Project: My first cabinet - Mid 90s and before!

[minorhero]

Great work so far, keep it up

Thank you!

Small update:

I have really good weather today, so hopefully I can finish up the cabinet to a point where I can put on the primer. Not too many days left where I can expect above 55 degrees to get the job done outside and I REALLY don't want to make a painting booth inside my garage if I can help it.

To that end I finished up the door (minus actually attaching the hinges and screwing in the coin door). Right now it's all just resting against the cabinet while I took the picture.

I also added a brace for the hinges to attach to the control panel. I am very glad I checked the fit with the drilled control panel first because it  became obvious this piece would need some attention to get everything to fit



I also added the top access hatch and attached some random bits to the edges to hold it in place.



It's hard to make out in the picture, but the angled part of the top removes. It's not held on by anything more then gravity and the bracing you see.

The idea is that there will be 3 access panels to the cabinet. The first is the kickplate at the bottom which is actually a door that will give me access to the computer. The one of the top will give me access to the marque and the speakers. The third and final access location is the bezel/acrylic in front of the monitor. I plan to put handles on the sides and place it in such a way that it will be completely removal. Figuring out the bracing for that, the monitor, and cutting the bezel itself is the last thing to do before priming/painting.

[minorhero]

The build continues! Today was about test fitting the control panel, and figuring out the monitor bracing. I'm glad I tested the control panel with the hinges partly installed, because the resulting 'feel' of the control panel being held up by hinges in the back was absolutely terrible. I will need to come up with a different solution for it, likely screwed down in place. I can still access the underside by sitting in the open space behind the kickplate. I may or may not need to recut the whole control panel to accommodate though.

Meanwhile I came up with a solution for holding the monitor.





It's pretty simple, but it should work once the bezel is installed to keep it from falling forward. I needed to figure out this placement in advance of cutting the bezel since the exact location is kind of important

BUT, with this part done, I can now finally get to painting for the cabinet itself.

[Lexiq]

Very nice (and quick) work! It's great to see your progress .

I'm glad I tested the control panel with the hinges partly installed, because the resulting 'feel' of the control panel being held up by hinges in the back was absolutely terrible.

I think hinges can work if they're combined with some other mechanism for holding the panel in place, but I had similar concerns. I ended up going with a 'lift off' approach where the control box fits snugly over the base and is held in place by gravity and friction. There's zero play, it's relatively easy to remove if necessary and control feel is solid. Our cabinet designs are different though, so this may not be practical, but a variation of it could work.

[Zebidee]

Good, neat work. I like the style of cab, nice curves.

Hinged control panels can be held in place by lock-down clamps.

There are various designs, but they all involve hooking onto the CP from underneath. Once locked down, the clamp is held in place by spring tension, which can only be released by flipping up a lever from below.

I used them in my Aussie lowboy with hinged metal CP. The clamps themselves are rated to 150kg each, which means you could pick up the entire cab by the control panel and the clamps would still hold fast. When clamped down, the CP feels completely rock-solid. A keyed door at front provides the only access to the clamps, meaning the cab is secure from meddling hands.

I've seen these clamps used in a bunch of commercial cabs, with both metal and wooden control panels. Clamps are definitely more convenient than any kind of screw/bolt down method. The main concern I have for your setup is that you would want a keyed door at the front - accessing the clamps by reaching from the back is possible, but not inconvenient. You don't seem to have a front door, and a coin door is probably not going to give you enough freedom to get your hands into the clamps.

FWIW, here is how I did it: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,166352.0.html

[minorhero]

Very nice (and quick) work! It's great to see your progress .

I think hinges can work if they're combined with some other mechanism for holding the panel in place, but I had similar concerns. I ended up going with a 'lift off' approach where the control box fits snugly over the base and is held in place by gravity and friction. There's zero play, it's relatively easy to remove if necessary and control feel is solid. Our cabinet designs are different though, so this may not be practical, but a variation of it could work.

The easiest solution I came up with was just fixing it in place, but I could see how some other options could work. One issue I have is that my control panel is made out of plywood and is only 25 inches x 10 inches so it's pretty lightweight. I would need something it fit into to hold it in place but it would be doable.

Good, neat work. I like the style of cab, nice curves.

Hinged control panels can be held in place by lock-down clamps.

There are various designs, but they all involve hooking onto the CP from underneath. Once locked down, the clamp is held in place by spring tension, which can only be released by flipping up a lever from below.

I used them in my Aussie lowboy with hinged metal CP. The clamps themselves are rated to 150kg each, which means you could pick up the entire cab by the control panel and the clamps would still hold fast. When clamped down, the CP feels completely rock-solid. A keyed door at front provides the only access to the clamps, meaning the cab is secure from meddling hands.

