Retro Home Arcade Project

[drakmarr]

Hey guys so I am going to use this thread for updating you of my home arcade project that I am working on for the foreseeable future. This project is more than a single upright but instead an entire game room for my family and I. Currently I am planning on building a 4 player upright that will play everything from the 80s to current generation, an upright Audio/Video Jukebox & Minibar, a Cocktail table, and a full-sized VR Flight & Driving Simulation Station. I know it's a lot of money and work to do but this is a bucket list item for this old dog; if you guys show interest in it then I will continue posting my progress over what I estimate will be about a 2-3 year project. The inspiration for this room is to modernize and re-interpret the 1980's arcade experience that I grew up in but in the comforts of my home; I will not be posting furniture pictures or other decorative elements that I will be designing and building as well unless you guys really want to see them. With all that said let's kick this off!

I now know that some of you don't like external links but I am going to post my public Pinterest mood board HERE for anyone interested.

[Slippyblade]

Post progress even if you don't get replies.  Worse case it is a personal progress log.

Looking forward to see what you can crank out!

[drakmarr]

My requirements for the upright cabinet are simple:

• I want everything to have a solid physical and authentic upright experience
• I want a large 40" screen
• High-End Hardware to play modern games like MKX and SFV as well as 80's and 90's classics
• 4-player control board for my family to play games together like TMNT, Simpsons, and X-Men
• Custom body design

To start off I did a couple design mockups and finally landed on one that I felt good about, then measured it out and marked it up. I knew that the most important thing for me was to have a machine that was custom designed to me, and really just felt amazing for me to stand at. So I decided that I was going to construct a cardboard model concept of my design so that I could validate everything before I committed to construction. The cardboard design really didn't take too long maybe a weekend, and a couple six-packs. I loosely constructed a box frame and using a 1 1/4 staple gun just cut and knocked everything into place; to get a stable model I reinforced it with box tape. I then moved it up and down my house to make sure it wasn't going to be unwieldy and not fit up my stairs and through the doors. I do plan on it having some modularity though. The attached pictures show where I got it to prior to woodworking phase.

[harveybirdman]

Dude I have 6000 plus views and like 8 or 9 dudes have said anything.... but those 8 or 9 dudes are pretty bitchin...

[vwalbridge]

I now know that some of you don't like external links but I am going to post my public Pinterest mood board HERE for anyone interested.

Welcome and thanks for starting a build thread. Just a heads up, I did actually click your Pinterest link but was immediately reminded why I hate Pinterest....I must have an account there to see anything. I immediatly close the tab and scrunch up my face everytime I land on Pintrest.

...anyway. Good luck! Don't worry if people don't reply to your every post. Trust me, they are watching. 

[drakmarr]

Once I got the design and model done it was easy to move into the woodworking phase, I wanted to bevel the edges and leave enough space for some electro-luminescent tape instead of traditional plastic edging, the body is going to be a high gloss black with LED underlighting on the control board and underneath. I knew that I wanted to have foot rest so I have been really focused on getting that angle down. This is where I got it this past weekend, tonight and this weekend I want to finish construction and move onto finishing the woodworking stage.

[Slippyblade]

Question about your upright there.  Are you going for a kinda skeletonized thing?  It looks like the sides/back of your display will be exposed.  Love the cardboard mock-up by the way.

(EDIT)  Never mind, I see that you changed the profile between the cardboard and the wood.

[drakmarr]

yep, I had to figure out what the exact curve was based on the dimensions of the monitor I am going to use so I had mocked up the curve on the right side but not the left for timesaving. The cardboard model also allowed me to have my entire family stand at the cab and make sure we were comfortable. Oh and the one thing that I did not mention was that after I tried moving the unit up the staircase I realized that its base was too wide, so I trimmed approximately 5" off of the original plan.

[edge929]

Have you play tested on a 40" monitor standing roughly 2 feet away? A lot for your eyes to focus on. I personally can't play too long without pulling my neck back. There are other threads on this topic. A huge screen sounds nice but you need to be back far enough also.

[drakmarr]

Yea I did, I also designed the cab so the monitor will be as far back as it can and the control board would jut forward. I know you can't see it above in the model very well but the 1 and 2 player spots stick out over roughly half a foot for your waste; putting my eyes in average around 26" from mid-screen. The main reason I went with the 40 is to get that large-screen immersion experience.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rablack97]

Yeah but that's still not far enough, the idea of large screen like that was to have a minimal distance away from the TV, and its not 26".

Make sure you go with a smoked glass and do not use the dynamic mode on your TV your eyes are going to get tired of the huge screen really quickly.

As Edge said there are other threads discussing this, if you had a pedestal where you are 4-5 ft away from the screen that makes more sense.  I know going big on the screen is tempting but theres reasons why not to do it in an upright.

Unless your going to play alot of fighting games, the screen will be wasted as the correct aspect of most mame games wont cover even a 1/3 of that screen unstretched.

Also,

Any reason why you rounded over your edges, i take it your not going to use t-moulding?