Boogieman's 2 player bartop arcade

[BoOgieman]

Hi Guys,

I am happy to announce my 1st project; a 2 player bartop acrade, which I have designed from scratch in Sketchup Pro.

I'm building this project with a good buddy of mine, but on a very slow pace as we have a lot of other things to do in life and I still have to order some tools and parts for this project.

My friend luckily has woodworker skills as he's following a education to become a proffessional furniture maker and also has the right tools to do the job. Although I'm a handy guy, I'm doing a better job with all the other stuff like the hardware and software and ofcourse the Hyperspin and emulator related stuff.

Back to the project:

It will house a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 913N, MSI P45 NEO-F, a Core2 DUO E6600@2,4 GHz, 4-8GB DDR2 Memory, 60 GB SSD, 2x2 TB HDD, TAGAN 550W PSU, Geforce 8800GT, build in Visaton PX-10 speakers and 2x50W mini amplifier,

2x Ultrastik 360, 22 concave black/white pushbuttons with Leafswitch Champ switches for the main pushbuttons. The plan is to make a 6 button CP layout with a second 4th button on the top row and 2 buttons on each side of the arcade for pinball, (probably mapped to button 1 & 2) for each player (LEFT-P1, RIGHT-P2).

So...

We've ordered a very cheap, huge piece of black melamine coated 18 mm thick MDF (2600x2100mm), which we had delivered at his school.

We've made a cutlist from the parts in my Sketchup design and we found out that we would have enough MDF for allmost 3 arcades.

It's nice to have some spare MDF panels, because the control panel and the side panels are the tricky ones to make.

In his school we've cut the big piece of MDF into small panels according the cutlist. We had to use the largest circlesaw table available there because of the size of the piece of MDF. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this, but I will try to make some the next time we're working on the project.

In the mean time I'm trying very hard to figure out what to do with graphics for the marquee, control panel and sidepanels, as I would like to keep it fairly clean. I'm a bit lost at the moment.

Also I'm a lot better with creating something from Sketchup than with Illustrator or photoshop and using the latter two takes up a lot of time.

If you guys have any good suggestions or maybe want to help me out creating some nice clean art, I would be very thankful.

Will keep you posted if any updates occur.

Regards,

Boogieman

I've attached some Sketchup pictures to give you an idea of this project:

[xagesz]

Nice design. I like alot.

[BoOgieman]

Thanks.

Had to make some compromises though...

Because of the space needed for the 2x7 player buttons on the CP, the CP width ended up being 500mm. And because I want as much in perspective as possible, the thing also became bigger upwards. I personally think the bezel looks good in perspective according to the screen. I paid much attention on the angle of the CP and the angle of screen. Also the angle of the player 1 and player 2 buttons differ about 10 degrees, needed if 2 players are sitting next to each other.

The sleek curvature of the sidepanels make the whole thing look a little more sexy to me.

(Hey, most guys like a bunch of good curves, don't they )

Also had another version of this arcade with a drawer shelve for the keyboard.

That's still an option I'm thinking about...

[trublu289]

Thats a pretty nice design so far. I am thinking of building something similar. All of the bartops I have made have had a tripath 2*25 watt amp matched with some tang band 3" speakers and that thing was pretty loud. I could only image the sound with that 50 watt . That program seems pretty interesting may have to look into that one. I like auto cad but always get side tracked from drawing any designs.

[BoOgieman]

Interesting, I've looked up these Tripath amps, as I've never heard of these.

The stuff I read about these amps show to me they are pretty high end.

Maybe they're a little too much for this project.

The one I'm talking about is http://shop.conrad.nl/auto/multimedia/versterkers/versterkers/372204.html. I will probably remove and extend the wire of the volume knob to place the knob somewhere handy within range.

[trublu289]

Interesting, I've looked up these Tripath amps, as I've never heard of these.

The stuff I read about these amps show to me they are pretty high end.

Maybe they're a little too much for this project.

The one I'm talking about is http://shop.conrad.nl/auto/multimedia/versterkers/versterkers/372204.html. I will probably remove and extend the wire of the volume knob to place the knob somewhere handy within range.

check out parts express.com

That's where I get all my audio stuff. I just got a order in the tripath was only 19.99

just checked out that amp it has a lot of wattage but not so much power compared to the tripath it's about half the power rating

[BoOgieman]

Yes true, it's the RMS rating of 2x10W that counts.

Doesn't matter though, I think it will be loud enough anyway.

Nice webshop btw, too bad it is not in europe.

Ordering parts from the States and ship them overseas will cost a lot.

Also the customs will charge you with taxes and stuff.

[trublu289]

Yes I'm more than sure that 10 watts is enough

[gumpie]

Way don't you try these , i have them to it's Pretty having a Havey Bass under the belly.

http://www.ebay.nl/itm/2-1-LM1875-25W-25W-50W-Sub-Amplifier-board-yj-/280817736765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41620a9c3d

It Kost Geen Droll. ( This is a low cost version 2.1 amp)

[BoOgieman]

Way don't you try these , i have them to it's Pretty having a Havey Bass under the belly.

http://www.ebay.nl/itm/2-1-LM1875-25W-25W-50W-Sub-Amplifier-board-yj-/280817736765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41620a9c3d

It Kost Geen Droll. ( This is a low cost version 2.1 amp)

Thanks mate, it's really cheap...

I'll consider that...

Also it reminds me to put away my new galaxy note phone and get back to the project now it's spring and the weather is good for woordworking outside.

[BoOgieman]

Good news: My buddy and I finally got back on track (sorta) after having raw-sawed the large piece of black laminated mdf ages ago.

I drawed the side panel on a thin piece of mdf which is cut with a router to create a template.

We spend a lot of time creating a template for the 28mm button holes. We ended up making a template for a button template that is used on the side panel template that we used for routing side panel that we now use as

a template.

We also noticed the downside of laminated mdf which is the razor sharp edges and scratches that are easily made while crafting.

I also think that putting vinyl on the sides will be an issue because the mdf surface is not totally smooth. Somehow we ordered the wrong laminated mdf and have to deal with it.

This week we routed 2 side panels and next week we plan on routing the control panel from the template.

To be continued....

[BoOgieman]

Sent from Android with Tapatalk

[richie_jones]

Great work, looking forward to future updates....

[BoOgieman]

Great work, looking forward to future updates....

Thanks, me too

will update if anything new occurs...

[relic]

such a great start right there keep up the good work

[potts43]

Looks like a great start!

I've been searching for some plans...are you willing to share?

Many thanks

[BoOgieman]

Depends on what plans you need buddy..

I spend countless hours on the 3d design in sketchup, but in order for a CNC machine to cut it I need to redo it in another CAD program.

For manual building you need other plans, I need to sort stuff out first, it has been ages since I have worked on the project and don't really recall what I have.