Ultimate Portable Bartop: Single player, rotation on the fly

[DNA Dan]

Finally decided on a design for my next project. I see there are a ton of new bartop projects started so hopefully I'll be able to get something going that pushes the envelope a little and keeps interest.  I have a new design that I will attempt for rotating an LCD. I have a ton of parts leftover from my main cab build, so it's time to put some of them to use! This is a winter project of mine, so you won't be seeing updates everyday. If you want to follow, you might want to bookmark.

Without further delay, here's some pics to get started. I am basing this build around a Samsung 151MP. This is a multifunction 15" monitor. The cool thing about this monitor is it has speakers directly off the monitor. There are also S-video, VGA and component video inputs. There's also a headphone jack and a TV tuner. I don't know how many of these features I will incorporate, but I could easily see keeping a port on there so someone could plug in a video source and show external video. I believe it also has PIP. I will be using a different bearing design; a 392mm lazy susan bearing from www.VXB.com. This will allow me to condense the depth of the cabinet smaller than a single axle rotation setup. I cracked open the monitor today and got a good look at the dimensions I will be working with. I want to make the bezel as minimal as possible, so the rotation mech needs to be precision tight. I will inset the monitor into the rotation aparatus and not use the VESA mounts. I want to ensure there is proper backing to complete the mask seamlessly. Hope you stick around for the ride. 

[DNA Dan]

Another evening of progress. I am building the rotation mech as thin as possible. I am shooting for <6" in depth. So far for the rotation to clear the sides it has a 16.5" interior width. I will probably use 5/8" for the cab with laminate on both sides for a total of 1.5" in cabinet material. This should put the overall width to ~18". I plan on making the control panel the same width as the box, so I hope I end up with something like a large ATX computer case in size when it's completely finished. The joystick still poses the greatest challenge. I have an old microATX motherboard I was hoping to salvage, but may end up building an Ivybridge core on a miniITX board. We'll see how big it gets.

[TPA5]

Woah, ambitious bartop! I am interested in seeing how the rotation works, my friend was asking about bartop arcades and such, he sure would like that rotation idea. Subscribed!