Week of 12/24

Slam A Winner
Still Jamming tickets, I made the adjustment that Benchmark suggested and it helped keep the dispenser in place but I was still seeing ticket jams from the tickets catching on the top of the slot.  I removed the spacers from the screws that the dispenser rests on this made it sit about an 1/8 of an inch lower and was enough to keep the tickets from catching on the top of the dispenser cutout.  

Skee Ball
Moved three balls back to proper lane.

Big Haul
Dug a penny out of the coin acceptor.

Air Hockey
Found that the metal plate that I had fixed a few weeks back had fallen off again.  I put it back together.  I should probably bring the rivet gun along and try to rivit it back into place.  I noticed the other side the same plate has some play in it.  I can't tell if it should have  the play or if it is just wear.

Alley Cat Shuffle Alley
Installed the new parts cleaned and reassembled the game.  One GI string was still out but the game worked fine.  I rebuilt the GI connector as it was burnt and now all of the GI is working again.  I visited all three hardware chain stores that we have and struck out on finding the F14T12 bulbs for the lane by the pins. 
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Week of 12/17

Skee Ball
Moved 6 balls back into proper lane

Corvette Pinball
Coin Jam found a redemption ticket in the coin slot

Smokin Token
Replaced bulb that was failing.  On this game you have to replace it from the rear of the game, its accessable by removing three screws and pulling out the entire bulb assembly.  Reassembly was a bit tough as there are two metal plates that need to be lined up and it is tough to hold them both and get it back together.

Slam a Winner
Replaced the bulb that I broke a few weeks back.  It took a long time to get the bulb lined up and screwed in.  But the game does look better properly lit up.
Ticket dipsenser was laying in the game again.  I spoke to Benchmark about it and they offered a suggestion on the cause, I will try it next time I visit the location.

DinoScore
Not dispensing tickets.  I thought it would be a jam but the dispenser works fine when I used the test button.  Found the connector was partially off the dispenser but reseating that didn't correct it.  Finally found that the switch on the ticket bin to detect out of tickets was the culprit.  The switch lever was gone.  Odd I hadn't loaded tickets into this game in a few weeks nor was the switch arm laying in the game.  It was working fine earlier in the week.  I didn't have that type of switch so I bypassed the switch to get it back up and running.

Ticket Eater
Customer Called and was having problems with the cutter again on the eater.  I ordered new blades for the eater, hopefully they will be here for my next trip to the location.  In the mean time, I told the customer how to remove the cutter assembly from the eater so it would continue to work.  It's OK on this model as the tickets feed into a locked compartment.

Alley Cat Shuffle Alley I picked this up recently to replace the one that I had sold.  My son really missed the old one and this one turned up.  It mostly worked when I got it but has a few issues.  One was that the pin reset wasn't working, the pins would come down but then all go back up. After finally figuring out how to get the pin deck out, I found that there was a set of keys jammed in the mechinism and that the roller switch was worn to nothing, I made a temporary adjustment on the switch and dug the keys out and the pin reset works.  The next issue was that there were several areas that the lights weren't working.  Found one GI string had a broken wire, a little soldering fixed that up.  Reseating the connectors cleared up a few more of the other light issues but there is still one GI string out.  I tore the game apart to move it and noticed how bad the rebound rubber looked, so I ordered all new rubber parts.  I hope the parts come in quickly as I've let the game torn apart and I am already tripping over all the various parts laying around.
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Week of 12/10

Skee Ball
Found an out of order sign on it.  Noticed that the coin return button assembly was gone.  These are pressed in and don't usually just fall out.  Luckily it was up in the office, I spent a while pounding it back in and it seemed to be OK.  Moved four balls back into the proper lane

Rowe Changer
Wasn't accepting bills, cleaned the junk out of the acceptor and it is working once again.

Slam A Winner
Both dispenser jammed again, I tore the parts that hold the dispenser in and attempt to adjust them to better hold the dispensers.  Found a dollar coin jammed into the coin mech.

Smokin Token
Found a penny and a ticket jammed into the coin slot

Ticket Eater
Cutter assembly was bound up with a ticket jam.  I couldn't get it free so I tore it apart and cleaned it while it was apart. Got it spinning again and doused it in a light oil to help it spin.  It really spun freely when I was done.  I need to get anothe cutter assembly ordered for it.

Time Crisis 2
Delivered the game, managed to crack the monitor bezel while moving it around.  But other than that, the delivery went well and the game worked fine when it arrived.
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Week of 12/3

Slam A Winner 
Both ticket dispensers jammed, cleared the jam and watched it dump over 300 tickets out without a jam.

Skee Ball
Found an out of order sign on the one lane.  Moved nine balls back into the proper lane and they all played fine.

Time Crisis 2
I sold it to a fellow operator, so I spent some time cleaning and adjusting it to get it ready to go.  No major problems with it.
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Week of 11/28

Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into proper lanes

Air Hockey
Found a strip of metal in the puck score area broken loose.  The part was originally rivited onto the game.  Used a small sheet metal screw to reattach the part.  

Sportstation
Coin Jam.  Found the coin mech was covered in some sort of sticky stuff.  Did the best I could to clean it up.  It worked but I will need to swap it out when I get the chance.  I didn't have any spare coin mechs with me.

Slam A Winner
Ticket jam.  Found that the ticket dispenser was knocked out of its mount and was hanging in the game.  Apparently someone was taking the slam part of the name a bit too literal.  Put the dispenser back into place and used a few zip ties to better secure it the mount. 

Fast and Furious
Found the game unplugged.  I may have been the culprit on this one, as I was behind this game when I delivered the Slam A Winner a few days back

Big Haul
Dug a ticket, nickel and a penny out of the coin mech.

Crane
Light was blinking on and off on it.  Banging the game would cause it to blink again.  While banging on it, it turned off and didn't turn back on.  Found that the power cord was loose.

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Week of 11/21

Skee Ball
Found an out of order sign on two of them.  Both worked fine for me.  Moved 4 balls back into to the proper lanes

Crane
Found an out of order sign on it.  Played several games on it and it worked fine for me.

Cyclone 
Ticket Jam  Oddly enough it didn't have an out of order sign on it.

Slam A Winner
Delivered it to the location.  While driving with it on the truck, I felt a bump.  The large spotlight in the game had worked loose and fell into the game and shattered.  Cleaned up the mess, ran to the store to get a bulb.  While installing the spotlight, I noticed that the other bulb in the game was also loose.  Managed to drop it and break that bulb too.  I had to use a shop vac to get all the glass out this time.  I will pick up and install the other bulb another day.  Maybe I won't break it.

Toyoko Drift
Coin Jam.  Found a stack of about six tickets wedged into the coin slot.
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Week of 11/14

 Skee Ball
One had a coin jam.  Someone had forced a dollar coin into the coin slot. 
 Had to move 6 balls back into the proper lane and clear up a ball jam.  I don't know how the balls get jammed up in the game but I'm guessing that it involves some sort of unnatural act with it.

 Air Hockey
Found a wad of paper, a glowstick and a golden dollar jammed into the puck return area.  I'm assuming that the dollar is a tip.

 Cyclone
Coin Jam, It was in the chute before the coin mech itself, I did find a penny in the jammed coins so maybe that had something to do with it.  Cleared the jam. Sadly no golden dollar involved in this coin jam.

 Corvette Pinball
Would boot up with a Check fuse 115 and 116 message.  Sure enough, fuse 115 was blown, replaced it and the game fired back up.  Played several games on it and spent a while looking for the cause of the blown fuse but I didn't find anything.

 Super Rock N Bowl
Ticket Jam

 Big Haul
Found it unplugged. Plugged it back in and it spit out about 20 tickets or so and seemed to work normally after that.  This game remembers how many tickets it owes the player so the ticket spitting out doesn't mean that
there is a problem.  We frequently get complaints about this game that it doesn't award the jackpot to the player.  But winning the jackpot is just really difficult and people frequently think they won when they haven't. 
So, I am chalking being unplugged to that.

 Rowe Change Machine
I heard a motor cycling on and off on it.  Pulled it apart and didn't find anything but I didn't hear it happen after I put it back together.  It was probably a small part of dirt or something on one of the sensors.
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Week  of 10/30
 Smokin Token
Dropped some oil into the motor gearbox, its been a couple of  months so it is probably due for some oil

Western Train
Ticket Jam

 Bill Acceptor
Got another one in for installing into one of the crane machines, tested it and it works perfectly.  Hopefully it still will work when I install it into the crane.
 ====================================================================================
Week  of 10/23 
Sportstation
Someone wrote some sort of tag onto the control panel.  I used some Grafitti remover to take it off and it removed the grafitti but it also clouded up the control panel.

 Big Haul
Dug a nickel out of the coin mech
 
Skee Ball
Moved 7 balls back into the proper lane and found one ball  laying on top of the game, obviously someone was throwing the balls again.

 Big Haul
Dug a used lollipop stick out of the coin mech. 

Rowe Changer
Heard the bill acceptor cycling like it was moving a bill in and out.  Cleaned all the sensors and it was working again.

 Western Train
Front door glass was sticking out of the game by a quarter  inch or so.  Went to unlock the glass and it fell out.  Luckily, I  managed to catch it.  Found that someone hit it hard enough to shear off  the pins that the door would pivot on.  I was amazed that the glass could take enough punishment to shear off a steel pin without breaking.  Its tempered but someone really must have slammed it for that to happen.

 Ticket Eater
Found it with an out of order sign on it, Would not take any tickets.  The sensors were working fine but the motor would not kick  in.  Found that there was a ticket jammed in the cutter mechinism. 
Cleared the jam and it was back to work.  I'm not sure how a ticket could  jam the cutter blade but it did.  I'm going to order a new cutting blade as  I don't think its ever been replaced on this eater so it could be worn
out.
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 Week of 10/16

 Bill Acceptor
Got another Bill Acceptor in for the crane, I put it into  another game to test.  Plugged it in and heard the motors make the right  noises and got the green lights on the front.  Tried to put a dollar into
it and it would take the dollar, the motor never would start  Played around  with the jumpers and cleaned the optics and now I get the error code that there  is a bill jam in the acceptor.  

Drill O Matic
Would occasionally count a loss as a win.  Adjusted one of the optical sensors and it seems better.  These were the same sensors that were knocked loose a few weeks back so it wasn't a suprise that one needed
some fine tuning.

 Air Hockey
Noticed that the puck return motor wasn't always working properly.  I saw it not work once but I couldn't get it happen again.  I have the replacement for it on hand but I didn't have the time to swap it in.  I will replace it on my next visit to the location. 

GoldenEye Pinball
Was working on something else when I noticed that the  display was garbled on the game.  It had been working fine earlier when I tested it, turning it off and back on cleared it up but there is something going
on with it.  This game is coming off location soon so I will take a look at  when it gets back to the shop in a few days.

