Freddo's Mame Cabinet

Plexiglass Cutting Tips

2007-12-07T00:08:00.000-08:00

I got my artwork on December 3rd, (I have no pics today, just a description on what I did). However, the SF2 marquee is really dark. Too much black and barely any pink and purple. Hopefully it looks good when I put light behind it. It's great to finally have the CPO, but unfortunately I am still unprepared for it. I don't have the plexi done and I need the bare CP to help drill the holes for the plexiglass. I rushed out to the store last night and bought a sheet of 18x32 acrylic for around $17 dollars. It's enough for me to experiment with and mess up a few times.

I had some Xacto blades lying around that I've lost, so I had to make do with a razorblade holder/box opener. It bent on the first swipe and made a bad crooked line that strayed off of my straightedge onto the good material. First mistake was to use a cheap razorblade. Second mistake was to go too quickly with my cut. Third mistake was to use a 3/4" piece of MDF as my straigtedge (too tall). Fourth mistake was to press the straightedge into the scrap material instead of holding it down over the finish material. Fifth mistake was to rush things.

Eventually I used an Xacto knife with an old blade to score the plexi. I made many, many slow cuts as deep as I could on the top edge of the plexi. After scoring, I took it to the coffee table and pushed down quickly and it snapped loudly. Unfortunately the snap followed the line of one of the mis-cuts and I had a crooked edge. The other cuts weren't much better. It seems that if you don't score deep enough, the crack strays from the line at the edges. You really have to score pretty deeply when doing short cuts to get the crack to follow the straight line.

To correct the bad cuts, I used a dremel tool with a cutoff disk. At too low a speed, it melts the plastic too much. It stinks. Also, human hands can't cut straight enough while holding one of these things. The cut looks wobbly and I ended up with a lot of melted bits clinging to the dege. I used a file to knock it down and a sanding drum to smooth things out. The sanding drum works very well, but it's too easy to take off too much material and increase the uneven look of the cut.

Drilling holes, I made some observations. Making small drill holes, there's no problem whatsoever. Go nuts. Using a big, sharp drill bit will tend to crack the plexi when digging in for the first time. Going fast helps, but the torque always cracks the plexi when it catches. What I did was drill all the holes, even the button holes with a small bit. My kit has these useless drill bits with a point at the end that aren't any good for drilling much of anything. But on plexi eventually the dig in and make the hole. When I had that as a pilot hole, I got out the hole saw. What I noticed about using the hole saw was that the drill bit in the center of this thing is big, like 5/8". When this monster digs into the small pilot hole, it cracks the plexi every time. It's not much of a problem with button holes because the hole saw part will cut out the cracked area. After the center bit gets through, the holesaw teeth dig in. If you hit with the teeth at full speed, you have the chance at another crack, but usually it won't. Start your cutting, but slow down when it's just about to punch through. If you're going too fast when it punches through, you'll get another crack.

After I had all the holes done, I went around to all the bolt holes and made them square with a drywall cutting tool on my dremel. It works very well eating away at the plexi. Great choice to square off the bolt holes.

I ended up with a good piece with crooked edges and about 4 cracks. I'll obviously have to do it again. Here's the process I'll use when doing this on the next piece of material:

- Use a heavy duty razor knife and take plenty of time to score deeply
- Use a flat straightedge and cut slowly and deeply with short strokes
- Make sure your straight edge is on the finished side to help protect it
- Take your time, your only chance on a straight cut is on the first snap
- When it comes time to snap, use a good flat, sharp surface and snap hard and fast
- When doing holes use a small drill bit
- When doing button holes widen the small hole with a drywall cutter bit on your dremel or slightly bigger drill bits so that your hole saw drill bit doesn't have to punch through
- When using the hole saw, slow down before it punches through.

Cabinet And PC Wiring

2007-12-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Once I had the coin door ready, I had to wire it up. The lights are just automotive bulbs, so they take 12 volt DC, easily supplied from the computer's power supply. I just took a female molex connector and made a wiring harness for it. I ran out of heatshrink tubing and the electrical tape I'm using barely sticks, hence the zip ties holding the whole works together.

On a 4-pin molex cable, yellow is 12v, the black ones are ground, and red is 5v. Once hooked up, the coindoor bulbs light up beautifully.

While I was futzing around with the coindoor lights, I also put a female molex connector on the 12v input on my powerstrip relay.

To turn the computer on, I wanted to extend the computer's power switch to the outside of the cabinet. It was already setup with a switch, I just removed the existing toggle pushbutton that the cabinet used to switch on the mains power to a momentary contact pushbutton like ATX uses.

For the wires, I didn't want to hack into the case or cutoff the PC's power switch headers. I had a couple header blocks from a newer motherboard I have and decided to use those. I soldered the end of the switch onto two pins on the header block and plugged them in. So now I have two PC power buttons. I ran out of wire so it's a bit short, I may have to redo the switch.

