X-Cades

06/04/2024

Prepping for new edging today on the Supreme cab as demonstrated by the man himself. Mr April 🤣

04/11/2023

A day of graft done on our new (to us) Supreme cabinet, ripping out old brittle edging ahead of installing new and fitting a nice fully recapped CRT to enjoy X-men vs Street Fighter looking the best it can 👌

31/10/2023

Throwback to finishing the Rick and Morty PC powered bar top arcade machine!

Happy Halloween 🎃

21/10/2023

Few new games tested in our cabs today, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Super Street Fighter 2, Tetris and Neo Geo's Art of Fighting. All looking amazing on our arcade CRT's! 🕹️🕹️

16/10/2023

It was the turn of the CPS2's to be operated on this weekend. More specifically Super Street Fighter 2 and X-Men vs Street Fighter. No longer do we live in fear of the batteries from 1993/6 leaking and taking out the boards. We did our research and installed modern Lithium replacements to keep things sweet for another decade at least.

These boards are too valuable to let a battery ruin them. There are bypass security chips but these are super rare with only so many made over the years.

Whilst there decided to swap out the noisy stock fans for a pair of Sunon fans recommended to us. They no longer sound like a jet engine but still enough flow to keep things cool.

Enough tinkering for now, it's time to actually use these things 🕹️🕹️

14/10/2023

Our first Neo Geo game 🙌

10/08/2023

Tetris restored with it's new high score chip 👌 Don't ever remember it on arcade machines back in the day. It's much harder than the Gameboy port I absolutely hammered in the 90's! 🕹️🕹️

17/07/2023

Bit of repair work done over the weekend on our Mortal Kombat board.

Back to running perfectly and gave me a chance to play with our latest toy - the supergun! 😂 Great for working on boards at home and enables us to play them on home TV 🕹️🕹️

25/06/2023

Not arcade related but cool nevertheless...

New tech for old tech, the Fenrir Duo for the Sega Saturn.

This device replaces the old worn out disc drive with an SD card slot, just copy your backups to an SD card and they are all listed on booting the console.

I went with a 3D printed SD extension and cover plate to replace the drive laser mechanism, this saves leaving a gaping hole on opening the lid and enables the SD card to be removed to add/remove games.

Check it out 👌

20/06/2023

Latest addition to the collection, original arcade game Tetris, 1989. Gently cleaned this one up and need to replace a missing chip.

On researching, we found the missing chip is in fact the high scores. Someone refused to be beaten! 🕹️🕹️

19/06/2023

With plenty to be done on our machines, work has begun on our biggest one yet, the legendary Mortal Kombat!

All working as it should but plenty of work to be done to bring it back to former glory, first thing to address - CRT displaying wrong colours...

Pulled the Chassis and gave it a good clean up ahead of diagnosing its issues. She was so dirty!! Ooh err.

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07/05/2023

Exciting times for X-cades, new addition to the collection - the one and only Mortal Kombat! Original Jamma PCB along with Bootleg PCB.

The machine requires some TLC both technically and cosmetically but we're going to enjoy straightening this one out. Toasty!

01/10/2022

Great day out today visiting Play Expo Blackpool, great atmosphere and plenty of arcades and consoles to play on 🕹️🕹️

01/10/2022

24/09/2022

On the bench today is one of our favourite retro consoles, the Nintendo GameCube!

This new mod enables the console to be used normally or with the push of a button, boot into Swiss homebrew software and access your library of backed up games thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico - a programmable microcontroller. This paired up with a 128gb Sandisk Ultra micro SD card makes for an awesome machine.

*Mod only available on early models DOL001 & DOL101

11/09/2022

Time for a 🍺

11/09/2022

Bit of time spent today repairing our Hantarex Polo CRT Chassis. Swapped out the flyback from a donor board, fingers crossed this solves the arching issue.

Gave it a bath whilst i was at it 🫧🫧

Oh she's looking good!

24/07/2022

Successful workshop day today, we picked up a faulty Final Fight CPS1 Jamma and with a bit of tinkering soon had it up and running. Used our Street Fighter 2 cabinet to test it out and obviously had to complete it! 🕹️🕹️

24/01/2022

After a long break, X-Cades have big plans for 2022! 🙌

The collection of rare PCB's is coming together as is the restoration of our cabs.

Until then, there's some retro gaming to be had 🕹️ big up the CRT, the only way to play!

22/12/2021

Merry Christmas followers ❤️

07/12/2021

Although we venture more into original Jammas and cabinets these days, we still have a lot of love for the Raspberry Pi, there's been a few additions since the Pi 3b but this runs everything we need it to.

This has an Arcade Forge add-on to output to RGB Scart on a CRT TV at 15khz and looks amazing 😍

Capable of playing all the retro arcade classics, along with consoles from 8 bit to 32bit it's an awesome bit of kit.

It's been replaced in one of our Bartop arcades with a Pandora's Box 3D, so it's time to enjoy it back on the CRT at home 👌🕹️🕹️

04/12/2021

03/12/2021

Hand painted pixel artwork looking awesome on the SF2 cabinet by our in house artist; man like Joe! 🤣👌

02/12/2021

Our latest Jamma edition, Capcom play system 2 console coupled with Street Fighter 2 Turbo!

Anyone who knows their arcades will know this is an awesome piece of history, we're like kids at Xmas 😊🕹️🕹️🕹️

14/09/2021

Because why not... 👌

24/08/2021

The old tired and damaged cabinet has been brought to life and looking brand new, a blank canvas for our in house artist that will no doubt have me in awe of his work once again 🎨👌

24/08/2021

Steady progress to our Street Fighter 2 CE arcade is happening.

This machine has lived it's life with 3 buttons only, meaning no kicks.

After careful measuring and drilling we've managed to replicate the row of buttons 👌

Time to design a vinyl to finish off the panel 🕹️🕹️

26/07/2021

Restoration of a CRT for our 'Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition' Arcade has started tonight.

First job is to fill in some deep scratches with UV activated resin. Perfect weather for it 🌞

10/07/2021

Here at X-Cades, we enjoy getting the most out of emulation to bring the best quality image and gameplay to you...

However, we are in awe of this 1992 Capcom original 'Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition' Jamma board. Super rare and going to be a pleasure to work with.

Work is underway to restore a cabinet to house this including a coin mechanism & original CRT arcade monitor.

Watch this space...

01/07/2021

Officially started in the new X-Cades Workshop tonight.

Starting off with mods to a ###x in 1 Jamma board, very old tech but room for upgrades, works well with an arcade CRT 📺