My 1st Cocktail Finished! (100%... finally)

[system01]

So I’ve finally finished my first cab, a cocktail machine.  Its nothing unique or original, but I decided to post it all here for reference.

I’ve been a lurker here for a loooong time, but didn’t post much, at least until I got into the MaLa and software section.

I didn’t take good/many pictures during the build, but I have lots of 3D files that I used.  Im going to break this into groups as I don’t have time to do it all at once.  Ill add a section every few days or so.

Design:
- Kyle Lindstrom’s Pac Man Plans – modified to suit.
- Lots ot OEM-style Pac Man & Ms. Pac Man parts

Electronic/Electric::
- Asus A7V333 Mobo (resurrected with new caps)
- AMD XP 1800 chip
- 1 GB RAM
- nVidia 4400Ti Video, failing cos of bulged caps
- Klipsch Promedia 2.1 sound system (the old one)
- Some cheap-ass soundcard
- Samsung Syncmaster 204B, 20.1” LCD, 5ms Refresh, 160° viewing angle, 800:1 Contrast, 4:3 Aspect, Max res 1600 x 1200 @ 60 Hz (running 1280 x 960)
- Ultimarc U360 (2x)
- Ultimarc iPac2
- Happ Comp Buttons
- Play button switches swapped with micro-leafs from GGG
- Bits Ltd. SmartStrip SCG

OS & Software:
- Windows eXPerience R09 Tiny XP SP3
- FatFingers MaLa UltraStik Plugin
- MalaLauncher by TheShanMan, for…
- CPWizard by Headkaze
- MAMEComplier by Headkaze
- InstantSheller by Tom Spiers
- Asus MyLogo to change the BIOS logo
- Romlister

Unfinished:
- Top glass – bought but its too big
- Vinyl to cover the panel, around the buttons
- Vinyl to label the buttons
- Some decent stools to use this thing with
- Something to hold my beer

[brontosyamaha]

Nice and clean build.  Have fun!

[system01]

Thanks.

Its already in full use now.  In fact, my 5-year-old is learning games in 1 week quicker than I did in 10 years.  I still kick his ass at Strider though.

[system01]

The Base

I used Kyle Lindstrom’s Pac Man documentation for this build.  I don’t like fancy branding or anything for a MAME cab (too many games), so I left it very generic.  I had to compensate for board thickness and also alter it for the controls and devices I wanted.

The entire base piece is made of  ¾” MDF.  I drilled everything with giant holesaws (2”, 3 ½”) and then routed out the rest.  I finished everything with a drum-sander kit on a drill press.

I did this cos of the radiuses and routing and hole-drilling involved.  I didn’t want to have to go back and fill in a bunch of missing ply pieces later.  If I were to do this again I think I would’ve used MDF for the actual base (big square piece) and used cabinet ply, or solid stock, for the “skirt” pieces.  I ran into a problem with fastening the “skirts” to the base where the screws bulged out the MDF lengthwise.  I ended up driving the screws in – separating the MDF a little – backing them out, filling the now-split MDF with glue, clamping around the screw holes, and driving the screws back in.  Ply doesn’t behave this badly laterally.

Since I don’t have a radius jig for my router yet I drilled many holes for the big opening and sanded them down with the drums.  Then I went back and radiused the all the edges with a ½” roundover bit.  I didn’t want peoples (my wife’s) fingernails to chip away at square edges while pushing buttons.  Confused about my buttons and holes?  Youll see later…

I also added braces and t-nuts to the corners (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=1641).  My thinking was that when I upgrade to hardwood floors I didn’t want any wobble or shimmying, so I beefed up the mounting.  Necessary?  Prolly not, But Id rather build it in now than tear it down later.

When I was done gluing/screwing these pieces I sanded and primered/painted with whatever random enamel spray was in my garage.  I think Rustoleum Industrial Black.

Having Lindstrom's plans will assist in understanding how I fastened everything.
http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/cabplans/PacCT-instructions.zip
http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/cabplans/PacCT-details.zip

At the end I drilled through the corner braces and attached the t-nuts,  I used some mega-duty pinball-style leg levelers with rubber feet (again, for wood floors).

[system01]

The Sides (aka, How to Use Polyshades)

This was the most frustrating part for me.  I had a hell of a time with the finish.  Damn you, Minwax!