Coindoor Refurbishing

2007-12-06T23:45:00.000-08:00

I stripped all of the parts off of the coindoor before painting. I found that the plastic parts were very worn and old with some ugly spraypaint here and there. I started cleaning them and found that the more I cleaned, the worse they looked. Maybe I'll repaint them later, but for now, I'll leave them as they are.

I did polish the coin eject buttons a bit
Before:

After:

The coin mechs were ugly and coated with old dirt, grime, rust, and oxidation.

One acceptor barely took quarters, while quarters always got stuck in the other. Opening her up, you can see why. They're caked with rust.

It's a wonder that quarters slide through these things at all!

After scrubbing these parts for a couple hours with Brasso, they look great now.

More results:

Reassembled and back on the dry door, they look new again

The finished product:

Spraypainting CP And Coindoor

2007-12-06T23:41:00.001-08:00

After I stripped and filled my control panel, I hit it with a coat of primer before getting ready to paint the corners black.

I'll be using a can of classic black RustOleum spraypaint.

Painted the corners of the control panel.

Then I painted the coin door. I used about 4 coats on the coindoor.

Happ Parts Came In

2007-12-06T23:37:00.001-08:00

On Thursday, November 29th, I got my first batch of parts from Happ.

1 Coin door bucket
12 Happ Pushbuttons with horizontal microswitch
3 Cam locks
10' marquee retainer
50 18-22ga, .187" female quick disconnects

Unfortunately my 1 1/8" cam lock didn't come with the screw to attach the actual cam, so I can't attach my back door until Happ sends me a new one. But they haven't returned my emails yet. :-\ . Looks like another part I'll have to scavenge for.

IPac Wiring, Speakers, And Powerstrip Hacking

2007-12-02T21:26:00.001-08:00

I've gotten a lot done in a few days. I worked on the control panel, marquee lighting, power relay, and speakers. Here's a rundown:

I had a good idea on how to install my iPac to make the control panel modular. In the future, if I choose to change control panels, I'll have it so that I can undo a few bolts and plugin another control panel and be good to go. I'll be able to make several control panels without spending cash on an iPac for each one. Sorry Andy.

I had a project box laying around that I bought for a Winamp controller project that failed miserably. I put the iPac in the box and cut out openings for the PS2 connectors.

I also cut out two long trapezoids for a pair of female DB25 connectors. One for each player. The other existing holes in the box were from the previous project.

The DB25 connectors are setup with a soldering cup at the end of each pin for easy soldering of the wires. I used 22ga stranded wire and inserted the wire and soldered it in place. It was pretty hard to solder the joint without melting the plastic holding the pin and making it loose. I used shrink tubing and a lighter to keep things looking clean.

After all the pins soldered. I only used 14 pins out of the 25. This allowed me to space the welds out and made it a bit easier to solder. My pinout diagram and the fact that the pins on both the male and female connectors are properly labeled was a lifesaver.

[img]http://fredgolden.net/mame/images/ipac_box4.JPG[/img]

Now we're all hooked up. Ready to screw on the cover and mount in the cab.

I repeated the process twice more to make a couple wiring harnesses that will connect to all the buttons and sticks in the control panel. I'll use a premade DB25 extension cable to connect this harness to the iPac enclosure I made.

Next I tackled lighting. Behind the marquee there was a simple light fixture.

I just grabbed one of the hundred PC power cables I have lying around and chopped the female end off of it and soldered it to my light fixture. Simple stuff, piece of cake.

Behind the light was a single old speaker I ripped out. I mounted a pair of Creative 2.1 PC speakers and secured them by adding a couple strips of wood.

I cheaped out and left the bracket on them so I could zip tie them in place. Kind of a lame accomodation, I know

While I was out and about earlier today, I visited Radio Shack and picked up a 12VDC / 10Amp DPDT relay switch and installed it into a powerstrip. I used this awesome tutorial: http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com/01/index81.htm, it was pretty darn easy.

See, it passed the smoke test!

