Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: biktorrr on April 28, 2008, 06:27:53 pm
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So after maybe two years of lurking on these message boards, months of deliberation and finally a couple of weeks of building, it's finally at a point where I can show it to the world: My Cab!!
My Story:
I really was never much of a arcade hall kid (You see, I'm Dutch and there are hardly any arcade venues in the Netherlands). Somehow I got really intrigued by the controls and the retro-look of the cabs on this forum. After lurking here for a couple of months, I was completely hooked. It took some time to convince myself and then the gf and then I started planning :)
Since the cab had to be placed in our living room (yes, the girlfriend totally rocks!) I really wanted a nice, clean and relatively small cab. I mainly like fighter and platform games so I just wanted a 2 joystick, 6 button-per-player setup. I doubted for a long time about the cab design before going with the Pacman/Galaga shapes. Now that it's finished, I'm REALLY glad I went with this cab design: I love the shapes of my cab!
The second consideration was cost: I wanted to do this on a small budget and I guess it worked out as well: I friend donated a second hand computer and I found a free monitor on the Web. Buttons, joystick and the Ultimarc I-PAC I had shipped over from oklahoma :) for about 80 Euros. Wood and paint cost me about 100 Euros and with some miscellaneous costs the total was something like 200 Euros (310 dollars).
Some specifications:- The cab was built with 18mm multiplex, which makes it pretty heavy but nice and sturdy :)
- It's 1m70cm tall, 61cm wide and 80cm deep
- Inside is a 2.4 Ghz 512MB PC, hooked up with to the buttons through an Ultimarc I-Pac
- 22'' PC monitor
- The temporary Bubble Bobble Marquee is lit by a simple lightbulb
- The control panel opens to reveal the wires, the keyboard and mouse and the power button.
- I don't have t-molding (pretty expensive to ship and install and I don't really miss it). The edges are rounded though and I think it looks really nice :)
Todo
It's basically 90% finished. Some things that still need to be done:
- A new printed marquee (now its two prints glued together, looks okay but can be better). I'll have to think about a marquee design first.
- Restore and install a very cool coin door I bought off the Internet
- Think about cp- bezel- and side-art. I'm not to sure I want this, I kinda like the 'sophisticated' look of the cab as it stands now, what do you guys think?
Very Special Thanks:- My buddy Jurriaan, for donating his old PC to me.
- All you guys and gals on this forum! You are the ones that made me drool all over your nice cabs and made me crazy about retro-gaming and building this monster :)
- My lovely girlfriend, for being crazy enough to allow the beast in her living room
- And last but not least, her father. He is the whole reason this project actually worked out. He had the technical know-how, the tools, and most importantly, the patience with me that made the whole plan a reality. So: Thanks Rob!
Please, have a look at the pics and let me know what you think of the cab and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
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Hurray for youtube!
[youtube]http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=xK1iYrtsG4s[/youtube]
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A clean, simple, classic look. Well done. :cheers:
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Nice job and you've got something that you bult yourself and can get endless enjoyment out of. Congrats! :applaud: :cheers:
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If u didnt say anything i would swear there was t-molding, looks very nice, I seriously dont find it being that expensive however. T-molding.com is very reasonable. After shipping it only cost me 18 dollars, but i only needed 20 feet.
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:) thanks.
Deciding on whether or not to install T-molding was probably one of the hardest decisions during the planning phase. But I figured, if I am really going to miss it, I can always sand the rounded edges and install it anyways. But like you, I don't really miss it either :)
By the way: I put up a simple website for it:
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~vdeboer/onzin/arcade/ (http://staff.science.uva.nl/~vdeboer/onzin/arcade/)
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I am from the Netherlands too and i am currently building the same cab ??? ??? Only i have to cram in a 28" crt monitor.
Almost forgot to say!! Great looking Cab!!!
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cool! Good Luck!
If you have any questions at all, just ask either in this topic or feel free to mail me (see my profile for email).
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Well done, nice looking cabinet :)
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nice looking cab, i'll give u a 'guilder' if you show us a pic of ur g/f :P
since it is her living room 8)