November 20, 2008

November 9, 2008

I’ll cut to the chase.  I picked up a Super Pac-Man machine the other day (I believe it was this past Monday).  It’s in great shape with a few dings, but was not working.  I’m not sure how much cabinet work I’ll put into this machine, but I may try to patch the dings and do a little touch up painting.  The original sideart is in great shape so I don’t want to mess with it.

After I got the machine home, I cleaned out the dust and cob webs and tinkered around with the electronics.  For the most part, I just made sure everything was connected properly.  Basically, I just unplugged everything to make sure there wasn’t dirt breaking the connection.  However, I noticed one wire was hanging loose.  I tracked it down and determined it was a loose ground wire.  I screwed it down and fired up the machine.  After about 15 seconds, I was looking at a functioning Super Pac-Man, but the screen was sagging and blurry on one side.

It didn’t take long to determine the cause of the blurry image.  It turns out the inside of the bezel was just really dusty.  A simple cleaning remedied that problem.  However the screen is still warped, so I’m sure I will have to replace a capacitor or 2.  But for now, the game is very playable.

Here are a few pictures I snapped.  You can see there is bad burn-in on the screen, but it’s not noticeable at all when the bezel is replaced and the game is running.  Since it will be for my own use, I will refrain from replacing the monitor for now.  And my investment is already paying off.  I found a total of $2.51 ($0.50 is in the coin box) lodged in the back of the cabinet.

12►

I took the 1st step in my second Donkey Kong restoration project.  I finally decided to clean out the inside of the cabinet.  There is only one word to describe what I encountered… na-has-ty.  I thought the cabinet had some water damage, but it turns out it was just caked on dirt.   So, I swabbed and swabbed and swabbed with a rag and soapy water until I got all the gunk cleaned out.   I refused to take pictures so I wouldn’t have to relive that nightmare.

Now that the hard part is over, I can begin the real work.  The next step will be to remove everything else (coin door, etc) that I didn’t have to remove to clean out the inside and then I can begin the sanding.

I need to go take a hot shower now…

I’m a few days late posting this, but here is one more pumpkin I hastily carved on Halloween night…