Found this gem for $40, going to see about fixing her up!

[Arc Kalocal]

So I got this Raiden cabinet for $40 the other day. My goal here is to fix it up and MAYBE MAME it. Haven't had much time yet to play around with it but at first glance it looks like the power supply is shot and the monitor has an epic amount of burn-in. What do you think? The cabinet is pretty old, and I'm not sure about the side art. It had a really ugly faux-leather vinyl pasted over what you see here. I don't believe this is the original side art from what I can glean off the internet. The jamma board looks really clean, compared to the rest of the inside, which leads me to believe it was added in much later and may still be in working condition. The bottom of the cabinet looks like it was drug around a lot and doesn't sit very level but I've already installed some heavy duty casters so I can move it around the house.

Worse comes to worse, it'll be a nice starting point for a MAME cabinet. Otherwise I'll have a pretty sweet cabinet with one of my favorite games!

Its early, and I'm still tired; so I'm probably missing out on some details. Let me know what you all think, I'm pretty excited about this.

[Slippyblade]

For $40, that's an epic score even if you scrap it out into other projects.  Coin mechs good?  What about the sticks/buttons?

[Arc Kalocal]

For $40, that's an epic score even if you scrap it out into other projects.  Coin mechs good?  What about the sticks/buttons?

Haven't tested the coin mech, it looks as old as they come though, so I don't have high hopes. The sticks and buttons feel great but I'm probably going to replace them anyways for something more personalized. The control panel itself is pretty gnarly though. Some rusting around the carraige bolts, cracked plexi, worn artwork, and all that, so that's definitely getting replaced.

[offset]

Looks like you have yourself a qbert cabinet there, same thing happened to me when I picked up a Mania Challenge, someone had converted it, I de-converted the cabinet back to qbert.

Look here for cabinet id of qbert (scroll down to Gottlieb) - http://www.coinopspace.com/group/directory/forum/topics/cabinet-identification-charts?xg_source=activity

Mine had a Wells Gardner 19k4951 monitor (vertical), it is an excellent monitor.

[offset]

Some pictures of my Mania Challenge and I de-converted back to Qbert cabinet, I'm still working out the MAME part inside, I got a real separate qbert control panel, but I'm keeping the Mania Challenge control panel so I can play other vertical classic games in the cabinet.

[Well Fed Games]

Actually that used to be a Mad Planets cabinet, another Gottlieb game that is actually pretty highly desired nowadays- had an interesting control scheme of a spinner and a trigger joystick. Pretty fun/weird game, too. If it was then a Raiden (one of my favorites), then that cab has a great history and even without the history is a great deal for $40- wood, coin door, glass... you've done very well. 

Mad Planets Flyer:

[Well Fed Games]

Oh, and if that Raiden board still works I can help you make that $40 back pretty quick.   

Unless you do end up keeping it a Raiden, which is what I recommend, or put in a Jamma switcher and make a multi-vertical shmup cab, which all the cool kids are doing:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=116055.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=129074.40

[offset]

Interesting on Mad Planets, I think they are similar, just different height and top is a bit different (marquee header sticks out more on qbert according to the cab id website), wonder if that is the original Mad Planets sideart or reproduction.

If you want to measure your cabinet height, I can compare it to mine.

[mann0mann]

I like the side art!   I'd keep it...it's different and cool!   

[ChanceKJ]

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[Arc Kalocal]

$40?!  American?   ...i hate you.

If it helps at all it also cost me $20 to rent a truck from Home Depot to get it and $5 to fill the gas tank on it.

The cabinet definitely looks like the QBert model. It has the much deeper angle on the screen and the flatter CP  than the normal Mad Planets one from the flyer.

I like the side art too, its already growing on me, but the paint/wood has a lot of dings in it and I'm not really sure on how to fix it without sanding the whole thing down. There's also a few spots where I couldn't get the old vinyl layer off entirely. Like, only the top half peeled off and there's now a super-thin layer of annoying that I cant get off with fingernails alone. I'll keep at it though. The side art looks stenciled on and is pretty vibrant still, though!

I had no idea about the Jamma Switchers though! I'd be mega-interested in being able to switch it to and from the Raiden board to a MAME PC on the fly if that were possible.

Edit: I take back the comment about the QBert/Mad Planets cabinet. The flyer doesn't really do the cabinet justice. Looking at pictures on google they look like identical woodwork, so I'm going to go ahead and say this was definitely a Mad Planets cabinet.

[ChanceKJ]

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[offset]

For all we know, Gottlieb may have used both style cabinets interchangeably.

Every qbert that I've seen has the qbert burn-in and if you sand down, you will see yellow.

Given your sideart, yours may have likely been a Mad Planets originally, can check to see if your monitor (if original) has any burn-in that gives hints to the game.

Does it have the coin door with the Gottlieb plate on it?  Those are hard to find.

