Moon Patrol Themed CRT Bartop ARCADE ---- 100% done

[tomstewdevine]

I'm done!!!



Original Post:

Hey BYOAC'ers,

Like a lot of people I have been creeping in the background, just learning things from all the informative posts.  I want to thank yotsuya, Ond, SpaceHedgehog, Sjaak, Ninja Squirrel, LeChuck, Pixelhugger, Leedsfan, and a ton of other people for all the contributions to the site, I have learned tons of priceless things through you all.

So my plan for my first time(but not last time) build is a bartop.  I chose a bartop because I firstly want to prove to myself that I could complete something that works, and if it's really ugly it wont take up a lot of space or be hard to sell.  I also wanted to make this bartop for as CHEAP as possible.  And I mean Cheap.  I want to challenge myself to make something for next to nothing that looks really really nice. I'm going to go with a Moon Patrol Theme, it will have one joystick and 4 buttons.

First thing I tried to find was a computer and monitor that would work and be cheap.  After paying attention to Craigslist for a week I was able to get a Dell Deminsion 2400 desktop PC, CRT monitor, and speakers for $10.  I had never worked with mame, so after figuring that out, I had my PC trasformed to look and act like the innards of an arcade.  I'm using .155 Mame, I have SNES, Genesis, and NES emulators, and have just a smaller selection of games that I feel are the best.  I'm using AtomicFE as my front end, and have picture snaps attached to all the games. I tested each game and have my computer running great.

I found basic plans online for a bartop arcade with a CRT monitor, modified them to meet want I wanted then started cutting them out.    I have the two sides cut, and the sides sanded to be perfect matches.  I have cut out all the other pieces. And have taken apart the pc monitor to see if I could mount it to wood. I think I will be able to, I have started by giving it 4 corner monting blocks that I will attach to a peice of mdf that will be apart of the bartop. I had to get new washers but besides that it looks like it should work. I took my 1.5x1.5 and ripped it in half to use as my mounting blocks for each side of the arcade. I glued them down last night, and will be coming back to put screws in for extra support.

And that's where I am so far.  I figured I will post this up to keep me honest and make sure I complete the task.

Cost and Supplies:
4x8 1/2" MDF sheet (Busted sides)..................................$4.99
Gorrila Wood Glue .......................................................$3.87
Elmers Wood Filler .......................................................$6.57
PC,Monitor,Speakers ...................................................$10.00
Joystick and Buttons ...................................................$32.97
8' 1.5"x1.5" Piece of Wood ............................................$0.00 (dumpster find from a site by my work)
Screws .....................................................................$0.00 (leftovers from the past)
4 Washers .................................................................$0.92
12"x20" piece of wood for CP..........................................$0.00 (Part of old Desk)
11"x19" piece of wood for monitor table.............................$0.00 (part of old cabinets)
20' 1/2"Black T-Molding................................................$13.90
1/16" Slot cut router bit.................................................$27.45
1 Gallon of Primer.........................................................$0.00 (Already had in garage)
400 Grit Sandpaper......................................................$0.00 (Already had in garage)
Wood Filler White .........................................................$2.77
13" neon light .............................................................$9.67
4 bottom pads ............................................................$1.23
Black Spray Paint (SATIN) ..............................................$3.77
Smooth surface roller brush ............................................$4.88
2x 18"x24" clear acrylic glass ..........................................$20.43
16 tiny screws for speakers and marquee.............................$2.24
36" L aluminum piece of metal for Marquee ..........................$5.99
1.5" speaker grill covers.....................................................$4.97
Sample Paint for light blue ...............................................$2.66
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Total So Far........................................................$159.28

Thanks for checking out my post. Here are some pics.

[yotsuya]

Thanks for the shoutout! Glad to see someone using AtomicFE. It's not as flashy as Hyperspin, but it gets the job done.

A side project of mine has been creating wheel art for AtomicFE that works with program, since transparency is very limited. Let me know if you are interested in it.

