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.