I used cabinet-grade ¾” oak veneer for everything on the sides.  The main squares were just cut with a table saw.  The CP cutouts were cut with a jigsaw, but since Mr. Crappy doesn’t like to cut straight, I shored everything up with a pattern bit in my router.  The CP cutouts were also measured to fit my CP.  They’re a bit wider than Lindstrom’s.  The hole for the coin door was made with a 3” hole saw and the same pattern bit in my router.  I had decided early on that I was going to use the Klipsch system, so I made another router template from the template in Project Arcade.  The CP ends were made using another template built somewhat close to the Lindstrom plans.  For now I left the top skinny parts sticking up over the cabinet sides.  I sanded all of the outside surfaces down til I couldn’t feel the grain anymore.  Nothing too fancy here…

…Until I got to the finish.
I planned on staining and finishing with a clear poly.  I played around a bit and found a good mix of 3 different colors of stain.  When I want to actually stain, the colors changed where they split the outer veneer.  Not like a tint off, but like one half was reddish-brown (what I wanted) and the other half was a bluish-gray.  I figured a couple more coats would hide it; Nope, just made it darker.

Not knowing what to do, other than re-cutting on proper parts of the sheet, I aimlessly wandered the paint aisle at Home Depot (like everybody else there).  I came across the Minwax Polyshades Bombay Red.  Looked sweet.  So I took it home and tried it on a little piece of oak and it came out nice.

So I sanded the stain back down til most the color was gone and started applying the Polyshades just like I would with other polys.  Came out like crap!  It globbed up and thickened in an uneven manner, so I had these random opaque brown spots.  Let dry, sand back down, try it again.  Same result.

A smart person would’ve tried this on a test piece first.  Not me.  Since all my pieces were “damaged” from the stain step, I wanted all my pieces to have had the exact same processes so they would match.  That’s right, I did this step four times to all of the pieces!

I also wasn’t impressed with the somewhat-matte finish of the Polyshades so I topped it with Minwax Semi-Gloss Clear Poly.

See the attached, I’m very pleased with how it came out in the end.
I also did the top at this time, but Ill put it in the next section.

How to Apply Minwax Polyshades.

This stuff thickens up before it even leaves the can.  If you don’t keep your painting steps to a couple minutes youll start pulling this goo all over your work.  Its kinda like smearing old pancake syrup with your finger.

I would load my 3” brush rather lightly and dab it in the center of my work, then rapidly “pulling” it to the edges.  Thin, thin coats!  In the case of Bombay Red, the first couple coats were very sissy pink.  If I couldn’t pull it to some edges I would barely load my brush and work that area.  I had a bubble problem with the open grain oak, so I would wait a couple minutes and tip it off.

I would wait 1 day then lightly sand it with the orbital and do the same process until I had a nice even color (4 – 5 coats).  After ~2 coats, sanding gives a “flat-plastic” look to it.  Putting anything over this will bring the color back – like getting a dry stone wet.

I don’t think Ill go this route again.

[javeryh]

This thing came out great!

[system01]

Thank you!

Coming from you, that's quite a compliment.

[javeryh]

Thank you!

Coming from you, that's quite a compliment.

Are you kidding?  Yours looks way better than my (still unfinished) cocktail.  Nice work!   

[Games001]

Awe-Some-Job!

[DaOld Man]

I agree!
Very good job!

[Franco B]

Very smooooooth 

How are you finding the 204B? Im thinking of using a LCD in my cocktail instead of the flatscreen CRT(s) I have.

[system01]

Thanks All.

@Franco B
I'm very pleased with it.  Not top 'o the line, but it could be way worse.  Its got a very fast refresh and I don't notice any blur or ghosting at all.  Its got a very good left-right viewing angle (on your desk).  I'm using some low dining room chairs right now and it still looks sharp with good colors.  Standing on the side (watching 2 players) looks kinda bad.  Everything stays sharp but the colors do that inverted thing.  Thats the up/down viewing angle if it was on your desk.  No ones complained about that though and you kinda forget about it after a while.  Its also big, for a cocktail.  The minute I turned it on in the cab for the first time I thought "Holy S, arcades were never this big".  And I got a refurb from somewhere for 200 USD.  I didn't care since I de-cased it, and I haven't found any bad pixels yet.

[system01]

The Top

I read that cocktail tops are usually 1” thick.  Well, I couldn’t find anything useable at that size.  I decided to use the same ¾” veneer, and then laminating a 1/4” (measured ~3/16) to the top of it.  I was going to use Formica on the top, so I didn’t need the most beauteous wood.  The bottom ¾” piece I finished the same as the sides.

My top measures ~22” x 32”.  On my first attempt I spread a ton of wood glue between two 26” x 36” pieces and sandwiched them.  I parked my car on them overnight with a bunch of 2-bys to hold down all the edges/corners.  It turns out that there’s just not enough weight (Nissan Altima) for all of that surface area and it left some pretty big gaps in between.  This kinda pissed me off cos I now had to cut into a second full sheet of $50 veneer ply.

