2013 Repair Log
Week of 10/31
Skee Ball
I found one lane that the coin return button was knocked off again and the coin return slot was smashed up into the game. I pounded the coin return button back in and spent a long time trying to get everything line up again so it would accept quarters once again. I wasn't able to get the coin return back into shape but it is
still somewhat accessible and didn't appear to have any sharp edges so I left it alone.
Slam A Winner
There was a coin jam caused by a dollar coin being jammed into the coin slot. I dug the coin out and the coin mech was working when I was done with it.
Rowe Change Machine
I heard it randomly running the Bill acceptor motor. There wasn't anything blocking the sensor but the bulb had shifted back a bit. I readjusted the bulb and the problem seemed to clear up.
Big Buck Safari
I worked a trade deal with another operator on this game. I tested it and the game worked fine. When the trade was supposed to happen, I powered up the game and was greeted with the battery voltage is low warning. So I had replace the battery on the computer to clear the message. Luckily I swapped the battery quickly enough that I didn't have to set the BIOS settings. I put it all back together and the game worked fine once again. The games frequently wait till the worst possible moment to exhibit problems. The trade deal still happened and I haven't heard back from the operator, so I assume that all is well with the game.
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Week
of 10/24
Skee Ball
Moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Smokin Token
I dug a couple of tickets and a few nickels out of the coin mech. I really need to locate the keys for the top part of this game as I spent forty minutes digging them out from the front side.
Sportstation
I pulled a ticket out of the coin mech on this game.
Corvette
I pulled a ticket out of one of the coin mechs on this game.
Jurassic Park III
I pulled a few tickets, a couple of nickels and about $5 in quarters out of the coin mech on this game.
Crane
I was checking over the numbers and the win ratio seemed low, so I checked the coil voltage and found that it had drifted low (for a change) I adjusted it back up and I will continue to monitor the numbers and voltage to see if there is an improvement.
Pool table
I was servicing the location and one patron mentioned that one game they played a few days ago they were one ball short. I tested it several times and couldn't reproduce the issue. I assume that the ball was hung up on something on the tracks in the game. I also found that someone had stuffed paper into the coin mechs. Apparently they were successful in their attempt as there was an odd amount of quarters in the table and that shouldn't be possible at a dollar per play.
Pennies and nickels
I did my collection at a location and I always check the games while I am there. There were several games with coin jams, I found at least fifteen pennies and five nickels jammed in the coin slots. I spent far too long clearing the jams for $.40.
Air Hockey
The pucks were stuck at one end and I found that the metal puck return chute had broken loose yet again. I put it back together but I really need to find a permanent solution to this issue. I can't think of one as
one part appears to be aluminum and the other steel. I need to take a magnet in and verify. Maybe I can get them welded?
Shaq Attaq
I was doing some final testing on the game and the handle on the shooter rod broke. I replaced it with one for a Williams game. It is only about 1/4 difference in length and while I was at it I put a stronger spring on the shooter rod. After a couple of games, the balls started to jump off the track on the shooter lane and get stuck between the lane and the side of the game. I may be missing a part in that area. The manual
doesn't show a good breakdown of the parts in that area. I had planned on putting this game on location in the next couple of days but it appears that is going to be delayed till I figure this out.
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Week of 10/17
Shaq Attaq
I had the game at the White Rose Gameroom show to see if any problems cropped up with it before I put it out on a location and the power on restart issue returned. Luckily there were a couple of people there that had fought the issue before. The two suggestions were to replace C20 and C21 and to upgrade the ROMS to a version higher than 1.5. I replaced the caps and the problem cleared up. The High voltage kits went off backorder and I order a few and installed one and new caps in the High Voltage section. The install took some time but the game came up the first try and no resistors burned up so I am calling it fixed.
Super Mario Brothers Mushroom World
One flipper hung up at the gameroom show. One of the helpful Pinheads tore into it and found that the coil
sleve was bad and that the E clip was missing on the flipper. Which annoyed me as the person I bought the game from told me that he had gone through it and replaced all the wear parts. But with a new coil sleeve and the game was working again.
Skee Ball
There was an event at the location and as usual the Skee balls got vandalized. Someone tore one of the side nets on the lane and pulled the rubber bumpers off thewhite rings. There is Lexan on the front, top and side of the nets to keep this from happening but it appears that someone crawled under the front Lexan and ripped the nets. I have no idea why but what I do know is that the nets are no longer available, so I am admitting defeat and looking for something to replace the Skee Balls with. They don't earn enough at this location to warrant buying new lanes at $6000 a piece.
Getaway
The left flipper was sticking in the up position. I pulled the flipper apart and found that the coil sleeve was worn but stuck in the coil. I replaced the coil and rebuilt the flipper. After that the fuse for the flipper would blow if you held the flipper on for more than a second or two. After many hours of troubleshooting and part swapping, I found that the new coil had a shorted diode on it. While working on the game I noticed that it was due for a good cleaning. So, I tore into that and replaced all the rubbers and burnt bulbs. I need to put an order in for some spare bulbs as I have used over a hundred standard 44/47's and at least twenty 63's in the past three weeks.
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Week of 9/22
Shaq Attaq
The work continues on this game. It is almost back together. I put another parts order in that should take care of everything on the Playfield. The only other issue is the power supply resistor situation. I had planned on ordering a rebuild kit to repair the high voltage section but the place I usually buy those parts from is out of stock on the kit. I replaced all of the coil sleeves on the game and was testing the coils without the ramps being in place. I found out that an upkicker will launch a pinball three feet into the air if there is not a ramp to redirect it.
Megatouch Evo
I was at the location doing collection and noticed that the Megatouch was turned off. I turned it on and it came up with an error. I did the reseating routine but that rarely fixes anything on the Megatouches. So I
took the game along with me back to the shop. It turns out that it was a bad hard drive. The machine hasn't been updated in few years so, I ordered the upgrade kit for it. The last upgrade for this line of Megatouches is the 2011 upgrade. The kit came in and I started the upgrade. It is the first time that I have upgraded an Evo and it was a lot of work because I didn't have the oddball Centronix to IDE cable that you need to use the upgrade port. I then connected a long IDE cable to the IDE port on the system board to do the upgrade.
The port is not easy to get to on these. After connecting the CD drive and installing a new hard drive, the upgrade went rather smoothly. Just in case anyone is wondering the original hard drive is 40GB and is the 2.5 height. Failing miserably at finding one locally, I went with the 3.5" 60Gb that I had found. Of course the mounting holes don't line up but as tight of a fit the hard drive has in the bracket, I don't think it is going anywhere even without the screws. I've been letting the game run and testing it at my home and it is working fine. I will take it back out on location once my back has healed from moving it around the first
time and I can pry it loose from my family who seems addicted to the games on it.
Hot Shots
I took a new ticket dispenser along to replace the one that has been jamming in this game. While swapping the dispensers I found a connector that had bad crimp on the ground wire to the dispenser. I suspect that this was the real culprit in my ticket jams as it would explain why it always works fine when I look at but jams when I let it alone. I repaired the connector the best I could and installed the new dispenser and tested the game. The new dispenser runs a lot faster. I didn't bother putting the original back in to see if it runs faster now.
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Week of 9/15
Shaq Attaq
Work continues on this game, I bought it thinking it would be a straight forward repair and shop job but at this point I have stripped more parts off the playfield than what I have stripped off any other game. I have a huge pile of parts on the table next to the game. While cleaning them I realized that there are two different height posts and I have no clue where the taller posts go.
Slam A Winner
I found it with an out of order sign on it. I played a few games on it and the game was working fine. I suspect that someone moved the sign from a different game. I've suggested that they put the name of the game on the signs when they make them but no one ever does and I get to wonder if a game is really broken and try to find the one that is broken.
Hot Shots
I found it with a ticket jam. Maybe this is the game that had the sign on it originally. I cleared the jam and the game was working again. I am going to replace the ticket dispenser as it has had too many jams since it got to this location.
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Week of 9/8
Shaq Attack
The display board has a burnt resistor on it but is working fine. I replaced the resistor (120 Ohm) and heeding a warning from the friend I got the game from mounted the resistor up off the board. I turned the game on and watched the resistor go up in smoke an actually burst into flame. It was the largest flame I've ever seen from an electronic part failure. But on the bright side the game is still working. I think I am going to have to replace a lot of parts in that circuit to clear this one up. I replaced three Mosfets that were missing and two missing resistors. Powered it up and all but one worked, I pulled the board off and repaired some traces that were damaged and now all the coils are working properly. I continue to strip the playfield on this game. There is some sort of damage to the paint and it is starting to peel up so I am putting Mylar
down over the damage to hold the paint on. It isn't how I normally handle playfield repairs but in this case, I don't see any other alternative. The playfield needs replaced so I will do the Mylar repair to keep the game playable and watch for a playfield for it.
Sticker Machine
The location called and said that one column isn't vending. I got to the location and found the missing weight, it was at the bottom of the column with the stickers on top of it. I'm not sure how I did that, but it had to have been me. Moved the weight to the top of the stickers and it worked fine.
Gravity Hill
The location called and said that the game wasn't accepting quarters. I got there and found that some of the coin wiring had gotten tangled into the coin mech. I had moved the game around earlier in the week so here again, it was probably my fault for this issue. I moved the wiring back to where it should be and the game worked fine.
Change Machine
I was doing my collection at a location and found the change machine sitting with the T handle out and unlocked. Surprisingly, it appears that no one took the any money out of the machine. At least not any bills. It looked like the right amount of quarters were there but I didn't actually count them. I will when I have some time just to verify that the right amount is still in the machine.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Hot Shots
I found it with a ticket jam, I cleared the jam and the game worked fine.
Megatouch
The location called and said that the game had a blank screen after a power blackout. They said that they powered it off and on and it didn't come back on but the bill acceptor came on. I got to the location and found that the power supply was not putting out five or twelve volts. I powered it off and back on and it turned on and worked fine. I played several games on it and it continued to work fine. I should probably pick up a spare supply for these as I don't have any spares.
Drill O Matic
The location called and said that the game was dispensing tickets nonstop so they unplugged it. I got the location and found that the game was rebooting constantly and dispensing tickets nonstop. I did the standard connector reseat and the game went back to working fine.
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Week of 9/1
Pool Tables
The location called and said that both tables at the location were not returning the cue balls. I found that both tables seemed to be working fine. One did have the cueball trapped and the other was in the return. I cleaned the tracks and magnet area and ran the balls through several times and both tables always returned the cueball just as it should. I did adjust the one table that appeared to be slightly out of adjustment. I realized that I didn't have any spare parts for these tables so I ordered a new magnet, some rails, one brand name cueball and one generic cueball. When they came in, I did some informal testing with the cueballs and the magnet. I set the balls beside each other and slowly moved the magnet towards the balls, I found that the brand name one would react to the magnet about 1 inch further away than the generic. I was surprised that there was that much difference.
Game Deliveries
I took the Hot Shots to the location. I thought I had figured out how to arrange everything but once I put all the games in place I realized that you couldn't get into the driving games easily, so I had to rearrange to get everything to fit and be useable. It was a like a game of Tetris with 400 lb. blocks. I got done with the rearranging and powered up Hot Shots and it wouldn't dispense tickets nor even acknowledge a ticket dispenser was attached no matter how the settings were configured. The dispenser worked fine in test mode. I spent almost 2 hours working on it before I caught on to a cool yet annoying feature in the software. It seems that if the game detects an error with the dispenser, it disables the dispenser and eliminates all references to the dispenser from the game. The ticket animations along with any mention of how many tickets you won just disappear. It's nice that the game does that and keeps on running but
without knowing that troubleshooting becomes a nightmare. So, I cleared up the ticket jam and the game worked fine after that.
Sticker Machine
I dropped this machine off thinking it would be a somewhat quick and easy delivery. It would have been but I couldn't locate one of the weights for the columns. I spent a long time looking for the weight and couldn't find it. I improvised and put some heavy small parts on the top of the stack to keep the machine running.
Gravity Hill
Refilled the gumball dispenser in it. I didn't drop any gumballs for a change.
Hot Shots
I finally got the game working perfectly. I've played it enough that my hand is sore and it is actually a lot of fun to play. Which usually means that it won't earn much on location. I found that I needed a 1/4 lock for it. Even with the right sized lock there was more play than I liked in the ticket drawer. I looked at some of the games I have in the shop that have the same sort of ticket drawer and found that they all had the play. For most locations, it wouldn't be an issue but where this game is going, it would be an issue and someone would eventually get a finger or something stuck in it. I took a piece of Aluminum and added a bracket to the rear of the ticket dispenser that cleared up the play. It makes the drawer difficult to pull out but I will put
up with that.
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Week of 8/25
Game Delivery
I dropped off a multigame at a location. While I was there, they mentioned that the Gravity Hill wasn't dispensing gumballs.
Gravity Hill
I took a quick look at it and it was all but out of gumballs. I pushed the few that were left over to the dispenser and told the location that I would be back with more gumballs. I don't keep the boxes of gumballs in stock as I don't use them often enough to keep them from going stale.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Jurassic Park 3
I found a coin jam in it, I dug a redemption ticket out of the coin slot and ran some quarters through it and it was fine.
Shaq Attaq
I just picked this up and I started to work on it. Overall the game works, it boots and somewhat plays but several coils don't fire. It blows the coil fuse if you use the right flipper and the left flipper has been had all the wiring cucut. =================================================================================================================================================
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Week of 8/11
Tokyo Drift
I found it with an out of order sign on it, the location said that the kids told them it would put up an error message and reboot. I spent a while going through all the tests I could find and viewing the logs and I found no errors anywhere. I played several games on it and it worked fine, so I pulled the sign off of the game. I'm
guessing maybe some sort of monitor issue is happening but until I see it happen, I am only guessing so I will wait and see what happens with it.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls into the proper lane and as a bonus I found two quarters in the coin return. I used them to test out the games.
Smokin Token
It had an ugly coin jam. I discovered that I seem to be missing one of the keys to the upper door. So, I had to clear the jam from the outside of the game. It took a long time to do and I suspect that the ticket that started the jam is still in the coin mech somewhere. But the game was working again and hopefully I will find the key before I need back in again.
Western Train
One of the motors was stopped again. I got it working but I need to replace it.
Corvette Pinball
I found that the fuse for the flipper was blown, I replaced the fuse and it worked fine again. I spent a while looking for a reason that it would have blown the fuse and couldn't find one. I am going to replace the flipper coil and see if that clears it up. Of course it is one that I don't have in stock so I will have to order one.
Road Trip
I found an out of order sign on it. The customer at the location said that it was taking money and not giving any credits. I tried the game and it worked fine for me. I also verified that the amount of money in the game matched what the counters said should be there. I also checked the log from the game and it didn't show anything unusual. I love the log feature on these games, it eliminates so many problems and arguments. I wish they all had this feature.
Hot Shots
I had some time so I continued to work on this one. The reason for the ticket dispenser not working is still a mystery. I haven't been able to locate any documentation whatsoever on the wiring to the ticket dispenser for this game. I continued to clean it and I am starting to reassemble it. It cleaned up nicely.
Corvette Pinball
I found that the upper left flipper wasn't working again. There was an event going on at the location and I didn't have the time to do much else other than notice that it was dead. I will check it on my next trip.
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Week of 8/4
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Rowe Coin changer
The out of service light was on. Without even checking why, I pulled the bill acceptor out and checked it for tickets or candy wrappers. Much to my surprise there wasn't any in the acceptor. I then checked the error code and it was for a hopper issue. I found one of the hoppers was bound up and the quarters were jammed together. I emptied them out and the hopper spun freely but the agitator is chewed up. I need to find a replacement part for it but for now the changer is working again.
Air Hockey
I cleaned some sort of sticky residue off the playing surface.
Drill O Matic
It was doing the perpetual reset again. I opened it up and found that the power connector was vibrated off the board by a 1/4 inch again. I reseated it and the game really started acting oddly. I spent a while reseating connectors and the game still wasn't working. I was making the plans on what I was going to
do with the game (the plan involved dumpsters and stripping parts) when the game started to work normally
again. I don't know why the fourth reseat of a cable is any different than the first but the game is working again.
Big Bug Zapper
I found it with a coin jam. I pulled the coin mech out and found that there was one of the screws for the coin mech mounts jammed into the hole the mechs weren't missing any so it had to have been there
since I owned it. It took a while to pull it out as the screw is slightly larger than the hole it was in. I put it all back together and it worked fine again.
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7/28
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Tic Tac Toe
I finally finished this one and delivered the game to the location.
Flamin Finger
I did the final collection before moving the game out of the location and found it had little money in it. The employee at the location mentioned that a child had stuffed coins into the bill acceptor and that it
wasn't taking bills. Then complained about how little the game brought in.