[Arc Kalocal]

For all we know, Gottlieb may have used both style cabinets interchangeably.

Every qbert that I've seen has the qbert burn-in and if you sand down, you will see yellow.

Given your sideart, yours may have likely been a Mad Planets originally, can check to see if your monitor (if original) has any burn-in that gives hints to the game.

Does it have the coin door with the Gottlieb plate on it?  Those are hard to find.

The monitor does have a lot of burn in. I can't power it on at the moment but while its off I can see things like "All Rights Reserved" on the bottom and the score tickers at the top. It looks like it was left on the demo screen or the preloading screen for a long time. There's a lot of text on the bottom half, almost like two separate screens of text burned in on top of the other which makes it pretty hard to read.

It does not have the Gottlieb plate on it! Other than that it looks pretty identical to the one shown in the flyer.

And what do you know, just as I finished typing that last sentence I went and took a closer look at the coin door to see if there was any more information on it that may reveal its identity:
I find a sticker inside the coin door that reads "Mad Planets #53704"

[offset]

Compare your burn-in to the screenshot at - http://www.arcade-museum.com/M/Mad_Planets.html - and see if the All Rights Reserved lines up.

[Arc Kalocal]

Compare your burn-in to the screenshot at - http://www.arcade-museum.com/M/Mad_Planets.html - and see if the All Rights Reserved lines up.

I checked your idea for both Raiden and Mad Planets. The All Rights Reserved line looks like an exact match for Raiden. The rest of the burn in text closer to the center of the screen look like a pretty good match for Mad Planets too. I'm thinking this poor, poor monitor sat on title screens for so long it has burn in from both games!

My question now, and more of just a thought, can I replace the monitor with a standard 4:3 that fit the cabinet and still be able to play top-down games like Raiden without a stretched screen?

[eds1275]

I'm not sure about doing it with a proper board, but if it gets MAMEd then you can have it at the proper shape. I do it with my widescreen, looks great for the MaLa menu and then each game is the right aspect ratio.

[lcmgadgets]

Looks pretty sweet for $40! Congrats & good luck!

[Arc Kalocal]

Two month later update!

I finally finished drilling, bondoing, and sanding the thing down. I decided to throw in 6 buttons for each. Probably a bad idea but whatever. It's mostly going to be played by small children, or me alone, so I'm not too concerned with being cramped. Probably didn't need to drill a seventh hole for a start button either, but I really want a damn start button. I started by poxy'ing metal plates to the back so I could clean the whole thing up with bondo and get it nice and flat. The bondo all came out great at first. BUUUUUUUUUT as soon as I started drilling the button holes half the time the plates would break off mid drill from the back and crack my bondo or jag up the metal. So there was a lot of redo.

It may have been the epoxy I used (Loctite Metal/Concrete Medium Grey Epoxy) but it drove me crazy. The drill would warm the metal, the metal would warm the epoxy, and then I would throw a fit. This happened probably four or five times, but I'm stubborn and didn't want to start over anywhere. I feel the panel looks a little sloppy because of this but I believe I left myself a little wiggle room so that I can force the buttons into a straighter position than what the holes show themselves.

Also! I found a  place nearby that will powder coat the thing, with a nice protective clear coating that just looks top notch. The guy told me that it will cost just between $20-35. I'm pretty excited for this, but now I have to figure out a color. Right now I've pretty much decided on Happ Purple buttons, black bat joys, and I'm playing with the idea of the Cool Blue T-Molding from GGG. I need something that will compliment the blue and purple, but I'm not so good at visualizing how they will look together. GGG doesn't seem to offer a purple t-molding that would match the buttons, and I don't really like how expensive the t-molding is elsewhere.

Also, I gutted out the cabinet itself. Took out the coin door and the monitor, not sure what to do with them yet. The power supply, marquee lighting, and the JAMMA board look to be the only thing usuable anymore. I got all the vinyl and adhesive residue off the front, and eventually I'm going to sand the whole thing down and fill in all the holes.

Here's a picture of a couple D-Frame PC cases these guys did that really sealed the deal for me.
And then a picture of my suedo-finished CP.

[lcmgadgets]

Powder coat for $20 to $35?!! Then I got jipped on the bead blasting+powder coating I had done to my Star Wars yoke! I paid $120! 

[Slippyblade]

Powder coat for $20 to $35?!! Then I got jipped on the bead blasting+powder coating I had done to my Star Wars yoke! I paid $120! 

Maybe has something to do with the yoke being an odd shape vs his cp just being a flat plate?  I'm just shooting in the dark on that one though.

[BAMBOO]

Mad Planets, holy hell that game is so hard, but fun!

[lcmgadgets]

Maybe has something to do with the yoke being an odd shape vs his cp just being a flat plate?  I'm just shooting in the dark on that one though.

Yeah, but then I paid $100 for the same for the coin door!