Worklog for ArcadeFX - lots of pics

As many of you know I am a sucker for new toys but this is a project I have wanted to do for quite a while. I have always been a fan of the old arcade games and I used to spend countless hours and rolls of quarters in arcades growing up, so its only natural that I wind up with one of my own. Some of you have been keeping track of my progress through our conversations on various messengers but now that I finally have some webspace I can share my experience.

This is my work log for my arcade machine rebuild. Note this is a cabinet restoration and I will be using MAME and a software front end to provide me with the experience.

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The project started off with a stroke of luck on ebay. I mentioned to a friend of mine in Houston that I was considering the project and instead of him doing his job at work he took it upon himself to find me a cabinet on ebay. And what a stroke of luck it was, 8 hours left on the auction, few low bids, and the best part...the cabinet was only an hour away and my brother in law could get me a uhaul for $20... Needless to say I put in a bid and wound up with a cabinet needing a bit of work for only $80. The cabinet had been several games (wasn't sure how many at the time but it seems to have been at least Dynasty Wars, Mortal Kombat I, and Karnov) I took the road trip and payed in cash. Auction included the monitor, power supply, JAMMA harness and an incomplete coin box (buttons, door, and drop case were there but no mechanics). After a bit of help from my dad we managed to get the machine on a dolly and off the truck, and start snappin away with the camera


Here you can see the machine as purchased.


here you can see the coin box


Here you can see a better view of what I had to work with. Note that the buttons on the panels are not aligned properly for some reason, must have been a careless conversion to another game. The graphic around the monitor (Dynasty Wars) is in surprisingly good condition!


The marquee on the other hand is in terrible condition and is not worth thinking twice about throwing away. The graphic is faded, and warped by the elements. Note the damage too the wood on the right side and the mess left behind by the glue when the T molding was removed.



Here you can see the JAMMA wiring harness and powersupply. Most of these old cabinets used the JAMMA standard, which allowed you to exchange boards from one to another without any trouble, it also allowed someone who owned and operated these machines to rebuild them with newer games once customers got tired of the original titles. There were other standards, but JAMMA seems to have been the most popular. Im not to familiar with the history but a google search told me what I needed to know. Another shot can be seen HERE


Here you can see the nice clean monitor guts. The monitor would not be reused.

I recieved a JAMMA game board from my friend Rusty to allow me to test the condition of the components included in the cabinet. After hunting for a wiring diagram for my coin box I figured out what I needed to rig up in order to give myself credits and play the game (assuming all worked). After plugging in the board and turning the machine on i was shocked to find the entire thing worked just fine! The monitor had some burn in which I didnt mind as it would not be reused. The buttons worked just fine, although being a 1 joystick +5 buttons per player set up I could not take full advantage of the mortal kombat board as the game really needs 6 buttons per player. But after flicking the switch in the coin box I was able to get a few rounds in against my brother before going on to the next step.
I would like to thank my friend Rusty for sending me the board to test, it was not something either of us REALLY needed to do, but it was a lot of fun and gave me some more incentive to get the project rolling! Thanks bud!

Let the stripping begin!

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Here you can see a quick shot once the control pannel and monitor bezel were stripped from the cabinet. Once stripped the console went down to the first layer of paint, the Karnov graphics. I really like the graphics on this, but the terrible button layout would not work for me or the games I intend to use, so it will have to be fixed.


Here you can see the monitor removed.


And here you can see the cabinet stripped of everything, harness, power supply, monitor, speakers, everything is gone!

So whats next? Sanding of course!


Here you can see the cabinet once the sanding was complete. I spaced it out over 2 days and had a bit of help from some friends (and my 6 year old nephew!) to get it done quickly as I wanted to get it primed and painted before the storm moved in that weekend.



Saturday rolled around and my sister and nephew payed a visit, while my mom and sis discussed how "pointless" and "useless" this "waste of money" was, Caleb decided it was "man time" and we should get to work! So I pour out the primer and let him go to town on it.

