UK Candy Cab Import

Note: I am aware of the trading rules here which I totally agree with. Please do not take this as a trading thread, it is simply an attempt to gauge current interest in a venture I hope to get off the ground in the near future.

I had been considering buying a cab for a long time. Then recently whilst visiting an arcade here in China, I came across some cool Japanese sit-down candy cabs which looked ideal for use in a domestic setting. That was it, I had to have one for my apartment! The cab I chose was a Super LS Sound which is based on the SNK Super Neo 29. For those of you not familiar with these cabs (I am sure a lot of people here will be familiar with them), here are some pics to give you a better idea:






As a result, I've done some investigation into the possibility of shipping some back to the UK. Having done all the relevant calculations, it seems that we could arrange them for around the £500 mark. We will of course make a small profit to cover our costs and time to make this a reality, but we still feel that this price is competitive with other similar cabs already available in the UK. These cabs would be more than just as-standard from the factory. They would also include the following:

1. A UK compatible isolation transformer (no need for a step-down)
2. An ATI Radeon 9250 graphics card modified for 15khz output (similar to the ArcadeVGA)
3. A PC to JAMMA converter (similar to the JPAC, will include video amp etc)
4. An audio amp suitable for the standard cabinet speakers
5. A kick harness for the additional buttons
6. A UK compatible coin mech
7. An internal powerstrip
8. All required cables for hooking up a PC

Of course, all of this will be ready installed too, so all that needs to be done is add a PC and you'd be good to go (as you can see from the last pic above, these cabs have a nice big area at the bottom to install the PC). And of course, nothing would be butchered such that original JAMMA PCBs could be used easily. We could also have the monitor pre-rotated horizontally of vertically. And yes, these cabinets and components would be brand-new, not ex-arcade.

So what do you guys think? Would anyone be interested? Remember, I am not looking to take any orders here as this is just an idea at the moment. I am just trying to determine if there is any demand. We will need 20 or so people to fill a shipping container.

I applaud the initiative, but there are a couple of flaws in the venture:

a. The members of this community are primarily collectors, most of us don't give a damn about "MAME cabs". Therefore, we would only need a good condition cab, sans the PC setup.

b. The price is too high for a group order of 20 cabs. Again, if you strip down the cabs, eliminating the "MAME cab" setup, the costs will go down.

And finally one recommendation: what about shipping to Germany as well? I know many people here who would probably be interested.

Just my two cents.

Lovecraft0110 said:

The price is too high for a group order of 20 cabs. Again, if you strip down the cabs, eliminating the "MAME cab" setup, the costs will go down.

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The price isn't really too high because of all that's involved and included. We are not trying to be greedy here. But you are right, the removal of the PC related components would indeed bring the price down a little. We could consider doing this if there was enough demand.

Lovecraft0110 said:

And finally one recommendation: what about shipping to Germany as well? I know many people here who would probably be interested.

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I would certainly consider shipping to Germany or any other european country, but we would still need 20 or so people (to fill a container) from each country to make it viable. Sending the cabs to the UK first and then shipping to europe would cost rather a lot in additional shipping for each customer. But, if we can get enough interest, then I'd be happy to facilitate.

Another thing that may interest the collectors here is that we can obtain rarer Japanese PCBs etc fairly easily. These could be included with the cabs if people wished. As I said in my first post, this is just an idea at the moment, and I'll very much appreciate any feedback people have.

StatMat said:

Another thing that may interest the collectors here is that we can obtain rarer Japanese PCBs etc fairly easily. These could be included with the cabs if people wished. As I said in my first post, this is just an idea at the moment, and I'll very much appreciate any feedback people have.

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If you could get some sort of pricelist together for pcbs, I'd be interested in those possibly (but I already have a couple good sources for cabs in so-cal).

stuffmonger said:

If you could get some sort of pricelist together for pcbs, I'd be interested in those possibly (but I already have a couple good sources for cabs in so-cal).

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Thanks for your interest, but tbh, I am only really looking to add PCBs to cabs for customers. At this time I do not intend to begin selling/shipping PCBs alone.