Freddo's MAME Arcade Cab (Adding Xbox 360 connectivity/SFIV upgrade)

[Namco]

It's been a long time coming, about 7 years since I've wanted to build my own MAME cab. I'll document my daily progresss on my main project page at http://fredmame.blogspot.com/. I kicked around the idea of building mine for a long time and collected many blueprints over the years. But after checking out the prices of working arcade games at the latest California Extreme auction and reading the parts list of many of the build-it-yourself projects, I realized that I'd be crazy if I didn't jump on an existing cabinet.

I found this great ebay seller in my area who delivered this great Carrier Air Wing cabinet for cheap. Actually, it's just an ugly generic Capcom Jamma an old Dynamo HS-1 cabinet with Carrier Air Wing installed. No problem tearing this one up because nothing about it was original, and it's just the shape I was looking for.



The cab's in relatively good shape. The coin doors are very nice, no damage in the wood except for some mushrooming at the bottom corners. It's a really good starting point and the best part about is that there's no chance of me losing a thumb trying to build my own!! 



It's my intention on keeping it as stock and arcadey as possible. I want it to look like a brand new arcade game that's just arrived at the bowling alley and is waiting for your quarters. No keyboards, no coin button, no hand made pixelated marquee graphics.

[Namco]

The first step of the project of course is to strip it down and work on the monitor. The existing monitor is a nice 19" Wells Gardner K7000 monitor. Unfortunately, I won't be using it and will replace it with a Viewsonic 21" monitor. The reason for this is the sharpness and clarity of the monitor, I want to be able to see the Windows boot screens and DOS, and I want Vector games to look good. Plus I already have it sitting around!

When I took my cab apart I found that the monitor was mounted on what OSCAR calls a bezel board. As you can see, the arcade monitor has quite a sturdy bracket around it mounted to the 3/4" bezel board firmly.



When I took the case off of my 21" Viewsonic G800 CRT, I found that it was connected to the front bezel by 4 mounting points on the corners of the screen. All I had to do was get another piece of 3/4" plywood of the same dimensions and cut a hole for the monitor and mount it on there. Here's a few pics of the monitor already mounted to the new bezel board:





As you can see, the monitor is snugly in the bezel board. In the first pic, it's not even bolted in yet and it holds in place well. I made sure to measure about a hundred times before cutting. I happened to cut it just right so there is enough wood at the corners to bolt it down through the brackets. No metal supports were needed.

As for the controls, I made a bit of room at the bottom of the board for the wires to fit through without being squished by the weight of the monitor.



Here's my creation installed into the cabinet. Even without extra metal brackets, it's very sturdy. The weight of the monitor is supported by the sung fit in the wood mainly and the tough screws keep it from moving.



Unfortunately, the only problem with this whole setup is that the monitor is too deep. It sticks out of the back a couple inches. To fix it, I'm wondering if I can use another couple pieces of 3/4" wood to move the monitor forward in the cabinet, and perhaps removing part of the metal cage in the back. But most likely, I'll probably just make a new back door with a bulge in the back.

[Namco]

Spent some time looking at the monitor and how it could be modified to fit in the cabinet properly. Using a couple 1.5" wide pieces of scrap wood as spacers, I was able to mount further forward in its monitor cavity so that it's nearly flush with the MDF bezel spacer.





With the extra space, I had the the electronics (neck board), inside the aluminum monitor cage clear, but still there was about another inch and a half of aluminum cage still sticking out too far. Time for the cutters!

First, I removed the rear panel of the cage which came off by bending back a few metal fingers. In this picutre, I am (possibly unwisely) cutting the metal shielding cage around the neck of the monitor. The two lines shows the difference between mounting the monitor with and without the spacers.



There were two grounding wires running from the back of the cage to the neckboard that I will reattach to the remaining cage. With the cutting complete, the monitor now fits nicely in the cabinet.

[Namco]

Spent a few more hours with the cab. I finally pulled out the monitor and reinforced the wooden frame. I used scrap wood from the bezel board to make the 1.5" pieces to reinforce the monitor frame. Also I used some more scrap wood from a disassembled desk to build reinforcement for the back of the monitor. Now I can move it around with confidence without worrying about the bezel board breaking or the monitor falling back into the cabinet. The cabinet wood is tough stuff. I had to predrill everything because I just couldn't drive those damn screws without stripping the heads or bogging my drill down.




