With most of my energies devoted to my Pacman cab project this week, I didn’t get time to work on the construction. The main piece of news on this project is I ordered 40ft of white t molding and also the slot cutter from t-molding.com. I had been waiting for them to get the slot cutters back in stock, so once they did, I placed my order so I wouldn’t miss out.
I expect the postage will take around 3 weeks to arrive, but no real hurry 🙂
I managed to sneak away to the garage for a little bit this weekend, so have a few minor things to update with. Firstly, I cut out the left and right panels to their correct sizes, and also rounded off the lower corners as per my design.
A minor update – parts purchased from a few places. In2Amusments and AustinAmusments being the main two online stores I’ve purchased from. Initial planning has paid off as it has helped save on postage by grouping parts together where possible to limit the number of orders required.
Also the control panel artwork has been purchased from GameOnGrafix – I hope to have that in a week or so.
It’s that time again for me – I begin a new project. While my previous project (Pacman cabinet) remains at the 90% complete mark, it should be coming to a close shortly. I will hopefully be posting details in the next week or so to finish that off with final pics.
So project #3. This first installment actually started a few months back. My sister and brother in law briefly mentioned they would love a cab for their cafe. I didn’t think much of it at the time since I was busy with my PacMan cab, but decided to start looking at what I might create if I was to do one. The topic came up again a few weeks back and was more solid this time. So I figured why not – I can’t really fit another one in here at the moment, and I love building them – so why not build one for someone else.
The first step was to look at what would suit them. They run their own cafe – people come in, sit down, socialise, drink their coffee/tea, then head out again. That instantly screamed a cocktail cab would suit. I considered an upright, since having built two already, I’m familiar with how to do it. But I think that a cocktail cab here would be best for them given their environment, and they agreed. Another benefit here is it will be cheaper to make. As I’ve found on my last two projects, artwork and finishing is where the real costs lay. Putting together some wood and internals isn’t expensive – but making it look nice is where it will increase the cost.
With a cocktail version in mind, I began researching other projects and styles that have been done before. Google as always turned up plenty of interesting results. I grabbed a number of pictures from the projects I was most impressed with, and began looking at them closer to see what direction I wanted to go in. Some key things I had in mind:
1) I wanted to stick to a theme
2) No multiarcade artwork if possible
3) Use a well known game (Galaxian, Galaga, Pacman, etc)
Continue Reading
It’s been awhile since the last update. After much testing and diagnosing around the video issues, it does looks like it’s the monitor at fault. I won’t rehash much since there is a thread posted on AussieArcade with a lot of detail, but I will say it’s almost certain to be the monitor(s). There is a CGA monitor + chassis + stepdown converter in the mail now, and will hopefully arrive next week. The thread can be found here
I decided to install marquee artwork today. I had been holding off doing it since I have not yet re-installed the JAMMA harness (I have kept it out for when andykmv comes to visit). Then I figured I could just make up some extension wires for the speaker and run them down the back of the cab. That way, I could connect / disconnect the JAMMA harness without having to take the marquee apart. The extension wires looks a little like this (although white):
