Astro City FAQ
A guide to help you find the SEGA Astro City cabinet you always dreamed of in an easy and timeless way.
Project Motivation
At the beginning of 2022 I decided to get hold of a SEGA Astro City cabinet which had to be partially restored. As a result, I’ve gotten to know different places where I can buy and purchase almost all the elements required to build it.
This guide is intended as an aid to any Astro City buyer who wants to achieve a high level of fidelity to the original components.
Where to buy an Astro City?
Currently, Astro City cabinets are relatively easy to buy in Europe using different platforms and specialized forums. The price usually varies depending on the degree of restoration.
Where to restore an Astro City?
Generally, the current "candy" cabinets are in a rather bad and deteriorated condition, as they have been heavily used machines since the early 90's. Investing in restoring and leaving them in good conditions inside and out can help achieve a proper preservation. We recommend watching this complete video guide to restoring an Astro City before anything else.
If you don't feel like doing it yourself, I recommend you do it with a car paint shop.
Black bezel color paint - NISSAN 211 GR 6031E Black
White Candy color paint - Different options
Where to buy parts and replicas?
Many of the pieces have more than 30 years, what makes it virtually mandatory to replace them with replicas. These will be later priced at different levels depending on their degree of similarity to the originals.
Below, you have a series of links to different suppliers where you can easily obtain all of them.
Parts, stickers, panels, buttons...
Upper Panel
43cm Stools
Stickers
- Astro City Side Arts Neon
(100% true to original) - Astro City Side Arts
(color not true to original) - Astro City 100 YEN Sticker
(neon as original) - Astro City 100 YEN Sticker
(no neon ink)
Joysticks & Buttons
- Arcade Express
(Sanwa o Seimitsu) - Small Cab
(Sanwa o Seimitsu) - Nuts & Bolts
Lights
How to adjust and where to re-cap my chassis NANAO MS8-MS9?
Generally, Astro City cabinets will get to us with a very good quality TOSHIBA monitor with the legendary Nanao bifrequency MS8-29/MS9-29 chassis..
The problem is that, in order to achieve an image quality as they used to, these chassis must be re-capped. This is usually due to a wear problem of the capacitors.
TUTORIAL: How to adjust Nanao ms9 using 240p suite 240p by Artemio