Author Topic: Slim scratch build almost done (Read 6165 times)

shatteredzman · « **on:** June 06, 2009, 07:57:35 pm »

Since I got all my information about how to build arcade machines from this website I figured I would give back to the community by posting my project. I am still currently working on the project and I am waiting for groovygamegear.com to get some more novagem pushbuttons in stock. The project has pretty much come to a stop due to lack of part availability and money. I am currently in college and work so I have mostly spent about 4 hours a day after work on the project so progress is slow.

I really dont know what to do for the side art, marquee art, or the control panel art. I dont know how to work photoshop to make my own graphics to scale. I dont even know how to get the dimensions into photoshop! I just had to make a complicated control panel that would be hard to add graphics for. I really do not want to go with the generic mame theme or plain black. Any suggestions?

I also dont have a name for the machine, I am hoping at some point it will just come to me.

The planned part list is:
24" wide screen LCD
* dell gx280 (I got a couple for free)
* sony xplod car speakers
* motorcycle amp
happ competition joystick
GGG novagem push buttons
GGG ice-T trackball
* coin door from ebay
keywiz
* t-molding
side art
marquee art
control panel art

Item with * I have.

So here is 9 days worth of progress on the project.

Day 1:

shatteredzman · « **Reply #1 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:03:52 pm »

Day 2:
I spent most of the time putting the support boards on side of the machine. I also added the power outlet on the bottom so I could use it to plug my power tools into...sorta like a mobile outlet. It turns out I only had 1 outlet so I rigged it temporarily to the outlet box. I also bought some casters for the bottom. I did not realize how heavy my cabinet would finally be and would eventually regret buying rubber wheels.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #2 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:11:44 pm »

Day 3:
I bought a second outlet and added a main power switch to it. I also started working on the back panels of the machine. I wasn't sure what size I needed to cut so I kind of winged it. My measurement was pretty close and with a little sanding it was acceptable. I will have to use some wood filler later on though to close the gaps.

I forgot to mention but this is the first time I have ever worked with wood before so this is all 100% new to me. I got tired and called it a day early because I had a tough day at work. I do manual labor so sometimes I get some exhausted. Thats why I am in college though because I don't plan on doing manual labor my entire life.

I enlisted my brother for help in the project so thats the other person you see in the picture. The neighbor also came over to see what I am doing. The more I work on the project the more people that drive by and stop to look.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #3 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:15:06 pm »

Day 4:
Day 4 was another goof off day and I didn't get a whole lot done. I worked on the control panel a little bit. I made a lot of bad cuts that had to be sanded. Also here is another picture of the back panel that I mentioned in my last post.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #4 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:24:14 pm »

Day 5:
I had a lot more energy on day 5 and got a lot done. I did the whole back side of the cabinet as well as de-constructed my florescent light fixture and mounted it. I also cut a slot for the marquee to slide in from the top of the machine. I learned something strange about my light and my garage. It turns out this particular light needs a ground to work. Otherwise you can wave your hands near the light and it turns on magically! It was difficult troubleshooting this problem due to the fact that it was not my error that was causing this problem. As it turns out the crack head who put the outlets in the garage NEVER GROUNDED ANYTHING! This house is fairly old and not all outlets have a ground but what really frustrates me is these outlets were ghetto rigged to another outlet inside the house which has a ground but it was never connected.

I also constructed the control panel after finding the second hinge that I had lost a couple days ago and temporarily put it inside the machine to see how it looks...and to make sure I got my measurements right.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #5 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:30:13 pm »

Day 6:
I finished the front panels and did some planned on how I will do my control panel layout. I cut a hole for the switch in the back and mounted the switch. I was really wanting to see how things would look so I printed out a random marquee I found on google and stuck it on two piece of plexiglass I had laying around. This was also a test to see if the marquee would be lighted evenly. I also cut out a piece of cardboard for the best game ever.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #6 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:48:15 pm »

Day 7:
I didnt get much done but I did cut some holes for the fans. I also invented a very stupid trick. I had cut a board about 3 inches too long so I asked my brother to hold the circular saw upside down while I cut the 3 inches off, I named it the skill saw trick. Luckily there will be no more skill saw trick performances and we all still have our fingers. It doesnt get any stupider then that!

