JamBurglar
Well-known member
So I have a Donkey Kong that is on a surge protector. It's backed into a corner, making the on/off switch hard to access so I use the button on the surge protector to turn the machine on and off.
Anyway, the other week, I play DK for an hour or so. When I'm done I hit the switch on the surgeprotector as usual to kill the power. I watch TV in the same room as the game for an hour or two and then I go upstairs and change because I have a soccer game to play. As I'm coming back down the stairs I smell a strong burning rubber smell. After searching around the house I find that it seems to be coming from the area of DK (which has been switched off at the surge protector for over an hour at this point). I unplug the game from the surge protector. I open the back and don't see anything out of the ordinary. Although I was expecting the smell would be way worse in the game, it wasn't. Next, I opened the coin door and checked in the front, same thing, no visible issues. I could never localize where the smell was coming from but I'm almost certain it was DK because its the only thing electric I have in that area of the house. By the time I had inspected the game the smell had pretty much dissapated.
The next day I opened her up again and looked around the monitor. I didn't see anything unsual to my newb eyes. I also pulled out the board (which is a 4 board set because it's an early model upright) and didn't see any evidence of burning or a fire.
After all that I that I plugged the power chord back into the surge protector, powered on, and the game works just fine. I've played for hours since then with no issues. I've started completely unplugging the game since then because I'm paranoid (even though I figure it makes no difference whatsoever).
Anyway, two questions.
(1) Is this something I should be pro-active about as far as finding any potential issue and fixing it. Or is it something like an insect crawled back into the monitor and got zapped. I really don't want to loose the board or my monitor down the road if I can avoid it.
(2) How big of a fire hazard are these old games? Is there something I can do to make sure it doesn't burn down my house and kill my 2 cats while I'm away for the weekend?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Anyway, the other week, I play DK for an hour or so. When I'm done I hit the switch on the surgeprotector as usual to kill the power. I watch TV in the same room as the game for an hour or two and then I go upstairs and change because I have a soccer game to play. As I'm coming back down the stairs I smell a strong burning rubber smell. After searching around the house I find that it seems to be coming from the area of DK (which has been switched off at the surge protector for over an hour at this point). I unplug the game from the surge protector. I open the back and don't see anything out of the ordinary. Although I was expecting the smell would be way worse in the game, it wasn't. Next, I opened the coin door and checked in the front, same thing, no visible issues. I could never localize where the smell was coming from but I'm almost certain it was DK because its the only thing electric I have in that area of the house. By the time I had inspected the game the smell had pretty much dissapated.
The next day I opened her up again and looked around the monitor. I didn't see anything unsual to my newb eyes. I also pulled out the board (which is a 4 board set because it's an early model upright) and didn't see any evidence of burning or a fire.
After all that I that I plugged the power chord back into the surge protector, powered on, and the game works just fine. I've played for hours since then with no issues. I've started completely unplugging the game since then because I'm paranoid (even though I figure it makes no difference whatsoever).
Anyway, two questions.
(1) Is this something I should be pro-active about as far as finding any potential issue and fixing it. Or is it something like an insect crawled back into the monitor and got zapped. I really don't want to loose the board or my monitor down the road if I can avoid it.
(2) How big of a fire hazard are these old games? Is there something I can do to make sure it doesn't burn down my house and kill my 2 cats while I'm away for the weekend?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
