Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Arcade Collecting => Miscellaneous Arcade Talk => Topic started by: SirPeale on April 12, 2008, 09:03:13 pm
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For those that don't know, I repair arcade games as a sort of hobby/business. I used to do it full time for an operator, but got out of that operation roughly a year ago.
So about a week ago while repairing a Lethal Enforcers, a guy comes in and starts poking fun at me for working on the machine instead of working on the cars there (it was @ a repair shop). I tell him that I don't work for the garage, this is what I do. He immediately gets quite interested. Tells me that he has a Pac-Man that stopped working a few years back, and that he'd like me to take a look at it. His place is in the same building, just around the corner.
I swing by and take a brief look. It's filthy, been in a corner unused for a very long time. I can already see wiring hacks and wires that are too tight, likely why it's not working properly. He said that his nephew had broken into the machine, and that one of the mechanics that had worked there had attempted to get it working again.
It's in a dark corner of the warehouse, surrounded with stuff. He says he'll have one of his guys bring it out to the shop floor. I tell him I'll be there on Saturday to get things going.
I get there today, and the game is still in the back, surrounded by stuff. Hey, no skin off my back. If you want to pay $45 an hour for me to move your stuff around, that's your prerogative.
I dig in. First thing...disconnect *everything.* I can already see a blown fuse, wrapped in aluminum foil, and though I know it belongs to the monitor I don't want any more problems if I can avoid them.
Replace the fuse, fire it up. Doesn't blow...good. Disconnect power, hook up the PCB. Plays blind...excellent. Check the input voltage on the monitor...120VAC. It's a K4600, so I make sure the "cards" are plugged in securely, especially since it was the monitor input that was the wire bundle that was so tight. Things look okay, so I hook the AC up to the monitor and fire it up again.
Fuse holds. Good! That's when I hear the sound...kind of like a mosquito. I see a small bolt of lightning around the flyback area. Crap! I kill the power. Just what I need, a cracked flyback. Wait...no...one of the wires on the focus pot has completely corroded off. The wire end was right next to the other wire on the pot and a spark was jumping right to it. I hook the end around just to test, and fire up again. I get a picture this time, but it looks weird, things jumping around.
Cut the end off, cleaned the connector on the pot and resoldered it. Then I make sure to check the PCB for chips that have "walked". There are several. Fire it up...perfect picture. Well...almost. The focus is just a tiny bit off. I try and tweak it, but the knob feels like it's just spinning around freely in the pot housing. So I leave it alone.
Clean up the CP because the buttons are sticking. Clean the monitor, plexi and glass since it doesn't look like it's been cleaned in about ten years. It's really shaping up.
One coin switch works, the other doesn't. Hmmm...maybe because some damn fool decided to cut the wire, then changed his mind but didn't reconnect it properly. Soldered that back to working order.
Play a game, and promptly get my highest ever Pac-Man score. Kick-ass. I walk to the office to show the owner his repaired game, and give him my invoice.
I worked for nearly two hours, but only charged him an hour and a half. And he raised his eyebrows at that. He was really surprised that I charged him $68.50. I thought it was more than fair, and pointed out that most techs charge around $70 an hour. I suppose when you have nothing to compare it to it can be surprising. I don't know why.
We go back to the game because there are several things I want him to note about it. When we face it, I note that it's...dead. Completely. It's one of those moments where you say "crap...this doesn't make me look good!" I thought maybe a breaker had blown, but there was power at the outlet. I start poking again. I find the culprit: the other monitor fuse had blown. It was supposed to be a 2A fuse, and had been replaced with a 1A. Once that was replaced, everything was good to go again.
Told him to keep it running, check it once an hour, and to call me if anything went wrong with it during that time. He plans on putting it in his waiting room and collecting quarters.
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Always good to see a Pac brought back to life.
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That's an awesome price to repair his game. You couldn't get me to drive somewhere for 68.50 much less do any work. :D
Didn't he know your rate before you started working?
BTW, what are you doing for your "real" job these days?
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He didn't know my rate before hand, and in hindsight I should have told him first thing. But he owns an auto dealership, I didn't think he'd think that $45/hr was a bad labor rate. But what do I know. *shrug* Besides, he'll make that back in only 274 quarter insertions, assuming no one breaks into the game again.
