Arcade Cabinet Repair

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How much later? It seems like programming is the one thing you are both good at and able to do without walking around.

[Flack]

This step (taping a paper template to the wall)? Not scary at all.



THIS step (cutting a 9"x12" hole in your drywall)? Scary as fuck!



This step (putting the speaker in the hole)? Back to not scary!

[Jizaboz]

Looks nice!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Flack, I can tell you quite categorically that I would love any and all future updates and we'll zap any posts into the Troll Room that try to steer us off course.

[Flack]

I finally got a good coat of paint on the cabinet. I bought some more paint, this time with primer already mixed in, and I put it on thick. Last time, I was barely covering the foam roller and trying to do a third of the side with it. This time I got the roller fully saturated and did like 1/8 of the side with it, making sure to smooth out any paint lines left. It's not perfect, but it's literally going into a corner of a dark room.

I repainted the coin door with black spray paint. It was hard to tell which parts I had painted and which I hadn't since I was painting black on black. I'll do one more coat before calling it done.

Last night I applied the side art I ordered off of eBay. $30 well spent. Only thing left is to get the electronics re-installed and get the whole thing moved out into the building.

[Jizaboz]

Looking good man! Also, wow that was a buster bros cabinet or just the control panel? I recall playing that game for the first time in an arcade/jukebox rental place as a kid.

[Flack]

It's an old Joust cabinet that someone converted to Buster Bros long before I bought it. I bought it non-working at an auction for $25. You know how they always say "it's probably just a fuse or a loose cable or something"? When I got it home, the power cord had been pulled out of the power supply. I reattached it, and it worked great!

[Jizaboz]

It's an old Joust cabinet that someone converted to Buster Bros long before I bought it. I bought it non-working at an auction for $25. You know how they always say "it's probably just a fuse or a loose cable or something"? When I got it home, the power cord had been pulled out of the power supply. I reattached it, and it worked great!

Oh hell yeah!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Flack, that looks great. Did you try the WET METHOD or DRY METHOD for putting the side art on??

[Tdarcos]

This step (taping a paper template to the wall)? Not scary at all. THIS step (cutting a 9"x12" hole in your drywall)? Scary as fuck!

Flack, I'm going to do something here which is unheard of and completely out of character for me. I'm going to ask relevant questions! (Audience gasps in shock.)

Why does cutting a hole in drywall scare you? First, your comment indicates it's not an irrational fear of drywall, as you had no trouble putting up the template, nor was it a fear of drywall edges, since putting up the speaker did not bother you.

So, continuing with my armchair (or in bed, in my case) psychoanalysis, either you have a fear of cutting things, a fear of failure in general, or a fear you're going to mess up this job in particular.

In my book, Instrument of God, Supervisor 246 is a little bit afraid of something they are about to do, and his friend talks to him about it. There are two general conditions for fear. First, the fear is based on unreasonable or erroneous conclusions, that the condition is nothing you needed to be afraid of, or it is completely out of your ability to do anything about it and being afraid of it or worried about it is pointless. Second, (and this is the big one) you have a legitimate reason to be afraid and, if the issue might affect others, do they need to be afraid?

So, let's see what was the issue: you're cutting a hole in drywall. It's not diamond, it's not tremendously expensive, I'm guessing about twenty bucks. (A 4'x8' sheet of drywall costs $12.98 at Lowes, I just checked.) So even if you completely screw up and ruin the wall segment, we're talking worst case $50 for drywall, drywall tape, spackling compound, sanding, primer and paint.

You're installing a speaker, and there's a box for a flat-screen TV next to the proposed hole. I purchased a flat screen a while ago, a fairly good sized one (say 50" diagonal) can be about $400. Clearly, a worst-case scenario of spending $50 for a botched hole is not going to be a problem for you.

So, maybe you're afraid of cutting? Afraid you'll cut yourself? Well, keep your other hand clear of any drills or blades and work carefully and you shouldn't have a problem.

So maybe I'm not seeing something here. As far as I can tell, you seemed to have an irrational fear over something minor. You were cutting along a template, if you scored the drywall along the desired edge, a manual hacksaw should be able to follow well if you go slow and watch you're not leaving the line. If you're using a power tool like a Sawsall or Dremel, same thing, take your time and watch what you're doing.

