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My 21st Century 4 player Showcase Cabintet! --UPDATED PICS AT BOTTOM
JRoz:
Hey Guys, so I built my first 4 player arcade machine about 2 months ago and I need some advice on the cosmetic side of the machine. I live in New York City so keep in mind that my space is limited! Due to the lack of space, I decided to go with a unique approach, a sorta modern showcase cabinet I like to call it. I haven't really seen anything like this but I really like the podium look. I decided to go with a Slik-Stik Quad Panel that I got at a pretty good price. The podium I bought cost me roughly 50 bucks thanks to a dude that was planning on trashing an old Showcase cabinet. He sold me the whole thing for 50 bucks which was white and all scratched and beaten up. I didn't keep the monitor piece of the showcase and just took the podium instead. I bought some of that nice black vinyl which works great! Literally no bubbles on the podium and it goes on nice and thick! The next step was creating my screen. I went with an LCD (yea I know you guys probably don't like that part) but I went ahead and cut a nice thin MDF faceplate around the LCD to keep that original arcade 4:3 ratio. Its a 32" screen which is roughly 26". If I could do it over again I think I would have went with a 37" but I got the tv for such a good deal that its fine for now. One thing I regret not doing is carving out an area on top of the faceplate for my marquee. Now I am stuck using a glass picture frame that is currently ducktaped to the top of the monitor which literally falls off all the time lol. The last thing I did was to buy a wire hider kit from home depot to hide all the cables from the monitor to podium. I covered it in the same black vinyl as the podium and faceplate to keep it consistent. My PC is actually sitting on a slant inside the podium and it actually has a large vent in the back(bottom) of the podium where i am able to vent it. I have a AC powered fan that sits in the podium to keep everything nice and cooled, and is all connected to a ac adapter on the outside that sits behind the podium. I have one of those AC adapters units that all off of one main feed. The pc is in the main socket, so once I turn on/off the pc..everything else turns on or off. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism or comments/suggestions on my first arcade, but would really like some help on the following 3 questions:
1. I do not currently have the LCD hooked up to the ac power supply adapter and for now have just been turning it on/off from the side panel.. my question is, is it safe to plug it into this power unit unit? I notice that it cuts all the power to the accessories that are plugged in when my PC turns off..and its basically the same thing as pulling the plug out of the wall. Is it safe to do this with the LCD?
2. The marquee is not really working out for me. I bought one of these 5 buck picture frames with the glass cover and just put the marquee behind it. The problem is I have nothing to mount it to the top of the screen...so after awhile the duct tape just gets warm and melted from the heat of the LCD and it eventually falls off the top of my monitor (yea its fallen 3 times now and has shattered the glass 3 times..when do I learn??). One suggestion by my girlfriend was to just mount the damn marquee/picture on the wall and have it just hang over the arcade unattached.. but I'd like to have it all together and "attached" looking. Any ideas? I was thinking some type of L brackets may work ..but how could I fasten it to the top of my LCD? Gorilla glue? lol.
3. This definitely needs to be fixed- The wire hider (middle section of my arcade) is somewhat ugly The base of the podium, the 4 player controller, and the screen are all wide and bulky..and I have this little skinny section to "connect" the two together. I really would like to build or put something in between the two and thought I'd maybe just get a plank of wood that is two feet wide or so and wrap it with the black vinyl. The problem is..I don't have the room to cut or build something like this so I was wondering if you could all suggest something?
Other then that is been alot of fun putting it together and I give alot of credit to all of you guys and your ideas..now I need to perfect my front end and get all of my games going!
I will have more pictures on tonight but only had time to take a quick shot before I went to work today....
JRoz:
I just realized after looking at everyone's custom handbuilt arcade machines..mine looks pretty ghetto. I have 0 wood working skills..maybe i should have kept the showcase monitor cabinet piece :banghead:
SNAAKE:
stop stealing my artworkz yo :laugh2:
that looks ok. we've seen far worse around here before. whatever works for you. you dont even need woodworking skill to have a nice cabinet. you can just buy those mameroom kit anyway.
JRoz:
I think one of your clients may have sent me it..and I got it printed from mamemarquee :lol . Anyways, as far as buying a mameroom kit..I wanted to keep my podium and faceplate..I just want to build out the connecting or middle piece to it now. I think once I fill in that area it will look better.
mwong168:
This might sound like a bit of work and I am not sure if you plan on moving this anywhere in your place but if I was to go with the route of having a wall mounted LCD/Plasma and a control panel podium I would fish wires and use a wall plate like this:
This way you don't need to have the wire hider kit for just one wire I am assuming, HDMI, which takes care of picture and sound via TV speakers. This way if you need remove the podium you can easily do it without leaving any wires dangling or hook up other devices to it such as a bluray player? The other alternative is to build the rest of the showcase cabinet :laugh: This will solve this wiring hiding and marquee issue.
As for the front end, you are on a good start so far with Maximus Arcade. Now just find the images for the marquee, game stills or even 30 second video previews so it looks like this:
Another front end that is really nice as well is Hyperspin, download a few of the MAME themes for some of your favorite games and give it a shot. It is free to a certain degree, all they as for is a small donation to download all their themes and art packs or else if you don't mind waiting 3 minutes between each theme. I have over 300 roms and that would take me forever to download so I just paid for gold membership. Either way Maximus and Hyperspin were both money well spent in my opinion since it enhances all my projects so much and when friends come over they just :notworthy:
If you have any questions regarding either front ends feel free to drop me a message. Hopefully this summer I will finish up my showcase cause it current sits like this:
Now I know why everyone says work on the control panel last cause one you get it 100% functionally you sort of put off completing the rest of the cabinet and move on to other projects. Good luck and post more detailed pics when you get a chance.