A Lot Of Small Progress

2007-11-27T22:42:00.000-08:00

I've made a lot of small progress on the cab. I've done a lot of little things. I have no pictures to post, they're all sitting on the memory card so here goes:

Tore apart my old control panel to get out the iPac
Installed the iPac into a project box
Wired iPac box to two female DB25 connectors
Built two wiring harnesses that will connect to the buttons
Wired the marquee light to a power plug (it works and passed the smoke test!)
Removed old speaker
Installed Creative PC speakers over speaker holes
Installed a 12VDC / 10 amp DPDT relay in a powerstrip. (also passed smoke test, so far)
Removed old power toggle pushbutton from mounting plate
Installed a cheapo momentary contact button in its place
Filled control panel with wood filler to level it out and sanded it
Cleaned up control panel holes a bit
Primered control panel
Test fitted computer, subwoofer, powerstrip, and coinbox

I'll figure out what to write up next. I'm stalling until I actually finish something. I guess I can write up the relay switch installation, speaker installation, and lighting installation. But for now, my vacation is over. I made a ton of progress and I'm in the home stretch now. Just need to spray paint a few things black, get some plexiglass, resurface some bolts, and square out some round holes. After I do all that, I just need to sit around and wait for my shipments When I get the Control Panel Overlay, I'll finally finish the damn control panel then I can go ahead and put the computer in and strap everything down and fire her up!

Street Fighter 2 Artwork Ordered

2007-11-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

I placed the order for the Street Fighter 2 artwork today. The stuff is pretty pricey because of the quality of the artwork and the vinyl on which it's printed. I used the best guys in the business at reproduction video game artwork: Mamemarquees.com The total came out to about $160 bucks, YIKES! Anyway, it's great stuff and I can't wait until it gets here. It's just the finishing touch that I'll need. I got a 10% discount using a coupon code I found by being a member of the the ArcadeControls forum.

Here's what I got:

A Polycarbonate Control Panel Overlay $49:

The Marquee $19:

The Bezel that surrounds the monitor $39:

The Sideart $59:

I spent a lot, but it really ties the room together :D .

Painting

2007-11-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the results of the painting. When we left off I had the original paint sanded smooth, holes filled with wood putty, and gouges filled with spackle.

After I had everything knocked level, I wiped down the dust from the surface of the cab and started painting. I used a quart of Rust Oleum American Accents black Semi-Gloss Latex paint and a fine sponge roller.

I grabbed a nearby small child and had her slave away on the hard painting duties.... until her arm got tired. :)

I did the two sides differently. On my daughter's side, I let it dry and applied a second and third coat. No sanding in between. On the right side, I sanded between coats first using 150 grit (big mistake) and 400 grit. The stupid 150 grit left a few big long deep scratches that only came out after another coat of paint and more sanding with 400 grit. After the third coat, the left side where I didn't sand looks a lot like the right side where I slaved away with 400 grit sandpaper. The only blemishes I can see is on the front panel around the security bar hole where I didn't properly level the wood putty further lending proof to my theory that all this priming and sanding business is a bunch of hooey. In these pics the big round white spots are specks of dust between the lens and the flash.

There was some orange peel when the paint was wet, but it really goes away as the paint dries.

A few unsitely blemishes can be seen in this pic thanks to the wood putty. I should have sanded it better.

All in all, I'm thrilled with the results. I placed an order for Street Fighter 2 artwork, made an enclosure for my iPac, and am awaiting my T-molding and buttons any day now. SF2 artwork was an expensive proposition at around $160 dollars (after using the BYOAC coupon code of course!).

Cutting The Control Panel

2007-11-22T20:33:00.001-08:00

To patch up the swiss-cheese control panel, I decided to get a piece of sheet metal and cut it in the shape of the current control panel and bolt it in from behind. I decided against cutting the whole front of the current CP out because I wanted the added support of what was left of the of the current 16ga metal CP on top of the 22ga sheet of steel that I was using.

I used the old plexi as a template and started cutting away.

Once I had the sheet, I affixed it behind the old control panel and drilled out the bolt holes (and P1 P2 buttons), so I could bolt it down and plan out the button holes.

I used a premade template I got off of Pleasuredome and taped it down using MK3fan's pictures as a guide. I realized that when I put the templates where I wanted them, the fierce punch buttons perfectly aligned with one of the original buttons. Once the templates were taped down and the sheet metal was bolted behind the CP, I started adding more holes.

If it looked like swiss cheese before, well it looks like a sponge now!

With buttons and a stick in place, I can see that things are lined up okay. Except I need to file down some of the round holes so I can fit the square pegs (joystick's carriage bolts which weren't fitting right).

Also, because of some gint holes in the CP, two of the buttons are only supported by the underlying 22ga sheetmetal thus making them shorter than the others. This isn't a problem if I'm using plexi (which I plan to), but I'd kind of like to fill in that extra metal. The extra mass will make it stronger and dampen some sound when hitting those buttons

To make some pieces to fill in the gap, I slide in a blank piece of sheet metal and mark out the areas that I need to fill.

Cutting out the pieces I need

Two pieces of the filler sheet metal I need are stacked behind the button and line up level with the old CP. I was way off with my measurements and cutting, but it's close. All it really has to do is raise up the button and support the plexiglass area surrounding the button. I'may fill in the small gaps with wood filler, but then again, I may not. Once the Control Panel Overlay and plexiglass is in place, it will be impossible to tell that there's a mess under there.

