I will be there the Weekend of the show (Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday). More than likely, with my head buried in a game.

As I recall, there wasn't much of a line to buy tickets, but there was a bit of a line to get into the building in the early moments of opening. But the real reason to show up early is to get a decent parking place. The lots fill up fast and then you start having to park on the adjoining streets...... Further, and Further away as time goes by.

Yes, its always good to see a "new" generation of players (kids) that show up with parents to check out all the great games to play from our past (Both Pins and videos).

Its been my past experience that shows like Arcade Expo and the earlier PPE's would attract families. Especially on Sunday.

As usually happens, when we are eating a meal out in a local restaurant, there is always someone that asks us about it. As they have heard of it, but don't actually know where it is held. It happened again this morning. So, hopefully, there was at least one more Father Son team that showed up.

I am not sure how much local advertising John and Crew did but I know PPE used to really do it up high $$$ with Large Billboards scattered throughout the Bay Area.

Of course, due to its very local fund raising efforts, Pin-A-Go-Go! also gets a good family following too.

It is truly the large number of "Red Shirts" and "Green Shirts" (Volunteer staff) that make this show possible and so Great!

This might have been because the whole building was retrofitted with LED lighting since the last show. They are the same light fixtures but its possible that the "used-upside-down" LED tubes cast a different throw of lighting. Its going to be interesting to see if there is an easy way to deal with this. But don't hold your breath, John has invested another unbelievable amount of money to improve the property and satisfy the local officials. And a little glare is a fine trade off to keep this collection available to the public.

Ha! If you had played a 4 player $1 game on Hercules, you would probably still be there finishing about now. Talk about long game times......

Weak flippers can be highly subjective. For some, they will be plenty strong. For others, they will never be strong enough.

Case in point: I Had a Pinbot on location. Pinball Locator comment said right flipper not strong enough to make it up the ramp. Went out to check it. Played fine. You just have to be accurate on your shot. Asked another "pinball player" and he concurred, there was nothing wrong with the strength of the flipper. Some players want the flipper to compensate for their lack of honed skills.

Granted, there is still plenty of work to be done. First goal was to get the collection set up. Next goal, was to get as many games fully functional as humanly possible. I don't feel that goal has been reached yet but plenty of progress has been made. Next goal will be to get to "fine tune" the quality of play on the games. Sadly, that goal may never be reached to some player's satisfaction.

As techs, we kind of had a chuckle when someone informed us that there were a few burned out light on a game...........

Not in any way intended as a scolding since I too, thought about it:

Perhaps, John might consider re-lamping the Backglasses with LEDs if only to reduce heat in the building, and reduce on power consumption (something he is VERY cognizant about right now). But I am sure many of us would agree, we don't want to start seeing cool white LEDs appearing on the Playfield GI regardless of the positive benefits!

Let's see...... 500 pins, average 40 lamps per backglass: That's only 20,000 LEDs to purchase. 20,000 X $0.59ea = $11,800. Of course, for orders over $99 he will get free shipping.

Its not my place to post it publically but John did tell me what the electrical cost is just for a single event and let me tell you, it was mind boggling (and I have seen monthly commercial arcade electric bills in the past).

No idea on the actual savings numbers but if he could drop the power consumption of all those pins by 20%, that would be a huge savings for each event. But its when all the AC units and refrigerator units kick in on hot days that effect the bill even more (peak demand).

Savings could be even higher. Take for example T2 which appears to have 33 #555 lamps which are actually rated at 0.250amps, not the smaller 0.150 of a #47. That's 8.25 amps vs. your 4.5 amps of 30 X #47. That's almost double the power consumption.

Maybe John can do an "Adopt-a-Pin" campaign and let people donate to populate their favorite game (approximately $18 for 30 X $0.59 for Twin 2835 SMT Frosted warm white bulbs (Comet bulk pricing)).

OF course, savings could be a wash depending on what LED is being used and how its wired. There are high output (0.2W) 2835 LEDs that consume up to 60ma. If wired in parallel, that is potentially 120ma per bulb. Not too much savings over a #47 at 150ma (other than heat reduction). It seems it would be unlikely they are wired in series for a 6.3V application since the voltage for a White LED is around 3.2v and two of them would be 6.4v with no head room for a current limiting resistor. OF course, a lot of standard brightness LEDs only use 20ma each. So say 40ma per bulb which would be a savings of 210ma compared to a #555 lamp which would be a savings of 84% per bulb.

There would probably need to be a bit of experimenting for standard bulbs.

A household screw in will probably produce a hot spot right in the center, may need to darken the end of the bulb somehow (hit it with a burst of white spray paint.

Led replacement fluorescent tubes only emit light on one side (180 degrees). So there won't be as much dispersion of light like with the original. Not that it as such a great design to begin with.