 Skee Ball
Arrived at location and found that both Skee Balls had out of order signs on them.  I tried the first one and it worked perfectly, I found 2 quarters in the return cup.  So I assume that it rejected a couple of quarters and the person couldn't find the return cup.  Even with the four inch type and six inch arrow that I added to point it out.  The second skee ball did have a legitamite problem with a ticket jam.  Cleared it up and it was working again.

 Air Hockey
Found an out of order sign on this one too.  Found that the power cord had been pulled out of the game, plugged it back in and played a few games.  I did my best to zip tie the power cord to the game to deter
whoever pulled it out.

 Rowe Changer
Pulled a redemption ticket out of the acceptor.
 ===================================================================================
Week of 10/9
 
Corvette Pinball
Spent some more time troubleshooting.  With the meter, I could see that the Tip102 for both Lamp rows were being  triggered.  So I replaced the LM339 and both of the Tip102s, put it back together and the problem is still there.  Double checked and still didn't measure a short between the two rows.  Checked each lamp out and noticed that one was always on and one was always off.  Found that the wiring for
two rows were soldered onto one lamp.  I'm assuming that at some point the wire got knocked off of the one lamp aqnd mistakenly soldered to the wrong lamp. Connected the wiring properly and now it works right.  I frequently make the mistake of discounting the possiblilty that someone else made a mistake when
working on them.  At first glance everything appeared to be OK.

 Skee Ball
Found dimes and pennies jammed into the coin slot and a few quarters jammed in behind it.  Cleared the jam up and it worked fine. Also found someone was using the ball lane as a cup holder.

Cyclone
Found it unplugged.  Plugged it back in and it worked  fine.  Customer wasn't aware of any complaints or issues with the game.

 Super Rock N  Bowl
Found a nickel forced into the coin slot.  It  took quite a bit of effort to get it back out, which means that it took a bit of  effort to get it in the slot. It looks like the coin mech may need some adjustment but the place was packed, so I left it for another day when I didn't have a crowd of children around me.

 Sonic and Tales
Ticket Jam

 Corvette Pinball Machine
Picked this up at the York show.  While  setting it up, I found that a few of the leg bolts and plates were
stripped.  After setting it up I found that it has some sort of problem  with the light row that acts like two of them shorted together.  Spent some time troubleshooting and I am leaning towards a problem on the driver
board.
====================================================================================
 Week of 10/2

 York Show
Took 5 games down to the York show.  Including the candy  crane that was intermitently failing.  I thought that the show would be a  good place to test the crane while being close by to see what happens.  It
took over eight hours of almost constant use but the problem did eventually show up.  So now I know for sure that it is the crane itself and I am pretty  sure that the problem is in the wiring harness as the problem consistenly showed  up when the crane was in the far corner or very close to the prize shoot. 
I guess that was worth the money I spent on candy keeping it and the hordes of children fed.
 
Hot Stuff Crane
Tried to install a Bill Acceptor into this one.   Spent a while trying to get the one I had working.  Nothing I did would  make the bill acceptor go into the Ready state.  Did some research and  found that the Mars 2511 Acceptors have a few lines that they wait to go high  before accepting bills.  Since the crane lacks those wires and signals, it wouldn't go ready.  It appears that I really need a 2411.  I will  order one and try that.

Skee Ball
Moved five skee balls back into the proper lane.

Rowe Change machine
Found it unplugged.  Plugged it back in and ran a few bills into it and it seems to work fine.

Super Rock n Bowl
Found that the roll down coin acceptor was loose.  Three of the four screws that held it in were loose and ther was at least an quarter inch of thread between the screw and the nut.  Oddly enough the one bolt that did not have a screw head on it wasn't loose. Which leaves me wondering if someone attempted to take it apart by unscrewing the coin acceptor.  I'll have to pick up some new bolts and nuts just to be sure.  Not that they would get any money by accessing the game through there anyways but more than likely they would damage the game in the process.

Family Guy Pinball
I've had this one sitting in the warehouse since it came out of a location a few weeks back.  I was planning on taking it to the York Pinball show to see if it sells.  Opened it up and it was a lot dirtier than what I remembered.  So spent a while, disassembling, cleaning and replacing bulbs to get it ready.  I also replaced the transformer for the light and the light socket that had failed a while back.  Spent around four hours on it but it looks and plays very nice now.

Street Fighter Multigame
I put this together a while back with the plan of operating it.  But after playing it and noticing that the game looses credits if you pick a game and back out of it, I didn't operate it. I may also take this one to the York Show to sell.  I did some minor cleanup to it and verified that it worked.

House of the Dead 2
Cleaned the LEDs around the monitor and it didn't make a difference in how the second player gun tracks.  I did find a couple of wires on the connector to the gun sensor that were hanging on by a thread.  I repaired the wires and hooked it back up and still no better. It looks like if I want to fix this one, I will have to buy one of the $200 gun sensors along with the gun shell. Given the condition of this game I may just part this one out. I need to research what the boardset is worth before I go ahead with parting it.
====================================================================================
Week of 9/25

Fast Track Air Hockey
Parts came in and I installed the new puck release motor.  Someone had cut the connector that should be there off the harness, so I had to cut the connector on the new part and wire it in.  Normally, I would have added the connector back on but this uses a connector that I haven't run into before, so I didn't have any to replace it with.  Soldered the wires for good measure and  played a few games and it is working fine.

Slam a Winner
Getting it ready to go back out on location.  I spent some time attempting to build a kick plate for this game.  I bought it new and it is still in perfect condition, if I don't protect it somehow, it will be quickly trashed at the new location.  I had planned on moving it in the truck that I rented to move the air hockey table but the rental truck wasn't tall enough for the game to fit in.  The game is just a few inches shy of seven feet tall. It went back into the shop till I figure out a way to move it without screwing it up.

House of the Dead 2 
Got it back to the shop and spent more time troubleshooting the gun.  Swapped guns around and the problem followed the gun.  I calibrated the second player gun with the working gun attached to it and swapped them back.  It did improve the situation but it still isn't working right.  The aim is off by around an inch and no matter what you are aiming at the first shot always goes to the top center of the screen.  Ran out of time but the next step is going to be cleaning the LEDs around the screen in the hopes that maybe the gun sensor is weak and maybe the dust on the LEDs is blocking enough light to keep it from working.  Probably not but its worth a try before spending $200+ on an older game like this one.

Skee Ball
Moved four balls back to the proper lane.

Drill O Matic
Found a few of the prizes laying in the bottom of the game.  Obviously someone has been kicking it again.  I don't know if it is by design or just luck but when you kick this game hard enough to shake the prizes loose, they fall into the front of the game and not out the prize door.  Not that it stops people from trying. 

Air Hockey
I sold this one to a fellow operator.  so it got pulled from the location today.  

Ice Fast Track Air Hockey
Installed this one at location today. While installing the overhead score unit I found the missing bolts.   Got it set up, played a few games and found that the release motor on the one side would occasionally stick open.  Ordered a new motor.  Surprisingly it was only $25.
=======================================================================================
week of 9/18

Skee Ball
Moved 4 balls back into proper lane.  Found an out of order sign on one game, I played a few games and it worked fine.  

Air Hockey
Not accepting quarters, found and removed pennies jammed into coin slot

Drill O Matic
Doing the constant reset again.  Pushing connectors back on the whole way fixed it yet again.

Classic Multigame
Found an out of order sign on it.  Played a few games and it seemed to be fine.

House of the Dead 2 
Found that second player gun wasn't working or registering trigger pulls.  Bent trigger switch back into shape to fix trigger issue but couldn't get gun to track properly.  So this game is now coming off location as it isn't worth replacing the gun sensor ($200) for what it currently earns at this location.

Cyclone
Had an out of order sign on the green station.  Played several games it worked fine.

Super Rock N Bowl
Swapped this in place of the HotD 2 that has a bad gun.

Wells K7000 25" monitor
Customer's monitor.  Noticed that the Flyback had a crack in it and was starting to ooze out the insides and the Fuse was missing from the chassis.  I installed a new Flyback, Cap kit and Voltage regulator.  Powered it back up and it instantly popped the fuse.  Checked the four rectifier diodes and found two of them shorted.  Replaced the diodes and the monitor worked fine.  I only replaced three of the four diodes (normally I replace all four) as one of them was encased in the plastic substance that they use to lock the pots in place.  I tried for a while to get the diode free but the plastic wasn't budging.  The diode tested fine, so I left it in as I would probably do more damage to the board attempting to get it out of the plastic.  

Ice Fast Track Air Hockey
Getting this one ready to go out on location.  Gave it a good cleaning and swapped the coin mechs back to quarters.  I found I was missing some of the bolts for the legs and the overhead.  Ran to the Hardware store and bought several replacements.  Tested the game the best I could while it was on its side.

Sega Jurassic Park video game
Moved this one out of storage as I sold it to a fellow operator.  Powered it up, played a few games on it and everything played as it should.  Sorry to see this one go as I like the game and it is a lot of fun to play but I don't have the room for it and its been through the route so it is just gathering dust.
=======================================================================================
Week of 9/11
Skee Ball
Moved 3 balls back into proper lanes.

DinoScore
Bulbs had burned out of the three lamps above the playfield scoring area.  The gun uses the light from the lamps to detect the quarter in the gun so the lamps needed replaced.  The lamps were the non replaceable bulb type so I had to replace all 3 lamp assemblies.  It took a couple of hours attempting to get the new lamps to work with the old lamp holes.  Eventually, I just gave up and drilled new holes in the game to mount the lamps.  Found out during the process that I need a new drill.
=======================================================================================
Week of 8/21

Skee Ball
Moved 4 balls back into proper lane.

Golden Eye Pinball
Found left flipper was stuck up.  The bolts that hold the coil stop had stripped out of the base plate. Temporarily fixed it by running bolts through the holes and tightening them down with nuts.  I may leave it this way.  Other than being a pain to get the coil stop off, I don't think my fix will cause any problems.  

Smokin Token
Not accepting quarters.  Found the coin mech gummed up with dirt again.  Cleaned it up and it is working again.  

Crane Machines
Adjusted claw strength up on two of them as they didn't have enough wins.  Believe it or not, I've found that the cranes earn better when there are more winners. 

Pharoh
An old uncommon Williams System 7 game.  Game would boot but no coils would fire.  Checked the fuse and it looked fine but measured as an open.  The coils use a 2.5 amp slow blow fuse. I didn't have any 2.5 amp fuses, so I went with the 2 amp.  Game fired up and played fine. I need to pick up some 2.5 fuses.  

Parts
Got a bill from one of the distributors that I buy from. Apparently I never got credited for sending a part back to them.  Found the tracking number from the shipment and discovered that USPS doesn't keep the numbers in the system long enough for me to prove that they got the part.  Called the distributor and explained that I had shipped them the part.  They are checking on it for me.
=======================================================================================
Week of 8/14

Arctic Thunder
Tested a spare PC that I had for one.  It was booting to a Windows blue screen and rebooting. After reseating and doing some parts swapping, it now doesn't even boot.  Just throws a beep code.  I'm guessing memory but I put the game back together and will revisit the spare PC once I get some more memory for it.

