The "Resistance is Futile" project

[Bartype]

First a little introduction of me and this project.

I always thought of myself as not very handy, or even worse, a complete noob, at building things with my hands. Also lack of good tools doesn't make things easier. Despite this, i dreamed almost my whole life of being able to play the real arcade games at home closely as they are supposed to be played. This means i needed an arcade cabinet. The problem however, i also had some ideas what kind of cabinet it must be. Most games should be able to be played on it, so there will be a 2 player control panel, also with a trackball and spinner. Besides this, the cabinet must be NICE to look at. Most examples of these kind of control panels are very massive, with a much wider CP as the cabinet itself. Not very stylish and/or beautiful in my opinion. Also, the often still needed keyboard must be present in a way it doesn't spoil the view. And i was looking for some original artwork for my cabinet. There are more design options i didn't find elsewhere so fast, but that can be because i didn't read the WHOLE forum.

So, because of these wishes i decided to put aside my fear for messing things up with my two left hands and started with an already sawed out cabinet from 15 mm thick fine multiplex, found on an auction site for 150 euro's (see picture). I know, with this i am not starting from scratch. With my lack of the right tools i would have it done by someone else anyway, so the base couldn't be messed up. From here, i start working on the cabinet myself. I shall share some of the design decisions i have made, and hopefully other people may find them useful.

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After some brainstorm sessions with a friend i decided the title of the cabinet will be Resistance Is Futile, inspired by the Borg from Star Trek and also should match where the cabinet stands for.


Next post, i will give a list of parts i have chosen...

[satoshi_matrix]

wow, a blank slate cab. I'm looking forward to seeing this develop. I too am in the early stages of my cab (I still need to go pick it up!) but one thing I decided on early was that I'm going to use an Xbox 1 as the system core. The Xbox is powerful enough to render about 90% of MAME games that are worth playing, it has its own assortment of fighting action shoot em up and racing games and you can also of course run classic systems like the NES or Genesis on your cab. All this, and the best two reasons?

-No need for mouse/keyboard/trackball/your face. The stick and buttons control EVERYTHING.
-You can pick up an Xbox for probably $30. Softmodding is incredibly easy and even with the price of a modchip and a larger HDD, the cost is still a fraction of what a dedicated mame pc would be. 

[Yvan256]

I can't wait to see how your Borg arcade cabinet will be! You plan on going full black and glowing green with the theme?

Will it look similar to this PC?

[Bartype]

Well, luckily i already have an 'older' PC (a Dell GX260 small form factor) but still very capable of running MAME and almost any other emulator. I only needed to buy a decent video card for it. But indeed i understand these Xboxes are very well suited for the job!

Ok, as promised last time hereby a list of items i have bought to fulfill the arcade dream. 

I don't know the prices exactly from everything, but i try to be as precise as possible

- The upright cabinet itself bought via an auction site for 150 euro's
- The Dell GX260 PC Already owned
- An Asus ATI 3450 graphics low-profile card with 512 MB mem Webshop for about 40 euro's
- A Logitech Ultra-Flat keyboard Local computer store for about 15 euro's
- A Logitech Z-4 2.1 speakerset Local computer store for about 70 euro's
- A Samsung 214T 21" 8ms 5:4 TFT screen Via an auction site for about 200 euro's. I know, expensive for a used one, but good quality big TFT screens with the 5:4 format and descent refresh rate are hard to find
- 2 x Ultimarc UltraStik 360 with balltop, hard spring and restrictor plates Directly from Ultimarc for about 160 dollar
- Ultimarc U-Trak trackball complete From arcadeshop.de, about 100 euro
- TurboTwist 2 Spinner complete From GroovyGameGear for 85 dollar
- Illuminated push buttons complete From both arcadeshop.de and Ultimarc, about 140 dollar for all 26 buttons and leds
- 2 x Marquee illuminator Utimarc, about 34 dollar
- Cash door arcadeshop.de 14,50 euro
- Minipac opti complete arcadeshop.de for 70 euro, pity, because afterward i didn't need so much and a much cheaper i-pac 2 would have done the job for just a few buttons more than fine...
- 2 x LedDrive Ultimarc, for about 54 dollar
- Furthermore some small things various shops for about 20 euro
- Various additional woodworking and Plexiglas Various local shops for roughly about 250 euro
- Various other small thing Local shops, about 100 euro


Well, this is the list so far and it seems i can already forget vacation this year while i am not completely done yet 

One of the most important things isn't accounted for: the art.

This guy, http://ludwinschouten.nl/?p=563 is going to design the digital art for the cabinet, which will be printed on vinyl here http://www.art-d-sign.nl/ for about 300 euro's.

Next time, some steps i have taken so far in the further construction of 'Resistance is Futile' ;-)

[Bartype]

This chapter is describing the control panel layout. It's somewhat different from most others found elsewhere because i wanted maintain the width of the cabinet and still fit the most used controls on it...



This is the layout as edited with Visio.

Following is the control panel with all the controls fitted:





More about the control panel will be described next time...

[njay]

Goed werk man succes met je bouw !!

Good work dude ! good luck with your build !