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Author Topic: Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?  (Read 1451 times)

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anthonylitz

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Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« on: February 13, 2004, 05:42:53 am »
My dad and were thinking of buying plans herehttp://www.cybertechdesign.net/mameroom/order_uaII.asp
Anyone have experience with these?  I have researched enough to understand most of the process but niether my dad or me are expert carpenters, so that is why we were looking at these.  Hook me up with some feedback please.
Anthony

Lilwolf

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2004, 06:00:46 am »
spending money on plans will be the smallest amount you spend on the cab.  If you like the plans it is well worth it.  You will save money the first peice of scrap or redoing an area.  And the chance of having a lopsided cab goes down.

There are TONS of free plans... The ones for money are usually a lot more detailed with good step-steps.

Anyway... Most people here don't pay for plans.  Many give their plans away.  Most here would say its not needed...

But in the end... They are about 1/20 the price you usually pay for your entire cab... Well worth it for some.

paigeoliver

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2004, 06:03:36 am »
There are some free plans floating around too (search this forum). But if you are not an expert carpenter, than you might just want to consider refitting an existing cabinet.

But if you ARE building from scratch, you don't really need plans to do so. The only really important things are that the control panel, and marquee are at appropriate heights, and that the monitor is mounted at a height or angle that allows for easy viewing.

So, go out to a few local pizza places until you find a cabinet you like, then measure the heights of the control panel, where the monitor is, and the marquee, and then you should be fine.

There is really no magic formula to it. I own (and have owned) dozens of cabinets, and the designs are all over the place. Cabinet design is not rocket science.

Your design will be fine as long as the machine isn't too tall (most are 6' or slightly less), and the control panel is at a reasonalbe height, and you can see the monitor. Also, one BIG problem with most "pay" plans I have seen is that they produce cabinets that don't really look that authentic (2 piece cabinets are not authentic, sorry to all who built them, they just aren't).

If your budget is limited, then consider doing a refit, as it is much cheaper.

A few dimension suggestions if you do go it alone.

Most classic 1980s cabinets were right around 25" wide, very few varied from this by more than an inch. (making the front section 24" wide, and then using 3/4" sides is perfect, and seems to be what most game manufacturers did). Newer cabinets are not much wider, figure a max of 29" wide for the basic cabinet. You can always hang the panel off the edge a bit for extra control width.

If you go with a overhanging control panel, then no more than 3" overhang on each side, and you study the dedicated Gauntlet and TMNT cabinets to get the idea for what the general shape of a 4-player cabinet is. I have seen too many 4-player cabinets here that were setup in such a way that player 3 and 4 could't really see the screen.

« Last Edit: February 13, 2004, 06:13:40 am by paigeoliver »
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nipsmg

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2004, 08:20:47 am »
OK here's my take on the Plans:

I bought the UAII plans... and I'm glad I did.

Sure, I could have wasted a ton of money killing excess wood, experimenting with my own design, and making something that didn't work out nearly as well as I wanted, but I decided to spend the $ to get the design for a cabinet plan I KNOW works, with everything already measured out.  All you need to do is cut, put it together, and its done.. (They even have full size cut-out templates, if you don't feel like measuring out the given dimensions yourself).  The plans are easy to follow and are very well detailed.

As far as paigeoliver's comment about :
" Also, one BIG problem with most "pay" plans I have seen is that they produce cabinets that don't really look that authentic (2 piece cabinets are not authentic, sorry to all who built them, they just aren't)." ....  I have to partially agree with him.. however, it all comes down to what YOU want.  I see so many people on this board adjust their plans because other people don't like them (not that there's every anything wrong with constructive criticism, it can definitely help you iron out kinks in your design..)   When it all comes down to is, it's YOUR cabinet.. and YOU have to live with it.  so do whatever you want with it.....

Personally, I love the UAII.. I think it looks great, easily houses my 27" monitor, and once it's finished I'm going to get more play out of it than I know what to do with.  


Sidenote: I say I "partially" agree with paigeoliver because as "classic" cabinets are definitely not two piece, my original design idea I was toying with was making a Golden Tee Fore replica cabinet, which IS "two piece".
Look:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3272116809&category=13716


--NipsMG


Oldskool

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2004, 09:17:45 am »
Personally, I love the UAII.. I think it looks great,

Hear, hear....

I also bought the UAII plans.  In hindsight, I probably didn't have to as it would be fairly easy to create your own design based on the pics floating around on the web. Plans are handy, but it's not rocket science.

Personally I find the "authenticity" issue is a little irritating. If you like it, build it.

There's many things about building your own cabinet that aren't "authentic".

%$#@!&* machine took my quarter!

Zathras

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2004, 10:37:38 am »
I bought the UAI plans but after looking at all the changes I would have to make that I wanted decided to go with a Lusid cab.