Cruisin World
Got this one pretty much back together.  Monitor is a bit flakey but is good enough for my son to play the game.  The seat adjuster was frozen in the track.  I tried to take it off with the four nuts but one was stripped out.  I would have used the screws that hold the base plate but the assembly was covering them.  Broke out the Dremel tool and cut the nut off the bolt.  Replaced the whole seat track assembly with another one that I had.

Super Rock N Bowl
Converting it from Tokens back to quarters.  I bought a coin mech that looked like it would fit but it was about a quarter inch too large, cut some metal of the plate to get it to fit.  Bolted it up and found out that the output of the coin mech was offset by about a 1/4 inch and wouldn't work.   So, I spent some time and adjusted the original token mech to accept quarters.  Put it all back together and tested it out and it seems OK.

Air Hockey
Found four pucks in one end all stuck behind a wad of paper.  Cleared out the paper and removed extra pucks.
====================================================================================
Week of 8/7

Cyclone
One station display was garbled and the jackpot light was flashing.  I moved the connectors around on the CPU board and the problem stayed at the same station.  So, the problem has to be at the station itself.  Reseated the connector the station board and moved the wires away from the neon wiring and the problem cleared up.

Dug assorted pennies, dimes, nickels and dollar coins from the coin mechs on Cyclone, Skee Ball, Smokin Token and Goldeneye pinball. It appears that we have a return visitor from last week.

Skee Ball
Swapped eleven balls back into proper lane.

Sportstation
Startup / test screen looping.  Reseating the hard drive and cables cleared it up.  But usually this is an indication that the hard drive is on its way out again.  If it dies, I'll take it as a sign that the machine is ready to retire.

Pool Tables
I sold these around a month ago and the guy finally made it back to pick them up.  I'm glad to have some much needed room back.

Crusin World
I picked up a partially stripped Crusin World cabinet.  I have everything I need to put it back together so I started that project.  I made decent progress and have the Boardset and power supply mounted and the game scrubbed down.  The cabinet is a bit rough and was formerly a Hyperdrive game but it should make a half decent game when I get it finished.  My son has already taken to calling it HIS game. 
=======================================================================================
Week of 7/31

Change machine
Pulled a penny out of the bill acceptor on it.

Skee Ball
Moved three balls back into proper lane

Cyclone
Coin Jam dug pennies out of coin mech.

Sega Goldeneye
Coin Jam, dug a dime out of coin mech.

Sonic and Tales
Coin Jam dug a nickel out of coin mech.

Candy Crane
Let it run again for around an hour and no errors cropped up.  I still don't know what to do with this one.
================================================================================
Week of 7/24
Wells K7400 Monitor
Installed the chassis that I had rebuilt, made a few adjustments to the color and it was working once again.

Skee Ball
Had an out of order sign on it.  Employee working said that a child told him it didn't get any tickets.  Which is true if you don't score enough points.  Played a few games on it and it was working fine.

Showtime Sportstation
Dug a nickel out of coin mech.

Smokin Token
Dig a ticket out of coin mech.

Jurasic Park 3
Someone pulled off around a five inch section of the control panel overlay.  Need to find out how much replacement is and review security camera footage to see if person can be identified.

Big Haul
Pulled part of the control panel overlay out of coin mech.

Skee Ball
Moved three balls  back into proper lane. Dig a dime out of the coin slot on one unit.
Installed the lexan shield that I made on another lane.  If they are actually working, I should start to see a difference.  While installing the shield I found a toy car that was jammed in the linkages, no clue how this happened or how the game continued to work with the car in it.

Showtime
Dug a nickel out of the coin slot

Sonic and Tales
Dug a dime out of the coin slot

Smokin Token
Dug a dime out of the coin slot.

==================================================================================
Week of 7/17
Tron Pinball
The new Tron LE pinball arrived today.  I set it up and have spent a lot of time playing it.  Great game! I'm glad I spent the money on this one!

Shuffle Bowler
The old pins were cracked and dirty, so I ordered a set and replaced them.  Took close to three hours to finish.  The only way I found to get to the pins was from underneath.  So I had to lay on the lane and work under the scoring deck.  I still think that there has to be another way to access them but I couldn't find it.  The new pins really make a difference in how the game looks.

Skee Ball
Moved four balls back to the proper lane.  But the extra balls were in the lane that I had put the shield on earlier in the week. Which is usually the lane that would be short on the balls.  Maybe the shield idea worked. 

Cyclone
Coin Jam found a badly mangled quarter and about $5 in quarters jammed into the slot

Air Hockey
Had an out of Order sign on it, found two pucks stuck behind a huge wad of gum in the scoring area.

Skee Ball
To deter the children from trying to manually release the balls from the game, I added a piece of Lexan to cover the ball catch assembly.  Took around and hour to come up with the idea and get the lexan cut and mounted up.  If it works, I will do the same to the rest of the Skee Ball games.

Sonic and Tales Spinner
Coin Jam found a ripped up ticket jammed into the coin slot along with about $3 in quarters.

Wells Gardner K7400 monitor
Bad Flyback, was easy to troubleshoot as the monitor was making a loud electrical noise and big blue sparks were shooting from the flyback.  Oddly enough the picture still looked good while this was going on.  Replaced the flyback, and voltage regulator and installed a cap kit.  Powered it up and made a couple of adjustments and it was up and running again without the noise and sparks.

Merit Evo Touchscreen
Making whining noise.  Found at least two of the fans were making noise.  Two computer stores later, I had one new one replaced the noisiest of the two fans, cleaned the other fan and it was much better.  I really need to get a stock of fans and save me the hasssle of trying to find them when I need them. 

==================================================================================
Week of 7/10

Skee Ball
Found it with an out of order sign on it today.  Moved ten balls back into the proper lane.

Rowe Changer
Out of service light was on.  Code showed one of the sensors was blocked.  Took apart acceptor and found part of a dollar bill just the George Washington part.  Apparently the urban legend that the acceptors only look for the Washington portrait lives on.

Skee Ball
Moved three balls back to proper lane.  Also had to clear up a ticket jam.

Cyclone
Replaced the 74237 chip to see if strange display situation would clear up.  It sort of did.  Now only one
display is doing it.

Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift
Game was not booting.  Computer appeared to start to boot but wasn't throwing any beep codes.  Reseated a bunch of connectors and the game started to work once again.

==================================================================================
Week of 7/3

Goldeneye Pinball
Parts came in so I replaced the target, pop bumper ring and the two armatures.  Not too bad of a job at all.

Skee Ball
I caught a kid with his arm up the ball lane pulling the balls past the stop.  I told him to get his hand out
of the game before he gets hurt.  He pulled out another ball handed it to his friend to throw it at the game.
They seemed shocked that I was less than happy with them.  I also earned myself some dirty looks from the
adult that was watching the children.  Anyhow I had to swap ten balls back into the proper lane while fielding angry looks from a couple of people.

Flamin Finger
Instruction sticker finally arrived.  Bill was $41 for a 2 1/2 inch sticker and shipping.
==================================================================================
Week of 6/26

Skee Ball
Moved twelve balls back into proper lane,

House of the Dead 2
Last time I visited this machine the second player trigger seemed a bit flaky, so I brought another switch along to swap in.  But the trigger was working fine now.  The gun was way off on alignment so I did the alignment.

Skee Ball
Part came in from Skee ball, I installed it and the new solenoid and the game works well.  All I need to do now is buy some finish washer and screws and put the lane plastics back on it. I have several people that expressed interest in it so it should be sold soon. I'll be glad to have this one out of my way.

Cyclone
I had to move this one out of a location.  Which doesn't sound doesn't too bad until you know that the doorway isn't really wide enough for the game to go through in one piece.  I pulled the dome and the part that the neon sits on and got it on a furniture dolly.  I had it partially though the door and realized that the legs had to come off too.  Once I had it though the doorway, I put the legs and other parts back on and put it on the truck.  Once back at the shop, I finished the reassembly.  I really have to remember to pull the tickets out of these games before I move them.  I had a huge ball of tickets in the middle of the game.  Anyhow, after reconnecting everything the game worked fine. 

Goldeneye Pinball
Found that the pop bumper ring was stuck in the down position.  I was expecting a locked on coil but it turned out that the pop bumper ring and one of the metal yokes had broken and were tangled up on the bracket.  I need to order the parts for this one. 

Candy Crane
Let it run again for an hour or so and it worked perfectly. 
==================================================================================
Week of 6/19

Skee Ball
Moved 3 balls back into proper lane

Skee Ball
I had some free time so I did some work to the Skee ball machine that I have in the shop.  The screws for the release solenoid were missing, after figuring out what size and thread they were I ran to the hardware store for some replacements.  I called Skee Ball to see if they had the linkage that I was missing for the game and they did and it was only $15.  A much better solution then my plan of making one up with threaded rod.

Andamiro Hammer
I spent a long time working on this one. Before I started working on it, there were two sensors that were stuck on.  Now I have one horizontal stuck on and only one or two of the vertical sensors work at all.  I installed a replacement board that I had picked up on Ebay years ago and found out that it wasn't working at all.  I really don't know what it going on with this game.

Candy Crane
This is the one that I pulled off location the other week.  I taped down the joystick button and put about 30 credits on it and let it run while I did other things around the shop.  It ran constantly for a hour and a half with no errors at all.  Maybe it has a break in the wire that only shows up in certain spots and the middle where the claw is currently dropping isn't that spot. 

Arctic Thunder
Coin Jam  cleared the jammed up tokens and it seems better.

Sportstation
Coin Jam  removed the redemption ticket from the coin mech.

Time Crisis 2
Second player screen had an error message that said something along the lines of unable to initialize interface.  Powered it off and the message cleared, I rebooted it a few times and played a few games on it and the error didn't show back up.

House of the Dead 2
Neither of the guns were registering a trigger pull.  Tore the guns apart and found that both switches were bent.  I have no idea on how it could have happened but it did.  Did a little unbending and it was back to killing zombies.

=======================================================================================
Week of 6/12

Andamiro Hammer
I picked up my other problem game today so I thought I should keep the theme going and pick up the other.  I get to the location and it looks like rain so I wrap the game in plastic wrap.  As I finish wrapping it up the rain starts and it is pouring.  So much so that I was soaked in the six steps I took to get a tarp out of the truck.  So I wait for a while for the rain to stop.  Close to 45 minutes later the rain is not slowing up and now there is a three or four inch deep puddle where I normally load the games up at.  I push the game to a quiet corner of the location and run home to find the paper work for a car battery that I had left at the mall for testing.  In about an hour or so the sun is back out and the puddle is mostly gone.  Load the game up and take it back to the shop. 

Candy Crane
Pulled it off location today.  It went smoothly and I resisted the urge to smash the game up while moving it.