My rates are 1/2 labor for driving time. He was only two miles from me so I didn't bother.
My real job? I've gone back to being a stay-at-home dad
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What a great story! If I could get someone to come look at MY game, I know I wouldn't complain if they cleaned it up all nice like that, and then only charged me $68.50!
Maybe you could vacation in Florida real soon!
-BrianDP
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Very nice... :)
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i think that is a very cheap rate,i charge $100 an hour to do private repairs with a call out fee of $50 fix or no fix
video games are a very specialized industry and there are not many techs left that can repair machines professionally
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That's what I thought. I feel better.
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Regardless of the price, that's just an awesome story. Thanks for sharing that Peale!
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How was the cab? good or bad conditions? :cheers:
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The cab itself was in remarkably good condition. The CP had an extra hole drilled for a button, and had a button, but no switch. *shrug*. No back door, or rather he didn't know where it was. The bezel was flaking - badly. But that's par for the course. Most Pac glasses I've seen have had similar flaking. The inner tinted plexi was supposed to be attached with double sided tape, but it was gone. I used electrical tape to reattach. I'm not happy with that, but it'll do in a pinch.
For a near 30 year old machine, it was in pretty darn good shape. I'd give it a seven out of ten. And really, I'd give it higher marks if it wasn't for the CP and the bezel glass.
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I made some adjustments on a Ms Pac in a restaurant couple weeks ago. The cabinet art on it was shot, but the bezel and marquee could have probably sold as NOS.
I wish techs around here charged what you do...
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I think that's a very fair rate. The point is that somehow, people think that working on arcade machines, electronics (and computers) is something else than f.i. painting or repairing a car.
Peale I envy you, that would be "my kind of life" if I could. I actually start getting more and more requests for cab repairs over here. However, people would probably never pay a reasonable price for the work. I'd like to reduce my 5 days a week job to 4 and start-up working on the cabs, but as mentioned I doubt if it will be workable at all.....
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ahh yeah... he got a deal. And thats how its done...its really great when good methodical troubleshooting techniques are applied... it really pays off!
:RetroACTIVE admits he's jealous of Peale
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I might have said to the guy right from the start "Could cost you $100 to fix, or I pay YOU $100 to take it off your hands". ;-)
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LOL @ Ray.
I've got enough projects right now. I just bought a Defender, Galaxian, Tunnel Hunt, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong 3, Popeye, Centipede Mini and a couple crap conversions. I'll be busy for a while. Besides, if I bought every game I worked on, I wouldn't be making any money, would I? :D
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Besides, if I bought every game I worked on, I wouldn't be making any money, would I? :D
Depends really. You live in a good market. If you bought that pacman for $100, you would have still had it working in 2 hours with no parts. Then you could have sold it for $400 or so.
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In this market? I would have thought $200 tops.
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In this market? I would have thought $200 tops.
...or you could have sold the pacman innards for good money, then funded a 48-1 board and sold the machine for $800. ;D I'm supposing your arcade morals would stop you from that though. ;D
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Yep, you got me. I do have a Pac-Man that's been painted over that I'm thinking about recovering the art, but then putting a 48-in-1 in there. It's currently a dead "Shinobi".
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Well, this sucks...guy just called me, said they never turned off the machine. When they checked on it, it was dead again.
I haven't looked at it yet, but If I were a betting man I'd say the monitor fuse has blown again. There's a K4600 in there. What could be putting additional stress on the fuse to make it pop? I've got a 2A in there now, which is what it's rated for. Monitor otherwise appears to be functioning normally.
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Maybe its heat. How many inches of dirt and dust were on the chassis again? ;D
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Practically none, actually. Very very clean inside.
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Heheheh The PacMan WANTS YOU Peale. It wants to go home with you! Time to offer a refund +$100 and make it YOURS! :P
Do you have a thread or webpage related to Tunnel Hunt? I've never seen one outside of the Vectrex version.
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Heheheh The PacMan WANTS YOU Peale. It wants to go home with you! Time to offer a refund +$100 and make it YOURS! :P
Do you have a thread or webpage related to Tunnel Hunt? I've never seen one outside of the Vectrex version.
