27'' New arcade project and I was just curious what people thought

[Commando677]

a brief list of stats

Billabs BL27CB0P 27'' Flat 15~48khz
Mameroom Designs Ultimate Arcade Kit II
SlikStik Quad Panel layout
Happ Buttons
Happ Competition 8-ways
Happ 3'' Illuminated Trackball
Slikstik Tornado Spinner
I-Pac4
Logitech Z-2300 Speakers
3.0Ghz Celeron
512 Ram
9800 Pro
Marquee from EMDKAY
Custom Pac Man DECAL
Happcontrols Flourscent Marquee Light
Happ 27'' monitor Bezel
Maximus Arcade Frontend
Bits Limited Auto Sensing Power Strip (so when I turn on speakers everything turns on)

Its almost done and I was just wondering what people thought and how it stacked up to other custom cabinets.

[Timoe]

I like it.  Get a photo from the side.  and a top down on the control panel.  Yeah, definitely more photos  

[Crafty]

Looks better than mine

Well done..

I'm curious though as to what feedback you really want as you have already completed this project...

[sportswizdan]

Hi, looks GREAT!!! Could you tell me how you mounted your logitech z2300 speakers? A picture of that would be even better Thanks, Dan

[Commando677]

The type of feedback I was looking for was how well my first arcade measured up to other people's. Since I do not personally know anyone who would ever think of building an arcade let alone attempt to construct one and since I believe my opinion is biased I just wanted to know how well I did.

I have attached some new pictures below. One is of the control panel, where I originally had the spinner mounted in the center, but after almost breaking my finger playing games like Golden Tee and World Class Bowling I moved it to the side. Unfortunately it left a huge ugly hole so I had a custom decal made to cover the mistake so now the whole thing looks planned from day one. I tried to take a picture of the side, but since it is in a closet and weighs close to 300 lbs I did the best I could.

For the speakers mounting them was very easy. I went to a craft store and got some double sided heavy duty mounting tape which I applied around the edges of the satellites and just attached it directly above the speaker holes. Below is a picture taken from the inside of the cabinet looking out and the white part in the background is the back of my marquee. The sub just sits at the bottom firing backwards because I am leaving the back panel off for ventilation and sound purposes and when I get a coin door you will never see it because of the way it is situated in a closet.

[Crafty]

The type of feedback I was looking for was how well my first arcade measured up to other people's. Since I do not personally know anyone who would ever think of building an arcade let alone attempt to construct one and since I believe my opinion is biased I just wanted to know how well I did.

Well in that case..

Overall a very nice job.
Lots of buttons on the Control Panel. Most four player layouts do not go with 7 buttons for player 3 and 4.

Also it would obviously look a little better with some artwork on the CP top..

Lastly I'm just jealous because I do not have anything like this yet.. Still using MAME on the PC

[dweebs0r]

I think it looks great.  Top notch.

Once you get a coin door in the thing, it'll look like the genuine article.

The extra buttons on the 3 and 4 player sides is the only thing I would have changed in the planning stages but since its already built, the extra buttons arent hurting anything.

Where did you get the monitor for that?  I like it.

-D

[Commando677]

The Billabs BL27CB0P 27'' Flat 15~48khz I saw from their website www.billabs.com. They do not have a webstore, but if you send them an e-mail or call them you can order whatever you want. The monitor is great the only down fall was getting the thing mounted. That was the hardest part of the entire build process.

I just recently got guns for it and the bezel properlly mounted. I have attached a picture form everyones enjoyement.

[Negativecreep0]

just curious how is the viewing angle for players 3 and 4 is it hard for them to view the screen?

[Commando677]

Its a little tricky playing a game which requires absolute percision like 4 player puzzle bobble, but for other games like TMNT, Simpsons, XMEN its fine and not an issue at all.

[Negativecreep0]

whats the height on this guy?

[Commando677]

76'' or roughly 6 feet 3 inches is it height.

I have decided that electronically this arcade is too simple, so for my next stage I am going to make it fully JAMMA compliant so I can buy any jamma board for it as well as make it work with a PS2 so I can use it with even more games. At the moment it plays Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, 32x, Atari 2600, 7800, Playstation games, Turbo Grafix 16 and 3D0 games and arcade games of course

[waldo]

nice simple cab there.

What  was the rough price of that monitor? and what the screen like in your default OS when not emulating things?

[dudebozo]

nice mame cabinet.  how do you like maximus as your FE?  i'm sort of leaning towards using them. 

[Commando677]

The monitor was $549 plus $100 shipping
http://www.billabs.com/crts.htm

The monitor is awesome because it will handle everything from real arcade signals (15khz) to standard VGA signals. I have used AvanceMAME with this monitor and as long as your vid card can handle it the monitor will show it. I have my desktop set to 1024x768 and its beautiful. All text is easily readable. I can try and provide some pictures of different settings if you would like, I am not sure how well the picture would show the clarity, but I can try. As a side note I have the Act Labs PC USB light guns with this set up and they work great with this monitor.