Flamin Finger
Installed the second Red bulb behind the marquee. Looks pretty good but not exactly how I had hoped it would look.  Still waiting on the instruction sticker to finish this game before it can go back out on location.

Touchtunes Jukebox
Installed fan filter.  Easy job, I didn't even have to open the juke up or shut it down to replace the filter.

Pool Tables
Location was out of Chalk.  I thought I had some in the truck but I couldn't find it so I took the access panels off the pool tables and pulled out about six or so from inside the tables. 

Cyclone
The parts order from ICE arrived this week.  Now I just need to find the time to install them.  I've never replaced this part on a Cyclone before, it looks like it may take a lot of time.

Smokin Token
Coin jam, I found a well ground penny stuck in the coin mech. 

Skee Ball
Moved 4 balls back into proper lane.

Andamiro Hammer
Replacement emitter board came in.  I put the board in and it corrected the problem I was having with the one axis.  But the other axis stopped working altogether.  None of the sensors were working.  Gave up on fixing it on location and will pick it up and take it to the shop for exorcism and repair.  I added up how much money I've spent over the years on this game trying to keep it working.  I have over $1500 in parts and repairs to this game over the past few years and I don't think it has ever worked reliably for more than a few months.  Sort of ironic since when I bought the game, I thought it would be a lot easier to deal with then the mechanical type wacker games.  Which in the same time period I have spent less than $100 to keep the mechanical wacker game working. 
==================================================================================
Week of 6/5

Skee Ball
Moved Twelve balls back into the proper lane.  This means that one person played two games rolling the balls up the wrong lane or two people rolled the balls up the wrong lane.  I always wonder about how this happens, they don't score anything and I've never heard of any complaints about about not getting nine balls per game.  The manager of the location mentioned he has seen parents do it thinking that they will get more tickets for thier kids.  Some day I am going to stand by the Skee Ball machines and watch how it happens or who throws the balls in the wrong lanes.

Air Hockey
Found some sort of gooey substance all over the table, nothing abnormal as it is pretty much every week that I do. The abnormal part was after I got done cleaning the game, I threw my keys at the container that I store them in (it was at the other end of the table) and miss.  My assistant picks up the keys and throws them back to me.  I throw them back and as I am about to say don't throw them into the score area,he picks them up and throws them again and the keys go into the score area.  Now we had one of the keys to the game stuck in the score area and you need two keys to get the door open to get into the score area.  I unlock the one side and pull the door open and relock it with it wedged open and unlock the other side.  Spent a few more minutes retrieving the key out of the score area. Made a mental note not to throw keys around my assistant again.

Coin Circus
Coin Jam in the electronic coin mech.  I cleared the jam but found the cause was a SBA dollar coin had been shoved into it and was still wedged in the chute to the playfield.  It took a long while to dig out as there really isn't good access to the part where the coin was jammed.  Sliced up my finger pretty good while freeing the coin. 

Candy Crane
Stuck again with the same error.  It is still on location only due to the rain preventing its removal.  Next week it is leaving the location.

Smokin Token
Coin Jam.  Found a token and a penny jammed into the coin mech (at a location that uses quaters only)  dug it free and found that there were three more tokens in the cash box.  Found that if you forced the token in the coin mech and did it quickly that the mech would accept it.  In a future visit, I plan on attempting to adjust the coin mech to see if I can stop it from accepting tokens.  I need to look up the instructions again.  Without the instructions on how to do it, I always get the adjustment wrong.

Big Haul
Found it unplugged.  Opened the front door and found it was out of tickets.  This particular game makes it very well known when it is out of or has a ticket jam.  Mainly by repeating "check tickets" non stop until you correct the situation.  Which is why it was probably unplugged.

DinoScore
Ticket Jam.  This is the only game that I own that does not have the quick release ticket dispenser so it takes a while to clear out a ticket jam.  Luckily it doesn't jam very often at all. 

Touch Tunes Jukebox
Found that the 4" Radio shack fan was almost a perfect match for the one that was failing.  The almost part was that the Radio Shack fan had wires attached and the failing fan had spade connectors.  A little cutting and splicing and the new fan was in place.  I found a power connector that was just hanging loose.  I thought that I had knocked it off from something while replaceing the fan but I couldn't find anywhere that it connected.  The Jukebox had been upgraded in the past so it is likely that this connector was left over from something else.  I forgot to bring the fan filters along, so I need to stop back and replace the filter as it was clogged.

Wells Gardner U3000 monitor
I had some free time so I started working on the pile of broken monitors.  This one had a bad flyback.  I replaced the flyback and most of the electrolytic caps on it.  Put it back together and found that there are two interchangable connectors on the neckboard.  One is for ground and the other comes from the flyback and is not Ground.  I put it back the way that I thought looked right but I need to double check on the schematics before I power it up.  I also realized that I don't have any way to test this monitor as it is VGA only and I don't have any VGA boards in the shop.  I'll probably have to use a PC to test this one out.

Wells Gardner D9200
Changed the value of C810 to 270 microfarads as reccomended by a WG tech article.  Need to test this monitor too.

United / Williams Shuffle alley 
I've been playing this game frequently since I repaired it and it hasn't had any further issues, so I am calling this one fixed.  I need to order some new parts like pins and rebound rubber for it.  I also need to replace the caps in the power supply.  I still haven't deceided what I am going to do with this one.

Skee Ball
This one is sitting in the shop and I have been slowly repairing it as I find the parts I need to complete it.  I found the wiring harness I thought I was missing for the release solenoid.  Laid the solenoid on the floor and hooked it up, started a game and the solenoid worked perfectly.  Ran out of time to do much else with it.  But I am getting closer to having it done.

==================================================================================
Week of 5/29

Andamiro Hammer
Not tracking the hammer, put it into test and found that three rows that were showing bad in the test mode.  I was able to get two working by resoldering the cracked solder joints.  The last one the LED was weak, I tried replacing it with one that I thought would work but it didn't.  I spent some time making adjustments and got the game playable.
On a later visit to the location, I found that it was unplayable again.  I am going to order another LED board for it. 

Skee Ball
Dug a penny out of the coin mech and put two balls back into the proper lane.

Touchtunes Jukebox
Making a whining noise.  I found that the cooling fan was making the noise.  It is a 120 volt fan that is somewhere around four inches (I really need to add some sort of measurement tool to the tool bag).  I stopped at Radio Shack on the way home and picked up one that looks about right. I'm hoping that it is the right size as I think I paid way more than I should have for it.  I need to stop back at the location and install it.  I also need to replace the filter that is on the back of the jukebox as it is looking quite dirty.

Air Hockey
One side not scoring properly.  Found that the scoring switch had been bent up.  Bent it back into shape and it was scoring once again.

Parts order
I still haven't received my parts for the Cyclone.  I need to follow up and find out whats going on with the order.  I usually get my parts orders from ICE in a couple of days.

Pool table
Someone ripped the felt on one.  I've been delaying the inevitable recovering but it looks like I need to get it taken care of now.

Smokin Token Motors
I had some free time so I took tore apart the Smokin Token motor that had failed after only a few weeks of service.  I found that one of the gears has broken loose from the shaft it was attached to.  It appears to be a pressed on part but now there is enough wear that it needs brazed or welded back into place.  I wonder if JB weld or epoxy would be strong enough to hold it.  If I can't find anywhere to braze or weld it, I will find out.  If nothing else, I can scavenge the gear and shaft from one of the other bad motors I have laying around.
==================================================================================
Week of 5/21
 Skee Ball
Found only four balls in lane.  The remaining eight balls were all jammed up in the scoring rings.  Somehow they managed to jam up.  Took score lane out expecting to find something stuck in there but I didn't find anything.  Maybe it fell out already.  It’s possible that I didn't get the score section back on right last time I worked on it and caused this one.  Played several games on it and didn't see a single ball jam.

Smokin Token
Coin Jam, dug four quarters out of the mech.  I gave it a good cleaning and ran a bunch of quarters through it and I didn't have any jams.

Candy Crane.
Back to its usual tricks.  I didn't drive the truck today, so I unjammed it and it was working again.

United / Williams Shuffle alley. 
I picked this one up over the weekend at the Allentown Pinball show.  I bought it non working.  It would boot and run diagnostics but not play.  Cleaned up all the switches that I could find and it still didn't work.  Pulled the batteries and let it sit for a while with no batteries and powered it back up and it worked.  Boardset is going to need some work as it intermittently locks up.  Repaired some damaged wiring and made a missing harness for the speaker.  I'm not sure what I am going to do this one but my son is having a blast playing with it.

Sonic and Tails
I needed to adjust the volume of the game which you have to do from the back.  While adjusting the volume, I found the bag of bulbs that I had bought for it a while back.  It uses some rather expensive halogen bulbs that cost a couple of dollars each.  This wouldn’t be too bad if there wasn’t something like forty of them on the game.  Anyhow, I replaced the four that I found that were bad.  One wasn't actually bad but was knocked out of the socket into part of the game that you can't get in to.  I could see the bulb but there was no way to retrieve it.  Maybe I could turn the game upside down and shake it like a piggy bank to get the bulb out.  I think leaving it there is a better idea.  I don't think it can migrate and harm anything from where it is at.

Drill O Matic
Both displays flashing garbled characters and game not booting.  Powered it off and found that the Eprom had worked loose from the socket.  It was sticking a good 1/4 inch above the socket.  Powered it off reseated the Eprom and the game went back to normal.

Cyclone
Someone kicked off a good four inch chunk from one of the control panel risers.  Spent a while looking for the part as I could glue it back on but I didn't find it.  I looked the part up online just under $60 + shipping for it.  I need to replace the T molding too.  Also one of the jackpot displays is acting weird like the screen refresh is too slow.  This usually means that one of the 74237 chips is about to die.  I wonder if it is related to the Neon / fan problem last week.  At least it did at a good time seeing how I had to order the part that got destroyed anyways.  I order the parts and with shipping it came to right around $100. 

Air Hockey
I dug a glow stick and a huge wad of chewing gum out of the score area. 

United / Williams Shuffle alley. 
Found myself with some free time, so I took look at the board.  I found that any movement in the bottom corner of the board would trigger the lockup.  This generally points to cracked solder joints and or bad connectors.  Pulled the board out and saw that someone else had tried to reflow the solder joints.  I started to add a bit more solder to them and I wasn't happy with how they looked. So I used the desolder gun and sucked off the old solder and resoldered all the header pins on that side of the board.  I also reflowed the crystal's connections.  The diagnostics were frequently showing the code that indicated that the crystal may be bad.  Of course the on board diagnostics on these boards isn't all that useful but just in case the diagnostics were accurate this time. Put the board back in the game and played a few games without any more lockups.  Let it run for a few hours while I worked on other stuff and it kept on working.  I don't know if I am going to call it fixed yet, but it is sure better than it was the other day.  While playing it I realized why these were so popular for so many years, I was having a lot of fun playing it. The ten frames of the game would just blow by.  I like that distinctive sound the puck makes as it slides down the alley.  Hmm, I wonder how it would earn if I put it out on location.  It certainly couldn't be any worse to maintain than some of the other games I have around.

