Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life
I am a big kid. I like to play and build stuff. I grew up in the arcade era of the 70's-80's and flicked countless quarters into arcade games for a good bit of my youth. In 2012, I found that most of those old games were playable on my pc using MAME. However, I quickly realized that I wasn't happy with just playing the games... it needed to feel like the arcade game when I played them. That is when I knew what I had to do.
2012 - I patched together my first arcade machine out of a redemption machine, an X-Arcade Tankstick, a pc and MAME. It was fun, but it visually lacked the refinement of a real arcade machine. Over the next couple of years, I rehab'd countless original arcade cabinets, selling most to pay for the few I wanted to keep for myself.
Being a software developer, the software and electronics side of arcade machines came easy to me, but I relied heavily on finding a cabinet in relatively good shape in order to do anything. Obtaining original cabinets without all of the potentially dangerous problems of mold, rot, and rodent feces is quite a chore(and a costly one at that). After a while, (like most of you) I did not have room for all my hobbies and I needed to cut back. It was about this time I began looking into building a tabletop arcade cabinet.
2014 - I eventually found a local CNC shop that would cut my 1st prototype. The cabinet came out great despite its shortcomings, but the CNC shop was unable to reset to cut a single cabinet for me anymore. Back to the drawing board.
2015 - In May I purchased an X-Carve CNC, and (after making one for myself) began producing the LVL19 standard arcade cabinet kits (19" monitors) almost immediately.
2016 - In the fall I released the larger and heavier Clasica cabinet kit.
2017 - After numerous requests for a custom larger cabinet, I released the LVL23 arcade cabinet kit(up to 23" monitor).
2018 - We formed LEP1 Customs, LLC and began doing business in Raleigh, MS. Up until 2018, I relied on my trusty 1000mm X-Carve, and was limited to making smaller kits. In January 2018, we built a full-size(4'x8') CNC Machine so that we can cut out just about anything. 2018 also saw the introduction of a new line of larger uprights and bartop cabinets.
2019 - We began creating artwork for our arcade cabinet kits. Along with the new artwork, we released even larger upright cabinets, and began selling arcade pedestals as well. In the summer, we added a second CNC to keep up with demand.
2020 - We released our largest cabinets yet, and (for the first time) offer 4 player bartops, uprights, and pedestals. We began new relationships with better vendors for materials, shipping goods, and hardware. Andrea joined the team and has gotten us ready for the holiday season. We are relocating to a new facility in Hattiesburg, MS to expand our operations and to improve our supply chain and shipping.
2021 - We completed our new facility and moved operations to Hattiesburg, MS. This has greatly changed our supply chain and we have been able to weather the pandemic and supply chain shortages without running out of material. We began offering a number of new variations and support for Ultimarc Tackballs. We began work on a number of new kits to be released in the near future.
2022 - We launched a couple of new pedestals, and added drop-in support for the tanksticks on select kits. We heard you and released an deeper updated version of our popular 4PAP 4 Player Pedestal Kit to include a trackball option. We also have a new pedestal for golf fans, the GTAP. We now have an upright kit for vertical-only games, the LVL23V. As of 10/6/2022, we launched a new assembly guide that we think most everyone will like better than the old one. Kristen joined the team as our new operations manager and handled all of our 3D modelling, updated our shipping area, and is largely responsible for the new assembly guide.
2023 - We released our first 1:12 scale customizable dollhouse kit and a Pixelcade version of our LVL32 cabinets.
2024 - We have acrylic marquees and control panels available separately for all of our cabinet kits. We finalized our second customizable dollhouse kit, this time in 1:6 "fashion" (Barbie) scale.
Our new CNC is here and we are working to get it online to be able to pump out more awesome stuff for you guys. We also are in the process of updating our print shop with new a printer, laminator and cutter.
I love being able to share my kits with people so they can play the arcade games the way they were meant to be played...in an arcade machine.
