The Canucks Cocktail Cabinet

[Ryglore]

Thanks Ryglore. Though I should thank you for your SHMUP cabinet, it really inspired me to get back into vertical shooter games. It's the reason i decided to breathe life back into my Dreamcast (best console ever!) by putting into this cabinet as well as my PC. I figured I should really take advantage of the vertical display. The shooters on that system are awesome, I love how their games support vertical rotation!

Nice! I never owned a Dreamcast, I really should get on it and try to find one around here.

[opt2not]

This took awhile, I carefully taped off the glass for the black and green lines, also keeping spaces for the tabletop artwork inserts.


After painting the black, I pulled the line tape off and painted the green, letting it dry for a little bit, I then proceeded to remove the rest of the tape.


As you can see on the right side, I accidentally pulled off a bit of the black from the Player area. I'll have to tape that part again and repaint it, as well as cleaning up a bit of the blotching that happened around the glass. Overall it turned out nicely, other than the one mess-up...it just took a lot of time.

[Billy_Goatfeet]

I can't decide on which theme for the CPs I want on this thing. I narrowed it down to two possiblities:

1. The stadium theme (GM Place)
Player 1 side:

Player 2 side:


2. Net-camera theme
Player 1 side:

Player 2 side:


Both of them are good!  I can't decide, what do you guys think?

  I would go with the first set, the stadium theme.  There's something about the second set that bothers me, can't quite put my finger on it....


Go Leafs!!   


Hehe....

[opt2not]

I would go with the first set, the stadium theme.  There's something about the second set that bothers me, can't quite put my finger on it....

Hah!  I think it's perfect!  

I did some small tasks today which included polishing a wack-load of bolts:


Aside from that, I cleaned the smoked plexi, reinstalled the monitor, printed out the table top artwork and painted the monitor clips. I painted them white to match the molding. After letting them dry, I installed the glass and all clips onto the cabinet. Here's some pics:



Here is Player 1's view angle, and the player insert art w/ Canucks classic "c" logo:


Tomorrow I'll polish the glass scratches out, and will be working on the hole-making in the  metal CP, then moving onto the plexi. I hope to get the controls wired up by the weekend.

[emphatic]

 

That looks very nice.

[Ryglore]

Oh, wow. That looks excellent! Have you printed off test versions of the CP art to see which looks better? Now would be the time to test them out, since the outside of the cab is near complete.

[Franco B]

Wow, I've just read through the whole thread.

I think you have done a fantastic job, It looks lovely!! 

Probably the nicest custom renovation I have seen, kudos 

[Chicken McNobody]

Looks great, not a sports fan here, but I wouldn't complain if I had that cab at all.  I love the coloring and simple yet effective design approach.

It looks very sharp!

[opt2not]

That looks very nice.

Thanks emphatic! Admittedly I was a bit unsure about the glass painting at the start. I was going to just use a poster board cutout for the black, because I read and have been told that the paint won't stick to the glass. But I figured I should try it out first. My trusty can of all-surface Rustoleum paint seemed to work wonders on it! And because it's not going to be touched by anything, it should last a while.  My only complaint is that I messed up a couple spots on the paint job, a few parts the lines aren't as clean as I would have liked. But I don't think it'll be noticeable by other people.

Oh, wow. That looks excellent! Have you printed off test versions of the CP art to see which looks better? Now would be the time to test them out, since the outside of the cab is near complete.

Yessir! That's the plan. Today is CP work, so after I do the mods to the metal panels and prep the plexi (try saying "prep the plexi" 5 times fast ) I'll assemble the controls with the test art on it and see which one looks better.

Wow, I've just read through the whole thread.
I think you have done a fantastic job, It looks lovely!! 
Probably the nicest custom renovation I have seen, kudos 

Looks great, not a sports fan here, but I wouldn't complain if I had that cab at all.  I love the coloring and simple yet effective design approach.

It looks very sharp!

Thanks for the kinds words, friends! I'm really proud of how it turned out. Going through a restoration and renovation process was actually a lot of fun, and has really made me learn a lot...and that's just from the construction side of things. I still have some funky wiring to do, and making sure the monitor plays nice with my setup.
I think the hard part is coming up!
 

[Ryglore]

a few parts the lines aren't as clean as I would have liked. But I don't think it'll be noticeable by other people.