I've seen these clamps used in a bunch of commercial cabs, with both metal and wooden control panels. Clamps are definitely more convenient than any kind of screw/bolt down method. The main concern I have for your setup is that you would want a keyed door at the front - accessing the clamps by reaching from the back is possible, but not inconvenient. You don't seem to have a front door, and a coin door is probably not going to give you enough freedom to get your hands into the clamps.

FWIW, here is how I did it: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,166352.0.html

I love the idea of locking clamps/hold downs. I think that could definitely be the answer here! I searched on amazon and found these for 7 dollars:



I will need to change the underside of the control panel a bit to attach them, but that's pretty easy. I am glad I didn't get to paint the cabinet over the weekend as it would make installation harder.

There is actually no access to my cabinet from the rear. The entire kickplate is actually a door on my cabinet. I have some hinges for it but I might end up installing a frame for the door to rest in so the entire weight of the door is not put constantly on the hinges.

[Zebidee]

I love the idea of locking clamps/hold downs. I think that could definitely be the answer here! I searched on amazon and found these for 7 dollars:



I will need to change the underside of the control panel a bit to attach them, but that's pretty easy. I am glad I didn't get to paint the cabinet over the weekend as it would make installation harder.

Those are very similar to the clamps on my lowboy.

The only issue I had with them, and frankly most/ clamps available, is that the standard latch/hook piece always seems designed to sit the same plane as the main end. I needed mine to sit directly under the control panel, meaning the plane is off by about 90 degrees. After considering many ideas, I decided to fashion a new hooking piece by bending some scrap metal into the right shape (like a C). Then I took it down to the metal shop and got them to weld it on.

Anyway, easy enough to make/modify something if you need to.


 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,166352.msg1753836.html#msg1753836


An extra piece of scrap wood across the cab, just under the control panel, gives the clamps something to be screwed into. Also makes it all sturdier. Top end of this plywood is slightly angled at a single plane, such that the panel sits snugly against it when firmly clamped down.

Just clamping at the sides can work too.

[minorhero]

The only issue I had with them, and frankly most/ clamps available, is that the standard latch/hook piece always seems designed to sit the same plane as the main end. I needed mine to sit directly under the control panel, meaning the plane is off by about 90 degrees.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. I added small block of wood to the inside of my cabinet below the control panel and I will add another piece of wood to the underside of the control panel itself which I will attach the hook end of the latch to. In that way I should be able to install the latches without needing to make a new hook or modify the existing one.

They do sell 90 degree latches, but they were not as good as the ones I got. Mainly because the ones I got can be tensioned after installation which is just too convenient a feature as far as I am concerned.

With that said, a small update and a question.

Yesterday I cut and tested out my bezel. This bezel will remain removable even after the cabinet is done and will thus be my access point for the monitor area.

In order to know how big to cut the bezel I first needed to get my screen to display at a 4:3 ratio. The easiest way to do this is to choose a 4:3 resolution in Windows. My monitor's full screen native resolution is 2560x1440. The highest 4:3 resolution in windows though is 1600x1200. The problem with this resolution is that it's not a native resolution. So everything will be a bit blurry, that kinda sucks. Doing some maths, the ideal resolution for my monitor is 1920x1440. This was not an option in windows though. I tried to make my AMD software do it (since I have an AMD graphics card) but it just wouldn't make it happen in Windows 10. I looked online for a while and eventually found s little application called the Custom Resolution Utility. What this does is allow you to put in your own resolution and then it adds that resolution as an option in Windows. That way windows does it's normal thing without needing another piece of software to load up every time windows starts. Once that was done I finally had a native resolution 4:3 screen display.

From there I measured how big the displayed area really was. About 17 5/8" x 13.5". I put my monitor in place and then marked where the monitor made contact on wood of my bezel with a pencil. Then cut out a hole slightly smaller then the size of the display area where the monitor was positioned. All of this took a bit with lots of checking and double checking etc. But the end result was pretty good. I roughed out the hole with the jig saw and then finished it up with the router and a pattern bit and some wood clamped around the hole to act as my pattern.



And here i the finished result:



Next up, priming and painting.


Now, my question. How do people deal with power to their cabinets? I will have a pc inside, speakers, monitor, and light for the marquee. I figured I would plug everything into a power strip. But that just gets me power. I would then need a separate external button for the pc at a minimum.

