Super Slimline Upright Cabinet

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I actually built this over a year ago with the intention of posting the build but i lost the pics, fortunately i found most of em so thought i share this build with you all.

The idea was to build the slimmest upright cabinet possible whilst still keeping a true feel of an upright.

The reason for this was simply space in the house and an attempt to keep the wife happy.

So heres a couple of pics of the finished machine and i'll follow up with some of the build, hope you enjoy.

   


Its based loosely on a pac-man / galaga style cab i didnt want huge CP's ant tried to keep it as clean as possible with the exception of little neon bling

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2 sides cut out  


Bottom base glued and screwed for fitting


                                                                          

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base attached to one side of cabinet


base attached to second side a nd first back piece glued and screwed, i left a gap between each peice as i was conscious of cooling witihn such a tight space that the PC an monitor will fit.



Back panels all fitted, kinda looks like a bed

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Front panel fitted, because of the angle the join needed bondo (car filler) to fill the gap from the angled panel to the horizontal support, sealing the MDF with watered down PVA then began.



Keyboard drawer mocked up before any gaps filled, grooves for t-moulding were actually cut at this point due to a late delivery of parts

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CP mocked up onto cabinet with joysticks in place, i also decided at this point to add some holes for fans on either side of the cabinet, i used a rounded bit in the router to create the profile of the holes.



Support for the monitor and CP was added before the whole cabinet was undercoated using a grey high build primer, this is a car spray primer but is a little thicker so it fills to a degree as well which helps getting a better finish, this also aids in sealing the MDF. It took a approx 2 cans to complete the cabinet.



Starting to paint the cab, the primer was sanded but not to a smooth i wanted a little texture on the paint so wasnt too carefull with this, i then sprayed 3 coats of satin black onto the cab, to ensure a good finish with no runs i made sure the painting side was laid horizontally flat which made for some interesting positions at times, i'm no expert spray painter so this at least avoided any paint running and the results were worth it. It took to 2 large cans to complete this courtesy of Halfords

[bigmatty77]

Very nice work  the chrome t-mold on black looks classy. Nice paint job too, i honestly thought it was laminate on first look. hoping to be starting something similar myself. Couple of questions...

1) Whats the overall width and depth of the cab?

2) What Hardware are you running there? Is the pc de-cased?

[Mister Hat]

The first time I saw it I thought it looked a bit funky but it's grown on me. Great job!

[yotsuya]

Do you have it secured to the wall?

[madmatt]

Do you have it secured to the wall?
+1 



I could see myself playing SSFII and rocking the cab down or against the wall.   

Great design!!!   

MM

out

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Hey guys
Thanks for the interest

The cabs approximate depth is 15cm up by the monitor top half and at it's biggest approximate 33cm at the control panel I'll have to measure the rest I can't quite remember

The cab originally had a huge gaming pc crammed in there fully cased which was the concern for the cooling.it now runs hyperspin on a small p4 with barely a hiccup

I do not have it fixed to the wall, it is surprisingly stable in fact it never even moves when I play it, it still weighs quite a lot considering. It has rocked a little occasionally after a few beers with mates so I guess a small wall fastener wouldn't hurt for serious use, but you would have to be swinging from it to pull it over. the good thing is if I fit a wall mount I can fit it from the inside keeping it completely hidden.

I'll post more soon

[Nimbus]

I've seen slim arcade designs before, but this thing looks factory made. You did an amazing job with the fit and finish. Bravo on your craftsmanship!!

[Yvan256]

Really, really nice. Looks like a full-sized cabinet from the front too! 

[ripsnort]

Thanks

i just took it really slow and made sure everything fitted snug, it does have a couple of bits im not happy with and ive also changed the way some parts are fitted compared with the photo's but i'll explain as i keep the photo's coming

thanks for the interest im glad you all like it

I also want a proper name for this cab so any ideas would be appreciated as im at a loss.

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monitor and marquee light mocked up, i orignally slotted the monitor in to a panel with a hole cut to hold it freely but this proved a bit crappy so eventually i made a full bracket that fitted to the mounting holes on the back this then attached to a panel on the rear that was set to the required angle of what the bezel would be.


 
the first part of the neon bling was added at this point with 2 blue pc fans you can see that the paint is not smooth it has a texture too it.



Next up was the speaker panel, this was always gunna be a bit of a challenge due to the size restrictions i was a bit limited to what i could work with



 

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the speakers i ended up using were a pair of slimline logitech ones, they are by no means the best but were a perfect match in size for what i needed i also wanted to use the speaker fronts instead of traditional round grills



speakers starting to be hacked, another reason i wanted to use these was that the volume, on/off and headphones were all atached to one small circuit board, my plan was to transfer this directly to the bezel, being able to plug some headphones in was a condition from the wife heh heh.



the finished panel with speaker fronts in place sorry theres no inbetween, luckily the speakers just unscrewed so it was a case of screwing all back together onto the panel, at this point i'd cut the speaker wires to the speakers so i could connect it all up in the wiring.

