CapnBry's Normal Kombat tall standup

[CapnBry]

I've been wanting to build an arcade machine for years, browsing these forums wistfully as I see the creations other members have shared. I finally saw scoodiabop's machines thought they were damn pretty and decided to take the plunge myself. I liked the relatively slim depth and how sweet that 24" LCD looked in there so I built everything around that basic idea, and the fact that I am 6'1" and didn't want to look down at the screen. Thus was born what we call the Normal Kombat machine!

Marquee Art (rough basic concept)


I built the mockup first in OpenSCAD. I'm not sure why. I do a lot of 3D printer stuff and that's my go to modeling program. I'd do it in sketchup if I had to do it again, and in fact I have done parts of it in sketchup to get the dimensions of the angled pieces. With on, the monitor center is at 54", and is angled back only 8.75 degrees. The marquee I wanted high enough to be out of my sight line while playing so over all this thing stands 6.5ft tall. Here it is next to another cabinet and an original centipede cabinet.


I met my buddy last Sunday morning and bought him breakfast to coerce him into using his truck to drive a couple sheets of plywood back to my house. By 8:30am I was loaded up on coffee and ready to work. I could only find 3/4" plywood that is 0.708". Does nobody care that the t-molding will stick out 0.021" on each side, or does Lowes just suck?


The cabinet base is 22" deep. We decided that we could go thinner but questioned the stability of building a tall cabinet with a cantilevered control panel over a slim base. I believe the phrase "orange on a toothpick" was thrown around.


By noon I had my first side cut out! So exciting. I felt pretty impressed with myself, I probably should have just ended there.


We've all seen how this goes. Make two sides. Put them together with some sticks. I used some of the nice whitewood 1x2 for the ledgers ($2.50 for 8ft), as opposed to the 1x1 dowel (which was like a dollar a foot), or the cheap 1x2 ($1 for 8ft) which is warped all to bejesus. I used 1 1/4" screws countersunk and glued into the sides, then 2" screws on the thicker edges. It was a real pain (literally) to drive those 2" screws from inside the cabinet even though I predrilled the ledgers. They're only 3/4" thick on the skinny side and I bloodied my knuckles screwing them all in. No photo of the blood, I don't want you to steal my DNA.




Is there a better way to do the ledgers on the thin sides of the 1x2? For the top and back I put the screws in from the outside because it is super easy and nobody will see it.

I started a rough layout for the control panel too. Two player. I wanted 6 buttons and would have loved to have a trackball too but it felt a little cluttered at just 22" wide. Finally we decided to just put 2 joysticks on this one and consider doing swapable panels down the line. I'm not sure if you can see what the theme I am going for here


I'm going to add two admin buttons on the cabinet sides that can be used for pause and something else, but I love the I-PAC2 controller's shift function so I'll be making use of that to do navigation. The side buttons may get use as flipper controls for virtual pinball as well.

[CapnBry]

I was opposed to getting a coin door because they're $50 or more shipped with mechanisms in them and who needs to put in quarters? After seeing so many cabinets here with them I felt like it would look bare without one. I was purchasing marquee retainers from twisted quarter and they had a $35 door I could combine shipping on. It is super sturdy and looks awesome so I added some LED strip to the back that will be powered from the ATX 12V supply line.


The coin returns mechanisms pushed too! I was originally planning on using my cabinet's side buttons as credit buttons, but 20 minutes in OpenSCAD later I built a bracket to hold microswitches behind the coin return buttons. Now when you press coin return, you get a credit! The LED and switches are wired to a landline phone plug just for convenience in wiring. I am really super proud of this mechanism for some reason. Probably because it works, which feels like a rarity?



Printed templates for left and right side controls with some registration marks to allow me to line them up on the control panel. To attach the joysticks, I used a 3/4" spade bit to scrape off the top layer of plywood over the joystick bolt holes. Into those I inserted #10-24 t-nuts and hammered them flush (using a ratchet socket so I wasn't hammering directly on them). 1" #10-24 screws reach all the way through the Happ joystick mount and 0.708" plywood perfectly, but I'm going to take 1/4" off the plywood later, so 3/4" #10-24 will be used there. I bet if you put wood filler over these before painting they'd look great, but I'm eventually going to have a CP overlay so I just need them to not stick up. Don't ask why the panel already has paint on it, just pretend it came like that.