Ideally what I would like is to have the cabinet plugged in all the time but powered down, then use a single button to power everything on at the same time. I don't know how to do that though. What I do know how to do is just have a switch that turns on the power strip and a separate button for the pc. Everyone must go through this same process though, so I wanted to check if there is something more clever then my 2 button/switch solution.

[RavenDarkwood]

Hi, minorhero, a little suggestion for the power setup.
In my cabinet I connected everything to the same power strip: when switched on, even the PC gets its power.
The trick is to change a little the configuration of your PC: somewhere, in the power-up options, there's something like "start the PC when power is detected".
Hope this can be useful 

[Zebidee]

Use a "master/slave power strip'. These have a "master" outlet, to which you plug in the PC, and several "slave" outlets, which are only enabled when the master draws power (more than a few milliamps, so standby power alone does not activate the slaves). These cost ~$20 to $80, but cost alone isn't a reliable indicator of quality. Years ago I used to be able to find good search hits with "smart power strip", but nowadays that search just pulls up wifi-enabled power strips. Such is life!

In addition to adjusting power options in Windows, you will probably need to look for power-on behaviour options in the BIOS.

For an actual power button, run a couple of wires from the pair of POWER_SW and GND pins, on the front panel header on the PC's mainboard. Attach a button to the wires. Check the user manual and/or just trace the wires back from the existing power button. You will probably need to solder up some connectors. With some creativity it is possible to run the wires to both the normal PC power button and your new cab power button.

Instead of choosing a 4:3 video mode, you may be better off running the monitor in its natural resolution and just make sure to preserve the aspect ratio in mame options. You can then enable artwork options to fill up the blank space.

[PL1]

Now, my question. How do people deal with power to their cabinets? I will have a pc inside, speakers, monitor, and light for the marquee. I figured I would plug everything into a power strip. But that just gets me power. I would then need a separate external button for the pc at a minimum.

Ideally what I would like is to have the cabinet plugged in all the time but powered down, then use a single button to power everything on at the same time. I don't know how to do that though. What I do know how to do is just have a switch that turns on the power strip and a separate button for the pc. Everyone must go through this same process though, so I wanted to check if there is something more clever then my 2 button/switch solution.

As RavenDarkwood and Zebidee suggested, a "smart strip" is probably what you're looking for -- a quick forum search will pull up numerous examples and more details including a thread on how to make your own.



Plug the PC into the blue "control" outlet on the smart strip and connect a momentary pushbutton to the PC motherboard power switch pins.
- Power is always available on the "control" outlet and on the unswitched red outlets.
- When you press the momentary pushbutton, the PC boots up.
- When the PC boots up, the increased current draw exceeds the threshold for triggering the smart strip so it applies power to the green "switched" outlets on the strip.
-- Some smart strips allow you to adjust the threshold which can prevent unwanted on/off toggling of the "switched" outlets.
- When you push the momentary pushbutton again, the PC performs an orderly shut down.  When the current draw drops below the threshold, the smart strip removes power from the "switched" outlets.

You may also want to use an IEC fused power inlet with a lighted switch.
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/Wiring#IEC_Fused_Power_Inlet_with_a_Lighted_Switch


Scott

[minorhero]

In my cabinet I connected everything to the same power strip: when switched on, even the PC gets its power.

Use a "master/slave power strip'.

As RavenDarkwood and Zebidee suggested, a "smart strip" is probably what you're looking for

This is what I was looking for, thanks guys! I did some searching and since the advent of wifi power strips the term "smart strip" doesn't work as well for searches. Now the term to use is "energy saving" or "Master controlled" power strip. I found a bunch of options but settled on this sunbeam model because it was both the cheapest at 10 dollars and had the best reviews.

The plan then is to have the computer plugged into the master outlet, have an external button hooked up to the computer power button. That way when plugged in nothing should happen until the button is pressed, then everything should turn on. Since the power cord for this strip is so darn small I will need to splice on a much longer cord, but that won't be a problem. 

In other news, yesterday I painted!

I thought I was going to get the priming done with 1 double large can of spray primer. That was definitely not the case. I ended up buying a quart of primer and put it on with a roller.



This worked really well and dried quick enough I could put on the paint in the same day. I ended up buying a quart of black rustoleum satin enamel.



I will need to sand it touch it up likely, but otherwise pretty happy with it. Hopefully I can do the other random parts today.

[minorhero]

In other news, it's time I talked a bit more about artwork.

Wow, is artwork cool nowadays.

So the first thing I thought when I set out to make my artwork is that I'm terrible at drawing and my photoshop skills are rudimentary at best. So my idea was to find a bunch of people who made fanart for my favorite games, use their artwork, convert to vector, and copy and paste them all together in a collage. It didn't go super well and I wasn't too happy with my progress. That is until I started trying to do the same thing with an AI image generator.