I was also having problems with the cabinet being front heavy while the control panel was attached so I put a cat sand tub on the back to keep the thing from tipping over.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #7 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:50:39 pm »

Day 8:
I started running out of things I could do due to the lack of parts. I got my coin door from ebay for $16 and decided to mount it.
My brother also did some sanding on the control panel to make the front end of it smoother since I cant seem to cut a straight line.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #8 on:** June 06, 2009, 09:01:31 pm »

Day 9:
Day 9 was a productive day. I used my cars old 4x6 speakers and the speaker grills for my new phoenix gold speakers and mounted them. I also took a dell computer case, cut it down, and mounted it. In the picture you can see I was wearing safety goggles, because after all...safety first when it comes to power tools!

The original plan was to use my old computer motherboard but for some reason it refused to boot. I grabbed another motherboard and it did the same thing! I did a lot of trouble shooting and it seems some how both motherboards died at the same time. I used two completely different sets of hardware... I guess I just have bad luck.

I also forgot to mention a few things. To deal with the front heavyness of the cabinet I put a 23" long 4" thick solid steel bar in the little foot of the cabinet. That thing probably weights 60 pounds. This also causes my casters to buckle under the weight. I bought some replacement casters from home depo for $4 a piece, the wheel and swivel part are both made out of steel. Now I can move the cabinet with the push of a finger.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #9 on:** June 06, 2009, 09:17:51 pm »

Day 10:
Well this is sort of day 10. I havnt worked on the project in a while and no pictures were taken on day 10 so these pictures were just taken recently. I mounted the dell computer, connected the coin door lights to the computers power supply, mounted a motherboard power switch. I had one problem with the dell, the cpu fan was VERY loud!!! It was so loud you could hear it inside the house. It turned out that the heat sinks pipe had a leak and wasnt transfering heat which was causing the CPU to overheat. I replaced the heatsink and things got a lot quieter. I also hung a temporary monitor so I could work on the computers software for a bit. I dont want to put the monitor supports in the cabinet until I get the actual monitor and I can get my measurements. I also have some temporary speakers here because I was using a butchered dell speaker amp for the speakers and I burnt it up. I guess the car speakers have less impedence and it caused the tiny dell amp to over heat...the thing was getting very hot afterall. So I ordered a cheap chinese motorcycle amp. My speakers are 15 watts RMS each and this amp claims to be 360 watts which is completely obsurd! I have a 360 RMS watt amp in my car and its a lot bigger and expensive. I figure the amp will be about 30 watts RMS which is plenty to power the cheap speakers I have.

Here is the amp, I havnt gotten it in the mail yet.
http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/dreamdigital008/A08-2.jpg

ivwshane · « **Reply #10 on:** June 08, 2009, 04:42:07 am »

You scared me there for a second, I thought that that was the monitor you were going to use:o

Looking good!

topher0002 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 08, 2009, 10:43:35 am »

Looking good.

That circular saw picture makes me cringe, wow. Man that belongs in the what not to do category.

Keep up the good work though.

javeryh · « **Reply #12 on:** June 08, 2009, 11:24:17 am »

Wow. That circular saw trick is the dumbest thing I've seen anyone do on these forums ever. There are a ton of other cheap and fast ways to make that cut that are 100% safe.

Your cab looks great though - just be careful!

drventure · « **Reply #13 on:** June 08, 2009, 12:19:22 pm »

Dude. A jigsaw, clamp the piece in a 30$ workmate, anything but that circular saw trick.

I don't care how awesome your cab turns out, it won't be worth a finger or two (or worse).

