Nova Blast Candy Cab - U2

The shipping took a little longer than stated on the website. It came in 2 boxes, from 2 different carriers. The "UPS" tracking numbers provided were not helpful since a) one was actually FedEx (I didn't realize until after the fact) and 2) the other would not update. I was able to sort this out by emailing customer support, and as it turned out they just delayed it a bit to apparently check over it. I just wish this was communicated to me in advance.

The box for the base was fine, but there was a ding in one of the panels, and another panel's rails intended to hold another panel in place had been majorly bent in 2 places. The ding was minor enough to ignore, and the rails I carefully bent back into position. This caused some damage to the paint, but since it was going to be on the inside, I didn't worry too much.

The box for the bartop finally came and had duct tape resealing the box (which had some wear), and on the styrofoam inserts inside, which had been broken in some places. Thankfully, the product itself was completely undamaged.

The instructions provided were very poor. They were simply not explicit enough regarding the orientation of panels, or what screw type is which.

My main gripe is with the wiring. There is absolutely no information on how to connect the various internals in the provided instructions. Luckily, I knew enough about electronics and such to poke around inside and figure out what goes where. Some of it was a little confusing though, such as the audio connections to the volume knob and monitor. The most problematic issue was regarding the marquee, fan, and speakers. Upon first assembly, none of the 3 above components worked. I noticed the fans pulsed, and I read a small voltage going from the PSU to them and the other components. After much troubleshooting, it turned out that the pair of wires between the LED driver board and power supply output wire were assembled incorrectly into one of the connectors, as they were swapped and therefore providing -12V to the LED driver board instead of +12V. To fix this, I disassembled the pins from the erronous connector and reassembled them correctly. Second, I found that the start and coin buttons for P2 were wired into each others' pins on the large connector at the board. I swapped the quick connects at the buttons as a quick fix.

After sorting through all those issues however, the end product is great. The look and feel of the unit is awesome, and my friends enjoy crowding around it to play, despite its smaller size. I don't think it's durable enough for commercial use as the metal is of a thickness more like a filing cabinet, but it is well suited for home use. It makes a great companion to my MiSTer FPGA setup. Just know that it is not for the faint of heart when it comes to putting this thing together!

Beautiful piece of kit when assembled. Main issues are: 1- bent pieces on the floor base unit / pedestal (despite updated and improved packaging).

2- USB encoders will not allow 2 players to function properly. This after updating firmware, trying the Wingman XB2 (as recommended by Unico) and multiple Operating Systems (Windows 10 & 11, Steam OS, Batocera) and Platforms (PS4 and PS5). To get two players working you have to delete the provided USB encoders and the related cables and install your own PCBs and cables, like you would if you were building a two-player fight stick/control board.

3- Build instructions only contain the bare minimum for the cabinet build absolutely zero for the electronics build. If you've ever built a fight stick you'll know what you're looking at but any newcomers to arcade electronics will be lost.

Unico (Facebook site) points you to YouTube setup/build guides, but they are all created by random influencers and are of varying quality/helpfullness and are still missing information. NONE of them address the USB encoder problem related to having two players working properly.

one more !
very good♡

Great product for the arcade enthusiasts. Perfect for Jamma pcb collectors. Built to last. Only issue is Unico needs to include a proper user manual with the assembly instructions.