Custom 2 Player Street Fighter II Bartop Cabinet Build using a X-Arcade Dual

[Duglim]

Hi Hyperspin community,

after reading and thinking about building a cab for several month, I decided on the new years eve to actually DO IT!

With some mental support from my wife, I started the project by installing HyperSpin 1.3 and getting used to HS and HL and all the needed tools. Took me about one week to have a fully configured system up and running with MAME and generation 3-5 consoles, so basically covering the late 80`s till late 90`s, which was my personal gaming decade when i grew up.

Next step was buiding the cab itself. With a lot of topics here in this board and some blogs, I was able to learn about all needed parts and important things to think about in the planning phase.
I`ll show you my building progress now with some pictures I took during the last week. Hope you like it!

First thing I did, was ordering the great X-Arcade Dual Joystick, which seems a good starting Joystick for my first cab project.



With the X-Arcade I was able to find the perfect width for the Cab, I wanted to insert the X-Arcade perfectly into the cab, to It wouldn`t look like a seperate thing.
Additionally I measured the 19`` DELL 4:3 TFT and the Laptop dimensions. With all this hard facts, the rest was drawn quite easily in PowerPoint.


Next task was visit at our local hardware store, where the nice people cut the 1.6mm MDF plates directly to the needed dimensions. Back at home I cut the side parts by myself.


Special SPAX MDF screws worked perfect for building the plates. All srewheads are engulfed in the MDF plates and later filled with Moltofill.


First simple test, if everything will fit. I was impressed, how well the X-Arcade fits without finetuning the cutout. Nice!


First coat of grounding paint, later on I painted 2 coats of black color on the cab.



The backplate holds the power plug, a headphones plug (which automatically mutes the speakers) and a big hole for the 200mm silent fan. The fan is running on 5 volts, so its super silent.



Black coating is done and the monitor mount is in place. DELL has a nice plug-n-play VESA mount already installed with their screens, so you can remove the screen by just pressing a button on the back. Love it!



Time to install screen, joystick and laptop. With all needed wireings the system was already up and running. But I decided to NOT power it on, but finish the cab first. I know myself well enough to know when not to interrupt a building process and get distracted with games.



With the lights on... Below the lights, the sound system is installed. I used a DELL Soundbar, ehich a already had available.



Black tape around the screen bezel hides the silver color from DELLs TFT.


Time to spray the glass bezel. With 5mm rounded Lexan glass, the bezel just looks amazing.



Main work was done, time to move the beauty to the living room.



Now I layed down the saw and screwdiver and went back to the PC, this time doing some Photoshop work. I loved the StreetFighter II games back in the 90`s, so there was a quick decision to create some SFII artworks. This was the artwork layout, I sent to the printers shop. They printed it on coated vinyl adhesive film, a really durable and resitant thing. Sadly it took more than a week to recieve the order.



In the meantime, I found the right spot to place the cab in the house, it´s next to my gaming desk, not far from the fridge.


Wow, the artworks arrived and I had time over the weekend to cut it and glue it to the cab. This really brought the cab to the next level, I think. I´m more than happy with this result.






Overall, it took me around 10 evenings to get the software running and another 10 evenings to build the cab.
Including the laptop, I was able to get all parts and tools for around 600 Euros.
The Laptop is an 2009 DELL Latitude with Core2Duo 2,4GHz CPU. All systems run really smooth up to PSX. It can`t handle any visual shader effects, but I like playing the good old games without any artificial shaders or filters anyway. I added the great SLG3000 scanline generator for having a little more retro flair to the picture. Amazing little tech thingy.
With this Laptop cab build, the system is completely exchangeable in the future. All components can be reached from the front by taking out the Laptop tray, the X-Arcade and the screen glass.

Hope you like this as much as myself.

[urk]

Nice job, man! I need to tackle the bezel on mine shortly. How was working with the lexan? What kind of paint is that?

[Duglim]

Thanks, actually I did not "work" with the lexan, because I ordered in the exact fitting shape for my cab and the edges were already rounded.

It was 38 Euros including shipping, so basically double the price as normal plexiglass, but much more scratch resistant and durable.

