Week of 6/29
Skee Ball
I adjusted the ball count switch on the one lane.  It went surprisingly well and I had it adjusted in under ten minutes.  Of course, I need to wait and see how it works for everyone else as those switches tend to be tough to get adjust right so they don't bounce and count multiple times.  While I was at it, I also replaced a couple of bulbs that were out on the display.  I need to order more bulbs as I am down to just three left.

Hot Shots
I found the game off, reseating the power cord brought it back to life.  About ten minutes later, it was off again.  I reseated the power cord and it came back on and stayed on the whole time I was at the location.  I want to replace the power cord and see if that is the issue as the patrons at this location tend to slam games into the walls and crush the power cords and it sometimes causes odd things like this to happen.

SilverBall Mania
I finished the gluing and clamping and it looks pretty good.  I was told it was a moving accident that caused the damage but I found some pry marks.  I think someone may have lost the key and tried to get the backglass out the hard way.  I need to get some white paint that matches the game and do some painting.  I haven't decided if I am going to do more work to get the trim perfect or not.  The rest of the game is a bit dinged up and it may not be worth the time and effort.

Game Delivery
I dropped of three more games at the new location.  I found out that I didn't replace the coin mechs like I thought I did on one game.  I need to make a trip up and install the coin mechs so the game will be operational.  Other than that, the delivery went pretty well.

Big Shot
This is one of the games I bought from another operator a few weeks back.  I brought it back to the shop and got it cleaned up and ready to go back on location.  One strange thing happened.  There is a board with posts in it that the quarters slide down and bounce around before they fall into the slot.  One of the larger pins fell out and caused a coin jam.  It took some major surgery to get to that part to put it back into place.  I applied a healthy coat of super glue onto it and put it back in.  I think I had around four hours into putting that pin back in.  It was pretty obvious that the manufacturer didn't think you would ever need to take that part of the game apart.

Skee Ball
Moved three balls back into the proper lanes.  One lane is miscounting the number of balls that are played.  I didn't have the time to tear into it but I will on my next trip to the location.

Western Train
The motor I ordered finally arrived.  I scheduled a time to install it with the location. 

Cyclone
It had an out of order sign on it.  I found and cleared a ticket jam on the blue station.

Tic Tac Toe
I replaced one of the Coin mechs with one of the new Imonex as it was getting a lot of coin jams.  As I was testing I found that the crimp on the wiring for the coin switch was intermittent.  I crimped it together and after that it worked fine but I will replace the connector on my next visit. I didn't have any of that size along with me on this trip.

Western Train
I installed the motor, it went pretty well and other having to contort into odd body positions and being a little sore from that no problems.

Multi Game
Installed the coin mechs I had forgotten when I delivered it.

Ticket Eater
While doing the counts this week, I noticed that the report says hole only for all the tickets read.  I need to investigate and fix that before the kids at the location figure it out.

Game Pickup
I picked up a game from a home.  There were stairs involved.  Luckily, the game only had to go down them.  But even that was a chore, there was an obstruction at the bottom of the stairs that made
it impossible to use the hand truck.  Luckily, the homeowner had some help on hand and we muscled the game down the stairs.  Hopefully, I won't be doing that again for a while.

Silverball Mania
I got this Pinball in a trade deal a while back and overall it is in good shape.  The major flaw is that the wood frame that holds the back glass in was broken, all four parts were damaged.  A friend of mine had a compatible head from a game he had parted out so I pulled the trim parts off.  The parts have a lot of routed sections and other difficult wood working done to them so getting the parts was a huge help.  Even with the parts, I have a lot of time into putting them back on.  I've been gluing and clamping, sanding and filing to get the tolerances right.

Rowe Change Machine
I found it out of order with a hopper error.  I swapped in the spare hopper and the problem continued.  I then cleaned the original hopper and installed it and it worked fine after that.  I spent some time cleaning the other hoppers as obviously they are past due for cleaning.

Jackpot Crossing
I found it with a ticket jam.  I cleared the jam and it was working fine again.

Ticket Eater
The parts arrived quickly and I installed them.  I had to adjust the sensors a slight bit to get them to work but after setting the options the ticket eater worked great.  The location liked the new customized text on the bottom of the tickets.  The only complaint I had is that the software to manage the ticket eater was not included with the new board.  The manual does state that the software is extra so I need to find out how much the software is.  If it is reasonable I will pick it up as it does take some time to configure the ticket eaters and set up the bar code.  

