I am announcing my new business venture called Road Dog Amusements. Many of you know me from the arcade community and other forums from before the modern era. Oh back then we collectors scrambled on craigslist, bulletin boards, usenet, local newspaper ads... whatever we could manage. I've decided to turn my collecting and love of games into a full on business. I already have an arcade route well underway, and I am expanding constantly. I am moving into a physical warehouse location soon to support the business and I am hoping this dream comes to fruition.
Warehouse location has been acquired. 1500 sq. ft. is a good starter size... It's starting to fill up quick already. I've got about 25 machines in here and need to move in another 35 or so soon. I am pulling all my stuff in storage and moving it to this location by the end of the month.
It's coming along, but it's also a lot of work and long days.
I'm going to start offering transportation of games from Captains Auction warehouse to NorCal from now on. So if you want to bid on stuff but don't have your own truck, don't want to drive down there, or just want to have the convenience of home delivery... let me grab your games for you. I can bring them back and store in my warehouse until you pick up, or do home delivery for an additional fee. Prices will vary based on how big the item is and how hard it is to move/store.
I am thinking I might put one more game out and I'm fixing their cotton candy vending machine which I will bring back there as soon as it's ready.
Getting locations during CV is challenging, and most places are shut down... Laundromats though seem to be still doing 80-100% of their pre-CV business, and they don't have to shut down because they're an essential business I suppose? I think they are supposed to limit occupancy and require masks, but it's not like my pizza places that are shut down for dine in completely. Or if they're open for dine in people just aren't going there when they can get delivery/takeout just as easy.
Just completed another epic captain's run in a 26' Ryder truck. I picked up 1 cab in upland for a friend and about 10 pieces at captain's auction warehouse. I also dropped off 4 pieces to sell in the next Captain's auction. I did the Sac -> Anaheim -> Sac trip in about 36 hours total. I got mostly vending stuff for my route... but I also got a ton of Mars MEI Dollar Bill Acceptors. And a big bucket of namco guns, which is perfect since my Time Crisis II is acting up.
This was a crazy past couple of days, but I got it done!
I've mostly got that Yellow crane cleaned and restored now. I'm soak testing it for 48 hours now.
I'm also working on these new gumball games I picked up for free!
I have always wanted a gumball machine, and these are vending machines that are also a game! so that's cool, imo. I think they will be nice once cleaned up.
I got some free junk! So I did what I always do, fix it and restore it with an anal retentive level of detail. Did a refresh on my laundromat location today! The candy crane that was there previously kept breaking down on me. Since I got this Elaut crane up and running, I decided to take it to replace it.
I also replaced the Cruis'n Exotica w/ LCD I had there with a Crazy Taxi. I installed a new coin door with dollar bill acceptor on the crazy taxi and it's $0.50 per play... I think it's going to do really well.
And the two gumball launchers pictured in the last post were also placed today at this location. I cleaned and modded them with modern rechargeable batteries. One is running premium hi bounce balls and one is running dubble bubble gumballs.
Got my next project lined up... This was either a brilliant or an idiotic move.
3x non-working Nicktoons Nitro games. I think these might be somewhat rare? I can't find much info online. It's a game by Raw Thrills and it seems the cabinets are made by Chicago Gaming. I willl have to do a lot of cleaning before these things look good. Then there's fixing the PCs inside. Supposedly the monitors are good... they're supposed to be 27" neotec svga monitors so that's cool?
Another project I have on the back burner is that cotton candy machine barely showing in the background...
So far it seems like the gamble is paying off. When I got the machines back to my shop I was able to look a bit deeper. It turns out I only have 2 computers (dell optiplex 740s). Which Isn't a huge deal because you can just buy them, but I need the software keys... I think there are cracked versions out there somewhere but I don't want to deal with that. Especially if I'm going to be operating these commercially.