The Maximus Arcade frontend was the best frontend I found. The interface is very clean and it is easy to naigate through. You can also configure it do to do a bunch of cool things, such as running random games as a screen saver. I always manage to find a new interesting game just by watching it cycle through things randomly. I also like the fact that when you scroll through the game list, for mame games it will show you the real marquee, a snapshot and if you pause over the selection for a minute it will play an intro movie. You have to have the Marquess, Snaps, and intro vids for mame first though because maxximus does not provide them, but if you have them its makes the frontend all that better. If you want to know any specifics about it, let me know.

[waldo]

cheers for the info, would love some pics of the screen if you get the time.

being down here in NZ have to dbl check everything before ordering it in  hehe


as it is now, I have all the CP parts, and almost about to start the wood construction, jsut need to decide on monitor before I finalise the blueprints heh

[Commando677]

Before I took some pics to show off the monitor I had to add the coin door.

So the first 3 pictures are of the coin door being installed.

[Commando677]

Now for the pics showing off the monitor. I did the best I could, but the camera doesn't do it justice, but at least you can get some idea.

Picture 1 is the desktop at 1024x768

Picture 2 is the desktop at 800x600

Picture 3 is Soul Calibur at 640x480

Picture 4 is the Maximus Arcade Frontend at 1024x768

Picture 5 is Mortal Kombat at 800x600

Let me know if there is any more information and or specific pics you would like.

[Commando677]

When I was planning out how to hook up my coin door I thought it would be a real pain to hardwire it to the Control Panel where my IPAC was and I really didn't want to buy another encoder just for 4 buttons basically. So I made a sweet connector so that I can connect and disconnect my coin door from my control panel if I ever have to remove it. I also added a kill switch so I can disable the coin buttons and only have the coin door work if i ever decided to require people to use Tokens instead of just mashing the coin button.

I also decided to add an LCD so I could monitor the stats of the PC. I put it in the keyboard draw so I can hide it when I don't need it.

[waldo]

thanks for the pics, looks to be jsut what I was looking for. now to enquire about international shiiping to down under 

[BlinKY1337]

so what did u build?

[Commando677]

I guess the obvious answer is an arcade.

Besides that I am not sure what you want to know. The only thing I did not really do myself from scratch was cut the wood. I have no woodoworking skills or the necessary tools to do it so I bought pre-cut pieces. Everything was assembled, designed by me. (Computer, buttons, sticks, trackball, spinner, marquee, coin door, frontend set-up, monitor mounting, speaker setup)

[(+_+)]

Curious to know since I'm considering buying one also.

How deep is the Billabs 27" monitor and does it plug into your PC like any standard PC monitor?

Thanks and nice job!

[Negativecreep0]

is that a dreamcast hooked up to your cab? how did you get it to align with the monitor screen, mine looked like it is squeezed to a resolution that won't completely fill the screen? What vga adapter you using? Also what monitor bezel is that, it doesn't resemble the Happs one?

thanks

[Commando677]

i am at work at the moment so I can't get you an exact measurement for the monitor, but I would say roughly 16 inches. I will try and get a better measurement for you one I am at home.

The monitor accepts both a 6 pin arcade monitor connector and a standard DB-15 monitor cable. So you can plug any standard VGA computer interface right into it.

I have attached two pictures.

Picture 1 shows the connectors on the back notice the one DB15 and the 6 pin part.

Picture 2 shows the adapter that comes with it. This adapter allows you to pipe an arcade singal through a standard VGA cable into the DB15 slot of the monitor. I am not sure why they would offer this abillity, but the manual says the DB15 connector can take both the 0.7v of a standard VGA output or the TTL signal voltage of a true arcade board. I am going to try and use this adapter with a KVM switch box so I can switch between a PS2, a JAMMA board and a PC.

As for the shot of Soul Calibur that is actually Chankast a dreamcast emulator running, not an actual dreamcast so thats why it comes out looking better.

The monitor bezel is a HAPP bezel, but it is the 27'' flat monitor bezel because I have a Veriflat monitor tube.

[BlinKY1337]

Store bought cookie cutter arcade cab with boring artwork to bad deep pockets cant make someone creative.

[escher]

Store bought cookie cutter arcade cab with boring artwork to bad deep pockets cant make someone creative.

Way to be a jackass.

And kind of ironic, considering your control panel (see sig) is just a rip-off of Pixelhugger's work...

(For reference, Blinky's : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55752.msg548029#msg548029 vs http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48079.0 )

[(+_+)]

   comment especially since escher is right. It takes a hell of a lot of work, money and care to come up with a cab (cookie cutter or not) without having someone dump their miserable and hipocritical 2 cents on it.

Good job Commando677!! 

Oh yes, did you get a chance to measure the depth of the monitor. Much appreciated.

[versapak]

Store bought cookie cutter arcade cab with boring artwork to bad deep pockets cant make someone creative.

