My bartop Arcade Build

[RustyPlumber]

hey,just thought i'd share my current build here,its a bartop arcade cabinet thats gonna be running hyperspin frontend emulator.I was doing research on this since about october,did everything from scratch with no prior woodworking experience whatsoever.Alot of late nights reading pages and pages of topics on all sorts of forums.This current build is for my big bro,its gonna be my christmas gift to him,he always get me and my family really great christmas gifts,so its time to return the favor.
We basically grew up in the arcades back in the day,so i know this would yank that childhood string inside him.Anyways,enough talking,here are some pics of what i've done so far:

here are the cutouts i did,i measured almost everything correctly,except for the back panel,which i'll get into after:



This is the back,the back plate i measured wrong,but it wasnt that big of a deal for me,cause i was gonna run a exhaust fan if it was sealed,but with that little vent ontop,the hot air will just rise and vent through there,so it worked out good on my part:



This is putting the Marquee light together.I got a bunch of old LED flashlights that someone was throwing out,and salvaged the led's themselves from it,wired it up




All wired up here,this will backlight the marquee i'm getting printed via usb power,so when the system turns on,the lights come on automatically:


got a 1 1/8 bit and drilled all necessary holes.Its amazing what you can find online these days,there's a site that already has all current arcade layouts @ 100dpi,so all you gotta do is print them,lay it on the wood,and drill it,exactly what i did,came out great,This is what i'm currently doing today,painting, i got a bunch of used arcade buttons and joysticks locally and still ordered a brand new set from ebay.The system i'm gonna be running is a amd X2 ,2gb's DDR 2,40GB hdd,19" LCD monitor (in the pic,the monitor is already mounted and covered by the newspaper for painting). All i'm really waiting on is the IPAC 2 Controller interface,that tricks the pc into thinking each input from that is actually from a keyboard:




Thats it for now,dropped my graphics out at a sign shop to get the marquee and some other images printed,i really wanted to run some T-Molding on this as well,but it made no sense investing in a wood router for just a one time use thing.I do admit,i didnt take much pics,as this thing took alot of my time to get where it is now,i'll update this thread with more pics as i go along.

[RustyPlumber]

oh,as you can see in the last pic as well,i got some dell usb powered speakers,gutted em open,and mouted them ontop infront the lights,those suckers are small but more than adequate enough for this system.

[Mez]

Looks very cool bro, if it comes out neat you might have a bidness there building the cabinets.
Cuz I would love a MAME emu.

[TriniXaeno]

Looks Epic.

I have always day dreamed of owning such a cabinet, like the X-Arcade.



But the cost is outlandish.

If you get to the point where you can build these on order, I'd definitely be interested.

[RustyPlumber]

thanks for the interest guys,but this really is my first and prototype,and it actually does have some flaws to be honest,there are parts that dont line up perfectly,but i notice it cause,well i built it.lol.i'm gonna take a few snaps of it and post it in a few,i finished the front bezel,its off,and i have a piece i've gotta put another piece of wood to try and cover it up.I've made alot of mistakes in this one,as its basically me alone to do this,my little bro helps me  sometimes,but thats with basic stuff.
If anyone is reading this who knows where i can get Lexan/plexi/acrilic pieces to buy,let me know,i wanna get a 2 pieces of 20x6 inches and 1 piece for over the control panel.I called alot of places,and they only sell entire sheets,which are $550 or so.At that price,it really doesnt suit my budget currently,but if i have to bite the bullet and buy it,i will.

[Arcmanov]

Wow...great project.  I tip my hat to you, sir. 

If your brother is around my age...he might just tear up when you present him with the finished product.
If not, I shall shed a single, manly tear on his behalf for such a truly great gesture. 

GG.

