We are in the process of designing the second CP for our cabinet and a few questions came up... but before I get to those, I'd like to let everyone know a little bit about the design, and how it came to be. I had posted a few pictures in the past, but never got into an detail. So here it is...the "Deus Ex Machina Turbo"
My brother an I "finished" (thou as you know it's never really finished) building it last year. We constructed the cabinet from two 4'x8' sheets of 3/4" MDF,one sheet of perforated hardboard, and some 2"x4"s. It includes pull-out shelves for the keyboard/mouse and CPU. We used a 21" CRT Monitor for the display, and a wifi card for easy data transfer. Instead of speaker grills, we wrapped the panel in speaker cloth. This was a hard sell to my brother, but we are both satisfied we the results. All the art was done in AutoCAD and Photoshop. We ended up going with a "portal to hell opens up in a nuclear reactor" theme. The art was printed onto giant vinyl stickers and adhered to the cab. Each side is made with only one sticker. This gave us a very clean look. The only mistake we made on the printing was with bezel around the screen, but this needs to be replaced anyway for reasons I'll get to later. We designed the CP to be interchangeable, because we didn't want the giant mamezilla CP that could double as guest bed. The first (and so far only) CP built is a compact 4 player with rotary sticks on the 1 and 2 player spots. It's quite comfortable for four adults to play, and doesn't take up a lot of real-estate. As you can see in the pictures, we chose to separate each players area with a different theme (blood, slime, etc..). On the wings of the CP we hid the main power switch along with a power/reset button for the CPU and a power/volume knob for the speakers. We put a shared pause button in the middle of the CP and a hidden menu button under shelf. The decision was made to have each button a different color, so if one was to ask "what button punches?" you need only say "green" as opposed to "the second button from the left on the top row". We chose player buttons for the coins, but I will soon change them with rectangular lighted buttons. These buttons and the trackballs will most likely be the only locations where LEDs are used. Its a video game cab. It's not a pinball machine, and it's not disco. Now, as for the new CP....
Everyone has there own "classics". Our first CP allows us to play heavy barrel and quartet. The new CP will allow us to play Assault, Tron, Rampart, operation wolf, X-com, and a few classic FPS. The slots on the sides will be holsters. the sticks will be 8 ways with 2 button on each handle. Here are my questions...
We have just enough room between the monitor and the inside walls of the cabinet to fit the LED towers used by the light guns. I plan on replacing the glass covering the monitor with tinted glass and incorporating "windows" for the IR LEDs into a new bezel graphic. Has anyone attempted this before?
Also, can you hook up a Haps trackball to GGG's spinner?
What am I over looking?