Leave on Jukebox

On Dec 9, 5:36*am, John Robertson wrote:
ctsteps5 wrote:
is it ok to just leave it on? *of should I turn it off when not in
use?

marty

I always recommend to my customers that they turn the machine off when
not in use. Fluorescent light will age any plastics nearby with the UV
light they give off (not to mention the heat). Also one has to consider
that any electrical or electronic parts age more when turned on then off.


Excellent point too - on R-84s that are either the Disco or Tempo, the
artwork on the glass
will also start to crack with age, particularly on the piece above the
title rack that sits right under the fluro. Might happen on the
woodgrain (prelude) model too, but havent seen it yet.

Worse still (from a safety angle) those red plastic crimp wire joiners
that are used in the ROWE CD jukes in the mains wiring will start to
"whiten" and will crumble to bits when touched where they are near
fluro lights. This is potentially very dangerous as it exposes the
live connection inside and these should be replaced.

The same happens to the "white" cable ties used on the wiring
harnesses. Black ones should be used as these are
usually UV stabilised material. They aren't a safety hazard so much,
but having the bits drop into the mechanism and CD player isn't really
good.

Lastly the safety/appearance factor - you have not mentioned the make or
model of your machine - anything over about fifteen years is running on
borrowed time as far as capacitors and any plastics near lights are
concerned!

John :-#)#

--
* * (Please post followups or tech inquiries to the newsgroup)
* John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9
* Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
* * * * * * * * * * *www.flippers.com
* * * *"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

kreed wrote:

We had (and still do have) many locations in country areas where the
town's mains AC supply comes in via a single wire, and significant
power fluctuations are obviously a fact of life with this electrical
system.

Wow! I never imagined there are 1 wire mains anywhere. Do the lights
go dim in a drought and bright when it rains?

Tony

On Dec 12, 3:57*am, Tony Miklos wrote:
kreed wrote:

We had (and still do have) *many locations in country areas where the
town's mains AC supply comes in via a single wire, and significant
power fluctuations are obviously a fact of life with this electrical
system.

Wow! *I never imagined there are 1 wire mains anywhere. *Do the lights
go dim in a drought and bright when it rains?

Tony

That can to happen, though it's less of a problem than it used to be,
due to most appliances having switchmode power supplies (that are self
regulating) nowadays and wider use of fluorescent lamps & CFL's
(these don't vary their brightness much with mains voltage
fluctuation). Incandescant bulbs are not as good but as they are in
the process of being made illegalfor sale in Australia, It doesn't
really matter.

Years ago, one bar location would use 150w bulbs in separate sockets,
and turn them on if it dimmed too much to try and increase the
brightness of the room from the lower voltage. TV sets would get
"squashed up" pics and in some cases even "V" shaped pics as the
voltage fell. Not much they could do but sit and watch it

The single wire system runs on approximately 18,000v with an earth
stake at each transformer to provide the earth return. More load,
such as a motel, roadhouse, they usually parallel 2 transformers at
the premises. These systems are still widely used, even on less
densely populated areas (small farms etc) on the city limits.Things
like buried copper earth mesh have been tried, with varying degrees of
success at stabilising the voltage under changing load.

With ROWE CD jukes, use of the later model power supply (with the on-
board buck regulator rather than the linear supply) is a good idea, as
these regulate the 28vdc down to get the +9v rail. The mains power
therefore has to drop enormously before the 9v Logic rail gives any
problems. The magazine and transfer motors usually will run happily
over wide voltage ranges.

In one severe case, we constructed an automatic buck/boost auto
transformer system that could automatically step the voltage up/down
as needed if it gets too bad. This ran the pinball, video game and
juke and worked well.

On Dec 12 2008, 3:57*am, Tony Miklos wrote:
kreed wrote:

We had (and still do have) *many locations in country areas where the
town's mains AC supply comes in via asinglewire, and significant
power fluctuations are obviously a fact of life with this electrical
system.

Wow! *I never imagined there are 1wiremains anywhere. *Do the lights
go dim in a drought and bright when it rains?

Tony

Here is a picture I took of a single wire installation for a house -
the single wire (about 18kv) feeds the transformer, and the return is
by an earth stake. there are 2 earths, one for the high voltage, one
for the mains voltage (240v in this case). The 240v mains supply wires
are at the left, they go to another pole and then via underground
cable to the house at the back.

http://www.geocities.com/kenreed1999...ransformer.jpg

I have since been informed that "stabilizers" are available in various
VA ratings,
unfortunately the page isnt in English, but you get the idea

http://cod.kiev.ua/odnofazniestabilizatorireleynie.html
http://www.tradeeasy.com/supplier/16...tabilizer.html