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Author Topic: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion  (Read 21802 times)

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opt2not

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #80 on: December 05, 2019, 09:02:50 am »
So I lied, I was going to hold off till the end to apply the t-molding, but I just couldn't wait. I needed something to show me the light at the end of the tunnel:

Love how bright t-molding makes a cabinet pop!

I decided to pause the wiring effort and get some more of the aesthetics done, so I worked on creating a bezel for this thing.

First, the cardboard prototyping:


This was a loooong process measuring every angle and dimensions, by the end of the prototype I had a bezel that actually looked like one.
I then split it apart...



And traced each piece onto posterboard, and made sure I cleaned up some of the lines with my hobby knife.


All 4 parts and assembled using some tape to hold it together:




The yellow brightens up the look, and gives the cabinet a more retro vibe. I dig it!



Once the CP is done, with the t-molding around it, this cab is going to look fresh. 2 more days!  Go go go!
« Last Edit: December 05, 2019, 09:05:27 am by opt2not »

Mike A

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #81 on: December 05, 2019, 09:18:37 am »
Nice work on that bezel. Everyone always tries to hide them. That is a bold choice.

yotsuya

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #82 on: December 05, 2019, 10:07:20 am »
Nice work on that bezel. Everyone always tries to hide them. That is a bold choice.

Opt is a bold, bold man...

***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

Mike A

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #83 on: December 05, 2019, 10:20:14 am »
Yeah. I know. He tried to mount his joysticks without carriage bolts. Fate intervened and saved him.

pbj

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #84 on: December 05, 2019, 11:01:01 am »
I like the threaded inserts, but a part of me always worries that I'm going to push a joystick too hard and they'll rip out.  The bright side is that if that happens, you just go back to carriage bolts.  For a multiplayer cabinet that people are going to pound on, you're better off with carriage bolts from the get go.

Yellow bezel looks great, I wouldn't bother replacing that in the future.

You need to color coordinate your carriage bolts.

 :cheers:


Arroyo

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #85 on: December 05, 2019, 11:28:21 am »
Lookin good Opt.  Please excuse the crude mockup (I only got MS Paint at work) but would a two tone bezel sticking with the colors of the side art and t-molding work?



Too much?
« Last Edit: December 05, 2019, 12:52:22 pm by Arroyo »

pbj

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #86 on: December 05, 2019, 12:50:07 pm »
Oooh sessy.  You need to do that, Opt.  I made a bezel out of layered card stock once, and it looked fine under the glass.


opt2not

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #87 on: December 05, 2019, 04:06:24 pm »
Nice work on that bezel. Everyone always tries to hide them. That is a bold choice.
Thanks man, I wanted to brighten up the cabinet a bit more than the frontal black that the konami cabs have.

I like the threaded inserts, but a part of me always worries that I'm going to push a joystick too hard and they'll rip out.  The bright side is that if that happens, you just go back to carriage bolts.  For a multiplayer cabinet that people are going to pound on, you're better off with carriage bolts from the get go.

Yellow bezel looks great, I wouldn't bother replacing that in the future.

You need to color coordinate your carriage bolts.

 :cheers:


You're not wrong on all counts.  Though I think I'll hold off on the carriage bolt colouring :lol

But I think I'm not going to bother replacing this now since the bezel came out so well.


Lookin good Opt.  Please excuse the crude mockup (I only got MS Paint at work) but would a two tone bezel sticking with the colors of the side art and t-molding work?

Too much?
Good suggestion!
I think I'll take a look into this after the party deadline, amongst a few more changes/updates I'm looking into.

Good news, the ambiguously long shipping of Twisted Quarter's FedEx Smart Shart Ship of my control parts came in today!  :droid


I also picked up CP hinges, and Corner protectors. (also got a Chamma to JAMMA adapter from Mike's Arcade, for a Pandora's Box I'm planning on putting into one of my other cabinets during the party).

So I can fully finish off the CP tonight!  Stay tuned...

opt2not

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #88 on: December 05, 2019, 06:58:15 pm »
Opinions needed.

Should I put Yellow or Black T-molding along the CP box trim?


pbj

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #89 on: December 05, 2019, 07:07:56 pm »
Yellow.

Arroyo

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #90 on: December 05, 2019, 10:41:48 pm »
I’d go black to match the panel with the Marquee.  Keep the yellow lines to the sides and the bezel, keeps things vertical yellow, and black horizontal :dunno

yotsuya

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #91 on: December 06, 2019, 10:21:51 am »
I’d go black to match the panel with the Marquee.  Keep the yellow lines to the sides and the bezel, keeps things vertical yellow, and black horizontal :dunno

^^^ this
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

pbj

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #92 on: December 06, 2019, 02:05:26 pm »
Tmolding needs to match or it's going to look stupid.  Don't mess with the neon * A E S T H E T I C *

opt2not

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #93 on: December 07, 2019, 05:25:02 pm »
Restoration complete!