Midway Hot Shots
I picked this up a while back and I finally got some time to work on it to try it out on location. Several lights were out on the game, I started to replace the bulbs as they were blackened and obviously bad. But the new bulbs weren't working either. I found cracked solder joints on every light board that was on the top side of the playfield. I pulled all the boards and soldered the cracked joints and now the lights are working again. The ticket dispenser wasn't working, so I took a look into that. The wiring is cut up and spliced. The
schematics and wiring diagrams are no help as they don't show any part of the ticket dispenser setup. I spent a while working on it and I found the line that pulses when the tickets should be dispensed but I can't get that to translate into tickets actually dispensing.
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7/21
Slam A Winner
I found it with an out of order sign and found that it wasn't accepting quarters. I found and removed a Golden Dollar from the coin mech and it worked fine after that. Once again I tried to get the dollar coin into the slot and I wasn't able to. I don't know how the kids get them into the slots.
Corvette Pinball
The display driver board arrived. I installed it
and the game is fully working once again.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into proper lane.
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Week
of 7/14
Skee Ball
One lane wasn't counting the balls or dispensing tickets. I found that the ball count switch was broken. I didn't have any with me but on the next trip to the location I replaced it. It took a while to get the switch bent just right that it would count the balls but not bounce and double count. The adjustment on the mechanical switches on these games always takes some time to get right. Since I was already working on the Skee Balls I also replaced the rubber bumpers on the score rings. It took a while to do and I'm not sure if it made a difference or not. But I felt better knowing that the metal studs weren't hitting the balls anymore. While I was in the score area, I cleaned the rings and cork.
I also moved four balls back into the proper lanes this trip to the location.
Corvette Pinball
THe display was blank but the game was playing fine. I swapped in a new display and it was still blank so that means the problem is on the display board I found that I could get a new one for around $100 so I ordered one. I don't have the time right now to repair the old one so while this is the more expensive route, it saves me a lot of time.
Tic Tac Toe
I went to replace one of the prize motors for the top prize row. It should have been an easy task at the motors are held in by two screws. But the one screw is placed where you can't get a screwdriver
on it. The only way to get at the screw is to take the top of the game off. After pulling the top of the game off, the screw is easy to access. I replaced the motor and put the game back together. I still need to test the game.
Skee Ball
Moved eleven balls back into the proper lanes.
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Week of 7/7
Skee Ball
Moved two balls back into the proper lanes.
Cyclone
I found a coin jam it was due to a Canadian Quarter again. Maybe the Canadians vacation in PA for the summer?
Jurassic Park III
I found it with an out of order sign on it and the guns were crossed yet again. I was surprised when I pulled out one gun and found that the gun was broken in half. It was broken right where the sensor is in the gun. I had replaced this gun just a few weeks back. I didn't have any spare guns with me but I had some non-working guns in the truck. I was able to piece together a working gun from all the parts. I did discover one interesting fact that the newer guns are a lot different from the older style, almost everything inside of them have been changed.
Game Sale
I had a person stopping in to purchase a game. I had tested the game and then moved it to the front of the storage area to make it easy to move out. When the buyer arrived we powered up the game and the monitor didn't power up. I spent a few minutes reseating the connectors and it powered up and continued to work. We turned it off and on several times and it didn't happen again. I'm assuming that I shook something loose while moving it around the storage area. What was amazing to me was that the person still bought the game after that.
Air Hockey
I replaced the lock on it. I need to invest in a set of matching security locks in different sizes. It will save me time.
Enclosed Trailer
After what seems like years of shopping, I put a deposit down on a trailer for hauling the equipment around. I was ready to order a new one when a fellow operator offered me his at a fair price.
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Week of 6/30
Cyclone
There was a coin jam caused by a Canadian quarter on one of the stations.
Skee Ball
I had some more time on this visit so I looked into what was hanging the balls up on the one Skee Ball lane. It took around an hour to tear all the parts off and find what was causing the ball hang-up. I found an oversize kids ring laying between the track and the side of the game. The ring was just big enough not to fall through. I pulled it out and spent more time reassembling the lane. While reassembling the lane, I noticed that the plastic I replaced a few months ago was already cracked.
Air Hockey
I went to open it and found that the key for it was missing from the location. I dug a spare out from my spares collection but I need to change the lock on the game now as there is a key for it floating around.
Skee Ball
Moved two balls back into proper lane and found that some were stuck inside of one of the other lanes. I had hoped that they were the missing balls but there are still at least three missing from the location. I was short on time so I picked up the front of the lane and shook it to free up the balls. There was probably something laying on the ball tracks as the shaking routine worked.
Air Hockey
I found it with no mallets and no puck. I spent a while searching for the missing puck and eventually found it behind one of the games that is bolted to the wall so I was going to swap in a new puck but I found a
new puck in one of the utility rooms along with the mallets. Put them back on the table and it worked fine. I have no idea what happened or why.
Cyclone
I installed one control panel as the old one had holes punched into the corners. It isn't a hard job but getting the screws inside of the control panel takes a lot of patience and work. I put it all back together, powered it up and got garbage on the displays for that station. I assumed that I just got the connectors swapped as they are keyed the same and found that it wouldn't even power up with them in the other positions. I swapped the connectors for the stations and found that it stayed at that station, so I pulled a board from another station and with the other board it was still displaying garbage. I went to pull the board for the station that was bad to put into another station and realized that I had to pull the control panel off again due to the standoffs I had put into the wrong place on the board. So I put the display board into another station and it worked fine. I put the other station's board back into the station that was displaying garbage and it worked fine too. So I assume that I had a wire pinched or too close to the neon. I put it all back together and it continued to work fine.
Road Trip
I found it powered off and moved out of the normal position. I pulled it out and found that the power cord was knocked loose from the game. I plugged it back in and it worked fine.
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Week of 6/23
Slam a Winner
The Plexiglas part came in just a few days after I ordered it. I was wrong about the shipping charges it was only around $50 which was a nice surprise. It was rolled up into a pretty tight loop. I thought I had a good grip on it but when I cut the straps, it popped almost flat and flew a couple of feet. I had to check if I still had all of my fingers. I ran into a problem when I went to install it, the holes in the Plexiglas didn't line up at all. This game had four holes on each side and the replacement Plexiglas had only three per side. The part I
removed was the same way and it looked like someone had drilled new holes for the four screws. This had to have been done at the factory as I bought this game new and have never replaced the Plexiglas on it. I didn't have a drill so I used a soldering iron to melt through the Plexiglas to make the screw holes. It worked well. Other than the having to make holes in the Plexiglas it wasn't too bad to replace it. The process probably would have gone much better with two people to move the Plexiglas around but I managed it on my own and didn't scratch up the new Plexiglas at all. I'll leave that for the patrons of the location.
Touchtunes Jukebox
I stopped at the location to collect and found the jukebox was locked up. After rebooting it, it would only go into a debug mode. Touchtunes technical support walked me through some troubleshooting and determined that it was probably the computer and suggested reseating the cable inside of it. The computer inside of this jukebox was no longer under warranty and the only replacement option was an upgrade kit for $1000. So
I pulled the computer and took it back to the shop. I tore it apart and reseated everything I could find but the symptoms didn't change. I noticed that the hard drive was a standard IDE laptop drive so I pulled a drive from an old laptop put it in and it tried to boot into Windows. I called Touchtunes back and they suggested that it was probably just a bad drive. I ordered a new drive (just under $150 with shipping) installed it and it
started to boot into the Touchtunes OS but stopped loading when it started to check for devices in the jukebox. I took it back to the location, installed it and it fired back up. I had to go through a few setup screens and it took a long time but eventually, I had a working Jukebox again.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
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Week of 6/16
Skee Ball
I found that one lane had been moved out of position by six inches or so. That is usually a warning that something bad had happened to the game but other than the standard moving 4 balls back to the proper lanes, the games seemed fine. I am still missing a number of balls from them and need to order some
more replacements.
Air Hockey
I found it with an Out of Order sign on it again. I checked the puck return and the screws had pulled out again. I really don't know why or how as there shouldn't be that much force on the screws. I ran to a local store and picked up some larger sheet metal screws and patched it back together. I stopped at the hardware store and picked up one box of every diameter rivet they had in stock. Hopefully I will get one that fits. One issue I am going to have is that one of rivets was pulled out and is still attached to a part that I don't have good access to. I can't get a drill in that area to drill out the bad rivet, so I need to come up with some way of getting it out.
Slam A Winner
I found it with a five inch crack in the clear Plexiglas front. The crack had been pulled apart and looked like someone was trying to stick their hand into it. There is no chance of repairing the Plexiglas, so I turned the
game off and turned it around so no one would get hurt on the sharp edges. I called and ordered a new one, $250 + oversize shipping charges. I haven't seen the shipping charges yet but it is safe to assume in the $150 range. Hopefully someone knows who did the damage so I have some chance of recovering the money. With the standard split, it will take 2000 games to cover the cost for the part.
Crusin World
It would start to boot but get past the chip check screen and then reboot again. Reseating of the Jamma connector cleared it up. It had been sitting unused for a few months and moved around so needing a
connector reseat isn't a complete surprise.
Golden Tee Complete
I pulled the monitor chassis out. I was going to try to repair it myself but looking over my schedule for the next couple of weeks, I think sending it out for repair will make more sense as I don't really have the time to deal with it and I want to get it repaired and either back out on location or sold soon.
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Week of 6/9
Auction
I drove down to Philadelphia to attend an auction. Buying from auctions isn't my first choice as auctions are a great place to unload your problem equipment onto someone else. But as difficult as decent equipment is to find these days it is worth the risk. Driving a couple of hours for an auction also starts up the debate of what vehicle to take. The truck I use to deliver games is fine for local use but long distance use is questionable. In the past, I rented a trailer and pulled it with my non shop truck but apparently the type of trailers I was renting are no longer available. So that leaves rent a box truck, take my shop truck or take my non shop truck that can only haul one game. I went with taking the shop truck and other than a mysterious puddle of antifreeze under it at one of the rest stops it did well. Luckily it wasn't hot enough to make driving without AC uncomfortable. I ended up buying one piece. I was looking for redemption equipment and there wasn't much too choose from up for auction. Including cranes, I think there was maybe six redemption games there.
Tic Tac Toe
I spent a while testing and cleaning this game. It turned out very nice and looks even better than I hoped it would. It plays well but needs one complete prize rod motor assembly. Other than the Prize rod and installing coin mechs this game is ready to go on location. I will call and order the parts on Monday.
Flamin Finger
I went to collect from this game and found the cashbox all but empty. I found a dime and some sort of sticky stuff jammed into the bill acceptor. I cleaned the acceptor and it was up and running again. The highlight of the visit was one of the customer's employees throwing a fit about how little the game earned, followed up by admitting he knew that it wasn't accepting money for weeks.
Pole Position Cockpit
I reattached the two cabinet halves with the wood and painted it, looks better than I had hoped. Still not perfect but passable. I hope to have this game completed this week. Only a little bit of work left on it.
Rowe Changer BC1
I picked this changer up a while ago with plans of converting it to use a newer bill acceptor but the location I had bought it for changed their minds and it has been sitting in my shop ever since. I was doing some shop cleaning and want to get it ready to sell. It had been working so I thought it would be a quick check but instead I found that it wasn't accepting bills, I went through the adjustments and had no luck. I then cleaned all the belts on it and ran through the adjustments and it is now working again. This model doesn't have a lot in common with the other Rowe change machines I have so it was a bit of learning experience for me.
Cyclone
Control Panel replacement. I went to install the panel and noticed that the holes weren't drilled for the bolts. Drilled some holes and put it back together. It looks much nicer than the worn out panel it replaced. But it took a lot longer to install than what I had planned on.
Multigame
I was moving this one around in the shop and managed to pull the plug off the power cord. Apparently someone didn't bother using the strain relief when they put it together. I replaced the plug and used the strain relief.
Monitor Rejuvenation
A friend called me and was describing an odd problem he was having with a monitor of his. I took my picture tube tester over to check out the tube. The tube kept showing a short for one color but the problem was that it wasn't the color he was having an issue with, we ran the clean shorts process several times but it wouldn't clear. I was getting nervous about destroying his tube, so we stopped. That was the first time I ran into that sort of an issue with a tube, I don't know if the tester was giving us a false reading or if the tube was really bad. When we put it back together the picture didn't look any worse or better.
Jackpot Crossing
I found a ticket jam on this one, cleared the jam and it was working once again. I need to get another ticket dispenser for this game as it is jamming way more often than it should be.
Change machine
I found a big wad of spit or something in the coin cup one of the changers, I cleaned it thoroughly
while wondering why people do this sort of thing.
Skee Ball
I found the one lane with no displays lit and only the Game over light on. I opened up the door and found a huge coin jam in it. I pulled out probably close to five dollars in quarters before I could get to what
had started the jam. There was a dime, a nickel, a penny, a ticket and a chunk of plastic all in the coin
area. After getting all the stuff out of the coin mech and freeing up the coin switch the game fired up. While I was working on this mess the coin return button fell off. Which was a surprise as I had epoxied them on a while back. I pulled the door off the game and pounded the coin return button back into place. They are Usually just pressed into place but this location they don't stay pressed in very long so I will need to pick up some more epoxy for my next visit. After spending a long time dealing with the problems, I noticed
that there was only six balls in the lane, I pulled some from the other lanes to get it back the normal number of twelve and realized that even more balls were missing. There are now six balls missing. I guess that will teach me about replacing them. I need to order some more in as at this rate I won't have enough left to fill a lane.
Cyclone
I found this one with an out of order sign on it. It was just a ticket jam. I cleared it up and it worked fine.
Air Hockey
I found this one with an out of order sign on it. One of the screws holding part of the puck return had worked loose. I replaced the screw. I need to find some rivets in the right size so I don't need the screws
anymore.
Sportstation
I found a coin jam on one of the slots. It was caused by a penny and a nicked being wedged into the slot.
Slam A Winner
I found a ticket jam on this one too. It looked like someone tried to force the tickets back into the
dispenser. I cleared the jam and it worked fine once again.
Jackpot Crossing
I had added tickets to this game as they were low. On my way out of the location, I saw that the ticket owed display showed tickets being owed. I opened up the game and found that there was a ticket jam due to the tickets tearing at the perforation. Fed the tickets into the dispenser and it worked fine.
Jurassic Park III
I found this one with a coin jam. I had to tear the coin chutes apart to clean it out. It appeared to be caused by a part of a ticket and a few pennies.
Parts order
I had ordered some replacement rubber parts from a seller on Ebay for the Skee ball lanes to replace the parts that were ripped off the game last week. It turns out that they weren't exactly the same part. What I ended up with is the rubber bumper end off of pool sticks with a piece of wire through them. I think they will work but I'm not happy about paying ten or twenty times the going rate for a part when it is just a cheap part being reused for something else.
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Week of 6/2
Skee Ball
Game was only giving eight balls per game. The other lanes all had the right number of balls in them.
Eventually I figured out that four balls were missing from the game. I pulled out the lanes and checked all
the normal places that they end up but no luck finding the missing balls. I will need to order in some replacements. I had replaced all of the balls at this location a few weeks back, it appears that someone
noticed.
Tokyo Drift
After cleaning the screen on a nearby game, it became pretty obvious that the screens on this game also needed cleaned. It is a lot more work than it should be on these sit down games, you have to pull the dashboard, prop it up somehow and pull the glass out. It took me almost an hour to do both games but it was worth it, the screens look much better. When I collected at the location later in the week I was surprised to see that earnings had jumped up on the games. I'll keep on thinking that it was the monitor cleaning that helped and not that another Fast and Furious movie has been heavily advertised lately.
Pole Position cockpit
I continued to work on this one and I was able to play a game on it but there is much work to be done.
I just noticed that the game really isn’t supposed to come apart into two parts and that someone cut it apart. I took some measurements and I plan on patching it together with some ¾ plywood. I admit that it isn't the best solution but it should work and once it is painted, it won't be that obvious to most people.
Slam A Winner
I noticed several small cracks along the bottom of the Plexiglas around the game. I need to order
in a new part for when the cracks grow long enough to be a problem.
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Week of 5/26
Skee Ball
Moved twelve balls back into the proper lanes. Cleaned more sticky stuff off the one lane.
Cyclone
Pulled a nickel out of one of the coin slots.
Air Hockey
Replaced the broken rivet, I need to pick up some more of them in the right size.
Sportstation
I pulled a Canadian dime out of the coin mech.
Corvette Pinball
It was displaying the "all settings restored to factory default message". I ran to a nearby store for some batters and replaced the batteries. It was odd as the batteries were less than a year old and usually they don't die that quick in the games. Usually, they run long enough to leak all over the boards before you see any error message about the batteries.
Megatouch
I gave up and pulled it off the location. It never really earned much at the location and with the problems it has been having lately, it isn't worth the time to keep repairing it.
Golden Tee
I pulled this one off location due to a bad monitor. It wasn't earning well enough to justify the time to
repair and leave on the same location.
Crane
Someone managed to break off one of the metal castings that stop the coin return lever. It is part of the main housing so I will have to replace the entire coin mech. In the meantime I sanded the broken part
smooth.
