I used Weld-On 16 to mount both speakers onto the acrylic panel and then clamped them down... Weld-On 16 dries clear and is some seriously wonderful industrial stuff.
The speaker panel and the monitor overlay acrylic panel are installed. I cut some of the bottom right monitor acrylic panel out so that the monitor controls can be accessed when the arcade controls panel is removed.
Below is my nearly completed arcade controls panel, for now it is just loose fit onto the cabinet, but both joysticks, all sixteen buttons and the Matrix Orbital display are installed.
And a look at the back side - twenty four micro switches still need to be wired up to the BYO controller board, but not far now.
I decided to change up the monitor overlay acrylic panel a bit, the clear center section had to go. My reasoning - first it eliminates the reflection/glare it caused, second it fixes and prevents any existing or future scratches, and third if the screen itself ever needs to be cleaned the whole thing won't have to be torn apart now to do it.
I had to figure out a way to mount the Ipac2 controller to the bottom of the arcade controls panel, below shows what I came up with. I made a board tray out of some scrap aluminum, drilled four holes and implemented the same spacers and board mounting technique that I've used on my last four projects, the whole thing will be attached with Velcro.
The micro switches on the joysticks and bottom of each button have three contact points - a normally closed position, normally open position and a ground. I used the normally open contact and wired each micro switch to its corresponding location on the Ipac2 board.
Next, I piggy backed the ground wire to all of the switches for each player side and wired them to the ground point on the Ipac2 controller board. While I was at it I tidied it all up and then ran the USB cables to the Ipac2 and Matrix Orbital display.
I had to come up with a mounting method for the hard drive. Good old aluminum angle and plastic spacers to the rescue, below shows what I came up with, it's a perfect fit.
I also had to come up with a way to mount the power supply, again I used aluminum angle that was cut, filed and drilled to fit... alum-angle is awesome.
Mounting the mother board... I drilled four holes into the rear alum angle and made standoffs just like the ones I made for the I-pac. With all the hardware installed it's time to fire it up and install WindowsXP, MAME32 and MaLa as the front end
After the operating system and programs were installed it was time to throw it together for a test run. Below shows my 10 year old buddy Brent tearing up some R-type, after playing around twenty or so other games I asked him what he thought and he told me "Every kid should have one of these."... true that.
Hands on testing of my own revealed a design flaw that needed to be addressed, the plexi sheet that the speakers rest on sat flat horizontally so it is hard for an adult to view the upper most parts of the screen while standing and playing. Changing the angle (see below) fixed the problem and also the speaker output is directed a bit more forward now instead of straight down.
The arcade needed a marquee and it only took a couple attempts before I came up with something I liked. Once my design was double checked and finalized I uploaded it to GameOnGrafix.com.
The marquee cost $19.35 shipped, it arrived in three days and looks absolutely fantastic straight out of the tube.
Below shows the marquee LED strip lighting and the white acrylic reflector panel which is held in place by small pieces of Velcro attached to the speakers.
I cut two pieces of acrylic to size and sandwiched the printed marquee graphic between them and temporarily bolted it on. An on/off switch was attached to the power for the LED marquee lighting.
Time for a little two player hands on testing, which called for multiple games of Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo followed by a few rounds of Capcom Vs. Marvel. The result - two out of two kids agreed that my arcade machine rocks.
The silver bolts sticking out all over the sides looked out of place, so I masked off the entire thing and spray painted them all flat black.
I had originally planned on putting side panel artwork onto my arcade, but I like the clean look of it without side art better... for now anyway.