What is the dumbest thing you have ever done working on or around an game?
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andrewb
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Holy shit, what game was that?
I was not aware they could fry to the point of generating light.
@andrewb Me neither..
I recently acquired a Star Trek the Next Generation pin.. I was upgrading the program ROM to the most recent. The sound board vs. the CPU board chips are orientated opposite each other. Put the ROM in the CPU board backwards (after just messing with the sound board) and watched it flicker to death through the label.. I thought it was a feature at first..
It was a 27C4001 - which of course I didn't have any - it took a few days to get one..
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I imagine that could happen if the power went into the signal line. The lines that feed that die for the actual ROM are like mini fuses so they would glow before they vaporized.
Atari's old (1980 - 1982 at least) ROMs had foil over the window, so you would not see that.
Williams had a green paper cover for Stargate. I'm not sure if you'd see light through that. And I don't want to test it for some reason to find out.
fleckopolis
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putting a 19-in-1 pcb in a converted Defender cocktail.
was tinkering with the idea of adding a switching power supply to run the LED's under the control panel.
with the game off, I plugged in a new power cord to run from the receptacle to the switcher, measured a few feet and cut it with my diagonal cutters. POW!
found out the hard way to always unplug the game when working on power. derr
was tinkering with the idea of adding a switching power supply to run the LED's under the control panel.
with the game off, I plugged in a new power cord to run from the receptacle to the switcher, measured a few feet and cut it with my diagonal cutters. POW!
found out the hard way to always unplug the game when working on power. derr
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fleckopolis
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been there, done that
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Apart from frying a perfectly good DK board, then doing the same thing to my spare 5 minutes later, then realising I'd plugged the wrong wire into the wrong place both times....
Three months ago, I was carrying a WG6100 monitor across my garage. My feet tangled up in the garden hose that I'd stupidly dumped there the day before. Felt myself falling forwards, instinct stepped in and I held the monitor firm, which accelerated my fall face first onto a shelving unit.
Put my front teeth right through my upper lip. 12 stitches inside the lip, 3 on the outside. It's healed up pretty well now, but by Jimminy, it was a mess.
Not a scratch on the monitor though, so I console myself by regarding the experience as a win overall. A busted lip and a busted 6100 would have been truly devastating. I can live with the scar.
Here's the least graphic pic I have just after the stitches went in.
Three months ago, I was carrying a WG6100 monitor across my garage. My feet tangled up in the garden hose that I'd stupidly dumped there the day before. Felt myself falling forwards, instinct stepped in and I held the monitor firm, which accelerated my fall face first onto a shelving unit.
Put my front teeth right through my upper lip. 12 stitches inside the lip, 3 on the outside. It's healed up pretty well now, but by Jimminy, it was a mess.
Not a scratch on the monitor though, so I console myself by regarding the experience as a win overall. A busted lip and a busted 6100 would have been truly devastating. I can live with the scar.
Here's the least graphic pic I have just after the stitches went in.
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I was messing with my FrankenDefender (JROK + Moon Patrol, with a JAMMA switcher) to try and get rid of some interference bands on the WG4600 in Moon Patrol when things started going haywire. I have a Happ PSU in there that's plugged into the Williams power brick, and while I'd turned off the PSU, I'd neglected to unplug the game from the wall. I'm still not 100% sure what happened, but my best guess is that a sync wire going from the JAMMA switcher to the monitor came loose, dangled down into the cab, and touched a hot lead on the ISO. BZZZZZT! All the boards started sparking; the video card on the 4600 literally caught fire.
Not a fun (or cheap) day, but I eventually managed to get everything working again (with help from @seinologist).
In other news, if there are any surface mount wizards out there who want to take a crack at repairing a Williams JROK with a couple of fried IC's, it's yours for cheap. MMAO...
Not a fun (or cheap) day, but I eventually managed to get everything working again (with help from @seinologist).
In other news, if there are any surface mount wizards out there who want to take a crack at repairing a Williams JROK with a couple of fried IC's, it's yours for cheap. MMAO...
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OP
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Oww, that hurts just to look at.
KLOV member of the year... Saved the vector monitor. Well done. Lol
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Some lessons here to prevent this:
1. Consider the "Line of Fire" - If I release this piece, where will it fall? Could it neck my tube?
2. Check twice, use a piece of colored tape to identify a chip to remove. The minute you break eye contact, you can lose your target (I did). A small piece of yellow or white tape on the chip to be removed is a human error prevention tool.
