and so it begins

[BioFreak]

Hey all,
Wanted to post to let you know about a project me and a friend are working on.
It is a standard midway style cabinet but with a few modifications for deck height and  monitor pitch. I'm moving the top deck height up to or maybe even above 40", being a little over 6ft tall I found that I had to hunch over with all the other arcade cab designs. So this will be a combo midway/ Williams defender style cab with, wait for it... Bio Freaks art work. The art work from that cab just blew me away the first time I saw it and I've been locked on using that as a base for what this cab will look like.

We'll, my order from ultimarc should be in tomorrow, sticks, buttons and ipac.

Can't wait to get started. I'll update accordingly.

If anyone has any images of the BioFreaks cabinet that they wouldn't mind donating for use with this cab. It would be greatly appreciated. Currently I only have the klov.com image to base my designs off of.

Thanks a ton.
Get your "Freak" on.

[D5A1AC]

That sounds good! Im looking forward to see a few WIP pics

[BioFreak]

Thanks, I can't wait to get started.
Most definitely will be posting WIP photos.

Looks like I caught my first break last night!

Found a  great photo of the BioFreaks cab that was at the 2003 arcade convention:
Marquee, Control deck, and some of the side art.

[BioFreak]

MY shipment from Ultimarc http://www.ultimarc.com arrived yesterday via DHL.
Less than two weeks after I placed my order.
I'm very happy with the turn around time
 especially since Ultimarc is based over the pond and I'm in the U.S.
Everything looks like it's in good shape,

2 T-Stick Plus - Switchable without diving under the deck.
24 buttons with cherry micro switches
1 I-PAC2 Board - good for 2 sticks, up to 8 buttons each plus seperate coin and player starts
Should be exactly what I need for this project

So now I'm into this project for $155, no turning back now.

[javeryh]

So now I'm into this project for $155, no turning back now.

Hahaha.  Gotcha!  That's how I was and now it's $1,000+ later and there's still more to do!  Your cab sounds like it is going to be really cool.

[DannyH]

have to agree, I started my cabinet thinking $500 and that will be it. Then I bought more and more and have hit $800 so far and still want to get new t-moulding, a fluro light and glass for the front. it never ends

[BioFreak]

Hey Gang,
Brief update on this cab's progress.

Right now I've got a nice full scale layout done in illustrator.
Working with JoyMonkey to get it cut on the CNC machine he's got access to.
Hope to have panels in the next couple of weeks. Obviously pictures will follow.

Also working on designing a power start-up panel for the cab made up out of a few push buttons, safety toggle switches and potentially a keyed momentary Switch lock.
Thought this would add to the bio industrial look and feel of the cabinet and also be a cool way to power up the pc, monitor, speakers and marquee lighting, plus it will prevent my three year old from starting the machine up when I'm not looking.

More to follow.
Thanks for the encouragement

[BioFreak]

OK, I had some time today so I went out to Home Depot and picked up a 2x4 sheet of Hardboard for $2.50 and decided to build a prototype of my control deck.
So here are the first official W.I.P pictures.
Mmmm Duct Tape is cool....

A few things I really like about this deck.

1. the button layout, the 6 buttons are custom fit to my hand and fingers. I found it strange that more people don't do this when building cabs. My thought was, hey it's my cab it should fit my hand comfortably.

2. that little center console, that's going to be the power station. Right now it's just an old ring box with a button in it but hey it's a prototype. I'll be adding a flip top safety switch, next to it. The combination of the two will turn on the power to the cpu. Additional micro toggle switches will turn on and off the marquee light, speakers and the monitor.  Think 1940s cold war "missile launch".

3. The sticker art work my three year old wanted to add, I think it really just brings it all together. Hahahaha...

That's all for now.
Thanks.
Team BioFreak

[TurboC--]

If Joe from Newsradio made an arcade cabinet, that's exactly what it would look like.

