Missile Command restoration

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Okay, time to get back into gear and finish up the Missile Command cabinet restoration. Last time I posted about it, I’d just rebuilt and polished the Trakball. Here’s what’s happened since then.

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Unlike the TRON, the original Missile Command sideart peeled right off, albeit in many little pieces. I love how the artwork has baked into the cabinet — it looks neat, and helped with aligning the new art just right, too.

The cabinet was mostly solid, with the typical beat up edges and corners. A bit of bondo and a lot of sanding cleaned up most of the damage.

The original lower wood piece had been through hell, so I used it as a basic template and made a replacement.

Post paint and prep work. In hindsight, I really should’ve put more time into the sides of the cabinet. I figured that since the original side art was placed on bare wood, and since the wood was apparently in good shape, that I could get away with doing the same with the reproduction artwork. Unfortunately, every time I had to lift the side art during placement, it’d pull up miniscule bits of wood, marring the smooth surface. A proper coat of paint or two would’ve prevented that.

The Missile Command side art sat rolled up in a shipping box through spring, so, much to the annoyance of my wife, I flattened it out over a couple of weeks on the dining room table. Note the creases, they were especially fun to work out during application.

link love 05-29-09

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Honestly, I’m just happy to have an excuse to post an I, Robot image for link love.

The Law No Jumping

I’m glad that Jason McIntosh has released a new episode of jmac’s arcade, as I missed the original episodes back in 2007. Each arcade gaming vignette is maybe five minutes, and very much worth a listen. [via GSW]

Also, Jamey Pittman’s pretty amazing Pac-Man Dossier, discovered through Jason and the GSW article above.

Speaking of reading, Well Played 1.0: Video Games, Value and Meaning is out, featuring essays written by all sorts of video gaming and internet folks. Go get it, it’s free (also available in printed book form).

Disneyland control panels.

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This is the control panel for Disneyland’s Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

Our camera died inexplicably so I was limited to iPhone photography for the day, and unfortunately the rest of the panel images I took were lousy. Still, the control panels are all fascinating, very industrial and archaic, like something out of the Star Trek original series set.

How is there not a web site devoted to these things?

Replacing the battery in an Oral-B Pulsar.

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I like the Oral-B Pulsar, it’s a fine enough toothbrush, but half the time the battery runs dead well before the bristles are worn. Rather than using bristle wear as an indicator, I’m sure most folks just toss the brush as soon as the battery is dead and move on to a new one. Throw in the occasional dud battery that only lasts a week or two and brushing your teeth with a Pulsar can end up costing more than a Netflix subscription.

That’s annoying and expensive, and while moving to a new type of toothbrush may be the more practical answer, it’s not nearly as fun.

The internet says that a toothbrush should be replaced every three months, assuming you don’t go to town on your teeth and destroy the bristles early. That’s way longer than a typical Pulsar battery lasts, so what we want to do is replace the battery inside with a rechargeable that’ll last much longer.

First, you’ll need to crack open the toothbrush. While the lower half of the brush does screw off, it’s glued on with an adhesive, so tools will help here.

Once the adhesive is popped, the cap will twist right off.

Carefully bend back the metal prong, and remove the (ahah!) AAA battery.

The Pulsar battery is a somewhat funky Duracell, with a protruding bump on the negative end. My replacement battery (a rechargeable Hybrio, go with those or a Sanyo Eneloop) is completely flat and wouldn’t always make contact with the inner terminal, so I recommend flipping the orientation and tossing in your replacement battery positive side first. Note the shape difference:

The on/off mechanism in the Pulsar is very basic: the Off button simply pushes a bit of plastic between a split inner terminal, breaking the circuit. The problem here is that the pressure on the terminals needs to be just right, too much and the toothbrush won’t ever turn off, too light and it won’t turn on. I experimented with adding washers and tweaking the prong, but the most successful method ending up being the simplest.

Discard the bit of foam at the top of the prong and replace it with a folded piece of electrical tape. Pinch the prong against the tape with pliers to secure the padding, and screw on the cap (mine aligned label side up).

Test it a few times, and once you’re satisfied that the fit is good, go celebrate the financial savings by turning your Blu-Ray access back on at Netflix.