I'm betting the monitor is running a bit hot. It's got all original caps. I'll run it by him, but I doubt he'll go for a cap kit.
As for Tunnel Hunt, no, not yet. This isn't a vector. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I'm leaning towards donating it to FunSpot.
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Well, this sucks...guy just called me, said they never turned off the machine. When they checked on it, it was dead again.
I haven't looked at it yet, but If I were a betting man I'd say the monitor fuse has blown again. There's a K4600 in there. What could be putting additional stress on the fuse to make it pop? I've got a 2A in there now, which is what it's rated for. Monitor otherwise appears to be functioning normally.
The monitor fuse is supposed to be a 2 amp SLO-BLO.
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Well, this sucks...guy just called me, said they never turned off the machine. When they checked on it, it was dead again.
I haven't looked at it yet, but If I were a betting man I'd say the monitor fuse has blown again. There's a K4600 in there. What could be putting additional stress on the fuse to make it pop? I've got a 2A in there now, which is what it's rated for. Monitor otherwise appears to be functioning normally.
The monitor fuse is supposed to be a 2 amp SLO-BLO.
Way ahead of you, Ken. :D
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I was called on this earlier. Bad description. The fuse that's blowing is the in-line fuse for the monitor, NOT the monitor fuse itself.
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tunnel hunt (http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/tunhunt)
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It was even easier than I imagined.
So I got there, the guy tells me he left it on all night, but it ran all day, and when he checked it in the morning it was dead.
First thing I checked was that fuse. It was fine.
Then I tried to see if it played blind. Nope.
I'm standing at the back, scratching my head, when I see why it's not firing up.
The game has no back door - or rather there is a back door, but the guy isn't exactly sure where it is. The interlock switch was taped down, but over the course of several hours the spring tension must have pushed the tape loose (it was old duct tape) effectively killing it.
I pressed it in, and it fired right up. :D
Told the guy to get some stronger tape, or find his backdoor.
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:laugh2:
Ain't that a :dizzy:
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It was even easier than I imagined.
So I got there, the guy tells me he left it on all night, but it ran all day, and when he checked it in the morning it was dead.
First thing I checked was that fuse. It was fine.
Then I tried to see if it played blind. Nope.
I'm standing at the back, scratching my head, when I see why it's not firing up.
The game has no back door - or rather there is a back door, but the guy isn't exactly sure where it is. The interlock switch was taped down, but over the course of several hours the spring tension must have pushed the tape loose (it was old duct tape) effectively killing it.
I pressed it in, and it fired right up. :D
Told the guy to get some stronger tape, or find his backdoor.
Could you bypass it for him? Or would that not work? SOrry for being a n00b :dunno
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Technically, sure. But I'm not going to. It needs a back door.
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Technically, sure. But I'm not going to. It needs a back door.
:applaud:
I have spirited discussions (arguments) with people about back doors and whether they should be on or off -- I think they should be on, to keep the dust and crap out of the machine where others think they should be off for cooling.
Having said that, I think I have 5 cabs downstairs with the backs off (2 of which are in use, the others are projects) ... :dunno
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I hear that. In my vertical Mamecab I ended up taking the back door off for cooling cause the pc inside kept overheating. However normal arcade pcb(s) shouldn't generate that much heat as they don't have the processor power. Or am I wrong about this? :dunno please correct me if so. :)
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They have lived on location with their backs on and sometimes left on for forever and they never overheated.
So there you go. :cheers:
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They have lived on location with their backs on and sometimes left on for forever and they never overheated.
So there you go. :cheers:
Sure they do, they just take longer for their parts to die off. Sometimes.
I worked on a Ms Pac/Galaga reunion cabinet a year or so ago. I took the back off it and it had to be close to 140F in there. I suggested putting a fan in there, or at the very least cutting a vent in it, but was vetoed.
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If the machine will only be touched by people who have an idea of safety and function of the machine, then by all means leave the back off. If there is even a chance of a kid or a dumbass getting around it unsupervised, put the back on, lock it, and hide the key.
