SPENCER ARCADE

[camsauce]

Its good to see people with some of the same hobby's as myself (Home theater, arcade,....) Well I would like to commend you on your arcade. I think that it is original and innovative. I really like that front end!!! Keep up the good work.

Ditto that.  I too have a dedicate HT room with 100" screen and Sony HS20 pj and my neighbor has a dedicate HT and converted some old no name arcade machine into a MAME box.

Technology is fun!

I wish I had room to put my MAME cab in the back of my theater, I've only got about 4' behind the last row and I'm affraid what it would do the acoustics of the room 

Yeah, my wife and I pretty much stopped all projects when we had the HT setup.  Been watchin' movies ever since.  A tip to any enterprising DIY'er about to engage in setting up a projection-based HT - don't bother with a screen.  What you see pictured is actually about 5 coats of kilz2 primer painted in an alternating coats of horizontal and vertical strokes using a heavy nap roller.  The frame is just door casing painted flat black.  The properties of this paint, if done right, is similar to that of screens costing $900+.  There's some interesting threads on avsforum.com related to this.

[camsauce]

I built a MAME cab that is very "stock" so I can really appreciate a cab with a design as unique as this.

I really dig the access door next to the coin door.  Was that art painted on? 

Latex paint.  Painstakingly stenciled and masked off.  Ditto for the side art.

[camsauce]

excellent paint job! vinyl! shminyl!

Thanks!  IT did take a looong time to mask though.  When I started this project, cost was a medium to large factor when deciding what materials to use and where.  If I were to start over, I think I would invest in the vinyl if for no other reason that you can be extremely detailed with a photoshop image moreso then with latex paint and a paintbrush/roller. I suppose it all depends on how complex your design is?

[Santoro]

The cab is looking good, and I am very impressed with the basement! 

[camsauce]

It's been a while, but I've decided to redo the CP.  As mentioned in earlier posts, angled controls are the most moronic thing you can do when building a cab.  While I'm redesigning the cp, I thought I'd bling it up a bit with some LED controls.  I've ordered some UltraLux buttons and LEDs along with a driver board from Ultimarc.  Stay tuned.

[camsauce]

I've been playing around with the CPO artwork in Photoshop.   For those of you getting started on your control panels -- it's WAY easier to get your artwork printed and use it as a template to drill your holes.  This is as opposed to cutting your wood and making the artwork 'match' later.  If you use a decent printshop you can pretty much guarantee that the measurements you develop your art in will be spot on with your print out.  Here's a couple of images where this is heading, feedback is welcome.

[camsauce]

Received the chrome plated Ultralux buttons from Andy @ Ultimarc.com.  They look absolutely awesome.  I think the best part about them is how great they look unlit, they have a translucent kind of 'top' with a built in diffuser which makes the button nice and opaque at a certain depth.  Those of you concerned about these buttons not being concave -- don't worry about it, the face is almost entirely flat and the tactile feedback when using them is really good.  To me, the springs in them feel slightly stiffer then your standard HAPPS which I see as a good thing.  The LED fitting for these guys is just plain clever.  I'll try to get some good pics of these in action soon.

[Neilyboy]

man your cab is awesome. it really makes me want to get a good start on mine.. dangit.. haha very nice work man!

Neil

[BORIStheBLADE]

Nice work, I like it alot.

[ex_directory]

Great looking cab 

Any chance of some pics of those ultralux buttons?

[Chapel]

After Reading your update that your going to redo your cp with leds and such got me thinking the same thing. I finished my cab in 2005, seen alot of new things come down the pipe in the way of making cps and cabs look nice. Think I better start saving some extra cash.