Volunteer repair crew at CA Extreme.

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Vic Ireland suggested:

Do they have some kind of volunteer repair crew at CAX? I was dismayed
at the number of machines that were barely working or died on the
first day. If I knew how to sign up, I would have volunteered my
services to help get them working again. (Scared Stiff was down
almost the whole show, and Kingpin/BBB were really spotty, for
example

Pinthetic's comments:

This is a good idea Vic. I thought about it myself as a means to
contribute since I will no longer run a sales booth. After weighing
the good, bad, and the ugly here is what I came to.

Good:

Helping out others there would be pretty rewarding. Even sharpening
your skills. You would meet more people. Get to experience more
things. Then there's that old reward of accomplishment of a good
"power up".

The bad:

Lack of special parts on hand. Even though the vendors are there, you
don't have a well stocked work bench to sit at. All those precious
toys are not at your disposal. You can only haul so much test
equipment. There is already one or two guys who attend the shows with
thier tool kits, and make a few bucks on the floor during the show
fixing games for a fee.

The ugly:

Let's say I have five games to sell and I need is to get them working.
What cheaper way to get five games up and running at someone elses
labor and knowledge. We all know human nature. We all know that a lot
of the people in this hobby are opportunists. We all know everyone
likes something for nothing. The same applies if I only have one or two
to sell. A volunteer repair group could be overwhelmed with this type
of thing. Then who decides priorities. Could get ugly.

The conclusion:

I would bet if you offered this type of service the amount of games
brought to the show would probably double, at minimum.

Free repairs everybody!

It can't work as a volunteer, for free, service. It would need super
management and rules to be viable. Agreed? Yes/No and why?

Mario
Pinthetic

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Usually Chris Kuntz and TJ Beyer are there helping fix things when they
can and when they are asked nicely I certainly wouldn't want to
obligate them in any way. Steve Charland has been known to spend entire
shows just fixing games for folks. Jim Ranlett too will walk around
almost looking for trouble so he can jump in and help

Pinthetic@gmail.com wrote:
> Vic Ireland suggested:
>
> Do they have some kind of volunteer repair crew at CAX? I was dismayed
> at the number of machines that were barely working or died on the
> first day. If I knew how to sign up, I would have volunteered my
> services to help get them working again. (Scared Stiff was down
> almost the whole show, and Kingpin/BBB were really spotty, for
> example
>
> Pinthetic's comments:
>
> This is a good idea Vic. I thought about it myself as a means to
> contribute since I will no longer run a sales booth. After weighing
> the good, bad, and the ugly here is what I came to.
>
> Good:
>
> Helping out others there would be pretty rewarding. Even sharpening
> your skills. You would meet more people. Get to experience more
> things. Then there's that old reward of accomplishment of a good
> "power up".
>
> The bad:
>
> Lack of special parts on hand. Even though the vendors are there, you
> don't have a well stocked work bench to sit at. All those precious
> toys are not at your disposal. You can only haul so much test
> equipment. There is already one or two guys who attend the shows with
> thier tool kits, and make a few bucks on the floor during the show
> fixing games for a fee.
>
> The ugly:
>
> Let's say I have five games to sell and I need is to get them working.
> What cheaper way to get five games up and running at someone elses
> labor and knowledge. We all know human nature. We all know that a lot
> of the people in this hobby are opportunists. We all know everyone
> likes something for nothing. The same applies if I only have one or two
> to sell. A volunteer repair group could be overwhelmed with this type
> of thing. Then who decides priorities. Could get ugly.
>
> The conclusion:
>
> I would bet if you offered this type of service the amount of games
> brought to the show would probably double, at minimum.
>
> Free repairs everybody!
>
> It can't work as a volunteer, for free, service. It would need super
> management and rules to be viable. Agreed? Yes/No and why?
>
> Mario
> Pinthetic
>

--
Cliffy - CARGPB2
A passion for pinball!
http://www.passionforpinball.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

What a great idea. I just hope you wouldn't have people bringing games
to the show that they know are down, and going, "Gee, my machine broke
on the way here! I wonder if you nice fellows could maybe fix it for me
for free?" I don't think there are a whole lot of pinheads out there
that would sink to such a low level, but hey, there are opportunists in
every bunch. Just human nature, I guess. But considering how many games
were down at CAX, you'd have a busy crew. Even though (and I witnessed
this at the show watching two guys fix a machine) having more minds
with more experience might lessen diagnostics time greatly! The one guy
was saying, no, no, I've experienced this exact thing before, the
problem is this.., and sure as hell...back in action in no time! Maybe
the staff would have t-shirts printed for the crew that said "TECH
SUPPORT" or something that everyone who chose to help could agree upon,
and give them out free to those hard working fellows. And really, you
can put a lot of game specific IC's and commonly fried parts in one
tackle box. Just have one guy that is designated as the special parts
guy for each specific era/manufacturer and have them assemble their own
specialty box so that you'd have it mostly covered. And make sure that
they have a well-lit area where techs could work fairly unmolested, and
even have a soda if they felt like it! Just have to be careful about
that "Pepsi Syndrome", as the SNL skit aptly demonstrated..