[RustyPlumber]

^thanks alot arc

not really happy with the way the front bezel came out,i'll have to do some alterations to it.This is a pic of what the final product may look like minus the adhesive vinyl i ordered for it,as well as the new joysticks and buttons,these ones that are in right now are used,but in good condition,as i got them on a deal here locally:



Inside,didnt mount the pc or anything of the sort in it yet,just the monitor.Alot of Corner brackets,when its all done,i'll buy some gorilla glue,take her apart one last time,and glue it all together and mount it back up



this pretty neat ceramic knob i picked up from SWS hardware to open the back of the cab,compliements it nicely:

[RustyPlumber]

hey ppl,just a small update,still didnt get my marquee printed yet,have to call the sign shop and see whats the keepback.I found some old photo paper yesterday and got a bit creative,came out alot better than i expected to be honest.Still hunting for a piece of plexi/lexan sheet,20x6 inches.


Sorry for the poor quality in some of the pics,i really had to take of flash
some basic printouts,quality came out really good for a normal deskjet printer.Selected photo paper and best quality in the options before print,and really wasnt expecting anything like this.


Same as this side


This ontop the cab itself,binky or whatever the blue one is named from pacman along with simpsons and metal slug


Proud of this one,depicts dk hanging from the handle you have to pull open to get inside the cab


Ryu on the bottom left of screen bezel.

[RustyPlumber]

ran into some problems today with the LED light,had to scrap them all apart and re-solder them.then after i did all that,ran perfect for about a hour or so.I shut down the pc,and powered it back on and one of them isnt coming on now,fml.Good think i have a shiet load of extra.All decals and artwork installed including marquee,will take some pics tomorrow.All i'm awaiting now is my new set of joysticks and buttons as well as the Control Chip for them

[Berzerk]

Very Impressive work. Can't wait to see the final product.

[RustyPlumber]

Ok,small update i forgot to mention in my previous post,over the weekend. My girlfriend and I improvised on the T-molding,for those of you who don't know what that is,it's basically a plastic strip that runs on the edges of the cab and hides the rough spot,and looks hella great while doing so i must mention.Props to her for taking her time and taping off the entire cabinet,as impatient me decided to spray the edges with neon Green.Overspray got on some of the stickers.
She also printed out some new artwork and sat down and cut them out perfectly.I got the artwork and would you believe it,found a piece of pexi i had which worked perfectly.I may have to remove the holders for the marquee and polish them up a bit,but for thus far,i'm still in shock with how great this thing looks.I'm currently waiting on Aeropost to ship me my new arcade buttons with joystick and as well as the Control chip for them.It hit my skybox yesterday,so fingers crossed i get them before christmas. Enough talk,here's what you guys want- PICS!

Like i said,extremely proud of the appearance


A front/side shot


The original Plumbers sticker. Removed the internals of a arcade button and snaked the power chord through it

The other side shot, really happy with the artwork this time round


Top shot,marquee lights need to be run through yet again


Power button,combined a red internal with a blue external button for this,as it is unique


Removed some sideart from this side as well,which got overspray,and put some new ones

[RustyPlumber]

Oh,internals are suppose to be:

AMD Dual core cpu
1 or 2GB's DDR 2 or 3 ram
40gb ide hard drive (already got this)
Generic PSU (got this already as well)

I currently have a old school AMD 1.6ghz single core processor with a board in it,gotta get a dual core,because hyperspin is VERY demanding. If any of you guys got any mobo/cpu dual core combo lying around that you may wanna sell,hit me up a pm.

[RustyPlumber]

ok,got the dual core system,hyperspin runs perfectly,still awaiting my arcade buttons and joystick along with the I-PAC control panel interface. Gonna add a few more emulators and stuff to it when i get a chance,i currently have:
Mame (all the popular games with proper themes)
NES (all the games we grew up on basically,along with a few new ones)
SNES (Same as above)
Gameboy (same as above)


Currently wanna add Zinc,Gensis and a decent pc emulator for Megaman X Streetfighter.That game is so badass,you guys should check it out if you didnt already:

http://www.capcom-unity.com/mega_man

[RustyPlumber]

ok,she's finally done,i'll take pics of the internals and stuff for you guys to take a peak,i still gotta work out some bugs with hyperspin and certain keys,but all in all,i'm extremely happy of this build.The new joysticks and buttons i ordered dont feel as good as the proper arcade ones i got locally used,for my next build,i'll use the proper arcade ones,as their more stiff and feel like they could take some trashing more than these that i got.

