I can't believe it fit! (with new pictures 6-1-05)

[AlanS17]

Well I had to see if the monitor would even fit into my cabinet. It it didn't fit then I wasn't going to be able to use it. If I wasn't able to use it then I didn't have much of a project anymore and I was gonna have to sell the parts. So first I HAD to see if ti would work.

I'll try to get pictures of the mounting system I added after this picture was taken. It allows one person to remove the monitor unassisted. That was another prerequisite for this project. If it couldn't be taken out and put back in easily, we'd never get it up the stairs.

Well I literally have less than a millimeter of space between the tube and the internal railings. If this cabinet was even a 1/4" thinner, this thing wouldn't have fit. Check it out though!

That's a 27" SVGA monitor that I pulled out of a TV casing and mounted into a wooden frame with metal bracing. Each corner of the monitor is mounted into the frame with 3 wood screws and a 1/4" bolt that goes all the way through. That thing is NOT coming undone any time soon.

[AceTKK]

Nice! I want to see pics of the mounting setup.

-Ace-

[AmericanDemon]

Wow!  Thats a heckuva fit!  Now it just needs a Gigantic Frankenpanel on it to give you proper viewing distance from the monitor!

[AlanS17]

Well the viewing size is only 2" larger than the 25" that was originally in it. Of course... when you're talking about a 27" monitor you're talking about a 29" tube. This giant would NEVER have fit into a Midway cabinet, though.

It'll be all good when it's done. I should be able to use the original TMNT CP box with a different control panel just fine. I don't want anything super fancy - just to street fighter layouts with a trackball in the middle.

[AmericanDemon]

I think it will look awesome.  Keep us posted. 

[AlanS17]

Well the job is only half over on the monitor. The chassis is equally massive. It's about a 15" square (not including the attached power supply). The original monitor shelf isn't big enough to hold it. I'm going to either have to let it hang over the edge or find a way to extend the shelf.

Plus, the power button on this thing is actually a momentry switch soldered directly onto the board with no extending wires. And this switch is (of course) at the "front" of the board (the side that faces the front of the monitor). Turning it isn't an option because it is so huge. So I'm likely gonna have to do some solder work to get this thing going unless I plan on opening the cabinet up and reaching in through the back every time I want to turn the monitor on.

[AmericanDemon]

can you get a soldering wire to the switch?  If you can, then run to lead wires to a different location and mount a momentary switch to it.  Tada.  Instant switch.  Thats what I am doing with my 36" monitor. 

[AlanS17]

Yeah that's what I'll be doing. I'll need a new soldering iron, though. The one I have is weak, and I'm afraid of damaging the board.

Plus the switch is mounted by 4 posts, and I haven't sat down to figure out which ones are being used.

I also want to see if I can just bridge a wire to make it come on automatically everytime I supply it with power. That would greatly simplify all of this. Haven't tested it yet, though. So as you can see I got my hands full.

Plus the monitor is too big when the neck board is attached and it'll stick out the back of the machine so I need to cut a hole in the door and build a box for it. I'm gonna be busy!

[AlanS17]

Well I'm headed home to get that beast of a chassis installed and wired up. Wish me luck!

[AmericanDemon]

Good luck! 

[AlanS17]

Well I got the chassis mounted, wired the damn thing up, and it actually worked. I'm surprised I didn't break it. (I'm not joking or exaggerating.)

I took pictures of my mounts and the massive chassis, but I'm having a hard time emailing them to myself. I'll try again tomorrow.

I also took pictures of the hooks and straps I used to make it a one-person job. I'll try those again tomorrow, too.

I'm going to reinforce the bracing for the monitor, but it's pretty much all done. I've conquered that beastly 27" SVGA. 

[DreamWeb]

Dang!  I wish I had a 27" CRT monitor.. or even a 24" or 25".  I'd love to do away with my s-video TV.

They're not that common.

Playing Visual Pinball on a TV just don't work all that well.

d.

[AlanS17]

Here's a picture of that massive chassis. I had to let it hang off the back of the shelf to make it fit. I got in head in there for a size comparison. It's still doesn't even look as big in the picture as it does IRL.

