A proud day. I'm thrilled with it, the general condition, the moulding, the monitor is good, but there are a bunch of obvious things that need mending:
1. The main thing is the joystick. It feels dirty, as though there is something ground up in it that is keeping it from moving freely. It feels, in a word, "crunchy". I think it can be disassembled, cleaned and lubricated, so I'll search around for tips before seeking out a replacement. When you pull up the joystick, it has about 1/2 centimeter of play and everything feels a bit better, but not when at its normal position. The switches on the stick are fine. The buttons are perfect.
2. The sound has a noticeable hum. Is it common to re-cap the sound board on these? It almost sounds like a shielding issue, but I'm a novice with arcade machines, so I'm just guessing.
3. The back door is screwed shut and lock looks broken. This shouldn't cause me too much trouble, but it was the reason I couldn't get it open tonight to have a look before having to leave it.
4. Sticking my phone inside the front door and snapping a few pics, I can see that it's pretty clean, but the original PSU has probably failed and somebody has installed a newer one. Gotta get that back door open this week and check out the rest of the insides. It is the 2-board type.
5. Minor damage visible on the left front corner foot of the cabinet.
6. Coin mech has a missing coin return holder. Otherwise looks solid.
Happily, though, it works fine, so as long as the replacement PSU is not harming the machine, it can stay. There is evidence that the original side art was removed, but the previous owner provided a new replacement bezel and decals from arcadeshop.com. Yeah!
You'll roll your eyes to read this: the monitor looks bright enough and the colors are okay, but there is a slightly fuzzy quality to the focus that I cannot tell if it's normal for a CRT (It's been a while, so I may be in the sway of LCDs) or if it needs a re-cap or other adjustment. What are the symptoms? There is zero burn-in.
And, hey, the service switch only seems to add credits. Is that all it is for?
