Coming soon: The worlds first F.G. arcade machine build!!

[pepatrick]

Thats pretty cool. Those were the good ole days. Galaga, Galaxian, Pac Man and the variations of it. Tron, Astroids, Afterburner, Donkey Kong...Tempest..oh yeah...those were the good old days...

[~SnApRoLl]

	Quote: Originally Posted by pepatrick
	Thats pretty cool. Those were the good ole days. Galaga, Galaxian, Pac Man and the variations of it. Tron, Astroids, Afterburner, Donkey Kong...Tempest..oh yeah...those were the good old days...

Yes they were!!! When I was a kid, I used to cut grass for people for a couple bucks a lawn in the Summer and in the winter time I used to shovel driveways for .50c each so I could go to the Local Arcade on Saturdays and spend my quarters. It was a great time! I will post more construction pics when I go on vacation next week.

Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

Another small update, I went to Lowes tonight and got a piece of plexiglas cut for the monitor bezel and I drilled the mounting holes already and when I have the monitor set in it's final place, I will mask off the plexiglas to the outline of the screen and spray paint the outer edges of the bezel black on the back side of the plexiglas so it will have a nice gloss shine on the outside just like a painted r/c car body. Also, my good friend received the spinner that I sent him and he is machining the spinner knob as we speak and it should be on its way back to me in a few days.

Shawn

[cliff600]

Going into "Fun-n-Games" was the only reason I liked going to the mall. I have trouble believing I am that old. I just stumbled across the thread. Looks good so far.

[pepatrick]

That old...thats funny...My problem is..I refuse to grow up. Im 43 and almost as wreckless is when I was a teen playing these video games. Ok..maybe not that bad...but still have that kids syndrome in me.

	Quote: Originally Posted by cliff600
	Going into "Fun-n-Games" was the only reason I liked going to the mall. I have trouble believing I am that old. I just stumbled across the thread. Looks good so far.

[~SnApRoLl]

	Quote: Originally Posted by pepatrick
	That old...thats funny...My problem is..I refuse to grow up. Im 43 and almost as wreckless is when I was a teen playing these video games. Ok..maybe not that bad...but still have that kids syndrome in me.

Hey pepatrick how are you?
Your not the only one infected with Kids Syndrome!! I'm 36 going on 16 LOL At least thats what my wife says!
Even though the arcade games we played as kids are old classics, they are still as much fun to play today as adults as they were way back then! Having 2 young kids, I now have even more of an excuse to be a kid!! When ever we go to Wal-Mart, the first thing my oldest son and I do is go over the video game displays and play the demo games while my wife does her grocery shopping.


Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

Ok guys here are some pictures of my progress so far.

Now mind you, I have never built anything arcade machine related and I didn't have drawn out plans other than what was in my head.
As posted earlier, the cabinet itself is an old gutted out Sega Baseball game that was missing pretty much everything except the original control panel and misc. wiring and few other misc unneeded and unusable parts. I was fortunate enough to sell those parts in an arcade forum which paid for all of the materials and controls that I needed to re-vamp the cabinet into a home arcade machine. The control panel and frame was made from 1/2" MDF and held together with course thread MDF screws and Carpenters wood glue.
Here is what I have done so far in the last few days.


Computer mount and Control Panel Frame
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________________

Most people that build their own arcade machines, mount the computer boards and other computer related items inside the cabinet on slide out boards, just like the real arcade machines did. I however was able to buy a nice computer from work dirt cheap, that was housed in whats called a rack mount server case. So I made some mounting rails inside of the cabinet using some old bunk bed rails that were going to be thrown out. I cut the rails 30 1/4" long to fit between the cabinet sides and then I bolted them to some existing rails inside of the cabinet. I then slid the computer case on top of those rails and then I cut out 2 pieces of MDF 18" long by 7" wide to serve as the control panel sides and they were glued and screwed to the cabinet sides on the inside leaving 12" to protrude out from the front edge of the cabinet sides. I then cut a piece 29 1/4" long and 7" wide to fit in between the control panel sides and set down on top of the computer case. I then drew the outline of the computer case once the computer was centered on the rails and I then cut out where I out lined the computer case and I drilled 2 pilot holes and then fastened the computer case to the mount using 2 screws and I glued the computer mount in between the control panel sides since it was a good snug fit. I then cut out another piece 29 1/4" long by 3 1/2 " wide and glued and screwed it flush in between the control panel sides to finish off the control panel frame.

