Ping of Pong (the recycled ping pong table cab) - Actually all the way done now.

[BadMouth]

I've had an old 600mhz celeron computer, 15" CRT monitor, 5/8" t-molding, megatouch bezel & pacman CP (w/no art) laying around forever.
I tinkered with installing an older MAME build on it and hacking a $7 gamepad for the controls.  I even thew a mouse-hack spinner on the CP.
The gamepad hacking and spinner build was more for my own learning experience than actual use.
But I never did build a cab for it because I didn't want to spend time or money on something that was't going to play anything different than my main setup.

Sunday, a friend commented that he'd like to have a small cab (bartop or cabaret) for his home bar if I came across one cheap.
Then yesterday, my neighbor sat a disassembled ping pong table out for trash pickup.  It consisted of four 4.5' x 2.?' sheets of 5/8" MDF with a smooth blue surface on one side.  I kept looking out my window at it and seeing visions of a cabaret built from it.  Eventually, temptation got the better of me and I snuck the trash into my shed.
Now I'm kinda motivated by the prospect of getting all this stuff out of my way.

I don't want to spend much time or ANY money on this, so it isn't going to be perfect.
But I think I have enough parts laying around that I can do something pretty good without spending anything.

Since the sheets are only 4.5' tall, I can't do a real cabaret.
I've narrowed it down to.........

EDIT: Since I settled on the Galaga style, I removed the rest of this first post that had pics of options I was considering.
         (I was tired of scrolling past it)

[Vigo]

Since this is a low budget project, I would just say function over form and go with the pacman style cabinet.

[Donkbaca]

If it's 14 inches wide, some 11x14 paper will work perfectly

[BadMouth]

Alright, gonna go with a 70% scale galaga and will probably give it to my 6yo nephew instead of the buddy with the bar.

I should be able to get the shell built tonight.
Gonna have to track down a slot cutter for the smaller molding before it can progress past that though.
I may break down and buy one just to get it done.
Technically, it's not spending money on the cab. 

[BadMouth]

6:00PM.....GO!!!!!!!

Sacrificial ping pong table is on the altar.


Dimensions from http://www.retro.co.za/arcade/cabinet.html and scaled everything down to 70%
Even though I plan to paint it like Galaga, I went with curvature of the Mrs Pacman top because it made the front taller.


Screwed two sheets together and made the straight cuts on the table saw, then finished off the curved parts with a jigsaw.


The twins are separated


All your ping pong base am ours


Don't want my corners sitting on the floor getting trashed.


Doh! that's a few inches short.  Had to cut a new one from the big piece I was saving for the back.
Have to find something in the neighbor's trash for the back now.


9:00PM....STOP!!!!


I wanted to put the shelf in for the monitor, but wasn't sure what angle to use.
Gonna set a standard height chair in front of it tomorrow and see what works best.

I also cut out some pieces for the control panel, but I might try to cut down the metal one I have.
It's been through several conversions.  Layers are peeling.  It needs stripped.  I may just make one out of wood to save time.

The t-molding I had turned out to be 3/4" so I can't use it.  (I probably would have left the ping pong table on the curb if I hadn't thought that I had t-molding that would work with it),    I'm just going to round over the edges and paint, paint, paint with rustoleum bedliner.

[mgb]

Now that's a creative use of materials.
Looking good so far.   

[drventure]

Fantastic!

I love builds like this.

[Yvan256]

How about a name for this beauty? Is "Recyclotron" taken by someone else?

[yotsuya]

I say you don't paint it and leave it as is, even down to the basketball sticker on the front! 

[Vigo]

Dang, you just dug right into this....my procrastination would have me waiting at least 2 weeks to 2 months before picking up a saw.

It's looking Awesome! 

[BadMouth]

Day 2 - 6:00PM - GO!!!!!  

I apologize for the lousy quality on the photos.  I thought the ones I took yesterday were too big, so I dumbed down the quality on my phone.
I will change it back next time.

First up, I had this piece of plexi leftover from my driving cab.  Cutting it by scoring it didn't work too well for me last time around as you can tell by the crooked edge.  So I decided to try the table saw this time.  It worked great.


After cutting the marquee and bezel, I had this much left:


In my first post on this project in the main forum (when I was considering raiding my neighbors trash), I mentioned that the edging on the ping pong table might make a good marquee retainer.


It turned out to be useable, but pretty wide.....


But after my success with the plexiglass on the table saw, I thought I'd give ripping these plastic strips a try and.....

