Beginning to understand the love-hate aspect of this hobby

PSU14

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Beginning to understand the love-hate aspect of this hobby

So my Ms.Pac has been out of service since moving it from storage in August. Made my first successful pcb repair this week, got it up and running. That was a pretty good feeling. Had some people over today, and the MK monitor shit the bed. I gotta laugh about it. Seems like everyone on here has a good sense of humor about at least one game being broken at any given time.

Just had to vent for a moment, taking a break from researching/troubleshooting. Anyway happy new year everyone, and thanks again for all of the good information on here.
 
It certainly is a luv/hate relationship.

The more games you have, the more you realize not all will be perfect nor working. You learn to live with that.

The more projects you have, the more you realize there is not enough time in a day/week/month to get them done.

The more threads you read, the more you realize you'd like to have yet another game in your collection.

The more games you collect, the less space you have for other "junk". :)

Still, when I got back from my month long vacation, I remember the big smile on my face when I went down to my basement arcade, and all the games were there to greet me. Good feelin' ... good times; the good of the hobby out-weighs the bad.
 
Arcade games

A lot of folks will buy 3-5 games at once and be really excited about playing them until they realize that it requires a lot of time to completely restore 1 game.

My suggestion would be to buy and work on only a single game at a time. (when possible) Then as your collection grows most of your games will be in a reliable working state for parties, etc.

My top TO-DO list:
1 - Power supply
2 - Monitor cap kits
3 - Wiring and PCB issues
4 - Cabinet work
5 - CPOs, marquees and graphics
 
So my Ms.Pac has been out of service since moving it from storage in August. Made my first successful pcb repair this week, got it up and running. That was a pretty good feeling. Had some people over today, and the MK monitor shit the bed. I gotta laugh about it. Seems like everyone on here has a good sense of humor about at least one game being broken at any given time.

Just had to vent for a moment, taking a break from researching/troubleshooting. Anyway happy new year everyone, and thanks again for all of the good information on here.

What kind of monitor do you have in there, wells Gardner or polo? What's wrong with the monitor?
 
Completely understand, I had a Christmas party and the power filter on my MK2 went out when I turned it on. Got that up and running again for our family Christmas and my Cruzin World monitor stopped working mid game 30min into that party. Still need to figure that out but I spent the past 2 days painting and fixing a dart machine I got got free and finishing up a control panel for my TMNT. Only 2 cabs left in the garage!!!
Oh wait found another game I want so 6hr round trip to get it tomorrow and it's just the cabinet of course.
It NEVER ends!!!
 
im still relatively new to the hobby but i can honestly say i dont believe there has ever been a time when all my machines were fully working. or even all partially working for that matter. i can tell you if its a bad feeling when they are dead at home its twice as bad when they are on location not working. ill go weeks without attempting to fix issues and then all the sudden ill have a week like last when i do a repro cp change on mk2, fix two dead PVP karate champ pcbs, do a cap kit on the deflection and hv pcb on asteroids, pickup a mega touch and satans hollow and completely rearrange the game room. something is always going to be coming and going. ive learned everything i know about electronics, paint, bondo, decals, woodworking, and value as a result of it. best hobby ive ever had. also KLOV's members are the best source of knowledge to learn it.
thanks
blake
 
Wait till you agree to buy a game and drive 2+ hrs only to find out the seller was dogged by someone else on klov that offered him $50 more than what you had on the table.
And he just sold it 10 mins before you arrived!

Or you find out the game had water damage..
Or you arrive at the sellers house and so do 3 other klov'rs and the seller hosts a bidding war...

Or the guys everyone is buying games from is the same 2 ops and they never have time for you.

This list can get long....
 
It's kinda funny, if you think about it. One game I've got is so rare, that getting parts is damned near impossible. I'm not going to get rid of it, because I've had it for 32 years, and I can always consider it my "token broken cabinet". Paddle Battle is it. The PCB works, but try sourcing parts for a rare 43 year old arcade game. Probably just as well...... Until we get all of our finances sorted, even if the parts popped up................ :rolleyes:

But, it is what it is. At least I can laugh about it.
 