Control Panel Stripping

2007-11-22T20:12:00.001-08:00

I have my supplies ready. Some GoofOff and an old metal control panel. I have some sheet metal, blades, and a hole saw for later.

Here's the panel and the Control Panel Overlay (CPO) that I need to remove

Look at the underside, it's swiss cheese down there! But it looks like it's some kind of stardard hole pattern for JAMMA though. Just not Street Fighter 2

Okay, getting started. I hit the panel up with a hot hair dryer and work a corner loose. I grabbed it with some pliers and started tugging on it. As long as you keep heat on it, it comes off in large sections. If you do it cold, it's extremely hard to pull and chips off in very small pieces. As you heat it, it smells like a new inflatable raft.

The back was really easy and came out in a few sections

The curved edge didn't strip very easily and took a lot of scraping with the putty knife to get all the vinyl off.

Once all the vinyl is off, I'm left with a metal CP covered with a tacky residue. It's pretty darn thick and will require some GoofOff to remove... this is where it gets really hard and annoying!

What you do is squirt some GoofOff on the panel, scrub it in a bit with a brush, let it soak in for a few seconds, then scrape off as much as you can and do it again. The directions make it seem like you squirt it on and hose or wipe it right off. That's BS. First off wiping didn't do much because the residue was too thick. You have to scrape it with a putty knife. The GoofOff just turns the residue soft and you can scrape it off. You end up with gobs of the stuff, and it evaporates quickly so you have to work fast before it congeals back to a thick residue again.

The back was easier because it is such a large flat surface, but the front was really hard thanks to all the holes. It took HOURS of squirting, scraping, and rubbing. Only if the residue is really thin can you rub the stuff off effectively. The fumes were pretty thick and dizzying without good ventilation.

When I started running out of GoofOff, I switched to lighter fluid with does work to an extent, but not as well as GoofOff and evaporates too quickly. Plus lighter fluid turns your skin white because it dries it out like crazy. In the end, I finally got a mostly stripped control panel, ready for the new sheet metal.

It's still tacky in places, but I don't care, I got most of it off, my fingers are black and sticky, and I'm out of GoofOff.

Filling And Sanding

2007-11-19T23:35:00.001-08:00

Today I hit the store and spent $50 more bucks on supplies including paint, wood filler, sandpaper, and stuff to do the control panel later. I spent this evening filling and sanding. It was my first time using wood filler putty. For some reason, I was expecting something like wood colored spackle, but the stuff really is putty. You use your fingers and pack it into the holes like Play-Dough.

Next I gave the cab a looksie and filled any dings and gouges with spackle. After it dried, I hit the right side with some 100 grit sandpaper. After finishing with it I noticed my sinuses acting up. I realized I sanded the whole side without lung protection. Oops! ;D

I did the rest of the sanding with an old Metallica shirt wrapped around my nose and mouth with a clamp holding it behind my head. The makeshift mask worked well, but I know I should've used a respirator.

My plan is to rough up and smooth all the paint and repaint over it with black semi-gloss latex paint. I have a fine foam roller ready to go. I'm reading constantly how everyone strips, sands, primers, sands, primers, sands, paints, sands, paints, sands, and paints... and I think they're nuts. If it's bare wood, sure throw a coat or two of primer, maybe sand to level it out, then paint. I'll do my painting with my daughter on Wednesday, to get her involved in the project. Tomorrow I'll work on the control panel. Can't wait to get GooGone and metal shavings all over my hands tomorrow. ;D

The only question I have is, do I clean all the dust off before I paint? The thing is covered with black dust from all the sanding.

Fixing Cabinet Damage

2007-11-19T21:44:00.000-08:00

I've got the clamps from Home Depot. They're 36" clamps at $16 dollars each. I totally needed them to do this cabinet repair. What I did was I drenched the exploded parts in wood glue and sandwiched them down with the clamps between two pieces of wood for about 30 hours. One of the corners was only slightly exploded, but it got the same treatment with the glue and its own clamp. The part whith some missing chunks of particle board also got some spackle filler to fill in the gaps. I know it's not strong enough, but it's seemed to do the job so far.

Also while I was waiting for the glue and spackle to dry, I fixed the bottom. I added some reinforcement on the sides and a ton of screws. This bottom ain't caving in and ripping the particle board again, ever!

Cabinet Stripping Done

2007-11-14T01:00:00.001-08:00

After I finished my monitor reinforcement work, I started stripping more stuff. I got the control panel off the cabinet and pulled the sticks and buttons off. Man the thing is like swiss cheese, so many damn button holes, there's not enough metal to support the new layout. I also removed the Carrier Air Wing board, the electrical board with parts attached, and vacuumed the whole cab out. I also bought some caster wheels for the cab, but I still have to figure out where the hell I'm going to mount them.

