How much do you have on your plate?

[vwalbridge]

With summer and warmer weather approaching, I started counting up my projects. I currently have to complete:

- 3 arcade machines in need of heavy restoration
- 1 in need of moderate restoration
- 1 in need of minor restoration
and..
- 2 dedicated Mame machines in my head that I want to build.

Even just one of these would be enough but I've definitely got enough to keep me busy the rest of the summer...and probably next summer. In fact, I think my eyes are bigger than my stomach at the moment. And there never seems to be enough time for me to work on them. And if I'm not careful, I'll feel like I'll just keep adding to my list.

How many projects do you have waiting to be completed? Anyone happy with what they have and don't want another project?

[Jamesbeat]

I'm in the middle of building my upright cab, but I'm already planning my next one, which will be a barstick.

I figured I would have almost everything I need left over from the upright to build the barstick, and I actually cut the sides while so was cutting the wood for the upright 

I'm being good though and not trying to build both at once, otherwise I wouldn't get either of them finished.

[danny_galaga]

I was going to start building another cab as soon as I finished my last one about this time last year. I'm almost ready to start now 

[leapinlew]

The trick for me is 1 at a time and don't start the next one till I'm 100%

[jennifer]

  Having 13 active full blown restorations going on all at the same time feels like the right amount of productivity for me, some waiting for parts some in various stages of being painted, some being assembled,  a couple of  complete basket cases ( currently finishing up a new cab construction Dance, Dance ) and some new ones coming in to replace the done ones.  Any more and it just gets frustrating, any less and just feels hopeless.

[vwalbridge]

  Having 13 active full blown restorations going on all at the same time feels like the right amount of productivity for me, some waiting for parts some in various stages of being painted, some being assembled,  a couple of  complete basket cases ( currently finishing up a new cab construction Dance, Dance ) and some new ones coming in to replace the done ones.  Any more and it just gets frustrating, any less and just feels hopeless.

13 active projects!  Whoa! I can't believe you can manage that. My head would spin. How do you stay organized?

[Hanzie]

I have a second ms paceman I picked up , it needs side art so I ordered some from phx arcade, waiting on it to be printed , that's all I have on my plate at the moment.

[jennifer]

     It takes serious discipline, I will not sugarcoat.... It also helps to set your shop up like a  factory (Stern was my model, with smaller production areas obviously),  Do multiples of the same project to save time          (IE: not 1 cap kit but do three or so while you got the stuff out.)   Keep the parts coming in constantly with regular frequency, And spend 2 hours a day, everyday teaching yourself something new out of your comfort zone.

[ark_ader]

I have the stargate and the pizero I am going to stick in there (yes with roms I own).   I find that cheaper than finding a full boardset that probably doesn't work off ebay.

[BadMouth]

My bathroom is gutted and my roof needs replaced.

I'm making MAME gamelists.

[leapinlew]

     It takes serious discipline, I will not sugarcoat.... It also helps to set your shop up like a  factory (Stern was my model, with smaller production areas obviously),  Do multiples of the same project to save time          (IE: not 1 cap kit but do three or so while you got the stuff out.)   Keep the parts coming in constantly with regular frequency, And spend 2 hours a day, everyday teaching yourself something new out of your comfort zone.

In my world, this is how you get nothing done. Moving 10 projects 2% closer to completion isn't my idea of progress. Since I have real life obligations, doing more than 1 hobby at a time isn't really possible. It would take me 2 years to get 10 projects done, or I could get 1 project done every 3-4 months.

[BadMouth]

For the most part, I've broken the habit of buying crap for projects I won't get to for years.
Every once in a while if something small comes up cheap, I'll buy it.  Nothing like I used to do though.

Arcade/emulator wise, I need to:

Install workarounds for some games/emulators after switching my cab over to hacked xbox controllers.

Set up console emulators on the Alienware Alpha I got for the living room.

Get a driving cab back together, even if only temporary.
I have two Sega bases with nice car seats installed on them in my basement doing nothing.
I just need to make the front part of the cabs.

[vwalbridge]

     It takes serious discipline, I will not sugarcoat.... It also helps to set your shop up like a  factory (Stern was my model, with smaller production areas obviously),  Do multiples of the same project to save time          (IE: not 1 cap kit but do three or so while you got the stuff out.)   Keep the parts coming in constantly with regular frequency, And spend 2 hours a day, everyday teaching yourself something new out of your comfort zone.

In my world, this is how you get nothing done. Moving 10 projects 2% closer to completion isn't my idea of progress. Since I have real life obligations, doing more than 1 hobby at a time isn't really possible. It would take me 2 years to get 10 projects done, or I could get 1 project done every 3-4 months.

This is the dilemma I'm having right now. I see things or have ideas in my head that I just can't pass up on. The next thing I know, I working on 6 projects at once and feeling like I'm getting nothing done.

