First ever cabinet build out/conversion

[laminarflow]

This will be my first Cabinet conversion/Mame cabinet build out. Its been a dream for about 10 years now and finally I have time to do it.

I forgot to take photos during my tear down of the cabinet this week. but here some photos from when I went to pick the cabinet up


The cabinet was empty except for wiring, original power supply and coin cabinet.

So far work has continued to remove the glass and store it. Remove the wiring. Remove the coin door (which interestingly showed this has had over 278,000 plays!!)

Sadly the front panel had been pushed in and "Fixed" by screwing in from the sides through the laminate with some deck screws 

I have filled the laminate and will re-spray the cabinet outside in satin black finish.

Next to order cabinet hardware. Im looking to replace t-molding with a nice blue job....

Then joysticks and minipac from ultimarc.

Finally hope to source a 27" Tv with component in to de-case and fit into the rather large cabinet. My plan of using my spare 19" CRT monitor wont work. It looks tiny.

[CthulhuLuke]

I'm just wondering where you got the arcade cabinet, or if you know what kind of arcade cabinet this was? I'm asking because I have literally the same cabinet with different laminate colors, and I've never been able to identify it.

As far as I can tell, these were generic arcades sold to some Arcades up in Seattle and Oregon, but it would be interesting if you know what you got there. Here's mine with a 27" Sony Wega.

[laminarflow]

Hi,

Interesting in my tearing down the cabinet I have found about 4 different stickers from various companies who owned the cabinet over time. However I did find a Sticker on the back that said "Amazing Games of Portland" and a manufacturing year of 1988.  since that time it ended up in California it seems judging by further stickers.  But eventually has come north of the border and I bought it on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.  so its done some travelling.

I can find no hints of it being a cabinet for a specific game, so i agree they seem like generic cabinets.  Oh and looks like the 27" sit in well. i just picked up a free RCA tonight, but hopefully get a 27" trintron for free on Thursday which I hope will fit...  probably looking to decase the Tv though anyhow.

[CthulhuLuke]

Hi,

Interesting in my tearing down the cabinet I have found about 4 different stickers from various companies who owned the cabinet over time. However I did find a Sticker on the back that said "Amazing Games of Portland" and a manufacturing year of 1988.  since that time it ended up in California it seems judging by further stickers.  But eventually has come north of the border and I bought it on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.  so its done some travelling.

I can find no hints of it being a cabinet for a specific game, so i agree they seem like generic cabinets.  Oh and looks like the 27" sit in well. i just picked up a free RCA tonight, but hopefully get a 27" trintron for free on Thursday which I hope will fit...  probably looking to decase the Tv though anyhow.

Amazing Games in Portland? Thats fantastic, thats exactly what mine says! So it looks like they ran a batch of generics and they've sort of migrated over the years. I got mine in Kirkland, WA, but it came with me out to Denver, CO. I wonder if anyone else knows the story of how these things came to be?

Yeah the 27" is a tight squeeze, I actually need to sand out the mounting brackets a little to fit it in there properly. But it really does look nice compared to my old 20" crt. Just make sure you have someone to help you lift/move that thing, I almost pulled my back doing that myself.

[TheShanMan]

Sorry to revive a 6 month old thread, but I just picked up one of these cabinets today to serve as my new mame cab. It was destined to be burned so I got it for free. Other than being quite dirty and missing the glass it's in pretty nice shape. My only dilemma is what to do monitor-wise. My old mame cab had a 19" computer crt, which I loved for the fact that I could do a lot in my front end, so I'd rather not go with an arcade crt or a decased tv, and I'm no fan of lcd's in arcade cabinets, but finding a 24" computer crt is probably going to be tough. I suppose I could go with a tri-sync arcade monitor although even then I'd be losing some valued resolution.

Anyway, nice to see others with the same cabinet. I'm in the Portland area, btw.

[laminarflow]

I had a spare 19' computer CRT but man did it look  tiny fitting into this cabinet. i'm still working on my cabinet but I now have a 27" sony Vega CRT to de-case and mount into it. (hopefully).

[TheShanMan]

Yeah, I know it will. But it'll be good enough until I figure out exactly what I want in there.

Would you mind measuring your glass for me? I'm sure I could measure the opening but it would be better to get measurements of the actual glass to avoid realizing it would have been better if I had it cut 1/8" shorter or something like that.

Also, mine is missing the monitor mounting frame that, from what I understand, pulls out easily to enable quick rotating of the monitor. I can make one easy enough but if you happen to have one and can snap a pic and/or take some measurements that would be helpful. Not a huge deal though.

Does the drawer in yours have a lot of slop? The metal cp in mine leaves a gap of about 1/4" on the right side when latched in. I wonder if they just had poor tolerances in manufacturing or if there was some warping that took place. I am thinking I'll fab a new cp anyway so I'll probably just make it a hair wider but I'm curious if that's just the way they made them.

Did yours have an electrical box mounted to the bottom of the cab with an outlet mounted into it? Perhaps someone added it after the fact in mine, or perhaps it was a factory thing. Just kinda weird though. I've never seen that in any of the arcade games I've owned.

[TheShanMan]

Taking some measurements, it looks like there is some minor warping in my cabinet. I guess I'll get a big bar clamp and see if I can reduce the warping by leaving it clamped for a while.

Looks like the glass is an even 27x27. Confirmation would be nice if possible. I'd like the fit to be as snug as possible without being too tight to get it in there.