Dave Santoro's "Arcade Replay" Game Cabinet

I did a few things today… first I installed the T-molding.  Here’s the slot bit mounted in the router ready to go..

The slot is cut:

The T-molding is ready to go:

Installing it:

Shaving off the extra t-molding Material:

It was a tad cold for it, but I took a chance and applied the laminate sides to the cabinet today.  Everything went great, and I also managed to create the speaker ‘panel.’  It will have a cloth covered grille over it so I wasn’t super fussy about the holes..

I know most people route the T-molding slot earlier in the process, but I tend to bang into the edges and mess up the slot so I do it later in the process.

Between the holidays and the colder-than-normal winter, I haven’t been able to do any work.   To make matters worse, “Punxsutawney Pete” claims it’ll go another six weeks, so I expect to resume work in March/April at this point.

I got a few things done this weekend:

• Reconfigured the bottom and wheels for greater stability
• Filled most of the holes with putty, sealed a few gaps
• Mounted the subwoofer
• Covered the back panel with Parts Express Black Speaker Vinyl
• Installed the three sliding shelves

While I know that due to it’s design this machine won’t look like an ‘old-time’ game, I do want it to feel like a commercial machine when complete.  This means that I will be spending a lot of time doing re-work to eliminate errors and sweating the smaller details.

An example of this mindset is my choice of screws.  In past machines I had used black drywall screws to hold the misc parts including the marquee retainers.  These screws are the wrong type to use but Home Depot didn’t carry any other black wood screws (and I didn’t want to paint steel screws for fear of scratching and rust.)  At the end of the day the drywall screws really cheapened the look quite a bit.

For this machine I have purchased black anodized square-drive commercial screws.  These were surprisingly hard to come by, but I was finally able to find them at McFeely’s:

Most of the features and design elements on this cabinet have been done before.  This cabinet was inspired by Knievel’s original “Woody” and “Evolution” cabinets.

Some of the Sketchup components I used (Coin Door, Pushbuttons) were created by BYOAC’s Xylosesame.  Those models can be found here.

I borrowed the ‘roll out bottom’ idea from the Solocade website.

Thanks to the above for the great ideas!

Nice progress today.  I gave up on the idea of using biscuit joints – the cabinet was just too big and there were too many pieces to coordinate.  I went back to tried-and-true glued-and-screwed ledgers.   It’s really kind of nice seeing the 3D plans come to life exactly as designed on the PC.  I am still very happy I took the time to learn Sketchup.

I bought the PC Parts last year. Here’s what I’ll be using:

• FOXCONN 6150K8MA-8EKRS Socket 939 Motherboard
• AMD A64 X2 3800+ 2.0G Dual-Core CPU
• ASUS DVD-E616A3T DVD-ROM
• 1GB Corsair RAM VS1GB400C3
• Saitek Eclipse Backlit Keyboard
• Acer 5MS AL2017 20-” 4:3 LCD Monitor

I have a nice blue extension cord I will be using for the power.  It will be detachable from the cabinet using a power entry module (like the power input on the back o a PC.)  One of these connectors will be at the end of the extension cord to connect it to the cab.  I got all this from Mouser.

This game machine is going to have a prominent spot in my family room for the forseeable future.  Because of this, one of my goals is that it be ‘furniture-like’ day-to-day and that it not be enormous and tacky.  The downside of this is that arcade machines of the 80’s were enormous and tacky, so I will be losing some of the realism and nostalgia.

So, how to regain some of that lost tacky retro-arcade nostalgia when the machine is being used?  I have a few ideas….

• I will be installing red cold cathode lighting under the cabinet for a neon effect.  It will be similar to the picture at right. (Thanks to LeapinLew for the pic.)
• The control panel will have a layer of sidelit lexan on top.
• Most, maybe all, of the buttons will be backlit and feature computer controlled blinking patterns in attract mode.  During Gameplay, only the used buttons will be lit.  This will all be done in conjunction with the LED-Wiz controller and LEDBlinky application.
• When you power up the cabinet, Arcade sounds from the 80’s will play from dedicated speakers on the back of the cabinet.  These sounds will be completely isolated from the game and front-end menu sounds emitted from the front stereo speakers.  This feat will be accomplished using 1) Andy Hofle’s “Arcade Ambiance’ tracks, and TheShanMan’s Ambiance App.
• Of course, added realism will be achieved using lots of my own shiny arcade tokens.  Buy some today!

• I have a few other ideas (original or stolen) that aren’t fully-baked yet so I will save those for later.