The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls

Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: RandyT on September 05, 2005, 02:20:16 pm

Title: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RandyT on September 05, 2005, 02:20:16 pm: These photos are un-retouched, so excuse the off-color, etc...

(http://www.groovygamegear.com/coindoor1.jpg)

And here's a close-up shot:

(http://www.groovygamegear.com/coindoor2.jpg)

Any ideas? :)

RandyT
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: testicle187 on September 05, 2005, 02:23:59 pm: Is that entire coin door a sticker?
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RichyRich on September 05, 2005, 02:25:10 pm: Is it because it's on a side panel.What do I win????? ;)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RayB on September 05, 2005, 02:57:14 pm: Looks 3D-rendered to me.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: MajorLag on September 05, 2005, 04:01:25 pm: The coin slots are stickers. And instead of "Push to eject" they say "Push to reject".
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: CheffoJeffo on September 05, 2005, 04:56:19 pm: Is it molded plastic ?

Cheers.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Scott84 on September 05, 2005, 07:29:29 pm: Its fugly? There i said it. ;)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: nostrebor on September 05, 2005, 07:40:36 pm: 2 things:

1. It is a sticker.

2. The installer needs to get back on his meds. ;D
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: SirPeale on September 05, 2005, 07:50:03 pm: The lock is facing an odd direction. But I'm also guessing sticker.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Seven7 on September 05, 2005, 08:19:14 pm: 1.) The slots look weird.

2.) Where are the hinges? How's it open?

Looks cool though. Whouldn't mind haveing that on my cab. If i had a cab that is. All i have for now is plans...

-Seven7-
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Knievel on September 05, 2005, 08:29:54 pm: Yup, molded plastic...with stickers for the coin slots/rejects.

I've got a coin door like that and this one is just too perfect looking. I would be very interested in these if they are plastic...and low-cost. :)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Scott84 on September 05, 2005, 08:38:53 pm: RandyT!

Tell us the answer to your question and who got it right!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RandyT on September 05, 2005, 10:22:16 pm: Heh, it is indeed entirely a sticker.

I spent about 6-hours modeling it last night and, as a number of observant folks here noted, ran out of steam on the coin slot (made the plastic too thin and improperly positioned) and the hinge (skipped it altogether.)

It was an experiment to see how realistic something like this could look for those wishing to have the look of the door on a home cabinet, without the trouble of actually paying for / installing one. I find the sticker to be pretty convincing from only a few feet away, as have others who have looked at it.

So the question is, how many would be willing to buy a full-color, professionally printed, die-cut coin door decal at $10 each? If there is sufficient interest, I'll have them made (after fixing a few of the graphic items mentioned above) and stock them at the store. I can also do one-offs of special colors (same door, but in red/blue/yellow/whathaveyou.)

Vacuum formed plastic could also be made, but unless I made thousands of them, the tooling would drive the price higher than a real one and you would still need to bolt it on.

Thoughts?

RandyT

BTW, the coin mechs "reject" a coin, not "eject" them ;)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Knievel on September 05, 2005, 10:29:26 pm: Nice Randy. Disappointed it's not plastic but it looks convincing and I would buy some.
There is/was a guy on eBay selling something similar, at $20 a shot if I remember correctly.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: toolaa on September 05, 2005, 10:33:07 pm: Quote from: RandyT on September 05, 2005, 10:22:16 pm
Vacuum formed plastic could also be made, but unless I made thousands of them, the tooling would drive the price higher than a real one and you would still need to bolt it on.

Food for thought.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: quarterback on September 05, 2005, 10:49:53 pm: Quote from: Knievel on September 05, 2005, 10:29:26 pm
Nice Randy. Disappointed it's not plastic but it looks convincing and I would buy some.
There is/was a guy on eBay selling something similar, at $20 a shot if I remember correctly.

I've definitely seen the full-coin-door-decals mentioned here on BYOAC. I'll see if I can pull up the thread.

I can't find the coin-door-sticker thread, but I did find the link for the Happs fake coin doors (metal, but they don't actually do anything) for ~$30 http://www.happcontrols.com/pc/accessories/40071300.htm (http://www.happcontrols.com/pc/accessories/40071300.htm)

And this thread that mentions some machines with stickers instead of coin doors:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=25512.msg210371#msg210371 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=25512.msg210371#msg210371)

But I think Knievel is right, there was somebody on eBay selling stickers that looked like coin doors.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RandyT on September 05, 2005, 10:53:18 pm: Quote from: toolaa on September 05, 2005, 10:33:07 pm
Food for thought. I know a little about Vacuum Forming and have purchased molds and packing trays. My guess is that a coin door mold from wood and epoxy would cost about $800 and a run of 5000 doors would be about $0.60 ea. in black. However consider that the corners would never look as tight as the real thing. Especially around the coin slots and lock. They would have at least a 1/16" radius.

