Noob looking for some opinions.

Nephasth

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A couple weeks ago I managed to snag a free arcade cabinet off of craigslist. Picked it up and came to find out it was an old Phoenix cab. The whole thing has been painted black. The original side art was removed before it was painted. The CP is the Phoenix CP, but a joystick was added to the center. What was left of the harness has been chopped (no PCB connecters). The bottom corners are badly damaged. My original intentions were to turn this into a MAME junker for the garage with an old computer and TV while utilizing the existing controls and an I-Pac. I used a Peterbilt mudflap to fill the marquee space.

A week after my first find, another free cabinet showed up on CL. This one was for The Pit and was in great condition compared to the first one I picked up. The guy was also selling an Arkanoid PCB, CP, and marquee. I told him I was interested in both and he said he would throw in a semi-working monitor and linear power supply for free. However, when I picked up the stuff, we broke the monitor and you could hear the gasses leak out. Anyway, I'm going to put the Arkanoid stuff in The Pit's cab. I will have to make a small modification to the PCB holder and the CP doesn't quite fit right (I end up with a gap between the monitor bezel and the CP). I've got a used 19K7203 monitor on the way.

After weeks of researching arcade machines, I'm respecting dedicated machines more and more. I still want an awesome ulitmate MAME machine someday. But I'm kind of on the fence about restoring these cabs to their original purposes. The Phoenix is so far off I'm not even sure if it would be worth it. But all The Pit would need is a PCB, CP, and marquee. Any thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated.
 

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The Pit is actually a pretty rare game. I would definitely try to track down the parts and restore it. Only problem is that you could easily spend much more than the game is worth that way. This really is a difficult decision! :D
 
hey, glad to see you joined here. i'm the guy you bought it from. like i was saying, i think the control panel originally is a pac one, as that's what it looked. the person i got it from had it ziptied to the cab as you stated it obviously doesn't fit.

as far as the cabinet, being that the wiring is real messy in it, have you thought about going jamma? you can get a jamma harness for real cheap from bob roberts or jammaboards.com, and jammaboards also has a jamma adapter that will work with the arkanoid board. will the phoenix control panel fit on the pit cab? that might work.

btw, i lost your business card, but was over at ray's (the guy i told you about with a lot of parts.) his username on here is pacray. i let him know you were looking for parts and he presently has a bunch of stuff along with some monitors he's looking to get rid of too. so check your private messages, i'll send you his email address.
 
My advice would be to make a list of games that you actually want, and then start looking for those. When a lot of people start in this hobby, they just grab everything that comes up for sale (or for free!) within a 50 mile radius of their house. They fill the garage/basement, and THEN start searching for keepers.

Another thing I would say is 'parting in' gutted games tends to be a lot more expensive than fixing a complete (but nonworking) game.

As others have said, it's very easy to spend more money bringing a game back than it is worth. (I think this is fine if you're restoring a very hard to find keeper for YOU.) Surprisingly, often it is cheaper to buy a working game than to get a fixer upper and spend money on boards, control panels, art, etc. Of course, that way you don't get the fun of bringing a classic back to life. :)
 
My advice would be to make a list of games that you actually want, and then start looking for those. When a lot of people start in this hobby, they just grab everything that comes up for sale (or for free!) within a 50 mile radius of their house. They fill the garage/basement, and THEN start searching for keepers.

+ Eleventy. Free or anything under $100 is hard to beat, but 88mph is right. Make a list of the games you want and spend your money on those! The chase is half the fun! :cool:
 
hey, glad to see you joined here. i'm the guy you bought it from. like i was saying, i think the control panel originally is a pac one, as that's what it looked. the person i got it from had it ziptied to the cab as you stated it obviously doesn't fit.

as far as the cabinet, being that the wiring is real messy in it, have you thought about going jamma? you can get a jamma harness for real cheap from bob roberts or jammaboards.com, and jammaboards also has a jamma adapter that will work with the arkanoid board. will the phoenix control panel fit on the pit cab? that might work.

btw, i lost your business card, but was over at ray's (the guy i told you about with a lot of parts.) his username on here is pacray. i let him know you were looking for parts and he presently has a bunch of stuff along with some monitors he's looking to get rid of too. so check your private messages, i'll send you his email address.

The Phoenix CP would fit that cab perfectly, but I would have to fill some holes and cut some new ones if I wanted to reuse the CPO (might go this route). I'll actually be picking up a couple more cabinets soon. I'm pretty sure one has a JAMMA harness in it already. I might have some luck and have that Arkanoid CP fit nicely in one. I just bought a monitor for Arkanoid, and am in the process of trying to buy a complete working machine. So my buying is about to grind to a hault and my hands are pretty full. But I will keep Ray in mind when I start looking again, thank you.

My advice would be to make a list of games that you actually want, and then start looking for those. When a lot of people start in this hobby, they just grab everything that comes up for sale (or for free!) within a 50 mile radius of their house. They fill the garage/basement, and THEN start searching for keepers.

Wow, you hit the nail on the head, but my radius is 100 miles (Cheyenne sucks). Right now a couple should be playable within a couple weeks, just waiting on some parts. The other two will most likely stay in storage until next summer. The wife is already getting pretty mad about this new space consuming hobby, and I haven't even told her about the working one I want to buy yet. Luckily, I've got a 90' x 45' building to keep the ones in waiting in. Out of sight, out of mind for her. But I totally agree with what you said. I'm seeing now it would probably be much less of a headache if I could find complete or near complete nonworking games instead of empty cabs.
 
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