If you are like me, this is the most exciting time of the year. I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of Tom Turkey. Last year, I only pretended to be asleep when I heard him up on the roof trying to get down the chimney. We had some feed and worms out for him.

Unfortunately we had a blazing fire going, and he got roasted pretty quickly. His loss however was our gain…he was delicious, and will be missed. Poor, tasty, Tom Turkey. Sniff.

My wife will be coming home from work today, and will then commence to make 4 pumpkin pies. I’m not sure what the hell we are going to do with them, but we’ll figure something out.

In arcade related news, I got the new (to me) coin door installed in our Crystal Castles:

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I had a bit of a scare yesterday. I left Crystal Castles on during the day while I was working. I had music on turned up a bit loud, and thought I heard a pop. I figured one of the cats was messing with something, and looked over to see smoke pouring out of the top of Crystal Castles!

I grabbed the fire extinguisher, but didn’t need it. I shut it off quickly, and opened the back door and didn’t see any flames. I opened up the windows to let the smell out, which took a long time and made the basement pretty cold.

The cause was the old flyback in the monitor (a GO7). It cracked open in the middle:

I had a rebuild kit for it that I was planning on installing soon. I installed it tonight and got it up and running. The pic looks noticeably better than it did before it went kaboom.

I finally got my initials (actually my nickname) on the first level by getting the high score. I thought it wasn’t saving high scores when powered off, but it seems to be saving them OK now. Here’s what it looked like pre cap kit. It’s hard to see much of a difference, but it is noticeable in person..

The replacement coin door came in today. It’s in great shape. I should be able to get around to installing it this weekend.

Hey. What’s shakin’? Not much I hope.

I’m awaiting the coin door for my Crystal Castles. In the mean time, I decided to put the service panel back together. To recap, here’s what it looked like:

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Note: I cross posted this over on the new Arcade Game Collector Community. If you haven’t been there yet, go check it out.

I’m sure this info has been posted elsewhere, but I couldn’t find it so here’s a tutorial on the subject. This tutorial is for rebuilding a 3″ “midi” style trackball but should work fine for a 2 1/4 “mini” trackball as well.

The trackball (Trak-Ball ^tm) in my Crystal Castles was pretty worn out. The ball barely moved, and it was dull and loaded with scratches. At first I figured maybe I would replace the whole unit, but that was going to cost me around $75 + shipping. A trackball rebuild kit and a new ball is about half the price and will make it work like new.

Parts & Tools needed

• Old crappy trackball
• Trackball repair kit ($25 at TheRealBobRoberts.net)
  

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I don’t feel like typing a lot right now, so this post will be mostly pictures. Deal with it.

Check out the disgusting coin door from my Crystal Castles:

The bottom door is bound, and barely swings. I figured maybe I could pop the pin out before I try to sand it down for painting, in the hopes of getting it to open and close like a normal non rusted to hell door:

That didn’t work out so good:

The pin bent over and broke part of the hinge. I could try to bend it back or cut off that portion, but I’m not going to bother. I’ve decided it’s not worth the effort to fix this coin door when I can get another one in decent shape for $20 plus shipping.

The box that holds the coin box and service panel looks like part of the wreckage of the Titanic:

I took it all apart yesterday. In the process I ruined the volume control. It was so rusted I couldn’t get it off easily, and it ended up breaking apart. I have a new one on the way from Digikey.

Here are a few pics I took while prepping these 2 pieces.

Front of service panel:

Back:

Before stripping the paint off with a wire wheel:

After:

There were so many pits from the rust on the service panel, I decided to use Rustoleum Hammered paint instead of satin. I *really* screwed up the paint job on the service panel. It dripped like crazy (though it’s hard to see the drips in this pic):

The box came out a bit better:

At least they’re not covered with rust anymore.

I made some time to work on cleaning up Crystal Castles. I’m not going to try to make this thing look like new on the inside. Instead, I just want to clean it up. Here’s what I started with in the bottom of the cabinet:

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Hey. I finally aquired a Crystal Castles today.

It’s in pretty good shape, and in working condition. It could definitely use some TLC. I got it for $225 off eBay. I didn’t want to spend the $, but my wife said it could be an early Christmas present.

I’ll be cleaning it up soon. I have new overlays for the control panel, marquee, and speaker area. You can see more pics here.

I went on a wild goose chase back in August ‘07 for what I thought might be a Crystal Castles. You can read about that misadventure here.

I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and I won’t be messing with this tonight. I’ll be cleaning it up during the week as I can sneak the time in. Stay tuned…