Painting was the same as you would do with other glass, just tape the viewport and spray some black paint on the rest. I used high glossy spray, but I think it doesn`t even matter.

Greetings, Dan

[LapRocket]

Great work on this, it looks great. I have an extra x-arcade I was wanting to make a bartop with and this would be perfect. Do you have the blue prints for your build?

[Duglim]

I have added some basic comments about the cab building to my plans, maybe it can help you. This simple plan was all i used and I dont't think you need much more when working with 1.6 cm MDF. This material is so easy to handle. All tech parts like the lamp, the soundbar & fan can be added on the fly, thatswhy they don't appear on the plan.

http://www7.pic-upload.de/10.02.14/mbt62zcsdf1.jpg

Greetings, Duglim

[LapRocket]

Awesome....Thanks

[Duglim]

Update 1: I added the SLG3000 scanline generator a few days ago. Hell, what a difference in nostalgic picture quality, really a great product. Only re-setting all emulators to use 640x480 resolution took a while. The new SLG3000 has a new IC, which only draws scanlines on 640x480 or 800x600, which is great to keep a clear highres image in HyperSpin or Handhelds with Bezels and just scanline the emus. Top!

Update 2: I also installed a headphones jack in the back, with an automatic switch to turn off the speakers if headphones are present.

[Drakin]

Awsome Build!!

[Agrajag]

Looks good! I replaced the joysticks in my X-Arcade with some decent Sanwa balltops, as I thought the standard ones were just awful. However, it still spends most of its time sitting on top of my PC under the desk gathering dust as there's too much stuff on my desk to keep it out all the time and I don't seem to have a lot of time for playing games at the moment.

I really want to scratch build a proper cabinet eventually, ideally with a rotating screen, trackball, spinner and so on, but perhaps I should quickly knock up something like this to put on the sideboard just to encourage myself to actually play some games in the meantime. I've got a spare set of speakers so I'd just need to buy a monitor, or else make a pedestal to use with my TV. I wouldn't even need to put a PC inside it, as I could just connect everything to my main PC in the same room with some of the long cables I have laying around. Hmmm, I think I may be on to something...

[Duglim]

After finishing this SF2 cab, I build a custom 26'' pinball cabinet during the last weeks. It's a budget build for entry level pinball experience.

Check it out, if you like: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?33166-Budget-Pinball-Cab-with-26-playfield-custom-build-from-spare-parts

Greetings, Duglim

[AshuraX]

nice!

[darkskwirl]

Excellent job! I was wondering about the XArcade... was it hard to get the buttons and joystick off for the overlay? I have one printed that I want to put on but haven't been sure how to get the buttons etc off. Can you give any advice?

Did you just take the screen to the laptop off... its interesting because I have a spare laptop at home...

[Duglim]

Regarding the XArcade overlay: I printed it on paper first and then cut button holes in the paper, until it perfectly fits the XArcade button layout. Then I used this paper as a model and cut holes in the real overlay. This way I didn't need to remove the joysticks ans buttons.

You can find some photoshop layouts of the XArcade button design, but i learned that each XArcade has slightly different dimensions als button locations. So dont't relay on this layouts from other people, make you own paper mask.

Regarding the laptop: Most laptop screens can be pushed 180 degree, so the laptop is completely flat. During Windows 7 boot sequence, the laptop screen is still used, but as soon as the login screen comes up, it automatically switches to the external TFT. There is no need to remove the laptop screen, just push it to the back. BTW, it's really easy to operate Windows with the laptop keyboard and touchfield in the drawer.

Greetings, Duglim

[Duglim]

Since I build my third cab with a custom button layout, I was unhappy with the X-Arcade Dual layout.

Thatswhy I changed some of the X-Arcade buttons to match my needs:

P1 und P2 have their own coin and start buttons right in the front. They are used as Select/Start for game console emulation like NES and SNES, too.

The red and green buttons on top handle the HyperSpin OK/Back/ExitGame functions. This way, Hyperspin controls and in-game controls a separated and no ugly multi button combination is needed to e.g. exit the game.

I'm also thinking of a complete X-Arcade replacement with a bigger board and illuminated RGB buttons, maybe during the christmas holiday.

Greeting, Duglim