Today I finished stripping more stuff and got everything out of there. Removed the Jamma wiring harness, coin box, coin door, and security bar. With everything off, the cab is lightened up pretty well. I tipped it over and had a look at the underside.

The right front is a mess. It's smashed and looks like crap. Also thanks to shoddy construction, the thing leans forward. I had a close look and it looks like the bottom board is just screwed into the side panel's nail strips by a couple screws. All the weight on the leg levelers and this board has forced the nail strip and board to be driven upwards in the front. For some reason, in the back it's been driven downwards and the whole bottom board is extremely warped. It's a mess and looks to me like I need to replace the bottom board and the bottom nail strips in order to straighten it all out. It's good that I'll be removing that crap because I'll need the bottom off before I can fix the smashed corner. No other way to get glue and clamps on there with the bottom board in the way.

Monitor Reinforcement

2007-11-14T00:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I spent a few more hours with the cab. I finally pulled out the monitor and reinforced the wooden frame. When I pulled out the monitor, I realized why it was so hard to put in and pull out. It seems that the bottom right corner of my bezel board is a hair too tall. I plan on resolving it by sanding, filing, or planing off some wood. I'm too cheap to buy a $15 wood plane just for this one little problem, so I just may end up using the file from my Leatherman Wave tool. A post on the forum.arcadecontrols.com board said that a good plane is a good investment for a first time woodworker because it is a quick and easy way to correct small errors with your cutting/measurements without having to recut all the time. That sounds smart to me.

I used scrap wood from the bezel board to make the 1.5" pieces to reinforce the monitor frame. I got a lot of use out of the 2' x 2' handypanel I got from Home Depot. For some reason, I thought that I had bought a 2' x 4' one, but come to think of if, I must've got the 2x2 because I don't have another 2x2 laying around, obviously. Also I used some more scrap wood from a disassembled desk to build reinforcement for the back of the monitor. Now I can move it around with confidence without worrying about the bezel board breaking or the monitor falling back into the cabinet. I had a handfull of 1 1/2" drywall screws that I used for all this reinforcement. I was lucky because I used all but one and got all of the support structure that I needed in place. The cabinet wood is tough stuff. I had to predrill everything because I just couldn't drive those damn screws without stripping the heads or bogging my drill down.

Once that was all done, I yanked the monitor out and had a look at the electrical. I was at the point where I needed to plan out what I was going to do in this area and strip it out for cleaning. Before I did anything, I took lots of pictures and drew up a wiring diagram. I wanted to figure out what everything did and why it was there. With the help of the folks at the arcadecontrols forum, I was able to figure out that the main electrical power went through fuses, an EMI noise Filter, and an isolation transformer before it went to the monitor. The black and white wires swap just before going through the fuses which confuses the hell out of me, but I figure that it's just the nature of AC power that this isn't a problem. Everything seemed to work wired this way. I considered leaving everything in place and powering the PC monitor with the same transoformer setup, but screw that. I can simplify everything and get rid of a lot of exposed electrical parts by just using a power strip to power the computer, monitor, and marquee light. I'll just make sure to get a powerstrip with a relay in it and I"ll be good to go. Just have to make sure I get one with an awesome looking plug and paint it black. :D I plan on using a Bits
aSmartStrip power strip to power everything up. Unfortunately, I think it has one of those lame ass flat plugs at one end. I'll probably run it through a heavy duty extension cord painted black or something.

An Idea For A New Direction On This Project

2007-11-05T14:39:00.001-08:00

Apprehension is starting again. I realize that I have a pretty good Capcom cabinet that many a Street Fighter has been based on. Examples are this:

and this:

That got me thinking. Why tear up this perfect Capcom cab and CP when I can turn it into a Street Fighter II restore instead? I certainly loved Street Fighter 2 when it came out, and this cab is the perfect shape. I remember playing on this type of control panel. I know there were bigger ones, but I wouldn't mind playing on a small SF control panel. It's more cozy!

Of course it'd have to be a Street Fighter II and not a Champion edition. Even though you could play as the bosses, I hated Champion edition. They crippled the throw mechanic and rewarded purely defensive play and cheap combos. Plus Champion(ship?) editon was freaking ugly.

I have nice big copies of the sideart, control panel, and marquee artwork. I would just need the bezel instruction cardstock and vinyl control panel overlay.

I'll think about it. Perhaps I'll use a different style of T-molding similar to what Knevil used on his Ms. Pac-Man.

Edit: Thanks to the power of Google I have discovered this post:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=65881
and I realize that I have a Dynamo HS-1 cabinet with a 19" monitor. I'll keep poking around for other SF2 restos and look for ideas.

