I got some new toys in the last month...

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Ok, many of you know that I've had a Paddle Battle cabinet, and an original Lunar Lander cabinet in my house for about 30 years now(ok, so it's been 29.... close enough, dammit!)

 

Over the past month, I've managed to double my number of cabinets. First off, my father-in-law is moving out of state, and had THREE poker machines. I've been wanting one for a long time.... so I told him so. He was asking $300 each, but I only wanted one of them. I was cool with the price, so long as it worked. Turns out, he sold two of them for $250, and offered me the 3rd one for $100. I was shocked..... and ran to the bank to get the cash before he changed his mind. That was delivered about a month ago. It's been slightly modified from original, with a bill-acceptor, that can handle $1 bills up to $20 bills. Of course, it's old... so it only accepts OLD bills. Took me about 2 weeks to find an old $20 that it would accept. I figured I could keep running it through the bill acceptor to rack up credits, and play as long as I want.

 

Last week..... one of my son's friends was over here, and mentioned that his parents had an arcade game they were interested in selling. A Super Pac-Man machine was in their basement, and they were looking to sell it cheap($200 delivered). The friend told me that it has an issue with the speakers. I figured that shouldn't be a problem, since I've done quite a bit of work on Lunar Lander restoring the Throttle Control to work. Oddly enough, it too has developed a speaker issue. No worries, though..... It's probably a loose wire. Even if it's not, speakers are an easy fix.... on both machines. It's just a matter of getting to them. LL is easy, because the marque screws are hex, and I have a bunch of those around here. Super Pac-Man.... bastards... made theirs proprietary. I'm going to need to find the right tool for that. But hey, it's 2013.... I should be able to find a set.

 

Anyhow, here are some pictures of both my old, and new, acquisitions. I've moved them to a new room, and they look great in there. My wife is telling me that I'm not allowed to get anymore for a while. That's ok, I've recently gotten a couple that I really wanted.

 

 

Edit: As you can easily see, the Super Pac-Man is missing it's locks. What you can't see, is that the coin mech's have also been removed. No big deal, I have an extra one around here, which I'll set up to take the same tokens that Lunar Lander is set to take. The cabinet itself isn't in the best of shape... it has a lot of scratches, but the side-art is pretty intact. The marquee is beautiful. The glass over the screen has a few flaws, but is pretty well intact. When I tested it before I bought it, the screen went a little goofy after playing for a few boards. However, I pressed all of the connectors securely in place when I got it home, and haven't had the problem since. I did try to turn the sound off.... but that didn't work. I am going to have to find a copy of the manual, though... as that wasn't included. It did have the original coin box. Inside was a bit dirty.... but I can cure that in about half an hour.

 

All in all, I'm happy with it. It plays well, and is still set to it's original arcade settings. That's how I want it.

Edited November 4, 2013 by [d2f]Iggy*SJB

[number six]

$200 is a good price on a dedicated super-pac.

 

Most arcade machines use the Security Torq for anything that the general public can easily see (ie Marquee screws). I'm assuming this is to keep teenagers from taking machines apart with their pocket knives. You should definitely invest in a set of the security bits as you will see them on most machines. They are usally pretty cheap (re: http://www.twistedquarter.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=71&products_id=730).

 

Good luck with the collection!

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

_{Thanks Number Six! That looks like the exact tools I will need. Yeah, I would make the same guess as to why. When I was around them all the time, I never took note on what kind of screws they used, it wasn't part of my duties.}

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I ordered the tools from that website, and a pair of locks for the Super Pac-Man. I need to get a pair of coin mechs, but it seems that there are different sizes. I bought a Super Pac-Man manual from e-pay, Hopefully the manual will tell me which mechs I'll need, along with what lights go in the coin door.

 

Once the tools get here, I'm going to work on the speaker problem, and hopefully get that sorted out. It's become less of a problem lately, for some reason. Maybe the machine knows it's in the hands of someone that is going to take care of it, and fix it up.

 

I also have to replace the lights in Lunar Lander's marquee, they finally bit the dust after 30 years.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Tool set and locks arrived in the mail yesterday. Still waiting for the manual, but the seller on e-bay apologized for the delay in shipping due to his father passing away before the auction ended. It has shipped, and should be here sometime next week. I'm not worried about this, because he has provided a tracking number, and it's confirmed on its way.

 

I did some poking around on the motherboard of Super Pac-Man, and found a secondary volume control. I turned it down a bit, and the speaker problem went away. I also looked closer at the inside of the coin door, and found several wires have been cut. I'm making an assumption here, but it seems that whoever sold it to the people I bought it from, wanted to make sure it never wound up in an arcade again. Fortunately, I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron. I just need a wiring chart to figure this mess out. I'm not putting it out somewhere to make money, but I would like it to be in fully working order. Looks like that 4 months an $3000 I spent on technical school will come in handy.