Ya, That's how it is with my side art on SHMUP. But I decided that it looks good overall and you can only notice the jaggys when you are up really close and looking at them. Maybe when I get a place with more room I'll fine tune the lines, but really... there is only so much we can be perfectionists about. And right now I'm more worried about making sure the cab runs games without a problem rather than a little imperfection in the lines. 

[opt2not]

Ya, That's how it is with my side art on SHMUP. But I decided that it looks good overall and you can only notice the jaggys when you are up really close and looking at them. Maybe when I get a place with more room I'll fine tune the lines, but really... there is only so much we can be perfectionists about. And right now I'm more worried about making sure the cab runs games without a problem rather than a little imperfection in the lines. 

Ha! It doesn't even look like you messed up at all. From those pictures, the lines look pretty clean to me.

Today's progress: Control Panel

Worked on drilling the holes in the CP, then the plexi. This is the first time I've drilled into metal, so I was a bit nervous at the start. But it turned out pretty easy. I bought a bi-metal hole-saw, first drilled a pilot hole, then while greasing the saw with some WD-40 I applied a light amount of pressure and let the saw do the rest. It didn't take long at all.

I decided to change up my layout as you can see (the blue button is just for testing). The reason for this is that I felt that Button-1 (blue) should be on the right-side of the joystick, yet on the left of the spinner. Most spinner games were originally setup to have the fire button on the left-side anyways. AND, being able to fit the spinner mount beside 2 buttons on the right was just not enough room to be comfortable. The distance between the two buttons aren't too bad. I can hit Button-1 with my index finger and Button-2 with my ring finger.

For the plexi I used my forstner bit (best. drill-bit. ever.) and holed it out for the buttons. I scored and snap the pieces, then used my round-over bit to make it more comfortable to rest your hands on.

I spray painted it and will let it dry over night, before wiring it up tomorrow!

[Epyx]

  Looking fantastic! Now if the Canuckleheads only knew this existed they may have won that game in St. Louis

[opt2not]

Looking fantastic! Now if the Canuckleheads only knew this existed they may have won that game in St. Louis

That was a sad game. It was pretty downhill after the second goal...weak goals, penalties, fights...just a gong-show! I'm hoping when this cabinet is done, the mere awesomeness of it's Qi will seep out into the city and somehow, on a cosmic level, make the 'nucks play like champions! 


After doing some print testing, and some thinking, I've decided on the CP overlays.

Player One:


Player Two:


I loved both themes, so instead of choosing one or the other, I picked the best from both. I think they still go together as their own theme, and both are equally good pictures.  Player 1's side works well because it's the side that has the additional button for EXIT. Player 2's image is much more strong now without the obstruction of the extra button on the Jumbotron.
The red circles are the new button positions and eventually I'm going to buy transparent clear buttons with the artwork inserted into them, so that I can retain the image. Also note that the button labels are now going to be inside the transparent buttons now!

What do you guys think?

[opt2not]

It's been a couple weeks for an update on my cabinet, so I figured I should get you all up to speed.

After the construction completion, it was time to start wiring. I started off with the controls, and the switchbox setup for PC and Dreamcast control changes.

1. I took a DB25 switchbox, removed the casing, and drilled 2 holes out of it.

2. & 3. My plan is to have one hole be a lit-up indicator that the PC or DC is selected using a piece of plexiglass as my window. I am then going to print out 2 vellum images (vellum seems to be the trend now, thanks Gamester! ), and have separate LEDs stay consistently lit depending on what device is selected, of course divided in the middle with something to block the light from each other.
Like so:


4. The other hole is going to be a service button, in Mame's case assigned to "tab". I've also wrapped the box in some scraps of textured vinyl I had laying around. This box will be placed on the inside of the cabinet, accessible from the coindoor.

I then moved onto the interface wiring, and DB25 connections.

1. This picture shows my Minipac (which I regret not buying the wiring harness for...), my Video Amplifier, and my Compact Flash to IDE boards mounted onto a piece of hardboard. You'll notice the DB25 connection outputted from the terminal strips. That was fun

2. Here's a reverse angle shot of everything mounted in the cab. The wires are a bit messy right now, but I'll clean that up when I'm done with the setting up of everything. The 48MB CF card is right behind the coinbox and is easily reachable to pull out whenever I need to update the rom list.

3. Here's a shot of the Optipac hidden in the corner. This corner, when everything is turned on, is the hottest in the cab. I will need to install another fan for this area to dissipate the heat more, since there isn't much room there for circulation.