Gravity Hill
I pulled this one out of storage and started to clean it up. None of the lights are working on it.  I found that the extension cord for one was bad but the rope light needs replaced.  Several of the clamps that hold the rope light are broken and they are riveted to the machine so I may just remove the rope light for now.  I spent a while pulling out the gumballs that were in it.  Apparently gumballs have a lifespan of shorter than six months or so.  It was a rather sticky mess but it cleaned up easy enough.  I've done a lot of testing on the game and it is working fine other than the lights and needing a good cleaning.

Board Inventory
I had some free time so I worked on inventorying the boards I have laying around.  I found several that I didn't realize that I had and I also realized that I enough of some titles that I can sell off a few and still have more than I will ever use.  Once I get done and get them into a spreadsheet or Database, I will have a better idea of what I have. 

Week of 6/8
Skee Ball
I found one lane had both spot lights out.  I had one bulb so I replaced just one. 

New Location
I got a call from the new location, their current game supplier had stopped in and pulled out most of thier games.  They were wondering if I could bring some games up right away.  Unfortanetly the only one that was ready and tested was a Cyclone.  So I took that up for them.  I am still working on converting the games from token play and making sure that they are ready to go back out. 

Jurassic Park 3
I was getting this one ready to go back on out location.  I thought it needed a new gun and it would be ready.  I opened the coin door and it fell off.  So I need to get that fixed now.  I have no idea what happened as I pulled it off location recently and the coin door was firmly attached when it left the prior location.

Ticket Eater
I found that it wasn't counting all the tickets.  I pulled the boards out and shipped them to Deltronics for repair.  I got a call the following day that they had found that the Barcode board was fine but the CPU board needed replaced.  So I ordered a new CPU board.  Apparently the new board has a lot of upgrades over the one that was originally there so maybe the failure wasn't all bad.

Drill O Matic
I found it with garbled displays.  Rebooting it didn't change the situation and it wouldn't even go through the start up sequence.  I did the standard reseating routine and it improved a bit but it still wasn't booting the whole way.  I tried reseating the power cables again and it sprang back into life and worked fine.  I plan to bring my soldering tools along and pull the main board out and touch up the solder joints on the connectors to see if it solves the issue permanently. 

Big Bug Zapper
The one coin slot wasn't accepting quarters.  I found a redemption ticket in the slot.  Removing the ticket solved the issue.

Parts order
I placed an order for a new motor for the Western Train game I have.  I need to get some redemption games together for the new location and this one just needs a cleaning and the motor replaced before it can go back out.

Game Delivery
Dropped off the first few games at the new location.  Went really well, I had the games placed, tested and running in about half an hour

Tokyo Drift
I reseated the cables and tightened down the screws on the I/O board and the problem didn't occur while I was at the location.  I will wait and see if it shows up again.

Week of 6/1
Dr Who
I had some free time so I finished installing the motor and put it back in the game.  I turned it on and it seemed to work fine but the test mode kept showing errors. Eventually after turning it off and back on, the message showed up that the expander had both a CW and CCW error.  It took me a few minutes of head scratching to figure out that the motor was wired backwards.  I had soldered the wires to the new motor exactly like they were on the old one but apparently the motor was rotated 180 degrees.  I resoldered the wires the opposite way and it worked fine and logged no errors after that.  I soldered the wires on the motor while it was installed in the game.  I wouldn't sugest doing that if you can avoid it as it took a lot effort to accomplish.

Rowe Change Machine
The service light was on and I found a ticket in the bill acceptor.  I removed the ticket and the changer worked fine.

Skee Ball
I moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.

Air Hockey
There was a coin jam caused by a redemption ticket, I removed the ticket and the table worked fine.

Touchtunes Jukebox
I had set it to free play for testing.  Apparently I was mistaken on how much the charge is for doing that.  I got my statement and found out that I was charged $100 for "background music fees".  So my free play testing has ended.  I put it back into pay for play and will drop money into it for testing.  It will be cheaper that way!

New Location
I got a referral from one of my locations.  I spoke to them about putting games in and it appears that I have a new location.  I need to get some games cleaned up and ready to go on site

Ticket Eater
I got a call from the location that the ticket eater was accepting tickets but not counting them.  I spent a couple of hours making adjustments, wiggling cables and changing settings to try to get it to work.  I called Deltronics and they offered the advice that the middle sensor must be perfectly perpendicular with the board or there will be problems.  I followed their advice and sure enough it started working again.  The one set of leads on the sensor seem like they may be broken so I'm not sure how long it is going to stay working.

