aunt annis projects

[apfelanni]

here i am , a long time lurker , born in the mid sixties and allways looking for new ideas or tech advise . i have to admit , this forum is the best resource on videoarcade related stuff in the world. now i guess its about time to show some of the projects i finished in the recent past. lets start with the rebuild of a astro fighter ( donkey kong modded ) lowboy a buddy from a german forum bought some time ago . since this type of cabs are really rare in europe and theres nearly no chance of aquiring one ,i decided to build one from scratch . i found the style of this thing very appealing . fortunately the owner measured all essential parts and drawed the sides on some sandwich paper , so templating the sides was easy going.

i recycled a lot of crap electronic parts dumped in my garage ( 10 euro ebay tv ,old poker panel ,scrapwood ,broken usb pad , old dell p4 barbone, old cab speaker, sticks n buttons , plexi ), coz i didnt want it to break the barrier of a few hundred bucks. the expensive part was the aluminum frame , usually used for a bird aviary . i tried it for a cocktail table and was very satisfied with the outcome, coz its rock solid . the 1 inch aluminum square tubes plus the plastic connectors came out around 5o euro . the beechwood parts were painted with acrylic ebony paint (3 times ). the artworks were ordered in a local electronic market ( 7 euro ) and the dell comp is running mame with soft 15 k and mamescart cable . in the future i plan to replace it with a mak and a genuine arcade pcb. the building process took a while but was fun . the gameplay on this style of cabinet is better than 99 % of all cocktail arcades i encountered. i will never understand why so many people choose the road of a pacman style table arcade with all its disadvantages.  







 

[apfelanni]

i forgot to mention : i choosed the phoenix style coz it was one of my favorite games during the golden age and i really hated dk.

[apfelanni]

more pics

[apfelanni]

more pics

[apfelanni]

finally up n running .. the next patient is waiting ( namco consolette ) . maybe i m developing a fetish for mini arcades . wonna have a mvs mini ( guess i ll have to build a shrinked version or a mvs cocktail ) .

ps.: added a pic what the cab original looked like .  

[TOK]

I love that! 
So cool the way the marquee art flows right into the bezel. Nice work!

[jimmy2x2x]

Very interesting design!

Whats the height at the front and back of the unit?

Thanks

[apfelanni]

the height is 92 cm on the rear side and 57 on the paneltop , the depth is 60 cm and its 52 cm wide . the original is a few cm wider . the screen is a 14 inch philips tube. there is some space left inside , so maybe a 19 inch tv inch could be adapted. in the planning phase i thought about a bigger screen horizontal mounted with a 2 player panel (stick + 2-3 buttons ).

[emphatic]

Looks great! Nice to see Garegga in there as well. 

[tapule]

You have done a really cool design!.
Is it comfortable to play sitting down? or may be uncomfortable for the knees.

[mgb]

That is a really cool cabinet design.
I love the Phoenix theme. It was never a popular amongst my friends back in the day but I love it.

[leapinlew]

Phoenix eh?

The sound doesn't drive you nuts? Sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

[mgb]

One of the things I like about Phoenix are the odd sounds 

[apfelanni]

i love this type of cabinet. it occupys little space and plays out very comfortable. it has a nice viewing angle , controls in a reasonable position and enough room inside for pcb or pc installations. in december i had a few weeks off and to decide what to do with an old universal woody cab. the 20 inch arcade screen was beyond repair and the shell in a bad shape. looking for inspiration i stumbled upon the old minicade template and came up with the idea of a " double chop " aka upright to microlowboy conversion to reanimate the old hellomat. the broken / missing arcade monitor would be replaced with a common 20 inch tv set and the pokerpanel refurbed with a new overlay . my first thought was to paint it 3-4 color camouflage desert or snow style , but finally i decided to go with unicolor sheme ral 6014 , which is a standard color for german army vehicles from 1950-1980 . a few arcadebuddys find the style a little offensive and called it nazicade , but i give a dam .. the cade is housing a playstation 2 driven by network mod.  its almost 99% done , so far the marquees is missing , coz i hadnt found fitting artworks / photos yet. i d also love to add some decoration stuff like the 1:72 dragon armor models  , a  plastic hand grenade or rifle bullets to the scenery .  

[apfelanni]

some more pics

[apfelanni]

the final shots .. i like to point out that i find it a lot more pleasing to renew this old arcade stuff or build it from scratch than just buying cabinets in good condition.

[IG-88]

Nazicade?? Seriously?? Dude that thing is farking awesome. Nice work.

Is it the same size as the other one?

[apfelanni]

the clone cab is the same height and width , but adds a few cm in depth. the camoucab thing isnt dead , but skipped to a future project. i have to practice with air brush or compressor painting first. i want it spraypainted something like this . an alternative would be using car wrapping foil .

@tapule .. im 192 cm height , no probs at all with my knees , but i do have serious probs with most of the cocktail tables.

[apfelanni]

my current work in progress is named volksvewlix . its supposed to be a lowcost conversion of a universal 28 inch crt metal monstercab into a decent next gen console cabinet. naturally i m a crt guy , but when it come to xbox 36o u ll notice the use of a full hd screen has some benefits. i own one of these beasts ( 2-5 mm steel and aluminum ) in near mint condition and use it for mame vertikal gaming and a few more in not working condition. so why not transform one of em into something more useful. i cant afford 3-4 k for a new vewlix , so the idea is to gain highend flatscreen gamin without the price . so far i dismantled the beauty , cleaned and sanded all parts , drilled a metal paneloverlay plate ( coz there are no new and clean panels available ) and picked up a sony bravia 32 inch full hd flat from a local electronic store. it was 3-4 month used in a videowall but came with a 150 euro discount and 2 year warranty. the panel quality looks very good and input delay is low . the control panel will be equipped with seimitsu parts + 2 xbox padhacks ( datel or alibaba nippon pcb version with terminal screws ) . i had to revise the screen mounting for the flatscreen purpose including the rotating option. i assume i ll play 9x % horizontal oriented , but who knows what kinda shooter titels with hd option will be released in the future . next week i ll check for a vehicle painter who resprays it satin black for affordable money. 

