boards during cab restore: keep in or remove?

Spunkmeyer

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Can anyone tell me in their experience if it's better to keep your boards in the cabinet or remove them while you're restoring the wood shell? I need to do epoxy/woodgrain laminate on the sides of my Centipede cabaret, which will mean putting it on its sides at some points.

I'm just wondering if the inevitable bumps and banging of this work will be more or less liable to introduce a possible problem with the board sets than if I unhook everything and then reconnect it once the shell is finished.

Any thoughts?
 
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The first cab I did, I didn't take them out, and it was fine. I also kept them in, in my second cab too. The last cab I did the board was out during the restore. I think that if a lot of dust from sanding you maybe want to take it out. That and maybe if you're flipping it on it's side. Otherwise it's not really mattered for me personally.
 
Good point about the dust; I'm planning to use an epoxy (not Bondo) on the sides to fill in the damaged corners and don't know how much dust that will kick up.
 
How dare you!!! The bondo gods are going to strike you down

Yeah, I got struck down by them earlier in the week for not wanting to use bondo to touch up a couple of spots on my cab. :)
 
Take it out. If you drop something like a tool chances are good it will be attracted to the pcb and damage it. Its kinda like when you drop something on the floor and it always rolls under something just out of reach.
 
For the record, I bit the bullet this evening and removed the boards.

Here's to hoping everything works 100% again when I reconnect everything (&%$#$! Atari edge connectors...)
 
Whats wrong with atari edge connectors? They used the same ones used in most any other machine. The problem is they are 30 years old now so if you do have an issue with one its well past its service life so go ahead and replace it. On any Atari game with an AR power supply its always a safe measure to replace it anyways.
When I restore a cab it gets stripped completely. When it goes back together you can inspect every part and repair or replace it as neccesary.
 
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