Once that was all done, I yanked the monitor out and had a look at the electrical. I can simplify everything and get rid of a lot of exposed electrical parts by just using a power strip to power the computer, monitor, and marquee light. I'll just make sure to get a powerstrip with a relay in it and I"ll be good to go.  I plan on using a Bits SmartStrip power strip to power everything up. Unfortunately, I think it has one of those lame flat plugs at one end. I'll probably run it through a heavy duty extension cord painted black or something.

After I finished my monitor reinforcement work, I started stripping more stuff. I got the control panel off the cabinet and pulled the sticks and buttons off. Man the thing is like swiss cheese, so many damn button holes, there's not enough metal to support the new layout.



I also removed the Carrier Air Wing board, the electrical board with parts attached, and vacuumed the whole cab out. I also bought some caster wheels for the cab, but I still have to figure out where the hell I'm going to mount them.Removed the Jamma wiring harness, coin box, coin door, and security bar. With everything off, the cab is lightened up pretty well. I tipped it over and had a look at the underside.



The right front is a mess. It's smashed and looks like crap and leans forward. I had a close look and it looks like the bottom board is just screwed into the side panel's nail strips by a couple screws. All the weight on the leg levelers and this board has forced the nail strip and board to be driven upwards in the front tearing the front panel and bending the screws.

[Namco]

I've got the clamps from Home Depot. They're 36" clamps at $16 dollars each. I totally needed them to do this cabinet repair. What I did was I drenched the exploded MDF particle board parts in wood glue and sandwiched them down with the clamps between two pieces of wood for about 30 hours. The part with some missing chunks of particle board also got some spackle filler to fill in the gaps. I know it's not strong enough, but it's seemed to do the job so far. Also, while it was on its side I installed the casters.



One of the corners was only slightly exploded, but it got the same treatment with the glue and its own clamp.



Also while I was waiting for the glue and spackle to dry, I fixed the bottom. I added some reinforcement on the sides and a ton of screws. This bottom ain't caving in and ripping the particle board again, ever!

[DaOld Man]

Looks like youre doing a good job..

 

[Namco]

Today I hit the store and spent $50 more bucks on supplies including paint, wood filler, sandpaper, and stuff to do the control panel later. I spent this evening filling and sanding. It was my first time using wood filler putty. For some reason, I was expecting something like wood colored spackle, but the stuff really is putty. You use your fingers and pack it into the holes like Play-Dough.

Next I gave the cab a looksie and filled any dings and gouges with spackle. After it dried, I hit the right side with some 100 grit sandpaper. After finishing with it I noticed my sinuses acting up. I realized I sanded the whole side without lung protection. Oops! 



I did the rest of the sanding with an old Metallica shirt wrapped around my nose and mouth with a clamp holding it behind my head. The makeshift mask worked well, but I know I should've used a respirator.




My plan is to rough up and smooth all the paint and repaint over it with black semi-gloss latex paint. I have a fine foam roller ready to go. I'm reading constantly how everyone strips, sands, primers, sands, primers, sands, paints, sands, paints, sands, and paints... and I think they're nuts. If it's bare wood, sure throw a coat or two of primer, maybe sand to level it out, then paint. I'll do my painting with my daughter on Wednesday, to get her involved in the project. Tomorrow I'll work on the control panel. Can't wait to get GooGone and metal shavings all over my hands tomorrow. 

The only question I have is, do I clean all the dust off before I paint? The thing is covered with black dust from all the sanding.

[javeryh]

The only question I have is, do I clean all the dust off before I paint? The thing is covered with black dust from all the sanding.

Definitely.  You should buy a package of tack cloths from Home Depot - it's like $2.  Give the cabinet a good wipe down before painting and it will remove all of the dust from sanding.  The painting/finishing is the worst part about building one of these things, IMO.

Your project is looking really good.  I really like how you crammed that larger monitor in there.  Keep it going!   

[Namco]

The only question I have is, do I clean all the dust off before I paint? The thing is covered with black dust from all the sanding.

