The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: Jigenjuke on October 13, 2008, 07:51:52 pm
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Ok, guys. I have a lot of projects started. 2 Touchscreen jukes in the works, 4 sub mini replica cabinets, and among other things work on the restoration of our house. On top of all that, I have two wonderful boys 10 and 6 who take up a lot of my time, not to mention being a Jr. High School teacher here in Japan. As you might well be able to imagine, my time is very very limited. About a month ago a friend of mine, who is a local artist of some fame here in Japan, approached me with a strange request. He became interested in my hobby of making arcade cabinets. He wanted to build 6 cabinets, two of which he would design all the artwork himself and the other 4 he wanted to be replica cabinets. I searched the forum here and came across my muse. "Donkey Kong's" DK Jr. Bartop was very well made and since space is kinda limited here in Japan, I thought that bartops would be the best choice. As you may or may not know here in Japan, most of all the arcade cabinets you see in the game centers are what we call "Candy Cabs", while these are nice, they just don't capture the 80's feel that my friend wanted to use. I did some research and found out that, indeed, at one time the game centers here in Japan were full of upright fullsize cabinets, most of these in about 1985 were either shipped to the Philippines, Brazil, some other country or out right destroyed. I was shocked.
Since Mario and Donkey Kong are some of the biggest icons here in Japan, we decided to build Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and a Mario Bros. Bartops in tribute to the games that launched Miyamoto into Nintendo history. The three remaining cabinets are two 1/2 scale replicas of full size cabinets (Ms. Pacman and Tempest) both of which will have all original art and be running original games which I have been feverishly working on in my freetime. One of the games is very similar to an old Apple II/Commadore 64 game called Hard Hat Mack. The final bartop is going to be a hybrid Pacman style cabinet. As you all know, just building one cabinet at a time is a daunting task, well try building a mini game center. It makes me :dizzy: just thinking about the work ahead of us as well as the work that we have already done. Sorry guys, my digital camera was broken in the early stages of construction and all I have are a few shots taken with my cell phone camera, but I will try my level best to document the project from here on out.
The Bartops will hold a P4 1.2Ghz Slimtype PC and a 15 inch TFT monitor. The Pac Hybrid Bartop will hold a 24 inch CRT monitor with a 1.4 Ghz Athalon. The two 1/2 scale "original" cabinets will hold a 9.4 inch TFT monitor and a Via Pico board. Now that all the announcement crap is outta the way, ON TO THE PICS! ;D
Well, here is the first pic. A Mario Bros. replica bartop. The cell phone doesn't do the colors justice. The colors are sharp and beautiful. Oh well. I will try to take better pictures from here on out. Sorry guys. The buttons are from GroovyGameGear.com The CPO was modified to add an additional button for games that will require two buttons. The joysticks are from Seimitsu direct. (ANY OF YOU OUT THERE WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN SEMITSU JOYSTICKS, DROP ME A LINE. IF I AM GOING TO PLACE AN ORDER IN THE FUTURE I WILL MAKE IT A BIG ONE. The Sanwa Joystick manufacturing plant was moved to Korea, so the Seimitsu Joysticks have a much higher Quality Control and are far more superior (just an opinion) ;D
;D
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The second cabinet is the Red Radar Scope Donkey Kong Replica, the CPO on this one was also modified to include a second button. Gotta love that Red, with black accents and then when we finish it off with the white t-molding from t-molding.com, WOW, what can I say but, SEXY!
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The final picture I have for you today is the unpainted Donkey Kong Jr. looking a little sad that he isn't getting as much love as his brothers, but he is performing an important service (holding all the tools) Way to go DK jr. :applaud: Sitting next to DKjr is the 1/2 scale tempest replica waiting for white paint and stencils, I will reveal these in a few days. We haven't started construction on the Pac Hybrid or the Ms. Pac 1/2 scale replica yet, but I'll keep you guys posted. By the way, the 3 "replica" bartops are 3/4 scale.
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WOW :o You sure got your hands full! Good luck in getting these done. Sounds like you're well on your way though :) This will surely make for some interesting reading.
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Thanks IG. Yeah, it should be a hair pulling experience, but as I have very little hair things should work out just fine. Thanks and keep checking back.
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Hey guys, just a quick update. I decided to make some classic themed wallpaper for the cabinets. Tell me what you think. Keep in mind that my Photoshop skills are not the very best.
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Are the 1/2 scale cabinets comfortable to play? I built an 80% Ms. Pac shaped cab and it is perfect for an adult to sit down and play but I couldn't imagine it being much smaller.
You have an insane amount of projects going on and they are all looking great! Keep us posted. :cheers:
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Someones going to be busy :)
You will have to show us what artwork your Japanese artist friend is creating, I would love to see that.
