splashfx Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Hi everyone! I'm new to this site and I'm starting my first cabinet build. I have a long way to go and I can't wait to get it up and running. To start, I have an old Zaxxon cabinet that was donated by a friend. It's rough but I think it will do for this build. I'm reading and learning as much as I can right now, and I'm always looking for advice. I'm amazed at the quality of work that people are doing here. It's humbling, but I don't expect my cabinet to be anything as great as I've seen on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Bit of hard work mate im sure it will look great,got any ideas on themes and set up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 Hard work, but fun and rewarding! The setup is going to be inexpensive for this first go around. I have a cheap computer that I bought a while back that I plan to use, with a Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 card. The display is an ancient 20" VGA CRT that I've had forever. I would like to upgrade to an LCD at some point, but want to keep the 4:3 aspect ratio if I can find something the right size. The controls I have are a mini-PAC with a couple of MagSticks, 20 buttons for the panel, a 2.25" trackball and a SpinTrak rotary control. I'm still thinking about what to do for sound. As for theme, I haven't sorted that one out yet. I've been looking at some of the cabinets on here and I'm just amazed at the quality of them. I'll keep looking and hopefully I'll figure out what theme I want for the cabinet soon. I was originally thinking to do a simple theme, similar to the old Williams arcade games back in the 80's, but maybe that's too simple in this day and age. -Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Sounds like your all sorted,as for a theme loads of very creative guys on these boards you could always put up a request post you will be amazed at what they can come up with Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spec Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 i use to love this game as a child!! my dad would turn it on on his ollllllllddddddddddddddddd pc and was like here you go keep quiet! hahahahahahaaaaaa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 5, 2012 Author Share Posted November 5, 2012 spec: Yeah, I loved Zaxxon as a kid. I thought it looked amazing at the time, but that was long ago when Zaxxon was a new game. I love your Green Machine build! WOW!! That's amazing looking!! I did some sanding this weekend and worked on laying out the control panel. Sanding progressed a bit further than is shown in the picture, but there is still a lot to do. The more I sand on this old thing the more I think it would've been smarter to just start over... I worked on the old control panel, but finally figured out that is was never going to work. Are there any resources for laying out controls and getting the hole sizes and placement correct? I bought a couple of 3'x4' sheets of MDF for the control panel. I think my panel will be 36" wide x 18" deep and will give enough room to fit all of the controls needed, and it will be removable so if as some later point I want to build a bigger badder cab this will transfer over. I've had an old Virtua Racing cabinet for years, but only recently did I get both sides working. What a blast this thing is! It makes me want to build a side-by-side dedicated racing cabinet at some point in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spec Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Wow that is nice!! I would love to have a sim cab. Soon lmao!! Thank for checking out the green machine. Nice to meet you and hit me up whenever aight .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 Wow that is nice!! I would love to have a sim cab. Soon lmao!! Thank for checking out the green machine. Nice to meet you and hit me up whenever aight .. I love the shot clock and the control panel rocks. Love those green lights! Very impressive work, so I would expect great things out of your sim cab too. Should be done next week, right? LOL No progress on my cabinet, but I did scrounge a table saw to use from my brother. Hope I can get the control panel cut and pieced together without losing too many fingers. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 8, 2012 Author Share Posted November 8, 2012 I finally got started on building the control panel last night. It's not pretty, but I think it will work for an old beater arcade machine that lives in a dirty old shop. Now to get some hole punched in this and get it working. Maybe I'll go back and make a cleaner version later, but right now I really want to get this machine running and figure out what does and doesn't work. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 No complaints here mate few coats of paint and it will look great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 9, 2012 Author Share Posted November 9, 2012 No complaints here mate few coats of paint and it will look great Thanks, Monkey!! I'm a bit overwhelmed at the quality of the beautiful cabs on this site, but I really need my Hyperspin cab working NOW!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 Yer to honest you can get lost in the build trying to have worlds best looking cab,getting the machine half built and seeing a game running really help motivate a build,you can add and remove stuff after its built, i even turned on my machine without the computer bits just to see it running Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 9, 2012 Author Share Posted November 9, 2012 Wow, that's another great looking cabinet! I love the whole Space Invaders theme with the Retrocade name. Retrocade was an AWESOME emulator back in the day, later became AAE - I think. I know that the cabinet I started with probably should've been trashed, but I also know that in the environment it's going to be in that it won't matter how nice it is, it will get banged up and treated badly. All of that said, I would love to someday do something with the quality finish of your cabinet. What a sweet machine you have there. I see it says "Loading Operating System" on screen: are you running an OS other than Windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 Thanks to be honest my machine is a clone of Mikes original Retrocade.but thanks for the feedback, Building a machine for use by others in public i would have done