However, when I've got the bondo out or I have the slot cutting bit out...I just want to bondo or slot cut all the cabs. This "assembly line" process is very hard to keep going.

I'm probably going to have to buckle down and just finish ONE project first. I need just one significant victory right now.

[pbj]

- don't die

[leapinlew]

I think back to my dads workshop when I was younger and how having kids and getting older must have really caused him to slow down on project work. It seemed there were half completed projects everywhere and many that were never started. I never wanted that for me, so I switched over to 1 single arcade project at a time.

There is a certain amount of juggling of projects I can do before it all falls to pieces. Don't get me wrong, I have an arcade project, but I also have some landscape work, some kids playroom stuff, some car stuff, etc. projects going on, but my arcade is nearly perfect. (I had a mobo die in the jukebox last week that is next on the list).

By having projects completing, there is a sense of getting stuff done for me. If all I could show after 2 weeks of work is cap kits, slots cut, but not 1 completed cab, it would seem like an overwhelming amount of work left to do. Also, an arcade cab has so many projects in it that building one, planned right, takes time.

Woodworking
Artwork design\ordering
Controls (research, ordering, etc)
Painting
customizing the computer
wiring
etc. etc.

Building a single cabinet takes 100% of my time for the length of the project, so there isn't much time to lean or time to save. I've built almost 3 dozen cabs in the 10ish years I've been doing it and I try to get them to 100% before moving on.

Everyone has their own method and everyone can handle half completed projects differently.

[vwalbridge]

- don't die

Oh my...please don't pbj. I still need to buy you a beer. ZapCon 2017. Hold on until then. I'm counting on you.

I think back to my dads workshop when I was younger and how having kids and getting older must have really caused him to slow down on project work. It seemed there were half completed projects everywhere and many that were never started. I never wanted that for me, so I switched over to 1 single arcade project at a time.

There is a certain amount of juggling of projects I can do before it all falls to pieces. Don't get me wrong, I have an arcade project, but I also have some landscape work, some kids playroom stuff, some car stuff, etc. projects going on, but my arcade is nearly perfect. (I had a mobo die in the jukebox last week that is next on the list).

By having projects completing, there is a sense of getting stuff done for me. If all I could show after 2 weeks of work is cap kits, slots cut, but not 1 completed cab, it would seem like an overwhelming amount of work left to do. Also, an arcade cab has so many projects in it that building one, planned right, takes time.

Woodworking
Artwork design\ordering
Controls (research, ordering, etc)
Painting
customizing the computer
wiring
etc. etc.

Building a single cabinet takes 100% of my time for the length of the project, so there isn't much time to lean or time to save. I've built almost 3 dozen cabs in the 10ish years I've been doing it and I try to get them to 100% before moving on.

Everyone has their own method and everyone can handle half completed projects differently.

I'm an arcadeaholic and I'd like you to be my sponsor. Anytime I start working on everything at once, I'm going to need your support to keep me focused.

[leapinlew]

I remember early on, when you could still get people to give you an arcade game for free if you hauled it away from their house, I had projects stacking up. You could turn around and sell those machines for $800-$1,000 after investing a couple hundred in them. Those were the days...

I eventually gave away 2 nintendo cabs just to thin the herd. I spent a lot of time building bartops, but I'm back to full size. I don't think I'll be building anything for a while, so I'm going to go through my parts, sell things off, give things away, and move on to something else.

For me, my collection is complete. I have a upright star wars, a galaga mame with vertical monitor and wico 4 way, and a horizontal mame with a trackball.

[pbj]

For me, my collection is complete. I have a upright star wars, a galaga mame with vertical monitor and wico 4 way, and a horizontal mame with a trackball.

Still have that weird Xenophobe pedestal thing?  I always liked that.

I still have your Combatribes board in a box.... :-P

[paigeoliver]

I redid the control panel on my existing Mame cabinet to eliminate the curved buttons, but I haven't rewired it yet.
I have both Jrok BZF and Mystar projects in various states of playable but unfinished.
I have a finished Stern logo cabinet current running a jrok BZF board that needs to be restored to a correct game now that I found a Frenzy cabinet for the BZF to live in.
The LED displays on my Welsh Sega Turbo don't work.
My Blackout pin has no sound and needs to be completely shopped out.
My Asteroids doesn't make the "pew pew" sound when I fire.
Playchoice 10 desperately needs a new overlay and I am fairly sure I want to replace the terrible original Nintendo sticks with some of the newer Japanese sticks that have the same bolt pattern.
Lock N Chase doesn't have sound.
I am sitting on a spare 27" VGA arcade monitor that I planned on eventually putting into something vertically.

