Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Arcade Collecting => Miscellaneous Arcade Talk => Topic started by: mrclean on April 06, 2009, 08:37:25 pm
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I picked up a few machines some have locks, others need to be drilled. Any ways In the past I've gone to home depot for my cam / barrel locks but they add up pretty fast. I wanted to know if any one knew locally or online where I can get roughly a dozen or more for a decent price. Perhaps the same key(s)?
:dunno
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Bob Roberts
Amusements Plus
Competitive Products
Pinball Life
Pinball Resource
Happ Controls
Lock America
Baton Lock
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Where were you when I was trying to put together a bulk lock order? :)
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Thanks for raising the issue, mrclean, and thanks for the suggestions, Ken.
mrclean, if you happen to find a source from among these (or others) that supply the same locks that HD sells, please post. I already have close to half of my locks keyed the same and I'd like to do the rest. Hopefully I don't have to replace the ones that are already keyed the same if I can find them somewhere cheaper than HD. But if not it'll probably work out in the long run to just replace the whole lot with locks that are a little more "standard" for the coin op market.
And I have emails into 2 of these places (Pinball Life and Competitive Products) to see if they are the same locks - they look like they could be from their pics.
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we'll to be honest I don't need to have a skeleton key. I wanted 2 keys per lock, which is what they usually come with . The thing is that some coin doors, and back door could add up to 3 locks per game, gets pricey fast. I'm going to do the flyer keychain thing for the keys so It won't matter if they are different compaines etc. Then eventually get a wall mountable cheap or make my own key lock box that stores probably more then I'll ever own.
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Dude! Those are awesome!
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I would like to do the flyer key chain thing...but just for looks. It would suck to have every game keyed differently!
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Dude! Those are awesome!
Thanks, they look alot better in person. Actually it's pretty easy to do, all you need is 1 sheet of 8.5'' x 11'' photo paper and you can fit 10 flyers on it. Maybe you can fit 12 on one sheet not sure but I only needed it for 5 machines front and back.
Alot of people don't have adobe photoshop etc or skills, I can assure you this method is really easy..
first you need the keychains, you can buy 2 for 3.00 from walgreens they are called "LifeStyles Photo Keytag"
http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp?CATID=100387&navAction=jump&navCount=0&nug=VPD&skuid=sku3155517&id=prod3156684
Then Download for FREE "Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.2"
can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3616
Then just go to TAFA download the flyers you want to print out. http://www.arcadeflyers.com/
Once in the adobe software load all of your images / import the files then hit print, and then go to "custom" size. Put in 2.0'' for the width and then 2.9'' for the height.
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I would like to do the flyer key chain thing...but just for looks. It would suck to have every game keyed differently!
Agreed. Why would you do that? If you lose the key you can just swap for another keyed alike...keyed different you're going to have to drill.
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could add up to 3 locks per game
My cyberball has 5 locks! :o
I'm really sick of having different locks for different games. I heard back from Pinball Life and theirs aren't the same as the ones at HD. Still waiting on CP's answer, but I figured it was a long shot anyway. I'll probably be ordering 11 locks for my 4 games soon in order to get them all keyed the same.
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could add up to 3 locks per game
My cyberball has 5 locks! :o
I'm really sick of having different locks for different games. I heard back from Pinball Life and theirs aren't the same as the ones at HD. Still waiting on CP's answer, but I figured it was a long shot anyway. I'll probably be ordering 11 locks for my 4 games soon in order to get them all keyed the same.
You know you don't necessarily have to do that. I did this trick for a cab rather than buying new locks that were keyed alike and it works fine, as long as they aren't the tubular locks.
http://www.arcaderestoration.com/index.asp?OPT=3&DATA=152&CBT=3
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Some arcade auctions (such as the Indianapolis one by US Amusement) have a box of locks on the checkout table, and they'll take a bulk offer on the whole box. That's where a friend and I got all of our locks at a very reasonable price.
On cabinets with tons of locks (like some Candies), I'm a fan of keying the coin door, and possibly the coin bin, if you actually use it for anything, alike, but then using spare locks for the rest, ideally also keyed alike, even if different from your main key, and hanging the key inside the coin door. Often, there's a spot to hang keys there, anyway, as that's usually where the key for the back of the cabinet gets hung.
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could add up to 3 locks per game
My cyberball has 5 locks! :o
I'm really sick of having different locks for different games. I heard back from Pinball Life and theirs aren't the same as the ones at HD. Still waiting on CP's answer, but I figured it was a long shot anyway. I'll probably be ordering 11 locks for my 4 games soon in order to get them all keyed the same.
You know you don't necessarily have to do that. I did this trick for a cab rather than buying new locks that were keyed alike and it works fine, as long as they aren't the tubular locks.
http://www.arcaderestoration.com/index.asp?OPT=3&DATA=152&CBT=3
Yeah, I've already done that. But that assumes that you're starting with compatible locks to begin with. That's my problem. I don't want to keep buying from HD at their price. And if I'm going to buy a bunch of locks anyway, I'd rather just make sure I get all I need than guess whether or not I can reuse some of my locks and then find that I guessed wrong. ;) Besides, I don't mind ending up with spares because I'm sure I'll need more in the future anyway.
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could add up to 3 locks per game
My cyberball has 5 locks! :o
I'm really sick of having different locks for different games. I heard back from Pinball Life and theirs aren't the same as the ones at HD. Still waiting on CP's answer, but I figured it was a long shot anyway. I'll probably be ordering 11 locks for my 4 games soon in order to get them all keyed the same.
You know you don't necessarily have to do that. I did this trick for a cab rather than buying new locks that were keyed alike and it works fine, as long as they aren't the tubular locks.
http://www.arcaderestoration.com/index.asp?OPT=3&DATA=152&CBT=3
Yeah, I've already done that. But that assumes that you're starting with compatible locks to begin with. That's my problem. I don't want to keep buying from HD at their price. And if I'm going to buy a bunch of locks anyway, I'd rather just make sure I get all I need than guess whether or not I can reuse some of my locks and then find that I guessed wrong. ;) Besides, I don't mind ending up with spares because I'm sure I'll need more in the future anyway.
I have never used the HD locks before, they are obviously somewhat different than your typical arcade locks. Just out of curiosity what about them makes them incompatible?
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For one, the key numbers are 5 digits instead of 3. And for another, I'd assume that there's no standard for how these are made, so different manufacturers will make them differently, and therefore I won't be able to make a key from one manufacturer work for a lock from another, even with the method described in the link you provided.