Response from Jonathan: Eddie,

First off, thank you for the kind words about our podcast and YouTube videos. We’re glad you enjoy them. Now let’s discuss your questions…

> It does seem that this “warm up” period is getting longer each time I switch the machine on – and the 5 minutes or so of blurring in/out has me a little worried about the monitor. Sorry for the “newbie” question – but is this normal or anything to worry about?

Warm up issues like this are usually caused by some caps starting to go bad on your monitor chassis. You could have an issue with your flyback as well but most of the time a flyback will just go out instead of slowly degrade over time. With that said, it’s not unheard of to have a flyback slowly die. We recommend installing a cap kit to see if it helps the issue. If the issue continues, you might look at replacing the flyback as well.

> Is it best to continually turn the machine on and off – or is it actually better for the machine and the monitor in particular to keep the machine on for a few hours at a time if I plan to play it a few times throughout the day (rather than taxing it by turning on/off a few times a day)?

We recommend turning your arcade machines off whenever they are not being played. With that said, it really depends on how long you intend to go before you play it again that day as to whether or not you should shut them off. I’ve had parties where I’ve had family and friends over for several hours at a time. In this case, I usually leave the games on (even if they are not being played) until they leave. If I’m the only one playing, I usually turn it on and turn it off when I’m done. Just depends on your situation and preference. We’ve discussed this in a couple of our older podcasts episodes so you might look through our back catalog to hear more of our thoughts on this question.

Hope that helps. Thank you for your questions and good luck with your future repairs.