[tomstewdevine]

A side project of mine has been creating wheel art for AtomicFE that works with program, since transparency is very limited. Let me know if you are interested in it.

That would be really cool, I'm very interested. And just so I'm clear, wheel art would be for the game list?

[yotsuya]

A side project of mine has been creating wheel art for AtomicFE that works with program, since transparency is very limited. Let me know if you are interested in it.

That would be really cool, I'm very interested. And just so I'm clear, wheel art would be for the game list?

Yeah, instead of text, it's basically the same type of wheel art used in Hyperspin. Here's a sample...

[tomstewdevine]

Yeah, instead of text, it's basically the same type of wheel art used in Hyperspin. Here's a sample...

That would be really cool to have, nice work.

[yotsuya]

Yeah, instead of text, it's basically the same type of wheel art used in Hyperspin. Here's a sample...

That would be really cool to have, nice work.

When you're ready, shoot me a PM and I'll share it with you.

[tomstewdevine]

Got some more work done last night..... even though it was -2 degrees outside, my space heater and I pushed through to get the next step done.

Something I'm not liking is the length of the control panel area (the wood i'm using for the control panel hasn't been cut at all in the pics) my plans called for a 10.25" CP, but I think I will make that smaller, it's just seems too big.  I'm thinking 7".

So far I have learned that it's much harder to make a perfectly strait cut without a table saw than I originally thought and that making these things is extremely fun to do.

Put Together with no screws or glue yet.



I had a little space missing in this joint so I stuck a little piece of wood in here to make up the difference


Changed my mind, I am going to use this piece of wood for the CP.


This is put together with glue and screws.


Next I'm going to fix that CP section, then take the back off and wood filler all the holes from my S*%tty cutting jobs.

[tomstewdevine]

So I changed the control panel length, and i think the whole cab looks a lot better with this shape. I took 3 inches off the original plans.

Just took a circular saw to the end and cut the 3 sides 3" shorter




I then trimmed the bottom piece 3/4" and mounted a new piece to the front of the cab and left it to glue overnight, I may put in a couple screws depending on the strength.




I will be doing the wood filling tonight.

[bfauska]

That's a much nicer shape, good call.

[tomstewdevine]

That's a much nicer shape, good call.

Yeah, its clear this is my first build, I would like to just get a few under my belt to work out the kinks, I need to invest in a table saw at some point as well. But I really haven't had as much fun as this in years.  Silly I didn't start sooner, it's really fun going through this forum seeing what people have made.

[tomstewdevine]

This is what I'm thinking for the art, and the original marquee. Bezel still to come.

As I look at this top one, I realize I need to make the banner across the bottom symmetrical.

[tomstewdevine]

I got some more work done over the weekend.

I filled in all the cracks and mistakes with wood filler, I have never used this product before, my only reference is dry-walling, which I have done a very small amount of. So basically I took my wife's dish scraper from the kitchen and just went to town. It wasn't pretty, while I was doing it I felt like I had to be doing this wrong, but I kept going.




Once it dried, I took it out side to give it a good sanding.


The top and front were still very uneven and full of holes so I did another coat of filler



Sanded the top and front and then got to painting, I used some primer I already had in the garage.





I'm not happy with how the filler turned out, for a few small dings it worked great, but when I was trying to use a lot to fill in an bigger area it just never filled in as good as I hoped.  I definitely should have researched the best way to use it, but I didn't......   

I'm going to check out some different ways to get the sides and top nice and smooth. and start doing that next.

[tomstewdevine]

So I took a day to think about what to do next, I decided to try to fill the holes I wasn't happy with, even though I already put a coat of primer down.  So I have filled up some holes, and will be sanding tonight and finish the priming. I took apart the computer speakers that came with the computer as well. So the things I need to do are as follows:

-Sand all showing surfaces
-2nd coat of primer
-cut t molding slots
-2 coats of blue to the entire cab
-Install Monitor, Legs, and Marquee brackets.
-Build CP and place CPO
-install pc and power strip
-install t molding
-get and paint and install plexi
-install and run wire for marquee light
-Get Printed CPO, Marquee, and bezel
-Paint side art.