<\Gets down off soapbox>

Nice build so far, though.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #14 on:** June 08, 2009, 06:19:14 pm »

Yes I admitted it was stupid but oh well. I am 90% done with the cutting. However after seriously considering how games like raiden would look on a wide screen I realized I will have to get the courage to try a rotating monitor. Nothing fancy, no motors or anything like that. Just a something you can manually turn. My only worry is that it will turn out looking like crap.

drventure · « **Reply #15 on:** June 08, 2009, 06:27:57 pm »

You know. a +manually+ rotating LCD is seriously no big deal with the proper mount.

Something like this would make that part of it easy.

http://shopping.msn.com/prices/moview-lcd-flush-wall-mount-with-swivel/itemid23167683/?itemtext=itemname:moview-lcd-flush-wall-mount-with-swivel

Automating that could get a little tricky, though.

The nice thing about that mount is it's quite slim, so it wouldn't take up piles of space in your cab, and it's pretty cheap.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #16 on:** June 08, 2009, 08:00:35 pm »

Thats a really obvious way to mount the monitor. I don't know why I didn't think of that. I was thinking of a more elaborate system with casters but that makes so much more sense because I really don't need casters for a light weight LCD.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #17 on:** June 20, 2009, 09:34:50 pm »

Well I got the controls ordered and they should be here sometime next week. I finished painting the cabinet, well actually I suck at painting and had my girlfriend do 99% of the painting. I also got the sound system working and it sounds great but I need a ground loop isolator because I am getting buzizng in my speakers. I also got my t-molding in, I think the router bit I bought wasnt the size the website had it listed as because the t-molding had no staying power. To fix this I wrapped the spine in tape which made it very snug. Most of the work has been spent on the software, I am working on getting NullDC to work with hyperspin. Other then NullDC I got most of the other emulators running without a problem. I also spent some time working on a marquee, its nothing special but its custom and thats very important to me...even if I didnt create any of the graphics. I cant draw good enough to consider putting any of my artwork on my cabinet. I had to learn to use photoshop and it took me about an hour and a half to make the marquee in photoshop.

What do you all think about my marquee? Any suggestions? I am pretty satisfied with it in its current state but I plan on making a few very small adjustments later on.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #18 on:** June 20, 2009, 09:37:54 pm »

Here are some more pictures. I still have to do some touch ups on the paint job in a few areas I accidentally covered with tape. I also printed a mock marquee to make sure I got the measurements right.

Gatsu · « **Reply #19 on:** June 21, 2009, 03:43:10 pm »

thats the same amp I got in the mail the other day.

Lemme know how its working for you.

Cabs looking good so far man. Keep it up. Like the marquee as well.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #20 on:** June 21, 2009, 03:53:06 pm »

The amp seems to work okay. My speakers are 15 watts RMS each and it powers them fine. I have the treble and bass at about 20% each, any higher and it starts distorting. I can turn the volume up to about 50% before it starts distorting which is enough to hear music from the other side of the house so that isnt a problem. Overall the sound quality is okay, it is about as good as my computers sound system but with less bass which is expected because it doesnt have a subwoofer. I dont know if its the amps fault but I had to get a ground loop isolator to get rid of noise from the computer. The amp doesnt feel sturdy at all to me so I made sure to treat it very delicately.

Gatsu · « **Reply #21 on:** June 21, 2009, 04:36:22 pm »

yeah it felt really cheap and light when I opened the package.

Im gonna give it a test run tonight and see how it works. Hopefully it can handle it....if not I'm gonna have to look into either getting one made, or heavily modifying a car amp.....which I dont wanna do.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #22 on:** June 21, 2009, 04:48:24 pm »

I read your thread and you got wall-mart brand speakers so I am pretty sure it will work. They say they are 100 watts but are more realistically 10-20 watts RMS. And if you do choose to go with a real brand amp make sure you check out mp3car.com , it is a forum dedicated to putting a computer in your car for your sound system. Your amp wont need to be modded in any way but you definitely wont be able to power it from your computer! I did the whole carpc thing so if you have any questions let me know.

