The Cougar-Cade (My first build)

[Cougar888]

Hi guys, well after joining this great forum a few months ago and asking lots of questions I have almost finished my first build. I have called it the Cougar-Cade after my nickname. I use Hyperspin as my FE and just need to get my wireless mini keyboard and tweak the controls for a few Emulators. Here are some pics:

[Nephasth]

Nice job! Love the artwork!

[BobA]

Nice build.  Great pictures. The artwork makes the cab look more finished.

[gbeef]

very nice build, i like how clean it looks

[Benevolance]

That looks pretty sweet. What are the dimensions?

[emphatic]

Wow, easily among the top 3 bartops I've seen. Absolutely love the artwork. 

[nitz]

Nice clean bartop build there. I like.

[AlienInferno]

Nice bartop.  The artwork looks great.  Do you have LED's underneath the control panel to light up the table underneath?

[Cougar888]

Wow, thanks for the comments guys
The dimensions are : 50cm wide, 45cm deep and 58cm high
Here are the PC specs etc if anyone is interested:

Motherboard: ASRock N68C-S UCC
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz
Ram: 2gb
GFX: Asus NVIDIA GeForce GT520 1GB
PSU: 420w
19" iiyama monitor
2x Ultimarc U360's with Happ Competition buttons
White cold cathode for Marquee
Orange strip and Purple strip LEDs for underneath lighting (I added an on/off/on switch so I can change the colour when I choose).
20w USB powered speakers for sound
The themes were from another site, all I did was change the colours to match my art. All the artwork was created by me and I have a friend who owns a print shop which is lucky LOL I sprayed the cab Cream and the aluminium pieces black around the monitor and Marquee. Since the pics I have added another piece of gold trim at the top of the CP just to finish off the lines.
I may still add 2 more buttons next to the player start buttons for coin, at the moment I use the shift function which works well. The Pinball buttons on the side are linked to buttons 1 & 2 but because they are out of the way it doesn't interfere with other games.

[Harakiri]

That name sounds like bait for young men...   

[Cougar888]

LOL yeah that's been mentioned before

Here is a pic of the Gold trim added on the CP (the bezel looks wonky, but that's because I was messing with it):

and one of the speaker holes I cut out, I had to fashion a volume control knob for the speakers because of the recessed fit (it's made from the top of a kids Fruit Shoot bottle *sshhhh*):

[gaijinking]

is this a kit build or from scratch? If it's a kit, I'd love to know where you got it?

[Cougar888]

is this a kit build or from scratch? If it's a kit, I'd love to know where you got it?

Yeah the cab is a kit, you can get them on ebay or from tinyarcade.co.uk

[Cougar888]

Next step, add an Aimtrak gun and a spinner for driving games

[Gray_Area]

I always wonder with these bartops, when the P1 stick is so close to the side, and there is such a high edge, that 1) there isn't enough room for your hand, and 2) that it would soon get uncomfortable resting on the 'ledge'.

[Cougar888]

I can safely say that there is enough space for your hand without touching the side and because you're sat slightly higher your hand isn't resting on the bottom edge, the heel of my hand is about an inch from the edge. I'll take a pic later and post it

[Cougar888]

Ok,
I'm thinking of changing the buttons for lit up ones so when I play Neo-Geo etc only the used buttons will light up. Can you guys give me tips on how to go about this please?

[alfonzotan]

Very nice.  I'm not a big artwork maven, but I really like this one, especially including the way the splash screen kind of blends with the cabinet art.  Great job.