Monitor Fitting Continues

2007-11-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Spent some time looking at the monitor and how it could be modified to fit in the cabinet properly. Using a couple 1.5" wide pieces of scrap wood as spacers, I was able to mount further forward in its monitor cavity so that it's nearly flush with the MDF bezel spacer.

With the extra space, I had the the electronics (neck board), inside the aluminum monitor cage clear, but still there was about another inch and a half of aluminum cage still sticking out too far. Time for the cutters!

First, I removed the rear panel of the cage which came off by bending back a few metal fingers. In this picutre, I am (possibly unwisely) cutting the metal shielding cage around the neck of the monitor. The two lines shows the difference between mounting the monitor with and without the spacers.

There were two grounding wires running from the back of the cage to the neckboard that I will reattach to the remaining cage. With the cutting complete, the monitor now fits nicely in the cabinet.

.

The next step is to pull the monitor back out and build out those spacers a little better and secure them to the frame. Perhaps a little reinforcing is needed too. I'll mock up some support brackets for the rear of the monitor when I work on this next.

Next steps:

Mock up rear monitor support mounts
Remove monitor and store away during painting & wood repair phase
Reinforce the monitor frame and screw down frame spacers
Strip out all electronics, wires, & hardware
Build Control Panel box

Cabinet construction starts

2007-11-04T18:57:00.001-08:00

All during my Saturday morning Microeconomics class I was thinking cabinet construction. I was very eager to get started stripping down the cabinet and thinking about how I should proceed with the monitor. Right when I got home, I began stripping down my cabinet. I took off the back door first (duh) and took a good hard look at my existing 19" Wells Gardner 7000 tube. I knew from many many BYOAC examples/posts that charged monitors are deadly dangerous. Even a friend of mine told me that this guy he knew exploded his hand off from a discharging monitor. I read up on how to discharge them and was really nervous and scared to do it. Turns out that it was really easy to do and the Internet guides are overly cautious with their over-the-top warnings of death and destruction.

For mine, I made a discharge cable out a lamp cord and alligator clips, used a flat head screwdriver, wore boots with thick rubber heels,wore gloves, stood on a rubber mat (folded in half for extra thickness), and had my left hand in my pocket. I reached around the side of the cabinet to do it because I was sure that the force of the discharge would send the screwdriver shooting backwards toward the wall with the force of a carnival knife thrower. I clipped one end of the cord to the monitor chassis and with my eyes clinched tightly I slipped the screwdriver under the anode cap... and it simply fell off. No lightning bolt, no crack of electricity, no snap, no nothing. I stabbed at the anode contacts for a few minutes, then poked at every other scary looking part until I knew it was safe. I swear to god the websites that explain how to do it make it seem like you're setting off Hiroshima when in reality, you're touching your brother after rubbing your feet on the carpet, except without the satisfying spark. I think you only get the crazy voltages and movie-special-effects lightning cracks if you do it shortly after unplugging the monitor, you know, when you can feel the static charge so strong it makes your arm hair stand up.

With the monitor discharged it was easy pickings. To get the monitor plexi, bezels, MDF spacer, and black cardboard border out, I simply unlatched the control panel, and they come right out. The only thing holding them in place was the fact that the bottom of it extends down below the control panel. The whole assembly sits flush. I'll add pics to this to explain. When I reassemble it, I'll take pics and play it back in reverse I guess.

The monitor was mounted on a 3/4" piece of wood, commonly called a bezel board. It pulls right out of the cabinet and is held onto the cabinet with 4 wood screws. Undo those and it pulls out of the front of the cab. Once I had it out, I was able to measure the bezel board on which the 19" Wells Gardner 7000 monitor was attached. It was 22 1/4" square. I didn't want to cannibalize this one. As you can see, the arcade monitor has quite a sturdy bracket around it mounted to the 3/4" bezel board firmly.

When I took the case off of my 21" Viewsonic G800 CRT, I found that it was connected to the front bezel by 4 mounting points on the corners of the screen. All I had to do was get another piece of 3/4" plywood of the same dimensions and cut a hole for the monitor and mount it on there. Here's a few pics of the monitor already mounted to the new bezel board:

As you can see, the monitor is snugly in the bezel board. In the first pic, it's not even bolted in yet and it holds in place well. I made sure to measure about a hundred times before cutting. I happened to cut it just right so there is enough wood at the corners to bolt it down through the brackets. No metal supports were needed.

As for the controls, I made a bit of room at the bottom of the board for the wires to fit through without being squished by the weight of the monitor.

Here's my creation installed into the cabinet. Even without extra metal brackets, it's very sturdy. The weight of the monitor is supported by the sung fit in the wood mainly and the tough screws keep it from moving.

Unfortunately, the only problem with this whole setup is that the monitor is too deep. It sticks out of the back a couple inches. To fix it, I'm wondering if I can use another couple pieces of 3/4" wood to move the monitor forward in the cabinet, and perhaps removing part of the metal cage in the back. But most likely, I'll probably just make a new back door with a bulge in the back.