Way to be a jackass.

And kind of ironic, considering your control panel (see sig) is just a rip-off of Pixelhugger's work...

(For reference, Blinky's : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55752.msg548029#msg548029 vs http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48079.0 )

 



Just goes to show that being a total ---meecrob--- bag isn't the key to creativity either.


Kind of funny that you (Blinky) would feel at home making fun of someone's creativity, while at the same time not only ripping off artwork yourself, but then calling your cab...

Mame Machine?

 

[Commando677]

Thanks for the support guys, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There are just nicer ways to express one's opinion. Such as he could have said "it has potential, but I would have perferred to see some more unique touches that would set this apart from others, such as a custom deigned CP overlay or side art". Unfortunately he chose a much more harsh way to express himself and thats fine too. I put a lot of planning and work into and I enjoy it and thats all that really matters in the end.

As for getting an exact measurement for you I didn't get a chance to last night, but I just got my PS2 for it so while I am working on integrating that into the arcade I will get that measurement for you Keyser_Soze

[escher]

Thanks for the support guys, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There are just nicer ways to express one's opinion. Such as he could have said "it has potential, but I would have perferred to see some more unique touches that would set this apart from others, such as a custom deigned CP overlay or side art". Unfortunately he chose a much more harsh way to express himself and thats fine too. I put a lot of planning and work into and I enjoy and thats all that really matters in the end.

Absolutely true.  In fact, I personally don't like much about your cabinet (frankenpanel, too much blank space, etc.).  But A) my opinion doesn't matter much since it's your cab, and B) I'm not going to come in here and be a jackass about it.

[(+_+)]

I received an "I hate it" as well as the Frankenpanelly comment on my so called "non cab" cabinet, but that hasn't stopped me from starting my second project. We learn from our mistakes/experiences and insightful criticism never hurt anybody. I should be starting up a thread some time in the near future with some pics.

Here's my previous attempt in case you were interested. It works, I'm proud
"and I enjoy it and thats all that really matters in the end."

http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=28

[ChicagoDave]

Nice job!  I want your monitor....

[BlinKY1337]

Alright here we go this post was stared by Commando677 so he could hear what other people thought of his cab right. So I looked I read I even asked him if he built anything himself, he told me he designed the buttons and joysticks ext, So then I gave him my opinion on the cab maybe could of worded it better but whatever this board doesent have to be positive all the time. Then I wake up and realize people are attacking me like whoa let me step back here whoa I just gave this guy my opinion like he asked for. My artwork is an original piece made by me inspired by the great pixelhugger yes. I don't see how its any diffrent from about every cab with artwork everythings been done before its just a matter of what you like and how you do it. I dint take anything back maybe you can get your fan club over there and play it some time. the end

[versapak]

Alright here we go this post was stared by Commando677 so he could hear what other people thought of his cab right. So I looked I read I even asked him if he built anything himself, he told me he designed the buttons and joysticks ext, So then I gave him my opinion on the cab maybe could of worded it better but whatever this board doesent have to be positive all the time. Then I wake up and realize people are attacking me like whoa let me step back here whoa I just gave this guy my opinion like he asked for. My artwork is an original piece made by me inspired by the great pixelhugger yes. I don't see how its any diffrent from about every cab with artwork everythings been done before its just a matter of what you like and how you do it. I dint take anything back maybe you can get your fan club over there and play it some time. the end

You didn't give him your opinion.

You made a jerk off comment about it.

Your artwork is very unoriginal, as is the name of your cab. Yes, that is the case for many people here (myself included), but the difference is, we aren't going around spewing turds about other people's lack of creativity.


What a complete retard. (I am not calling you a retard. I am just giving my opinion to you.)

[(+_+)]

Store bought cookie cutter arcade cab with boring artwork.

I don't see how its any diffrent from about every cab with artwork everythings been done before its just a matter of what you like and how you do it.

What a blatant contradiction. Anyways... the end 

[Commando677]

Now on to more positive things. I got my PS2 all integrated and it looks amazing. oooo Tekken 5 at last, Pictures below.

As for measuring the monitor I didn't do that, but I did one better for you Keyser_Soze I scanned in the schematic which has every measurement you could ever want.

[Negativecreep0]

what did you do to connect them? controller hack or some kind of adapter?

[(+_+)]

You are too kind Commando677.

475 millimeters = 18.7007874 inches

I think I may be purchasing one of these instead of my originally planned wide screens.

Thanks a lot.

[Commando677]

I am using an adapter from ultramarc. Since I already had a IPAC4 I picked up one of ther PSX adapters found here.
http://www.ultimarc.com/psx.html

I also picked up a KVM switch
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817107131
and a component to VGA adapter
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=222&products_id=4233&

So now when I want to play a PSX game I just switch my KVM over to the playstation and it switches my CP from the PC to the PSX and I am ready to go.

Let me know if you have any other questions.