I found that the computers weren't booting up. It was because the cmos battery (cr2032) were dead and the default bios settings doesn't enable power recovery mode. There's a file on klov called "Dell Optiplex BIOS.pdf" that details the settings you want for Raw Thrills games. The solution to this problem is to:
replace the cr2032 on the motherboard
temporarily disconnect the power splitter harness and plug the power supply atx connector directly into the motherboard
Plug in a keyboard
probably plug into an lcd with vga connection temporarily as well
use the power button on the dell now to turn on the computer and configure bios and save.
reverse steps 4, 3, 2
One of them has a hdd in it, the other one had a flash drive. The one with the flash drive wasn't booting correctly so I tried the recovery disc which failed partway through. I put in another flash drive I had and it completed recovery. The one with the hdd in it was able to boot into the game when I turned it on, however there was no audio. I did the recovery disc on that one too and it fixed the missing audio by installing all the drivers. The last op who tried to bring these back didn't do it right, or at least didn't complete the recoveries.
The other problem is I noticed there is some bad noise/hum from the speakers. This is a known issue with raw thrills games from this era. I was able to simply fix it using a ground loop isolator, which you can buy on amazon for about $8. It's just transformers that make it so that the audio circuits are isolated... the source and the amp that is.
So yesterday the owner of my laundromat location tells me the monitor crapped out in my super bikes... I guess since I got one of these working and restored now I'm going to take it to swap out and fix the monitor back at my shop.
Here's some in process and after pics of the first restored one. The second one should be a little nicer condition I think and I will probably try to sell that one. The third one is missing the side art, computer, and some raw thrills pcbs, and most of the harnesses... so I think that one is destined to be a parts cab. All three monitors are 27" Neotec SVGA monitors and they do work. I got the orange pumice cleaner trick from another op, it does work but requires a lot of elbow grease still.
I'm happy with the way they are turning out. I think my gut instincts were on point when I saw the deal for 3 of these, non-working. I just assumed I'd be able to save at least 1 for sure... turns out I got 2! Probably not the most enviable game by the average arcade-projects member... but as an operator these are like cash factories! This is a Raw Thrills game that was made in 2009 I think? Not that old... this cab still holds a lot of value. Yeah you know Raw Thrills... Eugene Jarvis' company. At least you should if you care about this industry at all. This game is not really as celebrated because yeah it's for kids... but really all of their games have been hits.
I have been building my business hard over the past year. I now operate in 13 locations and I'm still growing slowly. I am approaching the limit to the amount of locations I can actively service by myself, so I will need to either improve my current locations or get rid of some to get new ones. It's a bittersweet feeling, but it means I'm moving in the right direction. Right now each location is still very important to me, and I don't want to lose that motivation.
Here's my largest game room and only ticket redemption location. I have been waiting a long time for this location to be in full operational mode, and it's very close now.
So far it seems like the gamble is paying off. When I got the machines back to my shop I was able to look a bit deeper. It turns out I only have 2 computers (dell optiplex 740s). Which Isn't a huge deal because you can just buy them, but I need the software keys... I think there are cracked versions out there somewhere but I don't want to deal with that. Especially if I'm going to be operating these commercially.
I found that the computers weren't booting up. It was because the cmos battery (cr2032) were dead and the default bios settings doesn't enable power recovery mode. There's a file on klov called "Dell Optiplex BIOS.pdf" that details the settings you want for Raw Thrills games. The solution to this problem is to:
replace the cr2032 on the motherboard
temporarily disconnect the power splitter harness and plug the power supply atx connector directly into the motherboard
Plug in a keyboard
probably plug into an lcd with vga connection temporarily as well
use the power button on the dell now to turn on the computer and configure bios and save.
reverse steps 4, 3, 2
One of them has a hdd in it, the other one had a flash drive. The one with the flash drive wasn't booting correctly so I tried the recovery disc which failed partway through. I put in another flash drive I had and it completed recovery. The one with the hdd in it was able to boot into the game when I turned it on, however there was no audio. I did the recovery disc on that one too and it fixed the missing audio by installing all the drivers. The last op who tried to bring these back didn't do it right, or at least didn't complete the recoveries.
