Well, I finally did it. After years of accountless lurking, I took advantage of the summer and designed and built my own cabinet.
First of all, I'd like to thank my cousin for spending so much time helping me with the woodwork, but more importantly teaching me how to do it myself. If I wanted to build another, I could build it without his help, and THAT is what I appreciate most.
I'd also like to thank all of the people and projects I drew inspiration from, specifically markc74's
Blip cabinet for the idea of a black and white color scheme to compliment the changing artwork, and dmworking247's
Alien bartop for the idea of a manually rotating screen. There was also a comment in a post I can't find for the life of me where a member suggested mounting two screens in a way similar to the way I ended up building my cabinet. His/her post got me thinking along that path, and I can't say things would be as cool as they are without that post. To my knowledge, however, a dynamic marquee has never actually been done in the way I did mine.
The amount of features I crammed into this cabinet is really a result of my inability to commit to any specific option. Do I want 4 way or 8 way joysticks? Should it be in landscape or portrait orientation? What marquee do I want to permanently represent my cabinet? Rather than manning up and making choices, I engineered up and designed my way around them.
I took build photos, but I never got to posting the build out of fear that the finished product would be a let-down. After seeing it completed, I have no idea how it could be improved. This is the first cabinet and first substantial anything I have ever built, and aside from the woodwork, I did it without any help. I'm pretty proud of that. I can post the build for anyone interested.
Now that that's out of the way, on to the pictures!
as a bartop in landscape
and as a pseudo-upright in portrait
opened up
closer view
my "insert coin" button
Rear view
Guts
mgalaxy frontend and default marquee
admin panel seen in first pic
Things to take note of:
-The screen is rotated through each games' settings, not through a toggle button. Portrait games boot in portrait, and the menu screen is always in landscape. I
REALLY want to rotate games and the menu with a button like the Alien bartop can, but I can't figure that out. I am using mgalaxy as a frontend because it is lightweight, but I am willing to change in order to achieve this functionality. Any advice would be extremely appreciated. I'm running XP sp2 with a relatively weak laptop from '05.
-The coin slot is from an actual arcade machine. I rigged up the coin on a track and spring and put a switch behind it. I can post pictures of this for anyone interested. The coin is the button rather than the "push to reject" piece, and I'm pretty proud of that minor detail.
-The entire cabinet is wrapped in textured vinyl meant to wrap cars. It is NICE. Strong, smooth, and looks/feels extremely professional. I have absolutely no complaints.
-The "subwoofer" on the bottom of the cabinet seen in the opened up picture is really just a larger speaker with the bass turned way up, and yes, it is less than a foot from my hard drive (GASP!!!) I took the risk for the sake of sound quality, and I am really happy with the results.
-The left and right josticks are both Happ 8 way. The center stick is a "Zippyy" 4 way. I may replace this brand if I can find one with a similar footprint because Ive gotten some misfires when sliding from one direction to a neighboring direction in games like pacman. When playing games like Donkey Kong or Galaxian, I use the 4 way and the colored buttons on the rightmost side. For games like Joust that are best controlled with a 4 way and are one or two player, I have both the 4 way and the rightmost 8 way mapped to player one input.
-Because of my last statement, I actually have player one mapped to the right stick for most games. It just makes it easier to use the 4 way when alone and the 8 way with friends.
-The "admin panel" is made from the steel from a digital TV converter box and parts bought online. the red button is tapped into the computer's power switch. The temp gauge goes to the ambient cabinet temperature, not the computer.
-The fans are on a temperature controlled switch. The temperature reading probe is in the same place as the side display's probe so I know exactly what temperature they are set to kick on. They turn on at 85 deg, and the cabinet sits at 87-90 with an ambient room temperature of 75. The computer exhaust has its own fan on the right side of the cabinet.
-The entire cabinet is on a switching smart power strip, with the exception of the speakers. this is so I can use it as a speaker system while it is off, and because the light for the coin slot is tapped into the speaker's power indicating light. I wanted that to stay on all of the time because it's just so purty.
It is officially a bartop, but it was designed to fit atop a minifridge and stand as a miniature upright cabinet. The height of the control panel and angle of the screen are perfect at standard table/minifridge height.
Like I said, I can post build pics or answer any questions people might have. I'd love to hear what you all think.
Also, I still haven't named it, so any suggestions are welcome!