Moon Patrol scratch build - 100% complete

[elvis]

tl;dr - complete build image



Build log:

Building this as a surprise gift for a friend.  It was his favourite game growing up as a kid.  He's been a hugely motivating force in my life over the last 3 years, and this is a small token of my thanks.

I've been at this a couple of months.  With three kids and a very demanding job, I only have a couple of hours a week to put towards this.

Plans are based on Jakobud's.  Using MDF because it's cheap, and sealing it early on to avoid swelling.  An old CRT TV will be de-cased and used as a monitor.













Raspberry Pi will be driving the system.  It'll play Moon Patrol of course, but also a handful of 4 way games from that era.



Main shell upright and assembled:



Putting on the base and wheels:







Dummy bezel art printed out to figure out the placement of the monitor:





Building the monitor frame:



Bought some original marquees off a local arcade forum.  This cabinet will sport an original print Moon Patrol marquee!



Control panel getting built:













De-cased the television, and installed it in its new frame:



Building the bracket to slide the monitor frame into:











Painting time:



In order to save a bit of cash, this steel access door will be cut up and turned into a coin door:





Blue coat down on the sides:





After the first coat, a bug decided to land in the wet paint.  Hence the dot in this photo.  It's since been fixed.



Artwork was printed at a local OfficeWorks.  They were kind enough to print it on a single A0 sheet, cut to colour and laminate it for me.  $33 for the print, $22 for the laminate, $55 total.  The quality was pretty nice considering the very low price.



A friend of mine was previously a sign-writer.  I asked him for some advice on doing the side art (the $70 people are asking for online is insane for $5 worth of stencil wrap).  After telling him the story, he got very excited, and offered to cut the stencils for me for the cost of materials only! 





An old USB gamepad gets hacked up and soldered to as the control input:



Joystick and buttons purchased, to be connected to the control panel shortly.



Artwork goes down on the control panel:



More later!

[menace]

Nice job so far!    This cabinet has always been on "would love to own or build" list

I am mad that I don't have friends that build me arcade cabinets when I do nice things for them though ...

[markc74]

Looking very nice chap. Moon patrol was one of my favourite cab shapes and I used it for the basis of mine. Yours is looking pretty dead on too. Especially with the side art. 

[Le Chuck]

What a great build, good thread too!  Looking forward to the next update!

[DaOld Man]

I agree with the above comments, nice job so far.
Looking forward to seeing how that coin door turns out.

[adder]

hey nice work and good on you for doing that for your friend
so that raspberry pi thing, does that output composite video it looks like?
i expect u will be running an interlace mode then? eg. 640x480, through the scart socket of the tv.
actually might that be a problem with moon patrol, as that game in mame runs around 56.7 hz but the raspberry pi might output a 640x480 resolution set at 60hz, so you might end up with the game not running (scrolling) smoothly like it should.
ive not used those raspberry pi things though so im no expert, .. something to consider/look into perhaps anyway

[elvis]

so that raspberry pi thing, does that output composite video it looks like?
i expect u will be running an interlace mode then? eg. 640x480, through the scart socket of the tv.
actually might that be a problem with moon patrol, as that game in mame runs around 56.7 hz but the raspberry pi might output a 640x480 resolution set at 60hz, so you might end up with the game not running (scrolling) smoothly like it should.

Yup, just composite out.  NTSC 480i out of the RPi to the TV, running AdvanceMAME which will probably scale everything to 60Hz (or lots of triple buffering / vsync).

While I'm keen to do the best job I possibly can, budget constraints are big on this one.  The goal is to spend as little as possible but still deliver something fairly decent.

Compromises include:
* 480i out of the Raspberry Pi over composite (would have preferred a Linux PC with RGB and real modelines, or better yet a real PCB)
* Access panel hacked into coin door (would have preferred a real coin door)
* Printed + laminated artwork (would have preferred vinyl CPO and screen-printed bezel)

A big part of the problem is I live in Australia, and there's a lot of these items that I can only get from the US.  Shipping from the US is insane (I don't know why - shipping from countries geographically further away is cheaper), and it's particularly bad on heavy items.

