Blip2 (working title)

[markc74]

Crikey - realised I've been doing this (and recording it here) for 20 years...!  Hope everyone is well, and for those who were here when I started, have you not grown out of this yet? 

Anyway, here we go again...

I've finished the 'procrastinating over every tiny detail' and now in the 'ready to crack out the power tools and risk serious injury' phase of creating a new cabinet. It will be similar, but not exactly the same as Blip as I'll be using an OLED TV instead of a CRT (for reasons!). It will still have a dynamic marquee. Coin door will also be replaced by a credit button. I loves me the look of a coin door but truth is I rarely use the one in Blip so that's not gonna be replicated.

The original Blip is still going strong after 10 years and that will now be a dedicated 2 player machine. Blip2 will be a bit more versatile and single player focused. I still like the shape of the original Blip cabinet (it was modelled after my favourite cabinet - Moon Patrol) and spent a long time getting the ergonomics/shape right though so I'm going to keep the new cab very similar apart from a few tweaks here and there.

I'm debating on coming up for a new name for it but I kinda like Blip2 so I'll see how the mood takes me while I'm building it. It is a copy of the first cabinet so it makes sense, but I might still call it Polybius 9000, or Terminus 2. Too early to call. RetroCade might even be cool again now. Or maybe not...

The TV I'm using is an LG 42" C4 which I'll be mounting vertically giving a roughly 26" screen both horizontally and vertically. I had thought about using a 48" TV and having dynamic bezels but that's just waaaaay too much work for me to collect/get them right and I think I prefer the look of the games hovering in inky blackness anyway.

The marquee monitor is pretty similar to the last one I used, only an inch or so bigger and running at 1920x540 which looks a little clearer. It was still expensive though at $450. Not bad if you're US based but for me as a Brit I got hit with a 200 dollar postage and then got hit again with import duty. 

Due to work and family (dammit) I'll probably only getting a couple of hours a week to work on this thing so gonna be a slow one... Still - happy to be building again!

[Ond]

markc74 - legendary builder!  Glad you are here with new project. Except for a few its now largely a silent crowd.

[javeryh]

We are so back!

Can't wait to see what you come up with so I can copy it 

[jeremymtc]

Another MarkC project? Count me in. Your projects are always inspirational.

[markc74]

markc74 - legendary builder!  Glad you are here with new project. Except for a few its now largely a silent crowd.

I noticed - I keep popping in now and again to see what's happening and who's the latest victim to propose angled controls...

We are so back!
Can't wait to see what you come up with so I can copy it 

Feel free! I'm actually copying my own cab this time though 

Another MarkC project? Count me in. Your projects are always inspirational.

Thanks! I had really wanted to come up with a new design for this that was different from the other cabs I've made but couldn't settle on anything I really liked.



Ended up tracing around my old Blip cabinet to get a side panel, and then adjusted a few things here and there that I wanted to change - mostly around the marquee area and making the base larger to fix the minor wobble on the last one.

Cut it out using a combination of jigsaw for the rough outline and curves, a router and straight edge for the straight bits and finishing with a file to make sure the curves all looked right to my eye. Then used a trace bit in the router to get a second side copied.









The sides, base and top will all be 18mm MDF, with the front, back and speaker panel will be 12mm to cut down weight a little.

The plan is to cut all the pieces and do a dry build, and all being well then think about laminating the pieces separately before gluing and screwing the whole thing together.

Next step will be adding the furring strips and then working on the base so that I can start assembling it

A note about laminate though - I forgot how insanely expensive it was! More than double the cost of the wood - but as Blip1 looks as pristine as when I put it on I can't really complain too much. I was looking around for the stuff Daniel Spies arcade uses to save some time but even that was gonna end up costing a fortune and it looks like melamine rather than Formica so thought I may as well splash out and get the result I want.

And yeah - I know my workshop is currently a bombsite! Everything is being ripped out over the Summer so I'm not too concerned with the mess I'm making. Dust masks are a necessity with MDF though!

[thatpurplestuff]

Excited to see the new iteration since the original was so cool.

In regards to the name, how about Bl1p since this one is more focused on 1p games?

[Laythe]

Oooh, nice!

Watching this one with interest.  Good to see you back at it.   

[markc74]

In regards to the name, how about Bl1p since this one is more focused on 1p games?

You know - I really like that! 

Watching this one with interest.  Good to see you back at it.   

Thanks! I'm enjoying being back at it. I've made a couple of cabs for friends and to sell over the last couple of years - and finished the Flip vpin but been wanting to make this one for a while.

Been working on the panels for this one during the week but nothing exciting to post yet. Hoping to have the dry build done in the next week though so I'll get some pics up.

[ArtistTheGeek]

I've just recently come back to BYOAC after twenty something years away. I'd always wanted my own arcade cabinet since the early 80s, and when I found this place I thought "ooh, I could DO this!!" - and then life/work etc took over and I forgot all about it. Still got my old folders of hundreds of reference and idea pics I downloaded at the time though. Every time I look at stuff and think about what I would want (I've got the bug again now) it's always as 'classic' as possible. chunky. Taito-esque. CRT screens etc.

Your Blip cab that I was reading about just the other week was one of very few that made me go "ooh.... now THAT I want!" - absolute stunning build, and I learned a LOAD from the thread. Modern yet classic looking.

I'll enjoy reading through this one as you go through the process