Second (last) attempt:  I cut my finished shape out of the ¾ ply with hole-saws and my router.  This also included in center square where the monitor goes.  I made the opening just barely big enough so the stripped LCD would press in.  This gave me much less area which means my weight had more PSIs for laminating.  So I spread wood glue on the cut ¾ piece and laid it on another 26” x 36” 3/16” rectangle.  This time I dug up one of those giant storage-totes that all your wives have filled with shoes and purses in your closets, and filled it with water.  I also threw some sand bags on the corners just for good measure.

Perfect!

Then I measured the actual screen area – inside the little metal frame – of the LCD.  I don’t own any template guides for my router.  I need to buy some template guides for my router.  So I very carefully made some inserts out of scrap oak.  These precision aerospace pieces were press-fit inside the square hole in the ¾ ply, along the edges.  This allowed me to use my regular pattern bit to carve away an offset hole for the screen.  (I wish I had some pictures of this, but the models will have to do)

After waiting forever for Lowes to special-order some Formica (Wilsonart actually), I finally got my too-big roll of Flat Black.  I talked to the lady at that Home Design Center desk and she said that instead of using contact cement I could also use Liquid Nails.  Since I have 6 cans of the stuff already, I decided to use that.  I don’t know if I had the wrong stuff, but I didn’t really like it.  It’s not really an issue as it would be under glass, but it didn’t really want to squeeze down like I had hoped.  The Liquid Nails felt too firm.  Then I just used my pattern bit and my ultra-precision spacers and trimmed everything off.

T-mold slots and finished!

Hole Saw Tip:

I've got a lot of these 2" and 3" and 3 1/2' hole saws.  Cutting MDF and dense ply wants to burn down your garage and then tear out the back piece of your work.  Heres the answer!

Plan out your work where your mutant hole saw is going to cut.  Get a much smaller paddle/forstner/twist bit and drill a hole inside and tangent to that cut.  For a 3" hole saw I would use like a 5/8" or so.  That lets all the dust escape and doesn't clog your saw, eliminating the heat.

[jthompson]

Nice tip, thanks!

[system01]

Wood Assembly – The Bottom/Sides

Everything was looking all shiny and purdy now, time for glue-up.  Almost… forgot to mention that before I got to this step I cut all of my t-mold slots.  Muuuuch easier in pieces.

Nothing really fancy here, I pretty much followed the Lindstrom plan again here.  I biscuited all the joints with #0 and #10 biscuits and glued with Titebond II.  If you re gonna try this stuff, you might want to try the III or the I.  The II starts skinning over pretty quick and doesn't let you adjust much once your pieces are together.

After clamping I piloted and screwed in corner gussets made of clear pine.  I used more than Lindstrom recorded cos I wanted to have my way with this thing when I was done.

I ordered a piano-hinge from Rockler (19431 http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=283&filter=piano%20hinge) and cut to the full inside length of the back piece.  I pilot-drilled all the holes for both the upper and lower back pieces and then attached the hinge to the lower section.

After I let everything dry, I ran a straight guide and my router across the top to knock off the parts of the CP sides that were sticking up.

The top assembly will come later.

[system01]

Internals – The Bottom

I had three main things that I had to squeeze in the bottom of this cab:  the speakers/sub, the PC, and the cooling fan.  All of these gave me a bit of a challenge; even without a CRT there's not much real estate inside.

At step 1 (The Base), I already show the holes and everything in place.  This was actually planned out later after I got the fan and speakers and could physically move some stuff around.

The fan I picked up at Radio Shack.  No, I didn't get a new cell phone.  It's a 4” Thermaltake 12V fan.  With a wire grille and foam filter it all came to 14 bucks.  Since heat rises and the LCD being at the top I decided to mount it pushing upwards.  Toward the end of this project I purchased a vent (Rockler 32057 http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5228&filter=vent) and installed it in the back vertical panel just below the monitor.  Its quiet, and I can feel a decent amount of heat coming out of the back.  It still gets a bit toasty inside, but not enough to worry me.

The Klipsch sub I mounted so that I could get to the DIN and speaker connection – towards the rear - and with the speaker facing towards the center.  I stuck some 1/8” foam tape to the perimeter of the underside of the sub and clamped it down to the base with two control panel latches (thx to divemaster).