I even made sure the two screw holes on the top retainer were spaced an equal distance from the edge so it would look good.
(the plexi looks scratched because it still has the protective film on it)

Then it came time to make a shelf for the monitor to sit on.  I sat a chair in front of the cab and placed my hands where the controls would be trying to decide what would look best.  It didn't make sense to mount it low like a pacman cab because you'd be looking more across it than down at it.
Putting it completely vertical would have put the bezel right up against the front of the cab.  I didn't care for the looks of that.  I ended up with this angle for not much reason besides it looked ok and I needed to make a decision and keep moving.
(15" Dell CRT and Megatouch XL bezel)

Unfortunately, the monitor sticks out the back of the cab a bit.  Even if I took it out of it's housing, it would still stick out.
There was enough ping pong table there to make the cab deeper, but I stuck with the 70% scale.



For the bezel, the plan was to glue the megatouch bezel into the center of a piece of project board.
I will paint this black, then have the option of piecing together the galaga bezel printed on my inkjet printer or painting a design onto the back of the plexi that will go in front of it.  To hold the bezel in place, I turned to the ping pong table trim again.  I put a piece on each side behind where the bezel will be, then a thick piece on top, that will go in front of the bezel and hold it down.  (the bezel is slipping behind the project board in the first pic.  It fits a helluva lot better than it looks in that pic)



The next step was piecing it together with the CP.  I'm still working out how I want to accomplish this.  I may break down and buy a hinge and some latches.
Here I am trying to keep about 5 things from falling so I can get a picture (everything is crooked):

Note the ping pong table edging on the front edge  .

9:00PM.....STOP  

And you know that I couldn't resist dropping in the controls once the holes were there.....


I tinkered with the layout on my desk during my last half hour of work today.
Since it's only 16" wide, it felt like I was cramped into one little section of the CP with the joystick in the center.
Having the player buttons on the left bothers me a little bit, but they made the right side look crowded and I thought I'd accidentally hit the P2 button while playing.   The white square button in the corner will be the exit button.  The button is actually clear with a white insert.  I plan to tape off an X on the insert, then paint it black.  Then it will be black with white markings, like the others.  There will be a green square button in the coin door area for credits.
(haven't figured out what I'm doing for a coin door yet, but I'll think of something)
Info on my cheap home built spinner in this thread if you're interested:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=105759.0

I hate to stop when I'm on a roll, but I won't have time to get back on this until Monday.
I'm shooting for having the entire cab done before next weekend.  

[AurorasDady]

love the use of materials (probably spelled that wrong,) I am liking this, but confused as to the fact that most big chain stores have damaged boards for the cost of a soda or candy bar and the dollar or two may have saved you time when it comes to piant.

[BadMouth]

confused as to the fact that most big chain stores have damaged boards for the cost of a soda or candy bar and the dollar or two may have saved you time when it comes to piant.

This cab build is just for ---meadow muffins--- and giggles

I saw a ping pong table in my neighbors trash and thought it would be cool to build a cab out of it.
That's the entire point.    

I would have had no desire to build this cab otherwise and I have no use for the cab once it's done.  

Everything that has gone into this cab so far (including the monitor and computer) is scrap that has been on the verge of being thrown away for the past year.
The few exceptions so far being the screws, player buttons and sanwa stick.  I hated using those player buttons on this, but they just look right.
I have a nearly full sheet of 3/4" MDF that I could have used, but that wouldn't have been any fun.  The whole purpose of this build is to use up all the scraps in my shed and the last of the ancient computer parts that I have laying around.  Everything I don't use will be thrown away.  That's why it's called Project:Get Rid of Crap until I come up with a better name.

As far as the time I'm putting into it....this is what I do for entertainment.

[Nephasth]

Make sure you show that to your neighbor before giving it to your nephew.   Good looking scrap build!

[Ond]

I really like your whole thnking behind this cab, and also the speed in which you're bringing it together. You could call it G.R.O.C. or GROC heh ok mebe not.

[Malenko]

awesome. I cant think of a better adjective.



put little legs on the left, and a small net on the right, so when you lay it on its side, you can play ping pong.



As for the names.......

Oscar
TrashCade
One Man's Trash is Another Man's Arcade (a little wordy, I know)

Ok, I got nothing.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Oh no!  That was a classic 1986 AMC "Wimbledon Edition" table in the ultra-rare blue color scheme that you just desecrated!  That could have been lovingly restored for $4000 and then it would have been worth $200 on eBay, but you would have had the joy of preserving table tennis history for posterity!