3. Moving something - CLEAR THE PATH. Or you can put a tooth through your lip, or neck a tube, or break something.
4. Good housekeeping saves a lot of pain. Put racks on the wall, and rack your hoses so they don't get under foot. The same with cords. Rack those babies.
5. Use STAR (Stop Think Act Review) (which isn't Shit, that ain't right after the smoke comes out) before you do something that is not reversible. For example, you are going to cut a power cord.
Stop for a second - look at the power cord
THINK - Is the cord disconnected from power?
ACT - Put your cutters on the cord and cut it.
Review - did everything go as expected?
These are "nuclear" things we in the industry do to make sure we reduce mistakes. You can use them too and not make mistakes.
One final trick: Don't leave stuff on the floor or drawers open. We had people break legs / ankles because they tripped over a desk drawer they had open.
1. Consider the "Line of Fire" - If I release this piece, where will it fall? Could it neck my tube?
2. Check twice, use a piece of colored tape to identify a chip to remove. The minute you break eye contact, you can lose your target (I did). A small piece of yellow or white tape on the chip to be removed is a human error prevention tool.
3. Moving something - CLEAR THE PATH. Or you can put a tooth through your lip, or neck a tube, or break something.
4. Good housekeeping saves a lot of pain. Put racks on the wall, and rack your hoses so they don't get under foot. The same with cords. Rack those babies.
5. Use STAR (Stop Think Act Review) (which isn't Shit, that ain't right after the smoke comes out) before you do something that is not reversible. For example, you are going to cut a power cord.
Stop for a second - look at the power cord
THINK - Is the cord disconnected from power?
ACT - Put your cutters on the cord and cut it.
Review - did everything go as expected?
These are "nuclear" things we in the industry do to make sure we reduce mistakes. You can use them too and not make mistakes.
One final trick: Don't leave stuff on the floor or drawers open. We had people break legs / ankles because they tripped over a desk drawer they had open.
wugly
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We need a Tshirt for this stuff
ArtMAME
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Maybe not the dumbest thing I have done but certainly one of my most outrageous stories involving arcade machines.
So my buddy finds a big Konami cabinet that at one point had been a Run and Gun. At this point it is someone's project cabinet that my buddy wants to use as a donor for something else. We go to the guy's house in Midtown Atlanta. The cabinet is on the third floor in the guy's apartment so we hand cart it out of the door and into... the stairwell. The stairwell had turns so tight that at one point we had the Konami cabinet completely upside down!!! With a 27" monitor still in it!!! We finally flip-flopped it down the last flight of stairs and loaded it into my truck and took it home for me to work on. Well we discovered that the guy's multiple cats had used the Konami cabinet as a litterbox. The stench was gnarly. I threw baking soda, Fabreeze, Bounce sheets, primer, OSB, more primer, etc. to eliminate and then cover up the smell. I finally got the cabinet presentable after two weeks of air drying with a box fan blowing on it.
So my buddy finds a big Konami cabinet that at one point had been a Run and Gun. At this point it is someone's project cabinet that my buddy wants to use as a donor for something else. We go to the guy's house in Midtown Atlanta. The cabinet is on the third floor in the guy's apartment so we hand cart it out of the door and into... the stairwell. The stairwell had turns so tight that at one point we had the Konami cabinet completely upside down!!! With a 27" monitor still in it!!! We finally flip-flopped it down the last flight of stairs and loaded it into my truck and took it home for me to work on. Well we discovered that the guy's multiple cats had used the Konami cabinet as a litterbox. The stench was gnarly. I threw baking soda, Fabreeze, Bounce sheets, primer, OSB, more primer, etc. to eliminate and then cover up the smell. I finally got the cabinet presentable after two weeks of air drying with a box fan blowing on it.
I've been electrocuted twice in rapid succession by the same game.
So sometime back I had an indie game developer approach me to make a handful of prototype cabinets for his indie arcade title. As with all the games I build I put a service panel with the power switch directly behind the coin door on top of the coin door metal bucket cage and a electrical gang box to the rear to handle most of the common AC power output.
I fired up the game and noticed I got nothing on the screen and apparently no AC power. I open up the back door to trouble shoot the switch, reaching in to fiddle with the power switch.