[quarterback]

1. the button layout, the 6 buttons are custom fit to my hand and fingers. I found it strange that more people don't do this when building cabs. My thought was, hey it's my cab it should fit my hand comfortably.

What I've found (and you may find as well) is that I don't play games with my fingers splayed out.   I play them with my fingers bent at my knuckles, which results in a much straighter 'line' of fingertips then if you lay your palms down flat.

YMMV

[BioFreak]

That is a good point, I was curios what people would think about the layout.
Essentially the layouts are the same as placing your fingers on the
SPACEBAR  G  U  O  ; keys on your keyboard. For me that seems like a good fit, I've got long fingers. Sounds to me like you play with more of a h j k l setup.
Thanks for the input, that was one of the main reasons I post those picts and my idea about the layout, it's much easier and cheaper to try it out now and see how it works out, then it will be to replace the top panel if I decide I hate it or my hands cramp up.

[BioFreak]

and so it continues or "Fun with wiring."

OK so Team Biofreak will assemble tonight with the goal of wiring the above prototypes buttons and sticks, connecting it to the cpu and playing at least one game of MAME before the night is over.

Any last minute quick tips that will aid in the goal of making this happen.
Speak now, please dear god speak now, I beg you speak now. Hahahaha.
No seriously though, any tips or good ideas feel free to lend a helping hand.

Thanks FREAKS!
WIP picts, to follow.

[CthulhuLuke]

Coming from making my own joysticks/cabs w/ custom and non-custom layout, I just gotta say you need to give those buttons a semi-arcade feel.  The big problem w/ custom layouts is the spacing, basically if you don't want your hand to hurt the next day after extensive playing, you gotta keep the buttons close together.  Even if the natural length of your fingers are straight out, they keep the buttons close together because you naturally curl your hand like a fist.  Imagine if you used a mouse that was made of a wood block.  It might work at first, but give it 2 hours and carpotunnel would be inevitable.

Let me give you an example of my own findings -


This layout looks perfect for my fingers right?  Wrong, this thing is a freakin pain to play on.  It's actually sitting in the corner of my room because the layout was so far spaced, an hour of street fighter and my fingers are dying.


Now that's more like it, I kept the horizontal spacing of the buttons AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE.  The curve of the middle button feels good for my hand, but I kept the classic capcom control panel style.  The thumb button is for my Neo Geo days ( www.klov.com if you want to see a neo geo cabinet w/ this layout, I think only japanese players and hardcore snk-neogeo freaks use the thumb button though ) but I've found its the best layout I could have done.

I've also done the traditional 3x2 layout, which although it LOOKs boring, it FEELs great.

Last note about control panel - MAKE SURE YOUR BOLTS ARE FLAT ON THE TOP!  I only exclaim this because the screws on my current control panel don't have covers and they can get really irritating on your hands.  Make sure you have flat bolts w/ washer-nuts screwed in from the bottom.

-Good luck, looks like a cool project so far.

[BioFreak]

Great example of what works and what didn't!

I'm definately thinking about moving them closer to each other.
I still like the sweep of the buttons, but you guys may be right about
just moving them in. 

I'm going to adjust the player two side of the prototype
and try something with a different layout. That's what a prototype is for right?

Just wish I hadn't cut both sides the same, I should have thought of that first
and tried two different layouts from the start.
Oh well, that's the fun of learning on the fly.

[CthulhuLuke]

I actually just used cardboard boxes for my prototypes.  We had some Xerox boxing laying around from computer paper.  http://www.geocities.com/cthulhuluke/Joystick/Proto.html  <-- just used a pocket knife to cut the holes, you can see how much of a difference it makes between spaced buttons and tight buttons. 

- again good luck, and keep us up to date!

[BioFreak]

Lesson 1 for today children:

14 gauge wire is actually thicker than your average wire coat hanger.
Great if you need to hang a coat in a pinch or need to rewire your house or even jump start your car,
not so good if you want to wire 16 buttons and 2 joysticks to an iPac.