Thanks for the info.

Please forward some info on the sources you have used, if you don't mind. I am familiar with the corner radius problem, but that could probably be handled. From what I keep hearing, one couldn't get 5000 parts off of wood/epoxy tooling. Maybe I should stop listening to the guy at work who tends to exaggerate too much ;) The software I used to model this was a real solid modeling package, so tooling could actually be built from it with some minor mods.

Quote from: Knievel on September 05, 2005, 10:29:26 pm
Nice Randy. Disappointed it's not plastic but it looks convincing and I would buy some.
There is/was a guy on eBay selling something similar, at $20 a shot if I remember correctly.

If it really is possible to do them inexpensively, I might still look into the plastic. Of course some items would still need to be made as small decals and then applied to the "doors".

My view on it is if I can't sell a convincing fake one for less than $20, people should just use real ones ;)

RandyT

*edit*

I just did some searching on the board and found a pic of the eBay item. I think this one looks much better (What did you expect me to say? ;) )
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Kremmit on September 06, 2005, 12:16:21 am: I remember the ebay one. It looked lousy compared to yours.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Stingray on September 06, 2005, 03:12:44 pm: I wouldn't wan tone, but I expect that lots of others might. Yours certainly looks a lot more convincing than the crappy one that's on the market now.

-S
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Wade on September 06, 2005, 04:15:36 pm: I think it looks much better than the other one seen before, but I wouldn't personally ever use one. The only place this could be used is in scratch-built home machines, as any dedicated game will have a real door already. Also, I seem to have no problem finding good used doors for nearly nothing.

Wade
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: grueinthebox on September 06, 2005, 05:01:09 pm: If you're going to vacuum form coin doors, I want one made of carbon fiber. ^^
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: AceTKK on September 06, 2005, 05:42:52 pm: So that's a 3d model? That's awesome work man, how did you get the vinyl texture so perfect? Which rendering engine do you use? The screw heads look very convincing too. You might want to look into a job in mass media or video games with skillz like that.

-Ace-
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: 1UP on September 06, 2005, 08:49:44 pm: Randy, a vaccuum formed door with rectangular Happ illuminated buttons for the coin slots would be awesome. I'm sure they could even print their exact .25c insert graphic on the inner label. I would probably need tons of them for the budget cabinets I am currently working on. ;)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RandyT on September 08, 2005, 09:54:05 pm: Quote from: AceTKK on September 06, 2005, 05:42:52 pm
So that's a 3d model? That's awesome work man, how did you get the vinyl texture so perfect? Which rendering engine do you use? The screw heads look very convincing too. You might want to look into a job in mass media or video games with skillz like that.

Thanks, it's an old version of MAX (2.5). But no video game industry for me. I work with a graphic guy from the industry whose credits are as long as your arm, and we have talked about it some. It's "dog-eat-dog" and comparable to sweat shop labor. You need to be young, dumb (in the naive sense) and full of....passion, or you quickly realize the machine you are part of is trying to eat you :D

Quote from: 1UP on September 06, 2005, 08:49:44 pm
Randy, a vaccuum formed door with rectangular Happ illuminated buttons for the coin slots would be awesome. I'm sure they could even print their exact .25c insert graphic on the inner label. I would probably need tons of them for the budget cabinets I am currently working on. ;)

I'm going to try to fit that in. We're having some heavy vac-forming work quoted at the "day-job" and I'll try to see what they can do for me.

RandyT
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Sizzler on September 08, 2005, 09:58:38 pm: One that had a slot for a coin and a place to put a microswitch at the bottom would be cool as well :)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: ericball on September 08, 2005, 10:15:39 pm: Something about the shadows doesn't look quite right, particularly the lock versus the coin slot.

I dunno about a coin door sticker. I mean it's not unusual for a MAME cab to not have a coin door or a modified coin door so coins aren't required.

Though a sticker would be considerably lighter than a normal coin door, thus cheaper to ship. Maybe they would be good for someone who is planning on putting on a coin door in the future.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Stingray on September 09, 2005, 11:04:25 am: Quote from: Sizzler on September 08, 2005, 09:58:38 pm
One that had a slot for a coin and a place to put a microswitch at the bottom would be cool as well :)

Wouldn't that just make it a plastic coin door?