[vwalbridge]

I redid the control panel on my existing Mame cabinet to eliminate the curved buttons, but I haven't rewired it yet.
I have both Jrok BZF and Mystar projects in various states of playable but unfinished.
I have a finished Stern logo cabinet current running a jrok BZF board that needs to be restored to a correct game now that I found a Frenzy cabinet for the BZF to live in.
The LED displays on my Welsh Sega Turbo don't work.
My Blackout pin has no sound and needs to be completely shopped out.
My Asteroids doesn't make the "pew pew" sound when I fire.
Playchoice 10 desperately needs a new overlay and I am fairly sure I want to replace the terrible original Nintendo sticks with some of the newer Japanese sticks that have the same bolt pattern.
Lock N Chase doesn't have sound.
I am sitting on a spare 27" VGA arcade monitor that I planned on eventually putting into something vertically.

Wowzers. Not gonna lie, some of those words I didn't even recognize. And I'll stop complaining, you have more complicated projects.

[yotsuya]

I'm working on two projects for zapcon, one is the Super Pac-Man which is just about done, the other is a top-secret project I'm going to unveil at the show. I have my third project lined up for the summer, and I'm excited about that one, because with that one I'm going to do some stuff I've never done before, and in the process hopefully bring back to life a beloved Grail of mine.

[vwalbridge]

I'm working on two projects for zapcon, one is the Super Pac-Man which is just about done, the other is a top-secret project I'm going to unveil at the show. I have my third project lined up for the summer, and I'm excited about that one, because with that one I'm going to do some stuff I've never done before, and in the process hopefully bring back to life a beloved Grail of mine.

[chopperthedog]

Damn!, you guys are slackers. This thread caused me to reflect on my last 12 months. All games were acquired non-working.

Midway Extra Bases - Fully working.
Exidy Crash - Fully working.
Exidy Circus - All cab and monitor work done. Board issue with jumping guy graphic.
Allied Leisure Starshooter pinball - Fully working.
Midway Space Encounters - Monitor now working, but has some board issues.
Midway Winner II - Now works, need to order caps for TV.
Electro-Dart - wall game (qty 2) Fully working.
Cinematronics Flipper Ball (cocktail) - Haven't even looked at it yet.
Midway Table Tennis - wall game, Fully working.
Par-3-Golf - wall game, Partially working now.
Midway Space Zap (cocktail) - Got board cage working yesterday, onto doing monitor and cab work.
Bally Fireball pinaball (home model) - Fully working.
Exidy Robot Bowl - Fully working.



good day.

[harveybirdman]

Some of us are still learning JAMMA repair - fu

[jtslade]

Need to get a laptop HDD in my Groovy Arcade Linux cocktail to replace the usb stick

Jungle Lord pin restoration.. Fix PCB's
Get rom burner and make new roms..
Clear PF with 2PAC
airbrush PF
Reassemble
Play  it some

Endless honey do list

50+ year old house (AC ductwork replace, Etc)

3 small kids

Work 70 hrs a week including drive time

Work on getting side business built up

Would like to find an Ice Cold Beer arcade game for the house..

I'd like to builda legal permitted add-on to my house so I can have a proper arcade.. The in laws live in the pool house and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[paigeoliver]

Here I will fill in the gaps.

James Rowan (jrok), has designed FPGA replacement hardware for several different classic arcade platforms, thus creating brand new multigame boards on what is for almost all intents and purposes original hardware. His BZF board runs Frenzy and 2 versions of Berzerk. I had finished up a machine using his board in a cabinet that wasn't actually a Berzerk or Frenzy cabinet, but that was really close in shape. I then located a correct Frenzy type cabinet and need to move my BZF system to it and finish restoring the cabinet BZF was in to an original game.

I also have his Mylstar hardware board which is Qbert, Krull, Mad Planets, Reactor, and a few others. I have this running in a converted Krull cabinet but I need to finish up the artwork and such.

Sega licensed production of Turbo to "Streets" in Wales for sale in the UK. Somehow I got one here in America, no idea how it got here, must have fallen through the Cardiff Rift. It uses pinball type displays in its scoring for some reason that is frankly a mystery to almost everyone.

I redid the control panel on my existing Mame cabinet to eliminate the curved buttons, but I haven't rewired it yet.
I have both Jrok BZF and Mystar projects in various states of playable but unfinished.
I have a finished Stern logo cabinet current running a jrok BZF board that needs to be restored to a correct game now that I found a Frenzy cabinet for the BZF to live in.
The LED displays on my Welsh Sega Turbo don't work.
My Blackout pin has no sound and needs to be completely shopped out.
My Asteroids doesn't make the "pew pew" sound when I fire.
Playchoice 10 desperately needs a new overlay and I am fairly sure I want to replace the terrible original Nintendo sticks with some of the newer Japanese sticks that have the same bolt pattern.
Lock N Chase doesn't have sound.
I am sitting on a spare 27" VGA arcade monitor that I planned on eventually putting into something vertically.