For some strange reason, with all the online reading I had done about constructing this cab,
I had never seen a recommendation for the correct size wire to use, so I ended up buying two spools of 14 gauge.

Back story: I'm an idiot when it comes to electrical wiring,
not that the previous statement about purchasing 14 gauge wire to rig up an arcade deck wasn't already a statement of that, but you know I figured I'd just get it out in the open.

I've since read that people are using 22 gauge,
does that sound right to you guys?

More to come, but just incase anyone needs a coat hanger in the near future, let me know I think I can hook you up.

Hahahahahaha, learning is fun, hahahaha...

[D5A1AC]

Hehe. I've been wondering about the correct wire gague to use too. Thanks for owning up about your mistake - it'll probably save me a few bucks . So far your prototype control panel is looking pretty good! It reminds me of a custom controller for an xbox game "steel batalion" http://www.the-nextlevel.com/features/developers/production-studio-4/steel-battalion-controller.jpg. I've done a fair amount of pencil-on-carboard-prototype-layout-mockups and agree that bringing the buttons close together is much more comfortable.

[BioFreak]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that didn't know what size wire to use.
It made for more than a few laughs last night so it was worth it.
Wait till you guys see the picts it's pretty sick.

That steel batallion controllers is crazy.
I guess it does kinda have that look doesn't it. Thanks.
I hope to one day stumble on one at a yard sale or something cause aint no way I'm gonna drop $200 for one. But they sure are cool.

[dfmaverick]

I've since read that people are using 22 gauge,
does that sound right to you guys?

Recommendation from right in the wiring section of BYOAC:

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_wiring.shtml#wiring_gauge

[BioFreak]

Yep, didn't read that until it was too late.

So where are people getting wire from?
I didn't see any 22-28 at Home depot.

So local hardware store? Online? Electrical supply store? Where?

[BioFreak]

So it was with fingers crossed and a double check of all connections
that the moment of truth was upon me last night.

I plugged in my iPac to the keyboard connection and my keyboard into my iPac and powered
up my HP. No smoke, No fire, Good start!

Launched Notepad and proceeded to press the buttons and move the sticks,
just to check that everything is working correctly.

Well wouldn't you know it we had wired the sticks up all backwards,

up was down
down was up
left was right
right was left

Oh look, another learning experience kids!
(from now on all learning experiences will be posted in an alternate color for ease of future reference.)
If you turn a controller over and wire it: Note that the bottom switch is not down, it's up.
Why? Because if you move the stick up, you are pressing on the bottom switch,
Move the stick right, your pressing on the left switch. etc.

So with that issue fixed it was time to get to gamming.
All played without a hitch. Yippee!

So with that said, DAMN IF MY HAND DIDN'T HURT LAST NIGHT!
Hahahahahahaha.
Now granted I was sitting with the control deck on the floor
and hunched over but I had to pass that along, thought you guys would get a kick out of it.
A button reconfigure will be in order. Maybe this weekend.

I have pictures of all the debauchery, just need to dl them from the camera and get them posted.

Later.

[BioFreak]

Ok I promised some wip photos.
Here they are. Make sure to get a real good laugh
at the coat hanger gauge wire holding everything together.

[BioFreak]

Found an amazing picture of the original BioFreak deck on
http://www.mameworld.net/maws/

Enjoy

[BioFreak]

So I did some rework on the control deck,
ignore the very bottom and very top green buttons,
they wont be in the final layout just put them in to try something.

I made a little before and after pict so you can compare the layouts and hand possition.

Played for about 2.5 hours last night and the new layout feels pretty good.

Thanks for all the info and help.

[BioFreak]

Looks like the cabinet panels will be cut this week! Hooray!!!
Hopefully that means we'll be in full on construction mode next weekend.