-S
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Nataq on September 09, 2005, 12:23:48 pm: If you are willing to sell those stickers I would order one :)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Sizzler on September 09, 2005, 01:17:46 pm: Quote from: Stingray on September 09, 2005, 11:04:25 am
Quote from: Sizzler on September 08, 2005, 09:58:38 pm
One that had a slot for a coin and a place to put a microswitch at the bottom would be cool as well :)

Wouldn't that just make it a plastic coin door?

But no coin mech, no coin return, no moving parts.

I'm basically picturing a coin chute and a place to put a switch. I figure if somebody's going to make inexpensive plastic doors, it shouldn't be very tough to add a slot and someplace to screw in a microswitch and voila!, you've got a universal working coin door for your home, but for much less than buying a metal one with a real coin mech.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Kremmit on September 10, 2005, 12:26:53 am: Maybe you could just cut a slot in it if you want one- that way Randy doesn't have to make 2 versions. ::)
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Santoro on September 10, 2005, 09:40:28 pm: I rencently saw arcade machines in (i think) the Sharper Image catalog that had photos of coin doors on them. You had to look close to see it. It might have been another catalog, I can't recall.

They charged full price though, as though they had real coin doors!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 09, 2006, 09:08:58 pm: I LOVE the coin door sticker. I am building my MAME machine, and would prefer that over an old coin door!

PLEASE let me know if you can send me one, or the artwork, and I'll have it printed!

Thanks
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: leapinlew on February 10, 2006, 12:56:23 am: I'm in for 1...
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: MikeQ on February 10, 2006, 07:48:22 am: You should make magnetic versions too. I'd like to stick one on my refrigerator and on my car.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: lovespicyfood on February 10, 2006, 09:29:20 am: I'd buy a sticker for $10 and a plastic one for $20!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Chris on February 10, 2006, 09:46:55 am: If it were plastic, it probably wouldn't be to hard to retrofit real illuminated reject inserts by the end user... no need for Randy to do it and increase the costs...

From a graphic standpont, here are the couple of things that jumped out at me:

- Where the reject inserts meet the bezel, it seems like there should be some sort of border to suggest the slight gap between them.

- This might be personal preference, but most coin door locks I see use a barrel lock with a more conical bezel.

Are you thinking of also doing this in an Over/Under style? (Isn't this style usually used in cocktails?)

Great work!

--Chris
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Chris on February 10, 2006, 09:51:43 am: Oh, and there's something wrong with the shadow on the right coin slot.

Please don't take these as criticisms, though... this looks fabulous!

--Chris
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 10, 2006, 10:42:01 am: The peice is near perfect! There are a few things that don't look "exact", but it is a sticker, not an authentic coin door!
I would take one, or two, as is!
Thanks
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Chris on February 10, 2006, 10:50:19 am: One thing someone could do with this sticker is to mount two rectangular illuminated buttons from Happ where the coin slots would be with appropriate laser-printed overlays inside, and wire these buttons to your coin inputs. They wouldn't look exact, but they would give you the appropriate feel... and I think having that pair of red lights at knee-level is just part of the arcade experience...

--Chris
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 10, 2006, 11:29:16 am: Yeah, the red lights would definately add to the experience! Amazing, you start out with these projects saying you will only do bare bones, then you get wrapped up in all kinds of cool extras!!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Dagg on February 10, 2006, 01:35:04 pm: If you make them in 4 Player count me in!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: Flinkly on February 10, 2006, 04:00:17 pm: wow, this thread is old and i think randy found out that demand wasn't enough. then again, you might be able to talk him into it if you keep dragging out this thread.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 10, 2006, 04:56:16 pm: I'll do my part to keep it alive!
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: RandyT on February 10, 2006, 07:11:20 pm: Hehe, yeah, I was surprised to see it again.

For me to offer these at $10, I would have to get a them mass produced. Which means there would need to be some good demand for them for me to make that kind of investment.

I can still offer them, but that would mean I would have to do the printing laminating and cutting on my own equipment and that would put a $20 price tag on them.

Even then, I don't want to go through that to make just 2 of them. So if there is a demand, I'll do a small run. Just speak up if you would be willing to pay that for a "peel and stick" coin door, and I'll make a determination.

Thanks,
RandyT
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 10, 2006, 08:11:15 pm: I'm in @ $20ea.

Thanks
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: leapinlew on February 10, 2006, 08:50:50 pm: I'll take 1...

How much would Kinkos charge to print the file on some peel and stick? If possible, I would pay for the graphic file you created, because I don't think there will be sufficient demand.

Cool. good luck.
Title: Re: Something is unique about this coin door. Can you spot it?
Post by: digitalmonkeyman on February 10, 2006, 08:56:18 pm: I'd go the pay for the file route as well.....