3/4 Scale Lusid style Cab for Kids - Finished!!

[AtomSmasher]

What are your plans for side art?

I'm thinking the standard pac man sideart will work well
http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/details.php?image_id=129&mode=search

[AtomSmasher]

I didn't get too much done this weekend due to other big news taking up my time, but I did work on it a little bit.

I used a dremel to cut off the top-back corner of the monitor, making this cut also allowed me to angle the monitor shelf a little bit more then before.  The monitor now sits well inside the cab. 

and don't worry, I took the monitor case off before cutting it.

I also ordered 11 dollar speakers and a 6 dollar keyboard from newegg.

So far my total cost, including tax and shipping, has been $117.78, which means I still have $132.22 left to buy the plexiglass, controls, and paint.  It'll be close, but I think its going to stay within my original budget ($150 of my money + $100 from my mom = $250 total). 

[JamieMcShan]

My question was more around how were you going to get the side art printed to scale?

I am tying to figure out how I am going to get my side art printed for my 70% pacman.

Jamie

[AtomSmasher]

My question was more around how were you going to get the side art printed to scale?

I am tying to figure out how I am going to get my side art printed for my 70% pacman.

Jamie

ah ok.  Well my plan is to rescale it in photoshop, not a lot to it.  Since I'm trying to save money on this one, I'm going to print the sideart out myself onto self adhesive paper.  I'll probably print out a couple draft copies first to test the size and rescale if necessary.

I'll probably do the same thing with the CP art.  Its not as nice as getting it printed on one sheet since there will be seams, but hopefully I'll be able to line it up close enough that you'll barely be able to notice.

I'll print it on something like this: http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=0&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=29939&cmArea=SEARCH

[JamieMcShan]

Great, that's what I was thinking of doing as well.  Will you coat this with a clear acrylic or something like that? 

I had also thought of just printing on regular glossy photo paper and then using a 3m adhesive to stick it to the cab.  Guess I need to experiment and see what sticks the best.

The bad thing is that you have to print the yellow as well and so I will need to get paint to match the yellow as close as possable to the printed sheets...

Jamie

[AtomSmasher]

The bad thing is that you have to print the yellow as well and so I will need to get paint to match the yellow as close as possable to the printed sheets...

Jamie

Ya, I've been thinking about that.  I actually already have a piece of yellow from the sideart printed out, so when I choose my paint I'm going to color match it to that.  Then once the cab is painted I still may have to adjust the color of the sideart slightly to get it to match, but that just means printing out a test version, then adjusting it in photoshop.  It'll probably be a PITA, but it should be worth it.

[melarky]

My brother-in-law made a similar cabinet to yours, it turned out really nice (his kids love it, and it works nicely for adults with a standard kitchen table pulled up to it, perfect sitting height).

He also went with a pac-man theme, but he modified the control panel so that it didn't overhang (but the design was still based off the lusid design).

I have this pic that we took after we finished construction and painting, but before we got all of the artwork on it (still need to go grab a pic with all the artwork done).  It really looks nice.

[AtomSmasher]

I haven't posted an update in a while, but I am still working on this cab.  Yesterday I printed out a small square of yellow from the pacman sideart, took it down to Home Depot and had them color match it.  I think painted the cab.   Today I brought the cab inside, installed the t-molding, the speakers, and the marquee light.  Nothing really complicated in what I did, and its all done exactly the same way I did my first cab, so I'm not going to go into more detail unless asked.  Anyways, on with the slideshow.







I should also point out the the CP is not finished.  I still have to cut out the trackball, print the artwork, cut the plexi, and install the t-molding.  I'm currently bidding on a used trackball on ebay, so I'm going to wait for that to come until I finish the CP.  Other things that need to be finished are the bezel, marquee, and securing the monitor and computer, all of which I'm going to try and finish tommorrow.  Next weekend I'll be moving into a new house, and after that I won't have much free time to work on this project for a few weeks, thats why I'm trying to get it mostly done this weekend.

[AtomSmasher]

Looking at the pics again, it looks kinda crappy with the flash taking away the color and the crappily painted CP (remember, I'm putting artwork over it) and having not painted the back of the monitor section. 

Let me assure you that its actually turning out quite nice, I'll make sure to take some better pics after I get the bezel and marquee done tommorrow.