Definitely.  You should buy a package of tack cloths from Home Depot - it's like $2.  Give the cabinet a good wipe down before painting and it will remove all of the dust from sanding.  The painting/finishing is the worst part about building one of these things, IMO.

Your project is looking really good.  I really like how you crammed that larger monitor in there.  Keep it going!   

Thanks, I'll definitely give it a good wipedown before painting. However, I disagree about what the worst part is. I have to say without a doubt that the worst part is stripping a control panel! 

I have my supplies ready. Some GoofOff and an old metal control panel. I have some sheet metal, blades, and a hole saw for later.


Here's the panel and the Control Panel Overlay (CPO) that I need to remove



Look at the underside, it's swiss cheese down there! But it looks like it's some kind of stardard hole pattern for JAMMA though. Just not Street Fighter 2



Okay, getting started. I hit the panel up with a hot hair dryer and work a corner loose. I grabbed it with some pliers and started tugging on it. As long as you keep heat on it, it comes off in large sections. If you do it cold, it's extremely hard to pull and chips off in very small pieces. As you heat it, it smells like a new inflatable raft.





The back was really easy and came out in a few sections



The curved edge didn't strip very easily and took a lot of scraping with the putty knife to get all the vinyl off.



Once all the vinyl is off, I'm left with a metal CP covered with a tacky residue. It's pretty darn thick and will require some GoofOff to remove... this is where it gets really hard and annoying!



What you do is squirt some GoofOff on the panel, scrub it in a bit with a brush, let it soak in for a few seconds, then scrape off as much as you can and do it again. The directions make it seem like you squirt it on and hose or wipe it right off. That's BS. First off wiping didn't do much because the residue was too thick. You have to scrape it with a putty knife. The GoofOff just turns the residue soft and you can scrape it off. You end up with gobs of the stuff, and it evaporates quickly so you have to work fast before it congeals back to a thick residue again.



The back was easier because it is such a large flat surface, but the front was really hard thanks to all the holes. It took HOURS of squirting, scraping, and rubbing. Only if the residue is really thin can you rub the stuff off effectively. The fumes were pretty thick and dizzying without good ventilation.   



When I started running out of GoofOff, I switched to lighter fluid which does work to an extent, but not as well as GoofOff and evaporates too quickly. Plus lighter fluid turns your skin white because it dries them out like crazy. In the end, I finally got a mostly stripped control panel, ready for the new sheet metal. (EDIT 14 years later: GooGone is way better! GoofOff is trash!)



It's still tacky in places, but I don't care, I got most of it off, my fingers are black and sticky, and I'm out of GoofOff. 

[BUCKETHEAD]

Lookin Good !

Doing a Damn good job here !   

[Namco]

Thanks for the encouraging works Javeryh, Da Old Man, and Buckethead, even though thre's a lot of boring stuff here. I'm trying to include as much info as I can for other newbies like me.   

Javeryh: I realize now that the PC monitor I used is the same size as the arcade monitor that was in there. PC manufacturers measure the bezel, so it's a 21" monitor when hooked up to a computer, but magically becomes 19" when decased and put in a cabinet. 

To patch up the swiss-cheese control panel, I decided to get a piece of sheet metal and cut it in the shape of the current control panel and bolt it in from behind. I decided against cutting the whole front of the current CP out because I wanted the added support of what was left of the of the current 16ga metal CP on top of the 22ga sheet of steel that I was using.

I used the old plexi as a template and started cutting away.






Once I had the sheet, I affixed it behind the old control panel and drilled out the bolt holes (and P1 P2 buttons), so I could bolt it down and plan out the button holes.



I used a premade template I got off of [romsite name redacted] and taped it down using MK3fan's pictures as a guide. I realized that when I put the templates where I wanted them, the fierce punch buttons perfectly aligned with one of the original buttons. Once the templates were taped down and the sheet metal was bolted behind the CP, I started adding more holes.






If it looked like swiss cheese before, well it looks like a sponge now!



With buttons and a stick in place, I can see that things are lined up okay. Except I need to file down some of the round holes so I can fit the square pegs (joystick's carriage bolts which weren't fitting right).