Keyboard Drawer
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________________

Since all of the games will be running via P.C. and the controls interface to the keyboard, I needed a convenient place to store the keyboard for easy control programming and normal computer use. So I decided to add in a simple and easy to access Keyboard drawer.

I cut out a piece of MDF 29 1/4" long by 3 1/2 " wide for the drawer front and used a piece cut 29 1/4 long by 10" wide for the drawer bottom. I made some slider rails from some scrap MDF 8 " long that were glued and screwed to control panel sides about an inch from the bottom edge. I then slid the drawer bottom onto the rails and made 2 more sets of slider rails to go above the drawer bottom to hold the drawer in place when it was opened. I then set the drawer front in place and marked where the drawer bottom contacted the drawer front. I then drilled 3 pilot holes in the drawer front and then simply glued and screwed the drawer front into place.

The Control Panel
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

The control panel is where all of the controls, I.E. joysticks, buttons etc.. are mounted and where all of gaming action takes place. So it had to fit nice and most important, be comfortable during game play. I cut out a piece of MDF 14 5/8" long and 30 1/4" wide and set all of my controls on top of that piece and laid them out to where everything looked good and was comfortable for extended periods of game play. After making many measurements and mocked game play, I traced out all of my controls where the final mounting places ended up.

For the Joysticks, I traced around the mounting plate and marked the mounting holes and drew 2 lines going from opposite corners to make an X to come up with my center mark. After setting the joystick base over my marks, I looked down through the joystick hole with a flashlight to make sure I was on center. I then drilled the 4 mounting holes using a 1/4" bit and I used a 1 1/8" Spade bit to drill the center hole to allow plenty of movement for the joy stick.
I am using 2 joysticks for 2 player games and I did the same thing on the other side of the control panel and temporarily mounted them in place so I could line up my player buttons in a comfortable position in relation the the joysticks. After measuring and marking where the buttons would be, I simply drilled a 1 1/8 hole with the Spade bit and set the buttons in place for both sides. I am going to incorporate a Spinner dial for games like Tron and Tempest, so I also marked the position of where the spinner will be and I drilled a hole for the corresponding fire button as well. My friend still has the spinner assy. as he is machining an aluminum knob for me so I cannot drill for the spinner until I have it back although he did give me mounting dimensions. I also mounted pinball buttons on the sides as well.

Trackball
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________________

I am also using a 3" trackball like the ones used in games like Golden Tee Golf and Bowling games as well.
I got the trackball when I got the cabinet and was told that the trackball wasn't working and that it would need to be rebuilt. The way an arcade trackball works is, there are 3 roller shafts that ride on a ball bearing on each end, (much like a crank shaft in an engine) There is 1 3" acrylic ball and 1 idler shaft and 2 directional shafts for up and down and left and right cursor movement. Each directional shaft has an encoder wheel that spins in between optical sensors just like an ordinary computer ball mouse. Now back to the guy saying it needed rebuilt. When I took the trackball case apart, I found caked up dust that had built up from the many years of being in an arcade or a bar somewhere as the ball was almost the same color as the MDF, probably from nicotine build up. I cleaned out all of the dust and scrubbed the case halves and the ball with hot soapy antibacterial soap and it looked like new after wards! The roller shafts had been pitted up a bit and the bearings were sticking. I used 1000 grit wet / dry sand paper and cleaned up the roller shafts and I cleaned and lubed the bearings with P.B. Blaster and they were like new again.

