The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Reviews => Topic started by: bdeshazer on November 30, 2011, 08:12:41 pm
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I'm a first-time MAME cabinet builder and have just completed the assembly of the cabinet and control panel based mostly on the Lusid plans.
So I found myself poking around the xgaming.com web site, just seeing what parts and pieces they had available, and noticed they had their Arcade Coin Door on special for $29.99+s/h:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/arcade-machine-coin-door-led-coin-mech/ (http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/arcade-machine-coin-door-led-coin-mech/)
This seemed to me to be a decent price, relatively inexpensive for everything it included (door/frame, coin-mech, lock, keys, lighted return button, wiring harness, mounting hardware) and a neat addition to my cabinet. The regular price listed at $49.99 seemed to make this a nice sale as well, coming in at 40% off.
With a couple hours left on the sale price Sunday evening I pulled the trigger and placed my order online, a simple process with no hassles.
Ground shipping was $9.99, 1/3 the cost of the coin door… reasonable for shipping something this size/weight, it brought my total to $39.98.
The next evening (Monday) I received my tracking number e-mail, showing me it had shipped via FedEx ground. Yay for fast shipping!
Today (Wednesday) around 1:30 p.m. the FedEx van pulled up and delivered my Arcade Coin Door package…speedy delivery indeed, I'm still waiting on a ground package ordered from Amazon the middle of last week!
The coin door was well packed in the box, with the coin mech and lock both already mounted and installed. The mounting hardware, keys and wiring harness were in a plastic bag. The door is metal and seemed solid and well put together, the door opened and closed/locked smoothly. The coin-return area has a small door which is black plastic and I wish this was metal instead, but beyond that I have no complaints about the appearance or construction.
There was no paperwork or documentation included in the box, but there is a 1-page manual and 1-page installation diagram available as pdf documents from the xgaming.com web site. I actually didn't notice this until writing this review, as installation is pretty straight-forward and the switch contacts are all labeled (N/O, N.C, Common)
While the face is rectangular, the back that mounts into your cabinet is actually curved in the corners. The installation diagram, however, is a simple 7"x10" rectangle. This is not a big deal as you'll never see the "open" space in the corners because it is covered by the face of the coin door but it just seemed if you took the time to make an installation diagram, why not put in the corresponding curves so that if you wanted to cut a more exact fit you could? Very minor, though…
I was able to measure and cut the opening for the door, mount it, connect it to my cheap $15 gamepad encoder( purchased here on the forum from Vigo), program MAME and Xpadder 5.3 (for Visual Pinball) and test it all out in about 45 minutes! This is a testimony to how easy this is to get up and running and NOT my woodworking skills.
I drilled a pilot hole with a 3/4" paddle bit and then used a jigsaw to cut the opening for the door.
For connecting to my gamepad encoder, I used the included wiring harness, connecting the female crimp connectors to the coin mech switch and the male connectors at the other end to the female crimp connectors on one of the wiring harnesses that came with the encoder. The other end of the encoder wiring harness then plugged into the encoder board (not sure what this connector is called but it looks like the connector for a cordless phone battery).
The coin-return switch is illuminated by an LED, powered from AC power via an included AC adapter. The LED and a current-limiting resistor are soldered on to a small piece of perfboard, and the AC adapter wires are also soldered here. The perfboard is attached to the coin door with a single bolt or screw, as opposed to being glued on or something, which I was happy to see. I haven't measured the voltage of the AC adapter, but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to connect the LED assembly to 5v or 12v (possibly adding an additional resistor if needed) instead of AC you were low on AC plugs but had spare connections on a PC or other power supply available. I just used an open plug on a short extension cord that is plugged into one of the switched outlets on my "green" / smart power strip.
The only real drawback that I've found overall is that this is a single coin-mech unit only. In general this isn't a big deal, except for certain games that use separate coin mechs for separate player inputs. For me the main game that I play that falls into this category is Gauntlet, but this is easily solvable by configuring button combinations in MAME to register specific "insert coin" events. I used the following Player 2 controls for this: button2+coin mech button, button3+coin mech button, and button4+coin mech button to register coin inserts for Player 2, Player 3 and Player 4. Likewise I use Shift+Player1 Start for Player 3 Start and Shift+Player2 Start for Player 4 Start. Sounds complicated but is really easy to program, only took about 2 minutes to set up.
All that said, I would probably have paid an extra $20 or so for a 2-mech version had it been available. I also probably would have purchased an optional coin box if it had been available, although this will be a very simple thing to fabricate myself, I'll probably just look for something box-like that I can screw into the cabinet below the coin mech.
Chances are this coin mech will not be used very often as I do have "Insert Coin" buttons on the control panel, but I like the little touch of authenticity that having it installed adds to my cabinet. I will probably add a switch inside the cabinet that will disable the insert-coin buttons forcing it to operate in coin-only mode, but again I can foresee only rare use of this function (like when my in-laws come over :) ).
Overall I would rate this 8.5-9.0 out of 10, and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to add a single, hassle-free coin door/coin mech to a cabinet. I was also impressed with X-Arcade as a company - easy ordering process, great communication and fast shipping.
BTW, it looks the Arcade Coin Door is on sale (still/again?) for the slightly higher price of $34.99, which I would personally consider to still be a pretty good deal!
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Thanks for the review!
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GREAT review. I just picked up another one of these myself. The only thing is... how do you set the insert coin settings in MAME so when you use a modifier (such as holding button 2, then inserting a real coin)... it doesn't give a credit to PLAYER 1 in addition to PLAYER 2 or 3 or 4. I can't figure it out. It works, but it always adds a credit for PLAYER 1 (which I don't want to play or can't if I'm alone). Mainly for TMNT--- I love playing Donatello.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!