Building a Multicade from Arcadeshop parts

TheDrewster

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I am thinking about multicading my used & abused Pac Man Plus. Has anybody ever used all arcadeshop parts (like marquee, control panel, side art, etc)? If so, how did it turn out? Do they come out nice?
 
I made a multi williams using arcade shop parts and it came out very good. I recommend buying their top power supply if you are going to use their jamma harness the harness has plastic molex connectors on it that plug right into the power supply. If you use a cheaper power supply you will have to cut the connectors and wire it directly. I also bought the control panel wiring that had molex connectors which is nice for disconnecting the control panel from the cabinet. If you do those 2 things it plug and play, I had mine up and working in one evening.
 
Ive made more than my fair share of MC's over the past few years and I have always used arcade shop for Multicade CPs, CP overlays, CP Clamps and CP hinges. I have probably ordered around 75 sets of what I just listed and have never had any major issues.

I would strongly recommend them if you are considering any control panel parts.
 
I would follow that opinion.
They make a nice control panel for the pac/galaga style cabs. $28 I think.
I am cheap and got an all black cpo from twisted quarter when I ordered other stuff from them. The cpo was like $7 and it was enough material to cover 3 control panels.
 
I haven't built as many as NoahsArcade, but I have done 6 or so using the arcadeshop panels and art, etc. Never had a problem. The artwork really adds up on these things if you do it all (not just AS art, its all expensive!).
I've done both the pre-assembled CPs and bare CP's + parts. You do save a few bucks obviously buying the parts and assembling yourself, but its kinda nice to be able to pull the CP out of the box plug it in and be done :)

cheers
/Tim
 
This was a gutted and ragged out Ms. Pac before the Arcadeshop treatment...

SDC11215-1.jpg
 
One thing that I think should be noted about the control panel is that it comes with a 4-way joystick as standard. If you plan on playing any games that use 8-way control, it might not feel right. On the flip side, using an 8-way makes games that were designed for a 4 way stick (like the pac games) sometimes difficult to play. If you are not precisely pushing the stick in the right direction, and it registers a diagonal, the games gets two different direction signals at the same time. When this happens, it makes you think that your character isn't going where you WANT them to go...
 
One thing that I think should be noted about the control panel is that it comes with a 4-way joystick as standard. If you plan on playing any games that use 8-way control, it might not feel right. On the flip side, using an 8-way makes games that were designed for a 4 way stick (like the pac games) sometimes difficult to play. If you are not precisely pushing the stick in the right direction, and it registers a diagonal, the games gets two different direction signals at the same time. When this happens, it makes you think that your character isn't going where you WANT them to go...

This is very true... if you want it all, get one of the Mag-Stik Plus Ball-Top sticks from ultimarc (http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html)

cheers
/Tim
 
One thing that I think should be noted about the control panel is that it comes with a 4-way joystick as standard. If you plan on playing any games that use 8-way control, it might not feel right. On the flip side, using an 8-way makes games that were designed for a 4 way stick (like the pac games) sometimes difficult to play. If you are not precisely pushing the stick in the right direction, and it registers a diagonal, the games gets two different direction signals at the same time. When this happens, it makes you think that your character isn't going where you WANT them to go...

I always build these with a 4-way when making them for casual clients who just want something in their gameroom for their kids to play. I never get complaints about not being able to move diagonally in Scramble or 1942. However, if I build them with an 8-way, I'll get several calls about problems playing Pac-Man or Frogger.

It's not worth the extra expense to buy the MagStik Plus for people who don't even remember the games that you'd need to switch for, and are mainly buying it because it has Ms. Pac and Galaga on it...
 
I always build these with a 4-way when making them for casual clients who just want something in their gameroom for their kids to play. I never get complaints about not being able to move diagonally in Scramble or 1942. However, if I build them with an 8-way, I'll get several calls about problems playing Pac-Man or Frogger.

It's not worth the extra expense to buy the MagStik Plus for people who don't even remember the games that you'd need to switch for, and are mainly buying it because it has Ms. Pac and Galaga on it...

Agreed 100% ... If you're building it sell to casual users, go with the 4 way stick. Playing pacman (esp) with an 8-way stick will screw even a novice player. They won't know its 'cause its an 8-way stick, it will just seem
"broken".

/Tim
 
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