Mini for my 2-year-old - finished!

[Wade]

3/1/2009 :

I have this NOS mini cabinet that I scored several years ago from an old warehouse (there were 4 total, I took two and sold one awhile back).

Here's the other one that's long gone now:
http://usergallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/album187

My wife wants me to populate this for my 2 year old girl for her birthday. Figured I'd post some progress pics. I need a good 2 1/4" trackball for this project also if anyone has one for a good price.

This weekend I got a few hours to work on it, and I managed to get the 17" monitor mounted. That's one of the tougher parts of this job unless you have a 13-15" shelf mount monitor, which I didn't. The cabinet came with a nice shelf for the monitor but I had to knock it out to make room for the decased PC monitor.

The wife likes the idea of me repainting it to be more girly, but I am not planning to do that due to time constraints. I could possibly still paint it this summer though.

I do have black T-molding for it already. That gold stuff is fugly!


3/4/2009:

Okay, last night I spent about an hour and mounted a lower monitor shelf and attached the monitor chassis to it.

I've decided I'm going to laminate the front and top white, paint all the small red areas black, and paint the outsides either pink or purple. This will be a lot more work, but a solid red game just doesn't look girly at all.


3/9/2009:

Had some nice weather and some more time during her naptime this weekend to work on the game for my little girl's upcoming 2 year birthday.

I lightly sanded it, sprayed the inside edges black, then pre-cut two pieces of white laminate and applied them to the top and front. Then I primed the sides with oil based kilz, and used some leftover purple wall paint for the sides. Once it's assembled, there won't be any red visible.

I got a nice NOS trackball from Arcadejunkie of KLOV (thanks!), and I'm going to try to get the rest of the parts ordered today (purple buttons, optical encoder, etc.)

The coin door I'm planning to use is in perfect condition, but it's missing the bottom door! I think it's a Happ model with yellow inserts. If someone has a spare lower door in nice condition that will fit this, please PM me!


3/13/2009:

I made some minor progress on this last night. I removed the PC from its case and used PCB mounting feet to mount it in the slide-out shelf. I also mounted the hard drive, but the ATX power supply is still just sitting there. I don't want to mount it until I'm sure how I'm going to power the whole cabinet up. The PC doesn't have auto power on in the BIOS so I will probably have to use the PC power momentary switch to power on/off the system, and use a "smartswitch" style outlet to make the monitor come on (which does power on automatically, thankfully). I wish my ATX power supply had that switched AC outlet on the back like they used to all have in the XT and AT days (to plug the monitor into) as that would make it so much easier.  I still need to bend and drill a metal bracket to hold the cards in, but that's no big deal.

My plan is not for MAME at this point, but I'll probably add it later. My first plans are to set up a frontend to run a few Elmo games, and some other simple (read: meant for 2-3 year olds) games that only need a mouse. My only plans for controls right now are an illuminated red 2.25" trackball, and a couple of purple (mouse) buttons. This will also allow her to use the Sesame Street website and play the games on there.

I could add some MAME trackball games easily (Centipede, Missile Command, Marble Madness, Crystal Castles) and later after she "gets" the joystick classic games, I can add a joystick and load up more games. I figure every year or two I'll have to revisit the software aspect to keep it interesting.


4/3/2009:

(To Shardian:) Thanks for the bump, and thanks a lot for the nice comments!! A nice dark gameroom hides all sorts of sins, including the marquee tape job.  As you know, I've spent most of my free time for the past 4 or 5 weeks trying to get this ready in time for her birthday, and I BARELY had it running in time!

Here are a couple of pics. Kassie didn't play it - she was a lot more interested in running around the pool table and throwing the bouncing ball.  One of her cousins played it for quite a while though!

For some reason the color looks more blue the purple in these pics, but the color is a light purple.

I'm really happy with it, but it still needs a few more finishing touches. More in the next post.


4/4/2009:

Okay, an update with more details.

This game had a lot of challenges. Here's a list of things I've done so far:

* Decased and mounted 17" PC monitor
* Sanded and painted red cabinet to black/purple
* Laminated top, front, and CP with white vertical grade formica
* Grinded lower door so it'd fit, and repainted it to match the rest better
* Got custom artwork from Billpa from BYOAC/Hyperspin. Thanks Bill!!!
* Printed on two sheets of cardstock and taped together for now :/
* Routed a recess in the back door to make room for monitor neckboard
* Cut plexis (marquee is clear unused scrap, monitor is used tinted scrap)
* Basic Windows install and boot to Sebran software
* Route CP for trackball
* Add steel reinforcement bar to back of CP due to there being really no wood left after the trackball routing!!
* Routed out front of game above the coin door - needed room for trackball
* Painted trackball plate white
* Soldered/wired GGG Optiwiz
(Starting to think the Trackball was the biggest pain of this project?? YES!)
* Trackball light (trans red ball), and coin door lights

Things still to be done:

* Wire up marquee light
* Wire up speaker set
* Configure more software/games/music playlists
* Get quality marquee printed
* Wire power switch
* Install coin chutes/bucket
* Glue t-molding (it is a bit loose in a few spots)
* Cut larger ventilation holes?

Wade

[javeryh]

Very nice!  What software are you running in that last pic?  I'm thinking about putting some PC games in my daughter's cab but I have no idea what or whether they are even playable with a joystick and 3 buttons.