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Even though (and I witnessed
this at the show watching two guys fix a machine) having more minds
with more experience might lessen diagnostics time greatly!

Now here's the rub. I work basically alone. I'm not a showboat and
don't really like people over my shoulder. I don't need or desire an
audience. I have my own method of troubleshooting and I don't
shortcut. Someone standing by may know what the problem is, and how
to correct it, but there may be more to the problem. I look at the
bigger picture. I won't help you unless you ask. I won't comment
unless I'm asked to. It comes from my work in power generation. No
one is rubbing elbows in this trade. It could get you killed.

One of the worst things that happens is that you get a crowd around an
open machine. I've seen this so many times. All the "experts", that
aren't doing any work, come out of the woodwork. It becomes a "guess
fest". Then there's the wiseguys all making cracks and statements like,
"if he really knew what he was doing", or, "I wouldn't do that,
somebody tell the owner this guy doesn't know what he's doing", while
standing around cranking out farts and scratching thier privates. One
time I noticed a crowd around a game at Cal Extreme, and they made me
just walk away and shake my head. Two ugly guys, and a fat guy with a
big mustard drip on his white T-shirt, making personal remarks about
the guy working on his game. I felt like saying, "have you clowns
looked in the mirror lately"? With that said I don't mind the team
concept. I'll do cpu boards, you do driver boards, you do playfields,
you do programming, you do.... and so on, or somebody else choose.
That I think would work really well.

I like the idea of a well lit "tech corner" though. If you aren't
wearing the "official shirt", or vest, you don't go in there. I also
think it should be partitioned off from total view. Down machines are
rolled into this area, off the show floor. Only the machine owner can
be back there at his game while it is being diagnosed or repaired. The
other thing is I carry a lot of diverse and expensive, test equipment,
and I don't need things walking off.

Mario
Pinthetic

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

I pretty much agree with what you've written. There would definitely
have to be some ground rules in place to minimize abuse (i.e. minimum
level of functionality to be allowed on the floor or something - no
busted to begin with machines).

I really like the idea of a clinic. There were at least one or two
during the show for 30-60 minutes each. Having a show-long one with
rotating machines and actual problems would be pretty neat (plus it
would contribute to keeping functional machine pool funcitonal). I'd
definitely volunteer for a few shifts.

Parts are another issue, and the problems fixed would be limited to
fairly basic ones. Obviously thinks like the boney beast ramp
breaking would be outside the scope of this (unless it was something
like the spring steel flap breaking off it, which could be re-riveted
pretty easily).

Anyway, it's at least something for more thought/discussion...



On 18 Sep 2005 19:51:52 -0700, Pinthetic@gmail.com wrote:

>Vic Ireland suggested:
>
>Do they have some kind of volunteer repair crew at CAX? I was dismayed
>at the number of machines that were barely working or died on the
>first day. If I knew how to sign up, I would have volunteered my
>services to help get them working again. (Scared Stiff was down
>almost the whole show, and Kingpin/BBB were really spotty, for
>example
>
>Pinthetic's comments:
>
>This is a good idea Vic. I thought about it myself as a means to
>contribute since I will no longer run a sales booth. After weighing
>the good, bad, and the ugly here is what I came to.
>
>Good:
>
>Helping out others there would be pretty rewarding. Even sharpening
>your skills. You would meet more people. Get to experience more
>things. Then there's that old reward of accomplishment of a good
>"power up".
>
>The bad:
>
>Lack of special parts on hand. Even though the vendors are there, you
>don't have a well stocked work bench to sit at. All those precious
>toys are not at your disposal. You can only haul so much test
>equipment. There is already one or two guys who attend the shows with
>thier tool kits, and make a few bucks on the floor during the show
>fixing games for a fee.
>
>The ugly:
>
>Let's say I have five games to sell and I need is to get them working.
>What cheaper way to get five games up and running at someone elses
>labor and knowledge. We all know human nature. We all know that a lot
>of the people in this hobby are opportunists. We all know everyone
>likes something for nothing. The same applies if I only have one or two
>to sell. A volunteer repair group could be overwhelmed with this type
>of thing. Then who decides priorities. Could get ugly.
>
>The conclusion:
>
>I would bet if you offered this type of service the amount of games
>brought to the show would probably double, at minimum.
>
>Free repairs everybody!
>
>It can't work as a volunteer, for free, service. It would need super
>management and rules to be viable. Agreed? Yes/No and why?
>
>Mario
>Pinthetic

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Hey, you can still "work alone" under my scenario. And it might be nice
if someone else had game specific parts if you didn't happen to have
them for that machine.
I can see where you're coming from. Most mechanics don't consult other
mechanics unless they get stumped. The two guys I referred to were
openly conferring on that game's repair, not second-guessing one
another. And luckily for them there weren't a bunch of self-anointed
"experts" throwing their half-assed advice like last week's donuts at
them. And while it would be nice if everyone who volunteered had your
level of expertise, there's no guarantee that it would be so,
therefore, a self-picked crew who knew that the others were "era" or
"manufacturer" specialists (or a combination of the two) covering those
two criteria for all possible games would be ideal, although I'm sure
there would be overlap. I imagine that in the ideal tech area, guys
would pretty much know each other, and know who likes company and who
flies solo. You wouldn't even need a sign that said "go away, and don't
even think of asking to borrow any of my tools" because they'd likely
already know that. I can respect that attitude completely. Especially
if you were doing it just for the love of pinball and the quality of
the experience of the attendees. Noble deeds deserve noble treatment.
That's why I suggested the bending of the refreshment rule, too... I
know I get thirsty working on my games under bright lights. And I fully
agree that it should be partitioned from view. Nothing makes a car
accident worse than all the damn looky-loos.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