Tokyo Drift
While I was working on the ticket eater, one of the location patrons informed me that there was some sort of steering control issue with one of the Tokyo Drifts. I played a few games on it and eventually the Input control board error cropped up. The location was too packed with people to pull the game out and work on it so I put an out of order sign on it and will take a look at it when I get back to the location in a couple of days.

Rowe Changer
One location had moved my equipment the day prior to me arriving to check on the game and count the money.  I noticed that the changer had the out of service light on.
It was showing a C error. Which is most commonly a bulb out behind the coin buckets.  I found the bad bulb but had a hard time getting it loose from the rubber mount.  I pushed hard enough that the bulb shattered.  It was easier then but where all the bits of glass went concerned me.  I spent a while cleaning up the glass.  Soldered in a new bulb (which went well for a change) put it back together and promptly had issues with the quarters not dropping into the Escrow bucket.  I tried adjusting the window but still had no luck.  Eventually I swapped in the spare bucket and it worked fine.  I'm not sure what the problem was but I had a couple of hours into the repair by then and I still needed to finish the money counts.  Luckily the customer was OK with me taking the money along and bringing them their share of it when I was back in the area.  Having customers that trust you is a great thing as I probably had another two hours into counting the money which would have gotten me home sometime around midnight had I stayed there and finished.  I did the counts the next day and took the money back up the following day.

Game Purchase
I bought a couple of games off a fellow operator that had decided that operating games is no longer worth the trouble.  The pickup went smoothly and one game is in better shape than what I thought and the other is in worse shape.  One is ready to go on location and the other needs a couple of parts and some work. Even though, the other operator is technically my competition, I hate to see decent people leave the industry.  But he is right if you sit down and start figuring out how much time and money you really have invested, you are better off to sell out and get a job somewhere.

Touchtunes Digital Jukebox
It is still plugged in and working fine.  Not a single lockup yet.  I put it in free play mode and have been playing as many different songs as I can and still no issues.  I am starting to think that it was an issue with the power or network at the location. Or maybe it was something loose that moving the game around fixed.  Either way, I am letting it run and see what happens.

Shop cleaning
I rearranged in the shop and pulled a few games out and took them up to the storage location.  It is nice to have some room to work for a change.

Dr Who
The motor came in and I started to replace it before getting pulled into something else.  It is almost back together.  I need to search the game itself to see if I can find some of the missing screws from the assembly.


Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.

Movie Stop
I pulled this one off location this week.  When I went to collect from the location, I found it unplugged.  When I asked why I was told if I wanted it plugged back in I had to give them a new game.  With the narrrow doorway at this location and poor earnings it was
an easy decision to make and just tell them I will be picking up my game instead.  It was interesting to see the person that most likely caused the situation with try to talk me out of it.  I was in and out of the location with my game in under five minutes.

Touch Tunes Jukebox
I pulled this one out of storage and Plugged it in to see if I could find the reason for the intermittent lockups.  I left it do its updates and put it in free play mode and have been playing it in the shop and it hasn't locked up yet.

Jackpot Crossing
Someone has started peeling the laminate off the side of the game.  I glued it back on. 

Space Jam
I got a call from a former manager from an old location, he was looking for a cheap display for his Space Jam Pinball.  He went on to tell me about how he was trying to sell it and had a guy that said he would buy it but then saw that there was a line out in the display and back out of the deal.  We talked for a bit and he offered the game to me at a great price so I bought it.  It isn't the greatest game in the world but I frequently have locations that want a Pinball machine along with other games and it doesn't make sense most of the time to buy a $6000 game for what is pretty much a filler piece.  So, I am always happy to buy games like this one.  It is dirty and needs some work but it should clean up well and work fine for what I need it for.


Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
I installed the display board that I had worked on, held my breath and powered it up.  It came right up and looked good.  I had to replace one bulb but there was no fireworks or sparks, so the Skee Ball techician was right about what part I needed.
On a side note I did find out that a powered off Skee Ball lane with an out of order sign on it and no display installed in it can still pull in decent money per week. It irrates me knowing how hard I try to keep the games up and running and find out that clearly non working equipment still brings in almost as much as non working.

