Dark Stalkers minicade

[dshickman]

Can also be found here: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?p=30884&posted=1#post30884

With this project, I want it to be different from my first mame cabinet, so I searched for ideas and came across this webpage.
http://bartoparcade.katorlegaz.com/
Once I saw these I found my inspiration. They are small, portable, and just plain awesome. But I wanted to go even further with mine, I wanted to make one as small as I could so it would be able to fit on a computer desk and not take up too much room. Also, I decided it would only have a one player control scheme. So here are some built pics...







I used 5/8" plywood for the cabinet, and I also ordered some 5/8" t-molding to go with it. As for the monitor, i bought a Fujitsu 12" lcd at 800x600res. Apparently its a touchscreen too, I need to figure out how to get that aspect to work, that would make this build even sweeter. I can't find any info on this particular model though, its weird.
For the pc part of the build, i ordered an Intel Atom Mini-Itx cpu mobo combo from newegg for about 60 bucks. Im looking for something small, not something that can play crysis at 120fps But still, i love this little board, its a perfect fit at a little of 7x7in. The PSU is a generic 500watt supply I already had, and those extra watts are going to come in handy for powering the leds in the buttons and it also powers the LCD screen, which is double nice, sense I dont have to put a power strip in the case. I bought a 2gig stick of ddr2 ram for the mobo, sense it only has one mem slot.

Anyway, I've gotten as far as cutting the control panel, so wiring is next, uggh! It wouldnt be so bad if it was just buttons, but i have leds to sort out this time. Oh well, it will be worth it in the end......... I hope.

[dshickman]

Im going with a Darkstalkers art style, specifically Morrigan she's hot....like you didn't know that already

here are some designs im working on.


This is the sideart

and this is the marquee

I got all of these art sources from deviantart, im just editing them to fit my needs. That being said, there are some really talented people out there.

I haven't finish any of the artwork yet, so any suggestions would be helpful. Also, if you are more talented than me and would like to come up with your own designs, i might use those instead. I really want this case to pop

[dshickman]

I finally finished the construction part of the build. Only things i need to do are add t-molding, marquee brackets, a little putty and another layer of paint, then ill be ready for artwork. The wiring was awful. I got a ledwiz-GP with 16 inputs and 16 leds, but nothing seemed to work right. I tried everything. The leds just didn't work, so i just wired them up to stay on all the time. It was what i was originally going to do anyway. Even using LEDBlinky didn't help, oh well.

But its all good, everythings working as it should now, so no complaints here.

[dshickman]

Here is the mini arcade sitting next to my old full size. The full size is 72"in tall. The mini arcade is 17" tall.

[dshickman]

Alright, I finally got my marquee printed and ordered some brackets. Sorry it took so long Anyway, i got the brackets from happ, but they were too large for my mini arcade. So i had to trim them on the front facing edges by 1/2in so they wouldn't cover up too much of the marquee. I trimmed them with my table saw, kinda hard to get a clean edge, but they came out pretty good. Here's some pics...



All thats left is the side art.

[TOK]

Thats really cool! Control panel art would really put it over the top, especially if you could countersink the screws. 

[severdhed]

very cool cabinet

[spOOf]

Thats really cool! Control panel art would really put it over the top, especially if you could countersink the screws. 

 

[dshickman]

yeah, cp artwork would be nice. I might redo the panel using sheet metal and plexi in the future, but right now i kinda like the wood grain texture.

[Yvan256]

Dimensions? I know you said 17" tall, but what about width and depth? 

Also, I'm curious as to where you got that 12" LCD screen. Does it have a VGA input? How much is it? Etc...

[dshickman]

This cab is 17" height x 18" deep x 12" wide. The monitor is a fujitsu 12" with 800x600 resolution. Its actually a touch screen monitor with vga input, but it is a POS monitor, so there isnt much info on the net about it. I got it on ebay, new for $50. It also has built in speakers, so that one one less thing i had to worry about while building.

[mwong168]

Nice build, that is going to be my next project once my daughter gets older.  Not going to waste my money and get a 360 which I have and never play or a Wii.  I am using the same motherboard as my media server at home.  I picked up the board for $49.99cdn shipped from a place here in Canada.  The funning thing is my 2gb stick of ram cost as much as the motherboard and my promise SATA raid controller which added 4 extra ports cost me $70 lol.

I would have gotten some black bolts for your joysticks so they don't stand out as much unless you were going for that contrast look.

[Yvan256]

I picked up the board for $49.99cdn shipped from a place here in Canada.  The funning thing is my 2gb stick of ram cost as much as the motherboard.

Is it a Mini-ITX? For only 50$? Mind giving me the URL? 

[dshickman]

Well, it looks like the mobo i got from newegg.com must have been on sale at $50 bucks. Here is an alternative, it has a socket 775 slot and nvidia geforce 7050 integrated gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500010

[mwong168]

I picked up the board for $49.99cdn shipped from a place here in Canada.  The funning thing is my 2gb stick of ram cost as much as the motherboard.

Is it a Mini-ITX? For only 50$? Mind giving me the URL? 

Yes it is Mini-ITX and it was a special 1 day sale the website had.  I figure for $50 and processor included was a steal.  I wasn't sure what to do with it but ordered first and thought about it later.  Then I ended up using it as a file server.

[Yvan256]

Yes it is Mini-ITX and it was a special 1 day sale the website had.  I figure for $50 and processor included was a steal.  I wasn't sure what to do with it but ordered first and thought about it later.  Then I ended up using it as a file server.

Do you still have the website URL? What motherboard brand/model was it?

[dshickman]

the mobo was a open box special. here is the url.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359R