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I used to be more ambivalent about back doors until the local restoration guru (his restorations are things of beauty -- better than new) said that you should always have the back door on. If you have a heat problem, then you really should be doing some proper ventilation. Kids, pets and dumbasses aren't the only things you want to keep out of your cabinets (dust, insects, pet hair, dust bunnies).
I couldn't argue with his logic, although he is really fussy about things (e.g. he recommends wiping down your machines once a month), so I take what he says with a grain of salt.
Is it a bad thing to leave the door off ? Not so much.
Is it better to have the door on with proper ventilation? Hard to argue against it.
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Considering most of these machines had fans in em, surely heat is something to consider.
I'm all for keeping dust and stupid cats out though. dust gets everywhere, so why not keep it out.
BTW Peale... why tape the interlock switch instead of just pulling it to the "out" position?
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Considering most of these machines had fans in em, surely heat is something to consider.
I'm all for keeping dust and stupid cats out though. dust gets everywhere, so why not keep it out.
BTW Peale... why tape the interlock switch instead of just pulling it to the "out" position?
That was the first thing I tried. This switch didn't have this function.
As for most machines had fans, the only machines I've seen with fans have been Sega machines. Outrun had one. Most of the big drivers had one. What other games (non Sega) had them?
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My Super Pac cocktail has a 6" fan in the bottom. Still stock from 1982.
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It was even easier than I imagined.
So I got there, the guy tells me he left it on all night, but it ran all day, and when he checked it in the morning it was dead.
First thing I checked was that fuse. It was fine.
Then I tried to see if it played blind. Nope.
I'm standing at the back, scratching my head, when I see why it's not firing up.
The game has no back door - or rather there is a back door, but the guy isn't exactly sure where it is. The interlock switch was taped down, but over the course of several hours the spring tension must have pushed the tape loose (it was old duct tape) effectively killing it.
I pressed it in, and it fired right up. :D
Told the guy to get some stronger tape, or find his backdoor.
how much did you charge for that repair?
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It was even easier than I imagined.
So I got there, the guy tells me he left it on all night, but it ran all day, and when he checked it in the morning it was dead.
First thing I checked was that fuse. It was fine.
Then I tried to see if it played blind. Nope.
I'm standing at the back, scratching my head, when I see why it's not firing up.
The game has no back door - or rather there is a back door, but the guy isn't exactly sure where it is. The interlock switch was taped down, but over the course of several hours the spring tension must have pushed the tape loose (it was old duct tape) effectively killing it.
I pressed it in, and it fired right up. :D
Told the guy to get some stronger tape, or find his backdoor.
how much did you charge for that repair?
I didn't. I was passing by anyway.
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I couldn't be a stay-at-home-dad....having to spend my wife's money for arcade games. Nope...wouldn't work out. At. All.
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As for most machines had fans, the only machines I've seen with fans have been Sega machines. Outrun had one. Most of the big drivers had one. What other games (non Sega) had them?
Star Wars has a fan, and my Tempest had the same type of fan, though I am not sure if it was stock or not.
Outrun had the loudest damn fan I have ever heard....sounded like a jet airplane taking off.
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Both hot running cabs. Definitely needed a fan.
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my neo-geo monitor chassis has a fan
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my neo-geo monitor chassis has a fan
Hantarex, right?
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My Seattle Blitz boards have a fan. My Vegas board has like 3 :)
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I was speaking more about classic stuff. More modern stuff I've seen many fans.
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I have an Atari Pole Position cabinet with a fan on the back. I'm not sure, however, if it is original since at one time the cabinet was converted to Hydra (poorly, I might add). From the amount of dust on it I would be willing to bet it was original, though.
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I thought the uprights did because my Galaga has a (disconnected) fan at the rear bottom, but it must have been added after the fact. The manual makes no mention of a fan for the upright, but cocktails have fans, due to the compactness I guess.
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my neo-geo monitor chassis has a fan
Hantarex, right?
We never were able to positively put a finger on what chassis it is, here is the topic...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76965.0 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76965.0)
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my neo-geo monitor chassis has a fan
Hantarex, right?
We never were able to positively put a finger on what chassis it is, here is the topic...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76965.0 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76965.0)
It says there the chassis is a Kortek.