Hello from new england!

[ninespire]

Hello, I'm from western Massachusetts, an aspiring collector of retro tech. I'm mostly a collector of older PCs and PowerPC macs, and other old tech like Commodore stuff, but I'm trying to branch out into some arcade gear. Hope to learn from you guys and maybe snag a candy cab somewhere near me. I recently saw a Sega New Blast City at a bar in Hadley, MA, and I fell in love.

The northeast seems like a dead zone for this sort of stuff, understandably since there's no ports up here. Although I am only about 2.5 hours from Funspot, the biggest arcade in the world. Been there a few times, got one of the high scores on their tetris cab.

I'd also like to at some point build my own cab with emulationstation or hyperspin on it. I've attempted once in the past but didn't have the correct tools to cut my wood or finish it so the project went nowhere. I still have some spare buttons and joysticks in my garage though, they were meant for that build.

 

[ekorz]

Welcome new englander! It’s a dead zone everywhere unless you know other collectors and buy directly from them.

If you want a Blast (was it a blast city or new net city), just be ready to pay for freight delivery, and be ready to refurb it yourself. It’s otherwise not too tricky to buy one. https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/k-c-game-sale.10993/page-45#post-297824 gets dirty ones from overseas regularly. But these are all old. Like classic cars… wait forever and pay through the nose for a clean one, or buy a beater and fix it yourself.

Recent blast https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/k-c-game-sale.10993/page-44#post-295646

 

[twistedsymphony]

welcome, fellow new-englander.

I second everything that Ekorz said.

For Candy Cabs unless you're on the west-coast, everywhere is a dead area. We're getting to the point that even the NEWEST CRT candy cabs are 20 years old. so they're getting hard to come by and more expensive for worse condition daily, and have been for the last 5 or so years.

FWIW I own 5 candy cabs and 4 of them I had shipped in from outside new-england, 3 of them were completely non-functional, and all of them were in need of restoration.

Honestly your best bang-for-the buck for a CRT candy cab is KC, but his machines are gungy and even though he's on the west-coast I highly recommend going out there in person to pick out your cab, way too many horror stories about people getting sent cabs different from the pictures they saw.

Even then for something like a Blast City expect to pay $1200+ or so for something that needs restoration.

Also, what Ekorz said, there's no such thing as a "New Blast City", maybe check out this page to figure out which cab you saw: https://www.hard--candy.com/wiki/candy-cabinets

best of luck!

 

[ItsBobDudes]

Welcome!

Prices are rising because shipping container fees. I'd imagine even blast cities are getting above $1600 plus freight.

 

[ninespire]

I'm not afraid of doing some restoration work, but screwing around with CRTs scares me a bit. I would deal with it if I had to rewire the control panel or even possibly replace caps but I've never done CRT repair and the amount of people who talk about the safety concerns, it just freaks me out.

I would love to take a trip out to the west coast and bring one back home but the amount of money that would cost me in gas alone would be astronomical. Also, I don't have a pickup or a car that could tow a trailer so I'd need to rent a truck, which just adds to that already high cost.

I'd even be willing to pay a bit more than usual if i could find something within a 4-5 hour drive as long as it was operational. This isn't a wtb thread, I'm just spitting ideas out there.

 

[twistedsymphony]

working on CRTs can be freighting if you're not familiar with it. But it's nothing to fear so long as you follow some simple safety rules.

Watch some videos on how to properly discharge a monitor, and how to remove "the chassis" (what we call the circuit boards of the monitor). After that it's no different than working on a normal PCB. Most "modern" CRTs from the 90s automatically discharge when powered off making them even safer. I've discharged monitors hundreds of times and it's been exceedingly rare that any of them have had any noticeable residual charge.

If you need to do adjustments while it's powered on: get some "monitor adjustment tools" which are basically non-conductive plastic screw-drivers. wear rubber gloves, wear rubber soled shoes, and be careful not to touch anything metal or the big red wire on the back of the tube.

Worst case there are still a few shops that do CRT repair. Generally as long as your Tube is good, you can remove the chassis and ship it to them and they'll ship it back working.

 

[ekorz]

… and no matter if you get a collector cab or a project, you will have to do CRT work at some point. Even if it’s just pulling it out, discharging it, and removing the chassis for shipment. Again like an old car, engine work will need to happen no matter which one, someday. They’re all old. So learn to turn the wrench or find a good mechanic!

If you don’t wanna do that, look up LCD cabs like Vewlix. You can run og pcbs on those too, with a scaler. And mame from a pc, MISTer, etc.

 

[ninespire]

Thanks for the advice, I'm a lot less worried about it now. I may want a Vewlix as well at some point, but for now i'd love my first cab to be something with a big ol tube in it. They just look so good.

 

[twistedsymphony]

working on monitors my process is typically this:
1. unplug the cab from the wall
2. photograph all the connectors (power connector, video signal connector, degauss connectors, remote board connector, yolk connectors, neck board connectors, etc.) Making sure you know where everything was plugged in and in which orientation.
3. properly discharge (remove any hand jewelry, put on gloves and rubber soled shoes, clamp the discharge tool to the frame. then sick the tool under the anode cap).
4. discharge 2 more times then remove the anode cap (I like to use the discharge tool itself to remove the cap)
5. unplug all of the connectors you photo-graphed
6. remove the chassis from the cab.
7. do your work
8. double check your work
9. reinstall the chassis and all of the connectors
10. double check all of the connectors are hooked up correctly
11. triple check the neck board ground wire, and the anode cap
12. when ready to test, install a cheap PCB, turn the power switch on the cab on and then plug it in, be ready to unplug it if any black-magic smoke appears, electrical arcing, or other not-good signs.

Most of us have a "pandora's box" or other cheap PCB used for testing a cab in-case there is some issue that could damage the PCB.

A lot of this is overkill, akin to wearing full safety gear when using the detergent to clean your bathroom, but I don't mind just to be on the safe side (for both me and the cab). Plus if you're nervous about it it can go a long way to helping you feel comfortable with the situation.