The next problem was mounting the mobo… with cards.  I bummed an old PC case from a friend and took my die grinder to it.  I cut the entire back panel out to the same size as my mobo, and the rear I/O slotted piece to just what I needed to use.  Unfortunately these were two separate pieces, so I just drilled some holes through them and screwed them together.  Painted black, beauty!  I glued some scrap oak strips to the inside of the cab, drilled and dimpled some holes in my sexy mobo-panel and mounted it (…yes, it was that sexy).  The only way this would fit is with the I/O side sticking up, right against the speaker.  But you'll see that later.

With the big stuff out of the way, I created an adequate coinbox out of scrap MDF.  I also added a punchdown-flanged-plug-deal from L-com (http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=7139 , this one is straight-thru, when I bought mine is was punch-down style) and a regular PC power socket for the mains.  I can now unplug power and network just by reaching under the bottom.  I also installed 2 pushbuttons (Happ 49-0577-00 http://www.happcontrols.com/pushbuttons/49057700.htm, again, divemaster) into a little custom plate and screwed that into the bottom.  Both are momentary, one being the ATX power-on, wired straight to the button header on the mobo, the other being the MAME service button (for <cough> cheats <cough>).

The pic doesn't show the sides glued up.  I did some of this layout stuff before the cab came together.  Theres also a little green thing in the 1st pic - just a random pot laying around.  Things are also very dusty, not bad paint.

[system01]

Internals – Upper & Misc.

I still needed a place to mount the HDD, so I cut up the same PC chassis and scored the 3-bay cage out of it.  I ground off all of the flanging, drilled some holes in it and painted it the same black I’ve been using.  I had to mount it in the corner, next to the coin door.  This meant that I could only install the HDD on one side with two screws.  Its pretty secure and doesn’t much room to move around.

For the power supply, I made three little L-brackets from aluminum.  I drilled some smallish holes into the sides of the PS and attached the brackets with sheet metal screws.  It was very tempting to turn it on with all the metal shavings in there, but good judgment prevailed and I blew everything out with my compressor.  I then used short wood screws and attached it to the other corner, opposite the HDD cage.

The volume knob.  This one drove me nuts for a while, mainly cos I couldn’t find parts.  I took the Klipsch “pod” apart and took the PCB out.  I dug up all of the rubber cement stuff  they glopped on everything and desoldered the volume POT.  I took the bass knob off as it was huge and I figured I wouldn’t have to mess with it after I set it where I liked.  I knew where I wanted to mount the volume, but wasn’t sure how, and how to make a stealth installation.  What I ended up doing was soldering ~8” of wire to extend the knob from the PCB.  Then I made a small round flange that would mount with two screws.  I used a forstner bit and drilled down about 1/16” (16 Ga.) and hollowed out the back of the wood a bit to make room for the POT.  It took me aaaaages to hunt down an M7 panel nut to fit this POT.  I finally found a fastener distributor that mailed me some samples.  The actual knob also had me stuck for a while.  I wanted something big, heavy, but not flashy.  I finally came across an Alcoswitch #KN1251B1/4.  This was hard to find as everyone wanted to sell me a lot of 500 or 1000.  It was also expensive, but this was important to me as I didn’t want a hollow plastic knob or a bunch of bling.  I made the flange the same size as the knob so that it hides the flange and screws.  Then I simply screwed the PCB to the inside of the cab.

The coindoor is a standard Happ 2-player side-by-side.  Nothing fancy here.  Although I would like to change the coin return button text, I just haven’t thought of something clever enough to put in there.  The coin switches are on the same key as the coin buttons on the CPs.

I took a tip from Project Arcade and mounted the Klipsch satellites with some longer screws through the sides of the cab, replacing the original screws that held the clamshell case together.

Since I didn’t have room for USB cables (the plugs are too long) cos I squished the mobo into the side speaker, I got some of those traveler USB extension things.  The kind that you unspool like a measuring tape.  I have two for the U360s and one is zip-tied to just inside of the coindoor for a maintenance mouse.

I have an iPac2 mounted above the coindoor and everything is hooked up as usual there.  I got the PS2 version since I have a lot of those keyboards.  Mounting above the door lets me easily plug in a maintenance keyboard.

To power everything up I used a 7-socket SmartStrip from bitslimited.  I wired a bottom button (see previous) to the power button pins on the mobo.  I have the power supply plugged into the ‘Control’ on the SmartStrip, and monitor and speakers in to the slave outlets.  This basically makes you cab into a giant PC case with everything turning on/off automatically.  If something hangs, you can hold the button down for 3s to shut everything off.  The SmartStrip was mounted to the back-lid piece (I’ll show you later), and I cut the cord and crimped some heavy-duty spade connectors for the power socket in the base.