[tomstewdevine]

So I've had a delay, I ordered the wrong shank size for my router bit and am not able to cut the t molding slot until Saturday when the new one gets here. So that set me back and extra $5.85 for my mistake, I had to ship the other on back and pay the difference in the part prices. I did get the first layer of blue on, and I was able to get all the paint for free from my local Hazardous Waste Facility, I got a few different colors and mixed to make something I was happy with. Still need to get the plexi glass, I suppose I will do that this weekend.

Also I didn't realize that I should have used an oil based primer instead of a water based one. I hope this doesn't cause problems down the road.  It seems to me that it turned out OK though.

[TheDude]

Good start so far !

[tomstewdevine]

I got a bunch of work done this weekend, I have the entire PC pulled apart and installed in the bartop, I have the monitor installed, I have the speakers working(after running into some problems), and the marquee light installed, and I got the t molding slot cut. I am already planning my next one... but need to put those thoughts back to finish this one.

Cut the T molding slot, and drilled wiring and speaker holes


Mounted the Monitor



Mounted Speaker and Marquee



So then I tried to put the cord from the speaker into power input and broke this thing.


I had some old speaker that were shot, I pulled them apart and switched out the board for the one I broke and my speakers were back. Here it is temp mounted. And I found a new carrying case for my tools.



Pulled the PC apart, it was a bit buggy


Mounted all the PC parts


And it still turned on which is nice

[tomstewdevine]

Finished the back and installed the T-Molding.

I printed my stencils today, so doing that over the weekend.

I still need to cut and paint my plexi.

And My CPO and marquee are going to be here on saturday. I could have this thing done by Sunday night if I work hard.



Cut a fan hole and used a screen from an old reptile tank, I had to fold the screen a few times.

[tomstewdevine]

I was hoping to have it completed by April 1st but I don't know if I'm going to make the deadline. Here is my progress over the weekend:

I cut the acrylic for the marquee and bezel with a table saw, I lined it up and spray painted the bezel, some of the paint bled through the tape, so I took an eraser and cleaned the the edge, I think it turned out really nice. I also got my vinyl art work in, My friend works here http://www.make-it-mine.com/ and he did a great job for much cheaper than other options on the internet. If you are looking for anything email or call him and ask for Coree.


So then I had to prepare my CP, the worst part of this was my buttons were just a little to big so I had to go in with a sanding bit and make each hole a little bigger(time to upgrade my drill bits). Also since my CP was thicker than the other parts of the cab my t molding was a little small, so I sanded the corner that would show to a nice smooth rounded edge and painted it black.





Paying for stencils would suck, but I wanted decent side art, so I have made my own stencils, and took my knife, put a new blade in it and cut them out.  I just made the stencil with Illustrator from the files that are out there, then split up the two colors and then saved them as pdf and printed them with the tiling function, after that they were trimmed and taped together. I haven't started painting yet though....


This is where I'm at as of now:



So a few problems I've run into and why I didn't get to the painting is with the CP. For my emulators other than mame, I'm not able to map the escape button to a key on my joystick. I'm using Virtua Nes, Zsnes and Fusion, all three I'm not able to change the button from escape. So guess I need to set up Joy 2 Key and have that start automatically at startup, and then map the escape button with that program to my joystick. I just hope it will still look hidden, and close properly at shutdown.

Unless anybody else has any other ideas on how to fix that problem?

The other really dumb thing I did was try to map my 8 way joystick on a 4 way game, I just couldn't figure out why I wasn't able to set up the diagonal directions in the mame controller set up. I convinced myself the hole to the joystick needed to be bigger, and bored out the hole a little with the art already on there, it was sloppy and dumb. By the time it hit me, I felt like an idiot and if you lift up that dust cover it's not as pretty as she once was.

So now I need to fix the escape problem, and stencil the sides, I hope to have it done by midnight.....

[tomstewdevine]

Also I couldn't get the Wheel Art going in Atomic, I kept getting a error that was in french, but that's ok, it still works...

