Built this bad boy November 2008 in two weeks, working form 8pm to 11pm almost every night. I have young kids so cant do stuff during the day.
The whole project was under $500 AUD thanks to some donated PC parts from friends and stuff I had lying around my garage.
I dont have any wood working skills so when I brought the two big 2400x1200 pieces of mdf home I scratched my head for 30min wandering what am I going to do and then just started drawing my design on the wood.
First I cut the sides out with a circular saw and jigsaw. Then I built a rectangle frame from house framing wood. This frame was for the floor so I cut a floor piece and screwed the wheels to the bottom. I then built another identical frame with floor for the PC. It sits about half a meter above the floor. I then screwed and glued the sides to the frame and built an angled shelf for the monitor.
All controls and buttons and some great advice are from
www.ozstick.com.au. Thanks heaps.
The cabinet is 2metres tall and stands on four rotating ball bearing wheels from Bunnings.
PC hardware is an old 2ghz P4 with 1Gig ram and onboard video and sound. Monitor is a 21inch Samsung CRT 1100PP.
The marquee I printed on two A4 papers and stuck together. Lighting is thanks to a 10 Led USB light from ebay I bought for $9.
The speaker grill is from Bunnings... found it in the garden section lol. The Perspex is also from bunnings (600mm wide).
The last picture shows the side of cabinet where you can see the volume control to the 2.1 Logitech sound system. Sub is mounted on the floor. The black hole below the volume control is where the cpu fan is mounted on a 90degree angle so that it sucks air from outside.
The panel config is one I made up based on what I wanted and the games I play. Yes that is ozstick vinyl overlay.
The paint is two coates for MDF primer and 4 coats of enamel applied by a small roller. I have no clue when it comes to painting so I I thought that it came out ok. Also all edges were coated with a mix of wood glue and water before the primer. No T-moulding anywhere on the cabinet. I painted on wood glue and water to seal edges after they were sanded. Then light sand... then more wood glue and water mix and then 2 coates of primter then 4 coates of paint.
It now sits in the garage and has some beer stains on it already
[Copied from my other thread here -
http://www.aussiearcade.com.au/showthread.php?t=20211]