So with that said, being the forward thinker that I am,
as I refer you back to the 14 gauge wire issue that so beautifully represents that fact D'OH!,
this cabinet still does not have a name.

So I call on the powers of those that lurk in the shadows of the BYOAC forum to help come up with a suitable name for such a beast of an arcade emulation cabinet. No rewards are possible other than the reward of knowing you came up with a crazy name that some guy in New Hampshire will have adourning his cabinet's marquee for years to come. :-)

Some thoughts to help get those creative juices flowing.
The cab is a combination of a Mortal Kombat and Defender cabinet.
The side art will be from the Bio F.R.E.A.K.S cabinet.
It will be an Emulator cabinet, not just Mame but others also.

That is all, I leave the rest up to you.
"Freak" on.

[CthulhuLuke]

glad you tried the more standard control setup, VERy good to make prototypes before you do the real thing.  Otherwise you're walking into this thing blind.

I wired my entire cab from radioshack 22 gauge I'm pretty sure, was fine for what I needed, and heavy duty enough it wouldn't snap if it was stressed slightly.

As for names -

M.A.M.E.F.R.E.A.K.(S. is optional)

Arcade City
Arcade Paradise
Game Metropolis
  (use a thesarus on City or Metropolis, cause Mame Metropolis, or Arcade Metropolis would rock)

Bio City
Boom City
Mame-o-politan
Game Estate
Mame Plaza
Game Plaza
Bio Plaza
Arcade Plaza

-  basically, go get on www.dictionary.com and use the thesarus to find some words you wouldn't think of off the top of your head.  If you want a name that sticks, try a name w/ 4-6 syllabuls or that has two rhyming or similar names, like Game Guru, or Mega Mame.

[ginno]

I just noticed on KLOV they dont have an image of the Bio Freaks CP (or screen shots for that matter)

Maybe you should forward on your photo to them BioFreak

[BioFreak]

Thanks, some really good ideas with the names.
They got me thinking.
As of right now I'm thinking of calling it

Toxic Asylum

I figure it kind of goes along with the theme of the cabinet.
When the side panels are painted I may add a window with jail bars and change it up a little bit from the original. Keeping the same theme (that steel bar look) and coloring.

I'm thinking a marquee with an Anime type character off on the right side, in a padded cell,
wearing a straight jacket, looking really wacked out, leaning against a Toxic waste barrel.
Title in the middle and a group of waste barrels on the left side, one tipped over and green toxic waste just pouring out into a puddle that is spilling out towards the character.

Now I just have to see if I can find someone that can do that type of art.
Haha, full of good ideas, low on the talent to pull them off.

Thanks again gang.

[BioFreak]

OK so it's really official now,
Here are some picts of the cut panels.
Thanks a ton to JoyMonkey for making it all real on his CNC machine,
for supplying the photos of his work, and for putting in his own time
and effort to get it done.

[BioFreak]

One more photo,
the sheets all nice and clean.

I decided to mount the sticks under the deck so that's why you only see the hole and not the routed block. That's hidden under the deck routed 1/4" into the 3/4" mdf.

[BioFreak]

Hey gang,
So today was the first real "build day" of this project and about 12 hours after the day started I've got a 1/2 done cab body. Not to bad seeing I've never built one of these before.

Thanks to everyone involved,
My wife for just letting me play the day away,

Geno for bringing the van and helping design the box frame for the cab,

JoyMonkey for doing a great job cutting out the sheets of mdf making assembly a snap,

My dad for helping me build the box frame and assemble the cabinet to it's current state.

The entire gang up on the BYOAC without the people and ideas up here and in the community in general.  This idea would not have made it this far.

Obviously more to come, but here are the WIPs I have for now.
Thanks


EDIT: Woops, looks like that pic didn't post the way I wanted it to, I'll post better pics later.

[JoyMonkey]

Nice! Good to see everything is fitting together like you planned.

