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Least Expensive CP

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Donkbaca:

You can get cheaper buttons than that at paradise arcade:

1.15 a piece for cheap knock-off happs buttons with 50g micros.
and get the xin mo from either ggg or paradise arcade for the encoder.  its 25 bucks from paradise, 27 at GGG, if you want cheap, bare-bones its a better option because the ECO has a board you need to solder too, there are no connectors, where as the xin mo is a pre-made harness you plug in, so its less work.

so for 16 buttons, that's $18.40 cents, xin mo is 25 bucks.  Shipping from Paradise is usually a flat 6 bucks or whatever the rate is for priority mail.  so you are looking at about 50 bucks there.  

You can probably get it all down to around 75 bucks after shipping




TOK:

If you really need the budget down, you can hack an existing keyboard instead of using an encoder. This is how a lot of guys did them before ready made solutions were available.

Depends on how much you value your time. I know when I had no money, I usually had a lot more free time.  :cheers:


pithed2:

The plan is to eventually have 2 player with 4-8 way joysticks, 6 buttons a piece with each having coin & start, then a few admin buttons.  Also I'd like to have a trackball in the long run.  So I'll need the encoders. I have 2 boxes cut, so I will expand down the road.

At the moment, 2 player, 6 buttons, coin & start is plenty with encoder is perfect.

Thanks for the suggestions!!

bkenobi:

I can't vouch for the quality, but you could save a few $$ by getting a kit off ebay.  Generally, they include a couple joysticks, a set of player buttons, and a few admin type buttons (p1/p2 coin/start).  These won't be as nice as the typical Happ stuff, but they also only cost ~$25 for the kit.  You'd still need an encoder, but the GGG eco unit costs ~$20, so you could be set for ~$60 if you truly want to save cash.

The down side of going this route is that you will probably want to replace the joystick and buttons when you update since these ones are probably of low quality.

Vigo:

If you really want to save money, don't even look for new product. Buy some used buttons and joysticks with microswitches. Ebay has them all the time. You can also try posting a "want to buy" post in the buy/sell/trade board. Someone there should be able to get you enough used goods for a 2 player set on the cheap. Keep in mind a ton of people here have old retired buttons. Even if the buttons look nasty, they clean up nicely with a toothbrush and some soapy water.

For encoder, if you are willing to put in a little soldering work, you can hack a couple cheapo usb gamepads.

You can get your set up for $30-40 with effort.

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