Wow…I haven’t posted in 7 days. I guess I’ve been busy actually working for a change. Anyways…

My Rampage had a monitor issue since day 1 when I first brought it home. It would work fine for a few minutes, and then the whole image would jump vertically for a split second accompanied with a scary crackling/zapping noise that sounded like a static discharge. If you can picture yourself wearing a big wool coat and rubbing your shoes on the carpet for an entire week, then touching the tip of someone’s nose, it sounded just like that (except without the screaming).

The picture jump was very quick, and looked like a flicker. It would usually take about 20 minutes for it to start acting up, and once it started – the jumping would get closer and closer together to the point where the game was unplayable and a bit frightening. For this reason, I had the switch on Rampage turned off. When I fired up the circuits in our game room, the other games in the arcade just laughed at it and called it names.

I finally got around to doing a cap kit on it. The picture became clearer, but that jumping problem was still there. I also noticed that if you left it on for a long time the focus would start to go out. I figured it probably needed a new flyback, so I put one in. That fixed the loss of focus, but that jumping was still there.

I picked up some control/contact cleaner at Ratshack. It’s labeled as non-flammable (sorry kids!), and looks like this:

I figured that maybe a dirty pot might have been causing the problem, suspecting that if so it would be either the V-Size or V-Position pots.

I sprayed every pot on the main chassis and the neck board. I rotated each one back and forth about 10 times or so, and then returned each to their original positions. I fired it up, and some of the settings were a little off (brightness, contrast, etc…). I tweaked the pots to get the picture looking good, and the vertical jumping seems to be gone!

You can see it in action here:

It’s hard to play Rampage with one hand!

I’ve had it running now for about 3 hours or so and haven’t heard it crackle once. I’m keeping my fingers crossed (which made it very hard to type this!).

I just got a package in from Todd Tuckey at TNTAmusements. He’s the guy that my wife got my Ms. Pac / Galaga 20th reunion machine from that got me into this whole arcade collecting illness. When I got my Xevious, I searched to see what was out there for parts. PhoenixArcade.com made marquee and control panel overlays for it, but were sold out of the marquees. Todd had a post in a forum listing Xevious marquees for sale that were the same ones done by Pheonix Arcade. I got a good deal on it, and it looks great!

When I inquired about this, he had to reply with an awesome offer for Crystal Castles art. An offer that I couldn’t refuse (I was afraid that he might break my kneecaps). I don’t even own a Crystal Castles, but I want to get one someday, and unless it’s new in the box it will probably need these parts. Check ‘em out.

Marquee overlay:

Speaker overlay:

Control panel overlay:

I’ve been soldering for about a year now with a 45W Weller SP40L soldering iron and a stand from a different Black & Decker soldering iron:

I’ve done a lot of cap kits with this, and some smaller PCB work (I’m not a pro by any means). It worked well, but I was curious about temperature controlled soldering stations (aren’t we all?). I ended up charging a WD1001 and just got it today:

I had to finish a cap kit and change a flyback on a WG K7000 monitor from my Rampage game, and was waiting for this to come in so I could play with it. I ordered it from All-Spec.com. Their prices were far lower than anyone else’s that I looked at. I also ordered 3 extra tips, which you can see sticking out of the back of the stand above. Here is a closer pic of those tips and the soldering pen:

The tip at the very top of that picture is the one that comes in the iron. Weller sells a few different stations that are similar. Here’s a PDF that shows the different models and their features. The WD1001 comes with a WMP micro pencil for small work. It’s very comfortable. You can get your hands much closer to your work with it. I almost got the WD1002, which comes with a larger WP80 pencil.

One thing that impressed me that I wasn’t expecting was how fast this thing heats up. My old iron took 5 to 10 minutes to warm up. This one goes from 0 to 660° in 20 seconds! Check it out:

Another plus is that you can’t melt through the cord, and it doesn’t seem to get in the way like my other one. I can’t wait to do some finer detailed soldering with it to try out those small tips.

We stopped at a Walt’s Roast Beef today, and saw 2 signs on the door going in that made me embarrassed to group myself in with the human species. Have we really gotten this stupid/ignorant? I think these 2 signs are clear evidence that the end of the world is nigh!