Crystal Castles
Atari, 1983, Unique, 1 or 2 players

I picked up this game as part of my first big buy. It was filthy, the track ball was nearly immobile, and the monitor had serious burn-in. While I wasn't able to do anything about the burn, this game cleaned up very nicely. Thanks to trackball rollers from Bob Roberts and bearings from Happ Controls, the controls are once again working silky smooth.  See the Crystal Castles KLOV listing for more information about this game.

I completely gutted it, a little frightening since it was the first cabinet that I really explored thoroughly. Preparing to discharge the monitor had me pretty worked up, but after reading up on the subject at Brien King's web site, it went pretty smoothly. I made a grounding wire with two alligator clips and vacuum cleaner electrical cord, soldering the alligator clip to both wires, then wrapped each end with electrical tape. The "probe" is an extra long flat head screwdriver from Eagle Hardware. It made a satisfying POP sound, I waited, then it made a small snap, third time there was no sound. After removing everything that was screwed or bolted down, I hauled it out on a rare sunshine Sunday in the Northwest (there have been exactly two all Winter!), in January, and gave it a bath.

Next, it went back into the garage after towel drying it and letting it sit for an hour outside. Once inside, I stuck a small ceramic heater in the inside of the thing, placed the back on it, and faced it toward the rear on low fan. The next morning, it was completely dry inside, and I started putting Humpty Dumpty back to together again.

The three biggest obstacles to restoring this machine were the control panel, trackball, and center Atari logo on the marquee. The Atari logo was completely gone, replaced by a black plastic piece that didn't do this thing any justice whatsoever. So a collector graciously scanned this centerpiece and emailed all 50 megs of it to me and I reproduced it. Not the best looking thing with the machine off, I'm certain the original looks much better, but it looks great with the lights dimmed and the machine on.

The control panel was disgusting. This machine came from a Chuck E. Cheese's, and there was 16 years worth of accumulated filth, soda pop, palm sweat and pizza grease on this baby, I kid you not one bit! I attacked it with every household cleaner known to man, including Goof Off, Shower Power, X-14, Windex, 409 and Gojo hand cleaner with pumice. The Goof Off managed to screw up the finish, turning it a milky white, but it did clean the stuff off with lots of elbow grease. Not satisfied, and not wanting to remove the finish on more of the surface, I went last ditch - "As seen on TV,Quick n Brite", a congealed tub of pink slime that I slopped onto the control panel as it sat in it's filth in my sink. I then scrubbed with a small scrub brush and IT WORKED! A little Krylon matte finish clear spray paint fixed the Goof Off mess.

The trackball had a nail in the idler roller, preventing it from moving at all. There was a huge smooth divot where the trackball wore it down, and it was toasted. I replaced this, spun the bearings out with a drill after soaking in WD-40 overnight to loosen any gunk or rust, but still wasn't satisfied. So I called Happ Controls and bought 6 new bearings and two encoder wheels, the mechanicals except the opaque red trackball had now been replaced with new parts. The results were worth it.

Sadly Crystal Castles is not in my long term "keeper" collection goal, so it was sold on The Evil Ebay.

Last modified 01/21/00