I've mentioned this elsewhere but I figured I'd start a thread devoted to it. There will be a KCAPA tournament at Pizza West this coming Saturday the 21st. It will start at 5:00 and run until we're done. No advance sign up is necessary, just show up. IFPA points will be awarded.

The official KCAPA mass email has not been sent yet. If you want your name added to the mailing list, PM me and I'll get it added.

There is of course pizza and beer available. If we have a good turnout and want to have a buffet, we can do that. Or we can order individual pizzas.

The pin lineup consists of Iron Man, Jurassic Park, The Simpsons Pinball Party, Star Wars Episode I, Tri Zone, and Whirlwind. I'm not sure if all games will be used for tournament play, we'll see what the turnout is like and how many games will be needed.

You can find some more info at the following locations:

http://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/pizza-west-3186-shawnee-ks-united-states

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kansas-City-Area-Pinball-Association/89445321816

https://www.facebook.com/pages/KC-Pins/426188154082442

http://kcpins.com/pizza-west

A reporter from the local paper (Shawnee Dispatch) will be there to talk to people. Hopefully we'll see an article about the tournament in next week's paper.

Thanks guys. It was good to see everyone and I met a few other Pinsiders.

To recap, we had 28 players in the tournament. Don B. took first place, Jason S. was second, Derek F. took third. Congrats guys!

For everyone that wasn't there, we had a rocky start. The games have been in Pizza West since June 4th with heavy use at times and there were never any issues. Yesterday, right as we were beginning the tournament, everything went down. With the help of Pizza West's owners and other attendees, we got everything back up and we got the tournament running. I had to do some repairs to three games to get them back in service and thankfully they are okay. At one point I thought I may have three toasted games that would need extensive work. And to be honest, at one brief point I though I may have six toasted games that would need extensive work.

As best that we can tell, it was a strange combination of things that happened involving the building's wiring and some surges or brownouts from the utility company. A business next door to Pizza West was having power issues all day. Throw it all together and you have a recipe for disaster. If anyone wants more details I can provide them.

After closing the electrician repaired the wiring and we had employees play all the games at once and we had everything plugged in, which included the claw machine and the "Pizza" sign. The most current pulled with everything going was 11 amps. The room has two 20 amp circuits, so electrical capacity for the room was not an issue and I don't expect anything like this to happen again. When I left Pizza West last night everything was back as it should be and the games will be back in service this morning.

Thanks again to everyone that showed up and thanks to all that helped to make this a success. Hope to see everyone at the next tourney on August 18th!

Unfortunately with how things started, I didn't get any photos of the event. If anyone has any photos they want to share, please do.

Below is a photo showing what happens when you get 200+ volts sent to your games. Everyone knows this, but make sure your game's main fuse is the correct value and type. The MOVs did their job on the three games that received the 200+ volts. They shunted the current away from the game and the main fuse blew, saving all the electronics and allowing me to get the games back in service.

My bill changer came from the factory without a MOV. I installed one before I put it in service and I'm very happy I did so. If I hadn't, it may have fried last night. But it is also back up and running fine after replacing the MOV and installing a new fuse.

DSCN1023_(Custom).JPG

We got a write up in the local paper about the tournament (and the games in general).

http://www.shawneedispatch.com/news/2012/jul/25/pizza-west-goes-full-tilt-pinball/