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PRETENDO : PlayChoice - My First MAME Cabinet!!! *Parts are arriving!!!*

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Daniel B.:

Welcome all to my build thread!

Pretendo:PlayChoice is a MAME cabinet inspired  by the Nintendo Playchoice cabinets. This is NOT a recreation, restore or anything like that. Nintendo Purists be warned! No Nintendo cabs were injured in the building of this project.



The basis of this cab is a Dynamo Z-Back. I picked it up several weeks ago from a kind gentleman in Omaha, NE for $40. It is my first arcade cabinet ever, and so far has been quite the learning experience! There were many cabs to choose from, he seemed to have alot of MVS 4 slot machines. I had to pass those on as they would not fit the T.V. that I had in mind (27"). It was in a tight space, and I was pretty excited to be getting a machine at all, so I actually didn't notice most of the damage on this cab. I noticed one spot on the back of the "Z" that had damage but that was it. When I got it home, I noticed in addition to the spot I saw in his garage, 3 of the 4 corners were BAD NEWS. This concerned me very much, and after reading on byoac, I learned bondo could be used to fix them up. I proceeded to do just that.

As you can see, things were very scary at first!





I made some jigs out of cardboard and aluminum foil for the corners, but being as inexperienced as I am with "projects" in general, they didn't always work. Building it up layer by layer is absolutely necessary with damage like this.



After many many hours in the 20 degree garage (Bondo doesn't work so well in the cold!) I was making headway.



I'll be sure to get a real workbench when I buy a house!  :hissy: :hissy: :hissy:




I eventually got to a point (after about 10-12 hours) when I realized nobody is going to be inspecting the bottom of this thing with a magnifying glass. My plan was to cover it with black vinyl. I got the edges straight enough, and covered some holes/chunks in the particle board and called it good. I then installed 4 casters on the bottom of the cab. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of it standing up yet - but I will add some soon.

 

XyloSesame:
holy crap - I love the name!!

Neilyboy:
Diggin it so far man! Keep up the good work and keep posting more pics!!

Neil

Daniel B.:
Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm waiting on something in the mail (Should be here tomorrow), before I post any more details. Don't worry, there will be pics!  :cheers:

For the time being, here is a picture of the original playchoice cab, along with some other awesome nintendo cabs.
||||||
VVVVV


Neil, your thread was fantastic. It has made me want to restore an original nintendo cab so much more. Kudos on the terrific documentation!

Daniel B.:
I apologize I didn't get this thread updated on Friday. It was a pretty busy weekend. Luckily, my control panel came!!!! The original CP that came with this Dynamo was actually in fantastic condition, and already drilled in a sf2 layout. I thought it over for several days, and decided it wasn't going to cut it for my setup. At this point, I began searching to see what people have been doing to create a new control panel on a cabinet like this. I saw knievals thread on his Dynamo, and saw that he cut off the "control panel wings". I was not comfortable doing this. I was afraid I'd cut them croooked or once I started cutting, the cab would fall apart. The search continued.  I found an auction on ebay, for a 4p control panel w/ 5ft jamma harness. The auction mentioned it was a direct replacement for a hs-5. For some reason, I thought my cab was an hs-5. (In fact, I thought all dynamos with a 25" cp were hs-5, how wrong was I!). I tried to snipe the auction - but it ended up going way higher than I thought. I eventually won the auction, and exchanged emails with the seller. He's an old OP. He asked what kind of cab I was going to put it on, I showed him a picture, and he said "good luck".  A little scary, let me tell you. No reason to be scared anymore, BECAUSE IT FITS!!! (Note, I also installed casters last weekend so I could move this thing easier)





The slide out tray, is no longer "long enough" with the new cp - there is a gap here, I'm planning on putting a flourescent light here, and tinting it red. It's low enough you shouldn't be able to see the tube!



and one more "artsy" shot, lol




I'm getting ready to oder all of my control parts this week. I have discovered a cheap source of the Black Pica vinyl, and once they calculate shipping and charge me, I'll let everyone know if this was really savings or not! I am nearly completed with my CP overlay, I'm just having a hard time converting it from 35"x12.5" at 300dpi to something I can post on the board without loosing all the fine details. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Otherwise the alternative would be for me to post a link to the entire compressed archive and everyone can download it manually.

I spent about 8 hours working in photoshop this weekend. Now I get to go back to work and do it for another 40 hours. Awesome. :)

Thanks for looking, suggestions are welcome!b

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