Also, because of some gint holes in the CP, two of the buttons are only supported by the underlying 22ga sheetmetal thus making them shorter than the others. This isn't a problem if I'm using plexi (which I plan to), but I'd kind of like to fill in that extra metal. The extra mass will make it stronger and dampen some sound when hitting those buttons



To make some pieces to fill in the gap, I slide in a blank piece of sheet metal and mark out the areas that I need to fill.



Cutting out the pieces I need



Two pieces of the filler sheet metal I need are stacked behind the button and line up level with the old CP. I was way off with my measurements and cutting, but it's close. All it really has to do is raise up the button and support the plexiglass area surrounding the button. I'may fill in the small gaps with wood filler, but then again, I may not. Once the Control Panel Overlay and plexiglass is in place, it will be impossible to tell that there's a mess under there. 

[CartmanDP1]

cab looks great so far, I was thinking of mounting my monitor the same way you did, after you cut the hole in the wood, did the monitor just slide through? Looking at my CRT,there seems to be some parts wider than the hole I'd need to cut to mount it properly.

[janey6152]

Nice please keep showing pics as u go , espically the wiring and software u gonna use??

thanks

janey

[Namco]

cab looks great so far, I was thinking of mounting my monitor the same way you did, after you cut the hole in the wood, did the monitor just slide through? Looking at my CRT,there seems to be some parts wider than the hole I'd need to cut to mount it properly.

There definitely was a part where I thought the wood frame woudn't fit past the chassis at the bottom. The way I cut the wood, it wouldn't fit past the front brackets so it had to be slid on from behind. It does look thicker at the bottom like the frame won't fit past it. What you do slide the wooden frame over the chassis at the back and when you get to the thick part, you have to tilt the bottom of the frame at an angle to get it off the electronics and toward the tube. Once you have the bottom edge past the electronics and touching the tube, you have enough room to move the frame up and get off the anode cat area and to the tube as well. I was lucky that it all fit, it was snug and I had no room to spare.

Nice please keep showing pics as u go , espically the wiring and software u gonna use??
thanks
janey

Right now I'm in the process of refurbishing and filling the control panel. Once I have it finished and filled up, I can start the wiring. I'll be using an iPac, but what I'm doing different is I'll put the iPac in an enclosure with DB-25 connectors to connect the control panel to. I'm planning the pinouts now and will probably spend a few days soldering wires to the DB-25 connectors and building the wiring harness. I'm undecided if I'll build a wiring harness or use two female DB-25s and a store bought cable to connect them. I'll have pics of my progress soon.

For the front end, I'm thinking about using Mala. I have one computer I'm experimenting using Mala, and another using DOS Mame and ArcadeOS. But Mala is so slick and customizable, I'll probably go with that. I love the video previews and background music.

[Namco]

I wanted to show the results of the painting. When we left off I had the original paint sanded smooth, holes filled with wood putty, and gouges filled with spackle.







After I had everything knocked level, I wiped down the dust from the surface of the cab and started painting. I used a quart of Rust Oleum American Accents black Semi-Gloss Latex paint and a fine sponge roller.



I grabbed a nearby small child and had her slave away on the hard painting duties.... until her arm got tired. 



I did the two sides differently. On my daughter's side, I let it dry and applied a second and third coat. No sanding in between. On the right side, I sanded between coats first using 150 grit (big mistake) and 400 grit. The stupid 150 grit left a few big long deep scratches that only came out after another coat of paint and more sanding with 400 grit. After the third coat, the left side where I didn't sand looks a lot like the right side where I slaved away with 400 grit sandpaper. The only blemishes I can see is on the front panel around the security bar hole where I didn't properly level the wood putty further lending proof to my theory that all this priming and sanding business is a bunch of hooey. In these pics the big round white spots are specks of dust between the lens and the flash.




There was some orange peel when the paint was wet, but it really goes away as the paint dries.



A few unsitely blemishes can be seen in this pic thanks to the wood putty. I should have sanded it better.



All in all, I'm thrilled with the results. I placed an order for Street Fighter 2 artwork, made an enclosure for my iPac, and am awaiting my T-molding and buttons any day now. SF2 artwork was an expensive proposition at around $160 dollars (after using the BYOAC coupon code of course!).