 . . . Seriously, get some ping pong paddle face rubber and wrap it around that spinner!

[javeryh]

Isn't it obvious?  The name of this cab should be some sort of play on Pong.

PONG II
The Return of PONG
PONG: The Reconstruction
PONG: The Table Has Turned
The Mutation of PONG

I don't know... this is the direction I'd probably go in.  Love the cab and I love the super fast progress!  

[yotsuya]

Isn't it obvious?  The name of this cab should be some sort of play on Pong.

PONG II
The Return of PONG
PONG: The Reconstruction
PONG: The Table Has Turned
The Mutation of PONG

I don't know... this is the direction I'd probably go in.  Love the cab and I love the super fast progress!  

Great suggestions!

[Donkbaca]

Oh no!  That was a classic 1986 AMC "Wimbledon Edition" table in the ultra-rare blue color scheme that you just desecrated!  That could have been lovingly restored for $4000 and then it would have been worth $200 on eBay, but you would have had the joy of preserving table tennis history for posterity!

Seriously!  you SHOULD have restored it!  you know how rare these are!  Good thing you didn't post this in the restorations forum and pretended that you were restoring the table....


all joking aside. It looks f-ing awesome! I envy dudes that can build stuff that fast. 

I think a more accurate description would be acquiring trash to get rid of junk.... You are putting Sanwa parts in that beast?  Here is what you should do, decorate it pathetically and post it on e-bay for a thousand bucks.

Don't throw the rest of the stuff away.  Post in BST and Pinball Jim will probably take it 

[Yvan256]

Other names suggestions:

• Project: GRC
• GRC Arcade
• Pongcade

As a funny note, GRC means "Gendarmerie royale du Canada" in Québec.  

[AurorasDady]

I think you may have ispired a whole brew of "rat cabs."  i am thinking a cab with a c.p. made of old licence plates, a mosiac of scrap wood glued together just make a side pannel and not a lick of actul arcade technology to be found. 

[push2reject]

This is very cool.  Nice job.

[Nimbus]

What a great idea!! This is the reverse of most cabs and projects that you see. Instead of planning for weeks/months/years you just dove in and started building. There is something cool about it being built from a Ping Pong table too. Keep up the awesome work. Hopefully this will inspire others to just dig and and build something awesome. Great job!! 

[BadMouth]

Yesterday

Only had a couple free hours yesterday and spent half that at the hardware and auto parts stores browsing paint & parts.
Ended up picking up a 12" piano hinge and some spring roller latches to mount the control panel.
I was hoping they'd have 16" hinges (the width of the CP), but the next size up was 18" and I didn't want to bother with cutting it.
Here are what the spring roller latches look like. 

I figure this way I can flip the CP open for easy assembly. I will probably reinforce it with some 2x4's before handing it over to the 6yo though.

This is a light from a gauntlet legends showcase CP that I wanted to use for the marquee, but 3 out of the 4 bulbs were burnt out, so I bought replacements at the auto parts store.  I probably could have just bought a cheap light for what the two packs of bulbs cost me, but I'm trying to put the stuff I have to use instead of throwing it away.  It already has stand-offs and will run off the PC power supply.


After the shopping was done, I painted the inside of the light box white and gave it a quick first coat of bedliner.
 I would have left it ping pong blue if I'd had the right t-molding, but since I didn't and had all the exposed edges, I decided just to paint it black.  It's a galaga cab anyways.  That's all I had time for. I didn't post yesterday because I didn't see much point in showing a splotchy cab, but oh well.
Here it is as of the end of day Monday.


Today

I didn't really have any time to work on it today because I had to mow the lawn and it takes all evening.
However, I figured that I could put down another coat of bedliner on it before mowing and apply more coats throughout the evening and it would dry while I mowed. 
Here it is most of the way through with the bright sun shining on it.


It's hard to capture the texture of the bedliner.  It looks like black textured laminate.  I've used it all small projects and it's always turned out great.
(No I didn't bother puttying screw holes.....because I just don't feel like going to to the trouble)


Now the thing I don't like about the bedliner is that it results in a rough sandpaper like surface that holds dust and snags anything you try to clean it with.
On my other projects, I applied clearcoat over the bedliner and it came out perfect.  Almost exactly like laminate.
Something went wrong when I applied the clearcoat this time and it got all hazy and splotchy.  I don't think I sprayed it too thick, but I may have sprayed it before the bedliner had cured enough.  Anyway, I'm left with this ugly mess.  I can probably salvage it by repainting the whole thing with semi-gloss black, but having to redo it really takes the wind out of my sails on this build.  Especially when I have other cool projects that I need to be making more progress on.