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I looked at having a full sided sub mini, but with trials i could not get comfortable with screen and joystick. I found it too crowded.
Do you find that in your projects, Franco B, or do you have small hands?
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Thanks for all the comments guys, I appreciate all the good thoughts. Yeah, pretty busy is one phrase for how I'm feeling, hectic is a better word though. Yeah, Javeryh, surprisingly the 1/2 scale cabinet that we have made so far is pretty comfortable to play (the tempest replica cabinet), but the monitor on that one is at about a 65-70 degree angle, I forgot which. I was a little worried about the Ms. Pac 1/2 scale replica cabinet until we built a mock up using extra wood we had left over. I had to modify the monitor angle for both the tempest and ms. pac cabinets but it still works out very well. Franco, yeah later this week I will give you a little taste of the artwork for the tempest replica that my buddy is doing. His freehand skills in Illustrator are quit mad.
As for being crowded, not really. I have pretty large hands but don't find it uncomfortable.
More pics to come guys, stay tuned.
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Okidoki, here are a couple of MALA Layouts that I am thinking of using. I am not sure why I made the DKjr. Horizontal, but run with it, I will fix it later.
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Here is one more MALA layout. It'sa me Mario!
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I looked at having a full sided sub mini, but with trials i could not get comfortable with screen and joystick. I found it too crowded.
Do you find that in your projects, Franco B, or do you have small hands?
Not really sure i understand. Ive only built a full size cab and am in the process of building a large cocktail? ???
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Man I like that donkey kong artwork. Thats nice
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I agree, very nice artwork in deed.
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Kizer, Cmoses, thanks for the kind words. Well guys as I promised, I am posting the original art for the tempest replica. It is kind of strange saying that as the art has nothing to with tempest. Daijiro wanted to keep with the 80's theme but had never seen an 80's arcade in the states, so after a lot of history lessons and several hundred pictures later he came up with several ideas and we chose the one closest to an 80's feeling. Hope you like them. I will post the sideart later, we are sending the sideart off to a printer in order to make vinyl stencils. This cabinet will look very sharp when we are finished.
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Here is one more MALA Layout. Enjoy.
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Ok, guys. I got almost everything primed and painted. I took lots of pics and will post them closer to the end of this week, sorry for the delay but I am a Jr. High school teacher and we have a battery of tests all this week and will be pretty busy. Forum user "DonkeyKong" for his project
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81555.0
used a company called Somaprint located in China, I think. the site addres is http://www.somaprint.cn/
I decided to use the same company and DonkeyKong was right service is great and communication in English was perfect. I ordered 11 pieces of art from Somaprint yesterday, when these arrive I will post pics as well as a review of the results. I am really looking forward to applying the artwork.
Stay tuned...
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Hey guys. Just got a new digital camera yester, so more pics (and hopefully better pics) are coming this weekend. Something about the lighting in the space we are using is pretty sucky. The yellow lighting kind of washes out the colors. We might just move them outside for pics. Anyway stay tuned. The deadline for these projects is November 5th so things are coming down to the wire.
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Art came today!! Will post pics this weekend. I am very happy with somaprint.cn's work. I asked him to be careful about color matching. They did a wonderful job! Anyway, things are going very smoothly...
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Well, we worked pretty hard this weekend but I still wasn't satisfied with the progress. I put together a new PC for a friend and Illustrator/Photoshop Japanese versions were not giving me any love. The pic I am posting today are Mario/Red Donkey Kong and yes, DK Jr. is finally getting all the love he deserves. Here we go. We are still waiting to put the sideart on.
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Kizer, Cmoses, thanks for the kind words. Well guys as I promised, I am posting the original art for the tempest replica. It is kind of strange saying that as the art has nothing to with tempest. Daijiro wanted to keep with the 80's theme but had never seen an 80's arcade in the states, so after a lot of history lessons and several hundred pictures later he came up with several ideas and we chose the one closest to an 80's feeling. Hope you like them. I will post the sideart later, we are sending the sideart off to a printer in order to make vinyl stencils. This cabinet will look very sharp when we are finished.
I'm looking forward to the sideart, as what you've posted for the front is brilliant. I'm trying to imagine the game that would have gone with the theme ;)
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Heh heh, thanks Captainpotato, I will post the sideart as soon as I can. With Halloween coming up I have been pretty busy. We have cultural lessons at the Jr. High I teach at here in Japan. I have been Captain Jack Sparrow for the last ten days. I am looking forward to retiring Jack so that I can go back to my regular teaching clothes. Check back around Saturday for the sideart pics. I am thinking that unfortunately most people have done the bartop replicas to death. I was hoping for a little more feedback. Oh well, pushing forth. ;D
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These are great! Great work. I'd love to have one of these.
