ArcadeCab

11/4/2011

Ben J's arcade
I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again... I love the look of stained cabinets!  Done well, they look gorgeous and Ben did a great job. 

From his email:

"Just writing to let you know I finished my arcade cabinet, using your plans, and had fun doing it! I've got 2 players, trackball, pinball, lightguns, and an old Logitec force-feedback steering wheel, and I'm set! Thank you so much for the website and detailed explanations.

One thing I did differently that I wanted to note, was instead of building my control panel as you described, I actually bought a drawer box from Rockler, sized to fit. Of course, the drawer box wasn't tilted down towards the player, so to compensate for that I tilted the wings on the sides of the cabinet down by an inch to make up for it. I drilled a half-inch hole in the back of the drawer box for the USB cord to come out of, then used a USB hub resting inside the drawer box to plug everything in so that only a single USB cable comes off the control panel down to the computer. The result is that by removing eight screws, the entire control panel comes OFF the cabinet and could, potentially, be plugged into any computer in the home as a modular arcade control system! Slick! I've been able to use it sitting in front of the TV on an easy chair, which is kinda fun, and I have the pride of having built it myself instead of just buying a tank-stick.

I went for furniture-grade elegance so it would fit in a well decorated rec-room setup, and stained it all with China Red stain from Menard's."

There are two more pictures of Ben's work on the Visitor Page.

 

9/20/2011

Mark K's cabinet
The first thing that struck me about this cabinet is the monitor.  Mark constructed his cabinet with a 22" CRT that he rotated in order to better play the "true classics" (Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, etc).   He says that "about 75% of my games are in portrait.  I am running about 70 games I have played or remember playing as a kid.  I was also introduced to some of these when I had my Commodore 64.  I am running these as well."

The Visitor Page has a few more shots as well.

 

 

 

 







8/15/2011

Jason T's "Blue Meanie"
Jason T built this beauty from the second set of plans. It invoked a sense of deja vu (in a good way) when I first saw the pictures, as he used the side art my brother-in-law Scott so graciously shared out.  Jason got the artwork printed on 4mil vinyl by a local company. The little Pacman is the knob to open the keyboard drawer. TV and computer are set to turn on when power come on, and he has a nifty shutdown batch job launched from a Shift-button (on his mini-PAC) to power it all down gracefully. Jason is using Maximus Arcade as the front-end for MAME right now, with more emulators coming soon.   Nice work.

The Visitor Page has a few progress photos in addition to a couple more completed shots.

 

 

 







5/5/2011

Jolly-Ox's Multicade
Jolly-Ox sent me this email:

"As a kid arcades were a part of everyday life. The MAME community has done so much to restore the experience. For this cabinet I used a 19" CRT held to a shelf with plumbers strapping and 1/4" X8" carriage bolts; then installed a subwoofer in the cabinet, satellite speakers were placed behind the marquee. I used 3/4" Birch Plywood and no edge molding. The 3/8" round-over router bit was used to shape the edges rather than T-molding. Sherwin Williams oil enamel primer was tinted to a grey and applied with a foam roller; finally I applied 2 coats of the same brand Black Enamel. The art was obtained from Ebay.

For the control panel I used 2 Ultimark360 sticks with heavy springs and the convex straight type buttons, and a HAPPS 4-way Pac-Galaga stick hooked to a iPac. Black laminate was applied with contact cement, edge trimmed with flush bearing bit in router and T-molding slot cut with slot cutter. (Harbor Freight has cheap, clamps, router bits). ."

I always have liked laminated control panel. 




4/5/2011

Keven L's "War Machine"
Keven took the time to send me the pictures of his first creation, an absolutely amazing cabinet he named "War Machine".  Love the name.  From his email:

"I did all of the artwork with pictures from the Internet. I spent a lot of time choosing good pictures of my favorite arcade games. I put an 26" Lcd tv in it. The controller is 4-player (the cabinet's namesake adorns the control panel), and there are two guns hidden in the drawer. I use Hyperspin as a front loader with theme and video for most of the games. There are all of Mame, Nintendo, Super Nintendo and Genesis games + House of the Dead 1-2-3, and dragon's lair 1-2. Computer speakers with sub, smart strip power bar that power and shut down everything when the computer does. The pushbuttons are placed as a hand for more natural feel and connected to a Ipac4. The start button for each player has a light bulb in it. there a volume control in the drawer too. the computer is right behind the coin door for access by opening the coin door."

Very, very nice work.  There are two additional pictures to be found on the Visitor Page.  

 

 

Jamie W's cabinet
Jamie is running Maximum Arcade  on his cabinet, with a "ton of old console systems" installed in addition to, of course, MAME.  It "makes him feel like a kid again.  It was a job but also a labor or love."  He has some materials left over so when he decides to take a break from playing it he might give the BarTop a try.  Well done!

The Visitor Page has two more pictures.