First Cabinet -- The Great Escape Machine

[442much]

Like a lot of people here, I grew up in the 80s playing video games.  There seemed to be arcades everywhere, including one inside of our local Sears store. I had played with MAME years ago on my Mac, but using the keyboard just wasn't the same.  I got tired of it after a week and pretty much forgot about it. 

Fast forward to Christmas 2005.  I saw an ad for some multi-game arcade machine (forgot the name) at Target for a few hundred dollars.  That got my interest going in retro-gaming.  I quickly went to the Internet and starting searching around and found BYOAC.  After looking at the machine at target and being completely dissatisfied with it compared to what people were building, I began the plan to build my own cab. 

I got started late Jan of 2006 and just finished the build a few weeks ago (nearly 1 year later).  In the beginning, I figured I could build this thing in 3-5 months.  My original idea was to build a simple cab with an old PC and a TV inside.  The plan changed, as I got more into it and the cabinet took on a life of its own.  See below for a description of what this evolved into.

I couldn’t think of a theme for my cab, and I was just going to go with some basic MAME side art.  Well, this thing was way out of control by the time I got to the side art, so I decided upon an Oldsmobile themed cab.  I choose this because I’ve been an Oldsmobile car collector for quite some time.  I know, it would make more sense if it were a driving cab, but what was I to do this far in?  The name “The Great Escape Machine” is a play on advertising that Olds did during the muscle car era and the dubbed their cars “escape machines” with their slogan “escape from the ordinary”.  The character on my art that is flashing the peace sign is Dr. Oldsmobile, who was a fictional character that was used to promote their muscle cars.  He already had a cartoonish look to him, so I figured he would be perfect for the artwork.  The car on the side art is my 68 442 that was turned into line art from a picture.  I had snakestick create the artwork, with my wife doing the line art conversion of the car picture.

The cab is really nothing fancy compared to what some are building around here, but I’m pleased with the way it turned out.  I’d definitely do a few things different next time as I learned a lot along the way.

Here are the basics of my cab:

* Basic LuSID design
* Mag-Stick Plus joysticks  – 4/8 way switchable from the top
* SlickStik Spinner – Spins forever
* LCD Top Gun
* Smart Strip – For a single button power on
* Arcade VGA – For true arcade resolution
* TV Tuner/capture card w/ remote – Hooked to my sat dish
* 27” Billabs Multi-Res Monitor – Arcade and PC resolutions
* iFunstick Joystick – For games that use a flight style stick
* I-PAC VE – Keyboard encoder
* LED-Wiz – LED lighting controller
* Wireless Ethernet
* Happ 3” Trackball
* JBL Encounter speakers – Awesome sound
* APC UPS – Large enough to power the whole cab
* Refurbished coin door – restored like new and working
* Happ buttons with a mix of micro-switches and leafs (adapted to micro)
* Home built PC – Pentium Dual Core 3.2Ghz w/ XP
* GameEx Front End, MAME, DreamCast, N64, Visual Pinball, and more

A few items of interest:
* Coin inserts in coin door lit with blue LEDs clusters.  They appear red, but have a cool blue glow coming out of the coin slot.

* Coin returns are also lit by blue LEDs.  I haven’t seen anybody else light their coin returns, but I’d be surprised if I were the first

* Grounding stud inside on the CP.  This is wired to the PC power supply for a good ground.  I put on my ground strap when working on the CP.

* Exhaust fan in the back of the cab.  My PC was getting extremely hot and I traced that back to the hot air was circulating in the cab.  Installing the fan dropped the temp way down.  I also have a fan blowing on my monitor.

* USB input on side of CP to plug in keyboard, joystick, etc.

You can additional pictures at: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/547400186GmfKaX

[442much]

Here is the CP Wiring.   It looked fine (nice and tidy) until I added the LED rings.  I cleaned it up the best I could, but I should have wired the LEDs differently.

[442much]

Here is a shot of the sideart.

[442much]

Here is the coin door and you can see the LEDs that light the coin door.  It is hard to get a good picture that shows off LEDs.  You can see the blue light coming out of the coin insert slots. 

You can also see the Williams logo that I put on the cab.  Worked out well as that is my last name.  I also put the Williams logo above the monitor.

[442much]

Here is the computer.  The graphics are courtesy of a Jakk's game.

[442much]

One more photo of the full machine running attract mode.

[Kaytrim]

Nice and clean looking cab.  Could you show us how you made the LED rings?

TTFN 
Kaytrim

[shardian]

Hey man, looks awesome!. Don't sell yourself short by saying "nothing special about this one". It is an AWESOME accomplishment to say you built something like this from scratch.
Congrats and enjoy.

[TOK]

Very nice and clean cab! Though I have to admit when I saw the name, I was expecting some variation of this image:

[northerngames]

lol cool cab though.

[442much]

Nice and clean looking cab.  Could you show us how you made the LED rings?

I pretty much follwed Knievel's method.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37034.msg373799#msg373799

This was probably the most tedious part of the build.  There were quite a few LED rings to make and it definitely takes time.  I used a cheap cutting board.  I shopped around and found what I needed at Target, they still have them in stock.  I can also say, to use a drill press at a low speed, go slow and use lube to get clean cuts.  Cut the outside of the ring with a hole saw and then cut the inside with a forstner bit.  Make sure you measure the distance between your button and the size of your LED rings.  They can be quite a tight fit.

[arcadefever]

  that is a GREAT cab 

one thing: what are the 2 stripes on the sides of the monitor ? 

[442much]

that is a GREAT cab 

one thing: what are the 2 stripes on the sides of the monitor ? 

Thanks everybody for the positive replies.   

The strips on the side of the monitor (with the LED lights) is for the LED top Gun (I assume that is what you are talking about).  Here is a picture of the Gun and you can see the LED strips better.  I've also attached a photo that shows some of the other accessories:  The Superman Keyboard (USB), UPS, Remote Control, PS/2 Keyboard (for emergencies when USB quits working) and the iFunStick (I had to work a Mac product into the build) to play flight games.

[arcadefever]

ohhhhhh....

i see ....

great stuff 

[SithMaster]

Nice cab and yeah they dont seem a huge undertaking but the time quickly widdles away.  doesnt help when as soon as you get one another finds its way inside the house.  but you still have me beat since your is a scratchbuilt.  and leds are awesome.  more pics please.

wow i recently saw that movie too.  i heard that the barb wire jump never really happened but the actor wanted to do it.