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Week of 5/19
Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes. It looked like someone had held another picnic on a couple of the lanes. There was sticky handprints everywhere, trash and some sort of sugary stuff all of over the lanes. I swept them up and scrubbed the lanes down. They still need a better cleaning but they did look better. Someone continued pulling up the pin striping. One of the lane plastics was badly cracked.
It was one of the ones under the metal parts and it looked like it broke when someone shook the frame for the nets.
Jurassic Park 3
Installed the new gun. Took a few extra minutes and cleaned up the monitor and the glass. It really made a difference on how the screen looked. Now I need to do the rest of the games in the location as I now see that they need done.
Megatouch
While I was working on the gun game, I saw a bunch of kids playing the Megatouch. I checked after they left and found that it was stuck in some sort of time based free play. I have no idea on how it got into the mode but I spent half an hour checking various options to get it turned off. Eventually I found the
right combination of settings that cleared it. I don't remember making any setting changes to this game, but maybe I did and triggered the mode or maybe someone found some sort of hidden feature. Anyway this may explain why it has made nothing for a few weeks. I had been blaming the damaged touch screen but I think I am going to leave it on location for a few weeks just to see if it suddenly makes any money.
Cyclone
I found it unplugged. I plugged it back in and played a few games on it and it worked fine for me.
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Week of 5/12
Skee Ball
It looked like someone had a picnic on the games, I swept them off the best I could but I need to bring something along to clean up all the stains that were all over the lanes. I moved two balls back into the proper lanes. While doing that, I noticed that the one lane seemed sticky and found what appeared to be a soda spill down the side of the game. I opened up the cash box and found about 3 inches of soda in it. What a huge mess. I spent a long while cleaning that up the best I could. I'm hoping that there isn't any serious damage. I found one of the nets was ripped up and the zip ties I had securing them laying under the game. Apparently the nets have been on back order for a while now. It didn't sound like I may ever recieve new nets so, I repaired the net the best I could with zip ties. Someone was also working on peeling the pin striping off the lane plastics again.
Air Hockey
Found the puck return chute was broken loose. I put it back on with a sheet metal screw. I think that will hold until I return with the rivet gun and fix it the right way.
Sportstation
I found a bunch of pennies jamming one of the coin slots and one of the wires to the coin switch was broken. I did the quick fix of wrapping the wire around the terminal and will fix it the right way on my next visit. There were a lot of games broken at the location and I was short on time.
Jackpot Crossing
I found it with an Out of Order sign on it. It had a ticket jam that was easily cleared up.
Jurassic Park 3
The gun I repaired last week was broken again. I have a new one on the way so I didn't waste any time looking at the old one.
Sonic and Tales
This one was out of tickets, I reloaded it and it was back up and running.
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Week of 5/5/2013
Skee Ball
Moved two new balls back into proper lanes.
Air Hockey
I found it with an out of order sign on it. In one of the scoring chutes, I found two pucks wedged behind a nice folded origami start like thing. The score area was dented up pretty good. Someone was kicking it. The location has cameras that should have caught them in action so I will follow up with that and see if we can catch the person and charge them for the new replacement door.
Capsule Express
I continued working on this one at the shop. I replaced a couple of sensors and it didn't make difference in how the game played. I don't know if it was worth the effort or not but at least I know that all the sensors are working. I need to find a bulb, replace a couple of locks and do some cleaning and this one will be ready to go out on location. So far there hasn't been many parts that I had to pull of the parts game. There really isn't too much left that is useable on the parts game.
Pole Position 2 Cockpit
I had some free time so I was looking in the shop for a game to work on. I dug out a Pole Position
2 that I have had laying around for a few years. It was filthy and had the barn smell to it. I cleaned it up but the smell lingered. I stripped the game down to the wood, did some sanding on the bad parts and painted the inside of the cabinet with sealer. It seems to have gotten rid of the smell. Now all I smell is the fresh paint smell. I'm giving it a few days to dry completely before I start putting it back together.
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Week of 4/28/2013
Skee Ball
I swapped in the new balls, it was really obvious how bad the old ones were getting when I had them all out of the games. I'd like to keep the real wood balls but they are getting too worn and are at the point where they are probably causing wear to the cork on the lanes.
Slam a Winner
I found a Golden Dollar coin jammed into the coin mech with a few quarters behind it. I was able to dig the dollar out without any serious surgery to the coin mech for a nice change of pace.
Parts order
I found replacement balls that could be used in the Skee ball machines for sale at a great price, so I ordered a few dozen of them.
Big Bug Zapper
When on location I noticed that the same bulb that I worked on last week was out. I think I will buy some new sockets someday and fix it. I really didn't feel like messing with it again as I was running out of time due to other repairs that I had to make at the location.
Jurassic Park 3
The player one gun was dead. It looked like someone had really beat it around as there were stress marks in the plastic from being flexed. I pulled it apart and did the standard reseat routine and it still was not working. I pulled the board out of the gun and put it back in and it started working again. Put it all back together and it continued to work. But I suspect that I will be replacing the gun very soon. This game is on my "time to be pulled from the location as soon as I find something to replace it with" list so I am not in a hurry to buy parts for it.
Jackpot Crossing
I found a ticket jam, cleared the jam and the game worked fine.
Air Hockey
I found that the puck was missing for it, I looked around and moved some games searching for it and couldn't locate. I keep some spare pucks at the location so I was going to put one of the spares in the game
I worked on a few other games at the location and realized when I got back to the shop that I had forgotten to replace the puck. Luckily the location knows where the spares pucks are stored.
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Week of 4/21/2013
Big Bug Zapper
One of the black lights was out. so I pulled the side off and reseated it and the bulb lit up right away. I turned the game on and off a few times and the bulb lit up every time. It took me forty minutes to get the side panel back on.
Capsule Express
I started swapping parts from the very broken one to the not so broken one. I spent several hours and I am almost done. After I got all of the mechanical issues and motors straightened out, I put it into test mode and found a couple of sensors that aren't working. It is a good thing that I have a second game that I am using for parts as the one I picked up needed a lot of parts and definitely wouldn't be worth the cost of the new parts (if they are even available). I went to replace the bulbs on it and found some of the oddball sized tubes. The first try at finding something close failed so I need to try a different hardware store and play the "they don't make bulbs in that size" game with that store. I love being told that they don't make something that I am holding and watching the reaction as the store employee realizes that maybe they don't know everything.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Drill O Matic
I pulled a ticket out of the coin mech on this one.
Sonic and Tales
There was a ticket jam, removed the jam and the game worked fine.
Ticket Order
I ran up to National Ticket to pick up my order of custom tickets. I made great time. I took me three and a half hours round trip.
Megatouch
When testing the game I found a dead spot in the touch screen. It is only about an inch or so. This one is interesting because there is actually a mark in the touchscreen where you can see it was damaged. I calibrated the game and got it useable but I will be pulling this one off location soon as it isn't worth repairing.
Auction
I attended a game auction and picked up a lot of used parts and one semi working game. I bought the game to use as parts to repair one that has been sitting in the shop for a while. Between the two of them I should be able to get a decent working game. I will have to buy a couple of parts as both of them have the same motors bad on them.
Goldeneye Pinball
I don't know what is going on this one. I had some free time so I worked on it again, I sanded the divots out of the ball trough then cleaned and polished the trough. I put it into test and ran the balls through countless times and it seemed fine. I put it back together and on the third game the balls hung in the trough. I took the game apart at that point and saw the reason for the hang up was that one ball was sticking against the top of the trough. The ball had become magnetized. Which isn't that surprising with how the magnets get used on this game. I replaced the ball and the trough hang-up problem seemed cured. I then noticed that the magnetic ball save feature wasn't working. I found a bad fuse fairly quickly but replacing the fuse didn't clear the problem. I put into test mode and measured at the magnet board and got the right voltages when the magnet was on. I was tracing the wires when the magnet test mode was still running and it started to work after I pushed on several connectors and solder joints. So it is working and I know that there is a bad connection somewhere but since it is working now, I can't find where the loose connection is at. Perhaps when it breaks again, I will find it.
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Week of 4/14/2013
Drill O Matic
There was a coin jam, I dug out 3 pennies and a nickel that had been wedged into the coin mech. I really need to buy a spare coin mech in this style as I don't have a spare and sooner or later my luck with tearing these apart to get out jams is going to run out and I will need to replace it.
Skee Ball
I dug a couple of pennies out of the coin mech on one lane.
Smokin Token
I found a nickel jammed into the coin mech on this one.
Air Hockey
I found a ticket wedged into the coin slot.
Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.
Big Bug Zapper
I finally got this to the location. It took me over three hours to get it installed and set up. I had to move several games around to create a suitable space for the game. This was the first time that I had the game completely assembled and it is huge! It didn't seem that big when it was in the shop but when assembled on location it takes up a lot of room. One black light tube didn't light up but I was out of time, so I will take care of it next visit to the location.
Crane machine
I found one of the caps at the bottom of the crane hanging on by one loose screw. I pulled the broken wood away and screwed it back together using different holes to hold it on. Someone must have really kicked it to pull 3 half in screws out of the particle board on the bottom of the crane.
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Week of 4/7/2013
Game sale
I sold off three games to another operator. The games were worth more than what I sold them for but getting them out of the way is worth something. The sale went smoothly and helping them load the games up on a truck reminded me of why a lift gate on your truck is a good idea. It also reminded me why a mini pickup is a bad idea to pick up three games.
Pool Table
The cue ball was getting trapped again. Of course the customer tried the cue ball from another table and that one also got trapped. I adjusted the magnet and ran the ball through many times and it seemed fine. I'm not sure why this table is having problems; perhaps I should buy a new magnet for the table. Perhaps the location constant relocation of the table has something to do with it.
Hot Stuff Crane
The bill acceptor wasn't working. I checked it and it had no power or error codes. I reseated the cables and it fired back up and worked fine. I powered the crane on and off several times and the acceptor continued to work fine.
Tokyo Drift
I found one of the Tokyo Drifts unplugged. I plugged it back in and played several games on it and it worked fine. I also played several games on the other one to verify that someone didn't get the wrong machine and it also worked fine.
Jackpot Crossing
Another ticket jam, I adjusted the dispenser to push the tickets out a bit further to see if that helps at all.
Super Rock and Bowl
I was getting games ready to sell off and took a look at this one. I found that it had several quarters jammed in the coin mech and putting one quarter in would push one quarter out but if you banged on the game hard enough it would give out a free game. I cleared the coin jam and adjusted the coin switch. I ran about $20 in quarters through it and it didn't jam or give away any free games. I got some pictures of it and it is ready to sell.
Shop cleaning
I spent a while cleaning and organizing around the shop. I got a few games photographed and ready to sell. I'm out of space so I need to sell some games off to free up some space.
Air Hockey
I found it with the mallets missing. Which usually means that something is wrong with it; I dug a redemption ticket out of one of the coin slots. I found the mallets and tested the game and it worked fine.
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Week of 3/31/2013
Big Bug Zapper
Spent a while working on this one and it is mostly ready to go out on location. I'll be glad to finally get this one out of my way.
Skee Ball
I moved two balls back into the proper lanes.
Prize order
I placed an order for some prizes. It ended up being a good sized order. When the box came arrived it was close to eighty pounds of prizes. I spent a few hours getting them priced and packaged to go into the redemption counters and games.
Road trip
I went along on a road trip to take a look at some games a fellow operator had for sale. I didn't buy anything for the route but my friend bought a couple of games for his arcade.
Ticket order
I placed an order for another batch of tickets for a location. They are going to take around a month to be completed.
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Week of 3/24/2013
Skee Ball
Moved three balls back into the proper lanes
Corvette Pinball
The upper flipper wasn't working, the fuse that was listed on the chart for the flipper was fine, I spent a while troubleshooting but eventually decided that it was the Fliptronics board that was bad. I ran back to the shop and pulled one out of a working compatible game. I swapped it into the Corvette and the flippers worked fine. I took the original board back to the shop to work on. I noticed that a fuse that according to the fuse chart was for a flipper that the game didn't have was bad. I replaced the fuse and dropped it into the game and all of the flippers work fine. So I spent all that time troubleshooting and made an extra trip because the fuse chart was wrong.
Jackpot Crossing
There was a ticket jam but the ticket dispenser was dead and wouldn't do anything. Eventually I noticed that the two pin connector on the Ticket dispenser board was loose, I reseated it and then the ticket dispenser would work if I used the test button but the game would dispense any tickets. I rebooted the game and then it started working properly.
Location collection
I went to collect at one of my locations and found the place locked up and closed with a sign in the door saying that they will reopen April 8th. From what I could see, my games were still inside but I need to get my stuff out of there.
Getaway Pinball
I replaced the Dot Matrix Display in it, the display was doubled and garbled so it was time. Incidentally, I hadn't been following how expensive they have become. It cost me right around $200 for the display.
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Week of 3/17/2013
High Tops Basketball
I started working on this game to get it ready to go back out on location. I didn't notice it when I bought it but the clear cover on the score area was broken. I found out that they are $237 for a replacement. Now I am not sure if I want to put this game back out on location.
Big Bug Zapper
I called the manufacturer to order a couple of small parts for the game and found out that it is no longer supported and most of the parts that I was going to order are obsolete. Which was a surprise as the distributor I bought if from assured me that parts were still available. So, I have to repair what parts I do have and use them. A few more hours of work and this game will be ready for location. With the parts situation, it may be a short time on location as if anything breaks, I won't be able to repair it.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Sonic and Tales
I found it with an out of order sign on it. It turned out to be a ticket jam from the ticket deck adhesive strip not holding.
Time Crisis
The monitor chassis returned from the repair company and I spent some time installing it. I tried a couple of different ways to make the task easier but eventually gave up and pulled the monitor out. I tried to mount the monitor so there would be better access to the board but the way the cabinet is built I couldn't find a way. I installed the chassis and powered it up and got raster but no picture, I reseated the connection between the yoke board and the chassis and it had a picture once again. From moving this game around the shop, it is now in need of a good degausing. Now all I need to do is to figure out a way to do it.
Tron pinball
I noticed that a newer version of the software was available so I downloaded and installed it. The way that Stern handles these updates is great! It took only a few minutes to install the update. I spent more time changing the settings back to how I had them then it did to do perform the update. I spent a while "testing" the game to see the changes and I found several changes. I need to do more "testing" on this one.
Pharaoh Pinball
The left flippers weren't working. After going though the standard troubleshooting and not making any headway, I tapped on the relay on the driver board and the flippers started working again. I played a few games and then I noticed that the general illumination on the back box was out. Once again I was running the through the standard troubleshooting methods and not getting anywhere until I found a relay in the back box that controlled the lighting. I tapped on it and the lights started to work again. The intermittent back box lighting has been a constant issue on this game since I got it several years back and I just noticed the relay today. I need to check on other Williams games from this era as I don't remember seeing one before that controlled the lighting. Although I do know a lot of them can blink the lights in the back box so they probably do have them and I either forgot or didn't notice it before.
Satan's Hollow
The game would boot to a screen full of garbage but would eventually reset and play normally. I measured the voltages and found the 5 volt line to be set to 5.8 volts, so I adjusted the voltage down to 5.2 volts. I measured pin 13 on J4 (the Reset Not line) and it had less than a volt on it, I left the meter connected and let the game sit unit it booted. I checked the meter and there was now 5 volts on the line. As I was watching the meter I saw the voltage start to oscillate between 0 and 5 volts and the game rebooted every time the voltage dropped. I pulled the pin out of the connector and powered the game up and it booted and stayed running. The reset circuit looks fairly simple on the board but I didn't have the time to troubleshoot it and since the game is now working, I will check into some other time. The purpose of the circuit is to keep the game board from powering up until the 5 volts is truly 5 volts. In my informal testing of turning the game on and off about fifteen times, there was only one time that the game didn't power up properly and rebooting it fixed the problem.
Street Fighter Multigame
I getting this game ready to sell and the joysticks didn't match. I had put a non matching joystick on it years ago to see how it would look. I thought it looked fine but I heard some complaints about the joystick I bought and how it looked so I bought a set of matching sticks and put them on. The installation was straightforward and I got the connections right on the first try. I forget if I bought the competitions or ultimate’s but it really made a difference on how some of the games played.
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Week of 3/10/13
Tokyo Drift
I went to reload the computer and found out that the restore discs that I have are bad (probably from the exposure to sunlight in the back of my truck). I went to download a new set and found that you can no longer download the discs from Raw Thrills (but they will sell you a set). I couldn't reload the software so I took the computer back to the location to see if the computer worked and it didn't. Luckily, the second Tokyo Drift at the location had a set of restore discs in it and I used them to reload the game. After reloading the software, the game seemed to be working once again.
Drill O Matic
Coin Jam. there was something in the coin acceptor that fell out when I tapped on the acceptor. The acceptor worked fine after that.
Air Hockey
I found it with an out of order sign on it. When I started a game, no pucks were dispensed. I found two pucks stuck behind a wad of cotton or something like cotton at the one end. After pulling out the cotton and leaving only the single puck in the game it worked fine.