Air Hockey
I found and cleaned some sort of sticky substance off the surface.

Drill O Matic
It was doing the standard start and make the grinding noise and repeat process again.  I reseated the power cable and it came back up but started to dump out all of the tickets.  I powered it off and did the jackpot reset trick and the game then seemed fine.  It really is time for this game to move out.  I am looking for redemption games to replace it and a couple of others.  But for now it is OK.

Shaq Attaq
I found a coin jam caused by a folded up ticket being in the coin slot.  It took forever to fish the ticket out.  I was close to pulling the coin door apart to get it loose when I managed to finally get it out.  I decided that I should carry some spring hooks in my tool bag to make this process easier. 

Johnny Nero
In an effort to keep the guns from getting smashed, I had run the hoses through the gun holders to keep them from hitting the ground.  What is happening now is that the kids are grabbing the gun hoses and pulling them till the guns smash into the holders.  It looks like I need a better solution but I have decided that this will be the last gun game that I am putting in this location.  I don't know what changed but the kids at this location, just won't leave the guns alone on the games and it results in enough damage and time spent repairing the damage that it makes no sense to put them there anymore.

Corvette Pinball
I pulled the racetrack out and installed the replacement boards that I bought at the Allentown Pinfest from Great Plains Modular.  The install was OK, I had to bend one connector a bit to clear the one part but nothing bad at all.  I put it back into the game and powered it up and went into the track test and it failed.  Then I remembered to close the coin door and it worked perfectly.  I did take the opportunity to repair the screw holes that hold part of the track down with some wood putty, the holes had gotten enlarged and the screws weren't holding at all.  Once that dries, I will install the screws and see if that holds.  This game needs shopped, I hadn't noticed it on location but there is some dirt tracks on the playfield in hard to reach locations.  I'll put it on my never ending list of games that need shopped.

Game Swap
I put Johnny Nero out on location and swapped it out for another gun game that had been on location for a while.  It went flawlessly.  I had the games swapped and was on my way in under a half hour.  Having the location employees assist by holding doors and helping tip over the excessively heavy games really helped. 

Skee Ball
I found one lane with an out of order sign on it.  The blank displays was probably the reason.  Other than the blank display the lane worked fine.  This is the lane that I had found the component with a broken lead on a couple weeks back so it wasn't a surprise to see it act up again.  I tried to take a closer look at the part and it crumbled apart as soon as I touched it.  It looked sort of like a ceramic cap or a MOV.  I checked the manual I have and there isn't any schematics that show the part.  I will call Skee Ball and see if they can help.  It is tempting to convert to LED and be done with it but as usual, I'm not sure the economics of doing that would ever work out.
I pulled out the display assembly and took it back to the shop.  Once I know what the part is, it should be an easy and quick repair.
I had to call Skee Ball support to figure out what the part was.  It took them a while to figure out what it was and no one is still 100% sure but the most likely candidate is something called a CL-160 which is apparently a current limiter of some sort.  I've never encountered that component before in all my years of field service work and game repairs but obviously I don't know it all.  I ordered some from Skee Ball and once they come in, I will find out for sure.

Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.

Rowe Changer
The service light was on, with the number six code on the display.  I pulled two tickets out of the acceptor and everything was working again.

Tickets
I pulled ticket out of the coin slots on three games.  Probably the same kid is responsible for all three.  I am considering making up some sort of signs that I can put on the games to convince the kids to use the tickets in the redemption counter rather than shoving them into the coin slots.  I suspect that it is probably really young kids doing it so it would have to be really simple for them to understand.  Even if it would stop only a few kids from shoving the tickets into the coin slot and bill acceptors it would save me some time.  Of course if the parents of the young childrent that do this and some of the other abuse that the games take would actually watch thier kids, I would really be better off but I know that isn't going to ever happen.

Skee Ball
The parts order came in and the parts sure look like the part that crumbled.  I need to solder it in and find out for sure.

Sega Star Trek
The repair service let me know that the have repaired and upgraded the monitor I sent in and will send it back this week already.  So far I am happy with the plan of sending it out for repairs as it has been broken for weeks and I still wouldn't have had the time to repair it.

Nickels
I made my weekly stop at a location and walked out with $.80 in nickels that I had pulled from several coin jams in games at the location.  It was probably the same kid that caused all of them.

