Sharing My Cocktail Build - shmickade

[bertritto]

Long time lurker, first time poster

Thought I'd share my recently completed build.

There were lots of trial and errors and there are lots of things I would have done different (maybe on the next build)

All up it took me about a year to complete! With lots of not much going on int between.

Took a video of it in action as well.

Feedback would be appreciated

[Generic Eric]

As long as it plays the games, that is what is important.

Is it on a platform? 

Are you going to build a second version?  What would you change about it?  Is your computer still in a case inside?  What does the back look like?  How do you access the internal components?

[bertritto]

The beginning



Testing to make sure everything fits


The guts - Old 2ghz P4 with 2 gig ram and 250gig hard drive, sound amp 2.1, iPac2 running of MALA with custom made front end GUI.



Trying out different screen sizes and angles. Ended up stripping an old HEAVY 32inch TV. I rigged the power button to start up both the ATX power supply and TV.




The guts inside the box


The back has an auxilery (no LED) fan, an admin button and the EIC power input adapter.


Took everything out again to sand, putty, 2x undercoat and 2x black/white gloss paint and brains back inside again.







The stickers are to hide the screws. Originally I was going to putty those up as well, but thought I may need easy access to get underneath the control panel later on. Some friends think it looks better without the stickers.



The only access to the machine is to lift the top black lid off and unscrew the screen which is bolted down. Or, via the coin mech door which also give me access to 2 USB ports, audio out and coin counter.


Bought a crap load of stickers, tmold colours, screen holders, extra buttons, MDF sizes, tools. I had so many ideas and would often go down to the garage and literally stare at the box for an hour not knowing where to start!

I'm IT/electrical savvy and had literally zero knowledge of using tools. Before beginning this task a "router" was something you used for connecting computers. Didn't know it was an actual tool! I started off with only a hammer, some nails, MDF and a jigsaw from ikea, now I have a garage full of tools that any handyman would be proud of. So what I would change is to better utilize the experience that I've gained over the year, for example, I would putty up the entire box, then lightly sand back as I've found that if you shine a light on the 2 coats of gloss paint, you can still faintly see where the screws went.

Originally I wanted a stand up machine, but as I now have a 1 year old kid, I went with the cocktail machine as it would be more accessible to him. Also the reason for the coin mechanism, if son behaves, he gets a coin to play

[williamavished]

Great job men  ilike the white panel.