fix mine is I need tighter springs, those long thin ones that pull the digits forward. Maybe have a look there?

 

But glad to hear it's mostly functional now.

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I too have have one of these Cosmic Clash minis. Had it for years and it worked just fine. Then about a year ago..the laser shot wouldn't do anything any more. I've opened it up and cleaned and greased up as best as I can, but it just doesn't seem like the gears have enough umph in them to do what they are designed to do. I suspect something on the gearing with the cylinder on mine is off as well but no gears appeared to be broken or any missing teeth. Is there a diagram of the gearing of these things exactly?

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Well.. the difficulty on mine seems to work and is more reliable since I added some new lithium to the gears. But I had to take out the center laser shot tube and large gear in the back to get to everything. Even before I did that, the large tube section didn't seem to want to spin off the worm gear in the back right of the thing. Now...they just don't seem to be able to turn at all. Remove that laser shot cylinder and they do turn as normal. Seems something on the timing is off on mine without a detailed breakdown of how everything should be aligned I can't tell at this point.

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Okay...update. Pretty sure I've figured out where the issue is with mine though I don't know how I can really fix it. The problem on mine is that the vertical worm gear that moves the center cylinder for the laser shot moves freely up and down the pinion rod it is on. So.. it basically slips past where the teeth on that gear are and doesn't engage. Additionally something similar is also happening with the worm gear behind that which, controls the lever for the explosion blinds effect. Too bad that as old as these are, the bulbs still work by god, but not the gears.

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Compared mine to some youtube videos, my reel of spaceships isn't moving as smoothly as others' reels do. Mine has a habit of periodically stopping, even if its on the amatuer setting. Also when I first turn it on, there is no explosion and SFX as happens on startup for other people's. Nevertheless, the main functionality is here, which is better than the dead machine I had the other day!

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Ooops sorry I was away yesterday and forgot to follow up on this thread.

If the cogs are the trouble with yours you may be a bit hooped like me with my tiny digit-pulling springs. However, maybe someone with a 3D printer could remake the worm gear for you?

Actually your spring issue isn't that big a deal...hehe. But just so you know, the springs are supposed to be pretty loose because those digit wheels turn all the way around and then a release sets them back to normal position when you turn off the game or when your shots reach 10 or you score 10 points from the 10 shots. I thought about tape, but that will not hold with the new lubrication on the gearing and it will get cruddy quickly. The best idea is to figure out a way to make some small shims that I could put over the rods and then have the worm gear sit on it. But I don't know the exact height everything needs to be at. For now it will just sit up in the closet or I might just toss it.

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  • 10 months later...

old thread, but i picked up one of these at goodwill recently. the video was very helpful in disassembly. reassembly may be another issue, not to that step yet.

 

the motor was frozen, but i got it apart, oiled, greased gears, and it is working (the motor is). i'll get it back together this weekend.

 

the video mentions the decal set being sold on ebay. i cannot find any entries for them. anyone have any info on this?

 

alternatively, i'd probably be best to set up and try to make my own. i've seen 8 bit guy do it on some minis and carts.

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