You have some good ideas. I usually skip big repairs when I'm open to avoid
the customer who has a relative that works on computers that could help me,
or the pinhead who thinks he knows something and doesn't. It is way easier
to fix big problems alone. Plus when my business is closed I can have a game
open, parts out, tools around, and not have to guard everything too. LTG

<Pinthetic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127110836.995946.189360@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Even though (and I witnessed
> this at the show watching two guys fix a machine) having more minds
> with more experience might lessen diagnostics time greatly!
>
> Now here's the rub. I work basically alone. I'm not a showboat and
> don't really like people over my shoulder. I don't need or desire an
> audience. I have my own method of troubleshooting and I don't
> shortcut. Someone standing by may know what the problem is, and how
> to correct it, but there may be more to the problem. I look at the
> bigger picture. I won't help you unless you ask. I won't comment
> unless I'm asked to. It comes from my work in power generation. No
> one is rubbing elbows in this trade. It could get you killed.
>
> One of the worst things that happens is that you get a crowd around an
> open machine. I've seen this so many times. All the "experts", that
> aren't doing any work, come out of the woodwork. It becomes a "guess
> fest". Then there's the wiseguys all making cracks and statements like,
> "if he really knew what he was doing", or, "I wouldn't do that,
> somebody tell the owner this guy doesn't know what he's doing", while
> standing around cranking out farts and scratching thier privates. One
> time I noticed a crowd around a game at Cal Extreme, and they made me
> just walk away and shake my head. Two ugly guys, and a fat guy with a
> big mustard drip on his white T-shirt, making personal remarks about
> the guy working on his game. I felt like saying, "have you clowns
> looked in the mirror lately"? With that said I don't mind the team
> concept. I'll do cpu boards, you do driver boards, you do playfields,
> you do programming, you do.... and so on, or somebody else choose.
> That I think would work really well.
>
> I like the idea of a well lit "tech corner" though. If you aren't
> wearing the "official shirt", or vest, you don't go in there. I also
> think it should be partitioned off from total view. Down machines are
> rolled into this area, off the show floor. Only the machine owner can
> be back there at his game while it is being diagnosed or repaired. The
> other thing is I carry a lot of diverse and expensive, test equipment,
> and I don't need things walking off.
>
> Mario
> Pinthetic
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

<Pinthetic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127098312.303238.132920@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Vic Ireland suggested:
> Do they have some kind of volunteer repair crew at CAX? I was dismayed
We have the same problems at Pin-a-go-go too of course. I really don't have
any idea what can be done about it. There seem to be several factors
confounding things here.

1) Lots of otherwise perfectly reliable games don't like to be transported -
I can remember back when Steve Charland would bring his gottliebs that there
would always be a couple of them that would refuse to boot up after
unloading them. This seems to be a bigger problem with early SS games and
EMs than with DMD era games. But what is the solution? Tell people to only
bring their Firepower game *if* they have replaced all the edge connectors,
replaced all the scanbe sockets, and have a spare set of roms just in case?
Or to plan on spending 4-8 hours setting up your pins once they are
unloaded? Problems like this, or similar on bally and gottlieb games of
that era can be incredibly time consuming to fix, and near impossible to
debug.

2) Many games show up in an unknown state - Some of the larger collections I
suspect live in storage and are only brought out for the shows. So instead
of having a game that was working the morning you loaded it up, you have a
game that was last powered on 6 months or a year prior. Games don't always
come out of storage ok. This was an enormous problem at Pin-a-go-go this
past year with the big batch of EMs that came.

3) The sheer volume of play on the machines practically requires that every
machine undergo maintenence at some point during the weekend - I have never
had a machine go to pin-a-go-go that didn't develop some kind of issue or
another. Even if it is just as trivial as a stuck ball. We don't have near
enough techs to keep up with the maintence.

There are some things that can be done that might help things. I personally
put the keys for any games I bring (or am responsible for) with Don Highleys
keys. That way, if there is something simple like a stuck ball anybody who
has access to the keys can free it up. Perhaps we could use a more formal
system here for storing coin box keys and controlling who has access to
them. I have seen many games go down with simple problems where the
owner/key could not be located until the next day or something. We could
also formalize a process for billing repair parts to the show, but this
might lead to (some) people bringing games broken to take advantage of this.
I will also do more of a writeup in terms of what should be done to the
games before the come to pin-a-go-go (specifically free play, and making
sure the coin doors are locked).

I only monitor rgp sporadically, so any reall good ideas feel free to email
to me

Andy