4. A shot of the PC mounted to the side. The overall heat in the cabinet isn't bad because I'm not using crazy heat-generating parts...but I would like another fan just to be safe.  The PC is an AMD 1500+ (1.3ghz), 512MB, Geforce4 Ti, 48MB Compact Flash hard-drive and an Sound Blaster Live.
I'm running a pure Dos setup, which requires very little hdd space, but massive amounts of setup!
That was actually a real pain to get going, because I haven't used DOS in about 12 years.

After doing some research, I found that my best choice for a setup was to use Advancemame, Advancemenu and it's utilities to get this "general-user friendly". The Advancecab utilities have a VGA and VBE video driver that can force my graphics card to output 15kHz, but learning how to set it up wasn't that intuitive. Nothing is intuitive for DOS I'm afraid. It took me a while, but I finally got it going, and using AdvanceMenu and AdvanceMame is a dream!

Here's the loading image on boot up that displays:

It takes me about 12 secs to get to the Front-end from power-up, and I never have to worry about shutting down to turn it off!

I'm still having difficult getting my serial port connected Optipac to recognize my Spinners, which I've contacted Andy at Ultimarc for help. I've pretty much tried everything I can think of/found on the net, but haven't been able to figure out why my spinners aren't being recognized. I've narrowed it down to 3 things:
- Driver might not be configured correctly
- Optipac board might be faulty
- Both of my spinner optic-boards might be faulty
I'm waiting on Andy's response to see what he might think it is.

continuing on:
I then moved onto setting up the CP's.

1. Here's a picture of the CP wiring. I'm using Sanwa JLW's (wish I had JLF's to save space, but these joysticks were laying around not being used...), my Arkanoid Spinners originally from this cabinet, and temporary Happs pushbuttons.  I want to replace the buttons with clear ones, with inserted artwork, and have all my microswitches changed to the silent Micro-Leaf and Versa-Micro ones eventually, but I'm strapped for cash atm so that'll have to wait till later.

2. Here's a shot of the coin door access to the switchbox. I still have to hack up my dreamcast controller and attach them to the DB25 connectors, which should happen this week. I've also got my hands on a VGA Box, which I'll be hacking up tonight and connecting it to the monitor via a 2-way VGA swithbox. That'll sit right next to the "controls switchbox" here. note: the video amplifier is there temporarily while I attach my DC's VGA box to test.

3. & 4. Shots of the control panel artwork installed. I think it turned out well! It'll look better with the clear buttons, but for now the white and blue happs ones will have to do. I will have to look into getting shorter joystick shafts, since I feel that these ones are just a bit high for the space in there. That's on the list!

Next on the list for the CP's is the back-lit plexi installation. I picked up an 12v LED strip that I'll be connecting to my PC's power supply, and wiring it throughout the cabinet. Going to use it for the CP's, coindoor inserts and perhaps leftover lights for some funky cabinet under-lighting!

[opt2not]

Here's a shot of Advmenu's default screen:


I'm using Advmame, which I really love for all the options available within the games.
My current game list is:

- Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh
- Burger Time
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong Jr
- Free Kick (awesome arkanoid soccer game)
- Galaga
- Gyruss
- Hat Trick
- Ms. Pac-man
- Pinbo
- Pacman
- Raiden
- Raiden II
- Redline Racer
- Space Invaders II (cocktail vs.)
- Super Sprint
- Tempest
- Time Pilot
- Twin Cobra
- Vs. Hot Smash

I can still add a bunch more older games, but I'm reserving some room on my CF card for more SHMUPs. I have to go through Maws and figure out which ones would be good on a vertical cab.

Here's a bunch of low-light photos we can all drool over:
Pacman


Galaga


Tempest,Twin Cobra, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders II (cocktail vs), and Gyruss


For Tempest, I played around with the rendering features of Advmame to get it looking like a pretty convincing vector monitor display.
My settings are:
Line intensity = 1.3
Jitter = 10
RGB Filter = triad16dot
The lines are pretty crisp on my monitor, and with a very subtle flicker created by the combination of the triad16dot and Jitter settings, it gives it a very nice effect overall.

Another thing to mention: In the Gyruss photo, I captured a shot of the Pause screen when you hit Exit. I think this is an awesome feature for Advmame, it's like having pause and exit functionality wired to the same  button! It keeps the game paused in this confirmation box while you decide to exit or not. Perfect for a minimal CP setup like mine!

