After 2 busy months, I started and finished my brand new Arcade Cabinet, Koopacade! This is my first cabinet and it's been a blast making it, but I'm so happy to be where I am now: playing my arcade. I used John St.Clair's book Project Arcade, and as you can see from the photos I used the older version of the book. I actually bought the book a few years ago and it took me a while to really decide that I wanted to do this. Overall I spent a little over $1,000, which was a little over budget, but pretty good considering a few items were more expensive than I anticipated. But in order to keep my costs down I reused old equipment such as the computer, monitor, speakers, and even the Plexiglas.
I bought all of the arcade controls from Ultimarc (
http://www.ultimarc.com/). I thought each of the products were great, and I've very happy with them so far. Also, Andy at Ultimarc was very helpful and very quick to respond with a few questions I sent him.
Arcade Controls parts list:
- I-Pac2 for my button and joystick interface (
http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html)
- Optipac for my trackball and two spinners interface (
http://www.ultimarc.com/optipac1.html)
- Mag-Stik Plus for the two joysticks (
http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html). I picked these because they are switchable between 4/8-way just by lifting the joystick and twisting.
- U-Trak for my trackball (
http://www.ultimarc.com/trackball.html). It looks great and I got the translucent red type and someday I'll upgrade by putting an LED light beneath the trackball for illumination.
- Spintrak for the two spinners (
http://www.ultimarc.com/SpinTrak.htm).
- Buttons: just the generic microswitch buttons from Ultimarc. I also put two flipper buttons on the sides of the cabinet which I used leaf switch buttons so they don't click (like a real pinball machine).
Let me know if you have any questions about my construction or if you want me to post more photos.