Wowzers. Not gonna lie, some of those words I didn't even recognize. And I'll stop complaining, you have more complicated projects.

[leapinlew]

For me, my collection is complete. I have a upright star wars, a galaga mame with vertical monitor and wico 4 way, and a horizontal mame with a trackball.

Still have that weird Xenophobe pedestal thing?  I always liked that.

I still have your Combatribes board in a box.... :-P

Combatribes! What a turd.

That cabinet is gone. I sold it for cost to a buddy. In hindsight, I should have built a pedestal. It was a decent cabinet.

I was a BYOAC n00b at the time. Too bad I didn't know we'd still be talking 10+ years later I would've met you somewhere else - a dumpster perhaps. My work was a little stuffy and I believe we did a smash and grab type trade off.

[thomas_surles]

currently just working on a driving cab. mostly just configuring the pc now.

[reptileink]

Started rehabbing the Punisher cabinet last fall so need to finish that up and give it to the kids. I won't beat a dead horse and bore you with the whole "It was my first, many mistakes, etc) Not going to bother adding artwork to it or anything. Moving on after learning the "dos and don'ts" from all you great folks here.

I am thinking bartop this time around, although it's REALLY tempting to do another full size. I think the affordability will factor in and a bartop will be made. I know it's probably not MUCH cheaper to do a bartop, but smaller screens, smaller artwork, less materials, blah blah blah.

So that's on my docket with about 100 house projects I need to finish (including a chicken coop....lol)

[DrakeTungsten]

Finishing mouse support and tablet-as-a-second-screen functionality on my front end.

Building a new control panel with the upgraded buttons and joysticks I've had for six months now.

Adding the flight sticks to my cockpit.

Documenting game controls.

[P.H.U.]

I have 11 cabs now.

[Phreakwars]

I have an upright in production right now that I'm building for a dude, and I have another guy that wants me to do a Haruman bartop for him. I won't start on it till I have a significant deposit, so whenever that happens.

[vwalbridge]

I won't start on it till I have a significant deposit, so whenever that happens.

You are a smart man. 

[romshark]

I'm planning on re-doing my primary MAME cabinet to fix a few issues. Pretty much starting that build from scratch, or close to it.
I'm also planning a smaller dedicated cabinet. Already got some parts for that build.

Outside the arcade life, I've been looking at buying a new computer system to replace our aging Windows Home Server. I already have a copy of Windows Server 2012 Essentials (thanks to the University I just graduated from). Just watching Newegg for the right hardware to go on sale (looking at least an Intel i5, so I can do video encoding and streaming using Plex, and extenal drive bays.)

Getting ready to work some long 50 hour weeks with mandatory overtime. That will help pay for the arcade and server stuff, but cuts down on the time to actually work on either. At least I have the weekends off to get stuff done.

[Malenko]

just workin on my vert cab, waitin for Zapcon

[P.H.U.]

22 cabs now.

[Malenko]

22 cabs now.

better slow down, or on April 2nd you'll have 33 cabs at this pace.

[P.H.U.]

22 cabs now.

better slow down, or on April 2nd you'll have 33 cabs at this pace.

Closing up shop.

[WindDrake]

Long standing Omega Race project to finally get off the ground. Even after the cabinet work, I get to fix a ton of acid damage. Whee.

[Phreakwars]

I won't start on it till I have a significant deposit, so whenever that happens.

You are a smart man. 

Well, the thing is, I hear it ALL THE TIME whenever someone comes over and sees the ones I have done, or watches one of my videos on YouTube/Facebook of the work I've done... "MAKE ME ONE, HOW MUCH WILL IT COST".

Then when you lay a price tag on it for them, they tend to back off or simply just keep bugging you about it like your a phucking millionare who will make them every weekend and give them away for a couple hundred bucks.

The one I am currently working on is an upright. I'm not doing the wood work because I suck at it, but I am doing everything else. So what I did was make an exchange deal with the guy... He wants an arcade and he's awesome at wood work, so I'll get his arcade going at a decent price and he only has to do 2 things... build the cabinet, and when the project is done, build an upright cabinet for ME for my own personal upright. Pretty fair deal really. As for the other guy who wants the Haruman bartop. I know he can afford it, I just don't see him very often because of our work schedules. He wants to pay me IN FULL, which is fine by me and actually preferable. He's a working class shmoe like me with a family to raise, so I don't pressure it. I know how it is. I've been building computers for well over 25 years now and have dealt with many people who have the average Joe income. I'm usually pretty easy to work with in those regards. An arcade cabinet is a bit different in that the designing takes serious planning and coordination with Malenko, Haruman, Ultimarc, Paradise Arcade, etc, etc.. There is no one stop shop like Newegg or Amazon unless you want some kind of IKEA Arcade or something. And, that's actually the way I like it.