What to do in the colder months?

TheDrewster

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Not sure about the rest of you, but here in Reno, it has practically gone straight from summer to winter and said to hell with autumn. I keep all but 1 of my games in the garage (DK is in the living room) and I am concerned about moving, working and turning on games in the colder temperatures. Could I damage or harm the games by doing so?
 
Timely thread. I just spent the better part of a day moving all of my games from my unheated garage into the house into a storage room. I figure that although I cannot do cabinet restoration work inside, I can at least take them apart, organize/label everything and clean the cabinets out and prepare to get the monitors capped, fix coin doors, power supplies, etc.

That way come spring, I'll have a lot of cabinets to sand all at once. LOL. Oh well, I'd rather do bondo in an assembly line and knock it all out than to have to revisit that time and time again....
 
Electronics actually do good in the colder weather than warm, look at PCs and how many fans they have trying to keep everything cool. Now on the other hand, monitors, sideart, CPOs, and other non electronic stuff will not like the cold. Monitors will take longer to "warm up" the colder it is. Sideart, and CPOs could be at risk for drying and cracking in the cold weather. Your PCBs and power supply will love the cold, because they stay cool and run more reliabile.
 
This will be my 4th winter with my machines. I've never done a damn thing special with them. I just turn them on when I want to play them and off when I am done. My garage gets pretty cold...even with insulation it can hit the 40's in there...
 
I'd worry about painted artwork on glass- that doesn't seem to fair too well in freezing temps.

The other item is monitors, many are rated to operate at +50° C, not below it. The risk seems to be thermal shock with the CRT heater in the neck, ruining the tube.
 
As far as I know, the only thing to avoid is bringing cold games into a warm, more humid environment. Even then, if you wait till the game warmed up and any condensate evaporated before turning it on, you should be just fine.

Thermal expansion of solder joints could cause weak joints to fail faster, but that would have happened eventually anyway.

I have stored/worked on/played games in my unheated garage during winter, and never had issues.
 
This will be my 4th winter with my machines. I've never done a damn thing special with them. I just turn them on when I want to play them and off when I am done. My garage gets pretty cold...even with insulation it can hit the 40's in there...

Second that - my games are in the garage too, and I just turn them on when I want to play. Nothing special. Kinda sucks that I have to wear a coat to stay out there, but no sacrifice is too great to play arcade games!

:D
 
I'd worry about painted artwork on glass- that doesn't seem to fair too well in freezing temps.

The other item is monitors, many are rated to operate at +50° C, not below it. The risk seems to be thermal shock with the CRT heater in the neck, ruining the tube.


+50c? That's HOT!
 
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