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Build Or Buy? HELP!!
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krick:
If you can find an existing arcade cabinet that fits your needs at a good price, buy it.

Then spend your time and money on modifying it to work with consoles and re-building the control panel.

Look for a generic fighter cabinet with a wide control panel.
paigeoliver:
$250 for that machine is not overpaying, heck I might have paid $300 for it.
Lilwolf:
500-700 bucks should be fine since you have the majority of what you want...  But remember the artwork can easily get up there in price.  You might consider doing a simple paint for now, and build the cabinet in a standard design so you can buy some original nos artwork on ebay at some point and use that.

You seem to only be missing the keyboard encoder and the tmolding/tmolding router bit.  You might consider buying the keyboard encoder sooner then later so you can set everything up right now before building the cabinet to make sure the TV will work for you ect.

As for making a buisness.  I woudln't recommend it (other then for your friends).  Not to many are making money on it, and its really pissing the mame team off right now (so no ebay auctions with MAME in it).  Very few of the companies are actaully making money on them.  And if you don't have access to a CNC machine the output might not be to par with some of the others out there.  That said.  Helping out a few friends is always nice.

good luck
paigeoliver:
A sure fire way to make 14 cents an hour is to build bare wood cabinets in your basement.

Note, even when you are done you are going to end up with a product that is likely lower quality than any factory built original cabinets (cut up for the dumpster every day!!) or the CNC built cabinets and kits offered by TONS of vendors.

I have built my own cabinets. They looked fine, but they were lower quality than factory cabs. I own a cabinet built by someone else. It looks great, but the build quality is lower than factory cabinets. I have seen PLENTY of homemade cabinets, but I have yet to ever see one that (in person) matched the quality of a factory made cabinet. I have seen a couple that came close, but they tend to be missing all those little details often have questionable setups for things like marquee and glass retaining.
shodokan123:
Well my father gave me this advice.

If you plan on only getting one, make sure you buy a kit/existing of some sort that is company made and CNC milled... that way you get the best quality you can get, but if you plan on having more then one then i suggest you buy plans and cutouts for the peices.


I think at this point i am leaning twords a kit of some sort. NOT a mameroom kit... it looks ugly with the screws in the side like that and such.+ i heard the peices dont go together that well.  So i am highly leaning twords spending the grand on the slikstik cabinet.  I have heard it is high quality and it comes with a coin door and t molding so that there is about 150$ as it is.
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