One pic shows blue tape covering the hole where the POT lives.  This was to test-fit the LED strips.

How to Fix a Klipsch Cable

Klipsch uses some crappy-ass mini-DIN cables for their older Promedia 2.1 system (the squarish black one).  The DIN connector will actually separate and/or fall apart.  There are many complaints about this, but Klipsch will only sell an entire new “pod”, not just the cable.

The information here was taken from several different posts on the Klipsch forum, from  both staff and users.  I am only sharing what I found and that it worked for me.

After cutting many mouse and keyboard cables off and finding that not all of the pins are populated, I finally found that Radio Shack #26-149 will fix you up.  You need to cut an end off, or the whole thing in half.  You can solder/shrinkwrap the (now) cut Klipsch wires to the Radio Shack wires, or you can get Molex 87369-0900 & 50212 and build a new PCB connector.  I purchased the parts to rebuild a connector, but after seeing how small they were I said “Screw it” and just soldered the wires together.  See the image below for the pinouts & colors.

[Jetson]

Nice work....I love the choice of finish color on the wood, it gives more of a modern look while still paying tribute to the old school look of wood grain.

[system01]

I am very glad you said that.  That was a big deal to me and exactly what I was going for.

Thanks.

[system01]

The Top & Monitor

I already showed the making of the top-surface piece.  I more-or-less followed the Lindstrom plans here.  I took the back piece and mounted it to a cleat, and the attached the top to the same cleat.  I used large wood screws and glue since there’s a lot of stress on this joint.

I got some shelf brackets that were on sale at Ace Hardware for like $5.  Ive seen the same brackets at Lowes and HD, but they cost a lot more.  I also used these where the top and back meet to keep things square.  Everything was measured beforehand so that the monitor, monitor brackets, and shelf brackets all fit snug within the cab opening.

The monitor was decased and the controls carefully removed.  The monitor fits snugly into the recess in the bottom of the top (eh?).  I made four z-brackets that were spaced to hold the monitor up in the recess.  Before mounting, I stuck some foam tape on the monitor-side of the brackets to minimize rattles and to not damage the monitor.  I also needed to use the delicate controls that I removed from the case.  Once removed, it’s essentially a narrow PCB with a parts-tree looking set of flimsy buttons and a thin little cable.  The case is molded to hold these pieces together and in place.  So I decided to make a small square button holder out of wood.  I made a top piece and drilled/c’sunk holes in it, spaced and sized to fit the buttons.  I then glued some spacers and a bottom blank piece together to make a trough for the PCB.  Lastly, I drilled holes through the whole thing and screwed it to the back cab wall.  Of course, I had to paint it sexy black.

I covered the bottom of the top with wide painter’s tape and measured out a pattern for all of the glass clips and piloted the holes

With the entire top was assembled, I reattached the hinge and buttoned it up.  I used the same CP latches that I used to hold the subwoofer down.

You may be asking, “But system, what about the slots for the Plexi behind the control panels?”  Well, I forgot about that.  So I had to strip everything back down and cut some 1/8” slots with a spiral upcut bit.  Reassemble.

The pic with the brackets: The 2 on the top and the two on the right are the monitor brackets.  The round on on the left is the volume bracket, and the two lower ones are the CP mounting brackets.

[system01]

Control Panels & Buttons

This was all your basic stuff.  In the start of the CP planning stage. I went to MAWS and and did some searching and found that theres not much need for more than 3 buttons for vertical games.

Since I work at a manufacturing company, I called in a favor to build some metal panels.  These match pretty closely with the OE PacMan stuff, but I widened them a bit and tweaked the bends a little to match our dies.  Everything was cut on the turret punch and folded in the press break.  Beautiful.  I found a metric bit and drilled 4 holes that matched the holes in the joysticks.  What I did was got a pack of M5 PEM self-clinching studs and pressed them in.  This gave me a relatively flat top and non-rotating fasteners.  This also allowed me to make a spacer to fit underneath – between the joystick and the CP – to move the dust washer underneath.  I made the same hole pattern and cut a large hole in the middle that was slightly larger than the dust washer, and a bit thicker.  I wish I took photos of these, but I didn’t, so deal with the models.  I was going to have them powder coated black, but the way I had to install the studs it didn’t work out logistically for me.  I ended up using some Rustoleum Appliance Black Epoxy spray.  Looks nice and its holding up really well.

The buttons are regular Happ Competition buttons.  I put MicroLeafs from Groovy Game Gear under the action buttons, admin buttons stayed with the Cherrys.  The “coin” and “start” buttons went on the top-left, but I had a problem with where to place “exit” and “pause”.  I was going to put them under “start” and “coin” but I figured Id hit them accidentally in a heated game of Mr. Do.  I decided to move them to the right side in the wood.  I think it turned out decent, but if I were to do it again I would move them up a bit as they’re kindof hard to see (obscured by the CP).