The next tasks I'm moving onto next is the LED light installation, and DC wiring, connection and testing tasks. I also want to re-compile Advmame to get rid of the warning screen that pops up when running a rom, as well as optimize it for AMD cpu's. That should sew me for time up till Thursday, and hopefully I'll hear back from Andy with a possible solution to get my spinners functional. My tempest is dying to be played properly!!

[emphatic]

Awesome setup. Make sure to put Flying Shark, Tiger Heli and Halley's Comet in that cab, as they're awesome old school shumps and will fit your cocktail cab nicely (AFAIK they all have cocktail screen mode and two buttons each).

[opt2not]

Awesome setup. Make sure to put Flying Shark, Tiger Heli and Halley's Comet in that cab, as they're awesome old school shumps and will fit your cocktail cab nicely (AFAIK they all have cocktail screen mode and two buttons each).

Yoink!  Adding them now.  Thanks emphatic!

[Ryglore]

Daioh (Though it uses 6 buttons for the various guns)
Strikers 1945 II and III
Gunbird and Gunbird 2
1944 and 1943 Kai.
Batrider

[opt2not]

Daioh (Though it uses 6 buttons for the various guns)
Strikers 1945 II and III
Gunbird and Gunbird 2
1944 and 1943 Kai.
Batrider

Thanks Ryglore, adding these to the list (except for Daioh).

Today I did a couple updates to the cabinet. I was able to find a spare Sanwa JLF in my pile of parts, so I figured I'd at least put it in one control panel for now, till I get another one (if I get one). I drilled some holes to mount it since the JLW and JLF don't have the same mounting specs, then created a "spacer" out of some spare plexi I had (quickest material to work with) to sandwich between the CP and joystick plate. This is so the joystick sits lower in the panel. From the CP surface to the top of the balltop it measures 2 inches, which IMO is a perfect height for a cocktail unit. I created these spacers for both sides. I also had a octo-gate for the JLF as well, so I figured I'd give it a try on this thing. I'm not really happy with the square gate when playing SHMUPs, and an octo one just feels more eloquent to me when playing. I get a bit more control over the directions especially when dodgin' bullets quickly. It's also a bit better when playing 4-way games, rather than with the square gate, though not as perfect as a real 4-way would feel.

After messin' with the joys, I moved onto getting the lighting done for this thing.


I sliced up my LED strip, and distributed it around the cabinet for my CP lighting, and coin-door inserts. This picture below shows the locations of the lights, as well as my newly installed blue-lit fan (which I also had laying around) for additional PC cooling. Sorry, it's blurry.

I used the original light holders, and didn't modify them at all. I felt that I wanted to do as much of a "non-destructive" installation as possible, in case I ever wanted to replace these parts with better solutions later on, and sell these off to the fine arcade restoration folks.    This goes for pretty much everything in this cabinet, except for the surface outside. I haven't destroyed any parts, not even the power supply, and have tried to use everything that originally came with the cabinet. Even down to the PCB mounts and molex connectors!


Here's a shot of the strip I used for the CP backlighting. I just used cable-ties to mount them; they're on there pretty tight, and won't move.


3 LED's for each coin insert lighting.

Here's how they look after installation!




Next on the list of things to do is a re-compiling of Advmame, to get rid of the game warning messages at boot-up. Then I'm onto hacking my VGA Box and Dreamcast controller.

I'm still going back and forth with Andy at Ultimarc to see what I can do to get my spinners working, but I did some voltage testing on my optic-board and I *think* the boards might be shot itself. Though I'm not completely certain.
I'm going off this site to help debug it. Here.
It says I'm supposed to be getting 0v on the K connections, right after the resistors, but my multimeter is reading 1.6ish volts at that connection. So I'm thinking that my resistors aren't actually resisting...
Anyone have any experience with the Taito Arkanoid optic boards? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[emphatic]

Dodonpachi looks great in your cab, but it's really a 3 button game.

[Ryglore]

Dodonpachi looks great in your cab, but it's really a 3 button game.

Yes, but the Rapid Fire button is disabled by default.

Oh and if you can find the Japanese romset of Daioh, I read somewhere that apparently it's a 2 button game and actually set up differently. With power ups for each gun, rather than having everything off the bat, and I think different enemy patterns.

[opt2not]

Dodonpachi looks great in your cab, but it's really a 3 button game.