Gatsu · « **Reply #23 on:** June 21, 2009, 08:09:49 pm »

actually hooked it up to the speakers and a mp3 player and its working pretty well. I might get a different model later on so I can have a sub....but for now they work well enough. So I'm happy.

Thanks for the info. I'll check that site out.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #24 on:** June 21, 2009, 10:07:55 pm »

What kind of subwoofer do you plan on using? A car subwoofer will need a more powerful amp then what you can get on ebay for $20. I have a 360 watt RMS amp which cost me $80 used on ebay but it runs at 30 amps which would be expensive to put together! The subwoofer was $50 and the box was $40. If I were you I would get a computer subwoofer which is what I would of done but my cab doesnt have room for one. It would probably be the cheapest and best overall way to go and you can keep the current sound system you have now. I hear the klipsch pro media subwoofers are good and it will probably power your speakers as well.

http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-speakers/klipsch-promedia-2-1/4507-3179_7-9807237.html?tag=mncol;psum

Gatsu · « **Reply #25 on:** June 21, 2009, 10:50:07 pm »

I was probably just gonna use a PC sub. They don't need a ton of power. But the amp I've got won't take the extra input so....I'd have to get a whole new amp.

Im not sure. I'll have to get everything hooked up and see what it lacks...or if it lacks at all. I think for now they'll be fine.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #26 on:** July 02, 2009, 09:05:59 pm »

Well I finished the control panel and got the cabinet inside the house. All that is left is to mount the monitor and make the bezel, get the art printed, and some other minor things. I got some parts to swap out on the computer to make it more powerful but I will have to install them later. I am still working on getting all the emulators to run with hyperspin but I am making progress.

jimto · « **Reply #27 on:** July 03, 2009, 05:06:56 pm »

I gotta say I really like the shape of this cab from the side.

Yvan256 · « **Reply #28 on:** July 04, 2009, 05:12:59 pm »

Really nice marquee, it's different than what we're used to see everywhere else. The "3D explosion of sprites" idea is really good.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #29 on:** July 26, 2009, 05:01:20 pm »

The project is almost done, I just need to get the artwork done and fix all the scratches I caused from installing the screen.

warjunkie · « **Reply #30 on:** July 26, 2009, 08:08:25 pm »

nice work man.

Can I ask what the purpose of the 8 button layout is for? Also nice job with the rotating monitor it looks really good.

shatteredzman · « **Reply #31 on:** July 27, 2009, 12:44:08 am »

Quote from: warjunkie on July 26, 2009, 08:08:25 pm

nice work man.

Can I ask what the purpose of the 8 button layout is for? Also nice job with the rotating monitor it looks really good.

I have emulators for the dreamcast and playstation and those systems require more buttons.

tanhauser · « **Reply #32 on:** July 27, 2009, 04:04:26 am »

Nice Cab

Can you show how the rotating monitor work?

shatteredzman · « **Reply #33 on:** July 27, 2009, 01:03:31 pm »

I dont know if I got any photos of the monitor mount being assembled... I will have to see but I doubt I have any. Since I am at work and have free time I have drawn a picture with paint to explain how I mounted it.

Here is a pretty accurate list of what I spent on the machine. I probably spent another $300 but I cant remember exactly.
pc      $400
monitor      $160
wood      $110
controls   $200
speakers +amp   $70
coin door   $30
replacement CD   $10
Casters      $15
power cable   $8
fan grills   $5
cup holders   $10
screws      $25
light      $20
brackets   $10
Hinges      $5
paint      $100
sand paper   $20
caulk      $4
glue      $5
putty      $10
zip ties   $5
t-molding   $30

total      $1252

tools
drill bit kit   $20
knives      $5
meter stick   $10
router bits   $35
tape measurer   $8
pencils and shar$4
angle      $5

total      $87

total with tools$1339

borrowed
circular saw
jig saw
router
drill


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