Dreading Teardown

2007-10-31T12:34:00.001-07:00

I know the time is coming soon thatt I must tear down my cab in preparation for mame computer installation. I'll have to strip down the cab to just the bare wood and start cleaning, filling, sanding, painting, T-molding replacement, and woodworking. I'll need to tear it down just so I can have a good look at the monitor space; to facilitate fitting of the new 21" PC monitor (if I choose to use it over the arcade monitor).

The thing is, although it looks like shit and isn't an original dedicated Carrier Air Wing, it is a living, breathing game that's really fun to play. I'm having trouble bringing myself to gut it. I have too much for the arcade machine and its hardware. It's tough to come to terms with the idea that I must gut this living breathing arcade game of its hardware and replace it with a PC running software emulation. The thought turns my stomach a little. But I can't become a cab collector in my little place, and that machine will be so much more once the conversion is finished.

Adjusted Monitor and Buttons Working

2007-10-31T00:31:00.000-07:00

I moved the cab to a nice spot in my garage by my wooden shelf. I played Carrier Air Wing and the 2up stick was working perfectly. I guess it was just the humidity because every switch is working now. Also I adjusted the monitor because the top and bottom were cut off. I adjusted the V-Size down a little (counter-clockwise, it's very sensitive), then had to adjust the V-Position all the way up (counter-clockwise again) and now it's just right.

I was looking through Happcontrols.com for parts I need on the cabinet. Here's the order I came up with so far:

Item # Qty Description Your
Price Extended Order Options
1 91-1319-10 MINI LAMP #555 6.3V T-3.25 3K HR WEDGE BASE.25A.90CP(10/BOX) $0.25 $2.50
2 42-1102-10 CASHBOX BLACK PLASTIC FOR O/U DOOR $7.15 $7.15
3 49-1000-00 RETAINER MARQUEE 10 FT LENGTHS BLACK RIGID PVC 1=10FT $12.95 $12.95
4 49-0995-00 T-MOLDING 3/4" BLUE SOLD PER FOOT 25' MIN. LENGTHS $0.69 $17.25
5 30-2225-A05 LOCK 7/8" DB ASSY KA A05 WITH 1-1/4:" CAM AND 2 KEYS $3.60 $10.80
Total: $50.65

I can see that I already forgot to add new leg levelers. I'll have to add them when I get a chance. Also I have no idea how much t-molding I'll be needing or what color I'll want to use, so I'll prob remove it. It took me awhile to figure out what size locks I'll need. Fortunately Happ has a guide on how to measure them. Apparently the 7/8" refers to the length from the bottom of the face back to cam arm. Basically you measure the part with the threads plus the 1/8" thickness of the cam. I should also measure the size I'll be needing for the back door too because it's counter sunk for some reason.

No pictures today. Nothing to post here. I think I'll get alligator clips so I can discharge my monitors and screw around with them. Still have to decide if I'll try and get the 21" er in my cabinet. It'll require that I figure out how to mount it to a piece of 3/4" plywood and fit it into the cab and pray that it isn't too long. Janky cabs have the monitor on a shelf with the plastic sticking out the back with the door removed. One actually had the plastic sawed off lol!

Got my cabinet today

2007-10-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

Woo Hoo!!! I got my Carrier Air Wing Jamma cabinet today. Kevin, the dude who delivered it was really cool. Strong as a mule and was able to offload my cabinet off his truck and a move a 4 player Simpsons all by himself. Dropped it off right at my garage. Plugged it in and the monitor looked good, a nice 19" Wells Gardner with mostly new caps installed. He loaded up a few credits and we started a 2p game. I noticed that the fuel meter at the bottom and the top part above the score wasn't visible. Also the stick would catch a bit when going from up to down. I didn't notice it at the time, but he didn't play long. I found out later that up didn't work on the 2up side. Later in the day I found that down stopped working spontaneously on the 1up side, but it was probably the humidity because it happened around when it started raining. Anyway, we bullshitted for awhile before he took off to deliver his Simpsons cab to someone in San Jose.

I inspected the cab and I have to say it was in way better shape than I could have hoped. All the wood was great. Only one leveler foot is messed up. Just a little wood near the bottom needs to be filled, one bent marquee holder, some odd screws, and some dirt here and there. T-molding isn't perfect. There's no locks, but it has a nice security bar that keeps the coin doors closed. The back lock was missing, so it was closed with a couple drywall screws. Looks like it was in a location and somebody loved it and kept it up for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I was not expecting a flawless Jamma cab for $200 bucks. All in all with a minor bit of work, the thing was ready to deploy in a retail location. Good to go. The coolest thing about it was that the top half of the left side was covered with dead bugs from the ride over. Awesome, the bug carnage made me giggle. Cab had bugs in its teeth lol.

