Fire Safety vs Arcade

My G08 -DID- start to catch fire. I powered on the game and almost immediately I started to smell that horrible burnt electrical smell. I had the back door down on the cockpit and it was very evident real quick. I went backside to take a look and there was a glowing hole in the flyback control and it was starting to shoot sparks. I never needed to use a fire extinguisher as I quickly shut the power off. However, I was happy to know that I had a fire extinguisher nearby.
 
Good topic.

1- Anything with 30 yr old electronics like the transformer and CRT...I rewire the switch so the power cuts the power to the brick itself so the machine is completely dead when the power switch is off.

2- With little ones and pets in the family, I don't put CRT/transformer items in the house. They stay in the garage. ( A person wouldn't run a 35 yr old refrigerator inside their house, either )

3- I do have a pinball machine in the house and it has a smoke alarm sitting right ontop of it.

hashtag crack kills, hobbies shouldn't :)
 
It's a good bet that if you unloaded a dry chem extinguisher in your arcade ALL your games will be done for in the long run. The dry chem is indeed corrosive and gets everywhere. Think drywall dust. I've never looked to see if they sell a neutralizer that you could wash the boards in but even in that situation you would be spending a LONG time trying to get all the residual dust out of the cabs to keep from re-contaminating.

So necrobumping a thread here... But this came up while out at one of my car shows this year and I thought a followup would be in order. A friend emptied one of these into his engine bay when his engine caught fire this past summer so the conversation cropped up again.

For those that have an ABC dry chem extinguisher in your game room and were wondering about neutralization. I've not tried this and don't really want to but if you're in this situation you could mix up a big batch of these solutions and submerge/clean all of the metal parts from the cab in it I suppose. You'd have to do a through cleaning to get under all the chips though so I don't doubt it would be a lot of work.

https://www.statesystemsinc.com/blog/fire-extinguisher-cleanup

Dry Chemical Fire Extinguisher

Sweep or vacuum any residue that has settled on the affected area.
To break down the silicone in the dry chemical, spray the affected area with a solution of 50% isopropyl alcohol and 50% warm water. Allow the solution to penetrate the residue for a few minutes, then rinse with warm water.
To neutralize sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate based dry chemicals, wash the affected area with a solution of 98% hot water and 2% vinegar. Allow the solution to sit for a few minutes; then rinse with warm water.
To neutralize monoammonium phosphate based dry chemical, wash the affected area with a solution of hot water and baking soda. Allow the solution to treat the excess agent for a few minutes, then rinse with warm water.
Wash the area with a mild soap and water solution; then rinse.
Blow the area dry to remove excess water.
 
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