Monitors
I gathered up most of the spare monitors that I had lying around and carried them to the shop so I can test and fix them.  I knew I had a few lying around but it wasn't until I carried seven of them into the shop that I could count how many I have.  It appears that I currently have a dozen broken 25 and 27 inch monitors lying around. I didn't bother counting anything smaller. That explains why the shop seems so cluttered lately.  I plan to fix a couple of each size and resolution and get rid of the rest of them.

Wells Gardner D9200
Since I had the soldering irons out and warmed up I thought I would take care of some of the other projects that have piled up.  I started with this one.  I found a bulletin from Wells that suggested replacing a cap with a 270Uf 35V to correct the no signal issue that this monitor has.  Got the chassis on the workbench and spent the next hour looking for a cap with that value.  I didn't have one. 

=======================================================================================
Week of 5/14

Well it looks like spring is officially here.  The official sign that I watch for is a huge jump in repair issues coupled with a decline in income.  It's also the time of the year that parts and games are hard to find.  The people that have arcades and locations at the beaches are gearing up this time of the year and buy pretty much any game that is available and half decent. This makes finding decent used equipment for rotation difficult and expensive.

Skee Ball
Moved six balls back into proper lane.
Other Skee ball machine appeared to be locked up.  It would start one game after a power up then not score or count the balls and sit there with all zeros for the displays.  Found a single ball hung up on one of the 100 point switches. I've seen this machine do this before and I'm not sure how it happens.  Just putting the ball on the track, it would roll past the switch and not get stuck.  I did notice that the switch appears to be bouncing and awarding extra points.  Adjusted the switch but the bounce still randomly occurred.  Not a huge problem as the 100 point rings are rarely hit and it just gives the customer some extra points and tickets.

Cyclone
No neon at all.  Found that the 4amp fuse for the neon was blown.  Replaced it and the neon came back on and stayed on the whole time (over two hours) I was at the location.  I will keep an eye on this one.  The bad part about the Neon not working is that the fans that cool the CPU board are also on the same fuse.  Usually the location doesn't notice that the neon lights are out and the game sits there for hours and days running with no cooling.  Maybe not the best design decision was made on the fan power circuit.  I've considered wiring the fans to some other source of power to correct this. 

House of the Dead 2
Second player trigger wasn't working.  I Took the gun apart to take a look at the switch, when I pulled the gun shell apart several parts fell off the gun shell.  Apparently the screws were the only thing holding the broken parts on the gun.  Used some epoxy to patch it together until the new shell arrives.

Smokin Token
I just moved this game to the location this week.  It had been set up to accept tokens and quarters at the previous location.  I was concerned that the kids would figure out that it would accept tokens at the new location (as it is quarter only location).  Lucky for me, after I put it on location, it wouldn't accept any quarters.  The coin mech was only a couple of weeks old and there are no adjustments to it.  So I ran back to the shop and dug around and found a quarter only mech for it.  I carry the standard types of mechs with me as the do go bad.  But Smokin Token uses an oddball rolldown mech that has an extension on the output and a coin lockout and I don't have too many games that use this style.  Amazingly I found one at the shop that was exactly what I needed and quarter only.  I have no idea where it came from or why I have it but after installing it and adjusting the coin switch (Smokin Tokens are picky about the switch closure time) it worked perfectly.

Flamin Finger
I pulled this off location and was getting it cleaned up and ready for the next location.  The touch screen panel was cracked, so  I pulled it apart to replace it.  Found not only was the touch screen cracked, someone had spilled a soda into to it too.  Spent a while cleaning up the sticky goo and put it all back together.  Game worked perfectly. I  Cleaned the rest of the game up.  I need one light bulb for behind the marquee.  It is a 25 watt rough service bulb.  I am thinking about putting some of the color changing LED bulbs behind it to see what it looks like.

Andamiro Hammer
Found it unplugged.  Turned it on and discovered that it isn't registering the hammer hits at all.  Put it into test mode and found that there is a row locked on both X and Y sides.  Worked with the adjustments and I wasn't able to adjust it out.  Looks like I need to replace some sensors on this thing.  I will check with distributor on parts availability.  They had serviced the game a while back and just replaced the bad sensors and not the entire board.  This definitely has to be cheaper than the $35 dollar each boards.  Left the game unplugged.

Slam A Winner
Spot Light was out.  I noticed it and thought it was just bad and had added the bulb to the list of parts that I need to pick up.  I was almost finished at the location when the customer asks if I saw the bulb, I say yes and that I was going to pick one up.  They point out that it is really just loose and demonstrates how much the bulb wobbles when you shake the game.  It was close to falling out of the socket.  I have no idea on how it worked loose but I tightened it down and it worked. 

Jackpot Crossing
I noticed that the red crossing lights on the Marquee never light up.  Apparently if you disable the attract mode sound, you also disable the attract mode blinking train lights on the sign.  The maximum time between the attract mode cycles is 2 minutes.  I suspect that the various train noises every two minutes may annoy the people playing pool and it would probably result in bad things happening to the game. I left it disabled.  

Sharkey's Shootout
I cleaned the playfield with some Novus.  This game seems to get dirty fairly quickly.  

Change machine
Found a sticky strip of Mylar jammed in the bill acceptor.  This was an unusual event as it happened while I was there and I had a pretty good idea of who did it too.  It only a few seconds to fix, so I let it slide.

Skee Ball
Moved six balls back into proper lane

Candy Crane
This time it was showing that switch 3 was stuck.  Adjusted the switch and made a mental note to drive ruck on my next visit to location so I can haul this game out of the location.
=======================================================================================
Week of 5/7

Air Hockey
Dug one glowstick and two straws out of the game. 

Skee Ball
Dug a nickel out of coin mech.

Candy Crane
Needed a minor adjustment to one of the switches that I had just replaced.  I made the adjustment and played 30 or so games on it without any problems.  If this crane has any more issues, I am pulling it off the location.  I've spent way too much time trying to keep it running. It would be interesting to put it somewhere else to see if the problems continue or clear up.

Ticket Eater
Not cutting tickets.  The small countertop ticket eater rarely have any problems so when this cropped up I was surprised.  I took all the covers off and bypassed the safety to verify that the cutter wheel was rotating and it was but the tickets weren't contacting the wheel itself.  I found that the metal guide under the cutter had popped out of it's mount.  It took a bit of effort to get it back in place.  As in I thought I would be buying parts for it and probably stopping at the hospital for stitches when the guide broke. But neither happened and it worked fine after the guide was back where it belonged.  It took me a while to figure out how it happened as the eater is screwed down to the counter.  It turns out that there is enough play in the mounting that the eater can move about 1/4 inch or so but the hole that the metal guide fits through doesn't have that play.  So if you push back hard enough on the eater it will pop the guide out of place. 

Jackpot Crossing
The sensors that I ordered arrived so I installed them and tested the game out.  The valleys worked perfectly and awarded the proper amount of tickets.  But the tunnel sensor was awarding odd values like 127 and 112 tickets.  Downloaded the manual and found the section on how to reset the tunnel awards.  Sure enough there were a lot of oddball values in the settings.  As a side note, I am still utterly confused on why there are so many settings about the tunnel awards.  There are four main award settings each with seven or eight sub steps.  I entered the settings that the manual suggested and it worked fine.  It also took me a while to figure out the game play on the tunnel.  The tunnel is surrounded by lights with numbers on it and the lights blink.  It looks like you will win whatever is lit but that isn't how it works.  It is a stepped deal, the first time through the tunnel you are awarded the lowest value, the second time you get the next value and so on until you get the fourth coin through at which you get the highest award + the jackpot.  You have to get the coins through consecutively for the awards.  If you miss once, you have to start over.   The other interesting aspect of this game is that the piece that you aim with can be turned.  Most roll down games like this allow you to aim side to side but don't have any control over the angle of the coin.  This one you turn almost 180 degrees which causes the coin to just fall off the coin mech.  I can see someone turning it upside and leaving it that way for the next unsuspecting player. 

=================================================================================+=====
Week of 4/30

Got a call from the distributor looking for a part that I had received as a warranty replacement.  I was sure that I had send it out but after finding the part in the shop, I wasn't so sure anymore.  Called them back, apologized profusely and shipped it back.

Did a collection at one of the larger locations I have on the route and there was nothing broken.  Not even a pool stick.  This situation rarely happens and I am always shocked when it does.  Usually there is something like a coin or ticket jam. One pinball machine there could use a good cleaning.  I didn't have the stuff along but I will stop back and take care of it later in the week.

Candy Crane
Installed the claw assembly and replaced the fuse.  Claw didn't drop at first; found that one of the switches needed some adjustment.  I made a slight bend in the switch blade and the claw was working perfectly.  Maybe it was just hope but the claw drops seemed to be working better.  The claw would stay upright which means that the switch was registering sooner.

Got a call that three games were broken at a location.  This particular location always seems to have odd calls when the manager is out of town and today the manager was out of town. I actually found four games "broken" when I got to the location.

Cyclone
One side had a ticket jam.  But not a normal ticket jam.  The tickets were crumpled and hanging in mid air just above the ticket holder bin.  Straightened out the tickets and reinserted them into the ticket dispenser.

Air hockey table. 
Had two pucks in it.   Removed the offending extra puck and tightened down the release solenoid.

Candy Crane
This is the one that I just replaced the switches on.  It wasn't a complete shock to me that it could be having issues.  But I found that the claw trolley was off the rails.  Maybe I didn't get it back on the other day properly but more than likely someone was shaking the game again.

Flamin Finger
Had an out of order sign on it but I played several games on it and it was working fine.
=======================================================================================
Week of 4/24

Skee Ball
Moved three balls back into the proper lane.
Repaired door that someone kicked open.  The door that opens to access the programming buttons was unlatched.  Still locked but the lock was just hanging loose. What happens is that the patrons kick this door enough that it bends and flexes and works the nut that holds the lock in the door loose. Oddly enough, they only ever seem to knock the left side open which there isn't anything in there that is useful. Maybe the ability to reprogram the ticket awards but you have to know how to do the programming, which I don't think is exactly common knowledge.  Tightened down the nut on the lock and relocked it. 

There wasn't many broken games at the location so I took the time to scrub the Skee ball game down.  A couple of Brillo pads later, the game looks better.  The Brillo pads did a better job on this game than the Bleche white did on the other game.  But I still didn't get the results that I had hoped for on either one.  I need to find a way to get the rings back to white.


