Well, as most of you know from my older posts, I'm building an arcade game. Here are the older threads:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=108729
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=116272

Well, progress has been slow, as I have to borrow some of the tools I need from my parents who live an hour away. The problem is that they keep having to borrow them back.

I'm waiting to get the plainer back so I can shave down the front door, because I found that it fits to tight with the t-molding in place.

Since the last update, I have added an exhaust fan, the marquee light, and some speakers. Here are some pics:

On the back/top I added a fan to help remove the heat that the monitor will be giving off:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/goblincat/Arcade/a4.jpg

Here is a shot from the front. You can see the light is mounted at this point:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/goblincat/Arcade/a3.jpg

Here is a close-up:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/goblincat/Arcade/a1.jpg

Finally, the speakers being mounted into place and grill covers being added:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/goblincat/Arcade/a2.jpg

You can also see the grove I routered into the edges for the t-molding in the above pics.

I thought I took a pic with the speaker board mounted into place, but it looks like I didn't. Maybe next update. I hope to get that door fixed so that I can paint it soon. I also hope to start the control panel in the near future.

To those of you I sent the plans to... Any progress or plans to start soon?

The rig is looking good. What are you going to use for a monitor? Also, is this going to be "mame" only or, were you planning on adding a playstation or nintendo unit as well? Keep us updated.

I've got a 21" monitor to drop into it. It will be a MAME/DVD player/MP3 Jukebox/Cable modem internet/current 3-D game player, with emulators for Atari 2600, Intellevision, NES, N64, and C64. Pretty much an all around entertainment unit. It will also have an ethernet connection to all of the other computers in my house, so I can transfer anything to it.

I am gonna' be so insanely jealous.

Man, that is one hell of a professional looking job. I wish I had the time to do something like that. Are you going to put a marquee on it?

Heh looks like fun what you're doing. I'm curious, what did you use to design the shape of the cabinet? I just picked up my own cabinet today from a friends house who had been storing it for me since they found a cool place that had them for cheap.

We were lucky to find Japanese cabinets for a great price, plus the monitors are really good so they work even with Model 2 and Model 3 games which don't work on most arcade monitors. Plus you can rotate the screen for vertical games. God I love my cabinet =) I just need to buy some stools now. Mine is on the far right.

Currently I'm working on converting it so that I can put any game system in it and hopefully someone will finish converting Mame to X-Box so I don't have to get a PC for it. Heh at least I can run mame on my PlayStation 2 =)



(Edit: Found the other picture of my cabinet that I was looking for)

WHERE????????? In the Bay Area????????? Please lemme know

It was a place in LA. They often ebay some cabinets too that go for about the same price in the auctions as what they sold them to us for. So I had two friends down there who got I think a total of four of them. They stored mine until I just drove down there to pick it up since he was planning on moving soon. I don't think Japanese cabinets are very popular on Ebay compared to domestic ones. Anyways I just checked on ebay, and here are some urls:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1167782935

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1169777125

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1168409522

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1169217772

The first link is the exact cabinet I got.

That, sir, is magnificent.

Thanks, and yes, there will be a marquee. I found a nice MAME one on the net that I will print out with the high detail printer we have here at work. Then I will sandwich it between some plexiglass and mount it. Should look great.

I found some plans on the internet. There are lots of people making these things, so there are lots of plans floating around.

Your cabinet looks nice. Should be a great conversion. Don't forget to let us see it when it's done.

I found authentic arcade style stools at www.happcontrols.com
Just do a search for "stool"

For some reason, it came up with a picture of the Red Wings. Coincidence? I think not

I agree, but only because I don't like hockey.

Thanks. Heh seeing the conversion probably won't look any different since it's mostly going to be cable connection modifications. =) I'll show pics anyways of how I modded the cables though to adapt RGB cables and modified controllers.

Also thanks for the tip on the stool, but unfortunately the one you suggested won't work. See, the difference between Japanese and US cabinets is that Japanese cabinets are smaller and are designed so that you have to sit down to play instead of stand up like in the US. So those stools are too tall. I don't think my cabinet is taller than 5 feet. Might be a little bit, but it's shorter than me.