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Sega Aero City

Predecessor of the Astro City (1988): the Sega candy cab that laid the foundations (seated cabinet, monitor, interchangeable panel, JAMMA). A more angular design, often a 26" or 29" monitor.

The Aero City, catalogue view.
The Aero City, catalogue view. Source: Hard*Candy — ⚠️ the site publishes no licence statement.

Identification

Field Value
Manufacturer Sega
Year 1988
Type Candy cab (City series, 1st generation)
Screen CRT 26"/29", 15/24 kHz, rotatable
Controls 2 players, interchangeable panel
PCB format JAMMA

⚡ Connector & power

Aspect Value
PCB connector JAMMA (56-pin edge) — no JVS (a 1988 cabinet)
Monitor sync 15/24 kHz (26″/29″ CRT), no native 31 kHz
Power 100 V AC (Japan)
Consumption 150 W (1993 flyer) · 125 W (manual) — see below
Dimensions 660 × 955 × 1320 mm (W×D×H, marquee excluded) — Sega manual
Weight 110 kg

Reading confirmed: the 1993 Sega flyer gives the same figures, labelled in English

The flyer archived here (© SEGA 1993) gives, for the Aero City: 外形寸法(mm) 660W × 955D × 1,320H, 重量 110kg, 消費電力 AC100V 150W; and in English Outer Dimensions 66 cm, 25.98 in. (W) · 95.5 cm, 37.6 in. (D) · 132 cm, 51.97 in. (H) · Weight 110 kg, 242.5 lbs**.

That is exactly the reading taken from the manual (660 wide, 955 deep, 1320 tall) — the 縦×横×奥行 convention had indeed been decoded the right way round.

⚠️ The consumption differs, though: 150 W on the 1993 flyer, 125 W in the service manual. Two Sega documents; the manual specifies a 26″ tube, the flyer does not say. Both are published. To size an installation, take 150 W.

Careful: here Sega writes height × width × depth

The archived manual, page 2 of the PDF, 仕様 box, gives 縦 × 横 × 奥行: 132 cm × 66 cm × 95.5 cm (表示板を除く) — that is height × width × depth, marquee excluded. This is not the 所要面積 convention (width × depth) of the Astro City manual: it is a third notation, from the same manufacturer.

Copied as-is it would yield a cabinet 1,320 mm wide. Read correctly: 660 wide, 955 deep, 1,320 tall excluding the marquee. Always read the kanji, never the order alone.

(Sources: archived Sega service manual for the dimensions, consumption, weight and tube (26″). Arcade Otaku / Hard*Candy for the rest.)

Technical notes (candy cab)

  • Monitor sync: 15/24 kHz (classic PCBs) — no native 31 kHz (unlike the Blast/Net City). For 31 kHz (Naomi/VGA) you have to change the monitor chassis.
  • Control panel interchangeable to the Sega standard (Ø 30 mm buttons, 4/8-way joystick) — pops out to change config.
  • I/O: JAMMA (56-pin edge connector). See the detailed pinout & wiring on the Astro City.
  • Power: a Sega "candy" block → maintenance/recap on the Sega candy cab PSU page.
  • Screws: JIS (not Phillips) — a JIS screwdriver avoids chewing up the heads.

Position in the City lineage

Aero City (1988) → Astro City (1993) → New Astro City (1995) → Blast City / Net City (31 kHz, JVS). The Aero is the first: it sets the "seated cabinet, rotatable monitor, interchangeable panel, JAMMA" format. A common build grafts a tri-sync chassis onto it to gain the 31 kHz (Naomi/VGA) it lacks out of the box.

Info shared with the Astro City

Wiring, stereo sound, disassembly: very close to the Astro City → see Astro City.

Internal boards

  • 🖥️ Monitor CRT 26"/29" 15/24 kHz → repair like the Nanao MS8.
  • ⚡ Sega power block.

Manuals (archived)

(Source: Arcade Otaku Wiki, archived locally for preservation.)

Procedure — a cabinet that will not start ✅

There is a CRT in this cabinet

The tube stays charged with the cabinet unplugged, and the anode cap is the first thing your hand meets behind the monitor. Discharge it, work with one hand, and never alone if you can help it. → CRT safety

This cabinet is documented as 100 V

It does not go straight onto a European socket. It needs a step-down transformer rated for the whole cabinet, monitor included — not a travel adapter. Feeding 230 V to a cabinet built for 100 V destroys the supply, and usually the monitor with it. → Cabinet power

What this adds

Ordered for a cabinet, not for a board: mains, low-voltage supply, loom, monitor, then the game. The overwhelming majority of "dead cabinets" are dead for a reason that has nothing to do with the PCB — which is why the board comes last here.

1. Mains, and what sits between it and the cabinet. The switch, the fuse or breaker, the isolation transformer if there is one. A cabinet that shows no sign of life at all is almost never electronic.

2. The low-voltage supply — measured under load. Aim for +5 V where power reaches the board — the JAMMA edge, or the JVS power connector, depending on the cabinet — with the game running, not on an idle bench. If the supply has an adjustment (most candy and JVS bricks do; the ATX brick in a PC cabinet does not), do it then and not before: set off-load, it leaves a board that boots and then glitches. With no adjustment the measurement still earns its keep — it tells you whether the supply holds. Check +12 V too, and −5 V if the board uses it: many do not, and an ATX brick does not provide it. → Cabinet power

3. The loom and the connector. Reseat, and check the grounds — a cabinet with a poor ground gives rolling picture, phantom inputs and noise, all at once, and none of it looks like a wiring fault. Connector on this cabinet: JAMMA. → Wiring

4. The monitor. This page describes the monitor as: CRT 26"/29", 15/24 kHz, rotatable. CRT: no picture but the tube is warm and there is EHT — that is sync or video, not the tube. No EHT at all — chassis. A picture that shrinks, wanders or shifts colour is a chassis recap, and on these monitors that is a scheduled job, not a repair.

5. Scan rate — the mismatch that breaks nothing. If the board's rate is not one the monitor accepts, you get no picture and nothing is faulty. Check what this cabinet takes against what the board puts out before opening anything. → Modernising a cabinet

6. The control panel. Microswitches and the loom, in that order. A single dead direction is a switch; a whole player dead is the loom or its ground. → Control panels

7. Coin mech and sound. Last, because they hide nothing: a mech that no longer registers is usually dirty or misadjusted, and silence with a good picture points at the amplifier and its supply rails.

Photos / assets

(To add: Aero City, control panel, monitor.)

Repair & maintenance

Modernise (video, PSU, JVS, upscaler, PC/FPGA) → Modernising a cabinet. CRT monitor (discharge HV!) → CRT safety + Nanao MS8 / MS9 chassis · Sega candy PSU → PSU repair · recap → Recap.

Sources & attribution

Image:

Review & corrections

How this space is used

Spotted a wrong value, an outdated procedure, a chip reference that does not match your board? Say so here, with what you observed (model, board revision, serial number, measurement). Every report is cross-checked against a source before anything changes — an unverifiable correction is published as “reported by …, not cross-checked” rather than silently applied.

Reading is open to everyone; posting requires signing in with Discord. Reports from the wiki's declared reviewers are handled first; anyone else's are read too, but go through a human before anything is changed.