Candy Crane
Found an out of order sign on it.  I was expecting the cord to be tangled up yet again but I found that the game wouldn't power up and the cover for the crane assembly was laying in the prize chute.  Amazingly no one took the cover as a prize.  I'm guessing that it doesn't fit through the hole in the game is the only reason that it is still there.  The 5 volt LED was out.  Checked the manual it showed that the 5 volt line has a 1.6 Amp fuse on it.  It took some time to find where the fuse was hiding.  It was mounted on the main board which is in a metal box inside the game.  It is a really nice setup pop three connectors and the power cord off and the whole assembly slides out.  The metal box is hinged and has a clasp that you open to get inside.  I really like when the companies make things easy to repair.  Found that the fuse was bad but I didn't have one to replace it with.  It is one of those small (GMA?) glass fuses.  So, I need to get some of those before I can go any further with troubleshooting it.  Since the game was down anyways, I pulled the claw assembly out of it.  I've been planning on replacing the switches that control the claw to see if it helps with the tangled cord that this game always has happen.  The switches are soldered to a board in the claw assembly.

Jurassic Park
Replaced the trigger on one of the guns.

Sega Star Trek
Pulled the two boards that are responsible for the vector video.  I swapped the two Tl08 chips around, replaced the caps and reflowed the solder connections.  Put it all back together and it fired right up.  Played it a few minutes and the video shut down again.  Checked the voltages and found that it was still low on the same channel that it did before.  I'm planning on swapping the two DACs next and see if it changes.  Looking at the schematics, I think the problem has to be in the final circuit on the board.  Maybe I'll order the parts to shotgun the section and see if it clears up.

Candy Crane
Tore apart the claw to replace the switches.  I had some switches that were almost identical to the originals.  The almost part is that the leads were different.  The new switch leads didn't fit though the holes on the board.  So I cut the old switch leads right next to the switch body and soldered the new switch leads to the old leads.  Not exactly a great situation but it should work fine.  On my next stop at the location I will put it in and find out.

===================================+===================================================
Week of 4/17

Smokin Token
Replacement motor finally arrived, installed it and the game is back up and running.  It's a pretty easy part to replace.  I found out that the warranty on the motors is only 30 days.  So, I really oiled the gears on this motor in the hopes that it will last longer than two months that the other one lasted.

DDR Extreme
When I went to do collection on the game this week, I found that it only had about a dollar in it.  Usually it has more, not a whole lot more so I put it into test mode and found that two of the floor pads showed all four switches as being closed for player one.  I pulled the pads off and checked that they weren't stuck down somehow.  I then disconnected a couple of the switches to see if they would show as open on the test menu.  The still showed as being closed.  So, I disconnected the dance platform and the switches showed open.  At least now I know that the problem was in the dance floor.  I couldn't remember which part of the platform had the sensor boards under it, finally found the boards and pulled the connectors to the switches and the test screen still showed so them as closed.  So I swapped the boards around to see if the problem would follow the board.  But the problem stayed on the player one side.  Started to trace the wires and found that a wire had broken and was laying on part of the metal housing.  As soon as I picked it up the switches showed open again.  Repaired the connector the best I could, put it back together and the game is working again. 

Andamiro Hammer
Game had an out of order sign on it.  Turned it off to get it into the test mode.  Went to turn it back on and it would power up.  Flipped the power switch a few times and it came on.  But the power switch felt hot.  Turned it off again and it wouldn't power up again.  Unplugged the game, pulled out the power switch and found that it had soda all over it.  Sometime in the past, the game had a soda spilled into it.  It was like that when I bought it and other than the counters not working, it seemed like the soda spill didn't do any harm.  Realized today that the power switch had also been covered in soda (it's mounted on a plate that you can't see the back of the switch unless you pull it apart).  So, I need to locate a power switch for this game.  I left it unplugged. I may have a switch that will work back at the shop, I need to find it.

Flood
We've had a lot of bad storms lately and it has been raining almost every day for the last few weeks.  When I arrived at the location, they asked if all my games were on legs or wheels.  Most of them are on legs but a couple aren't.  Found out that they had a few inches of water flood though the store and a good number of the games were in the section that had gotten wet.  I took a look and didn't see any apparent damage sometimes it takes a while for the wood to start to delaminate after getting wet. 

Sega Star Trek
Replaced the connectors that I thought were bad, powered up the game and still no picture.  Verified that all my wiring and connections were good.  Got the meter out and started checking voltages.  Found that the voltage for the X side was very low but it did seem to vary like it was working.  Traced it back to the board itself. All of the sudden the voltage jumped up and the game was working again.  Played a few games and the monitor shut down again.  Checked the voltages again and it was low again. 
 

Smokin Token
A while back, I had to replace the coin mech on this game with one that didn't have the lockout coil.  I had ordered the coin mech with the lockout coil but it took months to arrive and I had forgotten about the whole thing. It really doesn't make that much of a difference with the game.  Very few games have them anymore.  When I worked on it earlier this week, I noticed the coin mech lacking the coil and swapped it out this visit. I had hoped to reuse the mech that was installed in another game as it was one that accepts both quarters and tokens.  After I got the new mech installed the game would through and error 4 every time you played it.  Spent a lot of time adjusting the coin switch and eventually got it working properly.  Managed to break the coin switch on the old mech while removing it.  Need to track down some of this style coin switch.  It's one of the oddball switches that angle upwards.

Lighthouse
The two spotlights were out on this game.  I replaced them both but the new bulbs didn't work either.  Pulled the marquee off and found that the sockets themselves were bad.  I need to order a pair of sockets for this game.  I probably should order a few extra as it seems to be a regular occurance with Lighthouse.

Andamiro Hammer
Installed new power switch and the game powered right up.  Put it into test mode and found that two of the sensors were stuck on.  Spent a while cleaning and adjusting and got it better but I need to get some replacement sensors.

Arctic Thunder
Customer mentioned that whatever I did to the game the other day fixed the no video power on problem.  After talking with customer, I realized that I hadn't worked on it when he thought I did and that the game must of fixed itself.  I really need to replace those Arctic Thunders. 

Skee Ball
Moved two balls back into the proper lane.  These machines are starting to look rough.  Tried some Bleche white on the rubber score rings to see if it would clean them up.  It took a lot of dirt off them but it still didn't get them as clean as I hoped.  I'm trying to avoid having to buy new rings for them but its looking like that is going to be my only option.

Candy Crane
Out of order sign on it again.  Found that the joystick was broken, a wire was broken for the claw and the string was tangled up.  I wonder what order all this happened in? If I would have drove the truck today, I would have just pulled the game out of the location and been done with it.  But since I didn't have the truck, I untangled the cord yet again.  The wire break was near the connection point, so I cut a little bit off and was able to reconnect the claw coil.  I had to disassemble the joystick but I was able to get it back together.  It looked like someone tried to pull it out of the game.  Just to see how much force it would take to do it, I tried to see if I could cause it to happen too.  I stopped when I had picked up the game with the joystick.

Goldeneye Pinball
Noticed that the center target wasn't registering.  Which on this game really impacts the game play.  The target broke where the screws that hold it on the playfield run though it.  I put it back together and screwed it back down and it seems to be working.  Hopefully, it will last until I get the new target in.

Sega Star Trek
Got out the schematics and it looks like the X and Y circuits are almost identical and have the Op Amps socketed.  Planned to swap the Op Amps around and replace the electrolytic caps.  Ran out of time to get it done.
=======================================================================================
Week of 4/10

Tokoyo Drift
Replace computer came in, I installed it and the game came up and worked perfectly.  Replacement computer already had the software loaded so it was a fairly quick process.  Had some wierdness with getting the two machines to link up again but a couple of reboots seemed to clear that up.  Now I need to get the old one shipped back.  The way warranty works is that they invoice you for the full cost of the computer and give you a credit when you return it. 

Skeeball
Balls not rolling down.  The solenoid would fire and I could see the gate drop slowly.  I cleaned and lubed up all the piviot points on the release gate.  Now the gate really slams down and back into place.  I couldn't believe the difference it made but it didn't correct the situation.  I was looking at the balls just sitting in the lane and not moving and was wondering why gravity wasn't working today.  Then I noticed what the problem was the back of the game had sunk at least an  inch into the floor.  Pried the game out of the floor and moved it over a couple of inches (not an easy thing to do as it was really stuck) and the game is working well again.

Sega Star Trek
Old vector game with the infamous G08 monitor in it.  It was working but now no picture, you could hear the game playing.  Right away, I blame the monitor as these monitors are notorius for being unstable.  Started measuring the various test points on the monitor and everything appeared to be OK. Measured the input signals and found that one channel had no signal.  Found that cleaning and reseating the card edge connector on the card cage would temporarily correct the problem.  Need to research where to get a new connector or pins for the one that is there.
 ===================================================================================
Week of 4/3

Megatouch Touchscreen (follow up)

Touchscreen is still up and running without any issues at all so the CPU fan must have been the culprit.  I should get a few spare fans in different sizes to have on hand as they seem to frequently go bad and finding the size that you need locally is always difficult and time consuming.

Smokin Token
Horrible grinding noise and an almost constant Error 3 on display.  The wheel motor looks bad.  I replaced this motor Less than two months ago and I'm suprised that this one has failed already but it did so I need to order another motor and inquire about the warranty on them.

Family Guy Pinball
fluorescent bulb in backbox was out.  I didn't have one but there is a hardware store right across the street.  Measured the bulb and got 22 inches.  But took the bulb along just to make it easier to match up.  It was an F18 bulb that is labeled 24 inches.  The bulb companies must use a different ruler than then I do.  Put the bulb in and powered up the game and watched the new bulb flash for a moment.  Apparently, I need a starter.  It has an FSU starter in it and I have some back at the shop so, I will bring it along for the next trip.

Skee Ball
Moved 3 balls back into proper lanes

Cyclone
Dug a redemption ticket and resulting coin jam out of one side.  Dug Coin jam out of other slot and other side was out of tickets.  I guess that is why it was unplugged when I got to location.

Rowe Changer
Had a coin jam / bridge in one of the hoppers. 

Sportstation
Dug redemption ticket out of  coin mech.  Usually when I find one redemption ticket in a coin slot, I'll find them in other coin slots as well.  The same thing happens with nickels, pennies, dimes, canadian quarters, tokens and all the other fun things that people jam into the coin slots.

Goldeneye Pinball
Removed redemption ticket from coin slot.

Sonic and Tales
Removed redemption ticket from coin slot.

Tokoyo Drift
Hooked up USB keyboard and got past the CMOS invalid settings screen.  Now I get a Windows like Blue screen with a 7B stop error.  Reloaded software, took two attempts as it hung at 80% completed on the second install disk. No change after software reload, tried reseating the various parts with no change. Ran out of time before I could attempt swapping parts from the other Drift to isolate what exactly was bad in the PC. Called Raw Thrills support the following day and the tech thought perhaps the video card had failed. The system was still under warranty so they set me up for an advanced replacement for the entire computer.  Which suprised me as I thought for sure they would just send me whatever part they thought was bad.  