[BioFreak]

Yep, everything is dead on perfect.
Except the front and the back of the control deck, but that was because I screwed up the dimentions. No big deal they just need to be ripped down 3/4" on the length. Thtat's the only reason I'm still using the duct taped prototype. It's ok, I'll have it fixed soon.

[BioFreak]

Hey gang,

I thought I'd supply a PDF of the pieces and panels.
This is the one JoyMokey used to do the CNC work from. Figured someone out in the community may find it useful. If for nothing else just to see an example of how to fit everything together. Any questions or comments about the size, shape, layout feel free to PM me or post.

More actual WIPs to follow.

[BioFreak]

OK WIPs and thoughts,

The cab is now, atleast in my mind almost fully assembled (Pre Paint and Marquee.) This weekend was the addition of the top and the creation of the speaker mounts. The speaker mounts were interesting

I had an older set of Soundworks speakers you know, that 4 speaker + bass box set. So I was kicking around what to do with it, use only 2 speakers, maybe use 4 but put two up to and two below maybe in the bottom of the cab. What we ended up doing was cutting 4 2" holes in the speaker deck, the piece right above the bezel, and then making a holding bracket out of the MDF that I had to cut off the front and back panels of the control deck.


LESSON learned for the day: Never throw away scraps when your working on a project like this. I wouldn't have ben able to make this holding bracket if I had thrown away the extra mdf when I cut it. Well I would have, but it would have cost money to go buy more wood

As you can see in the pictures I had to custom "fit" the speaker grills into the cutout holes, those grills were originally square.

All I did was take a pair of tin snips and one of the hole cut outs and just work it over with a hammer until it was a nice circle. Those will be painted once this is all done so they won't look as bad as they do right now.

That's all for now,

Thanks gang.

[BioFreak]

Well it's been a while but I've got a few more WIPs.
Work is moving forward and we aren't to far away from the first coat of paint so I'm pretty happy about that.

Modifications to teh design, we added a cut out for a door and an internal keyboard shelf, added the player and coin buttons to the deck, cut some really thin plexi for the monitor bezel and marquee.

The saddest modification was the realization that the power up station that I had been thinking of doing you know the one with all the switches and stuff just isn't going to work, atleast not right now. So that's out the window. R.I.P. :-(

Anyway a few pics to keep the fans happy and proving that things are actually moving forward.

Later FREAKS!

P.S. if you look closely you'll see a dreamcast on the floor right next to the cabinet, Virtua Cop 2 with my Pelican light gun and a NAKI vga converter work great together. If I can round up  emus that will run on the DC and support my light gun then that will go into the cabinet also. I've tried nesterdc 7.1+ but have not had any luck with having it recongize my gun so I'm stil working on that, we'll see what happens. Let me know if you guys have any insite into this stuff.

[BioFreak]

So someone on this board has an avatar and under that avatar is a quote of something along the lines of "Cutting Plexi sucks!" Well allow me to second that feeling.  Seeing that I'm recently without a job the cash flow directed towards my cabinet has flowed in other directions so it has been through the kindness of others that some plexiglass that could be used in this cab appeared on my door step, graciously I accepted and went to work cutting it to fit, the marquee is good, the bezel is good, now come the control deck, this one was going to have to be made in two 15.25" pieces as I did not have one single piece large enough to cover it, so I got to work. 2+ hours later it's ready,
I screw the two pieces down and get to cutting the stick and button holes out. Well the stick hole went fine, now the first button hole,

  drill spins up to speed
  slowly plunge drill and bit toward plexi
  crack smash
  turn deck over
  observe carnage
  put down drill
   turn off lights
  walk up stairs
  go to bed
  weep like a school girl stood up on prom night!!!! 

Ok that last part was an embellishment but you get the idea.

Here's a pic, almost looks like my deck was shot.

[markrvp]

My experience when cutting plexi is that you have to go real slooooooooooow.  It is also imperative that you have a backer-board under it when you cut so that there is no air under the plexi.