[AlanS17]

Here's a picture of me holding the monitor by the rings I installed to allow me to do everything by myself.

The straps on my arms came in a 3-pack for $5 at Home Depot. They were on clearance down from $20. Each one is rated to hold 300 pounds. The hook into these rings fitted into the base of the frame. This allows me to single-handedly carry the frame by 4 points instead of just 2. It also brings the center of gravity closer towards my body so it's easier to lift.

It also means I can lift the tube into the machine without damaging the neck or the chassis. Since the neck is so long the monitor needs to actually be top-loaded from up high so it doesn't scrape the monitor shelf that the chassis is sitting on.

[AlanS17]

Here it's actually running. You can see the straps still in place at the bottom where it got loaded in.

I found that by holding the "on" button as I plug it in, I can make it fire up. That's great news for me. I'm thinking about hardwiring this thing for always on now. I could just jump the switch and presto.

[AmericanDemon]

You got lucky on that monitor Alan.  To be honest I am envious as my monitor will only do 640 x 480.

[AlanS17]

I did get lucky... lucky I didn't break it trying to install it. At any given moment, this exact same monitor is selling on Ebay. They're pretty darn common.

It's a Gateway Destination series monitor. They were built for presentations. Here's an auction of one such monitor:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41807&item=5202723582&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

It's going for $100 and nobody has bid on it. Of course, this dude set a reserve so I don't kow what he's wanting for it.

They usually sell for pretty cheap (at least compared to arcade monitors of the same size) because they're pretty much useless as regular computer monitors. They're too big and they only output up to 800x600. And these days when someone wants to give a presentation they just use a projector with a larger picture and high resolution.

[ChadTower]

For your sake, I sure hope you came up with a way to vent heat from that sucker and do it reliably.  I also hope you did some basic math to balance out the weight of the cab, making sure it's not so top heavy that it's going to topple over when you move it, or wobble like crazy when you play hard.

Did you reground it properly?  Most cased monitors ground to the inside of the casing at various points.  Remove that casing, and you remove the common ground.

[AlanS17]

The top of the cabinet already has multiple heat vents. I won't know how effective they are until this thing gets up and running. I can always enlarge them, but I seriously don't see it being an issue.

As for top-heaviness, I'm not concerned. This thing will never be moved with the monitor in it. It would simply be too heavy to move with the monitor still installed. It's also just too heavy to wobble. I don't know proptionately how much heavier it is than that 25" monitor that was in there bfore, but it can't be THAT much more. I'm guessing maybe it's 20 or 30 pounds more.

As for grounding, it came out of a plastic case that had no grounding connections to the case, itself. There was no internal groun wiring for the case. It's just a giant plastic shell. It all removed pretty easily. The only grounding was down to the chassis, and that was done in like 4 places. Those all have been replaced properly.

[ChadTower]

The top of the cabinet already has multiple heat vents. I won't know how effective they are until this thing gets up and running. I can always enlarge them, but I seriously don't see it being an issue.

I would put a small vent fan on at least one of those vents, with the game going the sound would be inaudible.  There's not point in finding a design flaw by letting the machine fail rather than spending $5 on a fan.

[AlanS17]

That's probably a pretty good idea.

On another note, The monitor is too big to fit with the backdoor on because the neckboard sticks out the back. I'm going to route out a hole for it today when I get home. I bought a new bit on my lunch hour. This is gonna be an easy part, though.

Then the next step will be building a box around the outside of the hole to protect the neckboard from getting snapped off when I push this thing up against a wall, but I want to get this hole in it first so I can get a good clean look at it and see how far it extends out.

[ChadTower]

Dude, if it doesn't fit depth wise, shouldn't you just put it in a different cab?

[AlanS17]

It only sticks about a half inch out the back. We're not talking about feet here. Lots of machines with larger monitors have boxes on the back door for such situations.

Plus, this is the largest cab I've got, and one of the largest that's commercially available (at least in terms of width).