Wait till you agree to buy a game and drive 2+ hrs only to find out the seller was dogged by someone else on klov that offered him $50 more than what you had on the table.
And he just sold it 10 mins before you arrived!

Or you find out the game had water damage..
Or you arrive at the sellers house and so do 3 other klov'rs and the seller hosts a bidding war...

Or the guys everyone is buying games from is the same 2 ops and they never have time for you.

This list can get long....

for me this has almost never been an issue. luckily ive dealt with very stand up people both buying and selling.
thanks
blake
 
I haven't had those experiences personally,and thankfully all my cabs have been a steal (my most desirable is an hs5... hahaa, go figure!)

But I am reading these types of stories more often now...
 
all my games work. very rarely in the last 8 years have I had problems. the conventional wisdom bestowed upon me during my jedi training was 80% of all video game problems will be caused by monitors.

I have a different philosophy than most, especially free play arcade operators that seem to think if a game turns on that it "works". I don't stop there. I go for longevity, and a lot of the time that means correcting deficiencies in original design, notably with wiring. I have zero tolerance for crap power supplies. it's a very underrated component in games, and is actually the most important. if your boards aren't getting enough or improper juice you will have a variety of problems. that's why I made the PSU guide in my signature, it's helped a number of people.
 
Well, if these games never broke down, this forum wouldn't exist...

Think of it this way, each time something breaks it's a good thing. Every time you fix something, you are removing a weak link in your arcade. You and your arcade are becoming stronger together, able to take on any problem that comes your way...

:D
 
Wait till you agree to buy a game and drive 2+ hrs only to find out the seller was dogged by someone else on klov that offered him $50 more than what you had on the table.
And he just sold it 10 mins before you arrived!


That drives me nuts that people can do that and sleep at night.

The other day I sold a pcb and not two minutes after I made a deal on it someone else offered me $30 more. I stuck with the first deal cause I have more integrity than that.
 
If I didn't do a preventive repair job on my arcade machines, I would be over whelmed in projects.

Loose connectors always need to be replaced. I will tweak a pin in a connector for a temp fix for diagnostic reasons but once I do that. I know it time to repin and replace them all.

Since Pacman and Ms Pacman motherboards have voltage regulation on the main board, the pins in the edge card connector get a lot more abuse compared to the same connector that just passing signals. I replace those pins and clean up the edge connector.

Always reduce the voltage coming out of the power supply before cleaning connectors. Applying higher voltage "more power" beyond spec of your pcb might shorten the life of your pcb.
 
I think that the way we all tend to remember playing these games growing up was just put a quarter in and play. The reality is there is a lot of elbow grease in this hobby, from moving heavy stuff, to scrubbing & cleaning, etc. If you are into restoring, then lots of sanding, paint a coat and wait, paint another coat, etc.
 
Just had to vent for a moment, taking a break from researching/troubleshooting. Anyway happy new year everyone, and thanks again for all of the good information on here.

Ahhh.. just a couple of days ago.. I'm testing the Gravitar cab I'm working on and pull some boards out of storage to test.. Every one missing a ROM, or CPU, or Pokey, or AVG... I'm reduced to shouting that the things "DO NONE OF YOU BASTARDS ACTUALLY WORK ??".

Naturally, two of them had "tested" tags dates on them in my handwriting just to rub it in a bit more :)
 
I guess I didn't appreciate all the "behind the scenes" work that goes into these games. I'm cautiously optimistic that I've identified the problem with the monitor as a few bad diodes. Maybe once I get a couple of simple and inexpensive repairs under my belt, I will have a more positive outlook on tackling these repairs.
 
I guess I didn't appreciate all the "behind the scenes" work that goes into these games. I'm cautiously optimistic that I've identified the problem with the monitor as a few bad diodes. Maybe once I get a couple of simple and inexpensive repairs under my belt, I will have a more positive outlook on tackling these repairs.

What kind of monitor is it? Hantarex or wells gardner?
 
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