This will be my last post regarding Ice Cold Beer for awhile.
If you are new to this post thread, here is some links to the earlier portions of my journey with this game for context.
Ice Cold Beer (November 2019) - Where I chronicle getting the game in July and working through a myriad of issues to get it playing. The “Happy Ending” was premature, it turns out.
ICB EPROM Shenanigans (July 2020) - In this post, I take an improbably long journey through Murphy’s Law following what ended up being a dead end troubleshooting theory.
ICB Restarts (Conclusion) (August 2020) - In this post, I conclude repairs on the wiring harness and finally have a working PCB.
..and finally this post (the one you are looking at) where I finally get to put in a little detail work on the game and get it to a stable point.
Finally free of frustrating and transient board problems, I spent some time putting some finishing touches on Ice Cold Beer.
Awhile back I ordered new motors and belts from Marco, as well as new motor limit switches from Arcade Parts and Repair.
The closed gearbox design makes a tremendous difference in terms of motor noise from the game. I don’t know where Marco sources these motors but just one note, there was a polarity marker (red dot) near one of the terminals and I found that the polarity was actually reversed from what my machine expected. That tells me these motors, at least were probably used in other games, too.
My original glass has some minor but annoying damage to the art at the bottom near the ball release lever and at the top near the light bulb. I wrapped up the old one in packing material and stowed it away for later and ordered a new one from Phoenix Arcade.
While I waited on the new glass, I spent some time tumbling some of the remaining parts and polishing the ball-bar. For the life of me, I don’t understand the rust / oxidation on this game. Many screw heads were perfectly clean but the portions of the threads that were engaged in wood were rusty. Moisture in the wood? If so, odd that it didn’t seem swollen anywhere.
I installed new felt in the channels (used this stuff) and I polished out the ball bar as much as I could without removing the plating. The ball bar parts are hard to come by. People sell 3D printed copies of the plastics but the brass bar itself seldom becomes available.
Looking better!
It isn’t perfect but definitely coming along nicely.. For me, it is time to take a break from fixing this game and move on to something else for awhile!