restoration

[mark]

I need some advise. Im thinking of buying an 80's arcade to restore. Thought it would be fun. How hard is it to restore arcades? I have no experience with anything electrical. What are your experiences with them. Anyone know a site i could go to to learn what it takes?

[jammadave]

mark,

 

as a fellow no-fix-experience guy i can tell you that it doesn't *sound* difficult to do. Do you know how to solder? That's the only thing holding me back, personally. Oh, and patience, which i have none of when I wanna play a game =0) if you can use a voltmeter and a soldering station you're well on your way. a lot of fault finding is simple "volts/no volts?" and "how many volts?" which each lead to their own set of fixes. straightforward flow-of-electrons stuff. if the right amount of power gets where it needs to be then the game works fine.

 

example, I have a KickMan arcade upright which doesn't work. Now, my best bud (cassidy n.) knows how to fix stuff electronically so I recruit him quite often to help out when i get a dead game. collectively the power supply has been rebuilt, the power board replaced, and the whole PCB stack has been replaced, all with the exact same result of garbage on the screen. So, the fault is somewhere in the wiring, i'd assume. In this case, i'll bet it's a simple fix if i felt like looking for the fault. But I don't, thats where the patience thing comes in.

 

this may or may not help but there's one take on it =0)

cheers

dave

[Arcadenut]

I need some advise. Im thinking of buying an 80's arcade to restore. Thought it would be fun. How hard is it to restore arcades? I have no experience with anything electrical. What are your experiences with them. Anyone know a site i could go to to learn what it takes?

 

I might know of a site.... (hint: follow the link in my sig).