Cyclone
I found a ticket causing a coin jam on the one side.
Jurassic Park 3
I found it with an out of order sign on it. The only problem that I found was that someone had put the player 2 gun in the player 1 slot and vice versa. This has been happening a lot recently so I dug out a permanent marker and wrote player 1 and player 2 on the guns. I don't think people will actually read it but it may stop the kids from swapping the guns around.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Spy Hunter
The parts came in and I rebuilt the power supply for it. I put into the game and was surprised to see that all of the voltages were correct when powered up. I plugged in the boards and the game didn't boot. I found out that under load the power supply was not putting out anywhere even close to the right voltages. I spent a while troubleshooting it and not making much headway, so I ordered the kit to replace the supply with a standard switching supply.
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Week of 3/3/13
Skee Ball
I moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.
I finally got some warning stickers made up and spent a while sticking them to the games at this location. I don't know if they will help or not but they have made a difference in the past at other locations. If it stops one person from damaging one game it will be worth the effort.
Prize Order
I put an order in from one the places I usually buy from but the order seems stuck in my shopping cart. I get to the confirmation page but I never get the email and the order still shows up in the shopping cart. I will call them and see what the issue is.
Spy Hunter
It would power up the Marquee and coin door lights but nothing else. The power supply was not putting out the 5 volts. The fuse was bad and popped again after I replaced it so I will order the parts to repair the MCR power supply.
Big Bug Zapper
I got back to working on this one. The first round of gluing was complete so I glued the control panel back down. I used the expanding Gorilla Glue stuff as it works great for this sort of situation where the wood is rough and there are small gaps. I clamped it down with some ratchet straps and let it dry.
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Week of 2/24/13
Drill O Matic
I found a large blob of what appeared to Crisco or some other sort of grease lying in front of the game. At least that is what I am telling myself it was. Anyhow I cleaned it up.
Corvette Pinball
I found a coin jam that was caused by a redemption ticket in the coin slot.
Skee Ball
I found one lane with an out of order sign on it, I'm assuming the fact that it had no balls at all in it may be the reason. I moved 12 balls back into the lane from other lanes and it worked well. I also noticed the big black mark on the lane plastic I had just replaced, apparently it didn't take them long to notice that there was a new part that was unbroken and got busy working on smashing it up.
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Week of 2/17/13
Skee Ball
I moved 3 balls back into proper lanes. I installed a sheet of Lexan over the top of the lane that someone ripped through the netting. I also installed a couple of new lane plastics that I bought a while back. I was putting it off as long as I could as I know the new ones are going to get smashed up fairly quickly and they aren't cheap parts to replace. The one downside is that one part no longer features the ball viewing area.
Super Bug Zapper
I picked his one up from the distributor a few weeks back and I started on getting it ready for location. I cleaned it up and got a list of what parts I need to get done, I replaced the bulb protectors. The control panel seemed a bit loose, I assumed when I bought it that it was just your typical hinge and latch setup. I was wrong in my assumption and it appears that the panel had been torn off the game at some point and was repaired with some brackets. I pulled it apart and found a few parts that need glued so I clamped and glued some wood back on and will resume working on it after the glue dries and I have the time to deal with it.
Addams Family Pinball
The bookcase was constantly sweeping back and forth and several of the switches weren't working properly, most notably the switch for Thing's hand. I put it into test mode and found that several of the switches weren't working. I did the standard wire tracing and testing and eventually found that one of the wires had worked loose from the connector. I forced the wire back in and the problems cleared up. Powered it off and put it back together. When I powered it up again I got the set time and date message. I replaced the batteries and reset all of the settings. I went to play a game and the shooter rod stuck in the out position and wouldn't pull back in. I tore it apart and found that it still had the original sleeve and crimped on retainer ring from the factory. I replaced the sleeve and ring and played a game on it and then slowly backed away from it in the hopes that nothing else would break while I was there.
Pool Table
The location called and said that the balls were occasionally sticking in the game and that they had been picking the game up and dropping it to free them. They decided to call me when they had hurt themselves picking up the table. I found a chalk block in the ball path that was the source of the sticking ball problem but then I spent and hour or so adjusting the magnetic ball separator that was out of adjustment (probably from them bouncing the table). I got the separator working well but every once and a while the balls would hang in the display area and cause a backup into the track. I did some sanding and polishing of some rough spots that I found in the track and it was better but the balls would still stick. After noticing some chips on the balls, I replaced the set of balls and the problem cleared up. The customer promised to just put in a service call instead of picking the game up in the future.
Time Crisis
I shipped the monitor chassis back for repair under warranty.
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Week /10/13 n Bowl
I pulled the game off location, the move went smoothly.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Jurassic Park
I found a coin jam after digging out the quarters I found a ticket jammed into the slot.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes and found that the end lane someone had ripped through the netting above the 100 point hole. I patched it up the best I could with cable ties. On my next visit I plan to cover the area with a sheet of Lexan as this has happened before and will probably continue until I put something in place that they can't cut or rip.
Road Trip
The bill acceptor wasn't taking bills; I pulled it apart and found a ticket in the bill path. I put it back together and it still won't work, it was showing the code for a jam. I cleaned all the sensors and it didn't help. After powering the game off and on, the bill acceptor did start to work again but I'm guessing it isn't going to stay that way.
I also found around $.40 in pennies nickels and dimes in various coin slots on this visit.
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Week of 2/3/13
Skee Ball
I found a coin jam again with the coin acceptor assembly out of the slot again. I know that I put it right last time as I just replaced the coin mech on this lane and I was careful to get it back together the right way.
I brought the car jack along to raise the lanes so I could screw the leg levelers out to raise the rear of the games, it took a while and it was hard work and involved crawling around under the games but I got them jacked up and that should solve the no ball problem that people have been complaining about.
Rowe Changer
The out of service light was on. It wasn't very surprising when I opened it up and found the front light in the dispenser out again. I found a wire that had been pinched and looked like it was the problem. I soldered the wire back together but the bulb wouldn't light. I replaced the 755 bulb. On these old Rowe changers involves soldering wires directly to the bulb base. It can be challenging to get the solder to stick to the base but I eventually got it done and put it back into the changer. I powered it up and the bulb worked but the acceptor wouldn't take a bill. I ran through the sensor adjustment and it worked fine after that.
Air Hockey
There was something sticky all over the surface, so I cleaned it up with some glass cleaner and played a game. I won.
Jurassic Park 3
There was a coin jam, I found a redemption ticket was the cause of it but spent about a half hour digging quarters out of the chute.
Super Rock n Bowl
The customer called and said that the game was giving free tickets if you kicked it. They had unplugged the game so I plugged it in and sure enough a slight bang to the game would trigger the game like a quarter had been inserted. I found a couple of wires that were worn bare, so I taped them up and tested the game. I was using a 5lb hammer to bang the front of the game and it would not trigger. So I called it fixed.
Super Rock n Bowl
The Customer called back and said that it is giving free tickets out again. I think I am going to just pull the game off location and call it done.
Jackpot Express
I found it had a ticket jam. Cleared the jam and ran many tickets through to see if it would jam again but it worked fine for me. It has been jamming a lot lately, if it continues, I will try a new ticket dispenser in it.
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Week of 1/27/13
Skee Ball
I found two lanes with out of order signs on them. I moved nine balls from one the one lane back to the other lane. Both lanes worked fine with the right number of balls in them. I really need to come up with a solution for this. I'm thinking having only one lane would fix it.
Super Rock N Bowl
Quarters were still sticking on the coin switch, I made a few more adjustments and ran a lot of quarters through it and didn't see any more hang up.
Bill Counter
The last time I went to use it, the counter just kept jamming. I noticed that the bottom set of rollers wasn't spinning and could be free spun by hand. So I assumed that a belt had broken. I took it apart and found that the belt was still intact but very dirty. I cleaned it up with some rubbing alcohol and put it back together and it worked perfectly. This is a good thing as I despise counting bills by hand.
Pool Table
I got a call from a customer that the pool table had all of the balls hung up in it. I was on my way there when they called again and stated that they got them free by picking up the table and dropping it. I was already on my way when the second call came in so I still went to the location to take a look. I found that there were at least three chalks
laying in the ball tracks. I pushed them out of the track and into the bottom of the table. I couldn't reach them but they won't cause any trouble where they are now.
Rowe Changer
It wasn't accepting bills but the out of service light wasn't on either. When I started working on it, the first bulb in the bill acceptor would blink on and off as I moved wired around in the acceptor. Suddenly the blinking stopped and the bulb stayed on no matter what I shook or moved. The changer was working but I'm guessing that the problem will be back before too long.
Distributor Trip
I got a call from the Distributor that I usually buy game from and he had some good deals on games, so I made the trip down to see what he had. I ended up with two redemption games, nothing special but titles that I hadn't run through the route yet and mostly working. Both games are in need of cleaning and some minor repairs so into the warehouse they went to wait for me to get some time to get them ready to go on location.
Atari Football
The $140 worth of parts for the trackballs came in and I rebuilt both trackballs. Nothing too hard but after 30 years the dirt and whatever else was really caked on the parts.
I put them back together and one works a lot better than the other one. I believe that it is an issue with the optic board on one axis. So I need to track down either the opto or a replacement board.
Skee Ball
One lane had a coin jam. I opened the coin door and found that the coin mech was broken apart at the hinge and the whole assembly was out of the track again. I realized that I didn't have any more metal coin mechs to use (this model you have to use the metal mechs due to the mounting arangement) so I swapped a new plastic one into another game and used the metal mech in the Skee Ball. While working on it, I saw the balls hang in the lane and not roll down the chute when the game started. I got looking and I found that the customer had done some work on the floor and the result was that the rear of the Skee Ball lanes was now about a half inch lower than it used to be. I need to raise the back up on the Skee ball lanes. I will take care of this on my next visit.
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Week of 1/20/13
Skee Ball
I moved six balls back into the proper lanes.
Toyko Drift
It wasn't powering on again. I found that the power cord was loose in the back of the game, they are recessed on this game and it is possible that I didn't get it fully seated when I replaced it. I pulled the back door off and got the cord properly seated and it was back up and running.
Cyclone
Coin Jam
Found about two dollars in quarters wedged into the coin slot. It took half an hour to get them out someone really forced the quarters in the slot. Found a ticket was the cause of the problem.
Jackpot Crossing
Ticket jam, this one seems to be having them suddenly, I'm not sure why.
Super Rock N Bowl
Found it with multiple out of order signs taped to it with a huge amount of tape. Peeled all the signs and tape off and found that it was working fine. I played several games on it and no problems at all. I chalked it up to someone putting a sign on the wrong game. In
the future I will no longer put two games with similar game play and colors next to each other to avoid this sort of confusion. I think I will rearrange and see what happens.
Hightops
I bought this sight unseen and had it delivered to a friend’s place that was closer and was also getting a game from this vendor. I really need to stop buying games sight unseen as it wasn't quite in the shape that was described to me. Now, it isn't in unusable shape but I will need to pick up some parts that were broken on it before I can put it on location. It is also sort of pain to move, heavy and nothing to hold onto except smooth fiberglass. The good news is that it does work as advertised.
Atari Football
I had some free time so I looked into rebuilding the track balls for this game. The parts themselves were dirty and rusty but didn't seem to bad off. So as an experiment I cleaned and oiled them up to see how it would work. The results weren't that good. I should know better as I still need to order the parts to rebuild it.
Display
I spent some time building a display for some of the long items like the fanny pinchers. They are too long for the cases so I thought if I would angle them upright in the case it would look better and take up less room. It is still a work in progress.
Redemption prize order
Put an order in for some more prizes. I was running low on prizes for the instant redemption games. I also ordered some of the standard prizes that I use in the redemption counters.
Road Trip
This game was on location for about a week and half now and I was shocked at how badly it is getting beat up. It looks like someone kicked the bill acceptor as the mount now has a bend in it and the plastic on the face plate has a few chunks missing from it. So I took some measurements and I will work on building something to attempt to protect it from the vandals.
Candy Crane
I delivered this one to a friend's arcade as I no longer had a use for it and it was damaged enough at the last location to make it tough to sell. The delivery went well and it seems to be doing well for him. Apparently it had an attract mode that I didn't know about. It sings the entire Candyman song in a loud off key annoying way.
Tokyo Drift
It wouldn't turn on, I found that the power cord had been smashed, replaced the cord and it was back up and running.
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Week of 1/13/13
Big Haul
Cleaned it up and dug the rest of the quarters out of it. There was over $50 worth hiding in various crevices in the game. That was after spending a while at the location cleaning them out. I took them back up the location and I will count them on my next collection visit. I cleaned up the game and its duplicate and got them ready to sell.
Skee Ball
Moved one ball back into the proper lane
Cyclone
Moved it back to where it should be, it had been moved by at least a foot. While that doesn't sound like a big deal the foot difference moves it into where people walk through.
Road Trip
Stocked it up with prizes, adjusted the brake and did some cleaning to it. I ran out of time on the day I delivered it.
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Week of 1/6/13
Jurassic Park III
While delivering the Road Trip, something caught my eye as being out of place on Jurassic Park. Someone managed to rip the bezel that holds the glass over the monitor
out of the game. All four screws were stripped out of the wood and laying on top of the
bezel. I found a couple of large sheet metal screws in my tool bag and screwed it back down. Obviously not something that happened purely by accident.
Big Haul
I took it back to the warehouse. This one is done on my route. It has earned well and the only problems I ever had with it were the standard ticket jams and digging things that didn't belong out of the coin mech on it. I plan to sell it off as I am out of space.
Road Trip
I swapped it out to a new location. Went smoothly or at least as smoothly as moving this beast of a game can go. No one got crushed, hurt or died during the process so I consider the move a success.
Flamin Finger
Pulled out of the warehouse and placed on location. No major problems other than one of the customer's employees misunderstanding that not all instant redemption games can be filled with large expensive prizes.
Tokyo Drift
The game was booting up to a black screen with a line of text that said, "System Battery Low, Replace Battery Press F1 to continue" and stopping. I pulled the computer out of it and opened it and found that it uses a CR2032 battery. I ran to Radio shack and bough the 3 pack of them as if this one is dead, the others will be right behind it. I quickly swapped the battery and got lucky that the CMOS settings didn't reset back to the factory settings. It's not that it is a huge deal to change them but you have to hook up a keyboard and use the chart in the manual to match them up. Put it all back together and it worked perfectly.
Super Rock N Bowl
While I was working on the Drift game, I watched a kid bump into the Super Rock N Bowl game and it acted like he had inserted a quarter and gave him a ticket, it happened twice and the kid seemed as surprised about it as I was. I asked him to bang into it again and it wouldn't happen, so I asked him to kick it harder and he did and it still didn't happen. So then I yelled at him for kicking the game, I thought it was sort of funny but the kid didn't and one of the locations employees that didn't know what was going on also yelled at him. It wasn't until I told the employee that I asked him to kick the game that the kid caught on that I was joking about yelling at him. At least I think he caught onto it. I was already running late so, I will look into this a bit more on my next trip to the location.
Skee Ball
The coin return button was pushed down but the game would accept quarters. I found that the entire coin acceptor assembly was out of the bracket and was sitting just right that it would still accept the quarters. It’s very strange as I know it is not something I did, so I need to find out how it happened.
Drill o Matic
Not accepting quarters, I had to disassemble the electronic coin acceptor to the point that I was sure that it was never going to work again to dig out the ticket and nickel that were shoved in the coin mech. I put it all back together and was surprised that it still worked. I kept the nickel as a tip for the time that I wasted on this one.
Cyclone
It looks like the spitter was at this location again, this time the Cyclone game. I cleaned it up.
Corvette Pinball
It was showing some dirt on the playfield so I did some cleaning with Novus. It is about due to come back to the shop for a real cleaning but I need something to replace it with.
Flamin Finger
I gave it another good cleaning to get it ready to go out on location again. The customers at the past two locations that it had been at managed to spill soda onto it. If you don't get to the spilled soda right away, it tends to harden into a sticky mess that is near impossible to clean up and seems to reappear.
Big Buck Safari
Let it run for another couple of days with no problems, so I am calling this one ready for sale or to go back out on location. Whichever happens first. ==================================================================
Week of 1/1/13
Skee Ball
Coin Jam, I found two, dimes and four pennies jammed into the coin mech. If only they had inserted one more penny it would have worked. Coin mech worked fine after removing the coins, I did notice that the stickers that I had put on most of the games with pictures of quarters are missing. I'm not sure when that happened but I think I need to make some more up as the pennies, dimes and nickels have been showing up every week now for the past month or so.
Smokin Tokin
I had to clean a couple of huge wads of spit off the glass on this game.
Jackpot Crossing
Ticket jam
Slam A Winner
It looks like someone has taken a key or a ring to the Plexiglas on this one. Found about a dozen deep scratches all over the Plexiglas.
