We got a crapload of snow in the Mid-Atlantic region this winter, so it was mid-March before the weather improved and the mud abated enough to allow for all that cabinet sanding I needed to do. So I moved and cleaned until there was space for all of the cabinets to exit into the backyard. It helped that I had just gotten about 15 sq ft of new real estate in my basement because we replaced our indoor fuel oil tank with a new one outside (not only because it was 10 years beyond its 40 year warranty, but also to solve the problems of our boiler not starting in the morning when you want to take hot showers after being sick for a week... oh, yes, believe me I am bitter). I stripped the cabinets as much as I was going to strip them, then took them outside one at a time and sanded.
Overall it went pretty well. I started with the T2 cabinet that looked like it had spent some time at sea. The inside sanded up just fine... I used one of my wife's palm sanders and got the job done pretty quickly. Sanding the bottom was another story... little chunks of wood kept dropping out of the cabinet sides, probably because the water messed up the integrity of the wood. In the end, it looks a lot better as long as you don't peer at the sides too carefully. The good T2 cab and DW went pretty well, too. I wasn't able to sand off some stenciled text on the bottom of T2, and there were some stains on the inside of DW that I couldn't get out... possible leftovers from the soda that apparently was spilled in there at some point. But they all look way better than they did before, and sanding the bottom was a lot faster than the evening I spent scrubbing the grime off the DW with 409 and a Magic Eraser. I'm pretty happy with the results, and when I was done all of the cabs were parked in the space where the oil tank used to be, somewhat out of the way. And the space near my games where the DW cab used to sit is now clear, giving me an extra 9 sq ft of extra floor space. Time to buy a new game!
Another project that I needed to get around to was testing that hacked up driver board I got back in November to free up the DW driver for use in T2. I took out the board that was in DW a few months ago, put in the new board, then let it sit for a few months. Finally this weekend I got up the gumption to do something about it. Following Safe Standards of Behavior for Strange Boards (you don't know where they've been!), I only plugged in the power plugs from the transformer and measured voltages at the plugs where power comes back out. Everything looked pretty good, though I was a little worried about the 50V coil power showing up as 72V (I've since learned that this is normal). So I plugged everything else in and was happy to find I had a completely working game!
Almost. :P The one thing that was weird was the flippers seemed less powerful with the new board. This was especially noticeable when hitting the Cliffhanger Ramp from the upper left flipper... whereas before you could make a good sturdy shot up the ramp, now the same shot barely got the ball around the loop. Several games worth of testing showed that it wasn't me, the flippers were just slightly weaker.
A trip to RGP was extremely unenlightening. It seems like no one read my entire post... I mean, I am a trifle long-winded, but still. Everyone -- even Clay/Shaggy! -- wanted to convince me that the problem was caused by dirty optos. So I swapped the old board back in and the problem magically cleared up. I was kind of despairing, but then rgp mega-poster TheKorn came through with some potential goods, saying I should check the connectors and fuses because they may work but might have problems when push came to shove. It does give me more board troubleshooting to do -- and I need more board troubleshooting that I need to do like I need more holes in my head beyond the ones I already have -- but at least it's something to go on.
Finally, league update. I was ever so briefly #1 in A Division in the Virginia League, largely through dumb luck. Guys I was playing against had terrible weeks, one guy didn't show up, etc. I couldn't really expect that to last for a whole season, and it didn't. I am now just outside of playoff contention, and with 3 weeks to go I don't hold out much hope. In Maryland I had kind of a funny week... since I was sick, I decided not to go and used my saved scores. The guy who got to pick the first game picked one that I didn't have a saved score for, which gave me a forfeit. But then, the next two games they played were OK scores, but way better than the other two guys did. My saved score for the final game was crappy, but my two middle scores were enough for the win. I'm squarely in B Division playoff contention with just 2 weeks to go... though I gotta say that I had my druthers I'd druther t'were t'other way around... the MD prizes suck compared to the VA prizes.
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