John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

I have a few questions and was hoping this is the right location to post my question. All through college I played darts on the Arachnid Galaxy II and loved that machine. I want to get my own dartboard and wouldn’t mind just getting a cricketmaster, but I found on a website yesterday a person selling all the guts to an Arachnid Galaxy I. Basically everything in the kit is included except the main cabinet and a monitor. So my questions are as follows:
 
-          What type of connection do the Galaxy I boards have for monitors? I have a spare LCD monitor laying around that has both RCA connection and Serial. Would this work with the Galaxy board?
-          Is it advisable to build my own box for the game? The package for sale comes with all the stickers, main pc board, actual dartboard, the numbers ring, and everything else you’d find on a Galaxy I board minus the box and screen.
 
My thoughts are to build the dartboard a new cabinet and use one of my old LCD screens. Another option was to build this directly into my wall in a location I see fit, and hang the monitor off set. Here’s a complete list as listed on the listing of included parts: Complete Dart Head, Matrix and Web, CPU Board and all wiring harnesses, Power supply, card reader, graphics set, manuals.
 
What are your thoughts on this? Think it’s possible? I’ve seen somewhere where the CPU board accepts a standard RCA cable but I can’t find it for sure. He also listed that this kit best fits a 6000-6300 series.

From what I remember (please correct me someone if i am wrong) The Monitor is BW and supports composite which should work with your LCD, I'll do more research on that. Cabinets are not that cheap to build, Sheets of MDF (kind of crap stuff) is around $30-40 a sheet and you are going to probably use a sheet and a half plus misc wood. It really depends on how much the kit costs + $100ish for the cab. Take a good look at that and then consider that you can find a working arachnid or markdarts for $300. I have seen them as low as $75.

Well this is not just a board, it's the guts to an actual machine as you'd see in an arcade. I have a ton of scrap OSB laying around that I will use to fab up a cabinet. I haven't seen any full size working cabinets for less than $1000 anywhere. The person selling the guts is asking $250. It's on a bidding site, so his buy in now price is $450, but I'm hoping to get it for $250. I have wood, paint, screws. So for $250, I could have a full size arcade dartboard. My one concern is the arachnid pc board is made for a b/w monitor. Would hooking up a color lcd be any different? I also need a 100% confirmation that the board does accept a composite cable. The monitors are VERY hard to find, especially one that actually works. One thing I guess I also don't know, is if it does accept composite cable, if the screen resolution will auto adjust to the monitor I have.

I've looked at just getting one of the arachnid cricketmaster boards, and building a cabinet for that, but I think having the screen is kinda a perk of a arcade style board.

http://home.comcast.net/~mtpacifico/_kenskorner/files/Arachnid%20Galaxy%20Manual.pdf

Monitor is indeed composite. I believe you will be fine with plugging in a LCD but if not, it won't hurt anything. At worst you will have to buy a converter board.

Cool, thanks, I just saw the same link a bit ago from a search. I'm pretty new to this, but as a mechanical engineer, I'm a glorified do it yourselfer. I'm pretty handy when it comes to building things, retro-fitting, etc. However, my electrical work and programming work is sub-par. If the male plug matches the female plug, I can figure that out. If it takes anything else, It's usually to the forums I go. Thanks again!

I dunno... I'd probably try to find a complete game rather than go through all of that. The dartboard's are fairly common.

They're common but they're also expensive as crap. For a "used" galaxy I, I can get one for around $600. Used meaning everything has been in service for some time, the matrix has stuck darts in them or sensors worn out. For about $300, I can get all brand new parts, custom build a cabinet with spare wood, stain, paint laying around the house in a weekend. If I had the money, I'd be just buying a new one like you suggest, but if I can build my own for a fraction of the cost with new parts, I'd rather go that route.

Where are you located? ALso, don't be araid of shipping, if you can find a game on ebay for like 1-200, shipping can be less than 250.

I live in Southwest Michigan. The kit I'm looking at is around $300 and shipping is $65 which I can deal with. It'll be a big heavy box full of parts. I have amazon prime and could just get something like the cricketmaster and get free shipping, but again, I'm up for the challange of a homemade setup that will end up looking like a professional arcade board, at a fraction of the cost.

I bought two Arachnid Super Six Plus Two dart boards for $50. :) They can be had cheap. They were both dead. I combined them and made the best one I could. The matrix had issues and the power supply was dead when I got it. But it's all fixed now and it was totally worth the effort.

I looked up that cab, it is a very strange cab. looks duramold. Would be interesting to see what you come up with.

Here:

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/spo/4326390991.html

http://detroit.craigslist.org/okl/for/4276458090.html

http://columbus.craigslist.org/spo/4328606512.html

The only things that MUST be mounted to the cab are the matrix. Other than that, I could mount the buttons, coinslot, screen anywhere.

Thanks again for sending those links. I've shopped all over craigslist within 400 miles of me. I'm finding used machines like you found for around the same prices. My experience with these boards, is if I got a used one, need a new matrix, monitor, etc, I'd be ending up with spending around $800+. If I built the box myself, with brand new guts, I'm spending around $300-$400 for brand new equipment. That means new matrix, new pcb, new wires, new monitor, everything, in a nice custom cabinet.

The matrix is a very simple design. Take them apart and clean them. That's what I did.

Dang you people. Now you have me shopping for a used one. It looks so much easier to just buy one ready to go. Thanks again. We'll see what I can come up with.