The Banning Repair Trip.
Many of you who have come to ZapCon have had the opportunity to meet Alpha-Tron, a California collector who is genuinely one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He is always great to us Phoenix locals, and likes to talk about how close we are. A few months ago on KLOV, he was talking about how he was assisting the owner of Arcade Expo in Banning, California with the upkeep of his machines. They have two shows a year in Banning, one in March and one in October, and in the course of getting ready for the October show they brought in a bunch of machines that were considered projects. Joe was talking about how great our Phoenix repair parties were and how he'd love to do something like that in Banning, and a bunch of us locals jumped at the chance to help them out. So he got permission from the owner to have an event there at the show place, and it was a go.
Once we decided on a date, things went in the motion pretty quickly. We picked June 22, and in the end seven of us committed to going. We caravanned over in two pick ups, and I rode over with Arcadenut, Aceldamor, and Jawhn. We got to Banning about 5 PM on Friday, which was about a 4 Hour drive from Phoenix.
The Arcade Expo facility is huge. It's literally a warehouse complex that this guy owns. And in this complex, he has over 700 pinball machines and over 400 arcade machines, plus a fair amount of old EM machines. It was awesome just walking in, especially if you had never seen this collection before. Also, since there was no one else there, we pretty much had the run of the place, so we could get in and look at everything that was there.
But there was also a slight problem. Temperatures outside were around 105°, but the AC unit inside the warehouse complex wasn't working. We had someone drive up from San Diego who is also an AC repair technician, and he said that the AC unit hadn't probably been working for years. So with all the games on, the temperature in the place quickly rose. However, we did have access to a portable swamp cooler and a giant industrial fan, so we made the most of it.
So for the next 24 hours, we went and checked every single arcade cab, testing them for any issues. We looked at everything, like controls, monitors, buttons, lights, etc. We annotated our findings on the sheets of paper you see on the machines (Joe is going to compile the data electronically later). Some guys worked on cap kits for monitors, others set games to free play or wired in coin up buttons. One of our crew, Kent, brought two charcoal grills and we cooked out for dinner. The cool desert wind picked up at night and we ate and drank outside. We worked up until 2:30 AM, then set up camp and slept in the arcade with doors open to let in the night air.
The next morning we finished inventory and then fixed what we could. Unfortunately, the place was lacking in parts. I scavenged some replacement parts from the back of the place to fix a sit down Night Driver cab. This one meant a lot to me because it was the first arcade cab I remember seeing.
We all decided to return to Phoenix on Saturday since we were pretty much fatigued from the heat and at a standstill without parts. We're planning a return trip before October now that we know what needs to be done.
It was awesome seeing so many original machines, some rare, and some I hadn't played in 30 years. It really affirms what I love about the designs of classic cabinets and why I have no problem being called a purist. It was a great time. I had fun talking shop and hanging out with my Phx collector brothers and the CA locals who showed up (we DID outnumber them!). If you get a chance to go to Arcade Expo, do it!