Doh, Ryglore beat me to it!

Dodonpachi looks great in your cab, but it's really a 3 button game.

Yes, but the Rapid Fire button is disabled by default.

Oh and if you can find the Japanese romset of Daioh, I read somewhere that apparently it's a 2 button game and actually set up differently. With power ups for each gun, rather than having everything off the bat, and I think different enemy patterns.

Oh sweet, Daioh looks like a game I'd like. I'll look into the Japanese rom.

I can't wait to see how Under Defeat and Ikaruga looks when I finish with the Dreamcast hacking. Those are also my favourite SHMUP games, and playing them on a  vertical setup just gets me giddy.  

I finally got the cocktail clone of Tetris running on this thing. Had to use my .106 parent rom, with a later 1.28 version of the clone rom, but it runs and runs well!


Tetris battlin' with the wifey is ON!

[Ryglore]

I can't wait to see how Under Defeat and Ikaruga looks

I'm still looking into why my Ikaruga rom won't work. Though I do have it on the 360's Live Arcade... but I keep wanting to spin my TV vertical...

[emphatic]

I can't wait to see how Under Defeat and Ikaruga looks

I'm still looking into why my Ikaruga rom won't work. Though I do have it on the 360's Live Arcade... but I keep wanting to spin my TV vertical...

I think it's not properly emulated in MAME. There are others emulators for NAOMI and DreamCast though. But having a real DreamCast is much better IMHO. I got mine for $50 shipped with 2 controllers and a Memory card. I hooked it up to a 22" LCD last night with my Dreamcast VGA box and Zero Gunner 2 looked stunning!

[opt2not]

I think it's not properly emulated in MAME. There are others emulators for NAOMI and DreamCast though. But having a real DreamCast is much better IMHO. I got mine for $50 shipped with 2 controllers and a Memory card. I hooked it up to a 22" LCD last night with my Dreamcast VGA box and Zero Gunner 2 looked stunning!

For me, the VGA box really renewed my DC. I even loaded up Code Veronica again (best RE game in the series IMO) and Crazy Taxi, I was floored by how crisp it all looks on my living room's LCD.

I'm definitely going to install the switch to go from 15kHz to 31kHz, outlined here, just in case I want to pull the Dreamcast out and play some horizontal orientated games on the big TV.

Long live Dreamcast!

[Ryglore]

I even loaded up Code Veronica again (best RE game in the series IMO) and Crazy Taxi, I was floored by how crisp it all looks on my living room's LCD.

I played HOURS of Crazy Taxi in the arcade! Especially loved it when "All I Want" by the Offspring popped on. Code Veronica was pretty killer... though I have a hard time deciding which game in the series I like the best

I think it's not properly emulated in MAME. There are others emulators for NAOMI and DreamCast though. But having a real DreamCast is much better IMHO. I got mine for $50 shipped with 2 controllers and a Memory card. I hooked it up to a 22" LCD last night with my Dreamcast VGA box and Zero Gunner 2 looked stunning!

Ya I'm not too worried about it, since I have it on my 360. One day I will get a Dreamcast though and I'll be collecting a few SHMUPs on that system... I hope.

[Ryglore]

I've been playing Skull Fang by Data East a lot lately. You should check it out.

Edit: I just realized it's a 3 buttons shooter. buttons 1 and 2 and both shoot (but the do the same thing, which is retarded) and the 3rd button is a special. Though I think you could get away with adjusting the button 2 input in the game settings to the "special" button no problem.

[opt2not]

Looks interesting. I'll check it out after the Canucks game

Been playing a lot of Flying Shark lately, I'm really lovin' that game! It's nice and difficult.

[emphatic]

Looks interesting. I'll check it out after the Canucks game

Been playing a lot of Flying Shark lately, I'm really lovin' that game! It's nice and difficult.

Yes, and the music is totally awesome. Did you get it setup for cocktail mode so it flips between players?

[opt2not]

Aww, I'm using v.106 (the last advancemame version for DOS), so the sound in Skull Fang doesn't work for me.
I also didn't see any dip-switch settings for cocktail mode. Oh well, cool lookin' game regardless.

[Ryglore]

Aww, I'm using v.106 (the last advancemame version for DOS), so the sound in Skull Fang doesn't work for me.
I also didn't see any dip-switch settings for cocktail mode. Oh well, cool lookin' game regardless.