It looks worse than yesterday when it only had the first coat on it....and it has 4 coats plus clearcoat. 
I'm gonna focus on artwork for now.  If the artwork comes out well, I'll feel like putting the effort into repainting the cab.

[drventure]

Rats. Humidity can do that to clear coat sometimes. That sucks.

I still love this whole build philosophy though! Heck it'd certainly still make somebodies day to get it for a birthday or something...

[Ond]

It looks worse than yesterday when it only had the first coat on it....and it has 4 coats plus clearcoat. 
I'm gonna focus on artwork for now.  If the artwork comes out well, I'll feel like putting the effort into repainting the cab.

Don't worry about it,  like you say, go work on something else for a bit and then redo it.  The break you give the paint work will let it dry thoroughly and make a cut back to a usable surface more effective.  Got an orbital sander?  Work goes fast with em.

[BadMouth]

Rats. Humidity can do that to clear coat sometimes. That sucks.

That might have something to do with it.  It's been like monsoon season here.
Usually it's my impatience when it comes to clearcoat.  Either putting it on too thick or not waiting for the paint to set long enough.
I've screwed up enough times that I thought I'd learned my lessons.

The break you give the paint work will let it dry thoroughly and make a cut back to a usable surface more effective.  Got an orbital sander?  Work goes fast with em.

I don't want to lose all the texture if I don't have to.
I plan to leave work early and spray semi-gloss black overtop the clear.
If that does't work, it might end up back on the curb. 

I know how I'm mounting the control panel and making the coin door.
If I can get the paint straightened out in a reasonable amount of time, I could have the entire cab together tonight except for artwork.

[BadMouth]

1:00pm.....GO!!!!!!!

First up, repainted with satin black.   No prep, just painted over the clearcoat.
It's still not even enough to look good in bright sun, but it's caused by small variations in texture, not a color difference.


While that and the CP was drying, I worked on the bezel.
Tinkered with it in paint.net, then used a program called PosterRazor to print it in multi-page poster form. http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/
(It actually prints it to pdf, then you use another program to print the pdf)
In not having much of a plan, eyeballing the monitor location, then cutting the bezel to fit that, I never considered the dimensions of the original artwork.
I could have ended up with too little area at the top or too much at the bottom.  Luckily my eyeballing was pretty close.  Just had to shrink it down and stretchit a tiny bit.


Then I trimmed them and glued them onto my project board bezel with some spray adhesive.
Not perfect, but not too bad for printing a bezel on an inkjet printer.  (I used fairly thick matte finish photo paper)


Looking pretty good under plexi (yes that's duct tape at the top and bottom)


Even better in the cab:


Nothing fancy for the speakers.  Just cut out a hole for them to fire through.  Didn't bother with a grill and I doubt anyone will ever notice.


Here's how the CP is mounted.  I did a lousy job lining up the rollers and need to redo them.
(The CP was clamped and glued overnight before putting the corner braces on there.  I think it will be strong enough)


Went with a single slot coin door (because I didn't have enough parts to do a standard one.    )
It's just a piece of textured abs plastic for the base, 8-liner button with a home-printed insert for the coin button.
The coin return area is a square 8-liner style button with the guts removed, lens painted black, then the lens superglued in backwards to give it a little recess.
It's mounted higher than I wanted because there was a brace inside that I had to miss (the whole lack of planning thing......)


9:00pm....STOP!  
I really wanted to get the marquee done before posting, but can't figure out how to get my printer to use paper longer than legal size (old HP photosmart).  I'll research it some more tomorrow.  Anyways, here it is as of tonight (the basement lights are much kinder than the bright sunlight):



I used some of the bumper sticker paper I had to print out the kickplate art, but decided that I didn't like it.
It's just too light compared to the rest of the cab.  I considered printing out the side art on bumper sticker paper and piecing it together, but I didn't like how faded the black on the bezel came out when I printed it.  It looks a lot better under plexi, but the sides wouldn't have that benefit.


The area between the bezel & CP still needs some work.  I'm hoping to find some type of flexible rubber strip to put between them.
The ping pong table edging is too stiff and won't give me the angle I want.

It's got plenty of imperfections, but given that I've just thrown it together without much of a plan, I'm pretty proud of it.  