The other problem is I noticed there is some bad noise/hum from the speakers. This is a known issue with raw thrills games from this era. I was able to simply fix it using a ground loop isolator, which you can buy on amazon for about $8. It's just transformers that make it so that the audio circuits are isolated... the source and the amp that is.
So yesterday the owner of my laundromat location tells me the monitor crapped out in my super bikes... I guess since I got one of these working and restored now I'm going to take it to swap out and fix the monitor back at my shop.
Here's some in process and after pics of the first restored one. The second one should be a little nicer condition I think and I will probably try to sell that one. The third one is missing the side art, computer, and some raw thrills pcbs, and most of the harnesses... so I think that one is destined to be a parts cab. All three monitors are 27" Neotec SVGA monitors and they do work. I got the orange pumice cleaner trick from another op, it does work but requires a lot of elbow grease still.
I'm happy with the way they are turning out. I think my gut instincts were on point when I saw the deal for 3 of these, non-working. I just assumed I'd be able to save at least 1 for sure... turns out I got 2! Probably not the most enviable game by the average arcade-projects member... but as an operator these are like cash factories! This is a Raw Thrills game that was made in 2009 I think? Not that old... this cab still holds a lot of value. Yeah you know Raw Thrills... Eugene Jarvis' company. At least you should if you care about this industry at all. This game is not really as celebrated because yeah it's for kids... but really all of their games have been hits.
Thanks, It's an SVGA (i think) monitor that is hooked up to a Dell computer... I think it could actually use a cap kit but i'm rocking it as is for now!
Just a quick update. Been hustling so hard. Picked up another new location today. I planted the seed last year, Aug 25 when I dropped in to talk to the owner. It's another pizza place. That makes 14 locations currently. This one is going to take about 10 pieces to fill out, I wasn't expecting to land it since he never called me back. But today he said he's ready for me to bring games and vending over. I'm going to have a busy next week scrambling to get stuff together and ready to operate.
I also got some other stuff on the horizon... but I don't want to jinx myself.
Here's some pictures of the new location I mentioned. It took me 3 trips to get this much equipment there so far. I replaced the previous arcade op here, but there is one more vending operator who has neglected machines. I told the owner I can do everything so he's kicking out the other guy too. I'll have to bring a couple more things here whenever that actually happens. Right now it's about 10 pieces.
To finish what I was talking about in the last post, I did take over for the other vendor at that location as well. So now I have all of the vending and gaming stuff there.
I also just did a Captain's Run the past couple of days. I took some stuff down to sell in the next auction and I brought back what I had purchased to put out on the route. It's almost all non-working stuff... but that's how I roll. I get things broken or non-working for cheap usually, fix it, clean it, and put it out.
And one last update is a tool recommendation. Most of you hobbyists will not necessarily have a need for something like this, but if you have a route or do service calls this is an absolute must! Or even if you work on pinballs it can be handy to get the device right where you need it, inverted, in the dark. The Weller WLBRK12 portable soldering iron is super useful in the field. Is it better than my WES51 soldering station? No, but its advantage is its cordless, battery powered design. It has enough juice to run for 30-45m it seems. Which is more than enough to do 2-3-4 quick repair joints in the field. It does have temperature control, but it's old school with different tips. I don't mind it though I just use the standard tip it came with (which seems very hot). Not only is it battery powered, but it's a rechargeable lithium ion battery with a usb c charger built into the device. It's an all in one.
I got the first game from this last captain’s run repaired and put out on location. I have always wanted a BBH game but felt priced out on the dedicated cabs. I got two non-working ones at auction and fixed both without having to buy anything additional! One was just a dead cmos battery and one needed the motherboard recapped.