Up till this point I had heard of AI Image generation of course, but had not really tried it more then once or twice with some really terrible ones. But for this, I got a bit more indepth.

The basic business model for all of these AI image generators is that you sign up for a free account, and they give a certain number of credits a day. Each of those credits are roughly equal to 1 image generated. Some of the AI image generators will generate more or less images based on options you select such as longer run times, or stricter prompt guidance, etc. You can of course pay them money and get WAY more credits a day/week/month/year (depending on the business model), but I did not want to pay for more when I figured I could get this done for free. And I did get it done, but it took a few weeks using free credits to figure out what the ai is good at and what it's not good at and adjust my design accordingly.

It is not good at making a specific video game character for instance. Want a generic wizard? No trouble. Want to generate Chun-Li? Ehhh probably not. For instance, an early effort of mine was to generate Mario and the teenage mutant ninja turtles playing an arcade machine:



The results are.... weird. That's because the AI doesn't know that we have VERY specific ideas about how a teenage mutant ninja turtle should look or proportions for mario. The AI is instead used to embelishing things and when it's making wizards or cat girls or whatever, that's fine. But when we want something VERY specific, it doesn't do as well. There are ways to make it better using existing images to train the AI, but generally that wasn't available through the free options.

Here is one where I wanted Darth Vader and Mario fighting batman:



For whatever reason it decided to combine mario and batman together..... ya. So not great at this kind of thing.

Over time my design evolved in large part based on what I could easily get out of the AI. Curiously, AI is really bad at text. I really wanted it to have a sign saying "ARCADE" in a cityscape, but it kept throwing letters out of order or making up new words.

Here is one of the better cityscape ones:



But as you can see, it added more signs that were not spelled correctly.

Eventually I settled on more simple designs, but along the way I came up with a bunch of options. Here are some of them:






















Ultimately I have more or less settled on doing a circuit board cyberpunk design for my cabinet. It looks nice and is relatively easy for the AI to generate. I haven't ordered it yet, but I'm 90% sure it will look something like this:



For those interesting in following in my footsteps the AI generators I used are Leonardo.ai nightcafe.studio, and limewire.com

[Zebidee]

Interesting art - and despite it being AI, I see this level of AI art as being more human-generated ... the AI just responds to your prompts.

I see what you mean about AI not getting pop-culture characters right, or out-of-context. That, and Darth's head looks too large in every case. Makes Darth look like one of those head-bobbing kewpi dolls you put on the dash of your car.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed some of the art-deco style stuff, with no actual characters involved (some of the last few you showed). In particular I like this one, looks like it could've been lifted directly from Metropolis





The UFO themed pics, or the electronic PCB pic, would all be great for side-art too, at least for a shmups/shoot-em-up kind of cab.

[minorhero]

On the other hand, I really enjoyed some of the art-deco style stuff, with no actual characters involved (some of the last few you showed).

The UFO themed pics, or the electronic PCB pic, would all be great for side-art too, at least for a shmups/shoot-em-up kind of cab.

Thank you! It's been a bit of an adventure figuring out the artwork. I went through a whole art deco phase before going through a whole spaceship phase. I literally have hundreds of images, many are completely useless because of weird errors/artifacts. Others 'worked' but just ended up not being what I wanted. Here are some of the art deco / spaceship / circuit board stuff.

[minorhero]

Small update:

I primed and painted all surfaces, huzzah! The cabinet got sanded again after painting and I still need to do the same to the doors/panels, plus a little touchup here and there where I sanded through the paint. But otherwise, it's ready for artwork.



Probable artwork mockup:

[Lexiq]

Nice idea using AI generated art, some of those are really beautiful!

What resolution can you get it to generate? You may need to run it through an up-scaler that adds detail for it to work at cabinet size.

[minorhero]

Nice idea using AI generated art, some of those are really beautiful!

What resolution can you get it to generate? You may need to run it through an up-scaler that adds detail for it to work at cabinet size.

Resolution depends a bit on what generator I use. Generally most will make an image of around 600x1500. Some allow you to 'upscale' the image for free others will charge you for the service. Either way I definitely need to convert them to make them work. I also bought a monthly subscription to Adobe Illustrator and then used that to convert the image into a vector image. That's where I am now.

Unfortunately holiday shopping expenses have put a pause on the project. The next step is to get the artwork ordered, but it looks like it's going to cost around 200 dollars to get 2 side panels, a kickplate, a control panel, and a marquee printed.