[Namco]

I've gotten a lot done in a few days. I worked on the control panel, marquee lighting, power relay, and speakers. Here's a rundown:

I had a good idea on how to install my iPac to make the control panel modular. In the future, if I choose to change control panels, I'll have it so that I can undo a few bolts and plugin another control panel and be good to go. I'll be able to make several control panels without spending cash on an iPac for each one. Sorry Andy.

I had a project box laying around that I bought for a Winamp controller project that failed miserably. I put the iPac in the box and cut out openings for the PS2 connectors.



I also cut out two long trapezoids for a pair of female DB25 connectors. One for each player. The other existing holes in the box were from the previous project.



The DB25 connectors are setup with a soldering cup at the end of each pin for easy soldering of the wires. I used 22ga stranded wire and inserted the wire and soldered it in place. It was pretty hard to solder the joint without melting the plastic holding the pin and making it loose. I used shrink tubing and a lighter to keep things looking clean.



After all the pins soldered. I only used 14 pins out of the 25. This allowed me to space the welds out and made it a bit easier to solder. My pinout diagram and the fact that the pins on both the male and female connectors are properly labeled was a lifesaver.



Now we're all hooked up. Ready to screw on the cover and mount in the cab.



I repeated the process twice more to make a couple wiring harnesses that will connect to all the buttons and sticks in the control panel. I'll use a premade DB25 extension cable to connect this harness to the iPac enclosure I made.



Next I tackled lighting. Behind the marquee there was a simple light fixture.



I just grabbed one of the hundred PC power cables I have lying around and chopped the female end off of it and soldered it to my light fixture. Simple stuff, piece of cake.



Behind the light was a single old speaker I ripped out. I mounted a pair of Creative 2.1 PC speakers and secured them by adding a couple strips of wood.



I cheaped out and left the bracket on them so I could zip tie them in place. Kind of a lame accomodation, I know



While I was out and about earlier today, I visited Radio Shack and picked up a 12VDC / 10Amp DPDT relay switch and installed it into a powerstrip. I used this awesome tutorial: http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com/01/index81.htm, it was pretty darn easy.



See, it passed the smoke test!

[Franco]

Excellent work bud. That was really enjoyable read from start to finish 

Love what you did with the I-Pac. Im intending to use some DB connectors on mine. I had though about using a project box to house the hacked 360 controllers but I had not thought about using one for the I-Pac, possibly my LED wiz's too. They are not going to be removable etc but It should house them nicely.

Where can you buy project boxes from? Do they have a particular trade name or is there any other names i should search for when looking for them?  I hope you can get them in the UK too, i don't think i have ever seen them over here.

EDIT: With a little searching I have found they can be called ABS/Polycarbonate enclosures. Ive also managed to find some nice translucent blue ones 

[Jimbo]

Great stuff with the IPAC!  I too am planning something similar for my project as my control panel will be modular.  I'm also in the UK so will be looking out for the project box/ABS/Polycarbonate enclosures!  I'll be following your project closely, keep up the good work!

[Franco]

Sorry to hijack Freddo but......

Jimbo, I have found that Hammond Mfg make clear, translucent blue and tranclucent red polycarb enclosures. LINK

Maplin stock them but only the blue and red ones (as far as I can see) BLUE / RED

Maplin also do a whole range of other enclosures too though if you want a plain one LINK

They also stock D-Sub connectors if you want to get your bits all at the same time. LINK

[Namco]

Sorry to hijack Freddo but......

Jimbo, I have found that Hammond Mfg make clear, translucent blue and tranclucent red polycarb enclosures. LINK

Maplin stock them but only the blue and red ones (as far as I can see) BLUE / RED

Maplin also do a whole range of other enclosures too though if you want a plain one LINK

They also stock D-Sub connectors if you want to get your bits all at the same time. LINK

Don't worry about hijacking. Those  enclosures are niiiicee. Almost too nice  . I got mine at Fry's Electronics, a US West coast chain of electronic stores.

They have all kinds. PVC, aluminum, and combinations of both. But no clear ones though. Those are awesome.

[bfauska]

If anybody in the states is looking for those translucent plastic project boxes I just found them at Mouser.

That's a clean way to mount and protect your keyboard encoder, it would be a tidy way to do an LED-Wiz too.