After the primer had time to dry I was running out of time to paint! I put on the first coat and gave it a night to dry and then the next day put the second coat on and I really wanted to get it in the house before the storm hit so I really didn't give it the proper amount of time to dry, but not like it would have done any better in the cold wet garage.

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Here you can see the cabinet after the second coat moved into the house. I put the console back on to help complete the look...and because my two cats decided it would be smart to walk inside it...After a few minutes one walked away and the other decided he would guard it for me.


Once my dad and I got the cabinet up stairs it was time to get building and ordering new parts.

Yay You finally made a thread. Hehe and I think this post is in the middle of your worklog.

After some thought I decided to tackle the new monitor first.
My first thought was to use a large CRT and a friend of mine dropped by with a 22" CRT he had laying around and I looked at my options. Mounting that beast was going to be difficult and I started taking down some measurements figuring out if I could mount it at the angle I wanted. Sadly it was going to take to much effort for what simple goal I wanted to accomplish. I would have to remove it from its casing and build a framework inside the cabinet to get it supported at the right angle, the weight was the biggest problem as I didn't want a lot of bracing or weight. So what to do... Acting on impulse as usual I went into my room, and took the 19" LCD off my workstation and started taking the stand apart and realised how easy this solution would be.
I took a trip to home depot and picked up an MDF panel that they cut for me to the right sizes. My plan was to build a double bezel. Take one panel and cut a hole in it that the monitor would recess into, with a support on the base to keep it at the right height to retain my access to the cables. The second bezel would go over the monitor and the hole in that one would go almost to the edge of the screen itself.

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Here you can see the first bezel in place and how the monitor just rests inside it. This is not screwed in, simply resting. This gives me the freedom to replace the monitor as I wish and the mount is just what you need...simple..and strong.


Here you can see the monitor in place and I have begun my pc placment. The keyboard is there for trouble shooting while I set everything up.


Here you can see the speakers mounted. They are an old 2.1 set I had laying around, the sub is mounted in the bottom of the unit. The speakers are just resting on a piece of wood that acts as a brace, and the wire is anchored down using some large staples.



Here you can see the mock up

The second bezel and my console was my next goal while the adapter I needed was enroute from england. I didn't know it at the time but the damn chip thats used on the board is made by the company one of my brothers work for, and I think it may have even been made here in Austin...and I wait a week for it to fly in from London! No matter, just an annoyance

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After measuring out the size of the hole I would need I cut the second bezel. Note this is free hand with a jigsaw and I'm damn proud of its straightness


Here you can see the second bezel after its first coat of paint. Note that small corner in the top left is not actually an unpainted second, its actually a piece of news paper that I didnt notice was stuck untill after the photo was taken

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I really liked the condition of the original Dynasty Wars graphic bezel and decided it would be a nice idea to reuse it as aside from the wooden cabinet itself and the metal console, everything else was brand new and what pieces were reused were reconditioned to nothing like original. I ran into a bit of an issue as the monitor I am using is a 19" LCD and the original graphic wrapped around a 20" CRT. But after a few measurements I realized all I needed to do was mount the graphic an inch higher and cut a few slices off the top and inside edges to get it to fit fine. So with a straight edge and an xacto knife I ended up with this:

The next thing for me to tackle was the console. I had a few thoughts about how to deal with the mis aligned buttons and had to talk to a few metal guys about what would work best. I took the console on a road trip down to Texas Custom Choppers to get some advise from their metal workers, because after all who knows more about fabricating metal more than guys like this...plus I always like seeing what they are workin on next :P I talked to a few guys in there about recreating the panel or patching over the holes but after our little discussion decided the best way was just to plasma cut a rectangle out of the console and remove the holes entirely and mount a sheet of plexi glass instead that would hold my buttons and joysticks. I took another road trip down to Astro Mechanical to see if they would do the cut for me. The guys at TCC were willing to do it but they suggested plasma cutting would give me better results than what they could do in shop. I found out about this place through a contact of my dads. $25 and a few days later and I had my console back and ready to strip.

