WTB: Arcade Cabinet Retro for me and my son (6)

[jon.tg]

I’ve been a long time lurker of this forum, and I absolutely love the brotherhood that has been established. My son has recently turned 6 years old, and I have recently come to the realization that he is a gamer. I’m looking for an intro cabinet (or project) that we could share (or build upon) this love. I live in the Lakeland area but am willing to drive to pickup a cab for sale. My budget is around $300. I know it’s on the low end, but really just looking for and entry level machine (or project). I appreciate your time in reading this.


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[FUNWIZ]

Welcome to the forums.  Any ideas?  Driver, fighter, maze, trivia, classic, guns? 

[jon.tg]

Welcome to the forums.  Any ideas?  Driver, fighter, maze, trivia, classic, guns?

I’m not entirely sure. What would be a good entry game?


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[Old Pin Guy]

PM Sent....

[Spicules]

$300 is gonna be kind of low for a complete game.  I think for $500-$600 you could definitely get a decent condition vid. 

$300 for a starter project to build upon like you said would not be bad though. 

I would think a generic cab - like a "z-back"  or some sort of  neo geo cab would be a good starter game, plus some sort of mult-cart.

That way he could test out all sorts of games - fighters shooters, etc.

[kreaper691]

I have a nice z back with working monitor for 200 has a 25 inch monitor

[Homerjay]

I just checked on amazon and if you get a raspberry pi 3, case, power cord, heat sinks, and 32gb card it would be $65.  That's a good way to play multiple games up to PSX and non-chd arcade games.

[scarabaeus]

I’ve been a long time lurker of this forum, and I absolutely love the brotherhood that has been established. My son has recently turned 6 years old, and I have recently come to the realization that he is a gamer. I’m looking for an intro cabinet (or project) that we could share (or build upon) this love. I live in the Lakeland area but am willing to drive to pickup a cab for sale. My budget is around $300. I know it’s on the low end, but really just looking for and entry level machine (or project). I appreciate your time in reading this.

I am thinking of doing the same. Although my son is quite a bit younger, I want to get him started "right in life" with retro gaming.  I am considering buying one of those smaller-scale Midway/Konami type X-in-1 cabs (seeing as it's a better cabinet size for him) and swapping out the controller card with a RetroPi.  (You *may* have to swap out the LCD screen as well, depending on the video input requirements of the cab's stock screen) I've seen "broken" cabs like that online for around $75-$100 or less, the Raspberry Pi B+ will set you back about $40 + SD card (Don't really need the heat sink unless you plan on overclocking it), and the I-Pac2 USB controller card runs another $40 from Ultimarc.  Probably another ~$20 in misc wires/connectors, if needed. Then it should be just a little time wiring and cleaning. 

Depending on the CP space available and/or the amount of controls that you want on the CP, you could even expand the CP with more functions or, if needed, convert it to two-player (supported by the I-Pac2 controller), if the mini-cab you buy isn't two-player already.  But I believe those two specific machines are already two-player.

I'm planning on just loading his up with a bunch of schmups, platformers, and (kid-friendly) fighter/adventure games and let him pick what he likes.  If he doesn't like those I'll just get others.

I haven't actually converted one of these "mini cabs" myself, but I have made RetroPi conversions on full-sized cabs in the past over short weekends and it's not too terribly difficult. My assumption is this should be even easier since you won't have to worry about wiring in the coin door/mechs, jamma harness, or separating and down-scaling the video to work with a CRT. If you're looking for a light weekend project, it may be worth a go. (Very little-to-no soldering required.)

[kreaper691]

Also have a nice taito cab with rastan in it for 500 obo

[scarabaeus]

Deleting this erroneous message.

[jon.tg]

Thanks again to everyone. I really do appreciate everyone’s time and I have received quite a few PMs as well. I’ll try to reply to everyone.


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[PinPup]

Wow, everyone here has been very helpful. I would think you would reply to everyone directly just to say thanks. If somone pms with help I would reply. Just sayin' good etiquette and all. I know folks have helped me quite a bit here. I do see you have thanked everyone, but it is nice to close the pm loop.

[tendril]

25" z-back for $200, pick up some original pcbs sounds a great start.

Raspberry Pi and multi-games pcbs can be a bit crappy because they usually don't drive the monitor at native frequencies and can have terrible scrolling or other artifacts.  Originals are far better!

[k7]

you can get a jamma vertical orientation cabinet, and throw in the generic Chinese 60in1 board, or a blue elf, with very little effort.

if you pick up a horizontal cabinet, there are hori multiboards, some cheap and limited (Chinese horizontal based jamma multi, Pandora's box 1 thru 5, neogeo multiboards...), others more money but true to the original hardware (arcadeSD). it's all preference, of course.

if there's a game you want to persue building, just make sure the cab you get has the monitor set up correctly. a lot of people miss that.

and don't convert the classics.

depends on the era of gaming you're looking to recreate, of course. good luck.