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Introduction and gauging of interest
eforer:
Hi Everyone,
Long time lurker finally making an account and posting. It's kind of pitiful that at this point I haven't built myself a cabinet. I own a display fabrication company which has a huge millwork shop with 5 CNC machining centers, laser cutting and a large format print shop. As I pondered this fact looking at other peoples projects, it occurred to me that if I'm going to make one, I might as well try to develop a real, good quality cheap kit. I guess I'm looking to the builder and enthusiast community to figure out what makes sense. I'm thinking more long term to do a kickstarter for a more main stream / casual enthusiast but to try to develop the project open source with the builder community. My thought is that if I could get a group of folks that wanted to help contribute ideas and develop the concept I could offer the parts at basically cost for forum members as a way to balance the scales so to speak.
Let me start with the goals I have outlined so far:
1) Affordable: Less than $200.00 for a complete kit
2) Flat pack: Needs to be the Ikea of arcade cabinets
3) Flexible: The design should give people the bits of the project that are annoying/difficult to do without a big shop resource, but allow them to customize the things that are important to them
Point 1 is pretty easy. I think by virtue of the fact that my shop buys big volumes of the raw materials we get good economies of scale there. So even if this project is small in scope, I can pull from larger inventory. Also, I already have the infrastructure which is paid for by my core business, so it's not like I have to amortize huge amounts of infrastructure in to these things.
Point 2 I also think is relatively trivial. A lot of what we already design and make is flat pack. We use Hettich hardware which is really awesome, it's nearly identical in specification to the family of hardware used by Ikea, but is much higher quality. Basically everything we make can be assembled with a #2 phillips already.
Point 3 is where I feel like I need a lot of help from the community in determining what is wanted. Here are my coarse guesses as to what I think people would want to be responsible for themselves (ie not included in the kit):
1) Screens
2) Controls
3) Coin Mechs (if desired)
4) Audio
My thought on all of the above is that unless there was staggering volume of demand, end users could source these items and save a lot of money over someone marking them up and reselling them as part of the kit. Also, these areas seem easy for a DIYer to handle and fun to pick out/spec to make it "your own." Does this thought process make sense?
Graphics are the last area. We are an all digital shop and have UV flatbed printers as well as solvent, latex and aqueous roll to roll machines. Because the tech is all inkjet and not offset/screen doesn't really cost anything to print 1 design over another, so we could look at just having an illustrator template with bleeds marked on it so that people could design their own artwork. Is this desirable?
I think this could be a lot of fun. If people are interested, post / pm me.
If you are interested in seeing some of the cool stuff at our shop you can check out my companies http://www.bsgcreative.com
PL1:
Welcome aboard, Eforer. ;D
--- Quote from: eforer on September 20, 2014, 10:32:11 am ---Long time lurker finally making an account and posting. It's kind of pitiful that at this point I haven't built myself a cabinet.
--- End quote ---
As a long time lurker, I'm sure you're already familiar with the others already offering CNC-cut kits here.
Designing and building a cab for yourself might be a good way to demonstrate what you can do and encourage community feedback. :cheers:
Scott
Generic Eric:
--- Quote from: PL1 on September 20, 2014, 11:14:59 am ---Designing and building a cab for yourself might be a good way to demonstrate what you can do and encourage community feedback. :cheers:
Scott
--- End quote ---
:eleventy:
Lets see it Eforer!
yotsuya:
I'm more interested in the graphics part. Are you able to print onto plexiglass?
HanoiBoi:
So, what exactly are you thinking you'd be offering for under $200? Is it just basically the cabinet pieces and hardware to build it? Sounds like graphics would be an extra cost.
If so, not sure how many DIYers would go for it. Most of the cost of builds is not the cabinet, but all the things that it seems you would not offer.
At that price point, I would think that many might prefer to find a friend to help build, hire someone local, or even purchase an existing cabinet and go from there (and may even get some additional parts, like coin doors, CP, marquee, t-molding, speakers, etc.)
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