The Spincade by 1UP..

[twitami]

I seriously want to find out about buying one of these. The website just says "out of stock". Any info on when/how much/etc?

Thanks!

[pointdablame]

I believe the full systems started around $5500 US.  1UP is a member here, but I'm not sure how often he pops in here.  You can try sending him a PM or contact him through his Contact page on the site.

[twitami]

I guess these are not available for sale anymore, if they ever were? I emailed him, sent a "contact me" message through the website, and left messages on several forums..no replies. Makes me sadfaced.

[Lilwolf]

PM him here, and give it a few more weeks.

Trouble with companies like this, is its his weekend job...  Good chance he still wants to sell them, but its low on his priority list. 

And if he has stopped selling them... Maybe he will post his plans again.  His old plans (from years ago) was very very simple and generic.  But was good enought for a few others here to build one (Like the one with rotating monitor.  That was cool).  Or hopefully he has updated ones.  I would love to see someone build one on a 1/3 size like those cute pacmans. 

[markrvp]

The last time I talked to 1up back in November, he still had plans to sell more cabinets.  He didn't have a timetable, though, if I remember correctly.

[1UP]

Whoops, sorry I missed this for a whole year...haven't been around much.  Sadly, I've had to abandon the Spincade project due to lack of interest on my business partner's behalf.  I have tried to keep the business going on my own due to popular demand, but I ended up having to invest much more of my own time and money into it than it was worth.  There just isn't the profit margin in this business to make it worth while unless you have a serious assembly line set up to crank them out by the dozens, and the buying power to get materials by the ton.  My hat's off to all the people who have made it work, like Christian and Andy and RandyT.

The up side is, since BYO arcading is just a hobby for me now, it's finally become fun again.  I can't say that the actual process of developing prototypes and trying to establish a production pipeline was a barrel of laughs, but it was a good learning experience.  I learned a lot about manufacturing in the process and found a lot of good sources for hard-to-find parts along the way.  Just wish I didn't have to invest so much money to do it...

On that note, my current goal is to finally FINISH my Pac-Mamea cabinet.  I ended up gutting it a couple times to provide parts for the Spincade demo unit, so now I have to find a weekend or two to get it back up and running with some of the improved features I developed for the commercial cabs.  I never did finish the third control panel, since I was in the middle of fitting it with the GameCab yoke when all this business crazyness began.  It's also time to replace the old Kinko's sideart with some nice prints from MameMarquees, and I have a WGD9200 that I've been dying to cram in there.

I am not sure if I will ever have time to create a detailed set of blueprints, but it is a possibility I have considered.  At this point, I'd rather help others to make a Pac-Mamea type design on their own rather than building cabinets for others and never having time to enjoy my own machine.

[quarterback]

I've had to abandon the Spincade project due to lack of interest on my business partner's behalf. 

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!

I've been holding my breath and waiting since I saw this post here about the UAII at geeks.com:

The sooner they sell out, the sooner the actual Spincade systems go into production!

 

and this post here:

if all goes well, you may be able to get a rotating arcade unit for not much more than a basic UAII setup.

After working on an arcade auction cab for a couple years now, and then picking up another used upright cab a year ago and having both of them is various states of disrepair, I've been thinking that getting an upright kit would be worth it to me instead of having these half-completed cabs in my home.   The prospect of a rotating arcade unit for not much more than a UAII setup was appealling to me.... 

Oh well...     Let us know if you change your mind, 1UP.

[Hoopz]

I never did finish the third control panel, since I was in the middle of fitting it with the GameCab yoke when all this business crazyness began.

You actually received a yoke from Charlie?  Was it ordered through the website or was it arranged with him?  From what I recall, not many (if any) others received it.  He hasn't posted in a while either.  For that matter, he hasn't even logged in in almost 18 months.

[Lilwolf]

That sucks!

So the question is... Putting up the plans again?  I still have a copy of the original posted plans, and always considered building one... but always seemed like too much work for me...

I'm lazy like that....

but I bet a bunch of people would love to see the plans go up!

[XtraSmiley]

1UP, What?  You mean even if someone was ready to buy one right now at your asking price, it wasn't worth it to do it?  That seems odd.  I mean, not to sound like a dick, but you were asking whatever price you wanted, can't you just raise it a bit to make it worth it?

[JustMichael]

1UP,
Since you aren't going to produce the cabs, how about just the rotating control panels?  If you aren't going to produce these either, how about just plans then?  A lot of people would love to have a set of control panels that are rotatable!!

[unclet]

1UP
Glad to learn you are still around  ..... I you dropped off the planet ..... glad you are having fun again ... that is what life is really meant for .... 

[Gatinho]

Hi all, my first post here, and...

Hey 1UP, I've already started ordering all the parts I need for a jammin' cab.  Psyched that I saw yer up for helping out, sharing your plans, and whatnot.  Your web site has already been a huge bonus find.  email me plz at meucasa@bellsouth.net.  A big thanks to St. Clair who pointed me to this post.

