The original steel mechs, and some others I have tried of similar vintage, fill with jams that cannot be ejected. I tried these plastic Imonex 120 mechs which were recommended to me as "less validation but less headaches" but they suck. Every time you press coin return, they just disassemble themselves internally: the stretchy hinge thing pops off its axis.
I am far less interested in "sometimes accepts a bad coin or rejects a good coin" than I am in "never get into a state where I have to open the thing up and fuck with it".
In case you are curious about the state of the DNA Lounge arcade:
- Star Wars: working great!
- Millipede: works, except for the ongoing coin mech bullshit. Monitor has some smearing and fuzziness.
- Tempest: dead because the AR2 fried itself again. Possibly also some logic board glitchery.
- Pac-Man: monitor appears to be dead of unknown causes.
- Vectrex: power supply fried, maybe?
Like most 40-year-olds, these machines have a lot of health issues.
