My finished cabinet!

[deweyhewson]

I received some help on this board during the process, so I thought I'd share my finished project with everyone. The cabinet is a converted Smash T.V. cab (I made sure all of the components went to a good home of someone restoring his own Smash T.V. cab, so don't bite my head off for this... ) First some stats, then some pictures.

Internals:

Wells-Gardner k7100 series arcade monitor (I had two, one with horrible burn-in, the other with a bad circuit board. Long story short, I swapped circuit boards, and now I have a perfect picture.)
Creative 2.1 sound system, which worked nicely as, along with the very nice speakers, had a little breakout control for the volume/bass which I mounted on top of my coin box for easy access.
Athlon 64 3500 , 1gb DDR system with a special ASUS A8V-X motherboard allowing me to replace the BIOS screen.
Smart Strip to power on computer, marquee, monitor, and speakers at the same time.
iPac 2 and ArcadeVGA boards from Ultimarc
Mag-Stik Plus joysticks, buttons from Ultimarc
Fully functional coin door to complete the authentic experience.
Custom marquee designed by me using artwork I created and vectorized myself. Printed at MameMarquees.

Software:

MameWAH running a custom layout I made myself
Background audio is from the Arcade Ambience Project and plays while in the menu. Movies are silent.
Preview artwork and movies were made by me.
TeamViewer Host running at all times (in the background, and not visible) to allow me to connect to the arcade computer and add/remove/manage games remotely.

Pictures:


The monitor, control panel, and marquee were not finished at this point.


The special button I mounted on top of the cabinet which operates as a power switch.


The Smart Strip.


My custom marquee.


The internals, which I never want to wire again.  


The control panel. I may end up creating some artwork for this at some point, but for now I think it looks good.


The computer I built for this cabinet.


The fully-functioning coin door.


The completed cabinet, powered off.


The front while powered on. Custom MameWAH menu is visible here.

Walkthrough Video:


Enjoy! Just thought I'd share the finished project!  

Thanks a ton to: Andy at Ultimarc for his unceasing support, Scott at MameMarquees, and my father for helping me with the woodwork especially, and my wife, for her infinite patience and support of me pursuing a childhood dream. It wouldn't have come together nearly as well without them.

[smalltownguy]

Awesome stuff. That monitor looks great. How did you do the monitor bezel...or is it original from the Smash TV conversion?

Seeing this makes me torn. I'm trying to decide whether or not I should try and retrofit a 20" rotating LCD in my Rolling Thunder conversion or just pull the trigger on a new build with a 27" TV via S-video.

 

[ragnar]

My first post!  Maybe second ...... 

What does the black button in the upper left of the control panel do?

[deweyhewson]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention, the black button in the upper left of the control panel is for exiting back to the menu while in a game.

I know the iPac is capable of shift functions - and I have a couple set up, including one for F2 to adjust game settings - but I wanted people playing the cab to have a simple, straightforward method for doing it.

Correct, the monitor bezel and glass overlay are original to the cabinet; the bezel held up pretty well, but I needed to repaint the black border on the glass myself, which took 3 or 4 coats.

[Malenko]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention, the black button in the upper left of the control panel is for exiting back to the menu while in a game.

I know the iPac is capable of shift functions - and I have a couple set up, including one for F2 to adjust game settings - but I wanted people playing the cab to have a simple, straightforward method for doing it.

Correct, the monitor bezel and glass overlay are original to the cabinet; the bezel held up pretty well, but I needed to repaint the black border on the glass myself, which took 3 or 4 coats.

dont defend your cab, you built it for what you wanted. You start getting defensive and the ---uvulas--- come out of the woodwork. As for feedback, I like the original marquee better, its just me , I dont like clip art marquees. I'd get som kinda color scheme going with the buttons (red on the left, blue on the right?) and CPO art wouldnt hurt either. If thats your first cab, kudos, looks great

[CheffoJeffo]

dont defend your cab, you built it for what you wanted. You start getting defensive and the ---uvulas--- come out of the woodwork.

Wat ?

* CheffoJeffo scurries back into the woodwork

jk ... looks good (although I would feel better if you tell me that the STV wasn't working).