[AtomSmasher]

I lied, I got virtually nothing done on the cab today.  The only thing I worked on today is the side art.  I picked up some adhesive paper from the local Office Max and printed the sideart onto 4 sheets of it.  Unfortunately I also decided to pick up some of Office Max's store brand ink.  Oh man was that a mistake.  The printer heads get clogged after 1/2 page and the ink smudges like crazy.  I'll be going back there tommorrow to return it, complain, and buy some real epson ink.

Anyways, I did manage to get one side printed out to look good.  Only took about 2 hours to print out the 4 good looking sheets that I could use.  I'm giving up on the other side until I get better ink.

[JamieMcShan]

Look'n sweet dude!    It looks like we are running pretty close on both being done with our mini cabs!  All I am waiting on is the eletronics! (the easy part!)

Great work, can't wait to see it all complete!

Jamie

[AtomSmasher]

Look'n sweet dude!    It looks like we are running pretty close on both being done with our mini cabs!  All I am waiting on is the eletronics! (the easy part!)

Great work, can't wait to see it all complete!

Jamie

Thanks.  The only things I'm waiting for now are also the electronics, but they're on the way.

The auction just ended, and I'm now the owner of a used betson trackball for $9.99 + 10 shipping.  If it doesn't work, then I have an extra Happ trackball harness from a previous project that I can put into it, which should get it working (assuming the ball can spin).  
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270019731844

I also picked up a bunch of joysticks and buttons for real cheap from dream arcades.  I just hope they're nicer then X-Arcade joysticks and buttons, but if not, I don't think the kids will mind too much.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110024754733

After buying a keywiz Eco 2 and an Opti-wiz for $45 shipped, I've now spent a total of $285.28 on this project, which means I went over budget by $35.  That sucks, but is not the end of the world and is much closer to my target budget then most people are able to do.  I'm pretty sure I now have everything I need to finish this project, which means I won't be going any further over budget.

As I mentioned before, I'm moving next weekend, so my time for the next few weeks will be devoted to that, which means no more updates for a while.

[AtomSmasher]

Well after a month or so delay caused from my move to a new house, I finally had a chance to work on this project again today.  The control panel is now completely together and now just needs its wiring done.  Everything is bottom mounted, and since its just 1/2'' thick wood and 1/8'' thick plexi, I didn't need to route anything, its all just attached to the buttom of the wood.  I decided to get the CP art done correctly and took it to kinkos and had it printed onto poster paper for $30, which turned out very nice.  I guess I moved the final budget limit to $300 because thats just aboutwhat I've spent now.

[AtomSmasher]

Well, once again I wasn't working on the project much in the past few months, but the deadline (Christmas) is coming up quick, so past two weekends I've been doing quite a bit of work on it.

The control panel is now completely wired and everything works great.  Wiring the keywiz Eco 2 and an Opti-wiz were much more complicated then my last project, but then the last project I bought the IPac 2 (w/screws for each wire) and the mouse wiring harness from happ, which were a lot more expensive.  Since this is a budget progect, I had to hack an IDE cable, floppy cable, and cd-rom audio cable to connect to the keywiz and optiwiz, all of which worked great, just really time consuming.

I also have put a lot of work into getting the computer itself ready.  I now have mame v55 loaded with about 100 games and mamewah as the front end.  I found out the hard way that I had to convert the screenshot files to bmp format since win98 doesn't natively support png format, and finding v55 rom files became quite difficult.  I later found out about the rollback rom set which lets you convert your rom set to any previous rom set, unfortunately I found out about it after searching for 4-5 hours for the missing files needed in the roms.

Mamewah is now fully configured and running great.  I now have it set up to exit to windows only if both esc and P (pause in mame) are pressed together, and to shut down the system if esc and a mouse button are pressed together.  This makes it difficult to accidently exit mame.

I also have now secured the computer and control panel onto the cabinet, which means all that is left to do is securing the monitor and the plexiglass.  I should be able to get to that next weekend, which means I should easily finish this before christmas

[AtomSmasher]

Woohoo!!! The project is finished.

Last weekend I secured the monitor using 2x4's and some metal plates I found at home depot.  It is completely wedged in there and can not budge at all.


I then cut and painted the plexiglass, then installed the marquee and viola, its finished.




I should take some shots in the day time so the colored don't get washed out from the flash, but I probably won't.  I will make sure to take some pics with the kids when I give it to them on Christmas 

edit*  I should also mention that the CP is at a perfect height for an adult to sit in a chair and play it.  I should know because I've "tested" the games quite a bit