My $150 non-working Ms. Pacman, now working

scott9050

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Manassas, West Virginia
I saw an ad on Craigslist for a Ms. Pac-Man that needed work and had suddenly stopped working, so I contacted the guy to ask about he. He e-mailed me and told me that he had the game for several years and just before his last move it stopped working. He could not provide any more information because he does not know anything about these machines. He also told me that he had started to strip the cabinet art and had it partly sanded. I set up a time to go and look at it today and drove the 50 miles to his house.
He had it in his open garage and a quick inspection showed that parts of it were rough but it was worth the money he was asking. The coin door is junk, it needs to have the rest of the body prepped and some small places need bondo, the joystick is non-original and totally worn out and the marquee was faded. I noticed that the power cord had been repaired with electrical tape.
When I got it unloaded I plugged it in and tried to turn it on and got nothing. I took off the back and took off the power cord and replaced it with one from another Ms. Pac-Man power supply I had laying around. This time with the door back on it fired right up.
The screen had significant burn in and as you can see in the pictures there is some smearing underneath the characters and logo. I have a non burned in monitor that is just a few years old that I will probably toss in it. The joystick needs to be replaced and and it needs new CPO artwork. This should be an easy project. I already replaced the marquee with a non faded one I had. A few pics:

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You should be able to touch up that sideart with a sharpie ;-)

A cap kit is a good idea, but not absolutely necessary judging from your picture. I'd say the brightness is up too high and possibly the blue is over-driven; both are easy enough to adjust out.

Before you go crazy adjusting the monitor, make sure to remove the tint screen and clean it really well along with the front of the picture tube. I like to use Mean Green from the Dollar Store since it cuts through the cigarette tar better than anything else.

Nice find BTW!
 
I look forward to seeing it with new artwork (sides and front). Please post updates.

Scott C.
 
I saw that add but I went for the Star Wars Pachinko machine instead at $275 and in near Mint condition.Plus I just bought a Stratovox cocktail machine recently so funds were low. Nice pickup.
 
I saw that add but I went for the Star Wars Pachinko machine instead at $275 and in near Mint condition.Plus I just bought a Stratovox cocktail machine recently so funds were low. Nice pickup.

OMG - I saw that (moving to DC area soon) and was kicking myself for seeing it and not being able to get it. Congrats! Is it as cool as it seems?
 
OMG - I saw that (moving to DC area soon) and was kicking myself for seeing it and not being able to get it. Congrats! Is it as cool as it seems?
Yeah, it is pretty cool and totally complete. It has tax stickers from Georgia to Texas on it.
I contacted him literally 5 minutes after the posting went up and he said I was the first one in line. I finally snagged one in this area.
 
I played with it a bit and turned down the brightness and turned down the blue. The smearing is gone but the reds are still washed out a bit and have an orangish hue as seen in the following pics:

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I will have to mess with it some more when my wife is around to help.
 
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