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!

I just found this very addicting flash cat game. It looks something like this:

When you start, there are a lot less dark dots than what you see in that pic. Every time you click a dot, it changes color and the cat moves one spot. You basically have to trap the cat before he can run away, and it’s pretty hard. I thought it was impossible but finally managed to do it . The pic above is proof. If you get him trapped like that, keep clicking around him until he can’t move and the game will reset.

I spotted this on BoingBoing.net…they spotted it somewhere else, etc, etc….

HO HO HO!* It’s getting closer and closer to Christmas so I figured it would be a good time to post about these. I picked up 2 Christmas Presto Magix transfers, still sealed in their original plastic bags:

One is Hana Barbera themed, and the other is a generic “Santa’s Workshop” theme. I believe these may be rare because I have never seen them before and have been looking for awhile now on eBay. Here are the backs:

They have  something on the back saying they were made exclusively for “Fun-World” in NY. I’m not sure what “Fun-World” is, but I found there website:

http://www.fun-world.net.

There isn’t much info on their site to indicate what they do. I emailed them out of curiosity but haven’t gotten a reply yet. If anyone knows anything about them please fill me in. Here are closeups of the transfers including inside:

I won these on  an auction site called OLA.com that I hadn’t heard of before finding these. I also spotted 2 more just like these on eBay that should be on their way to me. One is a Looney Tunes theme, and I’m not sure of the other one.

*[DISCLAIMER] – If you are a “Ho” and I’ve offended your delicate Ho sensibilities, please substitute HO for SKANK in this holiday greeting.

AddLetters.com has a new Disneyland sign generator. Here’s my sign…can you imagine pulling up to Disney after a long drive with the kids to see this?

We just saw The Mist yesterday. Here’s the trailer for it:

I was a big Stephen King fan when I was younger. I read this story originally in the short story collection The Skeleton Crew. I don’t remember the story very well, but I do remember that it was good. I also remember having a text adventure game “The Mist” based on this movie for my Apple IIc, similar to Zork. Most of the Stephen King books I’ve read more recently have been disappointing. I read “The Cell”, which was good throughout the entire book, and then the end just sucked big time. He didn’t tie anything together like most good writers do. He just ended it, and I felt cheated.

Some of his film adaptations have been great. Some just OK. I saw 1408 and that was just average for me. I’m saying all this so you know I don’t just go nuts over everything associated with Stephen King.

Now, about The Mist movie. It was incredible. It keeps you pretty scared through the whole thing, and most movies don’t do that to me. At one point, the audience actually clapped. It had some disturbing parts, and the end was unexpected. I would highly recommend this movie. I would also highly recommend you don’t bring any really young kids to it. It’s got a more disturbing feel to it then a typical scary monster movie. I can’t say much more than that without giving away the plot.

Hey! Happy Black Friday. My wife is out shopping because she is completely insane. I’m home working because I am only partially insane.

This post has lots of pictures. As always, click them to make them bigger. I know you want to, so just do it.

Moon Patrol has been in the garage since I got it. I decided it was about time I bring it inside and finish working on it, which I did a few days ago. I finished putting the t-molding on, which was a lot of fun…especially the part where I put my finger right into the hot glue I was using and melted my flesh. It’s called “HOT” glue for a reason people.

I bought this “Williams Control Panel Molding Trim” from Arcadeshop.com:

Here is the control panel without this beautiful piece of plastic-y goodness:

You have to trim the molding to size. I used this stuff to glue it to the control panel, which worked great:

Here it is after the trim was applied:

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Yo! Happy Thanksgiving. It’s 12:03AM my time, so it’s official “Eat as Much as you can Keep Down” day. I hope that you make it through the day without any intestinal unpleasantries.

I have much to be thankful for this year. Here are a few things:

1. My wife has not kicked me out of the house yet, despite the fact that I’ve brought about an average of 2 arcade games a month home since October.

2. I’ve managed to (just barely) pay my mortgage, bills, etc…despite #1. I should be saving for retirement, but I’m not geriatric yet so I still have some time for that.

3. New episodes of 24 and Lost are getting closer to a reality.

Now, enough with the Thanksgiving babble….turkey this…pilgrim that……

behold dear reader…I BRING YOU XEVIOUS!

I picked up this bad boy for a measly $75 smackeroos about 1hr and 45 mins away – thanks to Craigslist. If you are obsessive, you can get some amazing deals there. Most of my games of late have come from Craigslist.

Xevious was made by Atari in ‘82. Here’s some info about this game from KLOV.com, for all you Xevious virgins in the audience:

Xevious takes place on Earth. An invading alien race has set up shop, and it’s up to the player to send ‘em home. The game has a large number of different ground and air-based targets of either belligerent or non-belliegerent nature. In addition to the jumper-based difficulty levels, the game also adapts its difficulty to the player. If the player is successful against a type of attacker, an even deadlier type of attacker shows up to challenge the player.

The game plays fine and the image on the monitor looks very good. Cosmetically, I’d say it’s about average. The sideart is decent but with typical scuffs. The art above the bezel is flawless as is the bezel. The control panel has a bit of a bend in the middle of it that I can probably bend back out. The art on the marquee area is a bit melted.

Click the link below for more pics and stuff…

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