A trip to Wells Gardner

[jcrouse]

Hi all. There has been many discussions here about Wells Gardner and their monitor, specifically the U3100 (19") and D9200 (27").

Well last Friday I got to make a trip to WG and spend half a day there working with their technicians to get my monitor working. It's a long story but here goes.

The first monitor showed up damamged. RMA time. Yikes none in stock. Well, in speaking with Jeff Gardner it was discovered that an old one (6 years old but brand new) was sitting on a shelf. THey couldn't even list it in their system because ther software, Oracle, wouldn't accept the part number.

Anyways I received it. Well, it had issues. We just couldn't get it degaussed. RMA time. By this time they had run more production so a new one showed up in two days. It had no damage what-so-ever and worked as advertised.

There in is the issue. Over the vears there has been many iterations of the U3100. The characters at the end of the part number distinguish between the specs. In the old days when they were ALL expensive the used higher quality tubes with better specs. As prices on monitors dropped, the volume sank on these monitors and the specs were changed to a loewer grade tube.

THe second monitor I received (the old one) had a .31 dot pitch and looked great in Windows and MameWAH. The final one I received (the new one) had a .71 dot pitch. As the all will from now on. While this maye have looked more authentic, MameWAH was extremely ugly. I couldn't even read the text in the menus.

Well not know all of this I called up WG (Jeff Gardner) and made an appointment to bring my entire cabinet (cocktail - see it at http://home.comcast.net/~cpviewer) in to their facility. They were extremely accomidation and the technicians were awesome. Well, there was just nothing that could be done to make the .71 dot pitch look good in MameWAH. At this point I didn't know about the difference in models. Upon finding this out I was informed that the .31's were no longer available. I was just ready to pack up and come home and though (and ask Jeff) what ever happened to the second, .31, motinor I couldn't get degaussed properly and sent back. Well, low and behold it was sitting on a shelf as a refurb.

THe confusing thing was that I had modified the chassis when I first received it. So, when the third monitor arrived I swapped chassis's so it would fit in my cabinet. THe problem was now the .71 had the .31 part number (it's on the chassis) and vice-versa. Once this revelation hit we put the refurb it the cabinet and MameWAH looks awesome. WG was great to work with and there has been so much talk of their monitors, I just thought I'd share what I found out.

Enjoy,
John



Edit by moderator: inserted some paragraphs to make it easier to read.

[paigeoliver]

So, were there defective D9200s lining the warehouse and generally sitting around everywhere?

[jcrouse]

So, were there defective D9200s lining the warehouse and generally sitting around everywhere?

Don't know about defective but there were a lot of them. The were actually running them on one of the lines. I watched them all go together. The D9200 will be changing soon with all new electronics. I saw them on display side by side and the picture was a little better on the newer circuitry.

[paigeoliver]

So, do they let people just show up and buy monitors? They are sort of within driving distance for me.

[Sasquatch!]

So, do they let people just show up and buy monitors? They are sort of within driving distance for me

Same here, and so is Happ.  Y'know, we really should try to get a BYOAC meet and see if we can get a group tour through Happ.  Think they'd go for it?

[RayB]

Y'know, we really should try to get a BYOAC meet and see if we can get a group tour through Happ.  Think they'd go for it?

I'm sure alot of you think that such a tour would be akin to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, only full of arcadey wonderment and enslaved Pac-Men pooping out brand new arcade buttons... I'm sure the sorry truth is that they are probably in a pretty plain looking office with a stinky plain warehouse.

 

[paigeoliver]

Y'know, we really should try to get a BYOAC meet and see if we can get a group tour through Happ.  Think they'd go for it?

I'm sure alot of you think that such a tour would be akin to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, only full of arcadey wonderment and enslaved Pac-Men pooping out brand new arcade buttons... I'm sure the sorry truth is that they are probably in a pretty plain looking office with a stinky plain warehouse.

 

Especially since Happ doesn't actually make much anything, they just slap their name on stuff made by iL and others.

[daeven]

I've been to both Happ Controls and Wells Gardner since I live in the Chicago area.  In fact, I work about 5 miles from Happ, so I place my orders around lunchtime and pick them up on the way home.

There's nothing exciting to look at, unless seeing pallets of 19" monitors is what you are looking for.  Apparantly they have a couple of work areas where they do monitor repairs.  Both of these places are mostly warehouse selves with lots of boxes on them.

I think WG might actually do some manufacturing in their McCook location, but I didn't see it where I picked up monitors a couple of times.

[sirwoogie]

So, do they let people just show up and buy monitors? They are sort of within ...

I think they would take walkups. Give a call and ask. I drove there from Detroit to get my 9200 because of the horror stories behind the 9200, and most of them because of shipping. I'm not suprised, the packing in the 9200 sucks big time. They have a nice large warehouse and it's just STACKED with monitors wall to wall (boxed and non-boxed). I think it's also their return area as they had a bunch of monitors of varing sizes on the floor. The front-desk staff is nice, and the load staff is also real nice. They'll help you shlep it into the car.

[DougHillman]

As put forth in this thread (http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=23498) I've sent out feelers about a Chicago BYOAC meetup.  

I'm actually about to post another poll to see what kinda interest there'd be in something a little larger.  A Midwest sorta thing.  2 day LAN party type deal where some of us locals bring our machines, possibly actually in conjunction with a local LAN party group that I've dealt with before.  I'll look into the feasibility/worth of a trip to Well-Gardner and/or Happs.  

D

[Knoxximus]

Yeah, I'm in striking distance of the Happs here in Vegas.  Nothing to write home about....parts warehouse of sorts.  Nice people though.  I ordered some stuff for pick and was told I would have to pick up what they didn't have in stock another day, but then they ended up shipping it to my house for free!