Project to big for a beginner?

SirIan

New member
Joined
Oct 14, 2009
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Orlando, Florida
So I've recently gotten into the world of arcades. About a month ago I bought my first one, TMNT Turtles in Time and have been fixing it up. I've been looking for a new project and I'm thinking about getting X-men Children of the Atom or Marvel Super Heroes (or both) and building cabinets for them. I know I'd have to get monitors, controls, buttons, and all that jazz too, but for the most part it looks fairly easy except the monitors which I know nothing about. Am I getting ahead of myself and if not what am I getting myself into?
 
I wouldnt reccomend building cabinets from scratch until youve had a little more experience with woodworking and you fully understand the architectural standpoint of arcade cabinets. For starters, I would suggest finding an empty cabinet from a gutted machine and crafting it into what you want to build.
 
I believe that cabinet is a Tempest cabinet. Id say its a good start! Youll be glad you didnt have to go through the headaches of building one. Not yet anyway. Offer him $20 and see if he will go down in price. $35 is not a bad price, just remember that the less you spend on the cabinet, the more you can spend on the game. Good luck!
 
For a new guy, the only thing that can hold you back is your wallet. Everything is possible if you're willing to spend money. Brand new monitors can be bought for about $375 + shipping for those types of cabinets.

Now, if you want to get used monitors that might need repair, then I'd worry about that learning about monitors and getting that part resolved before you build a cabinet for it....
 
$375 is damn expensive for a monitor! If possible I'd like to get one used but functioning and nearby so I can just pick it up, I imagine shipping on such a thing would be a lot. My wallet is really holding me back, I'm poor folk. Honestly the reason I was thinking about doing X-Men CoTA or Marvel Super Heroes is because we have a couple giant comic book stores in Orlando and I wanted to see if I could put them in there and make a little extra money. My job has cut my hours down to the point I can barely afford food and gas.
 
Damn, youre in Florida. I was gonna say, because I am in the midst of making a deal scoring 3 non-working games, one of them being a Marvel Super Heroes. If you were closer to you, I would fix it up and sell it to you for about the same price of the single monitor modessitt mentioned.

Well, I say grab that cabinet for starters. Any 19" monitor should fit with a little jerry-rigging at most.
 
$375 is damn expensive for a monitor! If possible I'd like to get one used but functioning and nearby so I can just pick it up, I imagine shipping on such a thing would be a lot. My wallet is really holding me back, I'm poor folk. Honestly the reason I was thinking about doing X-Men CoTA or Marvel Super Heroes is because we have a couple giant comic book stores in Orlando and I wanted to see if I could put them in there and make a little extra money. My job has cut my hours down to the point I can barely afford food and gas.

Well, you should know that you can buy a new 19" for that Tempest cab - for $199 from Arcadeshop in Georgia.

New monitors aren't cheap, and the 19" tube monitors are no longer being sold by many companies. They are now selling more expensive LCD monitors as replacements.

It might be a good idea to only buy cabs with monitors, or even working monitors only. And I'd start reading up on monitor repair. Start hanging out in the Monitor Repair section and just absorb the info about various things. Pay attention to the questions that are typically asked by the experienced techs, so that you'll know the answers when you need help yourself.

There are people out there like me, Chad at Arcadecup, etc, that do monitor repair work for less than the cost of buying a new monitor, but it's up to you whether it's economical to use us for that, or try to learn how to do it yourself...
 
I'll definitely be reading up on monitor repair. Thanks for all the advice by the way, its greatly appreciated. :D
 
I'll definitely be reading up on monitor repair. Thanks for all the advice by the way, its greatly appreciated. :D

Ask us if you get stuck! Better to double check and know what youre doing rather than touching the anode cap while the monitors on :)
 
My job has cut my hours down to the point I can barely afford food and gas.

There will always be games - there is NO shortage of them and enusring you have food on the table and a roof over your head is more important than having a game.
Besides - how do you plan on playing the game when your electricty is shut off because you can't pay the biill?

SirIan - pull thy head out of thy ass. ;)
 
Back
Top Bottom