Blindsided! Gaming disasters I never saw coming..

hasenfang

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I'm sure some of our KLOVers have stories about the disasters they never saw coming. i.e. did you drop a game, blow out a monitor, fry a board.

Anyone care to share their tale(s) in hopes of saving the rest of us from experiencing the same thing?
 
Nope...nothing, no problems ever. Of course there were a few small things like:

1) Dropping a perfect Galaxy Ranger glass bezel
2) Losing control of a restored Punch Out on the client's steep driveway. Still powered up and played but the edge of the control panel didn't do too well.
3) The metal (Ultimate Aerial Experience) bar from a 720 donated itself onto the highway when coming back from the old Sam's Town Auction in Cameron Park back around 2000. Never found it.
4) BK2k pin topper flew away to medieval land when riding to our shop on the freeway. All that was left were the plastic mounts that said "Something nice WAS here". Whoops.

So no...nothing I can think of.
 
Mine was very minor. I have a MAME cab, and when we moved last summer to our new home we dropped it when we unloaded it. Basically everything inside the cabinet ended up in the bottom, and it took some re-wiring and fixing up to get it back to 100% again. The hard drive later failed, and I think it was related to that incident.

Thank goodness none of my dedicated cabs have had any mishaps.
 
Well, there was a little incident where I was moving a ton of games out at a bulk buy. The Joust upright had a brand-new monitor on it, and I wanted it in the truck first. I put it on the dolly, tilted the game back.. and was greeted by a sliding noise then the tinkling of broken glass. The monitor had not been secured by the tech who last worked on it, and slid backwards into the back of the cab. Broken glass rained everywhere, as the neck shattered.

Then there was my EDOT that was destroyed by a friend as he drove it into his garage without checking the entry clearance.

Nothing as spectacular as some of the stories I've seen, though, where people have games fall off trucks on the interstate.
 
My worst accident thus far was when I took a WG7000 tube/chassis and attempted to put on a shelf that was 1/4" too short to fit it...as I was pulling it pack out the neckboard caught on the upper shelf...

>CRACK<

>Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss<

** FIZUUUUCKKK! **

Yup...one less non-burned in K7000 tube in this world.
 
Frizz, that almost made me feel your pain. There's nothing like thinking you're doing something totally routine and then...BAM! Disaster.
 
My only disaster (thus far) was when I was moving my SFII CE down the stairs into the basement, I removed the back of the machine to take some of the weight off. When I was moving the game around the corner, snap!! The neck of the 27' monitor caught on the corner of the wall and broke clean off!! OUCH!! I finished moving the game just about where it was going to go, and luckily I just pushed the piece back onto the back of the neck and the monitor worked again. I won't be taking the back off any game again while moving it.
 
My very first arcade purchase was 10 years ago from an arcade auction at a NJ armory. It was 4 uprights total (Arkanoid, Rolling Thunder, and 2 misc Jamma uprights). My brother-in-law and I loaded them into a pick-up, strapped them all together, but did not actually tie them to the truck. No, at the time, the term "top heavy" didn't seem to register in our genius minds.

Very first turn to get on the highway, all 4 tumbled over the side of the truck and practically turned to dust.
 
I dropped a dig dug machine off the dolly while trying to move it during a snow storm last winter. One tire got stuck in the snow and the cabinet tipped over and smashed into the concrete.

machine powered up fine, just cosmetic damage to the top left corner.
 
I was taking a Tempest monitor to a local tech. I balanced it on my hip and held it with one hand so I could knock on the door with my other hand. My other arm just brushed the neckboard as I reached to knock on the door.

PSSSSHHHH!!

Had to add a tube replacement to the HV fix.
 
Re: Blindsided! Gaming disasters I never saw coming..

I've dropped two games.

Recently I got a monitor jolt. I was scared to death of how bad that would hurt before it happened. Afterwards, I feel a lot more confidence in working with monitors. Not that I'm going to be reckless, of course.
 
Then there was my EDOT that was destroyed by a friend as he drove it into his garage without checking the entry clearance.
Ouch. I was wondering what happened to that cab. Still friends?
shocked.gif
 
We had some hired help moving a bunch of games from a bulk buy. One of the guys got in too much of a hurry (even though I warned the idiot) going across the grass with a game on a dolly and flipped it. Completely busted a pretty nice Fire Trap! The cab, bezel, and monitor were destroyed.

The worst I've ever personally done is neck a couple of used monitors.
 
I only have two bad ones. When I got my Dig Dug, it had some mouse nest and stuff in it (not real bad). I removed pretty much everything from the cabinet. Like a bonehead, I had the control panel sitting on my barstool with the monitor on the floor right next to it. Well, I bumped the panel and gravity did the rest SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!!!! F**K!!!!!!!

The other one was when I dropped a pinball machine on my foot. I was getting a pin (either The Shadow or The Getaway) ready to ship and removed the back legs and lowered the back to the ground. It lowered rather quickly directly onto my foot. I hopped around for several seconds and swore loudly. Other than that, I haven't done too badly.
 
Well i did'nt see my Lost Tomb doing what it did this afternoon.

But i have alot of bad thoughts that come too mind with this hobby over the years.
 
A friend of mine had a mint asteroids deluxe in the back of his truck,not tied down of course,well lets just say it made one hell of a parts donor.I still can't believe the monitor didn't get ruined,not sure about the rest of it though.
 
ive had a couple tilt sideways in the truck, but no losses.. however i can speak from experience and say that the hissing sound of death from a necked monitor will instantly raise my blood pressure x2
 
Had a friend who offered to pick up a working EM pin (not sure which one) that his boss bought for $50, supposedly in super nice shape, blah blah blah. He offered since he had a Nissan truck. He never transported a pin before so he didn't know the legs could come off. Are you seeing where this is going?

Well, to secure the pinball with legs ON, he used BUNGEE CORDS!!! He made it safely from LA up to Santa Barbara (1.5 hrs) on the freeway mind you....that was until the offramp when it sling shot itself onto the road a became a mixture of glass, wood, and plastic confetti. Not a huge monetary loss, but sad nevertheless.
 
Well, to secure the pinball with legs ON, he used BUNGEE CORDS!!! He made it safely from LA up to Santa Barbara (1.5 hrs) on the freeway mind you....that was until the offramp when it sling shot itself onto the road a became a mixture of glass, wood, and plastic confetti. Not a huge monetary loss, but sad nevertheless.

Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, I would have hated to have been behind that guy on the freeway. I am still amazed at how closely people tailgate me when I am bringing a cab home. There's an amazing amount of trust going on.
 
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