So a cool Canadian customer came into my store today (I work at a tool store BTW.) After talking for a few, he told me that he restores and keeps arcade cabinets in his home. He owns the original Killer Instinct ($900 up front, $200 restoration,) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mortal Kombat II, etc. Major pangs of jealousy, especially for the original KI. Said he had about 12 in his house. Being who I am, I had to pick his brain about it. I was just curious to see if any members here do anything similar. If so, cost? Is it worth it? Do you just buy, or do you restore?
I'd imagine most people buy with the intention to one day restore as a lot of the times retro arcade cabinets come with physical damage, broken hardware, missing marquees, cigarette stains and burns, etc. You can usually pick them up reasonably cheap, a Western cab doesn't always cost a huge amount of money, Japanese cabs can cost a bit more, but unless you live locally and/or have access to a van, freight is about the only way to ship them around the world and that can be expensive. Restoring often involves stripping down the cab, cleaning it up, removing yellowing from smoke stains, replacing sticks/buttons or entire control panels, sometimes art is damaged and either needs retrofitted or originals need re-acquired, sometimes the game boards them selves are broken. Costs and the amount of work needed to bring life back to a cab varies greatly. Generally I think people who collect cabinets find all of this a part of the passion and put a lot of love and attention into restoring, that's at least from what I've seen over the years.
I once owned a Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom cabinet, in excellent condition. My uncle bought it for me in the mid 90's for $500 at an auction. Sadly he ran into financial problems and had to sell it before I was old enough to take it home from his house. I always wanted to collect them myself, but my family never owned their own home, (and I don't either) and you cant keep an arcade cabinet in most apt buildings. I did try to bring an empty cabinet to my apt building back 18 years ago, got it free from a closed arcade manufacturer in my hometown. I got in major crap from my mother and left it in the parking lot and it was thrown into the compactor by the super heh. I think arcade restoration/collecting is like any other hobby, it has varying levels of dedication. the only crux is you need alot of space.
Arcade restoration requires room, money and technical skills. It can be fun hunting down different boards but getting the power supply installed and the the CRT installed with a good picture requires major electrical knowledge including soldering, knowing voltages etc. If you want to collect arcade games without the hassle of restoring, buy from a dealer but you are going to pay over a grand per game. However if your collecting arcade cabinets for individual games you need that kind of money anyway. A Mame cab is a fun alternative and infinitely easier since they use LCD monitors, pcs and a basic cabinet.
Only you can say if it's worth it. If you mean do you get free / very cheap non-working machines that you'll be able to do up for minimal effort - very rarely, if ever. It's a LOT of hard work and they're often in a poor condition, especially the less money you pay for them. Cleaning that smoke off it is a nasty job. You do it because you love it. And don't do it without a good technical knowledge - whether it's just carpentry skills or electronics. You're going to need a range of skills to do it. And time. And space. And money. You can collect by buying from dealers, but it does get expensive. Even the most enthusiastic tinkerer will pay top dollar for a machine he/she really wants. And buying from a reputable dealer may well bring a warranty with it - invaluable if you don't know electronics, as the older they are, the more likely they are to develop a fault. A friend has several cabinets and only the modern reproductions haven't had at least one fault. All my cabs (all old) have had faults.
well their are a lot of different types of build (some closer to a real one than others) from using real arcade monitors to LCDs, custom build cabs to donor cabs, rotating monitors and non rotating monitors, etc. etc. But most seem to be of the easier kind. Mine currently has planned a 4 player semi modular layout, custom cabinet, CRT (I tried rotating but on a students pay that isn't very viable) and a few other goodies. And I have a plan for a small bartop cabinet with the stuff I have spare.
I had a Tekken 2 cab for about two years but the thing just kept breaking down - first the monitor, then the plan was to turn it into a MAME cab - but like most ppl are saying here, you need a bit of technical know-how, and lots of patience. It isn't easy because the machines are old and need a lot of care and attention. When things are more settled in my life I'd like to give it another shot, but this time I'd build it from scratch - the problem with older cabs is that they take up a lot of space - and much of it is just a hollow cab. I'd like to make something much more streamlined (i.e. thinner!) It is good fun though, reading up, learning about different parts, etc.
