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

[Phetishboy]

Double Dragon is a great game and a versatile cabinet.

 

[thebman80]

Yeah I was thinking about getting rid of mine but after seeing how yours turned out I might just keep it after all.

 

[cadillacman]

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.

Dude, welcome to the hobby.

At least your games are letting you know how it is right away man lol.. You gotta take the good with the bad, these machines were only really expected to work for a few years so the fact they work at all after 30+ years is pretty amazing in itself.

Its always something, there will always be something needing work, but as long as the good outweighs the bad then thats all that matters in the end.

 

[McCombs]

Double Dragon is a great game and a versatile cabinet.

Dude, those lit up buttons are bad ass! Double Dragon was my favorite back in the day and is the only reason this machine is not in a central Texas landfill. Nostalgia is a B*tch....

 

[tcleary]

you just need more games and then some are bound to work. i have 7/8 working pretty well at the moment

 

[tec9]

Sucks when the games break....but once you get a chance to really "overhaul" them it doesn't happen often. Along the way you will blow stuff up, but you learn that way. Then when a game does go down, you will get better at troubleshooting and repairing them..
-Mark

 

[delroy666]

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.

That's the only part I hate - not having time to work on the project games that are filling up my garage. I enjoy the restoration work, but with a full-time job, kids to look after, home renos, etc. I rarely have time to get much accomplished. That drives me nuts, not only because I hate seeing the games sitting there for so long, but also because I have to pass on good deals I find on CL that I have no room for.

 

[TrevEB]

Driving home Saturday night from Cal Ex.
Missile Command down, playing blind.
Joust going south, graphic glitches appearing.
I'm thinking, what the hell am I doing. I should sell them all tomorrow.
Sunday.
MC: has a loose solder joint in the chassis, one good wiggle fixes it for the day.
Joust: dropped in new ram. (a planned fix) all is well.

downs, and ups.

 

[Level42]

Yep: I'd LOVE to have that Q*bert and restore it back into it's full glory because I HATE that you 60in1-ed it.....

But hey, that's just MHO.

 

[McCombs]

Yep: I'd LOVE to have that Q*bert and restore it back into it's full glory because I HATE that you 60in1-ed it.....

But hey, that's just MHO.

Nice wordplay....I would LOVE to put the q*bert back to it's original state but HATE that parts are hard to come by and expensive!

 

[SuperSprint]

Definitely love/hate. Got a new Golden Tee that works great for a steal. LOVE. Been working on a SuperSprint monitor and *finally* got a recognizable picture last night, but blew the (just replaced) VR and HOT a few minutes later. HATE.

This hobby definitely requires patience as each new step usually involves the postman and a week or so of waiting. Very frustrating for the type personality that will stay up 'til 4am to finish a project once it's been started.

 

[thebman80]

Thats why I always go over every single solder joint on a monitor chassis no matter if I see anything or not. Then recap the monitor as well in the process. It might take up to an hour for me to go over the monitor but the headaches it saves in the long run are well worth the extra trouble.