Been there - it sucks.

[JoyMonkey]

Yowch!
Next time I'm CNCing acrylic I can cut you one from the control panels template if you'd like. I have a bunch of 3/16" material here left over from a job I screwed up a couple of weeks ago, should be a big enough piece to cut the whole thing in one go somewhere.

[BioFreak]

Yowch!
Next time I'm CNCing acrylic I can cut you one from the control panels template if you'd like. I have a bunch of 3/16" material here left over from a job I screwed up a couple of weeks ago, should be a big enough piece to cut the whole thing in one go somewhere.

DUDE! YOU ROCK!!!!
Seriously!
If you wouldn't mind doing that, that would be fantsastic.

[BioFreak]

Hey all,
managed some time to do some more work this weekend.

Filled the last of the holes, stripped the cabinet down to just the shell and took to painting the primer coat.

It's not bad the prime coat is alittle lighter than the final grey that I'm thinking it's going to be, but I had it around the house already so I figured I'd use it.

[BioFreak]

Hello again,
I also managed to get a marquee light installed.

You'll see in the picture that I used some white sheet metal that I had laying around the garage as a backing for the light, kinda hope it will help reflect the light around the area.

Anyway the light I picked is a thin 21" no hum light from home depot,
Not really sure if it's going to be bright enough but I figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens, if I don't like it I can always return it and get something else.

Later freaks!

[BioFreak]

OK so I had a second today and I printed out a quick test sheet to see what it would look like,
1. in my maquee
and
2. lighted.

I think it doesn't look that bad.

It's printed on just regular paper and at a low quality setting, again this was just a quick test.

The image is from a sticker I bought at the auto parts store and scanned into photoshop.

Looks like that light may work after all.
Anyway, back to the real world.

Oh I almost forgot, yes that wood colored frame around the marquee is going to be painted, I just cut it yesterday and haven't had a chance to yet.

Later!

[BioFreak]

Hey all,
My dad and I did some preliminary work on painting the final design on the cabinet last night. Here are the pics.
We started by adding alot of acrlyic paint to the cab but realized we weren't getting the look we wanted, so we actually ended up using a paper towel to wipe some of it away and in doing that got much more of a weathered metal feel to it. It's very early and there will be much more done and the lines will be tightened up but as you can tell I like to add WIPs as much as possible just to see what people are thinking and to see if anyone has any ideas.
So here they are, a view of one side panel and a view of the door.
Later FREAKS!

[BioFreak]

Ok it's been a while since I had a chance to post, mostly because I've been locked in my garage with cans of paint trying to get this thing finished. So far I'd say we have about 12 to 15 man hours into the art work, I'd say we still have about another 10 or so for the majority then just a little clean up work after that.
Here is a look at the door and front bottom panel.
Enjoy.

 

[quarterback]

Ok it's been a while since I had a chance to post, mostly because I've been locked in my garage

 





  Looks cool!


edited to fix my typo

[Crazy Cooter]

Hell yeah it does.  I'm excited to see how it looks when finished.

[BioFreak]

Thanks for the words of encouragement!!!

Happily and sadly I start a new job next week so
I'm not sure when it will be final, but I'm itching to get it done.

Here are a few more wips, still needs a lot of work but you can see the direction we are headding.

The deck still needs some work, this is just the first pass of paint.
Still needs shading and for many of the lines to be tightned up.

Enjoy.

[babydickonboard]

lookin better all the time...i really like sides and front.

[BioFreak]

Well it's almost done.

Paint is 95%

The cabinet is in my family room and has been officially broken in with 3 hours of game play last night.

Just waiting on a few other finishing parts.

Initial observation,
1: IT'S HUGE! The 36 inch depth really hits home when you actually put it in your house, hahahahaha.

2: Witht the paint scheme that we ended up going with, it looks like the arcade cabinet  that would have been on the ship from ALIEN, that is if they brought an arcade cabinet with them. Hehe. I love it!