I was doing it to restore a Neo Geo MVS. I sold it when I moved to Dallas. There is a huge hobby market for it though. yes.
Try being into Pinball as a hobby, once you've owned a real table simulation just doesn't cut it. Also it's not like owning a JAMMA cab where you can easily swap out a game when you are bored with it, you end up filling your house up with the b*stards! EDIT: I also disagree that a JAMMA cab needs a lot of attention. Take the monitor chassis out, send it to someone to someone for recapping and replace the PSU with a new one and you should be good for a couple of years at least.
You must have some very new games. My friend's Daytona USA, purchased from a business, died within half an hour - the screen is green. I have been inside his Space Invaders five times, too! And those were his latest two purchases lol
My last restore was a Super Neo Type II Arcade machine. Specifically this one: http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/SNK_Super_Neo_29_Type_II It was a tough one as when I received it the entire (and I mean ENTIRE) cabinet was yellow, the side art was completely gone and the LCD marquee wasn't working. Took me a few months to find parts (got the LCD marquee working again)/had someone vectorize the side art to get it fully working again...spray painted, sanded the complete cabinet over and over again. Sold it not long after since I didn't have any room, but it was a great learning experience and quite fun.
Read my post again, specifically the bits about recapping the monitor and replacing the PSU. This is 60% of the problems you'll see with a JAMMA cab, the other 40% being a mix of having to reseat chips that have worked their way loose or connectors rotting. Also I was only referring to JAMMA cabs, not the older stuff which can be a massive pain in the arse to keep going (Williams PSUs are a particular hate of mine). WRT pinball tables, I've seen brand new out of the box Sterns have problems, it's just the mechanical nature of them. Also bear in mind that Daytona USA was/still is a *very* popular game so it would have taken an absolute hammering over the years. You have to remember when they designed these originally they only had to last 4-5 years tops, so particular design decisions were made back then which didn't help in the long run, like the Atari AR2 PSU. For the record, I have a Robotron Cocktail, Twilight Zone pinball table, JAMMA cab + The New Zealand Story. I did have a lot more but I had to slim down due to space. The hardest one to keep going is the Robotron cocktail, it seems every time I turn it on there's a new fault with it, consequently it's been consigned to the garage for years. One of these days I'll drag her out and get her running again. Again I disagree. There's a huge amount of information available around to help you get going, plus you can buy a 60-in-1 board for £40 that plugs straight into the JAMMA harness and outputs to an LCD monitor if you want. Simples!
https://www.youtube.com/user/blkdog7 This is a great channel for learning about restoring older games but like the videos show there is a lot work and a lot of different skills involved.
That sounds like your friend got a bad deal is all. My Neo-Geo was picked up from a bar, it had smoke stained (and burned) plexiglass on the control panel, the monitor had burn in and wasn't adjusted right but it worked and looked pretty good. the whole thing worked for years (i got it in 2007 and got rid of it in 2011)
My co-worker said he found a cabinet in a small town in Ohio. Said the unit had 30-40 games on it, so my assumption is that it is a MAME cab. The customer that came in also pretty much confirmed that it was. I haven't seen it yet, but my co-worker said it was going for $200. I think that's a pretty solid price.
Lots of people are trying to sell mame cabs for astronomical sums around here, like 1500-2000$. Are they oblivious to the fact that those Multiboards sell for peanuts on Aliexpress? Also, if someone is interested, I might be willing to exchange my soul for a Japanese Candy cab, delivered. In exchange I will give you a piece of paper signed by myself acknowledging that my immortal soul belongs to the bearer.
The reason the price is stupidly high is because they're generally sold to bowling alleys, etc. The idea is the attraction of that many games in a single unit will net you a profit.
I think the high price of some of these cabs is pure greed, any one who wants to have a cab as a commercial venture will simply ring up a local operator and get them to supply it. I know of very few sites where the equipment is owned by the site, rather than rented/put there by an operator. The other reason why Candy cabs still fetch good prices is in part due to the Wife Acceptance Factor. Candy cabs are shiny and white plastic, whereas old wooden cabs tend to be pretty grimey. Also you will probably get a decent relatively new CRT monitor in a Candy cab, rather than the 30 year old knackered tubes you find in old JAMMA cabs.
