Homemade Arcade Cabinet by Crusso on September 23, 2010
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Home Sign Up! Browse Community Submit All Art Craft Food Games Green Home Kids Life Music Offbeat Outdoors Pets Photo Ride Science Tech Homemade Arcade Cabinet by crusso on September 23, 2010 Table of Contents Homemade Arcade Cabinet . 1 Intro: Homemade Arcade Cabinet . 2 Step 1: Cabinet construction . 2 Step 2: Control panel . 6 Step 3: Keyboard drawer . 7 Step 4: Keyboard hack . 9 Step 5: Speakers . 12 Step 6: Video . 12 Step 7: Painting . 15 Step 8: Bezel . 19 Step 9: Backlight . 21 Step 10: Marquee . 23 Step 11: Coin door . 24 Step 12: Computer . 25 Step 13: Frontend . 26 Step 14: Artwork . 27 Related Instructables . 27 Comments . 28 http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ Intro: Homemade Arcade Cabinet Welcome! this is my first attempt to create a MAME arcade cabinet from scratch. I built this thing some years ago and just decided to upload it to instructables.com I tried to take as many pictures I could to show the step-by-step creation process. This project has many interesting topics in which I worked: woodworking, design, electronics, painting, programming. If you like this project please comment! Step 1: Cabinet construction I think a good blueprint is a must as a good starting point for this project. I wish I could created a 3d design but I only know a little bit about 3d tools. If you take this approach a good -and free- software to play with is Sketchup from Google. I chose the way of hand drawing designs. Since I wanted to build an old-fashioned cabinet I looked up to the Taito cabinets designs (Alpine Ski or Jungle King for example) Since I couldn't find any full sized blueprint of the cabinet I liked to build, I had to create it by my own. First of all, I got a small picture of the side view of an "alpine ski" and printed it out in a deskjet printer. After slicing the silhouette of the side view I took a small piece of squared paper and draw the design there. The next part was easy. All I had to know was one of the measures of the real cabinet (for instance, the length from the floor to the control panel) and apply a simple rule to calculate the other values. I got one of the measures from a cabinet installed at a restaurant. The height from floor to control panel was 92cm. The height from the floor to control panel in the small picture was 5cm With this data I calculated the depth of the machine, by measuring the depth of the small picture (which was 6cm) and applying the formula that gives the measure of the real depth: real cabinet side depth = 6 * 92 / 5 = 110cm I got all the measures of the side view with this method and created a blueprint of the cabinet sides as the construction starting point. Based on the blueprints I started the process cutting the MDF sheets for both sides of the cabinet. Every cut was made with the circular saw except the curved cut of the upper sides. I didn't have any tool to make that kind of cut so I had to build it by my own. I did this by using a saw blade fixing one end as an axis and attaching the jigsaw to the other end. This kind of cut must be performed with a lot of care and in very slow motion because the jigsaw blade can easily get twisted. After both sides were ready I sanded the borders to get a smooth surface. Next, I created the inner frame. This part is the reference to build the rest of the cabinet because the control panel will be positioned just over this frame. http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ The distance between both cabinet sides is 66cm. I got this measurement from the control panel prototype created before. Although the cabinet can be narrower I this measure is very comfortable for two players with six buttons each. After fixing both sides to the frame, I started with the control panel construction, as you can see in the next step. Image Notes 1. Distance from floor to control panel is 92cm 2. Control panel width is 66cm http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ Step 2: Control panel I think this is one of the most important part of the cabinet. The control panel must be strong enough to get the hits of the most anxious players. I tried to build a solid base with a 18mm MDF but any other kind of wood could be used. I placed this support over the frame attaching it with two metalic guides on each end. (then I fixed the guides to the cabinet sides with screws). After deciding the tilt angle of the control panel top I built the wood box. Two 18mm MDF were used to support the control panel top just to avoid any kind of bending After the box construction I estimated the joystics and buttons place. Each player has six buttons and that is enough for most games. An additional button was placed in the upper left corner of the control panel to serve as quit function. Other button emulates the "insert coin" and two other are placed in the control box for player 1 and 2 start. I cut both joysticks and buttons holes with a hole saw. Finally I placed the joysticks and buttons to test the layout. There is a 2mm gap between buttons. This distance should be the shortest you can to create a comfortable layout for the fingers. (after some tests I realized that 1mm is much better, but it was too late) This is the component list of the control panel: 2 Red buttons 2 Yellow buttons 2 Violet buttons 2 White buttons 2 Green buttons 2 Cyan buttons 2 Black buttons 1 1 player start button 1 2 player start button 2 Balltop joysticks I bought the buttons at happcontrols. The joysticks were bought from a local provider. Image Notes 1. Quit button 2. Insert coin button http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ Step 3: Keyboard drawer My first attempt in the keyboard drawer building was very disappointing because of the low quality rails I chose. The rail wheels broke after a while so I decided to discard it and bought another one. I placed the drawer rails just under the control panel base. http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ Step 4: Keyboard hack I had half way done with the keyboard hack because six months before the starting of this project I built a control panel prototype just to know if it would work. I got an old PS keyboard and removed the printed circuit board (PCB). Then I soldered a wire to each pin of the PCB (if I had to do it again, I would use a ribbon cable instead). With the maylar and the keyboard layout I was able to determine the definition of each key. I needed to handle 24 keys: 4 keys for player 1 joystick 4 keys for player 2 joystick 6 keys for player 1 buttons 6 keys for player 2 buttons 1 key for escape button 1 key for insert coin button 1 key for one player start 1 key for two player start Most games will work OK with this setup. One of the most difficult things with the keys selection was to avoid the "ghosting" and "blocking" got in some cases: What this means: Ghosting: when you press 2 keys you got a third Blocking: pressing certain keys combinations they blocks others I created a reference sheet as a helper to choose the right keys as you can see in the picture. http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Arcade-Cabinet/ Step 5: Speakers This was the cheapest solution I found for the speakers system. After some weeks of research and with a small budget remaining I decided to keep this part of the project in the "cheap" highway. The sound produced by this little amplifier is OK because of the "boxed" cabinet style. I usually play with half volume and it sounds very well. The speaker system is the easiest part to change in the cabinet, so they can be easily replaced anytime with any other set up. Step 6: Video This was a little difficult because I didn't have the monitor at the time I created the blueprints. So the main problem was to get a TV that fits in the cabinet! The old days cabinets usually had a 20" monitor. I discarded both pc monitor and arcade monitor for this project. The arcade monitor requires special hardware and knowledge to interface it with the computer. And a PC monitor would look too "perfect" for an old-fashioned arcade cabinet. I chose a TV as the display hardware for my cabinet: Relatively cheap, and "plug and play" since with the RCA input there is no need of electronics addins to convert the input signals. After two months of research I could find a suitable Fairmate 20" TV that fits very well in the cabinet. Since I didn't have the TV when the blueprints were created, I took all the measures based on my own TV.