I'll go into more details of the finishing tasks and shortcuts I took to get here, but for now I've just achieved my goal of getting this presentable and playable for my party that starts this evening. 

I've brought it into the house (along with the other cabs) and it's been running smooth 5hrs straight!

Here's some money shots:










*PS, I ran out of yellow T-molding, so the CP box is going commando.  I'm going to take pbj's advice and stick to the yellow.   :cheers:

pbj

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #94 on: December 07, 2019, 06:35:54 pm »
Beautiful work.  Hard to believe that’s the same cabinet you started with.


Mike A

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #95 on: December 07, 2019, 11:07:27 pm »
Excellent work. It looks great.

yotsuya

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #96 on: December 07, 2019, 11:25:29 pm »
Those carriage bolts look beautiful!
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

Arroyo

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #97 on: December 08, 2019, 12:14:33 am »
Nice work Opt!  Clever coin buttons.  Tell us tomorrow how the party went down!

opt2not

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #98 on: December 09, 2019, 04:25:33 pm »
Thanks guys, the party was a hit.  Everyone loved our cabinets, and I even had a couple extra set-ups for Nintendo Switch on the big TV for Mario Kart, my Vectrex near the dessert table, and an NES playing Mega Man 2 on my 14" PVM.

My friends and their kids really loved the X-men cabinet, and it was in constant play over the evening. Halfway through the night I swapped the board out to Simpsons and that was also a big hit.

I didn't get to snap many photos, being the man of the hour and having to run around doing host duties, but I got a few shots of the kids and friends playing:





As for finishing this off, the last few tasks were to wire up the CP, complete the coin doors, and add the corner protectors. I still have to go back and clean-up some of the shortcuts I took.

First, the CP wiring is crap!  I just took the existing harnesses and fixed some wires and pins, and slapped it in there. It was the quickest way to get up and running:

I want to completely re-wire this panel for cleaner organization.

Also added the CP latches, now I just reach up from the coin door entry and un-latch the panel to open it up.


btw, the joysticks are just a tad too short. It's playable, and no one really noticed it, especially the kids and their small hands, but it bugs me. I need to route out maybe another 1/8th inch of wood out of the joystick recesses to get it to a more comfortable height:

When I initially routed this out, I was being conservative to account for the threaded inserts. But since the carriage bolts are through, it doesn't make sense to have that extra thickness in the joystick recesses.

Here's the corner protectors installed. I figured why not, the corners are made of bondo now, so I want to try to protect them as much as possible.


And here's what I did for the coin buttons:

They're the small 24mm japanese style buttons I had laying around from another project. I was lucky that they're translucent red, and matches the coin return buttons. I just stuffed them into the coin chute door and they're being held in place by being wedged in there with the chute flap.

So the next steps to fully completing this are:

1. Re-wire CP for better organization
2. Route out more wood in the CP recesses for more joystick height
3. Get the coin doors functional - I'll need to find out what parts I'm missing. Right now it's just a facade of the coin doors, there's no mechs or switches in there.
4. Re-install the shut-off diode on the K7000 monitor chassis.  I took this out when I was troubleshooting the chassis, but forgot to re-install it. It's fine to run without it for a short time, but you never want to have the shut-down circuit disabled long-term.
5. Tie down all wiring in the cabinet. Right now wires are just hanging around, untethered. For long-term it's best to have these all secured.
6. The marquee lamp buzzes like bee hive. The transformer on it makes a lot of noise, and can be heard as soon as you turn on the cabinet. I'm going to swap this out with either a new fluorescent lamp, or replace with LED lights.
7. Install a JAMMA switcher for swapping boards. During the party I just reached into the cabinet and swapped the connectors on the X-men to Simpsons, but you never really want to have to access the internals if you don't need to. I'm going to get a switcher to change games without dealing with the internals.
8. Install the missing T-molding on the CP Box.

That should be it. Once these above tasks are complete, this thing could be put to rest.

Titchgamer

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Re: X-men 4-player cabinet Restoration/Conversion
« Reply #99 on: December 09, 2019, 05:21:05 pm »
Looking good opt.

Its great having a load of people around to enjoy your machines.

I held a games night for my sisters birthday a few months ago (her request) and it went down really well with all my cabs and consoles getting some over due love!