EDIT:  OOPS sorry about that out-a-control link.

[Havok]

If anybody in the states is looking for those translucent plastic project boxes I just found them at =http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?Ne=1447464+254016+688507&N=1323038+4294932194+4294932228&GetRecs=1&Ntt=*5461591*&Msb=0&Mkw=546-1591Mouser.

That's a clean way to mount and protect your keyboard encoder, it would be a tidy way to do an LED-Wiz too.

Fixt:

Mouser

Great idea with the enclosure - I think I'm going to have to do that too!

[Namco]

If anybody in the states is looking for those translucent plastic project boxes I just found them at =http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?Ne=1447464+254016+688507&N=1323038+4294932194+4294932228&GetRecs=1&Ntt=*5461591*&Msb=0&Mkw=546-1591Mouser.

That's a clean way to mount and protect your keyboard encoder, it would be a tidy way to do an LED-Wiz too.

Fixt:

Mouser

Great idea with the enclosure - I think I'm going to have to do that too!

Thanks! I agree. I can't wait to get it installed to see what it looks like. For sure, I'm going to add a PacDrive or a LED-Wiz in the future.

[Namco]

This thread is getting out of control with the sheer amount of pictures, loading time, and bandwidth. So I am going to spread out my updates a bit in an attempt to get to the second page. I have .... Sweet Jesus! ... "38 MB of 1200000.0 MB have been used", apparently I have 1.2TerraBytes of bandwidth.... nevermind, carry on 

[Namco]

On Thursday, I got my first batch of parts from Happ.


1 Coin door bucket
12 Happ Pushbuttons with horizontal microswitch
3 Cam locks
10' marquee retainer
50 18-22ga, .187" female quick disconnects

Unfortunately my 1 1/8" cam lock didn't come with the screw to attach the actual cam, so I can't attach my back door until Happ sends me a new one. But they haven't returned my emails yet.  . Looks like another part I'll have to scavenge for.

[Namco]

After I stripped and filled my control panel, I hit it with a coat of primer before getting ready to paint the corners black.


I'll be using a can of classic black RustOleum spraypaint.


Painted the corners of the control panel.


Then I painted the coin door. I used about 4 coats on the coindoor.

[Namco]

I stripped all of the parts off of the coindoor before painting. I found that the plastic parts were very worn and old with some ugly spraypaint here and there. I started cleaning them and found that the more I cleaned, the worse they looked. Maybe I'll repaint them later, but for now, I'll leave them as they are.



I did polish the coin eject buttons a bit
Before:



After:



The coin mechs were ugly and coated with old dirt, grime, rust, and oxidation.



One acceptor barely took quarters, while quarters always got stuck in the other. Opening her up, you can see why. They're caked with rust.



It's a wonder that quarters slide through these things at all!



After scrubbing these parts for a couple hours with Brasso, they look great now.



More results:
 



Reassembled and back on the dry door, they look new again


The finished product:

[Namco]

Once I had the coin door ready, I had to wire it up. The lights are just automotive bulbs, so they take 12 volt DC, easily supplied from the computer's power supply. I just took a female molex connector and made a wiring harness for it. I ran out of heatshrink tubing and the electrical tape I'm using barely sticks, hence the zip ties holding the whole works together.



On a 4-pin molex cable, yellow is 12v, the black ones are ground, and red is 5v. Once hooked up, the coindoor bulbs light up beautifully





While I was futzing around with the coindoor lights, I also put a female molex connector on the 12v input on my powerstrip relay.


To turn the computer on, I wanted to extend the computer's power switch to the outside of the cabinet. It was already setup with a switch, I just removed the existing toggle pushbutton that the cabinet used to switch on the mains power to a momentary contact pushbutton like ATX uses.



For the wires, I didn't want to hack into the case or cutoff the PC's power switch headers. I had a couple header blocks from a newer motherboard I have and decided to use those. I soldered the end of the switch onto two pins on the header block and plugged them in. So now I have two PC power buttons. I ran out of wire so it's a bit short, I may have to redo the switch.