[RustyPlumber]

OK folks,last set of pics,finally completed,worked out some minor bugs in hyperspin.All emulators and roms work perfectly.Joystick and buttons were a snap to setup with this IPAC 2 Interface controller.Very proud and happy the way this build turned out.I know there are some stuff that i could have done to make it a little better,but i'll be doing that in my next build,which is gonna be for myself.
Gonna get started on that in early jan of next year,should be complete within a month or so.I dont like the joysicks on this setup,as i mentioned earlier,i have some used Competition joystick with Zippy microswitches as well as Cherry Microswitches,those sticks feel more sturdy and gives the perfect arcade feel,as its from standup cabinets
Will be updating this thread or posting another when i start my other build.

Messy internals,did some neatening up since this pic


Joystick and keyboard wiring.This took me some time


Brand New Joysticks and buttons as well as microswitches


She's all done,just waiting to hand over now


Top shot with the power button located to the right


When the system boots,you see this screen for about 10 seconds,then it boots into Hyperspin.You dont ever see windows,or icons or anything,but you can just hook up a keyboard and ALT+F4 hyperspin to open up explorer if you wanna do some tweaks on any game or roms

[Arcmanov]

I tell you...OUTSTANDING job, good sir.   

I have an old Intel socket 775 mATX board with a working Pentium 4 945 CPU and DDR-RAM.
Would that be adequate to build something like this?

If so, I feel I will commission you to make something so for me yes.  It would make for a SWEET donation item.

[RustyPlumber]

[TriniXaeno]

Absolutely brilliant.

+10 to you sir.

Like Arc, I would love to commission one of these as well. In black.

Looks like such a labour of love.

What would the costs be?

[RustyPlumber]

honestly,it can run roughly between 4k to 5k.Seems like alot,but every little part add's up,you'd be surprised how quick your bill can jump.Got alot of the stuff i needed from Bhagwansinghs/Dansteel.
 It looks simple enough,but took alot of time.Currently cloning the measurements from this one for another build right now,gonna build one for myself with better sticks and buttons.

Let me see if i can break it down for you guys :

Wood-$200
Labour to cut wood-$300
1 bottle Evo-Stik Glue to seal edges on MDF-$140
Gorilla Glue - $350ish (large bottle)
AMD 270 3.4Ghz X2 + Board + 4GB DDR3 = $930
Seagate 500GB SATA - $600
Omega 650W PSU- $110
19" AOC LCD-$630
Paint,Supplies,misc and roller - $300
Corner brackets - $80
1 Pack photo Paper to do Sticker prints- $100
Marquee Printout- $100
20x6 Plexi - (dont know,but i had a piece good enough,you cannot get pieces to buy,so you gotta buy a whole sheet and cut from it,which runs @ $640 for a 5'x8' or so)
Dell USB speakers to be gutted for sound-$100
IPAC 2-$309
HAPP Competition Joystick with buttons- $290
Cost to clear both above items- $180
100 Pack Quick connects for buttons and joysticks- $55
Wiring for joysticks and buttons -$100
1 1/8 Spade bit for drilling button and joystick holes-$50


Rough estimate around $4900,minus the plexi sheet and you didnt even start to talk about labor to put this thing together yet.It obviously didnt cost me this much,i paid like half this or probably less than,cause i had alot of spare parts and stuff lying around.I also know i left out some stuff,but i'll edit as i go.

[RustyPlumber]

gonna start building my cab tomorrow.Picked up wood today,not going with 3/4" as they didnt have any in stock,but i opted for 5/8" which is 1/4" thinner basically.No downsides to that,as the first one was suppose to be 5/8's anyways.I'll try and take more pics and give more details as to anyone who may want to try this themselves.