Big Haul
Ticket Jam
Skee Ball
I found one lane that the coin return button was knocked off again and the coin return slot was smashed up into the game. I pounded the coin return button back in and spent a long time trying to get everything line up again so it would accept quarters once again. I wasn't able to get the coin return back into shape but it is
still somewhat accessible and didn't appear to have any sharp edges so I left it alone.
Slam A Winner
There was a coin jam caused by a dollar coin being jammed into the coin slot. I dug the coin out and the coin mech was working when I was done with it.
Rowe Change Machine
I heard it randomly running the Bill acceptor motor. There wasn't anything blocking the sensor but the bulb had shifted back a bit. I readjusted the bulb and the problem seemed to clear up.
Big Buck Safari
I worked a trade deal with another operator on this game. I tested it and the game worked fine. When the trade was supposed to happen, I powered up the game and was greeted with the battery voltage is low warning. So I had replace the battery on the computer to clear the message. Luckily I swapped the battery quickly enough that I didn't have to set the BIOS settings. I put it all back together and the game worked fine once again. The games frequently wait till the worst possible moment to exhibit problems. The trade deal still happened and I haven't heard back from the operator, so I assume that all is well with the game.
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Week
of 10/24
Skee Ball
Moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Smokin Token
I dug a couple of tickets and a few nickels out of the coin mech. I really need to locate the keys for the top part of this game as I spent forty minutes digging them out from the front side.
Sportstation
I pulled a ticket out of the coin mech on this game.
Corvette
I pulled a ticket out of one of the coin mechs on this game.
Jurassic Park III
I pulled a few tickets, a couple of nickels and about $5 in quarters out of the coin mech on this game.
Crane
I was checking over the numbers and the win ratio seemed low, so I checked the coil voltage and found that it had drifted low (for a change) I adjusted it back up and I will continue to monitor the numbers and voltage to see if there is an improvement.
Pool table
I was servicing the location and one patron mentioned that one game they played a few days ago they were one ball short. I tested it several times and couldn't reproduce the issue. I assume that the ball was hung up on something on the tracks in the game. I also found that someone had stuffed paper into the coin mechs. Apparently they were successful in their attempt as there was an odd amount of quarters in the table and that shouldn't be possible at a dollar per play.
Pennies and nickels
I did my collection at a location and I always check the games while I am there. There were several games with coin jams, I found at least fifteen pennies and five nickels jammed in the coin slots. I spent far too long clearing the jams for $.40.
Air Hockey
The pucks were stuck at one end and I found that the metal puck return chute had broken loose yet again. I put it back together but I really need to find a permanent solution to this issue. I can't think of one as
one part appears to be aluminum and the other steel. I need to take a magnet in and verify. Maybe I can get them welded?
Shaq Attaq
I was doing some final testing on the game and the handle on the shooter rod broke. I replaced it with one for a Williams game. It is only about 1/4 difference in length and while I was at it I put a stronger spring on the shooter rod. After a couple of games, the balls started to jump off the track on the shooter lane and get stuck between the lane and the side of the game. I may be missing a part in that area. The manual
doesn't show a good breakdown of the parts in that area. I had planned on putting this game on location in the next couple of days but it appears that is going to be delayed till I figure this out.
============================================+=====================================
Week of 10/17
Shaq Attaq
I had the game at the White Rose Gameroom show to see if any problems cropped up with it before I put it out on a location and the power on restart issue returned. Luckily there were a couple of people there that had fought the issue before. The two suggestions were to replace C20 and C21 and to upgrade the ROMS to a version higher than 1.5. I replaced the caps and the problem cleared up. The High voltage kits went off backorder and I order a few and installed one and new caps in the High Voltage section. The install took some time but the game came up the first try and no resistors burned up so I am calling it fixed.
Super Mario Brothers Mushroom World
One flipper hung up at the gameroom show. One of the helpful Pinheads tore into it and found that the coil
sleve was bad and that the E clip was missing on the flipper. Which annoyed me as the person I bought the game from told me that he had gone through it and replaced all the wear parts. But with a new coil sleeve and the game was working again.
Skee Ball
There was an event at the location and as usual the Skee balls got vandalized. Someone tore one of the side nets on the lane and pulled the rubber bumpers off thewhite rings. There is Lexan on the front, top and side of the nets to keep this from happening but it appears that someone crawled under the front Lexan and ripped the nets. I have no idea why but what I do know is that the nets are no longer available, so I am admitting defeat and looking for something to replace the Skee Balls with. They don't earn enough at this location to warrant buying new lanes at $6000 a piece.
Getaway
The left flipper was sticking in the up position. I pulled the flipper apart and found that the coil sleeve was worn but stuck in the coil. I replaced the coil and rebuilt the flipper. After that the fuse for the flipper would blow if you held the flipper on for more than a second or two. After many hours of troubleshooting and part swapping, I found that the new coil had a shorted diode on it. While working on the game I noticed that it was due for a good cleaning. So, I tore into that and replaced all the rubbers and burnt bulbs. I need to put an order in for some spare bulbs as I have used over a hundred standard 44/47's and at least twenty 63's in the past three weeks.
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Week of 9/22
Shaq Attaq
The work continues on this game. It is almost back together. I put another parts order in that should take care of everything on the Playfield. The only other issue is the power supply resistor situation. I had planned on ordering a rebuild kit to repair the high voltage section but the place I usually buy those parts from is out of stock on the kit. I replaced all of the coil sleeves on the game and was testing the coils without the ramps being in place. I found out that an upkicker will launch a pinball three feet into the air if there is not a ramp to redirect it.
Megatouch Evo
I was at the location doing collection and noticed that the Megatouch was turned off. I turned it on and it came up with an error. I did the reseating routine but that rarely fixes anything on the Megatouches. So I
took the game along with me back to the shop. It turns out that it was a bad hard drive. The machine hasn't been updated in few years so, I ordered the upgrade kit for it. The last upgrade for this line of Megatouches is the 2011 upgrade. The kit came in and I started the upgrade. It is the first time that I have upgraded an Evo and it was a lot of work because I didn't have the oddball Centronix to IDE cable that you need to use the upgrade port. I then connected a long IDE cable to the IDE port on the system board to do the upgrade.
The port is not easy to get to on these. After connecting the CD drive and installing a new hard drive, the upgrade went rather smoothly. Just in case anyone is wondering the original hard drive is 40GB and is the 2.5 height. Failing miserably at finding one locally, I went with the 3.5" 60Gb that I had found. Of course the mounting holes don't line up but as tight of a fit the hard drive has in the bracket, I don't think it is going anywhere even without the screws. I've been letting the game run and testing it at my home and it is working fine. I will take it back out on location once my back has healed from moving it around the first
time and I can pry it loose from my family who seems addicted to the games on it.
Hot Shots
I took a new ticket dispenser along to replace the one that has been jamming in this game. While swapping the dispensers I found a connector that had bad crimp on the ground wire to the dispenser. I suspect that this was the real culprit in my ticket jams as it would explain why it always works fine when I look at but jams when I let it alone. I repaired the connector the best I could and installed the new dispenser and tested the game. The new dispenser runs a lot faster. I didn't bother putting the original back in to see if it runs faster now.
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Week of 9/15
Shaq Attaq
Work continues on this game, I bought it thinking it would be a straight forward repair and shop job but at this point I have stripped more parts off the playfield than what I have stripped off any other game. I have a huge pile of parts on the table next to the game. While cleaning them I realized that there are two different height posts and I have no clue where the taller posts go.
Slam A Winner
I found it with an out of order sign on it. I played a few games on it and the game was working fine. I suspect that someone moved the sign from a different game. I've suggested that they put the name of the game on the signs when they make them but no one ever does and I get to wonder if a game is really broken and try to find the one that is broken.
Hot Shots
I found it with a ticket jam. Maybe this is the game that had the sign on it originally. I cleared the jam and the game was working again. I am going to replace the ticket dispenser as it has had too many jams since it got to this location.
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Week of 9/8
Shaq Attack
The display board has a burnt resistor on it but is working fine. I replaced the resistor (120 Ohm) and heeding a warning from the friend I got the game from mounted the resistor up off the board. I turned the game on and watched the resistor go up in smoke an actually burst into flame. It was the largest flame I've ever seen from an electronic part failure. But on the bright side the game is still working. I think I am going to have to replace a lot of parts in that circuit to clear this one up. I replaced three Mosfets that were missing and two missing resistors. Powered it up and all but one worked, I pulled the board off and repaired some traces that were damaged and now all the coils are working properly. I continue to strip the playfield on this game. There is some sort of damage to the paint and it is starting to peel up so I am putting Mylar
down over the damage to hold the paint on. It isn't how I normally handle playfield repairs but in this case, I don't see any other alternative. The playfield needs replaced so I will do the Mylar repair to keep the game playable and watch for a playfield for it.
Sticker Machine
The location called and said that one column isn't vending. I got to the location and found the missing weight, it was at the bottom of the column with the stickers on top of it. I'm not sure how I did that, but it had to have been me. Moved the weight to the top of the stickers and it worked fine.
Gravity Hill
The location called and said that the game wasn't accepting quarters. I got there and found that some of the coin wiring had gotten tangled into the coin mech. I had moved the game around earlier in the week so here again, it was probably my fault for this issue. I moved the wiring back to where it should be and the game worked fine.
Change Machine
I was doing my collection at a location and found the change machine sitting with the T handle out and unlocked. Surprisingly, it appears that no one took the any money out of the machine. At least not any bills. It looked like the right amount of quarters were there but I didn't actually count them. I will when I have some time just to verify that the right amount is still in the machine.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Hot Shots
I found it with a ticket jam, I cleared the jam and the game worked fine.
Megatouch
The location called and said that the game had a blank screen after a power blackout. They said that they powered it off and on and it didn't come back on but the bill acceptor came on. I got to the location and found that the power supply was not putting out five or twelve volts. I powered it off and back on and it turned on and worked fine. I played several games on it and it continued to work fine. I should probably pick up a spare supply for these as I don't have any spares.
Drill O Matic
The location called and said that the game was dispensing tickets nonstop so they unplugged it. I got the location and found that the game was rebooting constantly and dispensing tickets nonstop. I did the standard connector reseat and the game went back to working fine.
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Week of 9/1
Pool Tables
The location called and said that both tables at the location were not returning the cue balls. I found that both tables seemed to be working fine. One did have the cueball trapped and the other was in the return. I cleaned the tracks and magnet area and ran the balls through several times and both tables always returned the cueball just as it should. I did adjust the one table that appeared to be slightly out of adjustment. I realized that I didn't have any spare parts for these tables so I ordered a new magnet, some rails, one brand name cueball and one generic cueball. When they came in, I did some informal testing with the cueballs and the magnet. I set the balls beside each other and slowly moved the magnet towards the balls, I found that the brand name one would react to the magnet about 1 inch further away than the generic. I was surprised that there was that much difference.
Game Deliveries
I took the Hot Shots to the location. I thought I had figured out how to arrange everything but once I put all the games in place I realized that you couldn't get into the driving games easily, so I had to rearrange to get everything to fit and be useable. It was a like a game of Tetris with 400 lb. blocks. I got done with the rearranging and powered up Hot Shots and it wouldn't dispense tickets nor even acknowledge a ticket dispenser was attached no matter how the settings were configured. The dispenser worked fine in test mode. I spent almost 2 hours working on it before I caught on to a cool yet annoying feature in the software. It seems that if the game detects an error with the dispenser, it disables the dispenser and eliminates all references to the dispenser from the game. The ticket animations along with any mention of how many tickets you won just disappear. It's nice that the game does that and keeps on running but
without knowing that troubleshooting becomes a nightmare. So, I cleared up the ticket jam and the game worked fine after that.
Sticker Machine
I dropped this machine off thinking it would be a somewhat quick and easy delivery. It would have been but I couldn't locate one of the weights for the columns. I spent a long time looking for the weight and couldn't find it. I improvised and put some heavy small parts on the top of the stack to keep the machine running.
Gravity Hill
Refilled the gumball dispenser in it. I didn't drop any gumballs for a change.
Hot Shots
I finally got the game working perfectly. I've played it enough that my hand is sore and it is actually a lot of fun to play. Which usually means that it won't earn much on location. I found that I needed a 1/4 lock for it. Even with the right sized lock there was more play than I liked in the ticket drawer. I looked at some of the games I have in the shop that have the same sort of ticket drawer and found that they all had the play. For most locations, it wouldn't be an issue but where this game is going, it would be an issue and someone would eventually get a finger or something stuck in it. I took a piece of Aluminum and added a bracket to the rear of the ticket dispenser that cleared up the play. It makes the drawer difficult to pull out but I will put
up with that.
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Week of 8/25
Game Delivery
I dropped off a multigame at a location. While I was there, they mentioned that the Gravity Hill wasn't dispensing gumballs.
Gravity Hill
I took a quick look at it and it was all but out of gumballs. I pushed the few that were left over to the dispenser and told the location that I would be back with more gumballs. I don't keep the boxes of gumballs in stock as I don't use them often enough to keep them from going stale.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Jurassic Park 3
I found a coin jam in it, I dug a redemption ticket out of the coin slot and ran some quarters through it and it was fine.
Shaq Attaq
I just picked this up and I started to work on it. Overall the game works, it boots and somewhat plays but several coils don't fire. It blows the coil fuse if you use the right flipper and the left flipper has been had all the wiring cucut. =================================================================================================================================================
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Week of 8/11
Tokyo Drift
I found it with an out of order sign on it, the location said that the kids told them it would put up an error message and reboot. I spent a while going through all the tests I could find and viewing the logs and I found no errors anywhere. I played several games on it and it worked fine, so I pulled the sign off of the game. I'm
guessing maybe some sort of monitor issue is happening but until I see it happen, I am only guessing so I will wait and see what happens with it.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls into the proper lane and as a bonus I found two quarters in the coin return. I used them to test out the games.
Smokin Token
It had an ugly coin jam. I discovered that I seem to be missing one of the keys to the upper door. So, I had to clear the jam from the outside of the game. It took a long time to do and I suspect that the ticket that started the jam is still in the coin mech somewhere. But the game was working again and hopefully I will find the key before I need back in again.
Western Train
One of the motors was stopped again. I got it working but I need to replace it.
Corvette Pinball
I found that the fuse for the flipper was blown, I replaced the fuse and it worked fine again. I spent a while looking for a reason that it would have blown the fuse and couldn't find one. I am going to replace the flipper coil and see if that clears it up. Of course it is one that I don't have in stock so I will have to order one.
Road Trip
I found an out of order sign on it. The customer at the location said that it was taking money and not giving any credits. I tried the game and it worked fine for me. I also verified that the amount of money in the game matched what the counters said should be there. I also checked the log from the game and it didn't show anything unusual. I love the log feature on these games, it eliminates so many problems and arguments. I wish they all had this feature.
Hot Shots
I had some time so I continued to work on this one. The reason for the ticket dispenser not working is still a mystery. I haven't been able to locate any documentation whatsoever on the wiring to the ticket dispenser for this game. I continued to clean it and I am starting to reassemble it. It cleaned up nicely.
Corvette Pinball
I found that the upper left flipper wasn't working again. There was an event going on at the location and I didn't have the time to do much else other than notice that it was dead. I will check it on my next trip.
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Week of 8/4
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Rowe Coin changer
The out of service light was on. Without even checking why, I pulled the bill acceptor out and checked it for tickets or candy wrappers. Much to my surprise there wasn't any in the acceptor. I then checked the error code and it was for a hopper issue. I found one of the hoppers was bound up and the quarters were jammed together. I emptied them out and the hopper spun freely but the agitator is chewed up. I need to find a replacement part for it but for now the changer is working again.
Air Hockey
I cleaned some sort of sticky residue off the playing surface.
Drill O Matic
It was doing the perpetual reset again. I opened it up and found that the power connector was vibrated off the board by a 1/4 inch again. I reseated it and the game really started acting oddly. I spent a while reseating connectors and the game still wasn't working. I was making the plans on what I was going to
do with the game (the plan involved dumpsters and stripping parts) when the game started to work normally
again. I don't know why the fourth reseat of a cable is any different than the first but the game is working again.
Big Bug Zapper
I found it with a coin jam. I pulled the coin mech out and found that there was one of the screws for the coin mech mounts jammed into the hole the mechs weren't missing any so it had to have been there
since I owned it. It took a while to pull it out as the screw is slightly larger than the hole it was in. I put it all back together and it worked fine again.
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7/28
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Tic Tac Toe
I finally finished this one and delivered the game to the location.
Flamin Finger
I did the final collection before moving the game out of the location and found it had little money in it. The employee at the location mentioned that a child had stuffed coins into the bill acceptor and that it
wasn't taking bills. Then complained about how little the game brought in.