[BobA]

Looks great.      Considering you are making it from a PP table and what you have on hand it is better than great.

[javeryh]

Make sure you get a video or picture of your neighbor's reaction to what you did to his ping pong table!  Looks really nice!

[ChadTower]

Is it worth eating just a couple bucks and having it done at a place like Staples?

[BadMouth]

Making good use of my time at my job, I found specific instructions for my model printer, but for some reason HP removed the banner paper option when they updated the drivers for Vista (which my primary computer runs).  In XP it's as simple as selecting "HP Banner Paper" from a drop-down menu.
  Vista!

I have the marquee saved as a long pdf, bmp, & png.
I have a few xp computers, but they are stripped down for jukebox or emulator use.
I'm hoping ms paint or acrobat will be able to print it without having to install anything else.

Is it worth eating just a couple bucks and having it done at a place like Staples?

I'm starting to wonder that, but I have a fear that they won't be knowledgeable enough to print it actual size.

[ChadTower]

I'm starting to wonder that, but I have a fear that they won't be knowledgeable enough to print it actual size.

The stuff I have had printed there was often trial and error on the part of the clerk.  The good thing is that they tend to not charge you until you get what you want.

[Vigo]

Sometimes All the time working with a print shop clerk is trial and error. I have been lucky with my times at Kinko's, to get things threshed out beforehand. I am sure to verify what I want before they print. I think any clerk worth their salt will take things slow, and be willing to do a little trial and error. I also come in the door with my work set to the proper size as well.

Of course all it takes is one bad experience to make someone not ever want to attempt that again. 

[AurorasDady]

bravo,

the cab is looking great. I am not looking forward to the art part of my project, the whole getting things to print the right size may end up beyond me.

[Woodshop Flunky]

This build looks great! 

[BadMouth]

Alright, back at it......(been side-tracked by lawn maintenance and non-arcade related projects)

Couldn't get the latches I used on the CP to work right and didn't think they'd stand up to a 6yo pulling on the CP, so I removed them and installed these L brackets I had laying around.


Hooked up the generic gamepad that I hacked for practice.


Unfortunately, the gamepad behaved oddly until you pressed the "mode" button.  I understood that the mode button would switch between the analogue stick and d-pad, but figured I had enough buttons to not use either.  For some reason though, it would register two of the buttons pressed until you switched it out of analogue mode.  I messed with it for a while, but couldn't figure it out.  I'm sure it has something to do with my hack job, but then why would they work fine in digital mode?  Anyways, gave up and soldered wires for a mode button to be placed on top the cab.  Really lame to have to press an extra button every time you fire up the cab, but oh well....need to move on.

I really needed to get the marquee done tonight.  I had planned on a Galaga marquee, but there was really nothing else to tie the green and white into the cab, even though I used a galaga bezel.  I'm not a big fan of the MAME or MULTI artwork, but I wanted it personalized for my nephew, so I went with the generic Defender style mame marquee.  It was quick and easy to cover up MAME and drop his name in it's place.  I can always swap it out if he doesn't like it and the cab comes back to me.

Printing the marquee was as big of a PITA as I expected.  I installed my printer drivers on the xp computer in the cab (because anything newer than xp doesn't give you the option of banner paper).  The software all worked fine and I could just print from paint.  I cut down a piece of posterboard and fed it into the printer.
It got about a third of the way through, was looking awesome and then my printer stopped and said I had to clear a jam.    I guess the posterboard was too stiff.  Then I bought a sketch pad of regular paper that was 18" wide.  Trimmed it down and fed it through.  All seemed to be going well, but somehow the printer took two pieces of paper at a time and printed on the normal size one...well as much as would fit.  Third time was the charm and it printed correctly.  Not as nice as the posterboard would have looked, but acceptable.  The paper got a little wavy from being soaked with ink.  

It looks pretty good without the light on.  (now that I see the picture of it, I should have filled the blue parts with the same blue from the bezel...might do that)


Meh..with the light on.

I actually pulled all but one of the four bulbs in the light fixture I was using.  It's still plenty bright enough.

Quick, simple layout in MALA:


The mess inside:


Not a bad little setup for a pile of junk:



Still need to cut out a back and install power and mode buttons.  That should go pretty quick.
I'm having trouble with some of the games.  Some of them just don't work.  Something must have gone wrong in the rollback process.
Space Invaders worked, but the background was missing.  I added the artwork files and now it doesn't work anymore.
Making sure everything works and the spinner is tweaked correctly for each game is going to take some time.
I'm going to finish up the back, then sit it in the corner until I feel like working on the rom maintenance stuff.