Everything was wired up in normal fashion to the iPac2, and U360s connected to the USBs.

A piece of “Sign-White” polycarb was cut, drilled, and mounted behind the panels.  I used some z-brackets from mikesarcade.com (CTZBRCKT).  At the time there was these, and there were these thinner, ~1” wide brackets.  I went with the wider ones thinking that they would be more secure.  What I didn’t realize is that the lights inside cast a silhouette and there’s these dark rectangles in the corners.  Seeing how stable everything is now, I could’ve prolly gone with the thinner ones.  I may still take mine out and grind them a bit.  But then again, no one seems to notice but me.

For the lighting I used the NovaMatrix from GGG.  They happen to perfectly span the CP opening in the back, and they’re thin enough to clear the shelf brackets when closing the lid.  I thought they might show white dots in a dark room since they’re only ½”-3/4” from the polycarb, but it turned out a nice even glow.

I now had a mechanically complete, enclosed box.  What a milestone!

[Bender]

Nice work!

and great documentation too!

[system01]

Thx Bender!

I just hope it helps out future-noobs who need a little guidance when trying to get parts to play nice.

[system01]

Software

This is not necessarily the best software for you, but this is everything I used and have had wonderful help and am very impressed with the results.  It works for me, and looks and plays damn good.

Mala (http://malafe.net/)
Ever since I was a wee lad I knew I’d be using MaLa.  Its not the flashiest or the quickest, but its customization is what won me over.  Plus, its free so there’s no nag screens as you’re messing with your first layout for a decade.

I wanted themes to categorize my gamelist browsing.  So I created a layout (using MaLaLayout) that had different “pages” for fighters, shooters, maze, etc.  You can see my results here: http://malafe.net/index.php?page=layouts&subpage=generic_cocktail and a youtube here:     The video was made to show a lag in list changing, but has now been fixed.

MaLa U360 plugin (http://malafe.net/index.php?page=plugins#ultrastik)
This MaLa plugin allows your u360s to be programmed on the fly inside MaLa.  The plugin sees the game started, compares it to a list of u360 maps, and instantly sets you up.

Mame Compiler 64 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71845.0)
headkaze created this little beauty to ease your compiling woes.  In a few clicks you can disable nags, add hiscore, change CPU optimization, whatever you need.

Romlister (http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/)
This little app will sort almost any roms you need.  It lets you pick monitor orientation, genre, # of buttons, etc, and create a batch file you can use to pick certain roms from your bloated .127 romset and move them to the location of your choice.  It even makes gamelists for MaLa, Hyperspin, Maximus, etc.

CPWizard (http://members.iinet.net.au/~freeaxs/cpwizard/)
Another nice program from headkaze.  I cant get into all the details of this thing as it does so much.  The way I set it up is it starts on the startup of MaLa.  When I hit “pause” it pauses the game and brings up a CP image (see attach) with which buttons are used and what directions the joystick uses, all with labels if available.  Hit pause again and the CP window disappears but the game stays paused.  This allows me to change dip switches and other admin stuff with the game paused.  Really slick and very powerful.

CPWizard also has a batch-image-creator feature.  I was having the issue of people sitting down at the cab wanting to play 2-player, but not knowing which games were alternating or even 2 player.  So I used the batch utility to create images with the same name as the rom that showed joystick, buttons, player number, and simultaneous or alternating.  I created a definable in the MaLa layout to show these images as you scroll through the list (see attached).

Instant Sheller (http://www.gameex.net/Community/InstantSheller/tabid/73/Default.aspx)
This little guy was written by Tom Speirs.  I automatically shells to the program you want th shell to.  It also hides the taskbar, hides the desktop, hides the cursor, turns off any sounds, and even changes the “Windows is now starting” logo.  If you honk something up you can simply click “Undo Changes” and Windows is back in its previous glory.

Asus MyLogo (on the support CD for certain Asus boards)
All this simply does is change the BIOS full-screen logo to something Mame-ish.  Its pretty self explanatory.  Just make sure youre not using MyLogo 2.0 on a MyLogo 1.0 BIOS.

TinyXP (Youll have to do your own searching for this one)
I used eXPerience TinyXP rev9.  TinyXP is built basically for gamers, so all of the Windows overhead is gone, but still retains the basics for media and basic networking.  Very small and runs very fast.  Before adding codecs, drivers, and .NET and all that, I was having startup times (power button to hour-glass gone) of 19 seconds on my old Athlon 1800+.  Some people have problems with TinyXP, but if youre not doing anything too extravagant, I would suggest trying it out.