The plans were nice and who knows I may build one one day.
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nipsmg

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2004, 10:49:19 am »
I think that the type of cabinet you build should be based on many different factors:
Skill, amount of cash to spend, space, games intended to be played, personal tastes.

Many people really want the "classic" feel, so they replicate or mod a classic cabinet.  Classic cabs, however, tend to be smaller, and have little to no room to put controls.  I, personally, would rather have a classic dedicated cab, and a big beast of a MAME cab, but that's just me.. :-D  I've seen people who have multiple cabinets: One for vertical, one for horizonal, one for classic, etc..

Personally, I don't have the $$ or the space to sink into multiple cabinets/multiple PC's to run them.  I wanted to be able to play pretty much EVERYTHING (thus I went with the UAII with a custom CP design),
which is easily detachable/swappable. All signs pointed to the Ultimate Arcade II. :-D

Not like I even came close to staying on budget.. (had to get REAL glass (smoked/tempered), had to get more controls, had to get really good speakers, just HAD to have the 27" monitor, etc etc etc) ;D

--NipsMG

anthonylitz

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2004, 03:42:26 pm »
Thanks alot for that great feedback.  This most be a huge community to get all those responses so soon!  I have to say I am going to get the plans now, not the template ones though, I think I can meassure :)  
On the topic of the look of it, I like it.  It reminds me of the first Neo-Geo machines I used (the real ones with the memory card slots), It's "neo".  I  actaully like the idea of 2 pieces not for looks but moving, I am 25 so will probably move it once or twice too.
I just had to hear some real info on these plans though, they look good on the website and their review is excellent.  But it seemed fishy that multiple sites sold the same plans, but since a few of you guys already got them, I trust them now.
thanks,
Anthony

ThePaul

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2004, 03:57:07 pm »
Not trying to be snotty here (really), but if you have the ability to get MAME running on a PC, get ROMs running, set up a front end, config the games, install the keyboard encoder, plan a CP, order buttons, trackballs, joys, wire them all up .. and most of all you can see yourself actually making an arcade machine... don't you think you can sit down with a pencil and paper (and all the info available for free on this website) and figure out the deminsions of the different pieces of wood that go into building a cab?

The little extra effort and ability to say "I made that all by myself from scratch" makes it worth NOT buying plans to me... the money isn't even the real issue.

krick

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2004, 06:11:45 pm »
I didn't see anyone propose the other option...

Buy an old machine and MAME (not maim) it.

If you go to an amusement auction, there's always a bunch of cabs to choose from.  And they are usually really well constructed.  Far better construction than I could possibly do even if I did go out and drop several hundred dollars on tools.

The trick is to pick machines at the auction that aren't desirable games.  I had my eye on a Simpsons 4 player machine with a cab design very similar to mine.  It ended selling for $750 even though the cab was really beat up.  Heck, half of the control panel overlay was ripped off down to bare wood.

I set my sights on a few different cabinets and ended walking away with mine for $220...



I'm already begun converting it to a MAME machine.

It was made in 1992, it has a huge control panel (great for MAME), the monitor is perfect, and I plan on selling the Capcom System II A board and GigaWing B board on eBay to recoup some of what I spent.

I suppose things would be different if I had access to a wood shop or knew someone who made kitchen cabinets for a living or something.  Then I'd definitely build my own.

Just my $0.02 cents.
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Jakobud

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2004, 07:16:13 pm »
Take a look at all the plans on my website:

www.jakobud.com

they are all fairly basic and are definately not as complete as what you would get if you paid for plans, but the basic shapes and sizes are there.

canardo

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2004, 07:44:27 am »
I brought the cocktail plans from gamecabinetsinc

and even though I had done one based on kyles plans before I found them usefull and really like the look of the cab that was produced

They arent brilliant imo apart from the wood cutting too much of the later sections on issues such as connecting the power block arent covered in enough depth

however the wood cutting plans which was what I brought them for is spot on

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2004, 08:05:57 am »
My friend and I bought UAII plans when they first came out, without the templates. It was pretty easy if you have a general take on mild wood basics. We made 2 of every piece so we have our own template and do not have to measure again. Basically we did that when we want to come up with a solid oak or mahogany cabinet. That wood is expensive and heavy.

dmsuchy

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Re:Anyone paid for cab plans, worth it?
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2004, 11:17:52 am »
I also bought plans from mameroom.com for the standard "Ultimate Arcade" cabinet and I'm glad I did. The plans are well written and give you a wealth of knowledge from laminate installation to well placed controls on a control panel. I'm starting construction on my first cabinet later today, Valentines Day, the wife's not going to be happy, and although it's a 2 piece and looks NOTHING like the plans I bought in size or ....well in any aspect at all, I still owe alot to those great plans I bought. Look at other plans, get inspiration, ALL of these cabs people made from scratch are just fantastic works of art, but if you don't have many carpentry skills and want a great project to share with your Pop buy the plans from mameroom.com and go from there. Retrocade.com has a great review of them for you! Gotta go and cut some MDF!