Bah, that sucks. The sound is classic in that game, full on voice overs from the commander too. haha

I saw in one of your pics that you have an upright cab in the back ground.... perhaps load it up on there?

[opt2not]

Aww, I'm using v.106 (the last advancemame version for DOS), so the sound in Skull Fang doesn't work for me.
I also didn't see any dip-switch settings for cocktail mode. Oh well, cool lookin' game regardless.

Bah, that sucks. The sound is classic in that game, full on voice overs from the commander too. haha

I saw in one of your pics that you have an upright cab in the back ground.... perhaps load it up on there?

Yeah, that's my GalaXbox (linked in my sig). I can load it up there, but the display is horizontal so it wouldn't have the same vertical display real-estate. I haven't updated that rom list on that machine in a while, but I plan on taking out the vertical games and have that cabinet dedicated to horizontal displayed games only. I believe I'm running v.128 on that cabinet...

[opt2not]

Happy New Years all!

Yikes, I've been really busy in the last couple months!
It's been a little while since I've been able to update this project, but I've still got the drive to get this baby to 100% complete!

Over the holidays I ordered a couple replacement Optic Boards from fixumdude, off our BST forum here. They came in just after New Years, and I got to say they are pretty. This is some quality work, and I wanted to show them off (and put in a plug for fixumdude) before I installed them.





These boards will be replacing the old taito ones on my arkanoid spinners.  I wanted to keep the arkanoid spinners because I really love the size and weight of the dials, and with such an affordable cost, why the heck not?
Here's what the old ones look like:


After painstakingly debugging these things, I found out that they aren't putting out a strong enough voltage to interface with my Optipac.

Here's a comparison shot of them both:


As you can see, the new boards are slightly smaller, and less square than the originals. It's hard to tell by the pictures, but the IR readers are just a wee bit smaller as well.

I plan on installing these sometime this week if I can get some time in the evenings after work.

On the Dreamcast front, I still haven't figured out what to do about the amplification problem. My VGA box doesn't want to play nice with the Video Amp I got off Andy from ultimarc, but without the Amp, the signal comes in too dark.  I might have to cut the idea of getting my DC working on this cabinet...  or wait till my arcade monitor dies on me, and I replace it with an LCD down the road. Another option is to nix the VGA Box, and go the route of hacking up a DC VGA cable and seeing if the amp will be nice then. Time to do some research!

[darcyp]

as a flames fan it hurts me to say that this cab is absolutely beautiful.

[Kman-Sweden]

as a flames fan it hurts me to say that this cab is absolutely beautiful.

+1 

[opt2not]

as a flames fan it hurts me to say that this cab is absolutely beautiful.

Thanks darcyp, sorry I haven't replied till now, been really busy with all the Olympics stuff going on. Too bad about Kipper's last game, that was a rough one on him. 

The cabinet has been playing well, I've got the spinners working and have been enjoying tempest and arkanoid 2 a lot. I still have a few finishing touches that I have to do, but have put those on hold due to work and other projects on the go. I'm currently working on a Blanka wireless fight-stick for both the XBOX 360 and PS3 (using a switch to go between them), and have plans to put orange fur along the top!  I'll post the pictures once there's something meaningful to show. 

[Epyx]

Almost wishing you had made this a Team Canada theme

[brock.sampson]

How did you attach your joysticks?  I'm not seeing any bolts on the top.

[opt2not]

How did you attach your joysticks?  I'm not seeing any bolts on the top.

That's what one "feature" I wanted to make sure I had, a subtle one, yet pleasing to the cleanliness of the CP: no bolts showing.
I picked up a box of 3/16 x 3/4" Flat Socket Head Stove Bolts from my local hardware store...


...and used a round file to shave the holes in my metal CP, so that the bolts would lay flat in the hole yet still have enough surface area to rest onto. The CP art and plexi lays on top, while the only thing holding the plexi in place are the buttons. 

It seems to do the trick well enough.

Almost wishing you had made this a Team Canada theme

Me too! Perhaps a second cocktail cabinet is in the works???  (oh man, the wife would kill me)

[BurgerKingDiamond]

This cocktail looks awesome. You need to get an NES emulator and play some serious Ice Hockey (if anyone isn't familiar, that's the actual name of the game). That and Tecmo Super Bowl. Although they're not meant for a cocktail setup... I guess 1 player would work, but two player Ice Hockey is the best. Me and my friends have had some very intense games. GO SWEDEN!