New Ultimate Arcade II Cabinet Project

[dethsled]

I moved from Chicago to Seattle 2.5 years ago to follow the money of software development.  Every Christmas I come back to visit and catch up with my family.  While enjoying a pizza at <a href="http://www.chicagopizzaandovengrinder.com/">Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder</a>(Highly recommend if you're ever in the city) my brother mentioned how cool it would be to have an arcade cabinet.  Little did he know that the gauntlet had been thrown!  The only challenge is that I live on the 4th floor of an apartment building.

I settled on the Ultimate Arcade II Kit from mameroom along with a SlikStik Classic blank (which came in 7 days).  If I had to do it again, I definitely would have purchased a different blank.  It took a lot of work to route out the joysticks and trackball mount which was hard since the player one joystick is flush with the left wall.

As for the electronics in the control panel, most of which came from groovygamegear.com:
GP Wiz
2x LedWiz
17 ICE buttons with RGB leds
Turbo Twist HL spinner
Happs Super with 4 way restrictor mounted center
Happs Competition for player 2
U360 (From Ultramarc ) for player 1
Various buttons and switches.
Still coming:
Micro-leaf switches to replace the cherry switches
Enough LEDs and buttons to replace all the non lit ones
Another LedWiz to control them all
Electric ICE trackball V2 (Randy told me to wait and it looks like I was rewarded)

I wanted the PC inside to be fast enough to play a lot of the more modern games so I picked up the following at the local Frys:
E6850 Core 2 Duo at 3.0Ghz
4GB PC-6400 RAM (4x1GB CAS 4)
500GB SATAII harddrive
Dual Layer DVD-RW burner
Asus P5E-VM HDMI (Integrated X3500 graphics)
Windows Vista 64bit (I have a stack of Vista copies but no XPs)

I originally wanted to put in a 27" arcade monitor, but after reading about all the possible issues with maintaining an arcade monitor, I opted for an LCD.  The biggest I could find that would fit was a 28" (27.5") HannsG at Best Buy.  The best part is it doesn't weigh 100 lbs and I won't electrocute myself.

Still to do:
Side-art (Any suggestions would be nice)
Kick plate to hide my mistake on the front panel.
Getting/installing the trackball and new buttons/switches
Adjusting the U360 to my liking (heavy spring, getting the software to work on 64bit Vista)
Coin door
Mounting the monitor (Right now, it's just sitting there)
Getting a lighted ball top for the 4 way.
Cleaning my apartment.
Getting my TopGun to work correctly.

More pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14669960@N06/sets/72157603681935015/

[somunny]

Judging from the artwork you already have, you might want to contact SNAAKE for some sideart options.