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Custom Vewlix Arcade Cab

majorspawn

By majorspawn
in Cabinets and Projects

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majorspawn Newbie

majorspawn

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Hi Guys,

Here is Youtube video of my custom Vewlix cabinet running HS. Hope you like it.
 

 

Thanks

MS

Notes:

Custom Vewlix Arcade Cabinet. Construction time approx 7 months, (mostly spend on painting is a paint booth which I made a bit small so I had to paint a few parts at a time, see my comments at the end regarding painting tips)
Parts:
Vewlix 32" cabinet kit is from www.arcadeworx.com.au
Samsung Commercial LCD Monitor 32" (320MP-3). (Auto turns on and turns off based on signal, great refresh rate vs a lcd tv)
Pentium Quad 775 Q6600 OC air 3.4Ghtz, Samsung SSD 840 (C:), 640 GB Raid 0 Sata 2 (Emu Drive), 1TB Samsung SATA 2 (Backup Drive), EVGA 790i Ultr mb, ATI HD 6950, 4GB Corsair 1600C7DHX XMS3, 2
Peripherals:
2 x Ultimarc Aimtrak Guns with modified Happ gun holsters,
Ultimarc Ipac 4, 5 x USB - Neutrik ports, Flouro Marquee lighting, marque top and controller using 3528 SMD Cool White LED Strips running 12V molex (off ebay), Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT Joystick with SEIMITSU LS-55 springs (makes the joysticks a bit stiffer) , Sanwa OBSF-24 and Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons, Sanwa OBSF-24 (off Ebay)
Finish:
Aslan C61 Blackboard Vinyl, red pin striping from Ebay, Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 1-Gal. Water-Based White Primer/Sealer, White water based paint, Cabot's Cabothane Clear Water Based Polyurethane all sprayed using a 50L compressor using a 1.4mm tip gravity fed spray gun in a DIY paint booth. I recommend a paint-boot at least 4 times bigger than the cab for easy painting. Used this design: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Paint-Booth-in-Your-Garage. Making it bigger makes it easier to walk around and spray.
Main Recommendations:
Blackboard vinyl is awesome use it, painting with water based paint is hard! especially black which is unforgiving and almost impossible to get a gloss finish. If you paint with water based you need to apply water based primer and poly. When using poly make sure you have a paint booth as poly will show up all imperfections. Used about 4L of Water based poly, approx 4-5 coats. If your going to use vinyl pinstriping or decals you need to use water based as oil based might break down or run the vinyl colour. If I had a chance to do it again I would apply poly straight onto the primer, the controller is primer and poly only. The rest of the cab body is primer, paint and poly. Primer and poly also give a plastic looking finish.
Software:
Windows 7 x64 Pro with Hyperspin. I prefer hyperspin have used maximus arcade and GameEX, I found HS to be the most attractive and best suited for an arcade cabinet.
Final Thoughts:
Highly recommend the Dual Aimtraks they are amazing!!. The Aimtrak sensor is hidden in the bazel, I had to cut the sensor in half and route the back of the bazil to fit the sensor snug and hide the cabling so that the monitor sits flush with the bazel from the back. It also allows the sensor not to stick out too much.
Use a paintbooth and a gravity fed spraygun. I started with ZERO spraygun experience and found it a great learning curve. Came out beautiful in the end, just do it carefully, look at youtube on how to paint and use a gun. Sand everything with 400grit sandpaper in between.
If your using the arcadewors vewlix kit like me do not permanently attach the top Maquee arcade piece to the rest of the cab this makes it almost impossible to later fit the marquee graphics in correctly. I’ve made this mistake and had to cut the cab after painting just to be able to remove the Perspex holding the marquee together. Luckily I did not damage the paint job. I have also used 2 x 2mm Perspex pieces to sandwich the marquee artwork. The standard kit comes with 1 x 3mm piece so the artwork is not properly mounted from the back. I had the 2 x 2mm pieces fabricated from the original in a perspex supplier at my own expense.
Artwork was done in photoshop by a graphics designer I know. It took a few test prints to get it right and a few solid hours to get the alignment correct. The design fits a 32” Arcadeworx controller like mine, will not align with a Kraylix design. The cabs are different.
Forgot to mention in the video that I also mounted Black Feet for Baseboard Legs M8 under the cab for an authentic finish. I am also using the usb port underneath the controller to connect 2 xbox 360 usb controller configured via Xpadder to run a few of my emulators.
Running Dual Aimtraks with troubleshooter http://thetroubleshooter.home.mindspring.com/ for dual guns on HOTD3 aned HOTD2 PC.
Using Troubleshooter 2 http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=130784.80 to run M2M emulator only.
Please don’t ask me how I got this working as it was an absolute fluke and miracle, I tried to replicate this again and couldn’t!.... Act of God. It took about 50 attempts of trail and error but rule of thumb is don’t have any other mouse devices connected at all, use the guns to mouse around the OS if you need to as soon as you introduce another mouse as well as 2 Aimtraks this will throw your device IDS out. Multiple mouses works well with Windows 7, previous versions are sketchy.

 

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JogZter Newbie

JogZter

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This looks like a really nice cab. Excellent job. I guess you have a lot of fun with - even thouh they say - the build is half the joy :) Really, great looking piece of work. I would just love the opportunity to by a cabinet kit in Germany. Shipping those from overseas is just way too expensive. Maybe one day though... Keep enjoying your cab!