Midway Hot Shots
I picked this up a while back and I finally got some time to work on it to try it out on location. Several lights were out on the game, I started to replace the bulbs as they were blackened and obviously bad. But the new bulbs weren't working either. I found cracked solder joints on every light board that was on the top side of the playfield. I pulled all the boards and soldered the cracked joints and now the lights are working again. The ticket dispenser wasn't working, so I took a look into that. The wiring is cut up and spliced. The
schematics and wiring diagrams are no help as they don't show any part of the ticket dispenser setup. I spent a while working on it and I found the line that pulses when the tickets should be dispensed but I can't get that to translate into tickets actually dispensing.
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7/21
Slam A Winner
I found it with an out of order sign and found that it wasn't accepting quarters. I found and removed a Golden Dollar from the coin mech and it worked fine after that. Once again I tried to get the dollar coin into the slot and I wasn't able to. I don't know how the kids get them into the slots.
Corvette Pinball
The display driver board arrived. I installed it
and the game is fully working once again.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into proper lane.
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Week
of 7/14
Skee Ball
One lane wasn't counting the balls or dispensing tickets. I found that the ball count switch was broken. I didn't have any with me but on the next trip to the location I replaced it. It took a while to get the switch bent just right that it would count the balls but not bounce and double count. The adjustment on the mechanical switches on these games always takes some time to get right. Since I was already working on the Skee Balls I also replaced the rubber bumpers on the score rings. It took a while to do and I'm not sure if it made a difference or not. But I felt better knowing that the metal studs weren't hitting the balls anymore. While I was in the score area, I cleaned the rings and cork.
I also moved four balls back into the proper lanes this trip to the location.
Corvette Pinball
THe display was blank but the game was playing fine. I swapped in a new display and it was still blank so that means the problem is on the display board I found that I could get a new one for around $100 so I ordered one. I don't have the time right now to repair the old one so while this is the more expensive route, it saves me a lot of time.
Tic Tac Toe
I went to replace one of the prize motors for the top prize row. It should have been an easy task at the motors are held in by two screws. But the one screw is placed where you can't get a screwdriver
on it. The only way to get at the screw is to take the top of the game off. After pulling the top of the game off, the screw is easy to access. I replaced the motor and put the game back together. I still need to test the game.
Skee Ball
Moved eleven balls back into the proper lanes.
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Week of 7/7
Skee Ball
Moved two balls back into the proper lanes.
Cyclone
I found a coin jam it was due to a Canadian Quarter again. Maybe the Canadians vacation in PA for the summer?
Jurassic Park III
I found it with an out of order sign on it and the guns were crossed yet again. I was surprised when I pulled out one gun and found that the gun was broken in half. It was broken right where the sensor is in the gun. I had replaced this gun just a few weeks back. I didn't have any spare guns with me but I had some non-working guns in the truck. I was able to piece together a working gun from all the parts. I did discover one interesting fact that the newer guns are a lot different from the older style, almost everything inside of them have been changed.
Game Sale
I had a person stopping in to purchase a game. I had tested the game and then moved it to the front of the storage area to make it easy to move out. When the buyer arrived we powered up the game and the monitor didn't power up. I spent a few minutes reseating the connectors and it powered up and continued to work. We turned it off and on several times and it didn't happen again. I'm assuming that I shook something loose while moving it around the storage area. What was amazing to me was that the person still bought the game after that.
Air Hockey
I replaced the lock on it. I need to invest in a set of matching security locks in different sizes. It will save me time.
Enclosed Trailer
After what seems like years of shopping, I put a deposit down on a trailer for hauling the equipment around. I was ready to order a new one when a fellow operator offered me his at a fair price.
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Week of 6/30
Cyclone
There was a coin jam caused by a Canadian quarter on one of the stations.
Skee Ball
I had some more time on this visit so I looked into what was hanging the balls up on the one Skee Ball lane. It took around an hour to tear all the parts off and find what was causing the ball hang-up. I found an oversize kids ring laying between the track and the side of the game. The ring was just big enough not to fall through. I pulled it out and spent more time reassembling the lane. While reassembling the lane, I noticed that the plastic I replaced a few months ago was already cracked.
Air Hockey
I went to open it and found that the key for it was missing from the location. I dug a spare out from my spares collection but I need to change the lock on the game now as there is a key for it floating around.
Skee Ball
Moved two balls back into proper lane and found that some were stuck inside of one of the other lanes. I had hoped that they were the missing balls but there are still at least three missing from the location. I was short on time so I picked up the front of the lane and shook it to free up the balls. There was probably something laying on the ball tracks as the shaking routine worked.
Air Hockey
I found it with no mallets and no puck. I spent a while searching for the missing puck and eventually found it behind one of the games that is bolted to the wall so I was going to swap in a new puck but I found a
new puck in one of the utility rooms along with the mallets. Put them back on the table and it worked fine. I have no idea what happened or why.
Cyclone
I installed one control panel as the old one had holes punched into the corners. It isn't a hard job but getting the screws inside of the control panel takes a lot of patience and work. I put it all back together, powered it up and got garbage on the displays for that station. I assumed that I just got the connectors swapped as they are keyed the same and found that it wouldn't even power up with them in the other positions. I swapped the connectors for the stations and found that it stayed at that station, so I pulled a board from another station and with the other board it was still displaying garbage. I went to pull the board for the station that was bad to put into another station and realized that I had to pull the control panel off again due to the standoffs I had put into the wrong place on the board. So I put the display board into another station and it worked fine. I put the other station's board back into the station that was displaying garbage and it worked fine too. So I assume that I had a wire pinched or too close to the neon. I put it all back together and it continued to work fine.
Road Trip
I found it powered off and moved out of the normal position. I pulled it out and found that the power cord was knocked loose from the game. I plugged it back in and it worked fine.
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Week of 6/23
Slam a Winner
The Plexiglas part came in just a few days after I ordered it. I was wrong about the shipping charges it was only around $50 which was a nice surprise. It was rolled up into a pretty tight loop. I thought I had a good grip on it but when I cut the straps, it popped almost flat and flew a couple of feet. I had to check if I still had all of my fingers. I ran into a problem when I went to install it, the holes in the Plexiglas didn't line up at all. This game had four holes on each side and the replacement Plexiglas had only three per side. The part I
removed was the same way and it looked like someone had drilled new holes for the four screws. This had to have been done at the factory as I bought this game new and have never replaced the Plexiglas on it. I didn't have a drill so I used a soldering iron to melt through the Plexiglas to make the screw holes. It worked well. Other than the having to make holes in the Plexiglas it wasn't too bad to replace it. The process probably would have gone much better with two people to move the Plexiglas around but I managed it on my own and didn't scratch up the new Plexiglas at all. I'll leave that for the patrons of the location.
Touchtunes Jukebox
I stopped at the location to collect and found the jukebox was locked up. After rebooting it, it would only go into a debug mode. Touchtunes technical support walked me through some troubleshooting and determined that it was probably the computer and suggested reseating the cable inside of it. The computer inside of this jukebox was no longer under warranty and the only replacement option was an upgrade kit for $1000. So
I pulled the computer and took it back to the shop. I tore it apart and reseated everything I could find but the symptoms didn't change. I noticed that the hard drive was a standard IDE laptop drive so I pulled a drive from an old laptop put it in and it tried to boot into Windows. I called Touchtunes back and they suggested that it was probably just a bad drive. I ordered a new drive (just under $150 with shipping) installed it and it
started to boot into the Touchtunes OS but stopped loading when it started to check for devices in the jukebox. I took it back to the location, installed it and it fired back up. I had to go through a few setup screens and it took a long time but eventually, I had a working Jukebox again.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
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Week of 6/16
Skee Ball
I found that one lane had been moved out of position by six inches or so. That is usually a warning that something bad had happened to the game but other than the standard moving 4 balls back to the proper lanes, the games seemed fine. I am still missing a number of balls from them and need to order some
more replacements.
Air Hockey
I found it with an Out of Order sign on it again. I checked the puck return and the screws had pulled out again. I really don't know why or how as there shouldn't be that much force on the screws. I ran to a local store and picked up some larger sheet metal screws and patched it back together. I stopped at the hardware store and picked up one box of every diameter rivet they had in stock. Hopefully I will get one that fits. One issue I am going to have is that one of rivets was pulled out and is still attached to a part that I don't have good access to. I can't get a drill in that area to drill out the bad rivet, so I need to come up with some way of getting it out.
Slam A Winner
I found it with a five inch crack in the clear Plexiglas front. The crack had been pulled apart and looked like someone was trying to stick their hand into it. There is no chance of repairing the Plexiglas, so I turned the
game off and turned it around so no one would get hurt on the sharp edges. I called and ordered a new one, $250 + oversize shipping charges. I haven't seen the shipping charges yet but it is safe to assume in the $150 range. Hopefully someone knows who did the damage so I have some chance of recovering the money. With the standard split, it will take 2000 games to cover the cost for the part.
Crusin World
It would start to boot but get past the chip check screen and then reboot again. Reseating of the Jamma connector cleared it up. It had been sitting unused for a few months and moved around so needing a
connector reseat isn't a complete surprise.
Golden Tee Complete
I pulled the monitor chassis out. I was going to try to repair it myself but looking over my schedule for the next couple of weeks, I think sending it out for repair will make more sense as I don't really have the time to deal with it and I want to get it repaired and either back out on location or sold soon.
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Week of 6/9
Auction
I drove down to Philadelphia to attend an auction. Buying from auctions isn't my first choice as auctions are a great place to unload your problem equipment onto someone else. But as difficult as decent equipment is to find these days it is worth the risk. Driving a couple of hours for an auction also starts up the debate of what vehicle to take. The truck I use to deliver games is fine for local use but long distance use is questionable. In the past, I rented a trailer and pulled it with my non shop truck but apparently the type of trailers I was renting are no longer available. So that leaves rent a box truck, take my shop truck or take my non shop truck that can only haul one game. I went with taking the shop truck and other than a mysterious puddle of antifreeze under it at one of the rest stops it did well. Luckily it wasn't hot enough to make driving without AC uncomfortable. I ended up buying one piece. I was looking for redemption equipment and there wasn't much too choose from up for auction. Including cranes, I think there was maybe six redemption games there.
Tic Tac Toe
I spent a while testing and cleaning this game. It turned out very nice and looks even better than I hoped it would. It plays well but needs one complete prize rod motor assembly. Other than the Prize rod and installing coin mechs this game is ready to go on location. I will call and order the parts on Monday.
Flamin Finger
I went to collect from this game and found the cashbox all but empty. I found a dime and some sort of sticky stuff jammed into the bill acceptor. I cleaned the acceptor and it was up and running again. The highlight of the visit was one of the customer's employees throwing a fit about how little the game earned, followed up by admitting he knew that it wasn't accepting money for weeks.
Pole Position Cockpit
I reattached the two cabinet halves with the wood and painted it, looks better than I had hoped. Still not perfect but passable. I hope to have this game completed this week. Only a little bit of work left on it.
Rowe Changer BC1
I picked this changer up a while ago with plans of converting it to use a newer bill acceptor but the location I had bought it for changed their minds and it has been sitting in my shop ever since. I was doing some shop cleaning and want to get it ready to sell. It had been working so I thought it would be a quick check but instead I found that it wasn't accepting bills, I went through the adjustments and had no luck. I then cleaned all the belts on it and ran through the adjustments and it is now working again. This model doesn't have a lot in common with the other Rowe change machines I have so it was a bit of learning experience for me.
Cyclone
Control Panel replacement. I went to install the panel and noticed that the holes weren't drilled for the bolts. Drilled some holes and put it back together. It looks much nicer than the worn out panel it replaced. But it took a lot longer to install than what I had planned on.
Multigame
I was moving this one around in the shop and managed to pull the plug off the power cord. Apparently someone didn't bother using the strain relief when they put it together. I replaced the plug and used the strain relief.
Monitor Rejuvenation
A friend called me and was describing an odd problem he was having with a monitor of his. I took my picture tube tester over to check out the tube. The tube kept showing a short for one color but the problem was that it wasn't the color he was having an issue with, we ran the clean shorts process several times but it wouldn't clear. I was getting nervous about destroying his tube, so we stopped. That was the first time I ran into that sort of an issue with a tube, I don't know if the tester was giving us a false reading or if the tube was really bad. When we put it back together the picture didn't look any worse or better.
Jackpot Crossing
I found a ticket jam on this one, cleared the jam and it was working once again. I need to get another ticket dispenser for this game as it is jamming way more often than it should be.
Change machine
I found a big wad of spit or something in the coin cup one of the changers, I cleaned it thoroughly
while wondering why people do this sort of thing.
Skee Ball
I found the one lane with no displays lit and only the Game over light on. I opened up the door and found a huge coin jam in it. I pulled out probably close to five dollars in quarters before I could get to what
had started the jam. There was a dime, a nickel, a penny, a ticket and a chunk of plastic all in the coin
area. After getting all the stuff out of the coin mech and freeing up the coin switch the game fired up. While I was working on this mess the coin return button fell off. Which was a surprise as I had epoxied them on a while back. I pulled the door off the game and pounded the coin return button back into place. They are Usually just pressed into place but this location they don't stay pressed in very long so I will need to pick up some more epoxy for my next visit. After spending a long time dealing with the problems, I noticed
that there was only six balls in the lane, I pulled some from the other lanes to get it back the normal number of twelve and realized that even more balls were missing. There are now six balls missing. I guess that will teach me about replacing them. I need to order some more in as at this rate I won't have enough left to fill a lane.
Cyclone
I found this one with an out of order sign on it. It was just a ticket jam. I cleared it up and it worked fine.
Air Hockey
I found this one with an out of order sign on it. One of the screws holding part of the puck return had worked loose. I replaced the screw. I need to find some rivets in the right size so I don't need the screws
anymore.
Sportstation
I found a coin jam on one of the slots. It was caused by a penny and a nicked being wedged into the slot.
Slam A Winner
I found a ticket jam on this one too. It looked like someone tried to force the tickets back into the
dispenser. I cleared the jam and it worked fine once again.
Jackpot Crossing
I had added tickets to this game as they were low. On my way out of the location, I saw that the ticket owed display showed tickets being owed. I opened up the game and found that there was a ticket jam due to the tickets tearing at the perforation. Fed the tickets into the dispenser and it worked fine.
Jurassic Park III
I found this one with a coin jam. I had to tear the coin chutes apart to clean it out. It appeared to be caused by a part of a ticket and a few pennies.
Parts order
I had ordered some replacement rubber parts from a seller on Ebay for the Skee ball lanes to replace the parts that were ripped off the game last week. It turns out that they weren't exactly the same part. What I ended up with is the rubber bumper end off of pool sticks with a piece of wire through them. I think they will work but I'm not happy about paying ten or twenty times the going rate for a part when it is just a cheap part being reused for something else.
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Week of 6/2
Skee Ball
Game was only giving eight balls per game. The other lanes all had the right number of balls in them.
Eventually I figured out that four balls were missing from the game. I pulled out the lanes and checked all
the normal places that they end up but no luck finding the missing balls. I will need to order in some replacements. I had replaced all of the balls at this location a few weeks back, it appears that someone
noticed.
Tokyo Drift
After cleaning the screen on a nearby game, it became pretty obvious that the screens on this game also needed cleaned. It is a lot more work than it should be on these sit down games, you have to pull the dashboard, prop it up somehow and pull the glass out. It took me almost an hour to do both games but it was worth it, the screens look much better. When I collected at the location later in the week I was surprised to see that earnings had jumped up on the games. I'll keep on thinking that it was the monitor cleaning that helped and not that another Fast and Furious movie has been heavily advertised lately.
Pole Position cockpit
I continued to work on this one and I was able to play a game on it but there is much work to be done.
I just noticed that the game really isn’t supposed to come apart into two parts and that someone cut it apart. I took some measurements and I plan on patching it together with some ¾ plywood. I admit that it isn't the best solution but it should work and once it is painted, it won't be that obvious to most people.
Slam A Winner
I noticed several small cracks along the bottom of the Plexiglas around the game. I need to order
in a new part for when the cracks grow long enough to be a problem.
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Week of 5/26
Skee Ball
Moved twelve balls back into the proper lanes. Cleaned more sticky stuff off the one lane.
Cyclone
Pulled a nickel out of one of the coin slots.
Air Hockey
Replaced the broken rivet, I need to pick up some more of them in the right size.
Sportstation
I pulled a Canadian dime out of the coin mech.
Corvette Pinball
It was displaying the "all settings restored to factory default message". I ran to a nearby store for some batters and replaced the batteries. It was odd as the batteries were less than a year old and usually they don't die that quick in the games. Usually, they run long enough to leak all over the boards before you see any error message about the batteries.
Megatouch
I gave up and pulled it off the location. It never really earned much at the location and with the problems it has been having lately, it isn't worth the time to keep repairing it.
Golden Tee
I pulled this one off location due to a bad monitor. It wasn't earning well enough to justify the time to
repair and leave on the same location.
Crane
Someone managed to break off one of the metal castings that stop the coin return lever. It is part of the main housing so I will have to replace the entire coin mech. In the meantime I sanded the broken part
smooth.
