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Blast City resurrection

It's time to close the chapter on the Blast Cities - it's been great, I've had three of you, but sadly (not really), you're no longer in my collection :D

I sold Back in Feb 2023, I sold one of my Blast Cities to help fund for an E2. As great as the last blast has been, it served its purpose well as my "novelty cab" which ran Monkey Ball and Rhythm Tengoku.

Fast forward to Feb 2024 while doing my monthly routine "load test" (turn everything on and leave it running a good 8 hours), the blast city turned on and when I came back it unfortunately played blind. Sound was still playing, but no image.

As much as I wanted to throw a tantrum and get the sh*ts, I couldn't really do much about it, it is what it was, the chassis died. I waited and waited just in case it went into protection, but it was still playing blind after a couple of days.

Fortunately for me, I had a spare chassis and immaculate tube. Quickly tested the complete setup and was happy to see she was alive again!

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For those that are annoyed with the way the blast fits into the cab, I found having tea towels on each end and loosening the screws on the rabbit ears by a little makes the removal and installation a little bit easier.

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Of course nothing is ever easy! After turning it back on, I lost the whole red channel and thought it was weird. I removed the whole enclosure again and when testing colours were all good. I figured as a safety measure, it'd be worthwhile reflowing the transistors on the neck board and noticed this!! :(

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I took off the neckboard on the dead chassis and installed it on to the good one and and luckily everything worked as expected without colours dropping :D

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After having the Blasts for a number of years, I no longer wanted it in the collection, it's far too temperamental for my liking so I put a 2p panel on it and whatever buttons I had left, posted it online and waited... and waited... and waited :D Nobody wanted to buy it sadly.

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I reached out to the person who purchased my other blast and he said if I was happy to hang onto it for a little bit, he'd buy it.

Last weekend, the cab was finally picked up. It's a bitter sweet journey with this cab and I wish the new owner all the best with it. I've enjoyed the cab, but I've definitely had a love/hate relationship with it.

Now the blast is gone, I'm back at ease with the atomiswave being the same shape as the e2 :D

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Goodbye Blast City, it's been nice having you in the collection, I hope I never see you again!! :D
 
I have a friend with like 10 of them. I told him they are time bombs. He has since added 4 astros.

Yeah going through 3 all had it's challenges. Don't get me wrong, great looking units when dialed in and working (some would say the nicest looking of all sega candies), it's just knowing how problematic the chassis is and the fact that there are very limited amount of people that can fix them, I'd rather not have them in my line up personally.

Thank you for making this thread with all the fantastic pics. Was a great journey to witness.

No worries, glad you enjoyed the read to cure insomnia :D
 
Yeah going through 3 all had it's challenges. Don't get me wrong, great looking units when dialed in and working (some would say the nicest looking of all sega candies), it's just knowing how problematic the chassis is and the fact that there are very limited amount of people that can fix them, I'd rather not have them in my line up personally.



No worries, glad you enjoyed the read to cure insomnia :D

I don't blame you, that's why one of my blast has a MS9 with Hitachi monitor. The other one is a 2930 and every time I turn that one on I pray...
 
Had I kept that last blast city and the last 2931 die on me, I would've definitely put an ms9 or something similar on it and deal with bezel gap.

Fortunately, I was able to secure an atomiswave and Toshiba PF which has made it all better - and I got change left over which helps in this hobby :D
 
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