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next i decided to tackle the CP i decided that i didnt want a huge one that stuck out with 20 joysticks and 300 buttons i wanted a traditional style were te CP sits within the sides of the cab. The first thing i actually did was paint the bat tops on the joysticks, i was not happy with the pale blue that they came in as standard and wanted a colour to more match the buttons and the thee a little so another trip to halfords and a can of supersonic blue. these were given about 3 coats of paint and 4 coats of clear laquer they seem to be holding out quite well. the plastic washers were given the same treatment.



not a great pic but you get the idea



the nightmare begins with starting the wiring on the buttons and joystics, i wanted the cp to be detachable from the cab so all power for the led's etc was joined by a connetor so i could simply unplug when required.

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CP fully wired and temporarily fixed to cab for testing, again i wanted to keep it all very simple so used standard hinges the CP would then fasten down using ball catches, these hold pretty firmly as your weight is almost always pushing down on the CP so it never pops open. If you do need to opn it then a sharp tug on the joystics opens it a treat.



next up was the bezel, this caused be the biggest headache of all, once i got it cut out i masked the back off it and sprayed gloss black paint onto it the leaves a great piano black finish on the front, i hen sprayed silver across the stripe to breack up the bezel a bit for the admin buttons

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panel was then cut to sit under bezel, admin buttons and on/off buton will then be secured to this, because i used i thin plexi this meant i could have the admin panel area facing more forward then bend the bezel bacl a little to create the correct angle to veiw the monitor glass or thicker plexix would not make this possible. A recess was made in the panel so the circuit board with the speaked controls could then be pushed through from the back. this would then be glued in position once fitted and wired.



bezel with panel fitted and mounting brackets glued in place, i later removed the brackets and built a frame aroud the monitor in the cab then attached the bezel with sticky velcro, this has so far been the best methos ive found, it sits rock solid, you can see the silver spray were i created the stripe for breaking up the bezel



as i wanted to use black admin buttons on a black bezel i wanted to make the buttons stand out just enough without changing the buttons colours, so i got the hole cutter out and cut 4 rings out, i knew i wouldnt get thses perfect so i made the centre hole a little bigger so i could adjust them a little bit to make them even, these were them painted in the same silver.

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CP and bezel now fitted into place, the central on off button was wired into the pc button making turnong it on a bit more authentic, i wanted to use black admin buttons just to keep it clean but broke this up alittle by fitting the silver surrounds.

The best way i found to fit the bezel was to bulid a frame around the monitor then i used sticky back velcro to attach, this holds it absolute solid. I decided not to use a glass bezel as there are 2 angles to it, the button area is steeper and then it slopes back a little for the monitor angle.

Note the painted bat-tops, these turned out to be a great colour match

i also fitted the T-Mould at this point and it was only ever gunna be chrome, i'd seen so many with blue t-mold so had to be different, gives it a classier look.

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Next up was the rear bling, taking inspiration from the back lit TV's available i thought i'd give it a go and ive not seen a back lit Upright so thought i'd have a go and found these on ebay. I bought 5 metres for only £10 on ebay which was a bargain, They are sticky backed si fitting was quite easy and they also have a t-mold kinda look to them so dont look out of place. i then linked them all together and fed the cable through into the marquee area where a switch awaited




I fitted 2 rocker switches to the top of the machine 1 for the marquee light and one for the backlight, having the option of manually overiding these  comes in handy when your not in the mood for full neon bling. When both are switched on they will still turn on and off when the machince is powered on and off.

The marquee light is just a white cold cathode tube linked through the switch to the 12v power of the pc, (sorry no picci)

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LEDS's are tested and work a treat, just need to get it up against the wall and its pretty much fininshed.

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So here it is 99.9% finished pushed up against the wall. In low light the led's give odd more than enough light creating quite a nice back lit effect.

The marquee is temporay i used the same background as the CP and just altered it slightly in photoshop adding the mame etc. its actualy 2 peices joined together you can see the strip in the middle were its joined but as its a tempory marquee im not too fussed for the moment, the problem is i cant think of a good name for the cab so it still remains.

Notice the different frontend has changed from some of the photo's. I originally used 3D arcade which was pretty impressive but now i use Hyperspin

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Cab with back lite switched off.

So thats the pretty much it, sorry its not a fully detailed build as i lost some of the picci's

If anyone can think of a name for this cab it would be much appreciated as i just cant think of a decent one.

Thanks for looking 

[BobA]

Nice cab.   Slim profile is the thinnest I have seen.   

[ripsnort]

Thanks, i dont think i could have got it any thinner. When you stand playing you wouldnt even notice how slim it is.

Im gunna be starting on a new cab soon so this one will be going up for sale very soon. The missus just wont let me have 2 cabs heh heh

[leapinlew]

Name it: Anorexia

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  Not bad, if i was planning on keeping the cab i'd maybe go with it, think i may have to go with something a bit more pc for now

[nordemoniac]

Name it: Anorexia

AnorexiCade

[leapinlew]

Name it: Anorexia

AnorexiCade

Perfect, heres the whole marquee:

                         AnorexiCade
It'll make your wife jealous and she'll go on a diet

[ripsnort]

  ha ha, if i put that marquee on i think i'll be single in no time

[Yvan256]

How about SlimCade? ThinCade? ThinnerThanThatAndItWillFallOnYouCade?  

[gbeef]

what about  something like razorcade

[SNAAKE]

scrawnycade

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Quite like razorcade, keep em coming