Casters: Thoughts. Opinions. Experiences.

nerdygrrl

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So I am moving my office and thus my office arcade to a new warehouse this week. In the old setup we had hardwood floors and a boy capable of moving maybe fifty pounds on a good day, but it was better than nothing.

I am now all alone in a space with cement flooring. I have been debating putting casters on the bottom of my cabs, but was unsure how folks felt about them.

Do you feel like it devalues the cabinet? Desecrates its original stateness? Is it blasphemous?

I have a few newer Jamma games in Dynamos and have no qualms about strapping them to skates, but I picked up a Galaga 88 yesterday and I am about to start my Paperboy restore. I just want to do right by the games.
 
The Lowes casters drop right in. I think they're fine if you don't mind the extra height. You might want to get locking ones, or use casters on the back and sliders on the front if you like to lean into your games while you play.
 
I have casters on all of my games (except the MC Cocktail.)

It's a huge help, and easily reversible to legs if you feel too guilty about it. I certainly don't...
 
I would recommend the teflon coated leg levelers especially on concrete. To me casters are just wrong.
 
I put casters on every game before I take them off of the truck. I make sure there is always an extra set around, just in case.
 
As a previous poster said, use the locking ones. I played Robotron on one that didn't have locking casters and it was moving all over.

ken
 
I've got casters on my Gorf -- the extra height is great, as I'm pretty tall. And when locked the game doesn't seem to move around, even when dodging with the big control stick.

And it is SO easy to move it when you want. I'm thinking about doing all of them.
 
As a previous poster said, use the locking ones. I played Robotron on one that didn't have locking casters and it was moving all over.

ken

Ken, this was a concern of mine, especially with the fighting games.

It seems like I couldn't go wrong with the drop in casters. I'll test them out on a couple of cabs.
 
They're your games so you should do what you like.
That said, I would use casters since I think legs suck on concrete (SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!)
and I think casters work better on carpetting as well. Just put 2 locking ones on the front.
 
I put them on my sit down driving game off road challenge. haven't put them on anything else, but if I cam across some that dropped right into the hole of the leg leveler and had a locking mech on it, I'd be down.
 
From experience...

...if you get threaded castors that drop in to the holes where your feet go, make sure you NEVER... EVER... simply drop a castor in to the typical Atari-Style T-Nut that is held on with a couple of staples. You're looking for trouble. You MUST remove the T-Nut and install proper HEAVY DUTY PLATES that are available at Bob Roberts. If you install the feet using the T-Nuts you WILL (for sure) eventually lose a leg (castor) or two. Again... you MUST install heavy duty feet plates...

I had a few games on castors. They aren't on castors any more. I prefer nylon feet to castors... that includes on carpet AND cement. I have probably 20 castors sitting in a drawer collecting dust... all of them locking.
 
LOVE EM! Best thing i ever did to my games. No longer do i dread having to pull out a game a to fix it. Great if you bring your games to a convention. They also give me 3 more inches of safety should i get water in my basement (of which i've had some, but never more then an inch) I bought up every one at the closest Harbor Freight had when they were on sale a while back. The blue 3" locking casters were $2 and the non locking ones were $2.50 (weird huh?) I put the locking ones on front and the free ones on back, but i have yet to lock them and not had any problems.
 
Oh, i should mention, the ones i got were on plates. Ace hardware has some badass screws that require no predrilling that work excellent for this.
 
I had a few games on castors. They aren't on castors any more. I prefer nylon feet to castors... that includes on carpet AND cement. I have probably 20 castors sitting in a drawer collecting dust... all of them locking.

I agree. The nylon-bottomed levelers are the balls. That's the first thing I do to a new game, preferably before it comes off the truck.
 
I've tried 4 different Nylon feet... the best of the bunch are the gray nylon feet that I believe either Quarter Arcade or TNT offered for a while. I've been trying to get more of them unsuccessfully... they ROCK.
 
All my machines have casters except for Baby Pac. Some have locks but I never lock them. One that I suggest is that you buy the grey non-marking appliance casters. They screw right in the leg leveler holes. If you buy the black ones you will find they leave black marks on the concrete.

Here are the casters I suggest. You don't need all 4 locking IMHO, just 2 are fine.


2"
074523003121lg.jpg

http://www.lowes.com/pd_235514-255-...1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=casters&facetInfo=

http://www.lowes.com/pd_235485-255-...1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=casters&facetInfo=

3"
http://www.lowes.com/pd_235528-255-...1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=casters&facetInfo=


Also some cabinets use really flimsy tee nuts for the leg levelers, but Bob Roberts sells heavy duty replacements that will work great in place. My Dynamo HS-5 and Galaxian both had crappy nuts.

http://www.therealbobroberts.net/parts.html#hardware
lgelegplt.jpg
 
From experience...

...if you get threaded castors that drop in to the holes where your feet go, make sure you NEVER... EVER... simply drop a castor in to the typical Atari-Style T-Nut that is held on with a couple of staples. You're looking for trouble. You MUST remove the T-Nut and install proper HEAVY DUTY PLATES that are available at Bob Roberts. If you install the feet using the T-Nuts you WILL (for sure) eventually lose a leg (castor) or two. Again... you MUST install heavy duty feet plates...

I had a few games on castors. They aren't on castors any more. I prefer nylon feet to castors... that includes on carpet AND cement. I have probably 20 castors sitting in a drawer collecting dust... all of them locking.

I started out putting games on casters.. The angle of the screw in relation to the wheels will rip the T-nut out of atari cabs. I did it to my Missile command.

They heavy duty metal plates will fix that problem, but I still don't like the change in height. If your 6ft tall, I think the change in height might be an improvement, otherwise I don't like the change.

If your interested, I have about 10-15 sets of double wheel casters kind of like this, but with black frames. I think some might be locking. I would have to dig them out to take pics..

24241016S.jpg
 
They heavy duty metal plates will fix that problem, but I still don't like the change in height. If your 6ft tall, I think the change in height might be an improvement, otherwise I don't like the change.

Being 6'1" makes casters great, otherwise I end up hunching a little.
 
I've tried 4 different Nylon feet... the best of the bunch are the gray nylon feet that I believe either Quarter Arcade or TNT offered for a while. I've been trying to get more of them unsuccessfully... they ROCK.

they were from TNT although I think he sold all he had. I need to search again and possibly put in a small order but I think I found a source that sells the ones you want. At least the pics on the website I once bookmarked looked the same as the TNT ones.
 
they were from TNT although I think he sold all he had. I need to search again and possibly put in a small order but I think I found a source that sells the ones you want. At least the pics on the website I once bookmarked looked the same as the TNT ones.

I was thinking about checking these out. A few folks seem to like them.

This place has them for $1.75
http://www.actionpinball.com/partsgen.htm
 
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