[yotsuya]

Also I couldn't get the Wheel Art going in Atomic, I kept getting a error that was in french, but that's ok, it still works...

Shoot me a PM with the issue, I'll see if I can help.

[tomstewdevine]

My arcade is up and running Mame fine.  But the Nes, Snes, and Sega emulators were all having problems. I need to exit out of those emulators using a button on my CP which is hooked up to run as a joypad. I tried to use Joy2key but it doesn't work that great for this  and since I have to run it every time on start up it looks ugly.

Does anyone know of a way to exit out of the emulator and back to the front end using your joypad? In mame, I can set that function to anything, but I don't have that option for my other emulators.

Should I get different emulators? I currently have znes, virtua nes & fusion. 

Should I try Hyperspin or Mala instead of Atomic?

It would suck to start over since I had it working perfectly with my keyboard, but I will do anything I have to because I would really like those emulators and I know there has to be a way.

Any help is appreciated even if it's just a link to something I can read on this because I've searched the crap out of it and can't find anything.

[tomstewdevine]

Started the stencil's, but since they are home made, not exactly perfect, but I can always clean it up a bit. I have the first layer of both sides done. 



I'm still going through and testing the games and getting rid of the ones that don't work perfectly. After I get the side art done and the games sorted perfectly, then I will get back to trying to get the wheel art up.

And I need a paper bezel for behind the acrylic bezel.

[tomstewdevine]

Got the paper Bezel done.

[johnrt]

Nice!

I want to see more of your paper bezel. Please? 

[tomstewdevine]

I can take a few more pics of the bezel tonight when i work on the side art.   

But basically I had black card stock paper laying around, I cut 4 strips to fit the length of each side of the monitor, then I cut them to fit and the monitor and used hot glue to apply them.

Here is another picture of half of the bezel on that I had on my phone.

[johnrt]

Thanks! I need to do something similar myself. I just need to find the right card board/paper.

[tomstewdevine]

Stencil work, still need to clean up the green.

[tomstewdevine]

Ok so I'm all done, I hung up the sheet the dog lays on and tried to find the cleanest side and then pointed 3 shop lights at the thing and took pictures with my cell phone.... about as professional as it's going to get.

Plenty of things I would do differently, but I'm damn proud to finish my first arcade.  Already had a few late nights of my friends playing on it for high score. Also already have about 3 projects lined up to work on next and I can't wait to start them.

So here is my Ansel Adams level photoshoot:







Top 3 things I would change if I were to start at this project again.  I wouldn't have used the same stencil for the side art on each side, I would taken the time to get the correct facing image and make a stencil out of that.  I would have made all my initial cuts with a table saw.  I would put the power button in a different spot.

Thanks for checking out my thread and all comments and critiques are welcome.


 

[BorgDog]

Very nice.     Some day I may try stencils, but it's always intimidated me for some reason.

[tomstewdevine]

Very nice.     Some day I may try stencils, but it's always intimidated me for some reason.

I'm sure I'm going to continue to use stencils on all my cabs.  After doing it once, I can tell I will be a thousand times better the next time I try.  It really helps you keep the cost down on the side art.  That being said it does take a long time to do, or at least have the motivation to continue  to the next step in the process.

[Locke141]

I'v been reading along from the start of this build, but today was the first time your pic's loaded for me. Dam you Tanzanian internet service providers It came out nicely.

It would be nice if you could post the link to the plans you found that got you started in case some one is inspired by this build.

[tomstewdevine]

I'v been reading along from the start but today was the first time you pic loaded for me. Dam you Tanzanian internet service providers I came out nicely. It would be nice if you could post the link to the planes you found that got you started in case some is inspired.

Oh for sure, I have seen these plans shared a few times, and they were a huge help for me.

http://bartoparcade.katorlegaz.com/

[retroarcadefan]

This is what I'm thinking for the art, and the original marquee. Bezel still to come.

As I look at this top one, I realize I need to make the banner across the bottom symmetrical.

love the art work !