Credit slot to replace coin mech?

[ncflagg]

I heard of some arcades having a credit system where you pay up front to load a magneto-strip card with credits and swipe them at each cab to coin up. Are these type of scanners readily available? Anyone know how it works?

[RichSorr]

Dave and Busters uses the Sacoa system. google it and you should find a lot of stuff. Chuck E. Cheese's also used a similar system in a few locations. You basically need a computer network set up. Each of the games have a swiper and an x reader if you want to keep track of ticket/coin meters. They are actually easily to wire in. IIRC the swiper has its own power supply and is tapped into the machines 5v coin up line. Xreaders are spliced into the 12v output. Games go to hubs, hubs go back to a computer. and thats pretty much the jist of it. Changing out all the coin doors (you can eliminate tickets as well with these) and mounting the swipes is a huuuge pain in the butt. I personally do not think it is worth it, unless you are running a huuuuge operation. I think they even have wireless systems now, but I am not sure I would depend on that.

[Kevin Mullins]

Home use machines = Don't bother

RichSorr has pretty much summed it all up.

[CrazyKongFan]

A local (to me) arcade has added this Sacoa system to all their machines, but they didn't change out the coin doors (that I can tell). I believe they just added the swipe reader on the front of the cab. Now big brother can watch you and see which games you play