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Week of 5/19
Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes. It looked like someone had held another picnic on a couple of the lanes. There was sticky handprints everywhere, trash and some sort of sugary stuff all of over the lanes. I swept them up and scrubbed the lanes down. They still need a better cleaning but they did look better. Someone continued pulling up the pin striping. One of the lane plastics was badly cracked.
It was one of the ones under the metal parts and it looked like it broke when someone shook the frame for the nets.
Jurassic Park 3
Installed the new gun. Took a few extra minutes and cleaned up the monitor and the glass. It really made a difference on how the screen looked. Now I need to do the rest of the games in the location as I now see that they need done.
Megatouch
While I was working on the gun game, I saw a bunch of kids playing the Megatouch. I checked after they left and found that it was stuck in some sort of time based free play. I have no idea on how it got into the mode but I spent half an hour checking various options to get it turned off. Eventually I found the
right combination of settings that cleared it. I don't remember making any setting changes to this game, but maybe I did and triggered the mode or maybe someone found some sort of hidden feature. Anyway this may explain why it has made nothing for a few weeks. I had been blaming the damaged touch screen but I think I am going to leave it on location for a few weeks just to see if it suddenly makes any money.
Cyclone
I found it unplugged. I plugged it back in and played a few games on it and it worked fine for me.
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Week of 5/12
Skee Ball
It looked like someone had a picnic on the games, I swept them off the best I could but I need to bring something along to clean up all the stains that were all over the lanes. I moved two balls back into the proper lanes. While doing that, I noticed that the one lane seemed sticky and found what appeared to be a soda spill down the side of the game. I opened up the cash box and found about 3 inches of soda in it. What a huge mess. I spent a long while cleaning that up the best I could. I'm hoping that there isn't any serious damage. I found one of the nets was ripped up and the zip ties I had securing them laying under the game. Apparently the nets have been on back order for a while now. It didn't sound like I may ever recieve new nets so, I repaired the net the best I could with zip ties. Someone was also working on peeling the pin striping off the lane plastics again.
Air Hockey
Found the puck return chute was broken loose. I put it back on with a sheet metal screw. I think that will hold until I return with the rivet gun and fix it the right way.
Sportstation
I found a bunch of pennies jamming one of the coin slots and one of the wires to the coin switch was broken. I did the quick fix of wrapping the wire around the terminal and will fix it the right way on my next visit. There were a lot of games broken at the location and I was short on time.
Jackpot Crossing
I found it with an Out of Order sign on it. It had a ticket jam that was easily cleared up.
Jurassic Park 3
The gun I repaired last week was broken again. I have a new one on the way so I didn't waste any time looking at the old one.
Sonic and Tales
This one was out of tickets, I reloaded it and it was back up and running.
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Week of 5/5/2013
Skee Ball
Moved two new balls back into proper lanes.
Air Hockey
I found it with an out of order sign on it. In one of the scoring chutes, I found two pucks wedged behind a nice folded origami start like thing. The score area was dented up pretty good. Someone was kicking it. The location has cameras that should have caught them in action so I will follow up with that and see if we can catch the person and charge them for the new replacement door.
Capsule Express
I continued working on this one at the shop. I replaced a couple of sensors and it didn't make difference in how the game played. I don't know if it was worth the effort or not but at least I know that all the sensors are working. I need to find a bulb, replace a couple of locks and do some cleaning and this one will be ready to go out on location. So far there hasn't been many parts that I had to pull of the parts game. There really isn't too much left that is useable on the parts game.
Pole Position 2 Cockpit
I had some free time so I was looking in the shop for a game to work on. I dug out a Pole Position
2 that I have had laying around for a few years. It was filthy and had the barn smell to it. I cleaned it up but the smell lingered. I stripped the game down to the wood, did some sanding on the bad parts and painted the inside of the cabinet with sealer. It seems to have gotten rid of the smell. Now all I smell is the fresh paint smell. I'm giving it a few days to dry completely before I start putting it back together.
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Week of 4/28/2013
Skee Ball
I swapped in the new balls, it was really obvious how bad the old ones were getting when I had them all out of the games. I'd like to keep the real wood balls but they are getting too worn and are at the point where they are probably causing wear to the cork on the lanes.
Slam a Winner
I found a Golden Dollar coin jammed into the coin mech with a few quarters behind it. I was able to dig the dollar out without any serious surgery to the coin mech for a nice change of pace.
Parts order
I found replacement balls that could be used in the Skee ball machines for sale at a great price, so I ordered a few dozen of them.
Big Bug Zapper
When on location I noticed that the same bulb that I worked on last week was out. I think I will buy some new sockets someday and fix it. I really didn't feel like messing with it again as I was running out of time due to other repairs that I had to make at the location.
Jurassic Park 3
The player one gun was dead. It looked like someone had really beat it around as there were stress marks in the plastic from being flexed. I pulled it apart and did the standard reseat routine and it still was not working. I pulled the board out of the gun and put it back in and it started working again. Put it all back together and it continued to work. But I suspect that I will be replacing the gun very soon. This game is on my "time to be pulled from the location as soon as I find something to replace it with" list so I am not in a hurry to buy parts for it.
Jackpot Crossing
I found a ticket jam, cleared the jam and the game worked fine.
Air Hockey
I found that the puck was missing for it, I looked around and moved some games searching for it and couldn't locate. I keep some spare pucks at the location so I was going to put one of the spares in the game
I worked on a few other games at the location and realized when I got back to the shop that I had forgotten to replace the puck. Luckily the location knows where the spares pucks are stored.
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Week of 4/21/2013
Big Bug Zapper
One of the black lights was out. so I pulled the side off and reseated it and the bulb lit up right away. I turned the game on and off a few times and the bulb lit up every time. It took me forty minutes to get the side panel back on.
Capsule Express
I started swapping parts from the very broken one to the not so broken one. I spent several hours and I am almost done. After I got all of the mechanical issues and motors straightened out, I put it into test mode and found a couple of sensors that aren't working. It is a good thing that I have a second game that I am using for parts as the one I picked up needed a lot of parts and definitely wouldn't be worth the cost of the new parts (if they are even available). I went to replace the bulbs on it and found some of the oddball sized tubes. The first try at finding something close failed so I need to try a different hardware store and play the "they don't make bulbs in that size" game with that store. I love being told that they don't make something that I am holding and watching the reaction as the store employee realizes that maybe they don't know everything.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Drill O Matic
I pulled a ticket out of the coin mech on this one.
Sonic and Tales
There was a ticket jam, removed the jam and the game worked fine.
Ticket Order
I ran up to National Ticket to pick up my order of custom tickets. I made great time. I took me three and a half hours round trip.
Megatouch
When testing the game I found a dead spot in the touch screen. It is only about an inch or so. This one is interesting because there is actually a mark in the touchscreen where you can see it was damaged. I calibrated the game and got it useable but I will be pulling this one off location soon as it isn't worth repairing.
Auction
I attended a game auction and picked up a lot of used parts and one semi working game. I bought the game to use as parts to repair one that has been sitting in the shop for a while. Between the two of them I should be able to get a decent working game. I will have to buy a couple of parts as both of them have the same motors bad on them.
Goldeneye Pinball
I don't know what is going on this one. I had some free time so I worked on it again, I sanded the divots out of the ball trough then cleaned and polished the trough. I put it into test and ran the balls through countless times and it seemed fine. I put it back together and on the third game the balls hung in the trough. I took the game apart at that point and saw the reason for the hang up was that one ball was sticking against the top of the trough. The ball had become magnetized. Which isn't that surprising with how the magnets get used on this game. I replaced the ball and the trough hang-up problem seemed cured. I then noticed that the magnetic ball save feature wasn't working. I found a bad fuse fairly quickly but replacing the fuse didn't clear the problem. I put into test mode and measured at the magnet board and got the right voltages when the magnet was on. I was tracing the wires when the magnet test mode was still running and it started to work after I pushed on several connectors and solder joints. So it is working and I know that there is a bad connection somewhere but since it is working now, I can't find where the loose connection is at. Perhaps when it breaks again, I will find it.
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Week of 4/14/2013
Drill O Matic
There was a coin jam, I dug out 3 pennies and a nickel that had been wedged into the coin mech. I really need to buy a spare coin mech in this style as I don't have a spare and sooner or later my luck with tearing these apart to get out jams is going to run out and I will need to replace it.
Skee Ball
I dug a couple of pennies out of the coin mech on one lane.
Smokin Token
I found a nickel jammed into the coin mech on this one.
Air Hockey
I found a ticket wedged into the coin slot.
Skee Ball
Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.
Big Bug Zapper
I finally got this to the location. It took me over three hours to get it installed and set up. I had to move several games around to create a suitable space for the game. This was the first time that I had the game completely assembled and it is huge! It didn't seem that big when it was in the shop but when assembled on location it takes up a lot of room. One black light tube didn't light up but I was out of time, so I will take care of it next visit to the location.
Crane machine
I found one of the caps at the bottom of the crane hanging on by one loose screw. I pulled the broken wood away and screwed it back together using different holes to hold it on. Someone must have really kicked it to pull 3 half in screws out of the particle board on the bottom of the crane.
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Week of 4/7/2013
Game sale
I sold off three games to another operator. The games were worth more than what I sold them for but getting them out of the way is worth something. The sale went smoothly and helping them load the games up on a truck reminded me of why a lift gate on your truck is a good idea. It also reminded me why a mini pickup is a bad idea to pick up three games.
Pool Table
The cue ball was getting trapped again. Of course the customer tried the cue ball from another table and that one also got trapped. I adjusted the magnet and ran the ball through many times and it seemed fine. I'm not sure why this table is having problems; perhaps I should buy a new magnet for the table. Perhaps the location constant relocation of the table has something to do with it.
Hot Stuff Crane
The bill acceptor wasn't working. I checked it and it had no power or error codes. I reseated the cables and it fired back up and worked fine. I powered the crane on and off several times and the acceptor continued to work fine.
Tokyo Drift
I found one of the Tokyo Drifts unplugged. I plugged it back in and played several games on it and it worked fine. I also played several games on the other one to verify that someone didn't get the wrong machine and it also worked fine.
Jackpot Crossing
Another ticket jam, I adjusted the dispenser to push the tickets out a bit further to see if that helps at all.
Super Rock and Bowl
I was getting games ready to sell off and took a look at this one. I found that it had several quarters jammed in the coin mech and putting one quarter in would push one quarter out but if you banged on the game hard enough it would give out a free game. I cleared the coin jam and adjusted the coin switch. I ran about $20 in quarters through it and it didn't jam or give away any free games. I got some pictures of it and it is ready to sell.
Shop cleaning
I spent a while cleaning and organizing around the shop. I got a few games photographed and ready to sell. I'm out of space so I need to sell some games off to free up some space.
Air Hockey
I found it with the mallets missing. Which usually means that something is wrong with it; I dug a redemption ticket out of one of the coin slots. I found the mallets and tested the game and it worked fine.
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Week of 3/31/2013
Big Bug Zapper
Spent a while working on this one and it is mostly ready to go out on location. I'll be glad to finally get this one out of my way.
Skee Ball
I moved two balls back into the proper lanes.
Prize order
I placed an order for some prizes. It ended up being a good sized order. When the box came arrived it was close to eighty pounds of prizes. I spent a few hours getting them priced and packaged to go into the redemption counters and games.
Road trip
I went along on a road trip to take a look at some games a fellow operator had for sale. I didn't buy anything for the route but my friend bought a couple of games for his arcade.
Ticket order
I placed an order for another batch of tickets for a location. They are going to take around a month to be completed.
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Week of 3/24/2013
Skee Ball
Moved three balls back into the proper lanes
Corvette Pinball
The upper flipper wasn't working, the fuse that was listed on the chart for the flipper was fine, I spent a while troubleshooting but eventually decided that it was the Fliptronics board that was bad. I ran back to the shop and pulled one out of a working compatible game. I swapped it into the Corvette and the flippers worked fine. I took the original board back to the shop to work on. I noticed that a fuse that according to the fuse chart was for a flipper that the game didn't have was bad. I replaced the fuse and dropped it into the game and all of the flippers work fine. So I spent all that time troubleshooting and made an extra trip because the fuse chart was wrong.
Jackpot Crossing
There was a ticket jam but the ticket dispenser was dead and wouldn't do anything. Eventually I noticed that the two pin connector on the Ticket dispenser board was loose, I reseated it and then the ticket dispenser would work if I used the test button but the game would dispense any tickets. I rebooted the game and then it started working properly.
Location collection
I went to collect at one of my locations and found the place locked up and closed with a sign in the door saying that they will reopen April 8th. From what I could see, my games were still inside but I need to get my stuff out of there.
Getaway Pinball
I replaced the Dot Matrix Display in it, the display was doubled and garbled so it was time. Incidentally, I hadn't been following how expensive they have become. It cost me right around $200 for the display.
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Week of 3/17/2013
High Tops Basketball
I started working on this game to get it ready to go back out on location. I didn't notice it when I bought it but the clear cover on the score area was broken. I found out that they are $237 for a replacement. Now I am not sure if I want to put this game back out on location.
Big Bug Zapper
I called the manufacturer to order a couple of small parts for the game and found out that it is no longer supported and most of the parts that I was going to order are obsolete. Which was a surprise as the distributor I bought if from assured me that parts were still available. So, I have to repair what parts I do have and use them. A few more hours of work and this game will be ready for location. With the parts situation, it may be a short time on location as if anything breaks, I won't be able to repair it.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Sonic and Tales
I found it with an out of order sign on it. It turned out to be a ticket jam from the ticket deck adhesive strip not holding.
Time Crisis
The monitor chassis returned from the repair company and I spent some time installing it. I tried a couple of different ways to make the task easier but eventually gave up and pulled the monitor out. I tried to mount the monitor so there would be better access to the board but the way the cabinet is built I couldn't find a way. I installed the chassis and powered it up and got raster but no picture, I reseated the connection between the yoke board and the chassis and it had a picture once again. From moving this game around the shop, it is now in need of a good degausing. Now all I need to do is to figure out a way to do it.
Tron pinball
I noticed that a newer version of the software was available so I downloaded and installed it. The way that Stern handles these updates is great! It took only a few minutes to install the update. I spent more time changing the settings back to how I had them then it did to do perform the update. I spent a while "testing" the game to see the changes and I found several changes. I need to do more "testing" on this one.
Pharaoh Pinball
The left flippers weren't working. After going though the standard troubleshooting and not making any headway, I tapped on the relay on the driver board and the flippers started working again. I played a few games and then I noticed that the general illumination on the back box was out. Once again I was running the through the standard troubleshooting methods and not getting anywhere until I found a relay in the back box that controlled the lighting. I tapped on it and the lights started to work again. The intermittent back box lighting has been a constant issue on this game since I got it several years back and I just noticed the relay today. I need to check on other Williams games from this era as I don't remember seeing one before that controlled the lighting. Although I do know a lot of them can blink the lights in the back box so they probably do have them and I either forgot or didn't notice it before.
Satan's Hollow
The game would boot to a screen full of garbage but would eventually reset and play normally. I measured the voltages and found the 5 volt line to be set to 5.8 volts, so I adjusted the voltage down to 5.2 volts. I measured pin 13 on J4 (the Reset Not line) and it had less than a volt on it, I left the meter connected and let the game sit unit it booted. I checked the meter and there was now 5 volts on the line. As I was watching the meter I saw the voltage start to oscillate between 0 and 5 volts and the game rebooted every time the voltage dropped. I pulled the pin out of the connector and powered the game up and it booted and stayed running. The reset circuit looks fairly simple on the board but I didn't have the time to troubleshoot it and since the game is now working, I will check into some other time. The purpose of the circuit is to keep the game board from powering up until the 5 volts is truly 5 volts. In my informal testing of turning the game on and off about fifteen times, there was only one time that the game didn't power up properly and rebooting it fixed the problem.
Street Fighter Multigame
I getting this game ready to sell and the joysticks didn't match. I had put a non matching joystick on it years ago to see how it would look. I thought it looked fine but I heard some complaints about the joystick I bought and how it looked so I bought a set of matching sticks and put them on. The installation was straightforward and I got the connections right on the first try. I forget if I bought the competitions or ultimate’s but it really made a difference on how some of the games played.
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Week of 3/10/13
Tokyo Drift
I went to reload the computer and found out that the restore discs that I have are bad (probably from the exposure to sunlight in the back of my truck). I went to download a new set and found that you can no longer download the discs from Raw Thrills (but they will sell you a set). I couldn't reload the software so I took the computer back to the location to see if the computer worked and it didn't. Luckily, the second Tokyo Drift at the location had a set of restore discs in it and I used them to reload the game. After reloading the software, the game seemed to be working once again.
Drill O Matic
Coin Jam. there was something in the coin acceptor that fell out when I tapped on the acceptor. The acceptor worked fine after that.
Air Hockey
I found it with an out of order sign on it. When I started a game, no pucks were dispensed. I found two pucks stuck behind a wad of cotton or something like cotton at the one end. After pulling out the cotton and leaving only the single puck in the game it worked fine.
