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Anyone have advice on how to save money without sacrificing quality?
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shateredsoul1979:

* Make sure you know exactly what you need before putting in your order, I had to pay extra shipping for 3 seperate orders because I kept forgetting stuff I needed
* similarly, make sure you're getting what you want. I ordered convex buttons not knowing what that meant, I really wanted concave buttons (that curve in making a small bowl type shape)
* Use MDF wood
* If you don't have the tools to cut wood, find a friend who does or rent them
* Take your time with the cuts, don't waste wood. Test if your tools will make a straight line with spare pieces of wood before hand
* make sure you know what you want to play before buying/building a pc. If you buy an old pc for $50 bucks and decided to upgrade to a newer pc ecause you want to play newer games , well you just wasted $50 bucks.
* attach the pc and parts to the inside of the cabinet, saves you the cost of the pc case if you build your own
* Stick to a simple control panel design, no star wars yoke, 4 way, and thousands of buttons. It'll look nicer too!
* If you want a touch screen cab, you can get pretty good prices on 15" ELO touchscreens on ebay. [/list]
mgb:
One way that can shave that price down is, think about if you really need it to be a 4 player cabinet.
building a 2 player controller can be a good amount cheaper.
of course if you must have 4 players, then disregard what I said
Donkbaca:
Build a 2 player cabinet.  Do you have a xbox 360 or PS3?  When was the last time you had 4 people over to play the new games?  Probably a rare event.  with a 4 player cab, its way more expensive - sticks, encoder, buttons, possibly leds.  I know there are some great 4 player games we remember, but do you really think you will have 4 people over that will want to play TMNT enough to justify the added cost?  Not to mention 4 player panels are huge.

If you do decide 4 players, you don't need switchable 4-8way on all of them.  Generally most 4 way games only use one joystick.

Get a cheap used encoder, or one of those cheap chinese ones new, or if you have a couple extra wired xbox or PS3 joysticks, you can hack them.
yotsuya:

--- Quote from: Donkbaca on September 19, 2011, 12:42:49 pm ---Build a 2 player cabinet.  Do you have a xbox 360 or PS3?  When was the last time you had 4 people over to play the new games?  Probably a rare event.  with a 4 player cab, its way more expensive - sticks, encoder, buttons, possibly leds.  I know there are some great 4 player games we remember, but do you really think you will have 4 people over that will want to play TMNT enough to justify the added cost?  Not to mention 4 player panels are huge.

If you do decide 4 players, you don't need switchable 4-8way on all of them.  Generally most 4 way games only use one joystick.

Get a cheap used encoder, or one of those cheap chinese ones new, or if you have a couple extra wired xbox or PS3 joysticks, you can hack them.

--- End quote ---

This is good advice. If you have to go 4 player, don't spend the extra $$$ to make them all switchable.
honkey:
The reason for the four joysticks is became I am doing a cocktail table with 2 controls on the horizontal and one on each vertical.
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