Monitors make me hate this whole thing.

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krick:
At the amusement auction I went to, every game that was sold as working was able to be powered on so you could check it out and play it. They had the floor open for about 3 hours before the auction started so that everyone could thoroughly check things out.

Arcade cabinets really aren't that complicated. If you convert a JAMMA cabinet to run mame, you pretty much remove all the complicated stuff except for the arcade monitor. There's TONS of information on the web about how to fix arcade cabinets. Plus there's great forums like this one where you can ask questions and get help.

I've been lucky with my monitor. The only issue I has was a failed flyback transformer. I'm fairly handy with a soldering iron and I was able to replace it myself using a part I purchased from Bob Roberts. If I couldn't fix it myself, I'm sure I could have found someone on these boards who was fairly local who would have fixed it for me for a few bucks plus pizza and beer. Or, I imagine I could have taken the monitor out and hauled it to a local TV repair guy, though it probably would have cost me a bit more.

Much of it comes down to your level of patience. If you just want to play games without any hassles, then you probably want a PS3 or an XBox 360, not an arcade cabinet. I'm sure I speak for most of the people on BYOAC when I say that half the fun of owning an arcade cabinet is tinkering with it. Heck, I spend more time fiddling with it than I do actually playing games.

Guywiththegun:
My frustrations have come from my own ignorance, and dead-ends. It would be a dream to just know exactly what to do, and start doing it. Truth is, there aren't any resources for somebody starting 100% fresh into this sort of thing. Everything seems to be geared towards people with prior experience in wood-working, wiring, or even the machines themselves.

This is something I've wanted for a long time, but I just keep hitting dead-ends. You'd think this was my first monitor/TV for this thing, right? Ha! This is my third. The first was a crap TV that had burn (and had huge speakers on the side . . what was I thinking??). The second was an awesome 4:3 LCD TV, which ended up having this weird bleed . . and tons of burn. It ended up going back. Hell if you add the monitor on the SF I had, that's 3 absolute disasters in Arcade display.

Its frustrating.

I just built my second PC, and one of the things I've learned is you just gotta pick the parts. You can't wait for the next 'deal' or listen to every last person who's got something to say. This is the whole problem. I just gotta move forward. I'm gonna get a 21" 4:3 LCD.

Donkbaca:
21.5 inch 4:3

:)

Love mine

krick:

--- Quote from: Guywiththegun on May 17, 2011, 11:06:56 pm ---
My frustrations have come from my own ignorance, and dead-ends. It would be a dream to just know exactly what to do, and start doing it. Truth is, there aren't any resources for somebody starting 100% fresh into this sort of thing. Everything seems to be geared towards people with prior experience in wood-working, wiring, or even the machines themselves.

--- End quote ---

There are resources for people starting 100% fresh. Check out the book "Project Arcade" by Saint, BYOAC's benevolent dictator... First Edition or Second Edition. Also, you have the entire BYOAC community at your disposal.

The vast majority of us started out not knowing jack about arcade machines. We did our time, reading forums like this one, buying Saint's book, asking questions, and doing research. Eventually, we gathered a critical mass of knowledge and made the plunge.

In my opinion, the easiest way to get a proper start in this hobby is by getting a working JAMMA-wired cabinet and "MAME-ing" it. The ArcadeVGA and J-PAC make the experience as close to plug and play as humanly possible. If that's still too hard, then I don't know what to tell you.

The problem that people see those amazing hand-crafted cabinets on the Internet and they think they can do the same thing with no skills or experience. It doesn't work that way. I understand your frustration, but I can't help but being blunt... this is NOT an easy (or cheap) hobby. It takes a lot of work and you're constantly learning new things, as well as making mistakes and (hopefully) learning from them. If you want something that doesn't take any work, just buy one of the pre-made home arcade cabinets and call it a day. :)

Blanka:

--- Quote from: Donkbaca on May 17, 2011, 11:34:05 pm ---21.5 inch 4:3

:)

Love mine

--- End quote ---

21.3.. the ones with IPS panel are scarce (Philips, NEC and Viewsonic made IPS 21.3 inches). The PVA versions have very nice contrast, but are laggy (45ms input lag). Still available, great looking and FAST, the HP LP2065.
With a good LCD panel, good brightness setting, and decent bezelling, it really does not matter if you mount 16:9 or 16:10 screens. I have a 27 inch screen 16:10 in my cab, and the black of the screen almost goes seamless with the bezel. You really don't mind the black bars left and right. So if you want fancy... try a Fujitsu P27T-6 or Dell U2711

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