WIP: Putting together my cocktail cab kit

[quarterback]

Since I bought a cocktail cab KIT, I wasn't originally going to post a "project announcement" thread.  I mean, you know, it's a kit.  I can't show how I laid out the parts or cut the pieces with a waterjet or anything like that.  But then I started doing some 'creative' stuff with it and I started to think that maybe I should document its progression.

So I figure it's time to start posting stuff before I forget how I did this.  This isn't going to be an overly exciting or informative post at all, so don't get your hopes up , but I figure if I don't start organizing my pics and stuff here now, then I'm afraid I'll never do it.

Sometime in the near (or distant) future I'll add the relevant info here about my threaded inserts and all that stuff that is spread across multiple threads in the Main forum, but right now here's a pic of my kit with the lighted buttons installed.

[quarterback]

Here's another pic.  It was taken to compare the different between two lighting techniques with whammoed's lite-mites.  But I'll include it here because I'm also lighting up the player 1 & 2 buttons and I'll be posting some pics about how I drilled a hole in the side of the player button.

[Timoe]

Here's another pic.  It was taken to compare the different between two lighting techniques

which button gets which technique and what are the techniques?


Also, are those wico joys?

oh yeah

[quarterback]

Here's another pic.  It was taken to compare the different between two lighting techniques

which button gets which technique and what are the techniques?

Here's a link to the light-mite thread where I show the two different ways of hooking up the light-mite.  Start with this post and read down a few as I doscover the solution and show pics of how they're set up.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=50031.msg505987#msg505987

Basically, the slightly dimmer of the two blue buttons has the LEDs projecting through the plunger.   I found that the green leaf-buttons (because they're so dark) couldn't work that way.  The amount of light travelling through the plunger drops dramatically.   Therefore I did a Kneivel-esque setup with the LEDS right under the button's bezel.  It's slightly different than Kneivel's method because of the kind of button holders I own.  Pics are availble in the light-mite thread link.

While the green didn't light up well enough through the plunger, the blue ones work that way and light up nice and evenly.  However, to get a little more punch out of the blue, I changed their setup to match the green.  The downside is that the light isn't as even as it could be.  The upside is that it's a bit brighter, as seen in the pics.

Also, are those wico joys?

You know it!   Wico 8-way leafs with the P360 attachments.  I love 'em!

[quarterback]

Started working on adding a 19" computer monitor and, in the end, decided to go with a real live arcade monitor instead.  I'm not all up and running yet, but if I can get the software end worked out, this will have been a much better decision.  It's like having a real arcade game in the house

Anyway, just posting to (a) hold this space for future monitor installation info and to (b) leave a note to myself about some of the wiring.

For this monitor, I have to use the isolation transformer that came with my original cab.   When I got everything all wired up, I couldn't get it to power on.  I realized that part of the wire harness used to run up to the toggle switch on the top of my cab.  Since I have no need for another on/off switch just for the monitor at this point, I had to work around it.  I did this by shorting 4 wires.   I had to short the red to the gray and the brown to the black.   I just took a couple pieces of wire and stuck them into the end of the plug.   

Connect the red wire to the gray wire and the brown wire to the black wire.

[quarterback]

I've got pics of arcade monitor installation, then PC monitor installation and making the brackets etc etc etc.

Some time in the future I'll put them up, but for now I'll put up some pics of this thing running.   I still have some work to do, but I've got the monitor installed and running and my lite-mites pumpin and I think it looks cool.  Oh, you can also see my lit up coin-door in this pic.  Blue for player one and green for player two

[quarterback]

Here you can see the player-1 CP a little better.

[Hiub1]

Looks pretty! How much was that kit, and where from?

[quarterback]

Looks pretty! How much was that kit, and where from?

Thanks man, I'm really digging it.   

I got the kit from sysrpl here on BYOAC.  I don't know if I want to give up the deal I got on it.  But I bought it on ebay, plus used a 10% off paypal/ebay coupon floating around at the time and (including shipping) it cost me significantly less than what it would have cost for me to get the same setup from arcade depot.  More than a 25% discount off of their price.

The downside is, sysrpl doesn't have any more kits.  He had them made a number of years ago and sold them, one by one, since then.  But they're all gone now.  He doesn't post here that often, but if you search around you should be able to find posts about his kits.

[MameMaster!]

....that's looks great!...you should add an underlay for fun to add some color.....

I really like the pretty lights.....  nice job

[juggle50]

Cool Quarterback,

Nice classy retro feel with minor mod touches.  I think if you go with an underlay you have to go with an overlay for the cps, therefore  I think maybe less is more in this case.  Really nice work!!!

[quarterback]

Thanks for the comments.

I'm completely torn on an underlay.   My original plan was no overlay.  Just go with the wood (which looks nice) and black (tmolding, coin door, CPs) look.  But since I ended up going with a lighted button/coin door Blue v. Green theme, I've contemplated a sort of galaga-style graphic, continuing a blue v. green theme on the underlay.

I'll have to continue my contemplation, but the other factor is cost.  I've been trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible and hoping to even come in under $500.  That sounds crazy, I know, but I think I might actually pull it off.  I haven't added up the numbers recently, but I'm pretty close.   For a brand new cab with brand new hardware (minus the joysticks, monitor, pc and glass) I think $500 is a number to be proud of.   But we'll see how it all shakes out in the wash

I really wish I could get a decent pic of the green buttons on the Player2 CP.  The translucents look GREAT (which is a testament to whammoed & Knievl, since green translucent leafs are notoriously difficult to light), but unfortunately they photograph horribly.  Even though (to my eye) the green color matches the green of the coin reject, it doesn't come off that way to my camera.    You can see from the first post in this thread that the green doesn't quite look right in the pics.

When I next get some time (probably not til June) I'll try and tweak the colors using the coin-reject color as a reference since it photographs well. At the same time, I'll fill this thread out with some more info.