[Namco]

I got my artwork in yesterday!!!  (I have no pics today, just a description on what I did yesterday). However, the SF2 marquee is really dark. Too much black and barely any pink and purple. Hopefully it looks good when I put light behind it. It's great to finally have the CPO, but unfortunately I am still unprepared for it. I don't have the plexi done and I need the bare CP to help drill the holes for the plexiglass. I rushed out to the store last night and bought a sheet of something like 18x32 for around $17 dollars. It's enough for me to experiment with and mess up a few times.

I had some Xacto blades lying around that I've lost, so I had to make do with a razorblade holder/box opener. It bent on the first swipe and made a bad crooked line that strayed off of my straightedge onto the good material. First mistake was to use a cheap razorblade. Second mistake was to go too quickly with my cut. Third mistake was to use a 3/4" piece of MDF as my straigtedge (too tall). Fourth mistake was to press the straightedge into the scrap material instead of holding it down over the finish material. Fifth mistake was to rush things.

Eventually I used an Xacto knife with an old blade to score the plexi. I made many, many slow cuts as deep as I could on the top edge of the plexi. After scoring, I took it to the coffee table and pushed down quickly and it snapped loudly. Unfortunately the snap followed the line of one of the mis-cuts and I had a crooked edge. The other cuts weren't much better. It seems that if you don't score deep enough, the crack strays from the line at the edges. You really have to score pretty deeply when doing short cuts to get the crack to follow the straight line.

To correct the bad cuts, I used a dremel tool with a cutoff disk. At too low a speed, it melts the plastic too much. It stinks. Also, human hands can't cut straight enough while holding one of these things. The cut looks wobbly and I ended up with a lot of melted bits clinging to the dege. I used a file to knock it down and a sanding drum to smooth things out. The sanding drum works very well, but it's too easy to take off too much material and increase the uneven look of the cut.

Drilling holes, I made some observations. Making small drill holes, there's no problem whatsoever. Go nuts. Using a big, sharp drill bit will tend to crack the plexi when digging in for the first time. Going fast helps, but the torque always cracks the plexi when it catches. What I did was drill all the holes, even the button holes with a small bit. My kit has these useless drill bits with a point at the end that aren't any good for drilling much of anything. But on plexi eventually the dig in and make the hole. When I had that as a pilot hole, I got out the hole saw. What I noticed about using the hole saw was that the drill bit in the center of this thing is big, like 5/8". When this monster digs into the small pilot hole, it cracks the plexi every time. It's not much of a problem with button holes because the hole saw part will cut out the cracked area. After the center bit gets through, the holesaw teeth dig in. If you hit with the teeth at full speed, you have the chance at another crack, but usually it won't. Start your cutting, but slow down when it's just about to punch through. If you're going too fast when it punches through, you'll get another crack.

After I had all the holes done, I went around to all the bolt holes and made them square with a drywall cutting tool on my dremel. It works very well eating away at the plexi. Great choice to square off the bolt holes.

I ended up with a good piece with crooked edges and about 4 cracks. I'll obviously have to do it again. Here's the process I'll use when doing this on the next piece of material:

 - Use a heavy duty razor knife and take plenty of time to score deeply
 - Use a flat straightedge and cut slowly and deeply with short strokes
 - Make sure your straight edge is on the finished side to help protect it
 - Take your time, your only chance on a straight cut is on the first snap
 - When it comes time to snap, use a good flat, sharp surface and snap hard and fast
 - When doing holes use a small drill bit
 - When doing button holes widen the small hole with a drywall cutter bit on your dremel or slightly bigger drill bits so that your hole saw drill bit doesn't have to punch through
 - When using the hole saw, slow down before it punches through.

[Kaytrim]

Looking good there Namco.  The coin door looks brand spanking new.  Just curious but why didn't you just use bondo to fill in the holes in your panel?  With the 22 gauge sheet behind, you had a perfect setup for a nice bondo filler job.

[Namco]

Looking good there Namco.  The coin door looks brand spanking new.  Just curious but why didn't you just use bondo to fill in the holes in your panel?  With the 22 gauge sheet behind, you had a perfect setup for a nice bondo filler job.

Because I'm a knucklehead and don't know squat about bondo  . I was too wrapped up messing around with the metal that I didn't think about bondo until well after I had already cut out the filler pieces.  I saw the pictures of the guy fixing the corners of his NBA Jam cab with bondo and was impressed at how well it looked, probably 2 days after doing all that crap with my control panel.