I've got big plans for my cab, neon lights and all (my bud works in a neon shop), and your plans would be a major bonus.  Thought I'd use MacMAME too, just to prove it can be done, since I see none out there (maybe a MacPacMamea ), but only if you said it was kewl and approved of the title, but it does serve homage to the master builder, and leaves no ambiguity of its origin.

Sorry to hear the building business didn't work out.  Maybe selling your plans as a download would recoup some of your effort, and requires no overhead or effort on yer part ('cept assembling what you have of plans).  Peaple would do it, I'm sure.

Great fan,

 

[1UP]

I've been holding my breath and waiting since I saw this post here about the UAII at geeks.com:

Yep, I've been holding my breath for over 2 years hoping to turn this into a big deal, but I just ended up blue in the face and broke.    If you're curious, the UAIIs on geeks.com never sold out.  Just check here.  They've been "almost gone" for awhile now. 

The prospect of a rotating arcade unit for not much more than a UAII setup was appealling to me....

For me too!  I was looking forward to replacing my old cab with one of the improved design, but the builder turned out to be unreliable and treated my project like a joke, so few were ever made.  In the end, I couldn't even afford one of my own cabs.

You actually received a yoke from Charlie?

Yes, but it was one of the first home-made run he did, not the professionally manufactured improved version.  My guess is he ended up in a position similar to mine, and by the end of it just wanted nothing to do with arcade manufacturing again.  Running a business by yourself is very hard work, and not everyone can do it, as I found out.

1UP, What?  You mean even if someone was ready to buy one right now at your asking price, it wasn't worth it to do it?  That seems odd.  I mean, not to sound like a dick, but you were asking whatever price you wanted, can't you just raise it a bit to make it worth it?

Yes, believe it or not I get offers all the time (mostly around Christmas and tax refund time  ), but right now I wouldn't build one for even $10000.  I'm better off concentrating on my day job and developing my future career right now.  And BTW, I was not just charging whatever I wanted--that was the cost of parts, materials, subcontract labor (not cheap), and a salary for myself to cover my time off work and pay the bills while I was supervising the cabinet shop I had contracted for the work.  Originally, there was a little profit built into it as well, but I ended up losing money on every machine because of the ineptness of the builder, who kept pushing my delivery dates back for months, prolonging the construction (more labor) and just could not seem to figure out how to build a cabinet for me without major defects.  Several units were scrapped due to improper assembly (another expense), despite the exhaustive instructions I gave them.   I finally had to go down there (a 200 mile round trip from my home) and babysit them for a week (add in a week of hotel bills) in blazing hot temperatures just to make sure they could at least cover the orders I had at the time.  I ended up installing all the guts, artwork and software myself, and had to do a fair amount of mop-up work myself to fix the shop's shoddy workmanship to get it up to my standards.  It just wasn't worth it in the end.  If you weren't around when I started taking pre-orders, I had originally planned a much lower price than I ended up with, back before grim reality set in...

Actually, I did get a fair amount of orders, just not enough to make a living off of.  And if it couldn't support my wife and I, it just wasn't worth spending time out of work for it.  I really never planned to make this into a business in the first place, until I was contacted by an outside party who believed it could be highly marketable.  Unfortunately, the sales numbers never approached their high expectations, so it never became large enough to be truly profitable for us, possibly due to lack of visible marketing.  You really need to be building at least dozens of machines each month to do it economically.  However, if someone with an established arcade business that can handle the volume is interested in licensing the design, I'm willing to talk. 

1UP,
Since you aren't going to produce the cabs, how about just the rotating control panels?  If you aren't going to produce these either, how about just plans then?  A lot of people would love to have a set of control panels that are rotatable!!

I will never get involved in manufacturing again, but I will probably be doing something with the plans this year.  I would need to write a proper set of DIY instructions to go with the plans (the plans themselves were never really complete), and I would really like to integrate some of the improvements I had developed on the Spincade units.  There is no telling when I'll find the time to do so, since I am very busy with my day job and it is a low priority for me at the moment.  Maybe if enough people want them, I might be more motivated.  They would most likely be downloadable for a reasonable fee.

Thanks for all the feedback and support, and it's good to be back! 

[Arcades R Fun]

This is the "Reality" of starting your own business.
Until you have walked in 1UP's shoes and lived his life trying to build a business you can't imagine how tough it is. 1UP I salute your effort! 

The hardest thing you can ever do is build a business from the ground up, all while you are working a regular day job. 
It's very rewarding and it's worth it if you love what you are doing.
But, working 90+ hours a week is not for everybody.

Even then that's no guarantee for success.

Jack

[1UP]

This is the "Reality" of starting your own business.
Until you have walked in 1UP's shoes and lived his life trying to build a business you can't imagine how tough it is. 1UP I salute your effort! 

The hardest thing you can ever do is build a business from the ground up, all while you are working a regular day job. 
It's very rewarding and it's worth it if you love what you are doing.
But, working 90+ hours a week is not for everybody.

Even then that's no guarantee for success.

Jack

Thanks, and good luck with your business.  I personally came to hate everything arcade-related after my experience, to the point where I had to walk away from it for many months in order to enjoy it again as a hobby.  I hope you can continue to enjoy what you're doing.