[tommyinajar]

I like the color combo for the paint and T-molding- I'm really kind of sick of plain old black Mame machines.  If you aren't restoring one, give it a little personality


 How about a Dc / Marvel theme for the CP or artwork if you add some , since it looks like the red and blue of Superman / Spiderman in the pix. Looks nice-

[deweyhewson]

(although I would feel better if you tell me that the STV wasn't working).

As a whole, it *sometimes* would work and *sometimes* not, but the boards themselves and all the individual components were fine so I made sure they went to a good home. Each of the individual components worked (including the monitor, which I'm using now with a replaced circuit board), but together they were, for lack of a better term, "glitchy". Most likely due to it being an older cab which probably hadn't been powered on in a decade. Anyway, considering that, I got the cab for a complete steal ($100) with the full intention of doing this project.

I know that may tick off some absolute purists -   *laugh* - but I tried to make up for it by making sure the original boards went to a good home. (A collector's)

Just to note, I wasn't trying to defend my cab, only explain some things. I don't mind constructive criticism, so no worries there. This was my first cab, and I'm still quite amazed it came together as well as it has. Thanks for putting that out there, though.

As for the buttons, were I to order again I would have bought different colors. I thought these colors would go great together, and they are OK, but all orange on the left and all yellow on the right would probably be what I'd do now.

Thanks for the comments, please keep any thoughts coming!

[garnerb350]

Looks good man...congrats on the build...now get ya some side art and you are good to go!

[painterinfo]

Great cabinet, I like the bulging front design. I recon the inner area around the monitor would look great in a mat black.

[southmonitor]

Excellent job. It looks awsome.

[dmarcum99]

Sorry to bring up a dead thread.  This is awesome work.  I really like your artwork and would love to try it out on my cab.  I flip-flop between hyperspin, mala, and others to see what I like and what I don't.  I've even built my own hyperspin theme but I'm fickle.  I like everything that you did on the software end.

If you could hook me up with the bootscreens and mamewah layout I would be forever in your debt.

[Hituro]

Nice video!  Like the cab!   Really like the joystick setup with the 4-way 8-way stick.  One thing I'll never understand though, why can't women understand our need to have our arcade cabinets out where everyone can see them?   We put up with all their pretty things, why can't we display our stuff!? >:O

[jipp]

i have to second the video.. very well done.. i enjoy the walk through. wish more videos were like that..
anyhow, i think it looks good enough for the living room..

chris.

[orchidius]

Looks very neat!

(maybe this thread should be moved to project announcements?)

[Garza]

Wow  Looks really nice great work! 

[skinz]

I think its awesome - I'm jealous of your front end and your awesome monitor.  Mine works well when in a game but the front end is horrible - I tried Mamewah but I couldn't get it to work - Went back to Mala for now.  The only thing I'd do is get a lock for the coin box - other than that looks like it works jst excellent.  Does the mamewah filter out the windows loading and put up that cool loading screen?  I have some waves in my monitor too - how did you know the board was bad?  For your first cabinet its really great - way better than mine.  GREAT job!   

[Smeghead]

Very nice!
Electrical tape for trim FTMFW!  I used it too haha

[deweyhewson]

Whoa, I didn't realize this thread had been resurrected! Thank you everyone for your compliments. Some quick replies:

@Smeghead: Ha! That's a clever way to do it, but no, it's not electrical tape, but the red trim which was original to the cabinet. It ended up fitting my color scheme nicely, so that was great.

@skinz: I tried about every frontend under the Sun before finally settling on Mamewah, for various reasons. I liked how customizable it was, to avoid my cabinet having a branded look, and how it allows for custom loading screens like the one I created here. It does filter out the loading command prompt window which pops up, which is also nice to give it that seamless look. I knew the board was bad because I ended up buying a second monitor in hopes of using it to replace the first one, but unfortunately the second monitor had really bad burn-in. Logical process of elimination led me to believe it to be a bad board, and fortunately I was right. Side note: degaussing a monitor is not for the faint hearted.

@Hituro and jipp: I also built a home theater this past Summer after completing this project, so this now has a place of honor in that room, and my wife doesn't mind.

Thanks again for the many compliments!

[dmarcum99]

Have you give any additional thought about sharing your artwork/boot screen/Mamewah layout?   

I really like this as it appears as others do too.  I'd love to see how this would look on my XM2950.  I know many other people along with myself would appreciate it if you shared your setup.