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Here you can see the "before" picture of the console.


And here you can see the "after". Note that after the cut I forgot to take another picture and instead dove right into sanding it down to the bare metal. Im still undecided if i want to repaint it black or leave it bare metal. I like the way it looks after all

Later that week I found out some friends and family would drop by for a BBQ (this is Texas, we do this sort of thing every week ) and I decided I had better get some more work done and hopefully get the machine into playable condition to keep the little kiddies (and the big kiddies!) busy.

My IPAC VE arrived from ultimarc a few days previous and my 20 buttons and 2x joysticks arrived from X-Arcade I decided it was time to get get going. I had not had time to get my piece of plexi glass cut with holes to mount the buttons so I reused the original piece from the machine. This process was very simple.
Mount the plastic button, attach the switches, solder the common ground and attach the appropriate button from the console to the IPAC, then plug the IPAC into the USB port and call it quits...right before everyone arrives.



Here you can see how it stands with the plexiglass cut for the monitor and the speaker box. Note that I still need a marquee for the top but I'll get around to it.



Here you can see some of the kiddies playin away at the Simpsons in 2 player.


Once everyone had left I had time to do some minor changes. This included mounting the wireless adapter (usb) so I can add games without having to ever touch a keyboard or mouse. Simply navigate to the menu in my front end, and hit refresh, all from the console. The other was cleaning off the coin door. It was FILTHY but some 50% alcohol and paper towels took care of that.

And there you have it, my worklog to date. The first picture in my last post depicts the machine as it is right now. The to do list includes:

1)rebuild the console using clear plexiglass and a 1x joystick + 6x buttons per player configuration, with a separate start and coin button for each player mounted in the center.
2)create and mount a marquee for the top. I am not sure if I want to carry over the Dynasty Wars theme or not, most likely will
3)restore the coin door to look functional. I will add the "25 cent" button and the coin return slot as soon as I restore them, but I will not likely restore the mechanical aspects of it. Would cost me about $100+ to do and I really see no reason other than "for the hell of doing it"
4)complete my game collection and configuration of the machine to gain the most functionality I can out of it.

For the record I would also like to discuss the configuration of the machine.

The specs:
monitor: Acer AL1912 19" LCD
motherboard: ECS P4M800 pro LGA775
cpu: Pentium D940 @ 3.2ghz
memory: 2x 512mb ddr2 533
hard drve: 120gb WD IDE
cooler: stock pentium D (temporary)
power supply: generic 400w power supply (temporary)
speakers: Altec Lancing 2.1 (old model, but work fine)
Operating System: Windows XP Home edition

Software:
MAME 0.110
MaLa

MAME can be found HERE
and the software front end (MaLa) can be found HERE
Thanks to the simple IPAC VE I do not even need to reconfigure MAME or MaLa. By default Mala allows me to scroll through the list using player 1's joystick and select the game using player 1's start button. Once the game loads I am able to add credits using the button I assigned, and for the 2 player games the second player simply needs to hit his coin button and then his start button to hop right into game. Ultimarc has made an exceptionally easy and affordable product in the IPAC VE. The MaLa front end is also exceptional, I spent many hours finding the right front end and had almost given up untill I came across this. Anyone looking for an all in one front end with no hassle should look no further, this is THE only front end I have found to allow such vast configuration without cluttering your screen with menus you will never use after your first configuration.


Please note that I CANNOT and WILL NOT discuss where to find the games, they are not that hard to find as most are abandonware by this point and IT IS AGAINST THE RULES OF THIS FORUM for me to discuss it anyway, so please DO NOT fill this worklog or my inbox with questions on where to find/download old games.
But please feel free to ask about any other questions relating to this thread, I would gladly assist in any way that I can. If anyone else is interested in building a similar machine I will gladly provide what ever aid I can


I will update this thread as I get more work completed on the machine, which will hopefully be very soon.
Thanks for reading

Waiting for the next addition. Stang you freakin rock.