less attention to detail and kept it black Oh and yes I'm running windows 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 10, 2012 Author Share Posted November 10, 2012 Monkey, I would love to build something exactly like what you have. The small footprint and the classic look - it's just perfect for the home. Beautiful job on the cabinet! Yesterday I drilled the holes for all of the controls and mounted them. Well, all controls except the trackball. I need a mounting plate for this and they're currently sold out - so that part is on hold for now. I found a trackball mounting plate that looks like it should work, and so the order has been placed. Hope I didn't just waste the money on this purchase. Wiring is my next step! Can't wait to start "testing" it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Nice job thise joysticks looks great i think thats what ill fit after my first up grade session Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 12, 2012 Author Share Posted November 12, 2012 It's ALIVE! ...but just barely. Got some of the wiring started and did some testing with the control panel sitting on some saw horses. Everything I tried seemed to work, but I still need to test the spinner and the track ball. Lots of things left to cross off the list, but it's getting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RidicRick Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 Holy crap that control panel looks huge compared to the zaxxon cab! Maybe its just the picture angle. Anyways nice work, I have a buddy who has a zaxxon cab with working tetris in it he is trying to sell me for $150. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 Wow that looks big i like it ! Also are you ever going to finish that robot wars project to the right of the machine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 12, 2012 Author Share Posted November 12, 2012 Thanks guys! It is a bit large, but it's also a bit of an optical illusion too. The control panel overall is about a foot wider than the original control panel and there should be about a 5.5"-6" overhang on each side with the new control panel. Looking forward to getting everything cleaned up and painted and mounted correctly. No notification if my trackball mounting plate has shipped, but very excited to get it installed and finish testing everything out. So much to do, and so little time. I also need to start thinking about some graphics that I want to paint on the side, or maybe some simple vinyl graphics to stick on the exterior. When I started this I was really afraid I couldn't do it. I have no experience with wood working, but this has really been fun. It's not going to be a great looking cabinet like monkeychunkuk's classic looking Retrogames cab or anything wild and amazing like your's RidicRick (love your graphics!), but I think anyone could build one of these if they put a little bit of time into it and find an old derelict cabinet and save it from certain doom. EDIT: LOL!! I'm so slow... Took me a while, but I finally got the Robot Wars project comment! An old Porsche 914/VW engine would make one hell'ova brawler in the ring! Here is my "real" robot project that I've been working on for a little over a year (the image is from June, so it's progressed a little bit since then). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeychunkuk Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Alll i can say is wow please keep us updated on that project as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 13, 2012 Author Share Posted November 13, 2012 Thanks and sure thing, monkey. I'm about ready to start painting, and I'm trying to do powder coating at home - so I have a bit of a learning curve at the moment. Here is a recent picture of the dome. On the arcade cabinet front, no progress for the past few days. I want to be working on it, but sometimes life throws you a curve. Can't wait to get back to it and finish up the controls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 19, 2012 Author Share Posted November 19, 2012 Monkeychunkuk: You mentioned that you might change out to some joysticks similar to the ones I bought. I have to say that I'm not too impressed with these sticks - certain directions aren't very notch-y and hard to hold in 8-way mode. The way my sticks are mounted up and down are hard to hit without going diagonal. The sticks are the "Mag-Stik" that I bought from www.ultimarc.com. Might look around at other reviews and see if it's just me or if they aren't too good in some ways. I did get the control panel wired up enough so that a single player can play and have some fun. My son played Galaga (his new favorite old skool game), Joust and Gauntlet. It's great to play these classics and also to see them played and enjoyed by gamers of today. The trackball mounting plate is supposed to ship today. Can't wait to get it so I can finish up the controls and get the whole thing painted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted November 26, 2012 Author Share Posted November 26, 2012 This weekend was fun, but I didn't get to spend a lot of time working on the arcade cabinet. We did wire up the spinner and give it a try on a few games (Virtua Racing, Arkanoid, Pole Position, Tempest, etc...) and it's a mixed result - worked great on some games, but didn't seem very good on others. I will play with it and see if it can be fine tuned for each game. I did get the cabinet cut to allow for the new control panel and figure out how I'm going to mount it. Later that day the mounting plate for the trackball arrived and I got that installed as well. I can't wait to get it finished up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splashfx Posted December 3, 2012 Author Share Posted December 3, 2012 This weekend I was able to get the control panel mounted and painted, and I started doing final wiring in the control panel as well. It still has a way to go, but it's so close. Got some screws to mount the trackball today as well as ordered the t molding. I had a few issues with MAME losing focus and going back to Hyperspin, but a search on the forums shows that it's probably some background process stealing focus and causing the problem. I will have to investigate this and see what's causing the issue. This site is such a great resource for noobs, like myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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