Hopefully it will all come together though, and pass as an acceptable substitute when it's all finished and done. 

[adder]

cool i was going to suggest that, to use advancemame or something which allows the games to run at 60hz but without losing that arcade smoothness we all love 
ive noticed that some tvs handle interlace better than others ie. the later crt tv's dont flicker as much when running interlace modes as opposed to older tv's, so if u have too much flicker with your tv try to get a later generation crt eg. one with quite a flat screen

[elvis]

I initially tried using MAME4ALL (RPi port), but was getting inconsistent image scaling.  Vertical games scaled well (puckman, dkong, etc), but horizontal games would add pillarbox boarders down the sides, squashing the game.  Using the various overscan/underscan options for the RPi didn't fix the problem either.

AdvanceMAME is much slower (it couldn't play titles like Puzzle Bobble at full speed, whereas MAME4ALL could), but it gets the image scaling right.  It means I've had to sacrifice a few games off the list that this cabinet will be capable of playing, but that's OK.  Moon Patrol playing well is the main concern, of course.  Anything else is a bonus.

The controls are being configured as 4-way, so that will be the limit of the titles played. 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Subscribed!  You need to let us know the total cost of the build at the end too.  Looks like you are doing extremely well for being on a budget.  Looks PRO!

Great job so far!

As for the coin door, what exactly will you be doing for that?  I modded a Stern coin door, removed the mechs and drilled holes big enough to install GroovyGameGear's Credit pushbuttons.  I will be posted how I did it soon.  But your door is perfect for it.  Let me know if you need the Templates I created in Photoshop to make the coin door graphics horizontal.



DeLuSioNaL29

[elvis]

You need to let us know the total cost of the build at the end too.  Looks like you are doing extremely well for being on a budget.

Cheers.  I'll ask the wife (professional book keeper) to dig out all the costs for me.

As for the coin door, what exactly will you be doing for that?

I've cut a hole in it, and there'll be an all-metal mechanical coin mech going in.   Nothing terribly fancy.

[elvis]

Peeled off the first stencil tonight.  There's a fair few bits of bleed around the place (can't see them in the photos, but they're very obvious up close).  Pretty sure I went too thick on one of the coats, and at the same time had a bit of turps left on the roller from a previous coat.

I'll wait for the yellow to go down, and then touch up the bad bits by hand.

[AzureKnight]

I think that looks great.  Nice work! 

[talkgeek]

Looking excellent!!     has given me the bug to get back on to mine

looking forward to the next updates

[Vigo]

Not a moon patrol fan, but I know quality work when I see it! Great work and attention to detail. 

[yotsuya]

Not a moon patrol fan

[Vigo]

In the town where I grew up, there weren't any moon patrols in the wild. It's a hard one to appreciate after the fact.

[elvis]

Sadly, I've never played an original Moon Patrol.  I first saw it on Commodore 64 way back when, and then only on MAME many years later.  Growing up in a small country town, I only ever played arcades when we visited larger cities.  For me, arcades hold a huge nostalgia of holidays, travel, and special occasions.

I'm madly in love with stencil art, however.  This cabinet has been a pure joy to work on the whole time.  While the cabinet will ultimately be given away as a gift, just the fun of building it and doing the stencil art has been enough for me.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Keep up the good work.  Looks great!

D

[nitrogen_widget]

I initially tried using MAME4ALL (RPi port), but was getting inconsistent image scaling.  Vertical games scaled well (puckman, dkong, etc), but horizontal games would add pillarbox boarders down the sides, squashing the game.  Using the various overscan/underscan options for the RPi didn't fix the problem either.

AdvanceMAME is much slower (it couldn't play titles like Puzzle Bobble at full speed, whereas MAME4ALL could), but it gets the image scaling right.  It means I've had to sacrifice a few games off the list that this cabinet will be capable of playing, but that's OK.  Moon Patrol playing well is the main concern, of course.  Anything else is a bonus.

The controls are being configured as 4-way, so that will be the limit of the titles played.

I found the same thing with mame4all pi with an LCD panel using an HDMI to dvi adaptor.
Could not get the majority of games to fill the screen.
The ones that wouldn't always left between half an inch to an inch of black border on one axis or the other.
I suppose with some tinted glass over the screen you'd never notice.