For my purposes, I'll get started evaluating what I have and figuring out how to proceed. I'll try to retain the existing monitor. I know that Soft 15KHz will work on my video card; I just have to figure out how to build a VGA to Jamma cable. Also, I'll have to figure out how to discharge a monitor. I don't feel like taking 20,000 volts in my arm, through my heart and out my ass. :P. If I can't get it working well, I have the 21" VGA monitor to install in there, but I'd have to work on building a shelf for it, or remove the plastic case and jerry rig my own brackets to hold it in place. Most likely, it won't fit, damn thing is around 18" deep and i estimate I only have about 14" to 16" of room in the cab. If I'm lucky, it's actually 17" of room and the monitor without its case is 16" (yeah right). But first thing's first, I have to discharge these monitors before I start messing around with them.

Building a MAME Cabinet 2

2007-10-28T00:34:00.001-07:00

So we're living in a place with a nice garage and once again, I'm obsessed with Mame again. The last few weeks I've been watching Ebay and Craigslist for a good deal on an arcade cab. The best deals are always from a seller in Oakdale called totally_arcade. Dude's selling working cabs for around $100 - $200 dollars. Good quality shit too.

First one I saw was Die Hard in an ugly but functional Jamma cabinet. I thought about getting that one, but it was rough and not the shape I was looking for. I thought that since it had a small 19" monitor, my 21" would fit in there quite nicely. But, I held off and didn't get it, I don't like 2 piece cabs I guess.

Next one was a game called Cycle Warriors. I thought about this one because it had a great big monitor and a big control panel. However I realized that my garage is small and Cycle Warriors was just too friggin' big.

Things came and went on Craigslist and Ebay. The most shocking of them was someone giving away a free Pac Man. Just bring a truck to Pacifica nd pick it up. I'm sure that one went quickly. If I had a pickup, I would've had that sucker. Anyway, earlier this week, the perfect thing popped up. totally_arcade was selling Carrier Airwing in a beautiful standard Jamma cabinet. Nice monitor, clean cab, coin door and a game I actually knew and liked, Carrier Air Wing (UN Squadron on SNES). I bought that sucker on Thursday, October 25th and arranged delivery for $25 bucks gas money. This cabinet is exactly the same shape as a thousand other Street Fighter machines I've seen over the years. It's exactly the thing I had in mind and what I would've made if I built one from scratch.

I can't wait until it gets delivered either tomorrow (Sunday October 28th), or Monday. I've never worked with actual arcade machines. I imagine I'll run into problems working with the machine's power and monitor and I'll have to figure things out to get it working as I go. I want a really clean setup and don't want two power cords running into the thing and two power supplies. I imagine I'll have to engineer some kind of relay to run mains power to the computer power supply and the marquee lighting/coin door and have it all run on one switch.

But I'll figure all that stuff out later after I play Carrier Air Wing and do some research. :D

Building a MAME Cabinet

2007-10-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

I discovered MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator we'll refer to as Mame), back in '99. I was working at 3Com and kind of stumbled upon it perhaps from a coworker, I fogot how. You could install this program and as long as you found the digital copies of an arcade game's ROMs (Read-Only Memory chips, we'll call roms from now on), you could load and emulate that game in Mame. I loaded a few classics like Pac Man and Mario Bros and I was hooked. Thanks to a great site called mame.dk, I was able to build a complete collection of Mame roms and play all the classics to my heart's content.

However, the controls always left something to be desired. Playing on a keyboard kinda sucks especially games like Street Fighter. While struggling to find a better way to play, one quickly finds websites dedicated to making arcade controls, websites like BYOAC (Build Your Own Arcade Controls). Then soon the idea springs up of putting your Mame computer in an actual arcade cabinet and playing it there. Thanks to the hundreds of links on the examples page no doubt.

So there I am at the dawn of the 21st century with an obsession with Mame and a desire to get/build/assemble an arcade cabinet running Mame. I dabbled with keyboard hacking and building a control panel. An easy entry point for most of us. I built the box out of a 48" shelf and some brackets and got the controls from Happ Controls. However I used Happ Ultimates for the stick and button because I thought they'd be more authentic. Unfortunately I found the buttons and stick to be less responsive than I would've liked. Competition sticks are the way to go apparently. The best buttons of the whole set that I got are the 1up and 2up buttons. They're Happ horizontal pushbuttons. On the next control panel I get, they'll all be competition or horizontal buttons. I let the stick gather dust for a long time before busting it back out again recently. It was always a pain in the ass plugging it in because it was a running a hacked PS2 keyboard. Recently I installed a iPAC and the thing works great... but the stick and buttons still kinda suck.