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  • 2 weeks later...
majorspawn Newbie

majorspawn

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Awesome,

I am making one by myself right now, gonna make it Killer instinct themed

Need to be finished in november i gonna put the new xboxone with the new killer instinct in it

that sound pretty cool. you sure you want to theme it something other than original vewlix?

would be interesting to see the result

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  • 4 months later...
lukensteinz Newbie

lukensteinz

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Very very nice.

Have you tried airless spray guns before?

I got a Wagner 180p gun, it's brilliant, bit tricky to get it right, but the effort is well worth it.

What was drying time like?

Water based paint?

Is the paint still tacky/soft?

One thing I experienced, using water based paint, the mdf seemed to shrink about a millimeter.

Sent from my LT26w using Tapatalk

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majorspawn Newbie

majorspawn

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Wagner is rubbish mate when it comes to laying down a thin layer of paint. The nozzle on the Wagner's are 2mm so the paint sprays out rather quickly and far from an even flow, most of the turbine units clog up quickly are noisy and dont suck paint it, all plasticy parts inside. Have yo ever seen an autobody shop use a Wagner to spray a car? probably for a good reason. Nothing beats the consistency of a gravity fed spray gun. I actually used a Wagner originally to spray the primer on this cab dont get me wrong it did spray but for anything other that basecoats or paining basic cupboards or doors I would not recommend it. My cab also has a nice payer of polyurethane which would be impossible to get done with a Wagner. I had to use a 1.4mm tip with high pressure and atomization of paint that you can only get with a spray gun. Gravity spray guns and compressors are not that expensive anyways these days. My compressor was a 40L kit with a gun that was only around $200. A wagner hend held will cost you around the same price. If your in a position to get one do so but I also understand that places such as EU your only options are turbine units.

I used Zinster Bulls Eye 123 water based primer sealer, water based paint matt and Cabbots Cabotine WBP.

About 3-4 coats of each. If you look at the Youtube you can also see how poly looks directly on the primer on the controller. Looks like plastic. I used water based for these reasons:

1. Oil based Poly goes yellow over time so the white will turn yellow.. yuck

2. I used vinyl striping on the controller if I used oil based poly it would react with the vinyl and the paint on it would run. This doesnt happen with Water based.

The paint job was nice and smooth and even, I diluted the paint and polly further with water by about 20% to make it flow more from the gun. smooth finish and dried in about 3 hours in between coats. Oil takes days and also hard to clean up.

loads of reasons to go with water based. I also made a DIY paint booth so avoid dust on the job etc.

I also wasted a lot of time with the black and opted for the blackboard vinyl whch was easier to work with. water based black is a bad idea this is where u need oil to get that piano goss finish.

with the shrinking i had no issues, i sealed the mdf then used a primer sealer. The wood should not shrink at all. Did you seal it first mate? I looked at your cab and it looks like you just sprayed black directly on the mdf?

Poly directly on primer, you can see the gloss and seal on vinyl pinstripe and the finish

post-88970-142870619219_thumb.jpg

post-88970-142870619222_thumb.jpg

paint booth:

post-88970-142870619223_thumb.jpg

post-88970-142870619226_thumb.jpg

post-88970-142870619229_thumb.jpg

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lukensteinz Newbie

lukensteinz

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Hmm great advice! Thanks mate.

I went with the Wagner for the total ease of use and the tiny amount of room it takes up.

Metal piston and housing, but yeah there are *some* plastic parts. And only time it's clogged up is when I forgot to clean it.

I rinse it right out and oil it before storage.

Have a look at my pics of my cab, the paint turned out pretty well! It does actually atomise the paint the properly, you just need to fiddle with the flow rate and get the right consistency.

(I'm painting cabinets, with water based paint, not cars)

Dunno what it's like with poly yet though, but different atomizers are available.

And yep, sealed it with a good primer.

Think I'll look at a compressor and kit one day, especially for paints the Wagner can't do. thanks heaps for your advice.

I wasn't aware that oil based paints can yellow over time.

Was the polyurethane the final top coat? Does it dry quite hard?

Sent from my LT26w using Tapatalk

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majorspawn Newbie

majorspawn

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Hmm great advice! Thanks mate.

I went with the Wagner for the total ease of use and the tiny amount of room it takes up.

Metal piston and housing, but yeah there are *some* plastic parts. And only time it's clogged up is when I forgot to clean it.

I rinse it right out and oil it before storage.

Have a look at my pics of my cab, the paint turned out pretty well! It does actually atomise the paint the properly, you just need to fiddle with the flow rate and get the right consistency.

(I'm painting cabinets, with water based paint, not cars)

Dunno what it's like with poly yet though, but different atomizers are available.

And yep, sealed it with a good primer.

Think I'll look at a compressor and kit one day, especially for paints the Wagner can't do. thanks heaps for your advice.

I wasn't aware that oil based paints can yellow over time.

Was the polyurethane the final top coat? Does it dry quite hard?

Sent from my LT26w using Tapatalk

im pretty sure that with any clear coat you need a smaller tip like a 1.4mm, I think you might have some even flow issues with a turbine unit. If you end up doing a clear coat i will be curious to see what it turns out like.

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