If we revisit where I left off, the problem was the cold weather. I had pretty much finished 90% of the woodworking, and was ready to proceed on to laminating the cabinet. Unfortunately, the laminate glue required working conditions of at least 65 degrees. Seeing how it was January at this point, that was not going to happen for a long time. By the time it did warm up in the Spring I was so busy with the end of year stuff with school, yard work, and other pressing issues. When school finally was over, June was dominated with taking more Graduate classes for our Specialist degree. July finally came, and although it was oppressively hot out, I was motivated. I must have logged close to 50 hours or more on the project in a time span of two weeks. It was really fun at this point because of the rapid changes that were taking place and the end of the project in site. I was actually starting to think about playing this thing rather than working on it non-stop. So, enough catching up. Here is a short look of what happened in the last few weeks:
After some finishing touches on the cabinet I disassembled it and laminated each piece, and carried them down to the basement where the assembly would take place again. While laminating was a bit of a pain, the results were dramatic. Laminating is what truly sets a home built arcade apart from others like it, and gives it a professional appearance. While I did not take pictures during the laminating process, here are the finished pieces in the basement waiting for assembly:
Much to my surprise, it really was not all that difficult to assemble the cabinet again. I had it back together in about an hour. At this time, I installed the blue T-molding trim, put the TV back in, installed speakers and the neon rings you see in the side. I must give full credit to a site I ran across on the internet - Knievel and his "Neon Mame" that inspired me to install the lit side art. The speakers above the TV also have small led's in them as well. In these next two pictures the cabinet is assembled and near completion minus the control panel, marquee and lit side art.
A side view:
Next, it was time to start working on the control panel. The plans kind to took a twist at this point. I was really wanting some kind of graphic overlay to place on the control panel. I had a guy that was really good in Photoshop offer to help create it but it became apparent that his schedule was not going to allow it, and if he did ever get around to it, I was looking at late fall before I saw some results. So, since I needed the graphic first to use as a template to cut holes in a control panel I was stuck. Meanwhile, I spent the better portion of a day researching and ordering all the control panel parts from different vendors, deciding what would suit my needs the best. All the buttons, joysticks, trackball, and spinner arrived in the mail and were just sitting there waiting for me to do something with them! I decided at that point I was going to familiarize myself with wiring the panel since I was unsure of how to go about it. My intentions were to cut a rough slab of particle board out, drill some holes and wire a couple of buttons up temporarily to see if they worked. I was still sitting on a template that my buddy Brett had let me borrow, so in a period of about an hour I drew out a board design, traced most of the button holes placements, and drilled some 2o holes for all the buttons. Now I'm thinking to myself that as I mentioned earlier, it may be a month or two before I get to build the panel I want and this temp board might be sitting there awhile. So since I already had some scrap laminate and T-molding laying around I thought I would dress it up a bit and make it look nice, especially since it didn't cost extra do do it! To make a long story short, the temporary board turned out better than expected, so much so that I think that I will keep it on the arcade for quite awhile. I would still like a graphic overlay, but I am now thinking of that as "Phase 2" of the project that I might tackle in 6 months or a year when I'm looking for something else to improve on. By the way, I chose to go with lit buttons on the panel. They look great and really give the cabinet a cool appearance. When the machine is idle, the buttons blink randomly and sweep back and forth across the panel. When activated, only the buttons needed for the chosen game light up, therefore eliminating any confusion as to which buttons are needed for game play. It's a pretty cool feature that I'm glad I went with. Here are a few pictures of the wiring and finished panel:
And the other side:
The lit up keyboard (without flash):
Taken with a flash to show true colors:
Last fall I picked up an old Sony receiver and 10" powered sub woofer off Craigslist to power the Jukebox. Needless to say it has plenty of power and compliments the system nicely. Here is a picture down below where the receiver and Dell sit. The sub sits outside the arcade on the floor. I tried it inside the cabinet at first, but there was too much vibration.
As you can see in the above photo, I also installed a strip of led lights under the leading edge of the control panel. The lights cast a cool glow on the ground in front of the cabinet, and also serve as a nice keyboard light when I pull out the keyboard drawer to type.One of the last things to do was order and install the side art and marquee. Here are two pictures of the side art installed. It really sets the cabinet off and I've gotten many positive reactions from people who have seen it for the first time.
And with the lights off:
The marquee did not turn out as planned. The one I chose from the web site was not what was sent, so the owner is printing off a new one and it will be here sometime next week. Perhaps I'll post a picture of the new one when it arrives. Sometime in the future I would like to design my own and have it printed. Following are a couple completed pictures of the cabinet:
While I titled this post "completed" it really is not. I'm sure I will be tweaking and messing with various aspects of the cabinet. Right now I'm working on expanding the music selection in the Jukebox. As I mentioned earlier I'd like to create and design my own control panel graphic and marquee down the road. Who knows what else.
On a different note I would very much like to thank my brother Dave for originally coming up with the idea to build a Mame machine. Now that his friends and brother are done with theirs, just maybe.... he will actually build one himself! Another huge thanks to our friend Brett who challenged me to take a look at this project to begin with. It was almost exactly one year ago when he said to me, "Hey Paul, I've got a project for you". I also thank him for helping me with the Mame Roms, and fielding a barrage of questions from me in the beginning.
The biggest thanks of all goes to my wonderful wife Ann for patiently watching me pursue this project and disappear for literally hours at a time out in the garage, immersed in my work. Thanks hon, I love you.
