Slammed
Active Member
- Jun 15, 2017
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I’ve had a few customers with home machines that didn’t have these problems. One of them said he’d done a bit of maintenance work on it himself. I refuse to give up the dream of one day owning my own.
Nothing is high maintenance if you have the skills but just like all the home mechanics who think car maintenance only extends to changing oil and rotating the tyres, or the home PC tech who thinks the only way to fix things is to replace parts, pinball/games machines require a knowledge to do anything beyond the most basic thing. With many of the cheaper video games running emulators on older x86 systems (or similar) much of the maintenance is nothing more than replacing bits until you find the faulty part. Of course knowing the faulty part or what makes it faulty is handy but not essential if you operate on the same principal 90% of computer techs do. The big difference with legacy machines and definitely pinballs is the propriety parts and how hard they are to get, even if one is knowledgeable enough to diagnose them. As to how long a machine will last without maintenance is on a par with how long will a new car last without a mechanic.
Do you know if Daytona machines are high maintenance? Owning one is one of my other dreams.
It's the age old question of how long is a piece of string. I know guys who have the original Sega Mega rally, one guy has never had a fault another had has nothing but problems. I've read of guys who replaced old parts on some machines with new parts and couldn't get them to work properly. Sega Mega Rally games are often picked up cheap with cabs that are in less than great condition, but Daytona's really hold their value in good nick. I've seen second hand Daytona's go for more than $8K. But I haven't seen a home based one in person since the early 00's.