Todays lesson: Buttons not working, check your ground wires.
I connected the wiring for the deck and I thought I totally hosed my i-Pac.
3/4 of the buttons weren't registering. I'm thinking I'm screwed! Come to find out, I'm using the radio shack white euro terminal blocks for my ground wires and I had the wires to far in so the screws were actually contacting with the wire casing and not the metal of the wire. Duh! So basically nothing was being grounded correctly. Luckily I fixed that and everythign works fine again. Horray and whew.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all the help. I'll post some final pics when I have a chance.

All good things must come to an end!

[BioFreak]

Mostly Final Pics for the few of you that have been asking for them.
But first a few thanks:

Thanks to Gene, Don, and Paul for all the help in the design, build and paint stages of this project.

Thanks to Kristy for letting me play Bob the builder while she took care of our 3 year old daughter.

Much thanks to everyone on this board, without all the information up here this project would not have been possible.

Thanks to Andy at Ultimarc for the great products and support, I'll buy from him again in a second if I ever make another one of these!
http://www.ultimarc.com/

Thanks to the killer list of video games
http://www.klov.com
with out that site I never would have found the bio freaks cab design and never would have had it for inspiration for the final paint sceme.

and thanks to http://jakobud.com/ for the original defender and motral kombat cab specs that my cabinet dimentions were taken from.

All the best to everyone here!
I'll be lurking in the shadows!
 

Here are two more pics.

[c64rulez]

It sure does look like a piece form that spaceship in ALIEN.
Amazing artwork, though not for the faint of heart.

I think it would fit perfectly in my Dungeon   

[BioFreak]

Hey Freaks!
It's been a while since I had an update so I figured I'd add quick one.

Sadly I've not finished off the marque or those last touches to the paint.

But on the up side, the reason for it is because the thing is so playable just the way it is.  I've had many a late night playing this thing and it's tons of fun.

Thinking about adding a couple of bar stools just to extend the play time. :-)
and I will be adding one of the new TopGun LCD light guns this month,
so that'll be a nice touch. WIPS to follow when that gets added.

I have seen one major issue, because the player 1 and 2 buttons are setup so that if you press them both at the same time the  game your playing is exited and your returned to the mame menu, we've been in the middle of several games and just been ejected in the scramble to keep playing. I've got to fix that!

Everything else about this has been a blast.
Later Freaks.

[BioFreak]

So I just placed the order with Lik-Sang for my TopGun LCD light gun.
The clock is ticking!
Ihope to have it by this weekend.

Best part is I only have to pay the shipping cost.

My Birthday is this weekend and I just happened to mention to my mother that
I was thinking of getting this thing for my arcade cab and she was like how much is it?
Go get it! I'll give you the money.

Ahahahaha, 31 years old and my mom is still buying me toy guns. Hahaha.
Hey it saves me $40 and I don't get a lousy sweater for a gift. Yahoo!!!

Anyway, WIP picts to come after I get it installed and functional.

Rock on Freaks!

[BioFreak]

My gun was just delivered.  Wow 3 days from Hong Kong! Nice!!!

but I'm stuck at work and I'm playing hockey tonight.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

[BioFreak]

Hey Freaks!!!
Wow I can't believe it's been almost a year since I started this project.

I thought I was going to be able to post final pictures by this point, but the longer I have my cab the more I realize it will never be "final".
So I'll just post the new picts I have.

For the past several months I've tweaked things here and there and got some more paint done. Wanted to post a few updated pictures with the temporary paper marque,
the  semi completed ctrl panel paint,
and the latest and greatest additions two new bar stools.

I got a great deal on two tall unfinished bar stools and I made sure that they got the special Toxic treatment, complete with biohazard esc seat and blood dripping down the legs, just for that special touch. :-)

Keep up all the great work gang and thanks for the inspiration!