Only a handful of people here on KLOV have ever seen me in person but I'm a borderline midget and i had trouble reaching in that deep so I figured I'd simply crawl into the cabinet and mess with the power switch. Just as I get in there, crouch down and touch the power switch, The hot wire from this crappy switch snaps right off and The hotwire lands right in my hand.
So here I am being turned into pork rinds and just as I get that stupid wire off of me, I lean back in a panic while still inside of the cabinet. I end up losing my balance and almost rolling out of the cabinet. Instinctively I put out my spare hand to either hold onto the cabinet or break my fall backwards. In doing so I unintentionally grabbed the gang box and my finger slid into the space between the outlet and the box ( It had no cover) and I get electrocuted for the second time in as many seconds finally falling out of the cabinet.
I'm not sure if this was a Tom & Jerry or Dumb and Dumber moment. Don't be me.
So sometime back I had an indie game developer approach me to make a handful of prototype cabinets for his indie arcade title. As with all the games I build I put a service panel with the power switch directly behind the coin door on top of the coin door metal bucket cage and a electrical gang box to the rear to handle most of the common AC power output.
I fired up the game and noticed I got nothing on the screen and apparently no AC power. I open up the back door to trouble shoot the switch, reaching in to fiddle with the power switch.
Only a handful of people here on KLOV have ever seen me in person but I'm a borderline midget and i had trouble reaching in that deep so I figured I'd simply crawl into the cabinet and mess with the power switch. Just as I get in there, crouch down and touch the power switch, The hot wire from this crappy switch snaps right off and The hotwire lands right in my hand.
So here I am being turned into pork rinds and just as I get that stupid wire off of me, I lean back in a panic while still inside of the cabinet. I end up losing my balance and almost rolling out of the cabinet. Instinctively I put out my spare hand to either hold onto the cabinet or break my fall backwards. In doing so I unintentionally grabbed the gang box and my finger slid into the space between the outlet and the box ( It had no cover) and I get electrocuted for the second time in as many seconds finally falling out of the cabinet.
I'm not sure if this was a Tom & Jerry or Dumb and Dumber moment. Don't be me.
I was using a voltage convertor that Arcade Jason shows to power up the vector side of an Asteroids board to see it on my scope. I reversed the 5v with the ground, and took out a few chips, including the C8, and a DAC. I did manage to fix it though. This happened to be a board Andrewb had repaired for me about a year earlier. I've desoldered the wrong chips, ROM and other chips in backwards, installed a diode in backwards. Shit happens.
Texas_Funnyhair
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I shorted a transistor while adjusting the pop bumper switch on a Black Knight, my switch adjuster accidentally touched one of the lamps wire.
So wrapped my switch adjuster with electrical tape to help prevent that but I try to only do switch adjustments with the machine off. Takes a bit longer to get things dialed in but not as long as it takes to repair the board.
Non arcade related but I did once manage to get flames to shoot out of a buck-boost converter IC. I'm not sure what I did, was doing some tests on it in college when I noticed the output voltage suddenly dropped. Next thing I know an actual jet of flame shot out as I was cutting the power. So basically taught me to immediately cut the power if something doesn't look right.
So wrapped my switch adjuster with electrical tape to help prevent that but I try to only do switch adjustments with the machine off. Takes a bit longer to get things dialed in but not as long as it takes to repair the board.
Non arcade related but I did once manage to get flames to shoot out of a buck-boost converter IC. I'm not sure what I did, was doing some tests on it in college when I noticed the output voltage suddenly dropped. Next thing I know an actual jet of flame shot out as I was cutting the power. So basically taught me to immediately cut the power if something doesn't look right.
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wugly
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you brought back a memory of a gottlieb dragon pinball I had. I was all done repairing it and was doing final adjustments of scoring switches when my adjustment tool accidently bumped the lamp circuit. it blew out the spider chip on the board and required a replacement. (I was done!!! not anymore)
EVB
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I recall having a perfect burn free wg6100 on my garage floor and tapping the neck of it with a game I was moving on a dolly. Ugh.... of all the monitors to kill. It had to be the one with a perfect tube. Of course!
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Ah college. Another memory.
We had a HP Logic Tester - it's the clip you put over the chip.
We had a simple computer which was working but no software. Just some slow scan pictures.
So we were looking at the logic patterns from chip to chip. I moved it to the next chip, and a Tantalum capacitor let the smoke out - FAST. POOF / FLASH.
So, off to get a new Tantalum and solder it in, nope. The computer was damaged - probably blew the voltage regulator out of it.
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