Cyclone
I found a ticket causing a coin jam on the one side.
Jurassic Park 3
I found it with an out of order sign on it. The only problem that I found was that someone had put the player 2 gun in the player 1 slot and vice versa. This has been happening a lot recently so I dug out a permanent marker and wrote player 1 and player 2 on the guns. I don't think people will actually read it but it may stop the kids from swapping the guns around.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes.
Spy Hunter
The parts came in and I rebuilt the power supply for it. I put into the game and was surprised to see that all of the voltages were correct when powered up. I plugged in the boards and the game didn't boot. I found out that under load the power supply was not putting out anywhere even close to the right voltages. I spent a while troubleshooting it and not making much headway, so I ordered the kit to replace the supply with a standard switching supply.
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Week of 3/3/13
Skee Ball
I moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.
I finally got some warning stickers made up and spent a while sticking them to the games at this location. I don't know if they will help or not but they have made a difference in the past at other locations. If it stops one person from damaging one game it will be worth the effort.
Prize Order
I put an order in from one the places I usually buy from but the order seems stuck in my shopping cart. I get to the confirmation page but I never get the email and the order still shows up in the shopping cart. I will call them and see what the issue is.
Spy Hunter
It would power up the Marquee and coin door lights but nothing else. The power supply was not putting out the 5 volts. The fuse was bad and popped again after I replaced it so I will order the parts to repair the MCR power supply.
Big Bug Zapper
I got back to working on this one. The first round of gluing was complete so I glued the control panel back down. I used the expanding Gorilla Glue stuff as it works great for this sort of situation where the wood is rough and there are small gaps. I clamped it down with some ratchet straps and let it dry.
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Week of 2/24/13
Drill O Matic
I found a large blob of what appeared to Crisco or some other sort of grease lying in front of the game. At least that is what I am telling myself it was. Anyhow I cleaned it up.
Corvette Pinball
I found a coin jam that was caused by a redemption ticket in the coin slot.
Skee Ball
I found one lane with an out of order sign on it, I'm assuming the fact that it had no balls at all in it may be the reason. I moved 12 balls back into the lane from other lanes and it worked well. I also noticed the big black mark on the lane plastic I had just replaced, apparently it didn't take them long to notice that there was a new part that was unbroken and got busy working on smashing it up.
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Week of 2/17/13
Skee Ball
I moved 3 balls back into proper lanes. I installed a sheet of Lexan over the top of the lane that someone ripped through the netting. I also installed a couple of new lane plastics that I bought a while back. I was putting it off as long as I could as I know the new ones are going to get smashed up fairly quickly and they aren't cheap parts to replace. The one downside is that one part no longer features the ball viewing area.
Super Bug Zapper
I picked his one up from the distributor a few weeks back and I started on getting it ready for location. I cleaned it up and got a list of what parts I need to get done, I replaced the bulb protectors. The control panel seemed a bit loose, I assumed when I bought it that it was just your typical hinge and latch setup. I was wrong in my assumption and it appears that the panel had been torn off the game at some point and was repaired with some brackets. I pulled it apart and found a few parts that need glued so I clamped and glued some wood back on and will resume working on it after the glue dries and I have the time to deal with it.
Addams Family Pinball
The bookcase was constantly sweeping back and forth and several of the switches weren't working properly, most notably the switch for Thing's hand. I put it into test mode and found that several of the switches weren't working. I did the standard wire tracing and testing and eventually found that one of the wires had worked loose from the connector. I forced the wire back in and the problems cleared up. Powered it off and put it back together. When I powered it up again I got the set time and date message. I replaced the batteries and reset all of the settings. I went to play a game and the shooter rod stuck in the out position and wouldn't pull back in. I tore it apart and found that it still had the original sleeve and crimped on retainer ring from the factory. I replaced the sleeve and ring and played a game on it and then slowly backed away from it in the hopes that nothing else would break while I was there.
Pool Table
The location called and said that the balls were occasionally sticking in the game and that they had been picking the game up and dropping it to free them. They decided to call me when they had hurt themselves picking up the table. I found a chalk block in the ball path that was the source of the sticking ball problem but then I spent and hour or so adjusting the magnetic ball separator that was out of adjustment (probably from them bouncing the table). I got the separator working well but every once and a while the balls would hang in the display area and cause a backup into the track. I did some sanding and polishing of some rough spots that I found in the track and it was better but the balls would still stick. After noticing some chips on the balls, I replaced the set of balls and the problem cleared up. The customer promised to just put in a service call instead of picking the game up in the future.
Time Crisis
I shipped the monitor chassis back for repair under warranty.
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Week /10/13 n Bowl
I pulled the game off location, the move went smoothly.
Skee Ball
I moved three balls back into the proper lanes.
Jurassic Park
I found a coin jam after digging out the quarters I found a ticket jammed into the slot.
Skee Ball
I moved four balls back into the proper lanes and found that the end lane someone had ripped through the netting above the 100 point hole. I patched it up the best I could with cable ties. On my next visit I plan to cover the area with a sheet of Lexan as this has happened before and will probably continue until I put something in place that they can't cut or rip.
Road Trip
The bill acceptor wasn't taking bills; I pulled it apart and found a ticket in the bill path. I put it back together and it still won't work, it was showing the code for a jam. I cleaned all the sensors and it didn't help. After powering the game off and on, the bill acceptor did start to work again but I'm guessing it isn't going to stay that way.
I also found around $.40 in pennies nickels and dimes in various coin slots on this visit.
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Week of 2/3/13
Skee Ball
I found a coin jam again with the coin acceptor assembly out of the slot again. I know that I put it right last time as I just replaced the coin mech on this lane and I was careful to get it back together the right way.
I brought the car jack along to raise the lanes so I could screw the leg levelers out to raise the rear of the games, it took a while and it was hard work and involved crawling around under the games but I got them jacked up and that should solve the no ball problem that people have been complaining about.
Rowe Changer
The out of service light was on. It wasn't very surprising when I opened it up and found the front light in the dispenser out again. I found a wire that had been pinched and looked like it was the problem. I soldered the wire back together but the bulb wouldn't light. I replaced the 755 bulb. On these old Rowe changers involves soldering wires directly to the bulb base. It can be challenging to get the solder to stick to the base but I eventually got it done and put it back into the changer. I powered it up and the bulb worked but the acceptor wouldn't take a bill. I ran through the sensor adjustment and it worked fine after that.
Air Hockey
There was something sticky all over the surface, so I cleaned it up with some glass cleaner and played a game. I won.
Jurassic Park 3
There was a coin jam, I found a redemption ticket was the cause of it but spent about a half hour digging quarters out of the chute.
Super Rock n Bowl
The customer called and said that the game was giving free tickets if you kicked it. They had unplugged the game so I plugged it in and sure enough a slight bang to the game would trigger the game like a quarter had been inserted. I found a couple of wires that were worn bare, so I taped them up and tested the game. I was using a 5lb hammer to bang the front of the game and it would not trigger. So I called it fixed.
Super Rock n Bowl
The Customer called back and said that it is giving free tickets out again. I think I am going to just pull the game off location and call it done.
Jackpot Express
I found it had a ticket jam. Cleared the jam and ran many tickets through to see if it would jam again but it worked fine for me. It has been jamming a lot lately, if it continues, I will try a new ticket dispenser in it.
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Week of 1/27/13
Skee Ball
I found two lanes with out of order signs on them. I moved nine balls from one the one lane back to the other lane. Both lanes worked fine with the right number of balls in them. I really need to come up with a solution for this. I'm thinking having only one lane would fix it.
Super Rock N Bowl
Quarters were still sticking on the coin switch, I made a few more adjustments and ran a lot of quarters through it and didn't see any more hang up.
Bill Counter
The last time I went to use it, the counter just kept jamming. I noticed that the bottom set of rollers wasn't spinning and could be free spun by hand. So I assumed that a belt had broken. I took it apart and found that the belt was still intact but very dirty. I cleaned it up with some rubbing alcohol and put it back together and it worked perfectly. This is a good thing as I despise counting bills by hand.
Pool Table
I got a call from a customer that the pool table had all of the balls hung up in it. I was on my way there when they called again and stated that they got them free by picking up the table and dropping it. I was already on my way when the second call came in so I still went to the location to take a look. I found that there were at least three chalks
laying in the ball tracks. I pushed them out of the track and into the bottom of the table. I couldn't reach them but they won't cause any trouble where they are now.
Rowe Changer
It wasn't accepting bills but the out of service light wasn't on either. When I started working on it, the first bulb in the bill acceptor would blink on and off as I moved wired around in the acceptor. Suddenly the blinking stopped and the bulb stayed on no matter what I shook or moved. The changer was working but I'm guessing that the problem will be back before too long.
Distributor Trip
I got a call from the Distributor that I usually buy game from and he had some good deals on games, so I made the trip down to see what he had. I ended up with two redemption games, nothing special but titles that I hadn't run through the route yet and mostly working. Both games are in need of cleaning and some minor repairs so into the warehouse they went to wait for me to get some time to get them ready to go on location.
Atari Football
The $140 worth of parts for the trackballs came in and I rebuilt both trackballs. Nothing too hard but after 30 years the dirt and whatever else was really caked on the parts.
I put them back together and one works a lot better than the other one. I believe that it is an issue with the optic board on one axis. So I need to track down either the opto or a replacement board.
Skee Ball
One lane had a coin jam. I opened the coin door and found that the coin mech was broken apart at the hinge and the whole assembly was out of the track again. I realized that I didn't have any more metal coin mechs to use (this model you have to use the metal mechs due to the mounting arangement) so I swapped a new plastic one into another game and used the metal mech in the Skee Ball. While working on it, I saw the balls hang in the lane and not roll down the chute when the game started. I got looking and I found that the customer had done some work on the floor and the result was that the rear of the Skee Ball lanes was now about a half inch lower than it used to be. I need to raise the back up on the Skee ball lanes. I will take care of this on my next visit.
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Week of 1/20/13
Skee Ball
I moved six balls back into the proper lanes.
Toyko Drift
It wasn't powering on again. I found that the power cord was loose in the back of the game, they are recessed on this game and it is possible that I didn't get it fully seated when I replaced it. I pulled the back door off and got the cord properly seated and it was back up and running.
Cyclone
Coin Jam
Found about two dollars in quarters wedged into the coin slot. It took half an hour to get them out someone really forced the quarters in the slot. Found a ticket was the cause of the problem.
Jackpot Crossing
Ticket jam, this one seems to be having them suddenly, I'm not sure why.
Super Rock N Bowl
Found it with multiple out of order signs taped to it with a huge amount of tape. Peeled all the signs and tape off and found that it was working fine. I played several games on it and no problems at all. I chalked it up to someone putting a sign on the wrong game. In
the future I will no longer put two games with similar game play and colors next to each other to avoid this sort of confusion. I think I will rearrange and see what happens.
Hightops
I bought this sight unseen and had it delivered to a friend’s place that was closer and was also getting a game from this vendor. I really need to stop buying games sight unseen as it wasn't quite in the shape that was described to me. Now, it isn't in unusable shape but I will need to pick up some parts that were broken on it before I can put it on location. It is also sort of pain to move, heavy and nothing to hold onto except smooth fiberglass. The good news is that it does work as advertised.
Atari Football
I had some free time so I looked into rebuilding the track balls for this game. The parts themselves were dirty and rusty but didn't seem to bad off. So as an experiment I cleaned and oiled them up to see how it would work. The results weren't that good. I should know better as I still need to order the parts to rebuild it.
Display
I spent some time building a display for some of the long items like the fanny pinchers. They are too long for the cases so I thought if I would angle them upright in the case it would look better and take up less room. It is still a work in progress.
Redemption prize order
Put an order in for some more prizes. I was running low on prizes for the instant redemption games. I also ordered some of the standard prizes that I use in the redemption counters.
Road Trip
This game was on location for about a week and half now and I was shocked at how badly it is getting beat up. It looks like someone kicked the bill acceptor as the mount now has a bend in it and the plastic on the face plate has a few chunks missing from it. So I took some measurements and I will work on building something to attempt to protect it from the vandals.
Candy Crane
I delivered this one to a friend's arcade as I no longer had a use for it and it was damaged enough at the last location to make it tough to sell. The delivery went well and it seems to be doing well for him. Apparently it had an attract mode that I didn't know about. It sings the entire Candyman song in a loud off key annoying way.
Tokyo Drift
It wouldn't turn on, I found that the power cord had been smashed, replaced the cord and it was back up and running.
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Week of 1/13/13
Big Haul
Cleaned it up and dug the rest of the quarters out of it. There was over $50 worth hiding in various crevices in the game. That was after spending a while at the location cleaning them out. I took them back up the location and I will count them on my next collection visit. I cleaned up the game and its duplicate and got them ready to sell.
Skee Ball
Moved one ball back into the proper lane
Cyclone
Moved it back to where it should be, it had been moved by at least a foot. While that doesn't sound like a big deal the foot difference moves it into where people walk through.
Road Trip
Stocked it up with prizes, adjusted the brake and did some cleaning to it. I ran out of time on the day I delivered it.
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Week of 1/6/13
Jurassic Park III
While delivering the Road Trip, something caught my eye as being out of place on Jurassic Park. Someone managed to rip the bezel that holds the glass over the monitor
out of the game. All four screws were stripped out of the wood and laying on top of the
bezel. I found a couple of large sheet metal screws in my tool bag and screwed it back down. Obviously not something that happened purely by accident.
Big Haul
I took it back to the warehouse. This one is done on my route. It has earned well and the only problems I ever had with it were the standard ticket jams and digging things that didn't belong out of the coin mech on it. I plan to sell it off as I am out of space.
Road Trip
I swapped it out to a new location. Went smoothly or at least as smoothly as moving this beast of a game can go. No one got crushed, hurt or died during the process so I consider the move a success.
Flamin Finger
Pulled out of the warehouse and placed on location. No major problems other than one of the customer's employees misunderstanding that not all instant redemption games can be filled with large expensive prizes.
Tokyo Drift
The game was booting up to a black screen with a line of text that said, "System Battery Low, Replace Battery Press F1 to continue" and stopping. I pulled the computer out of it and opened it and found that it uses a CR2032 battery. I ran to Radio shack and bough the 3 pack of them as if this one is dead, the others will be right behind it. I quickly swapped the battery and got lucky that the CMOS settings didn't reset back to the factory settings. It's not that it is a huge deal to change them but you have to hook up a keyboard and use the chart in the manual to match them up. Put it all back together and it worked perfectly.
Super Rock N Bowl
While I was working on the Drift game, I watched a kid bump into the Super Rock N Bowl game and it acted like he had inserted a quarter and gave him a ticket, it happened twice and the kid seemed as surprised about it as I was. I asked him to bang into it again and it wouldn't happen, so I asked him to kick it harder and he did and it still didn't happen. So then I yelled at him for kicking the game, I thought it was sort of funny but the kid didn't and one of the locations employees that didn't know what was going on also yelled at him. It wasn't until I told the employee that I asked him to kick the game that the kid caught on that I was joking about yelling at him. At least I think he caught onto it. I was already running late so, I will look into this a bit more on my next trip to the location.
Skee Ball
The coin return button was pushed down but the game would accept quarters. I found that the entire coin acceptor assembly was out of the bracket and was sitting just right that it would still accept the quarters. It’s very strange as I know it is not something I did, so I need to find out how it happened.
Drill o Matic
Not accepting quarters, I had to disassemble the electronic coin acceptor to the point that I was sure that it was never going to work again to dig out the ticket and nickel that were shoved in the coin mech. I put it all back together and was surprised that it still worked. I kept the nickel as a tip for the time that I wasted on this one.
Cyclone
It looks like the spitter was at this location again, this time the Cyclone game. I cleaned it up.
Corvette Pinball
It was showing some dirt on the playfield so I did some cleaning with Novus. It is about due to come back to the shop for a real cleaning but I need something to replace it with.
Flamin Finger
I gave it another good cleaning to get it ready to go out on location again. The customers at the past two locations that it had been at managed to spill soda onto it. If you don't get to the spilled soda right away, it tends to harden into a sticky mess that is near impossible to clean up and seems to reappear.
Big Buck Safari
Let it run for another couple of days with no problems, so I am calling this one ready for sale or to go back out on location. Whichever happens first. ==================================================================
Week of 1/1/13
Skee Ball
Coin Jam, I found two, dimes and four pennies jammed into the coin mech. If only they had inserted one more penny it would have worked. Coin mech worked fine after removing the coins, I did notice that the stickers that I had put on most of the games with pictures of quarters are missing. I'm not sure when that happened but I think I need to make some more up as the pennies, dimes and nickels have been showing up every week now for the past month or so.
Smokin Tokin
I had to clean a couple of huge wads of spit off the glass on this game.
Jackpot Crossing
Ticket jam
Slam A Winner
It looks like someone has taken a key or a ring to the Plexiglas on this one. Found about a dozen deep scratches all over the Plexiglas.
Big Haul
Ticket Jam