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Yet Another Slim Cab
devmod:
I have been reading on and off this forum for years and wanting a mame cab ever since.
Since I have recently become self employed, I thought 'Hey why not get started on it now!'
A few things off the bat, I am very impulsive and often make decisions on a rush.
I know this might end up biting me on the a**, but it usually works out fine and ends up saving me tons of time.
So, I have already ordered parts for a 4 player cab, but since then changed my mind about the number of players. Mainly because I want to put this thing in the living room and did not realized how big a comfortable 4 player CP would be.
While I wait for the parts, I am working on a design on SketchUp (First time user) and have a few questions regarding ergonomics and stability.
1.a) Are there any recommended angle to which mount the monitor? I want the bezel to be parallel to the monitor, so I wanna work out this on a design stage rather than adjusting while building.
I will be using a HANNSG 28" Monitor (Widescreen) simply because I don't want to spend on yet another monitor. I see how size / angle take a big part on how deep my cab will be.
1.b) Are there any recommended inclination angle for the CP itself?
2) I want this to be easily portable, so I think I will be doing a two part build.
Base and Top should be somehow connected and locked. (Sort of like when you put a monitor on top of your desk. I have not decided yet whether to extend a long piece of wood from the base to attached the monitor. Or if the monitor will be attached to the top casing. Any ideas regarding this? My major concern here is stability.
3) I have noticed people either make their cp part of the actual cabinet, or they build it independently and then rest it on a base made for it on the actual cab. Any advantages / Disadvantages to doing either one?
4) I wanted to laminate this sucker, but I am having a hard time finding any laminate near me, so I will probably end up painting it. I was wondering a) Where do you guys buy laminate online? b) If I were to paint it, how can I achieve a smooth car-paint like finish on a cab? Could I use cheap plywood and get it smooth out with some sort of putty? If I laminate, can I use cheap plywood? or best results would be using MDF (which I was trying to avoid due to its weight)?
5) I have seen people building wood skeletons for cabs and others just putting pieces of wood along the sides of the cab.
Any comments on this? And how do they put those pieces along the side of the cab? Just glued? nailed and glued?
For the base I was thinking something like this : (Trying to achieve a general Z shape for stability / Very rough draft!)
shateredsoul:
hmm I'm interested to see what you decide,. but it seems like you're cab is going to end up being a lot nicer than mine, but if it helps at all.. for the model I'm building I've seen guys glue it together. My friend helped me come up with another system where we lined the cab with these small pieces of wood that we screwed and glued onto the side panels, the back piece of wood,top piece, and speaker panel will be laid on those pieces and screwed onhttp://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?action=post;msg=1072595;topic=101388.0;sesc=4f6f3c98567e58ca2008b98f8b240df9 The scrweds that will be visible will be screwed from the insides (so the top and piece of wood where the speakers normally go). The angle of the sides is about 15 degrees, but the monitor doesn't necessarily have to be parallel to this line, so I'll be testing out what works best. The issue with my monitor is that it does not have any mounting holes, so we're going to have to build some type of shelf.
1a. Try out what works for you, do you want to play light gun games? This may influence what angle you use.
1b. depends on the size you built it on
2. If you use screws instead of glue, this might be easier to do.. don't have much more advice for htis
3. again, if you want it to be portable I would recommend making them separate, there's several ways to securely attach it to your cab
devmod:
thanks for the tips!
I received all the missing pieces to the puzzle! Today/Tomorrow I am gonna try to finalize and decide on a design and then start building.
I did all the design on sketch up and all looked good then just for kicks I cut the profile in paper in real size and realized that I had a few ergonomic problems... The top was way too low and I would be constantly banging my head against it, the area i had reserved for the screen is too big and there is a lot of room above it (widescreen monitor)...
Also, I realized that the monitor would be quite up there and that might cause some stability issues.
I made a quick control mockup and realized that one of the joystick was in the way of the 4-way player buttons.
So, the lesson of the day for me? 3D might look perfect on the screen but it might not be so much in reality...
JustMichael:
What is the red ball joystick for?
devmod:
--- Quote from: JustMichael on June 30, 2010, 05:57:45 pm ---What is the red ball joystick for?
--- End quote ---
Just a 4-way for pacman and the like... not sure if it is worth the space yet tho...