Crane machine
Claw was caught in the prize chute area.  This particular brand of cranes allows the player to drop the claw the over the prize chute.  Which then gets caught on the lip of the prize chute and then it sits there with the motor running. Most cranes don't let this situation happen.  I'm not sure why someone would want to try this but it happens maybe once a year or so at this location.  Anyhow the crane was already unplugged so I opened up the door and freed the claw.  Plugged it back in and it seems fine once again.  Why the motor doesn't burn up or blow a fuse is sort of a mystery to me.  I need to show customer where the power switches are on the games so they don't have to move them around to get them turned off.

Wells Gardner K7500
Customer's Machine.  Screen was blurry, hourglassed and had some width / height issues.
Cleaned glasss and adjusted focus to clear up the blurriness.  Found the B+ voltage was low adjusted it back up and that cleared up some of the hourglass and blooming like issues that it was having.  Vertical position and width pots only made minor changes to the screen.  Recomended to customer that we install a Cap kit before going any further with troubleshooting.  Customer is going to install kit themselves.  They are somewhat technical and skilled with soldering iron.

Pac Man
Customer's Machine Booting up to garbage on screen.  Did the standard reseating of socket chips and up it came.

Neo Geo
Tried to plug power cord into the supply on it and connector collapsed into the power supply.  Dug around in the shop and found an identical supply that was bad.  Took it apart planning to rob the power connector from it.  After I got it apart I noticed that I would have to unsolder and resolder a few connections to get the connector out.  But the connections to the board in the supply were on connectors.  So I swapped the board out of the old working supply with the broken connector into the non working supply's case.  Put it all back together, fixed a broken connector on the game, powered it up and everything worked on the first try and as a bonus, I get rid off another dust gathering item in the shop.
=====================================================================================
Week of 3/27

Touchtunes Jukebox
One again giving free credits.  Only 803 this time. Spent a long time trying to track this one down. Testing showed that it still is registering dollar coins, interesting because no dollar coin acceptor is attached.  Found that it happened when the juke was shaken.  Disconnecting the connector to the coin acceptor cleared it up.  I'm guessing that there is a short in the wiring or a pin on the connector that isn't making good contact.  I'm
going to try to replacing the wiring harness for that section and see what happens.

Western Train
Somehow the game managed to drop one of the balls out of the game.  Spent a while trying to figure out how this could have happened.  I couldn't come up with any but the customer had the ball and I had the key to the game so it definately happened.  Put the ball back in and played several games and it didn't happen again.  I may add something to try to catch the ball in the prize chute to stop it from happening again.

Arctic Thunder
Still showing the "no signal detected" screen on the first powerup in the morning.  Of course by the time I get there the game has had a chance to warm up and rebooting it clears it up.  The computer is definately not booting but the power seemed fine, so I reseated the video card and it booted.  We'll see next week I guess.

Megatouch
The fan I picked up for the CPU was the wrong size and too big.  So, I tore apart the old fan, cleaned it up and put it back together and it worked.  The motherboard had a connector for another fan so I hooked up the one I bought and put it so that it was blowing across the CPU.  I was on the location for around 3 hours and I didn't see the reboot happen again.

Family Guy Pin
Gave it a quick clean with some Novus.

Skee Ball
Shuffled 5 balls back into the proper lanes. Dig out a coin jam from one lane.

Drill O Matic
Reseated power connector once again.  I really need to find a permanent solution to this.  Maybe new power supply, if they are reasonable pricewise.

Big Haul
Cleared ticket jam.

Sonic and Tales
Dug ticket out of coin slot.

Tokoyo Drift
Not booting at all.  Found that the CPU was giving a beep error code for the video card. Reseated the card and connectors to the monitor and the CPU then booted to a screen prompting for keyboard input. Looked around at the location and they didn't have any USB keyboards around.  So, I turned game off until I can make it back with a keyboard.  I've thought about carrying a keyboard with me in case this happens but this is the first that I had it happen.  Stopped at the computer store and picked up a cheapo small USB keyboard.

Skeeball Model H
This one I have in the shop and have been working on when I find the time.  It was intermittently booting up with no displays working.  Reflowed six pin molex connector, ran out of time to put it back together and test it.
=======================================================================================
Week of 3/20

Skeeball
Dug 5 quarters out of coin mech.

GoldenEye Pinball
Dug ticket out of coin mech

Candy Crane
One again cord was tangled up.  Untangled cord and game played fine.  I may have located a replacement for this crane.

Cue Sticks
Finished repairs on sticks.  Out of the 3 dozen or so that I had laying around only one was not repairable.  Need to order more glue on tips for the next round of repairs.

Megatouch
Memory came in, installed it and it is a little better but still randomly rebooting and then locking up.  Noticed CPU fan seems to be intermittently stopping. So, next I will try a CPU fan.
=====================================================================================
Week of 3/13

Dimes
Dug dimes out of the coin mechs on several games at one location.  At least they were more valueable then the usual pennies or redemption tickets. 

Western Train
Delivered to location and set up.

Megatouch
Replaced hard drive on machine that was locking up and hanging on reboot.  Got a call the next day that it had happened again, so I ordered some memory for it.

Sonic and Tails
Noticed another bulb has gone out on it.  The bulbs on redemption games like this always go out in groups.  I'll give it another week or so to see if  any more go out before I take it apart to replace them.  On this game, you have to remove the whole front plexi to get at the bulbs.  Not a terrible task but it does take some time.

Arctic Thunder
Swapped out Wells Gardner D9200 Chassis.  The one that was in the game was giving the no signal detected message on a cold boot.  After the game warmed up a bit you could restart it and the monitor would work fine.  Location was OK with turning it off and on but it bothered me enough to swap out the chassis.

Pool Cues
Still glueing tips back on cues.  It actually goes fairly quickly, other than waiting for the glue to dry.  Down to only a few cues left to repair. 

Hyperdrive
Force feedback steering wheel not working properly.  Found that the cable was reversed on one end.  Corrected it and now the force feedback is working properly and the calibration warning at boot is gone too.  Still need a cable for the LED assembly for this game.

Candy Crane
Tangled up again.  Unwound it and played fifteen games on it and problem didn't happen again.  I'm going to track down another candy crane and replace this one.  I've spent too much time messing with it.
======================================================================================
Week of 3/6

Dug pennies out from coin mechs on six games.

Skeeball
Swapped 4 balls into proper lane.

Big Buck Hunter Safari
Intalled new gun, did the alignment and all is well again.

Time Crisis 2
Left gun not tracking at all.  Swapped guns from other side and the problem stayed on the side.  Turned up the brightness a bit on the montior and the gun started working again. 

Touchtunes Jukebox
Customer mentioned that he had some complaints that the juke was taking money and not giving credits.  Tested it and found that the coin mech would intermittently not register coins.  I found that there were some nuts that had worked loose and the plastic portion of the coin mech was seperating.  Tried to put it back together and managed to break plastic coin mech.  Need to order a replacement.

Skeeball
Someone had thrown balled up paper into the net of the game. When I tried to retrieve it the paper fell in the game and I had to dig it out.  Noticed that ball release linkages seem to be a bit sticky, I'll bring up some grease on my next visit.

Sonic and Tales
Left coin slot not accepting coins.  Cleaned coin mech and reinstalled.  Seems to be fine now.

Jackpot Crossing
Sensor came in so I put it in and tested the game.  Works fine now.  But there are still 5 other sensors that are missing.  They turned out to be over  $100 each.  I don't know if I want to spend that much money on a older game like this one.

Western Express
Installed Sensor and motor and reassembled the game.  It worked perfectly, no more error codes.  Need to set switches and install a ticket dispenser yet before I can take to location.


Candy Crane
Tangled up again.  Unwound cord and let it rewind.  Played several games on it and as usual it worked fine.  I need to find out what is going on with this game.  Kids shaking it while the cord is rewinding is the only answer that I have so far and that is only a guess.

Air Hockey
Dug cardboard out of puck return slot.

Ticket Eater
Opened it up to do get the weekly counts and found the paper roll and parts laying across the boards in it.  Apparently it happened when they moved it to do some carpeting.  Reinstalled paper and threaded it through the printer and it was working once again.
======================================================================================
Week of 2/27

Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift
Installed new monitor.  I'll get the board on the old one repaired. Maybe not the cheapest solution but I hate to have broken games on location.

GoldenEye Pinball
Someone broke the gun housing for the shooter lane.  I'm not sure how it was accomplished as they broke the trigger guard portion apart.  Pieced it

back together and it seems to work.  I'll have to track down a replacement.  This game is coming off location before too long.

SkeeBall
Only two balls to swap this week.

Big Buck Hunter Safari
Gun dead no tracking on screen at all.  Swapped guns around and problem followed gun.  Took it apart to see if just broken lead on optics but no such luck.  Ordered a complete gun as the shell was starting to look rough anyways.

House of Dead II
Replaced gun shell, had to do some sanding and filing for the shell to fit around the gun hose.  No idea why but it wouldn't fit any other way. Replaced trigger with used one that distributor found for me.

=======================================================================================
Week of 2/20

Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift
Of course after justr delivering it less than a week earlier, the monitor is now dead. Did the usual reseat routine but no luck, no high voltage or

heater voltage on monitor. 

TouchTunes Jukebox
Finally got through the process and got all the paperwork completed and I picked up the jukebox at the distributor.  Dropped it off at the location and returned the following day to run the wire to connect it to the Internet.  Running the wire took 4 hours, I didn't count on the drop celing being right against the joists for the roof.  So I had to pull every other tile and pull the cable through.  Usually I get away with  pulling just a few
tiles with a well aimed throw.  I made a huge mess with all the celing tile stuff on the floor, so I ended up cleaning and sweeping most of the location.  I got a call the following day, that the jukebox was automaticly racking up credits and had over 850 on it.  WHen I got to the location, I found that if you shook the box it would rack up some random amount of credits.  Talked to Touchtunes and they said that it was registering dollar coins.  Pretty good trick seeing how it doesn't have any way to accept them.  Did the standard reseating and it appeared to clear up.  Ran the leg levers down so it would be as easy to shake.  Cleared off the credits.

Pool Cues
Finally got tired of seeing the collection of glue on tip pool cues with no tip that I got started on the glueing process.  It really isn't too hard and doesn't take that long (other than waiting for the glue to dry)  Did several and there are many more to finish.  I should order another repair clamp so I can do more than one at a time.

Western Train
One of my favorite pieces.  The distributor had one for sale not working as is. Which always makes me concerned as they can get parts cheaper than I can.  It was throwing an error 4 when you would start a game.  Checked the manual and it pointed to a problem with the third hurdle motor or opto sensor.  I'll order both parts as getting to them took a lot of time and is something that I want to avoid doing again.

=======================================================================================
Week of 2/13

Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift
Finally got it delivered to the location.  Had some weirdness with linking the two games up.  When I hooked up the cable and booted the games, they both locked up.  Disconnected the link cable from one and it went through a windows like "adding new hardware screen" for several minutes and then seemed OK.  Repeated the same process on the other game and then linked them together and all is well.  I expected issues due to different software versions but nothing showed up.  I'm too much of a coward with these to just load the newer software without some assurances that it is even possible.   I noticed the with the games linked that there seems to be some new stuff in the game. I've seen lock symbols appear when you pass specific parts on the track. Neat stuff.

