Taito F3 Multigame

[jassin000]

Technically you only need to remove the plastic, but it's faster and easier to just clip the entire pin like Jassin did. The pins aren't used for anything.

Yup, and yes of course I'm sure it works. I plugged my Bubble Bobble 3 cart back in after removing the pins and it works perfectly.

People who take their time removing just the plastic are wasting time IMO...
Slap that ball bit on the dremel and plow it right up the side shredding pins and plastic in the process.
Mod should take 5mins if even that long.

 

[bagheera369]

Hey dude.

To be honest I've been fairly quiet on the scene for about 18 months after changing jobs which gave me little to no project time to work on things and also sadly meant that I had to stop offering wiring and custom plastics as they were real time killers.

I can totally understand this. I have a job as an operator service tech doing arcades for a living now...so after a long day of fixing Supershot's, digging in 5 year old soda behind a machine, for the bad LAN cable, and running around in the Texas heat...its been hard to get at my projects.

I probably wont be up for the f3, because I have a donor cartridge case...but once the pricing/pics come out, I will take a look for sure.

I am glad that the new job is good though, and the DIY stuff is too. Life has to overtake the hobby at times....and I'm happy to hear that its going well!!!!!

 

[K405]

"I can totally understand this. I have a job as an operator service tech doing arcades for a living now..."

That is so cool, as a kid I always stared in awe when they where opening one of the arcade machine up and I always tried to poke my head around to have a glimpse of what was inside.

 

[Darksoft]

you were not alone

 

[Asure]

We have always been there. We never left. Watching. Waiting. Lurking.
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Service reps always left a few credits on a machine

 

[Darksoft]

^THAT^

 

[bagheera369]

Actually, not my first time working with games....Chuck E Cheese, Security Room at TRU, attendant at Aladdin's Castle (used to be the same kid staring over the techs shoulders before I grew up and got a job there), and now the traveling tech I am today. Still learning, still making mistakes, and trying not to complicate simple problems....I have learned a ton in the last year though, and just keep trying to absorbing more, especially as all the tech is changing over to LCD/PC's, as compared to all the old jamma, and pre-jamma stuff and CRTs.

As far as leaving credits or tokens....
I do that if the kids are cool, and patient, and don't try to break stuff while they have no tokens......If they are jerks to me or the machines....or give me the "You know what would be so cool???? If you gave us all tokens" line...I lock up my games, and just walk out the door.

I still don't give away prizes out of the claw game...even if you give me the dollar, or a full 5$....so maybe to some I am still a jerk.

 

[Brentradio]

Technically you only need to remove the plastic, but it's faster and easier to just clip the entire pin like Jassin did. The pins aren't used for anything.

Well, they WERE used for something (not electrically of course), but not anymore...

 

[twistedsymphony]

As far as leaving credits or tokens....
I do that if the kids are cool, and patient, and don't try to break stuff while they have no tokens......If they are jerks to me or the machines....or give me the "You know what would be so cool???? If you gave us all tokens" line...I lock up my games, and just walk out the door.

I still don't give away prizes out of the claw game...even if you give me the dollar, or a full 5$....so maybe to some I am still a jerk.

I used to handle things the same way. I'd give credits to people as long as they weren't jerks, never gave away any claw prizes.

though I did get good enough with the claw games if someone complained that it was rigged I'd put in a credit, win a prize, then open the machine and throw it back in

 

[bagheera369]

As far as leaving credits or tokens....
I do that if the kids are cool, and patient, and don't try to break stuff while they have no tokens......If they are jerks to me or the machines....or give me the "You know what would be so cool???? If you gave us all tokens" line...I lock up my games, and just walk out the door.

I still don't give away prizes out of the claw game...even if you give me the dollar, or a full 5$....so maybe to some I am still a jerk.

I used to handle things the same way. I'd give credits to people as long as they weren't jerks, never gave away any claw prizes.
though I did get good enough with the claw games if someone complained that it was rigged I'd put in a credit, win a prize, then open the machine and throw it back in

Have totally done that too!
For those of you that think this is a glamorous job....guess again....
Today's task was using a spring loaded hand drill, and a 1/32 or smaller bit, to go though every single last damn pain in the ass vent hole on an air hockey table.
Tedium doesn't even begin to describe it...as the only break in the action, was to load a new drill bit, because the last one broke after a hundred holes or so.

 

[xodaraP]

That doesn't sound fun out of interest, would a vacuum cleaner perform the same function? Or are you not able to create enough of a vacuum to remove whatever is blocking the holes?

 

[twistedsymphony]

would a vacuum cleaner perform the same function? Or are you not able to create enough of a vacuum to remove whatever is blocking the holes?

the air-hockey table is a giant vacuum cleaner, if that were enough the holes wouldn't be blocked.

I've had to fix an air-hockey table before but I recall using a chemical solution. we built a make-shift pool with a tarp and some 2x4s, removed the play-surface and soaked it for a day. though that may not be an option depending on the table design.

A lot of the job is coming up with "clever" solutions to get things back out and making money because often you can't get parts or even if you can the boss isn't willing to wait for parts.

Thankfully the place I worked had an absolutely MASSIVE stock pile of NOS spares for common failure items and several hundred games in storage that we could pick from in a pinch.

The thing I disliked the most was anything that people put their feet on got clogged up with sand (we were a beach boardwalk arcade)... rebuilding time-crisis foot pedals and the DDR platforms was the bane of my existence.

 

[xodaraP]

I actually thought that's why a vacuum cleaner would work to remove any crap caught in the holes (with the pump off on the table obviously) - a vacuum cleaner is a much higher level of suction in a confined space and removing crap from the top (the way it went in) seems like it would be easier than pushing it through

I'm guessing it's been tried - the drill method sounds like a nightmare

 

[bagheera369]

Well, I can't pull the table from the location...they are both almost CONSTANTLY in use.
Xodara, you don't understand the level of blockage.....imagine the hand grease/oils, and spilled food/soda from a hundred+ folks a day easily, and then imagine that getting all over the pucks, the paddles, the table....
and then imagine that being worked in with dust and dirt to the point its black, and that being forced down into the airholes by pucks and paddles and hands.
Windex only cleans the table so much, and that's only once a week.
You let that build over time, and you have what I dealt with, which is where probably 40-60% of the air holes are at least partially blocked....
so that should give you an idea of whats going on.
New AH playfields are 1000$ bucks a pop...so just dropping in a new one, is NOT cost effective. Normally I would have had a dremel tool for the job, but we are moving warehouses, and the entire tech room is packed in boxes, and waiting to move over....so no go there either.

Twisted...I can imagine the DDR/TC foot stuff.....you would think all the sand would grind those metal pieces clean...but nope. They are bad enough when filled with dust and coke...but sand too....that would suck.