[CapnBry]

I bought some $39 computer speaker system (Cyber Acoustics 30 Watt Powered Speakers with Subwoofer) from Amazon for my sound. I'm kind of regretting not just getting some 5 1/4" speakers and a cheap stereo amplifier. This would have been cheaper, and the sound from these is not so great. I was enamored with their fancy looking surrounds that I imagined would be visually appealing in my cabinet as opposed to just a black area.

I jigsawed out a hole for them 1/8" inside their perimeter because they have a lip around the back and this will allow them to sit evenly on the speaker panel.



The lip is 1/2" thick though, so I don't like how far they stick out. I've ordered a flush trim bit and 3D printed a template to use, so I am hoping to make a nice clean recess for them to sit in. It worked pretty well on a piece of scrap, but I need to remove the top to be able to access the screws to get the speaker panel back out so it will wait until this weekend.


Things are really coming together though. See if you can spot the problem with the control panel!



I have some sort of learning disability that makes me fail at measuring. 9 3/8"? Ok there's 9 and there's 3/8" (drills) oops that was 8 3/8"! So yeah, my Player 2 start button is 1" to the right. This is actually the second control panel I've made, as you can see the black one above. I didn't realize that the first piece of plywood had a bad warp. Three control panels why not! Notice that unlike most control panels of this size, I opted to make it flush with the cabinet sides. I thought it might be uncomfortable to have that 1/2" lip forcing your hands inside.

In the future I will want to be able to swap control panels. The panel just squeezes in between the cabinet sides and rests on plywood on the front and back. To prevent the panel from sliding I drilled 5/16" holes for a couple dowels in the front and used a quick 3D printed jig to drill 5 degree angled holes in the bottom of the control panel



Knowing I would replace it, I just freehand routed the holes for the joysticks. I took off 1/2" from the 0.708" plywood. I feel like this is a little too much. The T-nuts are just about to break through and there's only 0.208" of material left underneath. Next panel will get 3/8".

[Malenko]

The start button placement is a minor flub and not anything I'd ever worry about. I love the name (makes me think of my old Mortal Kabinet cab), and youre making great progress. Keep it up!

[BorgDog]

Looking nice.  Jealous of all those "quick 3d print" items though.  What 3D printer do you have?

[CapnBry]

Thanks guys! I know my build isn't groundbreaking by any stretch, but I am excited about it and feel like it is coming along pretty well for the amount of woodworking knowledge I have. I appreciate the encouragement too. Reading this forum really made me feel like I could build this based on all the expertise and details that other members have shared.

Jealous of all those "quick 3d print" items though.  What 3D printer do you have?

My printer is a MakerFarm Prusa i3 running Marlin firmware with the OctoPrint frontend I've had for 2 years now and has been slowly changed over time by upgrading parts or adding new pieces to it. Original:


Currently


It can't print very fine detail, but it does great for what I use it for which is building enclosures for electronics, shaping brackets, and part holders and such. I'll post a picture of the routing jig, which is just a couple curved blocks I can flank with plywood and clamp down. I am not skilled enough a mechanical engineer to make complicated stuff, but man I use that thing all the time to forge useful little bits that I don't know how to woodwork.

[CapnBry]

Here's how I routed out the recess for the speakers. The inside cut was with a jigsaw 1/8" in from the profile of the speakers. Then I used these 3D printed pieces to match the curve of the speakers edges, which was framed with scrap plywood. The 3D printed parts were covered with 2-sided carpet tape to hold them in position while routing the 3 sides. The tape held like nobody's business to the point I was worried it was going to pull up a plywood ply when I removed it.


The end result was pretty good looking for an amateur like me, and the fit is tight enough that the speakers aren't going anywhere once they're inserted. I will probably still put a drop of of hot glue on them on the inside to make sure they don't work their way out over time.



I got my monitor too, an ASUS PA248Q which has incredible viewing angles and perfect color. I built the whole 22" wide cabinet based on the manufacturer's 21.91" width specification. I was concerned it might not be 100% accurate, that something might stick out and ruin the whole thing, or that I built the cabinet poorly and it was too small. But...


The panel I just attached a 22" wide piece of plywood with 4 holes spaced 100m apart into the VESA mount on the back of the monitor with M4-0.7 35mm bolts. I didn't even drill the holes crooked or off center because the monitor still fit into the cabinet with the mount. The plywood screws into doubled up 1x2 ledgers with 1/4" x 3" bolts. I should take a picture of it because it is super simple and very secure. The double-ledgers could be routed to form a channel to make the monitor height adjustable as well.


