DIY Arcade

Design of the cabinet

The plan was to build a large cabinet with an LCD display (I used a Benq 22" LCD wide-screen) and also to include more buttons and a trackball for breakout, pool, football and golfing games. Also the cabinet was be wide, since my existing restored arcade machine is a bit cramped for the one-on-one games.

Firstly I made detailed plans of the cabinet, which I then conceptualized using google's Sketchup (a 3D drawing package) and then I planned in more detail using Visio. Here is my original 3D rendering of the cabinet:

It was lot taller than my existing cabinet and the screen is mounted flush with the cabinet (rather than laying back like a lot of arcade machines). The control system was a bit more tricky, for this I ordered a large amount of hardware from a UK arcade parts specialist, including joysticks, buttons, a 3" trackball and many other parts (such as the interface to the computer).

Here the original sketchup rendering of the control surface design:

Building the cabinet

This section is just pictures and captions at the moment, I will add some more descriptive text in later. (I did this project during November of 2007)

Emil gets ready to grind some major wood

Cutting the first side panel

Curious George checks the plans

Routing the edges of the boards

Nearly ready to be put together... only one last adjustment needed!

Where did I leave my joystick?

Emil shows off his handywork.

The control panel is now all cut out, and the enclosure underneath is constructed

The top panel and the 2 panels above and below the back door are now in place, it's starting to look like an arcade cabinet!

An arcade cabinet needs some computing power, so here is the pile of junk I brought to put in it.

Here is the internals of the assembled PC. 250Gb SATA drive and a dual-core AMD 64 processor. Fairly cheap generic parts, since you don't need amazing equipment for the task. Bigger processor and PSUs just equal more heat in the cabinet.

The base of the cabinet is fitted and we are now on wheels

We mounted the monitor using a VESA bracket secured inside the cabinet so that it can be easily removed or added

Here you can see the shelf added below the monitor bezel which is primarily to support the glass which will cover the monitor

Finally we add the back door and a handle to help remove it. The door is held in place by two strong magnetic catches allowing the whole door to be easily removed

Nearly there! Basically this is the finished product from the wood working, the rest is painting, electronics and cleaning it all up...

The paint is brushed and rolled on, then finished with another brush which aligns all the strokes... nice

Speakers and screen are installed

All controls are installed

A lot of buttons requires a lot of connections... After some soldering (some of the wires were too short for the control panel) and the connection of the power and reset buttons (plus LEDs) everything is ready to go!

Another custom PC case modification later, and the PC is installed as well as the wireless LAN antenna

Metal slug 5 - fun game, but was way too loud, so I have now mounted a volume control underneath the control panel

Here you can see that the glass bezel is installed as well as the marquee print and cover. I've also relocated the speakers under the control panel

Well, the cabinet has finally made its way into the house and Sacha tests it thoroughly by playing 'Sailor Moon'

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