[apfelanni]

more pics

[apfelanni]

here we go

[apfelanni]

and  ...

[apfelanni]

finally .. i ll post more in a few weeks when its done .

[tapule]

Apfelanni, your Camoucab has fascinated me.
Now I'm working in my first cab, but I think the next must be like yours, it is fantastic.
Please, please, please, can you give me some measures?




Thank you for this awesome cabs and keep the good work you are doing.

[emphatic]

Nice work on that next gen cabinet cab!

[apfelanni]

cab 1 , first copy :

a. 90 (adds 2 cm height with mounted feet )
b. 12
c. 60
d+e. 58
f.  52
g. 11
h. 53
i.  41

cab 2 , hellomat army style

a. 90
b. 12
c. 67
d. 19
e. 37
f.  52
g. 14
h. 53
i.  48

everything measured in > cm < . i still have the wooden multiplex side template and think of recopy it to paper and scan it in a copyshop, because there are no plans for this available . cab 1 houses a vertical 14 inch 37 cm tv and cab 2 a horizontal 50 cm 2o inch . cab 2 was an adaption so i could keep the monitor mounting frame and the aluminum panel . the curves of cab 1 were a little annoying when it came to building the frontdoors. a mix of the panelcurvature of cab 1 and the straight down front of cab 2 would some save building time .  

[tapule]

Thank you very much Apfelanni.

[Woodshop Flunky]

Wow!  I really like the small cab.  Looks great!

[apfelanni]

i retemplated the sides of the first cab back from wood to paper. i will scan it tomorrow and make the plan available for dl. maybe someone can vectorize it or transform it into cadformat , pdf or whatever. any hints regarding resolution or format i should ask for ?

if anyone wonders what the original cab2 looks like , here is a shot . 53 cm wide and a height of 160 cm combined with classic style  appearence and 100 % 2 player functional. i love em . they would fit in doghouse. 3 weeks ago i could have picked up 10 of this type for free in good condition because a dealer had to clear his store , but i only put one in my car . its a strictly one in and one out policy here or i will get shot by the family .

[saint]

I had to kill the last post in this thread to fix whatever was corrupting it....

[apfelanni]

hm .. i only added the sidepart scans of the microlowboy in pdf and jpg format . i uploaded them , 20 kb each in pdf and tif .

 
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YC267SCV
 

[tapule]

Apfelanni, thank you for take the time to scan the sidepart and share it.

[IG-88]

For the hell of it I converted those cm to fractional measurements for us weird new worlders.      (to the closest sixteenth of an inch)

Cab 1:

A. 35 3/8
B. 4 1/16
C. 23 5/8
D+E. 22 13/16
F. 22 1/2
G. 4 5/16
H. 20 7/8
I. 16 1/8

Cab 2:

A. 35 3/8
B. 4 11/16
C. 26 3/8
D. 7 1/2
E. 14 5/8
F. 20 1/2
G. 5 1/2
H. 20 7/8
I. 18 7/8

[apfelanni]

finally i finished my crt to lcd cab conversion last week . here are some pics of the work in progress , if anyone is interested.

[apfelanni]

some more ..

[apfelanni]

some more

[apfelanni]

and ..

[apfelanni]

and ..

[Nephasth]

Awesome design! Love that big rotating monitor! But to regurgitate your own words...

in my opinion any screen bigger than 25 inch is completley nonsens for a vertikal setup , no matter what style the cab is . the only cabinets providing accurate distance between gamer and 30 inch +x  screens are showcases . but why in gods name would anyone play verti on a showcase !? 29 inch candy cabinets in vertikal mode are highly uncomfortable , no matter if its lowres or vga . sometimes the bigger is better mentality makes me laugh .   

And...

29 inch vertikal gaming on candy cabs suck compared to a kickass 25 inch candy . no matter if its vga or 15 k , a crappy weiya , samsung or a highly praised nanao screen .

[apfelanni]

all done .. i m happy with the outcome . the hacked 360 datel controller are working perfekt . i enjoy the home button for starting and shutting down the box . on the front i mounted a neutrik usb plug . this is useful´for any more usb devices like a third controller pad , a harddrive or usb stick . the sony bravia is a wonderful 1080 p screen . once u find out how to manage the stupid osd its a perfekt nextgenarcadescreen with a nice protective glas on the front. it can be tated vertically , but i guess i wont do it . for shootergames i prefer the vertical set crt cabs . the paintjob with car acrylic is far from perfect , but ok for a first timer. all my other cabs were brushed or rolled , some sprayed with a spray can , but i never used 2k carpaint with hardener . this was a completely new experience to me , i had some issues with low pressure , a cheap paintgun , wind , dirt, whatever.. u name it .. but in the end it was fun . my first idea was to buy a quality tent for future compressor painting , but it turned out to be expensive , so i tried the homemade tubby tent . this beauty wasnt 100 % weaterproofed , to say the truth it wasnt doin so well during the first storm .. but i got the job done in time .