Monitors
Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:32 am
Monitors, I've decided, are what separate the men from the boys in the arcade collecting hobby. I desperately want to be a man.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't know how PCBs work other than they are a collection of magic chips, connected by magic traces, attached to a green board. That's about the extent of my knowledge. I do know that chips can be replaced and some are easier to be replaced; I also know that boards can be swapped in and out which is typically my plan of attack.
But my god, those monitors! A quick inventory of my games show that half of them could use monitor work. Some could be brighter, some could look better, some probably only need adjusting. But then there are those that area dead, and what a market it that. People have given me otherwise working games with dead monitors because they don't know how to proceed. I had one dumped at the end of my driveway, a gift from a relative's employer. The message I got was, "No picture, enjoy."
I have had those in the know tell me that fixing monitors is "no big deal." This is one of those friends that wires up things for fun and built his first robot while still in the womb. I don't have any other arcade friends like that, but my dad is like that, with cars. To him, cars have no magic -- they're just a collection of parts, and a dead car is a collection of parts with some faulty ones in there. I guess it's like me and computers, as they're not magic to me anymore and haven't been for a long time. But monitors are just some big collection of wires and capacitors and things that would love to shock me to death.
As I wrote in my book, there are three options when it comes to dealing with monitors; replace them, have someone work on them, or fix them yourself. Replacing them would cost hundreds of dollars, having someone work on them would be slightly cheaper but not much. You can cap any monitor for less than $10 which really seems to be the way to go.
When I got into this hobby I had no idea the amount of work that would go into keeping these things alive. They seemed like mammoths compared to tiny Atari carts. All my old Atari carts still work the same as the day I bought them, I'll have you know. No soldering required to keep them alive. For that matter not only are they cheaper, but I've never thrown my back out moving one around. Boy did I pick the wrong hobby.
My wife expressed joy the other day when I got down to only two cabinets being stored in the garage. The number's back up to four, and the van is back to living life in the driveway. Seriously, who deserves to be warm at night -- a Burgertime cabinet or a Honda Odyssey minivan? Please.
Le sigh. I'm off to order some cap kits, roll up my sleeves, and see if I can't shock the shit out of myself this weekend.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't know how PCBs work other than they are a collection of magic chips, connected by magic traces, attached to a green board. That's about the extent of my knowledge. I do know that chips can be replaced and some are easier to be replaced; I also know that boards can be swapped in and out which is typically my plan of attack.
But my god, those monitors! A quick inventory of my games show that half of them could use monitor work. Some could be brighter, some could look better, some probably only need adjusting. But then there are those that area dead, and what a market it that. People have given me otherwise working games with dead monitors because they don't know how to proceed. I had one dumped at the end of my driveway, a gift from a relative's employer. The message I got was, "No picture, enjoy."
I have had those in the know tell me that fixing monitors is "no big deal." This is one of those friends that wires up things for fun and built his first robot while still in the womb. I don't have any other arcade friends like that, but my dad is like that, with cars. To him, cars have no magic -- they're just a collection of parts, and a dead car is a collection of parts with some faulty ones in there. I guess it's like me and computers, as they're not magic to me anymore and haven't been for a long time. But monitors are just some big collection of wires and capacitors and things that would love to shock me to death.
As I wrote in my book, there are three options when it comes to dealing with monitors; replace them, have someone work on them, or fix them yourself. Replacing them would cost hundreds of dollars, having someone work on them would be slightly cheaper but not much. You can cap any monitor for less than $10 which really seems to be the way to go.
When I got into this hobby I had no idea the amount of work that would go into keeping these things alive. They seemed like mammoths compared to tiny Atari carts. All my old Atari carts still work the same as the day I bought them, I'll have you know. No soldering required to keep them alive. For that matter not only are they cheaper, but I've never thrown my back out moving one around. Boy did I pick the wrong hobby.
My wife expressed joy the other day when I got down to only two cabinets being stored in the garage. The number's back up to four, and the van is back to living life in the driveway. Seriously, who deserves to be warm at night -- a Burgertime cabinet or a Honda Odyssey minivan? Please.
Le sigh. I'm off to order some cap kits, roll up my sleeves, and see if I can't shock the shit out of myself this weekend.