I also have the basic networking turned on and shared the C:\ drive.  Most of the stuff on an arcade machine doesn’t use the registry, which makes it really easy to edit INI files, change gamelists, change images, make repairs, and add roms.  You can run some of the apps from a different machine without any errors and edit things on the fly.  Just recently I had family over for Thanksgiving and my brother-in-law got the gamelists messed up (shooter turned into sports, sports turned into driving, etc).  I went to my regular PC and renamed them back.  Next time he exited a game to the list, it was already fixed.  I would recommend this if it's feasible.

[system01]

The Finishing Touches

This is some of the little bits that I missed or glossed over.  Some stuff I still have to get.  Since I put the thing in my living room I’ve been lagging of finishing some stuff up.

Rear Vent – I planned for this earlier on, but for some reason I sort of put it out of mind until it was really late in assembly.  Since I had the fan blowing in and up from the bottom, I needed a place for heat to escape.  I also thought I should put it up high to try to sap some of the heat from the LCD.  So I found this vent from Rockler (32064).  I made a router template from scrap MDF and cut that bad boy out.  The vent was a pretty snug fit, but I put a couple globs of silicone on the inside just in case.  Im glad I put this in;  putting my hand back there I can feel quite a bit of hot air escaping.

Glass – I actually ordered a piece of tempered ¼” glass.  When I got it it was oversize and wouldn’t fit inside the glass clips.  Also, I ordered it over the phone and I didn’t know the difference between a “seamed” edge and a “pencil” edge.  I got the seamed.  I should’ve taken it back but I got lazy and its just sitting there in a corner of my garage.

T-mold – Nothing fancy here.  My plywood was just under ¾” in thickness and I was worried about the t-mold edges hanging over.  After it was installed it was so minor that I left it.  I also t-molded the bottoms of all the sides.  This is where the plies were still “raw” and I could imagine someone sticking their shoe under and splintering the plies apart.  My top surface measured ~.90” thick.  I routed the center of the slot .50” from the bottom.  After I glued the Formica on and pounded 1” t-mold in, I took a razor blade and trimmed the edge of the molding that was sticking up.  Then the glass will sit flat on the Formica/t-mold.

Button Decals – I’ve been super lazy about getting the outside decal stuff ordered.  I plan of getting some vinyl discs cut up for “coin”, “1p”, 2P”, “pause” and “exit”.  I leaving the punch/shoot/jump buttons unlabeled as CPWizard can fill the player in on what they do.  You can see what I want in the post above (A CPWizard screen).

Speaker Grilles – These were ordered from mikesarcade.com (SPKRCVRMID) and they are the old Midway grilles.  A lot of people don’t like ‘em, but they fit over the Klipsches nicely and since they’re under the CP, nobody really sees them.

Control Panel Decals – Another thing I’m lagging on.  I need to call up mamemarquees or somebody and have some vinyl printed for the CPs.  In the end everything will have the same look to it:  the CPs, the layout windows, CPWizard.

[system01]

Conclusion

I’ve been wanting to build a cabinet for a few years, but like so many, never got around to it.  I’m no stranger around wood or power tools, but just one of those things that I wasn’t motivated enough to do.  So I finally put pen to paper and started planning this cocktail.  I picked up Project: Arcade and read a bunch of projects in this forum.  I really would’ve struggled on some of the hardware if it weren’t for this place.  The one thing that really killed me though was all of the different resources I needed:  wood, plastic, glass, fasteners, PC parts, monitor, clips, flanges, brackets, knobs, wire, spade connectors, plugs, sockets, electrical components… Too many different stores to go to.

Some things I would’ve done different, but all-in-all I like the way it turned out.  Now that I’ve done one I feel I can crank another one out in a couple weeks.

The main reason I started with a cocktail, when I really wanted an upright, was the high WAF.  She really likes the older PacMan and Galaga games.  Plus it looks like a decent piece of furniture.  Now that this machine is being used regularly she’s been hinting at me to make an upright since she now misses the Mortal Kombats and Street Fighters.  Bonus!

If you’re thinking of building your first cab, drink beer.  Work on it sober, work on it drunk.  You’ll get through more mental hurdles with beer, and chicks will find you attractive.  You’re awesome!  But don’t use things like routers drunk.  That’s just stupid.  And keep it classy.  No one should put their loved-ones through the agony of keeping a half-assed pile of wood in the living room.

