I decided that I needed more room in Ramcade for when I get a new candy cab and I also needed somewhere I could put my Space Ace so I can get at it to fix it…

It breaks my heart but Smash T.V. has to go. It was never part of the plan for Ramcade and was bought on impulse. I’d rather not sell it but I just don’t have the space. Damn you stupid single sized garage!

Carefull Now

It has to fit through that door space somehow. Time to take the door off!

Now that’s a close fit

It’s through… Bye Bye my baby… Bye bye {sniff}

I now have room for another candy where that was. Now it’s time for a tango with Wallsy to swap the Space Ace and candy cab.

Now I can get at the space ace. I just need to save up for another candy cab to put in the big gaping hole in Ramcade.

The headphones work a treat and I have mocked up the auto-fire too. Here’s a glimpse of them. I’ll put up a full article when I finish.

Headphones: I did this video for a friend, when I say microphone I mean headphones!

 AutoFire: Video also done for the same friend

First off I have given my room a subtitle: Ramcade!

I got a replacement monitor for my Power Drift, only to then find a stack more problems. After weeks of trying I eventually got it working. Then promptly sold it! I had to make way for…

The Egret 2 that I bought. It came on Sunday this week, and let me tell you, it’s ace. I’ve used it with DDP DFK and Metal Slug. It’s so good I’m considering getting a second one.

I also managed to source a Hyper Sports dedicated cabinet so hopefully that will show up in a couple of weeks.

I’ll be posting some articles with pictures and video over the coming weekend.

Oh, and Supcom 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 have been sucking my time  away. I also got into Empire: Total War, but I had to delete it because it was too addictive!

Avaguddun!

Mission Control V4

9th February 2010:  EEEEEeeeeeeeekkkkk!  No other words needed!

Shift the Smash T.V.

Slide it carefully into its new home

OI! Go and play on your Wii. Pesky kids!

Move the powerdrift into its new home

Insert Dragon’s Lair 2

Not much room left

But I still have room to get to my PC so it’s all good!

Only one more to delivery to come, and that’s the controversial Space Ace. I need to make more room somewhere. Anybody know advanced TARDIS physics?

Wah we wah we wahhh: The Powerdrift was damaged internally. The monitor control PCB had fallen off its shelf and pulled the back of the monitor off. I tried to fix it, clipping back the PCB where it should go, replacing some ROMs that had fallen off the main PCB and replacing the back of the monitor (it looked like it it just clipped back on). Turned on the power, nothing. A bit of fault finding later and I found that the wires inside the plug had come out of their connectors. I fixed that, plugged it back in, flicked the power switch. “Bang! Flash!”, exclaimed the monitor. I suppose I can take heart in that I sussed out the power problem. To check the state of the newly exploded monitor I need to take it out of the cabinet and I can’t do that until I get a tamper proof screwdriver for the tamper proof screws that it’s held together with.

Wah we wah we wahhh. The courier that was taking my Cinematronics Space Ace to Italy finally managed to set off once the snow had melted. He was due to deliver the machine today, but instead has been involved in a really bad crash in Belgium. The van overturned and is a mess. Most of the contents, including the Space Ace, have been badly damaged. I now need to refund a grand  {that I have already spent} to the buyer and hope that the insurance pays up {as I’ve been assured it will}. Apparently the remains of what was once a proud video game are being brought back to England and when they arrive I will need to go and inspect the body and arrange the insurance claim with the courier.

I’ll post pictures as soon as I have some.

Sent my Space Ace out today to a lucky owner in Italy. So I have no cabs in my room! My life is empty and will be until the snow disappears. I have loads of pictures of packing it up, I’ll post them shortly.

Obviously my plan to own my own dog’s nadgers arcade room thingy has to begin somewhere. Today it was to arrange delivery of my existing Space Ace to Italy and to sort out a second job.

Seriously… A second job. Well not so much a job as a way of raising funds to buy more arcade games. Let’s call it a hobby to support a hobby.

There’s simply no way at the moment that I can afford to sustain a hobby where the games regularly break 1000 sovs each, it’s a large step up from anything I’ve done before.   I’ve managed to scrimp enough together to get myself a Dragon’s Lair, Smash TV and also get them delivered by selling all my other game related stuff, but to do any more is going to take some serious moolah.

So a hobby to sustain a hobby it is. I have some spare cash to set myself up and believe me, I spent hours agonizing over whether I should possibly waste a grand on a possibly futile exercise to support a hobby or just buy a Ketsui.  I reckon if I don’t give it a go though, I’ll never know. You’ll be able to tell how successful I am by how many games get added to this blog!

Double bonus is that I’ll need a trailer, so in future I can pick up my own cabs

The Space Ace delivery to Italy goes out in the next couple of weeks, so I have to pack it up. Call back to find out how it goes!

Cheers

Lee