Do any of you have a love/hate relationship with this hobby?

McCombs

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Do any of you have a love/hate relationship with this hobby?

I am a new member that only owns two machines. The first one is a Taito Double Dragon machine that I saved from the dump and restored it's badly water damaged cabinet. After hours of busting my ass I finally got it working. Today I fired it up and the video worked but the sound from the pcb is gone. I ended up trying to check voltages at the sound amp and ended up shorting out the -5vdc on the board. Screw it....I will just get a new board. The next great project was a empty Q-Bert machine that I worked my a** off on to turn it into a 60-1. It worked fine untill I went to push it up against the wall where it would sit..turned it on and it played blind. The chassis went out. I only have two machines and that is all I want. I can't imagine how you guy's with real arcades keep them running...... I'm done.
 

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Don't worry, it actually get's easier the longer you stick with it. I remember my early days in the hobby, it seemed like when something quit working, I was up for a long expensive hassle.

Now I almost look forward to stuff breaking :)
 
love/ hate is about the only way to describe this hobby, especially when it comes to the agony of a problem, and the joy of figuring it out!
 
The worst feeling in the world is a game going down. The best feeling in the world is getting it working again. :)
 
I love getting another game. I hate having nowhere to put it!
 
Don't worry, it actually get's easier the longer you stick with it. I remember my early days in the hobby, it seemed like when something quit working, I was up for a long expensive hassle.

Now I almost look forward to stuff breaking :)

Mike, feel like taking a vacation to Texas anytime soon? :)

I had all of my games go south at once. Yes, definitely love/hate for me.
 
Oh yeah I can say there is a VERY strong love hate relationship with these games. Last night I was working on a Centipede to JAMMA adapter and wired something wrong needless to say I could smell plastic burning and it turned out to be the wire harness. One good tip is always check around if your looking for game pinouts there is a lot of bad information out there. Then I also accidentally scratched off 3 traces while trying to pull a ROM off the board. After all that last night I said "F" it will worry about it today and I got the thing working 100% even did some simple troubleshooting and replaced some bad chips.

So yeah I was pissed off last night but very happy today Centipede is a really fun game.:D
 
Yeah,I wasn't too happy with my Frogger.Just when I thought I had everything fixed the monitor still doesn't fire up.I think I need to replace the fuses then hopefully,very hopefully my Frogger will be squished no more.And I'd love to have my own personal arcade like many on here,but until I get lots of extra money and space it will have to wait.
 
I could fall in to the catagory...

For me it's more, I love the games, I love working on them, but I hate not having money to work on them. I haven't had any games go down yet... but of course, 2/3 of my games are projects, and aren't even together to go down in the first place.
 
For me, I love working on them, playing them and enjoying them.

I hate having to go to work so I can buy more and get more parts. Where is the Lotto retirement fund when you need it :)

ken
 
After you work on them a while, a couple things happen.

1. You stop making as many stupid mistakes. Like how you said you shorted the voltage out, I used to do that but after messing with hundreds of games, I do it much less now. LOL

2. You learn that some games have preventitive things that just need to be done to get them solid. Capping monitors, new flybacks in G07's, etc.

So eventually, after you do a ton of them, they're not as hard to work on and nowhere near as frustrating. Of course by then though you'll have moved on to more complicated machines, so you'll still get frustrated with those. Or Pinball machines, which have moving parts and pieces hitting each other, so they always break. Or 150 light bulbs, etc.
 
After all that last night I said "F" it will worry about it today and I got the thing working 100% even did some simple troubleshooting and replaced some bad chips.

That's another thing you learn. Some days you're gold and everything you touch bows down and calls you daddy. Other days you break everything from the monitor tube to the tools you're using to the outlets in the walls. If you're having a good day, stay up late and work on everything you can, lol.
 
Bah not that good the board started resetting over and over. I turned it off a couple of times crossed my fingers and played a few more games of Centipede this board is the board from hell LOL who knows what will break next.:D
 
I love getting another game. I hate having nowhere to put it!

Amen brother. There was a Golden Tee with a minor issue on CL for $50 today. I SOOOOO wanted to go pick it up but I've made promises that I won't until I start clearing out some of what I have.
 
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I have learned to relax enough that the hate part is almost gone. I work on them when I can, but don't get to concerned if they sit. I have 2 projects that I want to finish, but it may take a while. If I can't get them working by the end of next month, they will sit until next summer. I can handle that now. A couple of years ago, it would have driven me insane.
 
I love finding great deals all the time...

I hate having to pass on great deals all the time because I have no room, or I've already got one... a Holy Grail that is...
 
Thanks for the replies... I was in a pissed off mood yesterday. Sometimes it seems like I spend more time fixing these machines than playing them. A member on here offered me a great price on a new board so I will be back up and running with sound. I may go after that NBA Jam machine after all......
 
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