Arcade Cabinet - Summary

Arcade Cabinet - Project Summary & Tips

The cabinet you are viewing was built from scratch by Paul Cowan between September 2003 and March 2004, mostly during Sunday afternoon and Monday night football games. It was a lot of hard work and fun, and a great learning experience!

Cabinet based on plans from MameRoom.com
I made a number of tweaks and improvements to the MameRoom.com plans, see comments below.
Control panel was of my own design, see below also...
TV is a 27" Panasonic CT-27L8.
Tip: It's getting really tough to find a reasonably priced TV that has an S-Video input and doesn't have big stereo speakers on the sides! Look for a TV with the least width you can find. This one was just shy of 26 inches wide, so I based the plans on 26 inches. It's a really snug fit but once you get the TV in, it works great and it's not too wide overall.
The speakers are Creative Labs Inspire 4.1, which I got off eBay for a great price.
Tip: The design of these speakers are perfect! I simply cut a square hole and fitted them in. The lip around the speaker grill prevents it from going in too far. Too bad they stopped making them; check on eBay though.
Computer is a custom built, thrown togeather AMD Athlon XP 2600 with 512 megs of ram and 40 gig hard drive. It has a Geforce 4 MX 440 video card with S-Video out.
Tip: Make sure to get a TV that accepts S-Video in and a video card that can do S-Video out. It makes the TV hookup really easy.
The coin door lights are powered by an old 12V AC/DC adapter from a walkman or something.
Tip: Instead of chopping up a power line for a floppy drive, just find a 12 volt power adapter from an old walkman, video camera, or some kind of electrical appliance. Cut off the end and wire the lines to the lights. The lights actually are supposed to get 14V, so they're a little dim, but nobody will notice.
Power to the lights and speakers are controlled by the Smart Strip. The TV is the master, so when I hit power on the remote, the TV comes on immediately, then the lights and speakers power up a few seconds later. I could do the same with the computer but I leave it running all the time because it's a web server also.
Marquee is a collage of lots of small marquees I ordered from ClassicArcadeGrafix.com. It's printed on plastic, not paper; the idea being plastic yields brighter colors and doesn't fade... They probably do a nice job on single marquees, but I'm not very pleased with this one actually. The colors are all washed out and dull, and most of the games I've never heard of!
The control panel overlay is just a piece of lexan that I spray painted the back black. It makes a nice really shiny surface that doesn't scratch.
Tip: I tried a few different types of black spray paint. The Rustoleum in the silver can definitely worked with best. I also used it to paint the tops of the bolts black, and it worked great there too. Seems like a very thick, heavy spray paint that gives good coverage.

Comments on the MameRoom.com Plans:

The plans call for 5/8" MDF or particleboard. I could not find 5/8" MDF anywhere! Eventually I found 5/8" particle board at Lowes, but 5/8" MDF doesn't seem to exist in the Philadelphia area.
The countertop laminate really makes it look nice, but it's very expensive and hard to install if you don't know what you are doing. I ruined quite a bit of it before I got the hang of just how much glue to apply and how long to wait before joining the pieces. I recommend just using some adhesive cabinet paper instead.
I don't really like the keyboard drawer in the plans; it's too small and doesn't slide out far enough... After building it, I threw it out and designed my own. I added an extra 12 inches in depth to the drawer, used special long-extend keyboard drawer rails, and put the front vertical face on a hinge. So now when it slides out, the front rotates down and give you a nice level surface to type on.
Don't buy 3/4" t-molding. Buy 5/8" instead! Especially if you don't plan to use countertop laminate! The 3/4" is too wide and it hangs over the edges. I ended up running a razor blade around all the edges to trim off all the excess.
The plans call for you to attach the large top sides to the base with screws. I used bolts painted black instead. That way it's possible, though not easy, to disassemble the top from the bottom of the cabinet if it needs to be moved.
I didn't like the idea of installing the TV and then permanently attaching the front Plexiglas so you couldn't remove the TV without unscrewing stuff. Instead, I left the TV out until the end, and installed the back panel on a piano hinge. It's secured with a couple of hooks. This way I can open up the back and slide out the TV, without disturbing the front Plexiglas.
I purchased the control panel plans, but ended up not using them! The multisided shape is just way to hard to construct for a beginner. After much frustration, I threw the plans out and made the simpler panel you see. I think it turned out better actually!
If you do make the MameRoom control panel, at least install the top on a hinge so you can get to your wiring and buttons like I did.