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Dang! Awesome! I want to make a DK, DKJR, and MB bartop all in one someday.
This is probably a dumb question, but is that 1/2" mdf? Maybe you go by milimeters. 10,13 or 15mm? I think T-molding is only available for 3/4"? So I'm guessing that's what you are using. It just looks thinner than normal. Thanks for posting, they look great!
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Thanks for the props dweebsor. Much appreciated.
Heh heh Yeay Donkey_Kong it is close to 1/2 inch MDF, we do go by millimeters (12mm to be exact) and the t-molding we got was 1/2 inch white and black from t-molding.com
Thanks for the good word. Keep checking back guys, we will have another fairly big update soon.
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Sorry for the lack of updates guys. I screwed up my back and neck during an event here at school. I wasn't up for working on the cabinets, let alone moving much at all. I will be outta traction by the weekend and motivated to get everything done and ready for viewing.
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Sorry to hear about your back.
I just dropped in to say that you are doing a really good job on those cabs.
:applaud:
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Thanks Daoldman! We are really busting butt to get things done. Keep checking back.
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Nice work so far!
I'm very excited to see the original game, too. Hard Hat Mack was one of my first games on the Apple ][.
Keep up the good work.
-Stobe
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Thanks guys! This weekend was spent finishing up the DK, Mario, DKjr bartops. Unfortunately the weather here in Japan was pretty crappy (cloudy and rainy) so good pics could not be taken. I will try to post the finished pics this coming weekend. Stay tuned.
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Can't wait to see pics of all of these lined up side by side. Very nice design work.
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Thanks guys. The cabinets are all finished, but the weather here is pretty crappy and we haven't been able to take decent pictures. Hopefully this weekend will be much better. We are only going to install around 40 games in each cabinet. Donkey Kong has a portrait oriented 15inch monitor, Mario Bros. Has a 17inch landscape oriented monitor, and DK Jr. has a 19inch landscape oriented monitor. (I know, I know the monitor for this one should have been portrait oriented but the friend we are making it for plays more horizontal games than vertical)
Any suggestions on the 40 games to put into each cabinet? If at all possible I would like to have 120 different games installed. Let me know what you think. Also keep in mind that is only one joystick and two buttons. (keeping it oldstyle)
;D
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Oh and I forgot to post the sideart and kick plate artwork for the 1/2 scale tempest replica. Remember that it doens't have anything to do with tempest. My buddy just liked the shape of the tempest cabinet.
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Hey there guys. Another weekend of crappy weather. It rained both Saturday and Sunday all day. Not great weather for taking pictures. I tried to take the pictures inside but we have soft lighting and the colors of the cabinets tend to be all washed out and they don't look as good as they do in real life. I will try again for this weekend.
I still need some advice as to what games to install. I want to keep the theme to the 80's so anything you guys can throw out for ideas would be great.
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Well guys, I know that I have been promising pics, and finally this last weekend the weather was good enough to take those pics. Here they are, let me know what you think. Three of the five cabinets are completely finished (other than adding the roms that is.)
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Those red pants are hawt. ;D
Awesome work on the cabs, they look soooo well done!!
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Wow! These are great. How much for one shipped to the US? :dunno
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What are the dimensions of those if I may ask?
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Excellent work!
How are the graphics applied to the monitor bezels?
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opt2not, dweebs0r, and bishmaster thanks guys, we worked pretty hard on them.
opt2not, yeah I like the red cab as well. I think that it's pretty sexy (if an arcade cab can be sexy)
dweebs0r, unfortunately shipping to the US from Japan is pretty cost prohibitive, shipping alone would have to be in a shipping container via sea mail, and that would be about 300 dollars by it self. :dizzy:
IG-88 the dimensions are as follows, 51 cm wide, 84 cm tall, and 65cm deep.
bishmaster, the marquee and controlpanel graphics were printed on an arcade quality vinyl that has adhesive on the art side. We then carefully attached it to heavy duty plexiglass. The bezel was a little different. We printed it on adhesive backed vinyl applied it to the top of a piece of smoked plexiglass and put a piece of clear tempered glass over the top of that (a really thin piece, many a time that I thought I was going to break it and slice up my hands.
Thanks guys for all the great words. We will be posting pics of the original half scale cabinet soon. Keep checking back.
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Hey there guys, the gallery event went great. We had more than 400 people come though and play the games. We had a total of 5 machines running without a hitch for almost 5 hours. There was a professional photographer who came and took pics for us. I will try to post those maybe this weekend. We had a great time, the event was free and open to the public and i think that they had fun as well.
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Amazing work !