To mount the track ball, I found the trackball mfgr's. web site and downloaded a mounting template and made the mount plate using 1/8" Plexiglas. I started by layering masking tape onto the Plexiglas and marking the mounting dimensions. I used a 3" hole saw to make the hole for the ball itself and drilled 4 #6 mounting holes.
The trackball assy. has an arrow for up and down direction and is used for mounting orientation. I set the trackball on top of the control panel and traced the shape as best I could and used my Dremel router attachment to rout the a hole all the way through the control panel in the same shape as the track ball case. I then pushed the track ball up through the bottom of the control panel flush with the top of the panel. I then laid the mount plate over the trackball
and used 4 #6 x 3" screws through the mount plate and the trackball case and secured it with 4# 6 star washers and nuts. For the finish on the trackball plate, I used Fleck Stone paint as a base and then sprayed flat black over that to give a cool textured look as seen in the pictures.

Monitor Bezel
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________________

Although you can buy authentic arcade monitors, They are extremely pricey at about $500.00 for a good one.
Unfortuantely my budget would not allow that kind of investment so I used the next best thing, a computer monitor.
There is a local computer shop that has some pretty good prices and I picked up a 21" CRT monitor for $30.00 out the door!! After setting the monitor in place I went to Lowes and got a piece of 1/8" Plexiglas cut to same dimensions as the existing bezel mount and set it place in front of the monitor and I used masking tape to make an out line of the monitor screen on the front and masked off the inside of the outline on the backside of the bezel. I used flat black
spray paint and painted the backside of bezel and once dried I peeled of the masking tape to show a nice clear screen outline. I used black duct foam and glued it to the plastic monitor case around the screen to give it some depth as well.

So far everything you see in the pictures is what I have done.
As far as the art work goes, I have a friend in the sign business who is on X-mas vacation and will make my artwork and control panel overlay art work when he gets back after the 1st. and then I will take more pictures of getting it finished up. I am going to wire up the controls and get everything working to where I just need to get the trim work, art work and paint work done.

I hope you are enjoying the build thread so far and thank you for following along!!

Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

More pictures.

[~SnApRoLl]

Another Update,
I got the controls wired up and everything working for a test run and everything works great!!!! I did however get a touch of the Flu over Christmas vacation. But I will post some video of game play when I feel better. I am still waiting for my buddy to finish up the spinner and send it back so I can get it installed and working before I take all of the controls back out for trim and finish work. I also have to drill the holes for the mouse buttons and get them wired up to the Trackball mouse board to finish out the control layout.
I will post pictures of the spinner when I get it back as well. So far its working out good and is allot of fun!!!


Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

As promised here are couple more pictures of the arcade machine temporarily wired up and working.
Also here is a video of it in action with me playing some Donkey Kong. I would have taken more video but the battery in camera went dead. I am at a stand still with the arcade machine until I get all of the art work made, the optical spinner, and finish and trim work done which will be sometime in January.

As you can see in the pictures of the control panel, the wiring is a mess, but I have to take all of the controls back out
in order to apply the control panel overlay art work and the finish and trim work.

I was a little disappointed in the wiring kit because some of the harnesses were too short to go from the controls to the interface board. I was however able to extend those harnesses with ease. The cool thing about the wiring kit is that everything is color coded and it includes a chart that shows you which wire goes where and it all hooks up using simple to remove spade connectors.

Also I am using multiple emulators for systems such as the Atari2600, Sega Genesis, M.A.M.E. and others and the wiring and interface kit comes with a switch that allows you to select programmable modes in the interface board to set up the controls for different game system emulators. To switch between modes, you simply slide a switch to the desired position, assign the controls to proper keys on the keyboard and press a button to set that mode and it is then saved to a N.V.RAM. (Non Volatile Memory) chip on the interface board. It only takes 5 minutes to program each mode.

I will post video of how it all works when I get all of the finish work done.

Here is the video of me playing Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong

Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

I checked my e-mail yesterday and I got some pictures of the Optical Spinner that my good friend has built for me.
He decided to use an old trackball mouse instead of a hard drive motor as the design seems to be a bit more robust.
He said it's in the testing stages right now and hopefully I will have it soon so I can get it installed in the control panel, test it more, and then take everything back apart for trim and finish work.


Shawn

[~SnApRoLl]

Hello all,
Well I have some bad news, Due to cutbacks at work, I have to put the arcade machine build on the back burner for a while. I will post more when I am able to resume the build.

Thanks,

Shawn