Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Frotz on July 15, 2023, 10:31:03 pm
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I've been trying to create a FreeCAD model of a Joust cocktail cabinet by following the thread http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,58532.0 and files at https://www.classicarcadecabinets.com/joust-cocktail.html. So far, these are the best resources I've found for this task. However, there is a lot of necessary information missing from those places. Has anyone here completed a build of a Joust cocktail cabinet? I have many questions about how dadoes are to be cut and what some parts in the DXF file are and where they go.
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i used plans from classic arcade cabinets as a base to build several galaga stand-up cabinets and about 150 some odd pacman cocktail cabinets.
i feel without having actually designed the file and having it setup for your particular machine and your particular toolings available, the plans with all the dadoes and stuff are borderline useless, as you need to seperate all that stuff out in your software to do the proper passes so you don't screw up your material. most of the shops out here don't use vcarve and choose deal almost exclusively in straight DXF since it's 99% of the way to a tool path without to much messing around. and without the extra data of how deep the passes need to be for the dadoes, Having a file with a bunch of random lines and since you didn't design it, you don't know if it's supposed to be cut inside this line? or outside this line? or is this line supposed to be a filled toolpath for a dado... is just too much farting around to try and get it to work... nah.
but, it is good as a base though, gets you your pieces the right size and the appropriate shapes at least. i ended up deleting most of the extra crap and keeping the sizes and shapes. I inform my guy if any lines need to be cut on the inside of the line or not. (for button/speaker/power cord hole cutouts etc.) i can deal with making slots and stuff with a router or saw later if need be, but most of the time i don't even need to since i build to assemble without them.
so in conclusion, 5/10... it's there...but not there... and as you can tell by your question about the dadoes and stuff... since you didn't design it, it still requires quite a fair bit of farting around and finessing to make it work.
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150 cocktail cabinets?? Wow. Are these all Midway-accurate and CNC cut? What are you doing with them?
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Man, I would love to build a Joust cocktail cabinet.
I need to have a look at what you have linked to here since I didn't realize that Brian had preliminary plans on his site.
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150 cocktail cabinets?? Wow. Are these all Midway-accurate and CNC cut? What are you doing with them?
our main schtick is pooltables/videogame/jukeboxes in bars and stuff. we build and sell arcade cabinets as a side gig when the route is quiet. which these days, is most of the time.
the quality of the cabinet is much better than the cheap chinese 60-in-1 cabinets with the plastic acrylic tops that everyone else in the city seems to sell.
they are accurate... enough .... dimensionally wise they are the same footprint and height and everything... just with some liberties taken here and there... mainly with regards to the control panel area to fit the controls we use (whether a 3 button or 6 button setup) and to improve comfort. but that's the nice part about CNC cutting parts. you can tweak stuff here and there to make it work better for YOU as the person who will be assembling it.
the galaga cabinet we increased the width about 2 1/4 inches so we can accommodate a 27" zero bezel LCD. fils out the cabinet nicely. and a minor tweaks and additional parts to the control panel, since we aren't using a metal panel on it... but we could with a few changes. and again, that's the great part about CNC... just a couple tweaks, send the file and i have new parts in hand. if something doesn't work out, i can change it for next time.
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i used plans from classic arcade cabinets as a base to build several galaga stand-up cabinets and about 150 some odd pacman cocktail cabinets.
i feel without having actually designed the file and having it setup for your particular machine and your particular toolings available, the plans with all the dadoes and stuff are borderline useless, as you need to seperate all that stuff out in your software to do the proper passes so you don't screw up your material. most of the shops out here don't use vcarve and choose deal almost exclusively in straight DXF since it's 99% of the way to a tool path without to much messing around. and without the extra data of how deep the passes need to be for the dadoes, Having a file with a bunch of random lines and since you didn't design it, you don't know if it's supposed to be cut inside this line? or outside this line? or is this line supposed to be a filled toolpath for a dado... is just too much farting around to try and get it to work... nah.
but, it is good as a base though, gets you your pieces the right size and the appropriate shapes at least. i ended up deleting most of the extra crap and keeping the sizes and shapes. I inform my guy if any lines need to be cut on the inside of the line or not. (for button/speaker/power cord hole cutouts etc.) i can deal with making slots and stuff with a router or saw later if need be, but most of the time i don't even need to since i build to assemble without them.
so in conclusion, 5/10... it's there...but not there... and as you can tell by your question about the dadoes and stuff... since you didn't design it, it still requires quite a fair bit of farting around and finessing to make it work.
The approach I've been taking so far is to create plans that don't require a CNC router. That's part of the reason I'm using FreeCAD to model cabinets. I've found several cabinet DXF files that aren't consistent with themselves. With the Galaga and Pacman cocktail tables, Kyle Lindstrom made up some very details drawings and instructions back in 2002. Those are very good quality, required no tweaking to make work, and with the exception of control panel sides and metal parts, everything is at right angles. I suppose I could post what I have here and get some people with these cabinets comment.