I just think you had an irrational fear of screwing up, not realizing that even if you did, it's just a minor problem, not a disaster.

Of course, I could be wrong; please say so if you think so.

This step (putting the speaker in the hole)? Back to not scary!

Well, yeah, you're sliding a speaker into a pre-cut hole, what could go wrong?

[Flack]

Flack, that looks great. Did you try the WET METHOD or DRY METHOD for putting the side art on??

I used the "fuck it" method, which is also the dry method. I've been working on this cabinet for far too long, and I'm ready to get it done. I looked up how to paint the coin door and I watched a video where a guy spent two days disassembling everything and sandblasted it before painting it. I taped off the wood and the plastic coin slots and spray painted the thing in two minutes. Applying side art is a little scary but knowing that people will never see both sides of the cabinet at the same time puts you in a zen mode. I put the top left corner two inches in from the back and two inches down from the top, and tried to keep it straight.

It was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life except for cutting drywall.

[AArdvark]

Hey Rob, my friend just gave me a 42 inch flatscreen. I'd like to do kinda the same movie poster thing (only it won't be as elegant as the poster -pi) Can you send me a link to the hi-rez poster site you found all your images?

I figure the tv might have some kind of slideshow app off'n a usb drive and I'll just run that.

THE
OR SOMETHING
AARDVARK

[Flack]

I got 99% of mine from https://www.joblo.com and https://fffmovieposters.com. The rest I found with Google Image search.

[Flack]

I finished the wiring this morning, thanks to a donated power supply from an anonymous benefactor whose name rhymes with Rice Dream Bonsey. There's something a little theraputic about using zip ties and plastic PCB feet and actually taking a few minutes to make things look nice.





I'd kind of like to wire an inline mute switch (the attract mode music can get annoying), but other than that, I think this project's done. Time to move on to the next cabinet.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Christ that looks slick. You did great man.

[Jizaboz]

Nice and clean! Looks good man.

Rather than rib you about the lcd I know you have been there, done that, and just want it to render. Totally acceptable in a mame cab.

[Flack]

I think I used the monitor that came in this cab for my Mortal Kombat cab, about 15 years ago. When I originally put this cab together I used a Dell CRT monitor, but I pulled it out this last time because the LCD I had was so much larger. I remember thinking that someday I was going to buy a bigger CRT for it and all of a sudden they are impossible to find in thrift stores.

[Flack]

A few of the games on this PCB are two-button games and I've never been able to play them since there's only one button per player on this control panel. I've thought about adding a second button but I have always heard drilling through plexiglas is a bitch. The plexi on this control panel is already shot so I decided "what the hell" and gave it a shot.



Using the magic size for joystick button holes (1 1/8"), I followed the online advice I found which was "put your drill in reverse and drill slowly." I didn't put much stock in that technique, but lo and behold, it went right through!



With the hole in the plexiglas done, I put the drill back in "forward" and finished drilling through the wood. There was a slight mound of melted plastic around the lip of the hole, but I was able to break it off easily.



Because of the mounting hardware underneath I had to slightly shift where I wanted the button to go, but... well now there's two buttons.

This project is f'n DONE. GAH.

[Flack]

I forgot to mention that this 60-in-1 PCB plays music any time the machine is not playing a game. The entire time it's in attract mode, the same 5-6 second loop of music repeats. It's fun at first and let's people know "hey, there's an arcade machine to play!", but it's literally right outside the door of my theater and I'm sure you could hear it the entire time. I was going to add a toggle switch inline with the speakers, but then I read that there's a setting in the PCB's menu that allows you to disable attract mode music. Long story short, once getting into the menu I discovered that you needed two buttons to change options... which was the other incentive to add a second button. A little drilling and one wire later and now not only can I access the menu, but people playing Qix aren't limited to only drawing with the fast speed.

Anyhoo, I moved the cabinet out into the lobby this afternoon and the kids are already playing Galaga, so we're going to call this one a win.

On to cabinet number two.

[Jizaboz]

Very nice! Yes, I know that game select attract mode music and it is very repeating