2 Projects...1 Bartop & 1 Pinball Countertop

[punxrus]

Quick intro...I'm a normal guy who likes his arcade games. Found you guys and saw the light and figured it was time to build my own. Granted...I think I may be going off the deep end with two projects at once...but we'll see how it goes! I'll get pics up as soon as possible as the cutting has already begun!

[punxrus]

Okay...first pics. Sorry about the quality. I'm at work and the only camera I had access too was on my Cell phone. I'll take better ones at home.

[punxrus]

I've got one quick question if anyone is looking at this post. I used half inch MDF for the sides and bottom pieces of the bartop mame cabinet. What size wood screws should I use? I just don't want to split the MDF in any way.

[HaRuMaN]

For a bartop, I would say you don't even need screws.  Just use wood glue and clamp your pieces together.  It will be rock solid, without the risk of splitting the MDF.

[punxrus]

Just another quickie...I know it's in the forums somewhere...but I was thinking about a light gun to attach to the cabinet as well...any ideas on brands or where to purchase from?

[Jigenjuke]

http://www.act-labs.com/products/gun1.htm

Everything else REALLY is just a toy.  I will swear by them.  They are kind of pricey but well worth the money.  What size monitor are you putting in the bar top.  Anything less than 19 or 20 inch might make having a gun system kind of over kill....  Looking forward to more pics.

[punxrus]

With a lot of planning that I did, I never really thought about the monitor size effecting the light gun. I guess I'll scratch the light gun as I'm only putting in a 15 inch LCD 4:3 in there. I guess the light gun can be used in another project...maybe an upright! Thank you for the thought before I went out and spent money on something that really wouldn't be functional!

[punxrus]

Here they are...MORE PICS!!!
This is the stripped PC that is going in the bartop. It really isn't much other than an AMD Athalon 2500+ and an NVidia 5200FX. It's great when you can find hidden treasures like this in your closet!   

[Axe]

looking good.....

for those of us who upgrade FAR too often, some of these old beater PC's make excellent game hardware ... as long as you don't expect to run a fullscreen 3d fighter...

Similar to you, i had an old home theater pc with a dead hard drive... for the last year or so it has been somethign to sit my new home theater pc on top of!

with a new hard drive and a dvd rom, it's back and kickin, and going to be the engine for my next "classic" themed project



I knew constantly upgrading my hardware was good for something!

[punxrus]

Yay! More pics and taken with a real camera this time! I've included a pic of the 'Rough Cuts' of the Virtual Countertop Pinball machine. I'm interested in hearing what people think or how I may improve my design. This is my first project...okay...first two projects...so any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[punxrus]

I believe everyone is correct in saying that Wood Glue is the way to go. I've decided that I'm going to brace the inside with some extra stock that I have and see how it goes. I've also got the LCD torn apart so that I can wire it up to the power supply of the pc to make sure that it will work the way I believe it should. If not, I've got renters insurance! LOL Wish me luck!

[punxrus]

Bad news...I made a horrible mistake. One of my side panels was dealt a devastating blow while I was sanding the other pieces for the bartop mame cabinet. I had it on my work bench and forgot about it while I started to use the belt sander. Unfortunately, the vibration from the sander shook the side panel off of the bench and it landed on the hard concrete floor of the shop...right on the rear, upper corner...

Thankfully I had enough spare MDF to cut another panel, but I was bummed as I spent quiet some time sanding those panels down to make perfectly. I guess I'll just use this as a learning experience and keep moving forward. No sense in crying over spilled MDF. I will, for everyone's amusement, post some pics of the damage as soon as I can see clearly through all of my saw dust filled tears...

[HaRuMaN]

That damage could have been easily fixed with bondo... and sanded down to match the rest of the panel.

[punxrus]

Okay...I decided to use the same panel that I dropped after looking at the damage and noticing that it wasn't as bad as it seemed...that and I was really, really, really impatient.  Anywho, here are some pics of my progress. Let me know what you guys think and any tips if you may have them!

[punxrus]

Well, I've managed to get both side panels glued on the bartop mame cabinet, and I learned a valuable lesson... never trust your eye to make things square. I guess that I'm just too excited to actually be doing this project, that I really wanted to see the end results! Sure things are not lined up correctly, the cutting could have been a whole hell of a lot better and my measurements were all wrong, but it's my first cab, it looks decent in my eyes and it'll probably be with me for a very, very, very long time.

Now, only if I could come up with a name and a color scheme. Any ideas out there? I've decided not to use T-molding on this cabinet as it's only .5 inch thick and my wood working skills are horrible. I'll just sand them down to a round edge and see how it comes out. As for a theme, probably something sci-fi. I'm open to suggestions so please, if anyone is out there, let me know!

As for the pics, I'll be taking some tomorrow as it's too dark now and the flash just makes everything white...so stay tuned!

[punxrus]

So I keep forgetting about the pics...but the bartop cabinet is coming out pretty nice. Bondo did work really well in fixing the damaged corner. Thanks for the help on that one HarumaN! I'm still trying to figure out how to layout the control panel. I'm going to have a single joystick, six player buttons and a single start button...or would I need anything else...time will only tell...

Also, I'm not sure where I got the plans for this arcade, but from whoever I got them from, thank you! After the sanding is done, I'll primer it up and get some paint on there! Probably just plain boring black for now...but we'll see!

[leapinlew]

I built a 1/2" bartop out of MDF and I used T-molding. You definitely want to do T-molding with MDF. You don't want to see your beautiful work get dinged up.

If you click My Projects in my signature - it's the bartop Galaga machine. I used the 1/2" T-molding from t-molding.com. Good luck!

[punxrus]

Problem is I have some bondo on the corner that was damaged from the fall. How would I get that cut to get the T-molding in there? I would imagine that wouldn't work out so well...

[leapinlew]

Problem is I have some bondo on the corner that was damaged from the fall. How would I get that cut to get the T-molding in there? I would imagine that wouldn't work out so well...

That bondo holds t-mold just fine.

[punxrus]

Problem is I have some bondo on the corner that was damaged from the fall. How would I get that cut to get the T-molding in there? I would imagine that wouldn't work out so well...

That bondo holds t-mold just fine.

I guess if all else fails...more bondo!!! 

[punxrus]

Okay...so close...yet so far away! I was pretty successful this weekend with some stuff...however, none of it had to do with my cab. Instead of working on it, I managed to break my ankle which totally sucks. I do promise to get those pics of the cab up sometime this week as it's pretty much put together now. I just need to paint it and figure out how to run the power through the cabinet.

[Franco B]

Ouch! Hope it doesn't slow you down too much.

To run power through the cabinet (if you mean what I think you do) you could use a flanged AC power inlet like this:



You can then just attach a 2/4way extension lead to the tabs inside the cab.

You can buy them from many electronics places or you can remove one from an old ATX PSU.

[BobA]

Forget the ACT Labs light guns if you are using an LCD.  They only work on monitors or TVs, depending on the model.

[punxrus]

Ouch! Hope it doesn't slow you down too much.

To run power through the cabinet (if you mean what I think you do) you could use a flanged AC power inlet like this:



You can then just attach a 2/4way extension lead to the tabs inside the cab.

You can buy them from many electronics places or you can remove one from an old ATX PSU.

That's what I'm looking for, just haven't found one here in the Olympia area of WA. I'll take a look online and see if I can pick one up. Everything else is going to run from the power supply to power the lcd monitor, speakers, marquee and etc. Once I'm on my feet that is...

[punxrus]

Pics of the monitor installed...