I’d like to thank everyone here for so much help, and maybe Ill have another writeup in the near future…

[Hornpipe2]

Thanks for the complete write-up - looks like a great machine!

[system01]

UPDATE

I finally got around to getting some vinyl stickers for the buttons.  They now match my CPWizard pause screen.  Thx Pongo!

I'm really dragging ass getting this thing 100%.  Iv'e since moved on to another project that's more complex and over twice the expense.  Ill try to divert some resources and get it done in the next couple months.

[matman]

Wood Assembly – The Bottom/Sides

Nothing really fancy here, I pretty much followed the Lindstrom plan again here.  I biscuited all the joints with #0 and #10 biscuits and glued with Titebond II.  If you re gonna try this stuff, you might want to try the III or the I.  The II starts skinning over pretty quick and doesn't let you adjust much once your pieces are together.

I have a silly question.  #0 biscuits are 1-27/32" in length.  The biscuit joiner cuts longer than this.  The Lindstrom plans call for 1-3/4" strips for the base and then biscuit together.  Did you just create cuts in the base strips that were wider than the actual strip?  (if that makes sense)  I'm just not clear how to biscuit together strips that are narrower than the biscuit cut and only 1/32" smaller than the actual strip of wood.

Thanks,
Matt

[system01]

If I understand you right, then yes, the cut is longer than the wood is tall.  When I had my 4-piece "box" laying on the table, I had square cutouts on the top and bottom.  Since one side is being glued the base, and the other faces the floor, I didn't even fill them.  Once I got to the painting stage, I don't think I even noticed them anymore.

I also find that you can shallow up a bit from the Mfgs recommendation on the depth settings.  I cut some scrap until I could feel the biscuit bottom out.

[matman]

yeah, that makes sense.  I'm starting the assembly tomorrow (of the bottom), so i'm sure i'll come to the same conclusions.  thanks!

[system01]

Vinyl

So I finally got around to getting the CP vinyl taken care of.  Thanks to mamemarquees.com.

...glass is on order, should be here any day now.

[system01]

DONE!

The glass order got lost, then they found it again a month later.  Wasn't the glass shops fault, it was the custom contract shop that lost the pattern.  He was sorry for the mixup and gave it to me at cost!

I had to shim the bottom of the glass clips with extra black Formica.  I Spray-77'd two pieces together and then cut and drilled them.  Real snug.

Glass Clips - www.mikesarcade.com
Glass - J&J's Screen and Glass from Lincoln, CA.

[javeryh]

Wow that came out nice.  I love the finish!   

[CthulhuLuke]

Man that thing looks terrific. How does that subwoofer do in such a small enclosure? I'd imagine it'd get a little rattly if you turned it up too bad. The U360's look very slick, how do they feel in comparison to other joysticks?

The glass also really completes the cocktail. Would you mind taking a picture of the monitor Z-Brackets you fastened to get the monitor to stick so well in there?

- Looks great!

[system01]

Thanks, guys!

I haven't compared the sticks to others.  I really needed the 2/4/8-way switchability, and, since I heard no real gripes with them from others, I picked them up.  I put the hard spring and tight circular restrictor in there and it feels right.  Theres not much room for hands, so the small movements are nice.  I do have a complaint that is shared with others, and thats that the dead-zone develops some slop after use -- actual play in the mechanicals at the pivot.  Definitely not a show-stopper though.

The sub rattles only at uncomfortably loud levels.  It was worse when I first put it in, then I noticed the grille was partially loose.  Threw that away and its much better.  I think the foam tape - between the sub and the base - is breaking down a bit under the constant heat and pressure.  I may have to add more foam or tighten up the clamps.

Since putting the glass on, I think the LCD (and the cab) temp has gone up a bit.  I haven't had any CPU overheats or anything, it just feels hotter at the vent out the back.  I'll take a measurement and maybe look for a bigger fan.

I'll take some bracket pics tonight.  They're nothing really special, but re-reading through my topic, I see I didn't really give any info.

[system01]

So heres the bottom of the LCD, plus a crappy diagram of what's there.

On the top (Z) brackets, I used double-sided foam tape with only one side peeled.  As you can see, the heat and weight are slowly squishing the foam out.  This is quality tape, but I have a huge roll of 3M VHB waiting to replace it.

The bottom (flat) brackets I lucked out on with the thickness.  I had not planned for the monitor to be 3/4" at the bottom, just dumb luck.

[jimto]

Very nice!

Great color as well.

[system01]

Thank you!
 

[Silas (son of Silas)]

If I didn't live in a house the size of rabbit hutch I'd build a table. I really like yours. Job well done