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| CoryBee:
I built some cheap little Bartops for quite the decent price. They were my first so a little rough around the edges but my friends were very pleased. Price for 2 Bartops $40 - (2x) IBM\Dell Laptop from ebay $14 - Particle Board $6 - Contact Paper $7 - Acrylic $42 - Joystick n' Buttons $7 - (2x) Gamepads $3 - Marquee Retainer (some panel holder thing I found at HD) $10 - (2x) chinese mini amps (used for mp3 players) $5 - Set of 6 Bayonet base bulbs Total was about $134, not counting the fact I had several of these parts laying around. So more like $85 out of my pocket. |
| alfonzotan:
This is just a rough guess, it's been a while and I didn't keep a running tally: Wood/building supplies $150 (including laminate) Monitor: $100 Computer: $100 (built up from new/used parts) Controls: $250 (the real Tron joystick was pricey... iPac4 and spinner also jacked up the costs here) Glass/marquee/cosmetics: $100 Tack on another $100 just to be safe, and call it $700 or so, spread over a couple of years. Control panel was built in '10, cabinet in '11. Cabinet construction took about six weekends. |
| MTPPC:
For arcade cabs, I have spent as little as $225 putting a 60 in 1 into Mr. Do! and I profitted a 19" arcade monitor and Mr. Do! board/harness/powersupply. I've also spent much as $550 by mameing a used machine from TILT arcade. My mini-pinball cost $415 in materials and the computer was given to me. Digital pinballs are a lot more expensive and time consuming in my experience. I used a mostly things I had and if I were to buy everything, I'd expect about $750 into a cheap build. By far, the cheapest way to build a mame cabinet is to find an empty cabinet and throw a pentium 4, an old 25" TV and a hacked keyboard into it. But like most things, the cheapest won't be quite as nice as spending a little more. Having said all this, I have an empty Solar Ride Gottlieb pinball cabinet in my shed waiting to be built. I plan on buying the stuff for it over the next year or two before I begin building it. If you take your time, you can really find some cheap TVs and monitors. |
| compute:
I wouldn't consider building a full cabinet if I didn't want the experience. Originally I had intended to build a panel in the area of $200. Then I stumbled onto this cabinet. Cabinet - $20 (gas) Wood to fix water damage - $20 Coin door - $25 Monitor - $5 Paint - $20 Trackball - $25 (will need new bearings/rollers, harness, interface board, and possibly opto's. In the end, not a bargain at all!) Notice how I haven't even bought controls yet! I'm learning a lot, but if I weren't so damn cheap I'd be closer to finished. The PC was collecting dust, and I have spent a few dollars on tools (orbital sander, replace a circular saw, clamps, etc). In addition there have been a few false-starts where I tried to be cheap. Initially I was going to mouse-hack the trackball, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm just going pick up an Opti-pac and know that I've soldered the right connections. It was fun to try, but I just want the damn thing to work now. |
| paigeoliver:
Just finished another machine, time to get pricing. This project is a Jaleco City Connection in a Sega Eliminator cabinet. $50. Cabinet, purchased as a working Video trivia. $2. Bits of wood used in cabinet repair. $11 Jamma harness. $30 Original Jaleco City Connection board (bought this about 10 years ago after a 2 year search) $3 Fingerboard and wire to make City Connection to Jamma adapter. $12 NOS Wico joystick. $8 Six buttons $3 Custom marquee cost. $1 Shop supplies (a bit of solder a few blasts from the spray can, etc). $120 Subtotal $45 Original Eliminator power supply that was still bolted down in the cabinet sold for this. $75 Total. From this project I am still sitting on an unhacked Video Trivia harness, a Video Trivia main board with a fairly late rom revision (much newer than my other one), a video trivia ROM board with 5 different installed categories, a set of 5 working video trivia light up buttons and a nice video trivia marquee. I have a bunch of spare monitors, so I may just install the Video Trivia PCB and controls in my bar and hang the monitor up behind the bar. I could actually do a pair of that, since I have two sets of Video Trivia stuff. |
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