My Arcade Cabinet build

[oomjan]

Stunning - how long did it take you

An hour or two in the evenings and weekends. Just over 2 months in total

 

[oomjan]

Awesome. Takes me back to when I built mine a few years ago.

What interface are you using?

Using mGalaxy, very easy to set up

http://www.mgalaxy.com/

 

[Necropolis]

That's some awesome work there - well done

 

[oomjan]

No coin slot? How you going to make any money with this?

Who wants to make money

I struggled finding a coinslot locally. I also didn't want to spend any more on it, and it would only have been for aesthetics.
Will maybe order one of these later on
http://shop.xgaming.com/collections/arcade-parts/products/arcade-coin-door-with-coin-mech-ships

 

[MrBuddha]

Cool beans oomjan!

Busy planning a desktop arcade cabinet for myself.

 

[oomjan]

Cool beans oomjan!

Busy planning a desktop arcade cabinet for myself.

I've got a Kade Interface board lying around if your interested
http://kadevice.com/kade-miniarcade/

I ended up getting an Ipac2 as I ran out of pins on the Kade.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Personally I prefer Retroarch, but usually I do "proper" jamma consoles.
I usually do embedded builds, or dedicated hardware myself though vs windows.


I can supply usb -> joystick/button controllers, and buttons/sticks if anyone wants (in Cape Town), as I have stock locally.

 

[MrBuddha]

I've got a Kade Interface board lying around if your interested
http://kadevice.com/kade-miniarcade/

I ended up getting an Ipac2 as I ran out of pins on the Kade.

Thanks, but I already bought and received my Ipac2 last week

What is your opinion about buying an old second hand arcade cabinet, and modifying it?

 

[itareanlnotani]

Thanks, but I already bought and received my Ipac2 last week

What is your opinion about buying an old second hand arcade cabinet, and modifying it?

Always a good idea, especially if the cabinet is in decent condition. Not a lot are though.
Redoing the control panel probably a good idea, and using an LCD + scan line tool is an idea.

eg SLG3000, or the cheaper resistor + vga method.

 

[dzeeman]

Fantastic!
Never got around building mine. Got all the games and was last stuck on finding an affordable light gun to no avail and I left the project there.
Time Crisis and House of the Dead should be a must in my cabinet.

 

[BobsLawnService]

Awesome build.

 

[oomjan]

Thanks, but I already bought and received my Ipac2 last week

What is your opinion about buying an old second hand arcade cabinet, and modifying it?

I considered picking up an old cab, but struggled finding one in good condition. Also the old cabs are huge and heavy! The wood for my build was dirt cheap. I have never done any woodworking in my life before, except a short stint in St6. So I just borrowed a jigsaw and router from a friend and built it myself.

Edit: Scott Hanselman has a nice blog post on his build using a second hand cabinet.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BuildingYourOwnArcadeCabinetForGeeksPart1TheCabinet.aspx

 

[ponder]

The wood for my build was dirt cheap, and I have never done any woodworking in my life, except a short stint in St6. So I just borrowed a jigsaw and router from a friend and built it myself.

You don't even need those tools, many places will cut all the pieces for you if you give them cad drawings. For those that fear power tools

 

[biometrics]

You don't even need those tools, many places will cut all the pieces for you if you give them cad drawings. For those that fear power tools

Ah, nice tip.

 

[oomjan]

You don't even need those tools, many places will cut all the pieces for you if you give them cad drawings. For those that fear power tools

Exactly! I had the sides of the cabinet done on a cnc router from a cad drawing. The one thing I wished I did was having the control panel laser cut from cad, especially the plexiglass, which was a b*tch to work with.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Drill press for doing control panels makes it easy.

Some of my own builds are up on flickr.com/sheedl under albums / arcade
I think I've made > 30 machines

 

[ponder]

...especially the plexiglass, which was a b*tch to work with.

Yeah perspex is a biatch to cut.

 

[MrBuddha]

I have never done any woodworking in my life before, except a short stint in St6. So I just borrowed a jigsaw and router from a friend and built it myself.

Well, that gives me some hope!

Ok, so for those of us who don't have CAD, what alternative can we use?

 

[herbertk]

Great build! I have seen some option to use a Rasberry PI ? Anyone tried this before ?

 

[ponder]

Well, that gives me some hope!

Ok, so for those of us who don't have CAD, what alternative can we use?

There are many free cad packages out there, sketchup is one for example.