Didn't have the inclination to fight boat-ramp traffic on the last summer beach holiday of the year, so ended up spending Labor Day weekend fixing things (and cooking things) instead of enjoying the beaches and water.
Instead, decided to tackle a few projects in the gameroom that I've been putting off.
LED OCD & GI OCD
For a game that I know I'll be keeping for awhile - LED OCD is something I'm inclined to add to games but the install process isn't my favorite task.
LED OCD and GI OCD essentially try to make LEDs, less .. umm.. LED-y. I'm sure they explain it better over at: ledocd.com
Ultimately, they give you finer control over the LEDs in the game by wedging a micro-controller between the original controlled lamps and the lamp matrix harnesses. The LED OCD micro-controllers endeavor to smooth insert animations to more closely resemble the inter-fade in incandescent bulb animations. The GI OCD board performs similarly for games where GI animations might be used. (TOTAN, Scared Stiff for instance)
They also tend to just make the LEDs less bright but in a good way.
One challenge to the install is actually fitting the board in the backbox so that: it doesn't ground against anything, it doesn't get in the way of the speaker panel but can still be reasonably close for the factory harness to be diverted to the new board.
GI LCD adds a few more parts, including a breakout board.
GI OCD also complicates the mounting dilemma a little, the breakout board doesn't really have enough lead cable to mount anywhere. They accounted for that by removing the mounting posts and including a large tie wrap, I suppose the intention is to tie-wrap it to a cable bundle. Oh, OCD-named product, this disturbs my wire management OCD. :)
GI OCD really only seems to come in handy if you have a game with overly bright GI that needs to be brought into check or if the game has fade effects in the GI as part of the light show. I'm not really sensing a tremendous difference in the GI board on Scared Stiff, as I did in Tales of the Arabian Nights. Still, the extra control to dim them is kinda nice.
The video shows the smoothing on the insert animations and the GI adjustments. Admittedly this quick clip looks darker than it really is in person but I also intended for this game to be a bit darker than normal for theme purposes.
Monster Bash Ramps
I also took the time over labor day to replace the ramps in Medieval Madness. A task that took me, entirely too long :)
Medieval Madness's ramps were originally flame-polished to a bubbling crisp by a well-meaning previous owner.
The end result is nice though, no more burned ramps. Although the new left ramp has a screw instead of a rivet in the plastic diverter. I didn't have an appropriately sized rivet on hand but I do plan to address that.
Speaking of that plastic diverter on the ramps - ever notice them on Medieval? I never noticed them playing on Pinball Arcade on Steam or at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas. I guess the purpose is to prevent ramp-rejects from STDM? Cool idea, I wonder if this came out of initial testing from the prototype batch in March 1997 or was part of the original design? If anyone knows the story, I'd like to know!