[opt2not]

Excellent work so far.

Just wondering if you can explain the process of getting from this:


To this:

[yamatetsu]

Control panel box painted black + laminated CPO glued onto it ?

[opt2not]

    Compare the two images. Does that look like a simple paint and stick operation? 

What did he do about the edge of the top panel, right before the round-over corner piece?  The laminate printing doesn't look that thick that it would hide that ridge. So either he sanded down and bondo/wood filled the crevice, then directly applied the artwork to the surface after painting it black, or there is a heat-bent piece of plexi/lexan over top sandwiching the artwork between the plexi and wood (which is what I'm assuming he did).

But I'd like to see the OP's process.

[yamatetsu]

Well, it's obvious that the box had to be sanded down. I didn't see the pic of the CPO and just assumed that it is thick enough to be glued directly to the box     

[Automark]

wow that alryeady looks great

But I hope that getto style coin door wont ruin the result.
Cant you find something el cheapo on the ebays?

[elvis]

Quick photo update.  I'll answer questions and PMs tomorrow.

[elvis]

But I hope that getto style coin door wont ruin the result.
Cant you find something el cheapo on the ebays?

Not in Australia.  I'd be set back $100+ for a decent coin door combo, with another $30 or so for postage.  Hence why the self-made alternative.

   Compare the two images. Does that look like a simple paint and stick operation? 

What did he do about the edge of the top panel, right before the round-over corner piece?  The laminate printing doesn't look that thick that it would hide that ridge. So either he sanded down and bondo/wood filled the crevice, then directly applied the artwork to the surface after painting it black, or there is a heat-bent piece of plexi/lexan over top sandwiching the artwork between the plexi and wood (which is what I'm assuming he did).

But I'd like to see the OP's process.

Just a simple putty and sand job.  I'm using MDF which is pretty soft, and easy to shape with a sander.  The rounded piece is just a bit of pine moulding I bought from my local hardware store that was nailed and glued in place.  Once everything was puttied, sanded and smooth, it all got a few more coats of sealer/undercoat, and then a couple of blasts around the edges of the black top coat.

The artwork went on with some 3M Super 77, and then was left under pressure for a few days to cure and permanently bond.  No idea if it will hold long term or not, but so far so good.  Buttons are on now, anyway, and holding everything down extra tight.

On the sides I've just stuck some black cardboard with spray adhesive.  This is less about aesthetics (you can't see it once the CP is shut), but more designed as a buffer to stop the CP scratching the sides of the cabinet during assembly.   On my first dry run, I scratch the inside wall of the cabinet quite badly, which annoyed me.  It had to be sanded back and re-painted.  The cardboard acts as a nice soft buffer while I mount the CP on hinges.  Once mounted, there's a 1mm gap either side, so it just moves harmlessly as intended.

[emphatic]

Looks great!

[yotsuya]

Love the stencil job. I have a cab that needs to be rebuilt and restenciled - I only hope it looks as good as yours! 

[elvis]

Yellow layer was a complete bastard.  I'm moderately successful at joining bits of wood together, but I had to call on the delicate hands of my wife to help me out with this layer.

[talkgeek]

That looks fantastic 

[lettuce]

How are you going to be connection the Raspberry Pi up to the CRT TV?

[yotsuya]

I need to pay you and your wife to come on out and repaint mine for me. Looks awesome! 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looks great!

[Automark]

wow, I hope mine is gonna look as nice as yours 

[elvis]

I need to pay you and your wife to come on out and repaint mine for me.

Hahaha, both my wife and I cringed at the thought.  I'm really happy to have had this experience, but I don't think I ever want to do stencil art again.  It's tough!

[jennifer]

    If you pull the stencil off while the paint is still wet its ALOT easier, and less paint ridge... Fun build though ,that's actually one of Jenn"s dream list games.

[emphatic]

Looks smashing!

[AzureKnight]

Awesome stencil work 

[mvolke1]

I love this cab! The artwork is awesome.

So how do I get on your list of friends who get arcade cabs?