Skeeball
Swapped 2 balls back into the proper lane.

Candy Crane
bound up yet again,  unwound the rope and left it rewind it.  Played 20 games on it and it works fine.

Drill O Matic
Rebooting.  Reseated power connector and it cleared up.  The kids kick this game often and hard enough to make the power connector unseat itself. 

Air hockey
Pulled two glowsticks out from puck return area.

House of Dead II
Broken gun shell and trigger.  Someone must have really slammed it around to break it.  Ordered new shell but couldn't find part number for trigger.

GoldenEye Pinball
The ball kickout problem returned.  This time I found what the cause of the hang up on the armature was.  The amature on this coil is part nylon and part metal.  What happened was that the nylon section was wearing and a small ridge formed.  I filed and sanded the ridge smooth and it's better now. I'll order a new coil and amature on my next parts order.

========================================================================================
Week of 2/6

Cyclone installed the chips that came in, game seems to be fine now.  But I am keeping a close eye on it and not completely filling the ticket bins on it for a while.

Skeeball
 moved 3 balls back into proper lane.

Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift conversion
Went ahead and applied side art.  Had a slight disaster when the art curled and stuck to itself.  The artwork on these kits is very thin and fragile and ripped when I tried to seperate the parts.  Luckily, the wife is good at jigsaw puzzles and we got it put on and it is virtually impossible to see the seams where the parts join.  Second side went on perfectly, no trouble at all and hardly any air bubbles to fight with.

Rowe changer
Hopper bulb out.  This one I found while servicing location.  Customer said that changer had been working fine.  I must have just been there at the

right time and caught it just as it went bad.  WHen the bulbs die on the hopper on the Rowe changers, they shut down and I'm pretty sure that someone would have noticed the changer being out of service.
=======================================================================================
Week of 1/30/11

Cyclone
Got a call that all three stations on a Cyclone were dumping out tickets without anyone actually playing the game.  Better yet, I had just filled all the stations with tickets a couple days prior to the call.  I think that there is close to 10,000 tickets in a fully stocked Cyclone.  Got to the location expecting an empty redemption counter but it didn't look bad at all.  Talked to the manager of the location and apparently there are some honest people left in the world that brought the tickets up and explained that they didn't play the game and it was emptying itself.  He rewarded them with some free passes.  Anyhow, I turned the game on and it had stopped dumping tickets but there was garbage on the displays.  I checked the techinical guide for the game and it had the original problem listed.  It suggested swapping around two 74hc237's and see what happens.  I swapped them around and the garbled displays cleared up.  Played the game and it seemed fine too.  I let it run while I worked on other stuff at the location.  It ran for an hour and half without any further issues.  But I turned it off and order the chips just play it safe.

Skeeball
Moved eight balls back into the proper lane.

Goldeneye Pinball.
Ball wouldn't eject into shooter lane and shooter selonoid would randomly fire.  Opened it up and found that the eject coil armature was stuck, it felt like the coil had cooked.  I eventually got the amature loose and then it moved freely.  I'm not sure what it was caught on nor could I see what had happened.  I played a few games and it seems fine now.

Air Hockey
Puck missing.  Found it after a few minutes of searching and crawling around on the floor.

Big Haul
Ticket jam fairly easy to clear out on this game.

Ticket Eater
Replaced paper roll with paper roll that just came in.

Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift conversion
Continued working on this.  Just need to finish applying the artwork.  But it is a slow process.  Fill the dents, Wait for putty to dry then sand.  Find more dents, fill them, sand and so on.  I'm still not sure about applying the sideart, the main part of the game is in the unheated shop and the side art doesn't like to stick in the cold weather.  There is too much snow to move the game into the heated basement to apply the artwork. 

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Week of 1/23/11
 Skee Ball
Replacement lane plastic came in.  Took it location to replace and discovered that it was for a game with a shorter alley. 

Drill O Matic
Almost constant restarts.  Reseated power connector to main PCB and it was back in business.  Patrons at this location kick this game enough that the connectors work thier way off the boards.  The larger connectors like the power connectors usually are the first to work themselves loose.

Dinoscore
Ticket jam this is one of the last games I have that doesn't have the quick release ticket dispenser on it.  But it really doesn't jam enough to be a huge issue. 

Crane
Had an out of order sign on it.  Played several games on it and it seemed to work fine.  Removed sign and added some plush animals.

Candy Crane.
Once again cord was tangled up on takeup wheels.  Untangled it, adjusted the switches played over 30 games on it and it worked fine.  There has to be something causing it but I've never been able to catch it or them in the act. 

Arctic Thunder
Displaying No signal on monitor.  This monitor has done this in the past so when the problem was reported I assumed it was the monitor yet again.  Took along spare D9200 board to swap out.  Arrived on site ready to replace board and found that the computer isn't booting.  Game got power cycled and was working before I got a chance to see exactly what was the reason for the non boot condition.

Wells Gardner D9200
Swapped this board out a few weeks ago and I finally got the chance to troubleshoot it.  Problem acted like a cold solder joint so I started with that.  Solder joints on the board were terrible, not just one area either most of them looked like there was some sort of solder conservation effort underway.  A lot had only enough solder to cover lead of component and a small bridge to the hole on the board.  So I touched up all the solder joints on the board.  Which there are a lot of.  Took over two hours of soldering to do.  In the process I found what was likely the original problem - cracked solder joints on the flyback and some of the other components in the area.   After I finished the soldering, since there were a lot close connections I checked that there weren't any solder bridges with the multimeter for another hour or so.  Washed the board down with flux remover, let it dry.  Put the monitor back together plugged it into a game in the shopped powered it up and it came up with no problems.  Let it run for a few hours and no problems showed up.

Sharkey's Shootout
The flipper problem returned. Got it working once again but I really need to get the parts in to fix it. 
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Week of 1/16/11
Ticket eater
Ran out of paper.  Installed last roll left in stock.  After spending a few hours at the office supply places attempting to find the rolls of thermal paper cheaper, I gave up and ordered more rolls.  $21 a roll from the manufacturer. 

Megatouch touchscreen
Swapped out game with bad monitor for updated newer game.  Only issue here was getting the ice and snow out of the bed of the truck. I spent more time shoveling the bed of the truck than delivering the game. Went to take a look at the old game's monitor and noticed that the keys to the backdoor are missing.

Air Hockey
Dug two glowstick bracelets out of the puck scoring area.
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Week of 1/9/11

Drill O Matic
Someone has just about peeled off the artwork on the front of the game, it was hanging on by about 1/2.  I finished it for them.  At least if I do it, I know where the artwork is and I can get it scanned and make a replacement for it.

Air Hockey
Pulled a glow stick out of the puck scoring area.

Cruisin World
Conversion kit showed up this week, so I got started on installing that.  Got the electronics installed in about two hours.  Fired it up and it works perfectly.   Raw thrills really did a great job on this kits.  Everything is labeled and has the proper connectors.  Now I need to install the artwork.  Which takes me a lot longer and I need to get the game someplace warm to install the artwork.  The shop isn't heated and I tried once before to install the artwork in there and it looked good when I was done but about after a week at the location bubbles in the artwork showed up. 

Sharkey's Shootout
Flipper was sticking up again.  Took it apart again and found that the flipper pawl and link was binding.  Visually looked fine, I had replaced them when I shopped the game not too long ago but they were definately binding.  Took it apart, did some light sanding on the linkage and flipped it over so a different part will be exposed to the pawl linkage.  Put it back together and it seems to be working.  I need to order a replacement as I don't have any of that style Stern links in stock.  Put some free credits on it and let someone else do the play testing for me.  Not that I didn't want to play a few games but I had other games needing my attention at the location.

Megatouch Touchscreen.
A really old one.  Monitor had horizontal synch.  Oddly there doesn't seem to be an adjustment on this particular monitor for horizontal synch.  Not that it really matters as I was planning on swapping this game out anyways.

Hyperdrive K7500
Monitor board arrived this week and I installed it.  I needed to adjust the blue drive levels a bit but other than that picture looked good.  It appears that the no picture issue may have just been a bad adjustment pot.  Which is a common problem on these monitors.  It may have been the cause of the original problem too. 

Skeeball
Moved 6 balls back into the proper lane.

Cyclone
Pulled ticket out of coin slot.  Was probably $2 worth of quarters jammed in slot behind it.

Megatouch Touchscreen
Getting this one ready to replace one on location with bad monitor.  Just need to convert the coin mech to tokens from quarters.  Pull out the roll down mech and find that it isn't one that is adjustable.  Replace it with a new token one and the fun starts.  The new mech output chute is offset about 1/4 an inch from what the original was.  Just enough to cause the tokens to hang on the coin box and jam.  Tried adjusting the coin box, the coin switch and the placement of the coin mech but it would still sometimes jam up. I pulled it out and put an Imonex roll down in.  The Imonex mech is around a 1/2 shorter and leaves a gap between the output chute and the coin box.  I ran quite a few tokens through watching for one to bounce out and land in the game but I didn't see it happen. 
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Week of 1/2/11
Cyclone
Game was too loud.  Strangely the game seemed to be a lot louder even though the settings haven't been touched.  Turned the setting down a few notches but game is definately louder than it used to be. 

Rowe Changer
Not accepting bills.  Opened it up expecting the usual candy wrapper or redemption ticket.  Instead it was a big blob of dirt blocking one of the sensors. Removed the dirt and it is back in business.

Arctic Thunder
Game shows a no signal detected but you can hear the game playing.  I found that if you power it off and back on the picture would appear.  The monitor is a Wells D9200 which when they work are a great monitor but when they break they are usually a nightmare to fix.  I have a spare chassis at the shop that I was planning on repairing.  Looks like now is the time.

Smokin Token
Customer mentioned that it sometimes shows an error message on the display.  I couldn't reproduce the error and customer wasn't sure which number it was.  I'm guessing it is probably an Error 3 (motor) so I ordered a motor up for the eventual demise of the one that is in it.

Skee Ball Model H
I took advantage of the slow holidays to take a look at the Skee ball that I have had in the shop for a while.  I got it from another operator as part of a trade / buy deal and I hadn't had a chance to do anything with it.  I put it all together and it fired up.  It had like ten of the light sockets broken so I replaced them and a bunch of bulbs and it is scoring like it should but the ball count seems to jump around and the displays go blank every once and a while.  It's also missing the ball release selonoid and part of the release linkage.  I found a connector on the MPU that seems to be the cause of the blank display.  I need to find a ball count switch and the missing parts.

Sharkey's Shootout
Flipper was sticking in up position.  Replaced the coil sleeve and made a few adjustments.  Played several games on it and it seems better.