It's all a learning experience for me. This time I used metal and wood putty to level off the front panel. Next time it'll be bondo for sure. Either way I had fun doing it. 

[shardian]

Restoring coin mechs...hardcore bro...hardcore.

It is looking great!

[Namco]

Restoring coin mechs...hardcore bro...hardcore.

It is looking great!

Thanks. The key to taking apart and cleaning those coin mechs is to do it one at a time and use the assembled one as a guide to putting the other back together. 

Only problem is with the wires running to the lights and coin switches, the mess seems to get in the way of the door motion. If i recall correctly there were wires or clips that help to hold the wires in place as the door opened. I have to go find those now. 

[SithMaster]

I would use some plastic hooks (kind that have glue on the back)  from a dollar store.

Also very nice work so far.

[Namco]

I would use some plastic hooks (kind that have glue on the back)  from a dollar store.

Also very nice work so far.

Thanks! On the original, they used small wire ties and efficient wire routing. I think I'll try to duplicate what they did there



I have some of those wire ties. I bought them last week in anticipation of the wiring of the control panel. Unfortunately I lost them and marched ahead anyway. The result is this friggin mess at the end of the night:


As I near the end, I find myself cutting corners like this. It's the nature of working on the cab in the evening after getting home from work. With only a few hours to work on a part of the task, I make compromises to finish at a reasonable hour. Last night I couldn't find my wire management clips and discovered that hot glue wouldn't stick to the sheet metal. Thus the use of electrical tape and utter lack of wire management.

Put I'll press on tonight and get the marquee ready and start strapping stuff down. Will post more updates soon and hopefully have a finished cab by the end of the weekend. 

[Namco]

Here's a few pictures of my second run at cutting the plexiglass (acrylic). I got a few cracks from the hole saw grabbing the plastic with its high torque and sharp turns. This first picture below shows the cracks in my first attempt. This is what I want to avoid on the second run.




I had a lot more success with the button holes by first drilling small holes and making them larger with a spiral cutting bit on my dremel tool. This allows you to stick the hole saw bit cleanly through the hole keeping it from cracking up the plastic. Instead of using the center drill bit to steady the hole saw, I just used the first plexiglass piece as a guide for the holesaw to follow.




The hardest part is getting the plexi to crack cleanly when cutting it. It's very frustrating to cut and score the plexi so deeply only to have it make a messy break when you go to crack it. It's hit or miss sometimes.

[Namco]

I did another piece of plexiglass for the marquee. Marquee's pretty dark, so I hope it looks good when I go to install the thing. Just look at the color on the thing. Gonna need a couple 100watt florescent bulbs in there to get it to look good.

[Namco]

It's time to apply my beautiful Control Panel Overlay. It's a gorgeous piece of art. A huge, thick, strong, self-adhesive piece of vinyl. I was kind of nervous putting it on. What I did was I laid the piece over my control panel and figured out where it was going to lay and smoothed out the creases and waited for it to unfurl and lay nicely. I clamped it down and unstuck half of the backing (the bottom part of the CP and used a razor to cut it off and smoothed it on to the bottom/underside portion of the panel



When I was satisfied that the bottom was stuck on nicely, I removed more backing all the way to the top edge of the overlay and smoothed it on as well.



With all of the backing gone. Just have to smooth over and fold this top edge.



All done! 

[Namco]

Last week I got my parts from Happ Controls. Part of the order were the replacement locks for the cab including a 1 1/8" cam lock for the back door. Here is the pic seconds after I unboxed it all. What's wrong with this picture?



... the stupid 1 1/8" cam lock is missing the screw that holds the cam onto the back of the lock. I didn't notice it at the time, but looking back at the picture I took, sure enough, there it is. Lock's disassembled and missing the screw (bag on the right).



Happ's sending me out a replacement screw. Took them a week to respond to my email. In the meantime I used a 1/4" bolt with some nuts on it to keep the cam secure.

[Namco]

Man, I'm tired. After this post I'll finally be on page 2!

Next up will be a ton of pics finishing the control panel.... but I'm going to bed. Since it's already tomorrow, I'll post it all later (not tomorrow) .