galaga

All posts tagged galaga

After two and a half months of planning and waiting, I have finally been able to start building the arcade cabinet (with help from my father in law). Using the Galaga cab plans from Jakobud, we started by marking out the desired side panel shape on one of the MDF sheets (Note: We purchased 3 1200 x 2400 x 18mm MDF sheets). Once this was cut out, the edges were sanded flatten out and improve smoothness of the corners and curves. We then used this as a stencil on the second MDF sheet to cut out the second side panel. Again edges were sanded. The results of this can be seen in the first image below.

Side Panels
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Yet another month has past on my journey to build my own arcade cabinet. The second month has seemed somewhat slower in progress, although I did get a few important things done. The biggest of which was the plans for the internal wiring. I also took some time to grab images of Galaga cab projects other people had done, and got them printed at photos to use as reference material as I’m building. A wise $5 investment I think. I purchased a number of wiring bits also to round the month off – not quite as exciting as researching and buying coin mechs, game boards or controls, but still important.

I think month 3 will see the most physical progress for the cab, as I expect the shell to be built and painted. The power wiring will be done and most internal components installed. With any luck, all that will remain at the end of the month will be some artwork and touch ups.

A month has flow by now, but I’m pretty happy with how things have progressed. I would have loved to see more happen with the actual cab shell, but that’s should start to move forward over the coming fortnight.

So in the first month, I’ve been purchasing lots of bits and pieces for the cab itself. I now have the JAMMA board, a power supply, a 21″ monitor, JAMMA harness, buttons, joystick, components for a service/test switch, a coin mech, a coin counter (waiting delivery) and some other small bits and pieces for building and mounting.

This month, I’m expecting to get the basic shell for the cab put together and hopefully have the PCB, power supply and monitor all mounted inside.

Another Galaga cab project link to share (link). There is some great reference material around. Although I find some important bits missing in most. So I hope I can cover the missing bits with the blog to help those who come after me with understanding more about what’s involved with getting the internals hooked up and going.