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Planning first project. X-Arcade or not?
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Ginsu Victim:
I have that wire stripper. Good ol' Billy Mays QwikStrip or whatever. Works awesome.
gryhnd:
I see a lot of hate here for the X-Arcade stuff, but here's my 2¢:

I have no issues with quality, and they stand behind their stuff unconditionally. The first cab I built uses their tankstick for the simple reason that back then, I did not have the time to research interfaces, source parts and wire up my own homebrew CP. I paid for the privilege of just plugging it in and having it work. Perfect for my needs back then.

Four years later with kids beating the crap out it, and four years of adults beating the crap out it too, and I have not had a SINGLE failure. Period.

My second cab (the cocktail), I had more experience, and I went hybrid for the CP: a refurb'd X-Arcade trackball which I "decased", used the t-ball, and recycled all the switches into buttons & interface from GGG. The trackball had an intermittent failure (ball would work in one axis only) several months later, and the X-arcade guys sent me a full set of replacement boards second day FedEx free. Now that's service.

If you're going full on repro or reconditioning a true cab, then I can certainly see the desire to have 100% arcade true joys, buttons and switches.  But for regular joes, X-Arcade stuff is a good option either as a drop in, or to gut for its parts and put into your own CP design. Don't dismiss it out of hand.
MameMaster!:
My original cab featured an XArcade as I was afraid of the wiring issues. I was happy just to have gotten the machine working. But they are a good way to start.

If you do get one, then go to the next step and mod it. Replace the buttons, the joystick, perhaps decorate etc. This will make you more comfortable with how it all works.

You should then learn basic soldering skills.

At that point-- you should be ready to tackle a full blown panel on your own.

Now of course, many of the guys here went straight to creating their own and learned along the way. It all comes do to what you're comfortable with trying.

Even if you do go straight to a custom panel-- no one here will let you down if you get stuck.

Good luck!  :cheers:
mwong168:
Just to clears thing up, I don't speak from hate but from what I have observed in previous threads when there is an X-arcade involved.  I can also speak from experience as the gutted X-arcade I bought was originally mine which I bought from a canadian reseller, A-Power out in BC I believe, back in 2006.  It worked great out of the box and back then I wasn't aware an there was a community like BYOAC and I was just stoked that I was able to play SF2 in MAME properly with an arcade joystick instead of a keyboard.  Out of the box the unit worked great and was literally plug and plug to my PC.  I spent the first few months playing it with co-workers at work during lunch, after work or when the boss was out of town  :laugh2:  since I left it under my desk.  The controls felt great and I was able to pull off all my SF2 combos just like I remember as a kid.  

After I bought this dual stick my next step was to find an arcade cabinet and I did find a mint original Midway MKII cabinet which I was planning to retro fit a PC in there using an ArcadeVGA+JPAC along with this X-Arcade.  I did end up having it all hooked up and working to test but unfortunately the cabinet was way to big to fit down my basement stairs to my gameroom.  So 2 years pass after I put this project on the backburner and then I become an expecting father so I reluctantly sold my MKII cabinet after having it sit in my living room this whole time and I was tired of listening to my girl complain about it being an eyesore  :banghead:  

So last year my friend picked up a SF2CE cabinet which I convinced him to convert to MAME because he thought it impressed me that he was able to swap out some JAMMA boards and changed it from SF2 to Shinobi or MK.  I told him what if I told you could switch between a couple hundred of arcade games and his first concern was altering the authenticity of his cabinet by having cut wires or drill holes.  Then I told him what my plan was with my MKII cabinet and saw MAME setup on my PC.  So now I found a donor for my X-Arcade, ArcadeVGA and JPAC which was collecting dust.  Now I go and dust off my dual stick and hook it up and sure enough it didn't work.  I contacted A-power but they said it was out of warranty through them but I could try to contact X-Gaming directly to purchase replacement parts.  I emailed a tech support guy from X-Gaming and he was able to determine it was the PCB that had died so without even asking me where or when I bought my dual stick or proof of purchase he sent me out a replacement PCB along with a new cable which now supported USB free of charge.  So they do stand behind their products 100% and now my friend was on his way to convert his cabinet.  Ever since he has never regretted it especially since last year I have learned how to setup nice front ends like Maximus Arcade and Hyperspin.

If you are not serious about building a dedicated cabinet but want the best arcade experience possible at home and don't have time, resources such as tools, big work space or skills to make something from scratch an X-Arcade would be a good way to go.
gryhnd:

--- Quote from: mwong168 on March 25, 2010, 04:36:40 pm ---Just to clears thing up, I don't speak from hate but from what I have observed in previous threads when there is an X-arcade involved.

--- End quote ---

I wasn't casting disparaging remarks your way mwong (in fact you and I were posting at the same time so I hadn't even seen your reply), or to any one person. Just a general vibe about X-Arcade stuff I picked up.

Anyway, I'm a happy camper with their stuff. YMMV
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