Elgen's fantastic repair logs have inspired me to start going through my stack of PCBs in need of repair.  

Apologies for the crap cell phone pics.  Luckily this one is pretty straight forward.

Upon boot with Test Mode enabled, a RAM6 ERROR was displayed:



Let's take a look at the Atari version of the manual:



Let's see what that asterisk means:



Sounds straight forward enough!  Here's the culprit a 5165 RAM at B2:



Removed socket, added a socket, and repaired a bad trace, replaced the 5165 with a 6264:



Back from the dead!

I caught wind of a Japanese Namco Starblade machine that was heading for the dump.  

Trouble is, it was a state away.  I'm completely out of room.  What to do?  SAVE STARBLADE!  

I have a friend nearby the game's location, but it was just too big.  I wouldn't be able to make it out there before the game was dumped, so I arranged for a shipping company to pick it up.  The owner went way over and above to help me out with this, and even wrapped it with cardboard and shrink wrap  .  Arrived safely, as described with no surprises.  Big thumbs up.


One week later, the poor delivery driver was sent out alone with a liftgate that was narrower than the game.  We were able to get it braced as it came down to safety (350kg  ).



The game is too tall to fit through the garage door!  I removed the upper monitor shell and was able to just make it in.

Here she is next to her older sister:



Dirty!  Unfortunately, it sat in a shipping container for at least 10 years.  Mirror intact!  There is some plastic damage on the rear left "tail light."



Some rust, lots of dirt.



Spare parts!  A couple of bulbs for the rear monitor section.



Seat damage.  Oddly enough the seat design is nearly identical to the Pole Position seat  



This indeed is heart breaking    The area with the most moisture/rust:



The power supplies are for sure shot.  The PCBs, from what I could tell didn't look too bad, but I understand they're already finicky in the first place.  The cage screws are rusted stuck.



The original Japanese instruction sheet was peeled from the inner-side of the cabinet and stuck to the top of the cabinet.  I suppose the operator didn't want to "confuse Americans?":



After a few hours of cleaning, it's actually in much better shape than I anticipated:





So - long road ahead.  Especially electronically. Totally worth it!  

What a journey it's been!  This machine has quite literally been all around the world.  I purchased this Japanese Namco Pole Position Cockpit from Alpha1 last year in the UK.  Firstly, let me say how great Alpha1 was in getting this machine safely to me.  You may have seen the below video of the machine being wrapped for shipment.  As I've said, he definitely has dibs on any of my machines should I sell!


And after arriving in the USA:


The machine came exactly as described.  The people at Simtex International in the UK were incredibly helpful.

Unfortunately all hell broke loose when the machine hit the US customs - everything that could have possibly gone wrong did with the US shipping company.  Pretty much killed my "arcade mojo" for the time being - but I'll save that whole downer of a story for later!

---

In celebration of its 30th Anniversary, let's get this race started and bring this well-traveled guy back to life!  Let's see what we're dealing with here.

It's evident that some areas were painted black, most notably the control panel.


Why would they do that?  Let's peel away some of the putty/black paint and see:


Gross!  Just what I suspected - cigarette burns!  Some go all the way through the CP.  At least the operator cared enough about appearances to try to cover it up  

Just some general cleaning on the top of the machine, and the inside.



Hey some souvenirs!  Maybe this will cover customs fees?  

Looking for a (preferably working) Toei TC-V818 chassis.

Looks about like this - for an 18" monitor:


Would need it shipped to the US. Thanks!

Hello -

I've attached a picture of a generic black/blue/white Taito bezel I'm looking for from a Japanese export cab.

I'm also looking for a nice "blank" metal coin entry plate for the early style Taito door.

I'm located in the U.S.  

Thanks!
-Steve