If anything is to be learned from this, it's that there really isn't such a thing as a quick or free cab build.
After all is said and done, I'm probably going to have 40 hours in this little pile of trash.  I also ended up spending around $50 on paint and miscellaneous hardware.  Most people aren't going to have scrap plexi, bezels, etc. laying around to use (or ping pong table trim that makes great marquee retainers).

Unless I get some crazy idea for upgrades (there is a gameport on the pc.....), this will be my last update for the ping pong build.  

[leapinlew]

If anything is to be learned from this, it's that there really isn't such a thing as a quick or free cab build.

We try to tell n00bs this, but there are always some builders here who insist it can be done.

Very nice job. I've built a few cabs on the cheap before and the trick is knowing when you should bite the bullet, spend some time and save the time. The gamepad issue is a bummer, but it's easy enough to swap out if you ever get a free encoder.

[Bender]

Great job!

Love the Idea and the Execution!
and really $50 for that cab is phenomenal

Take a break for a while then come back and fix up anything that still bothers you and you'll have the coolest gift ever!
It will really make someone happy
I mean $50 to blow someones mind when they're like "How may games on here, you mean I can Play Donkey Kong whenever I want!"

[Woodshop Flunky]

This turned out great! 

[BadMouth]

Thanks for the kudos! 

and really $50 for that cab is phenomenal

Yeah, but that doesn't include wood, computer, monitor, plexi, controls, etc.
If I had to buy all that stuff, I'd have a fortune in it.

As it stands, I think the little cab is worth about $100.
$100-$50 misc stuff=$50/40 hours = $1.25/hr I would be making if I sold it.  
(I wonder what pixelhugger's build breaks down to?  Then again, it will be priceless....when it's done.....)
If you included what I originally paid for the spare controls & plexi I already had, I'd be in the hole.  

I'm going to put it at my parents house for the nephew.
He's probably going to give up on it the first time he gets ran over in Frogger.
My father will play it all the time and show it off though.

[Malenko]

the name cracks me up, I wish I thought of it.  

I kinda wish you didn't paint it, but I understand why you did. I'm very impressed by the turn out. $50 for 52 games, that's a bargain!

worst case, sell it for $150 and buy some beer.  

[BadMouth]

I kinda wish you didn't paint it, but I understand why you did.

Yeah, me too.  It lost it's ping pong character and just became the same as any other mdf when I painted it.
Half the $50 I spent was on paint!

[Woodshop Flunky]

I'm sure your nephew will love it.    I'd have died of joy if one of my uncles had given me something like this when I was a kid.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Consider getting one of those $6 gamepads that RandyT sells - all digital and and made to hack.  then you could change the extra button to sound a big burp noise using autohotkey and you would be the King Uncle of all time!

[mgb]

Looks great.
I love it that as I looking over this project, I noticed the add at the top of the page is for an automatic ping pong setup 

[BadMouth]

Just wanted to show that it was actually finished off.

100% done.  60 games (MAME v.80). 
Red button is power. 
Green button switches the mode of the hacked gamepad so the joystick will work.
(must be pressed after windows loads    )
The top back piece is shiny because it's not textured with bedliner like the rest of the cab.
Bottom vent is covered with plastic window screen. 
It and the cord are higher than I would have liked because there is a 2x4 brace at the bottom.
Monitor & PC are just setting on shelves inside, they must be removed for transport.
I'll deliver it in a few weeks.  I'll be glad to get it out of my way.

[mgb]

That was a cool and inovative build.
nicely done 

[LeedsFan]

This is a really great build. Especially for the money you spent. The Defender style marquee goes nicely with the Galaga bezel. So what does your nephew think? Has he seen it yet? Does he even know you are building it?

[BadMouth]

This is a really great build. Especially for the money you spent. The Defender style marquee goes nicely with the Galaga bezel. So what does your nephew think? Has he seen it yet? Does he even know you are building it?

Thanks.  This was a quick and dirty build (that still took 40-50 hours total!). 
I'm actually surprised it came out so well. 
There are plenty of things to pick apart on it, but it was nice to just make something without having to think about every little detail.

My nephew doesn't know anything about it.  They live a few hours away.  I plan to take it to him on the 4th of July.
I might post a pic or two of him with it then.

[Turnarcades]

Edit

[emphatic]

I love it. It's a bit gritty, but in a "real" way.