Slam A Winner
I found it with a Coin jam with a seriously mangled quarter at the root of the jam.  I pulled out several quarters and a few nickels that had been jammed in behind it.  I had to pull the coin mech apart to clear the jam but once I cleared it and put the mech back together everything worked fine.

Johnny Nero
Less than a week on location and I already found that the kids have started messing with the guns and gun hoses for this game.  This may be the last gun game I put into this location if the abuse continues.

Ticket Eater
Paper Jam.  The paper was jamming after the cutter, for it to work properly the paper has to bend slightly after being cut so it gets picked up by the next set of rollers. The paper was bending the opposite way and avoiding the rollers altogether.  It appeared to be due a section of paper being much thicker than it normally is.  I fed enough paper through to get past the thick section and it worked fine then.  I'm not going to be surprised if this shows up again as what are the odds that it was just one spot on the roll that had this issue?

Skee Ball
I soldered in the part that Skee ball had shipped me and replaced several bulb sockets while I had the soldering tools and display board in the same place.  It went well with no surprises.  The real surprise will be when I plug it in and see what happens.

Week of 5/4/2014
Dr. Who
The Mini playfield stopped working while the game was at the Allentown show.  I pulled the assembly out and took it apart.  The motor seems to be binding at a few spots so I am assuming that the gear box went bad.  While I am ordering parts, I am going to replace some of the other parts that probably are worn by now.

Air Hockey
I found it with an out of order sign on it and two pucks jammed into it.  I think that the puck release motors are wearing out.  I replaced one a while back.  I will buy another and replace the other end.  They are sort of expensive so I hate to just replace them but there really isn't much to repair on them, the motor drives a small plastic rod that blocks the puck when the game is over.

Tic Tac Toe
I found an out of order sign on it but I couldn't find anything wrong with.  I played several games and it always worked fine for me.

Sega Star Trek
I found someone that will repair and rebuild the G08 monitors in this game.  I pulled the monitor out and removed the boards and sent them in for repair before they changed thier minds about repairing those monitors.

Johnny Nero
I finished getting this one ready for location by putting a new plug on it.  The ground prong was gone on the old one.  It is one of those things that I try to make sure that all the games have as it really is a safety item and is easily solved.

Parts
I sorted though a couple of boxes of monitor chassis I had and took several pictures of them to try to get rid of them.  They aren't anything valueable or even in good shape but I hate to throw out parts for the classic games from the 80's.  I have more than I will probably ever use and I need some space so I need to get rid of some of this stuff one way or another. 

Week of 4/27/2014

Skee Ball
I moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.
There were more bulbs out in one of the displays on one of the lanes and I had the bulbs along so I delved into the bulb changing job.  The first lane went easy enough, I replaced four bulbs and put it all back together and moved to the next lane.  The first issue I ran into was that the display covers fell off when I pulled the backglass off.  That is always a sign that it isn't going to go well and sure enough it didn't I replaced a couple bulbs and noticed that the clips that hold the display in were broken.  You have to pull the display board off the metal plate to replace them.  I replaced a few of the clips and bulbs and when I tried to reassemble it, the display panel wouldn't stay on the clips.  I tried to find a reason but I couldn't find one.  I spent 45 minutes trying to get the display back together and eventually was successful but it still wasn't quite right and I had enough of Skee Ball displays for the day.  I really should spend the money and get the LED upgrade for these things!  In case you are wondering why I haven't the answer is $400 per lane.  Which is a lot of money and the only payoff is that I wouldn't have to spend a few hours every couple of months replacing the bulbs. Based on my labor and parts it would never pay for itself.

Trap Door
The bill acceptor wasn't working and was flashing red.  I found a rental ticket covered in gum in the acceptor.  It took some time to clear up the mess that the gum made of the acceptor but afterwards it was working fine.

Air Hockey
The entire surface was coated in some sort of sticky material.  I cleaned it up and the game played fine.


Golden Tee
I found a dime stuck in each coin slot.  Cleared the jams and the acceptor worked fine.  As a side note, I need to get this game out of this location as it is making pretty much nothing but taking a good amount of abuse.




Dr Who
Finished the cleaning and ring replacement on this game.  I noticed that several of the lamp inserts were filthy but I didn't have the time to clean them like I normally do.   Especially when access to some of the lamp boards are blocked by one of the under playfield ramps.  So I used my air compressor to blow out as many as I could. For a quick cleaning, the game really turned out well.