If I have a monitor, what's the only thing I'm missing to be able to actually use this bad boy? Controls! I wired up half the control board even though I knew I'd have to remove it all for painting. After all the work I had done on this thing I needed some R&R! It even made it inside because it is 90 degrees in my dang garage.



After considering all the options for mounting the computer parts inside the cabinet I decided it would cost close to the same and be more secure if I just used a computer case (which was $25 shipped prime when I bought it last week) and bolted it to the floor. I feel like I'm in the home stretch! Just need to get the speakers put back together, paint the thing, mount the acrylic "glass" in, light the marquee, put a back on and I'll be done pending artwork.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Great build so far.  I'm not crazy about the name though:  Is it "Normal Kombat" (as the topic name suggests) or "Normal Combat" (as seen in the marquee graphic you posted)?   

D

[CapnBry]

Haha how did I miss that?! It's just an early concept of the artwork but I can't believe I didn't notice I had spelled it incorrectly.

[RxBrad]

I actually thought "Normal Combat" was better.  Because... well... "Combat" is the normal way to spell it.

[yotsuya]

I dunno, the "Normal" part throws me off. But whatevs.

[Malenko]

srsly, dont put the MAME logo on your marquee.

Heres my old "MK" marquee:

[DeLuSioNal29]

I agree lose the Mame logo. Maybe you can use Malenko's design with permission?  "Mortal Kabinet" is bad ass.

D

[Malenko]

I agree lose the Mame logo. Maybe you can use Malenko's design with permission?  "Mortal Kabinet" is bad ass.

D

He can use the design or edit it to his hearts content. I'd love to see Mortal Kabinet live again 

[CapnBry]

Well if the name of the project is the only contention point, I must be doing everything else right! 

Painted the whole thing up with a layer of Kilz oil-based primer and 2 coats of Behr latex semi-glos paint in "Beluga" because I am fancy.


I also said "because I want it" to getting a 7" LCD for a second monitor. Amazon has these for $48, HDMI and +12V in, which I have supplied from the PC power supply in cabinet. All credit on this idea goes to RxBrad's Avengerless Avenger build. Here it is testing on a Raspberry Pi I had handy. It took me a bit to figure out how to plug the flat connector in. The conductors face up, the blue part faces down.


To mount it, I just used an extra piece of wood, used M3 screws to screw the driver board to the back, and some super small pieces of carpet tape to hold the LCD on the front. I could have routed out a space for it in the wood but this was simple and impossible to mess up.


Wired up the control panel completely. I used expandable sleeving to group the wires into bunches to keep it tidy looking but I would not do this again. Zip ties and tiedowns would be much neater looking.


I covered the LCDs with a piece of window glass from Lowes for $13 instead of getting tempered glass online. I called a few places around town but couldn't get anyone who could temper or even would cut a 1/4" piece of glass for me. Jerks. I masked off the front of the glass where the LCD was, then flipped it over and masked the back. Two quick coats of black latex paint, peeled the tape off... and took all the paint with it. I scraped it all off tried again, this time with some spraypaint I had that said it bonds to even gloss plastic... and the paint peeled off with the mask. Both times were done before the paint fully had dried but both seemed to be rubbery. For the third try I just used Ace Hardware black spraypaint and it worked pretty well. I scratched the paint though cleaning off the final fingerprints after installing so it is a bit fragile.


I compiled up my own version of MAME with replacement horizontal.lay and vertical.lay files which have a "Marquee Only" layout that shows the marquee and the control panels I batch exported from cpwizard. MAME view1 is set to Marquee which means I get this on all new games. Games with two screens (like Punch Out!) I can easily go into MAME settings with the joystick and set it to view.



I need to find a better background for the control panel image. I had a copy of what will be the actual panel but it was too busy at that small size. This one is subtle but not very video gamey. So that just leaves art to do, which I am in no rush to finish as I might make some mods to the control panel.

[reptileink]

Nice!

FLAWLESS KABINETRY!

Loving the look of this build. Not usually a two screen fan, but with the black painted glass it looks pretty slick. Is there much glare while playing?

[Peabo]

Nice, clean build!