Behold the colossus!

Spend this evening on the main planks of the cabinet (Left/Right side, bottom, top and the backside)

The sides got (thicker) beams attached, so other planks can be screwed to those.
(Screwing a 9mm plank to a 9mm plank will most likely result in split wood…)

And after making all the needed planks the correct size and drilling holes in the right places, it was time to put it together.

 Yes, you can live comfortable inside of it..

I never expected it to be this huge, but at least it’s the perfect size for me.
TV height “fits” my head, and the controlpanel is in perfect reach.

I did change one small thing in the design, since I heard some people on a Bemani forum talking about the controlpanel being slightly tilted. Not sure at what precise angle it is now, but it’s perfect for me;-)

Next weekend I’ll be attaching more planks to the cabinet, unscrew them again and make them fit perfectly…

Been kinda busy lately and the weather wasn’t so great either, so that explains the time between this and my last post. (And I can only work on it in the weekends ;-))

Finished the controlpanel now.
Glued both planks together and secured it with some screws.
(Also drilled two extra holes, forgot about the “Start” and “Select” buttons last time…)

I also did some work on the bottomplank, i’m going to attach all the planks from the inside, so that you won’t see it from the outside (except the backside, otherwise it would be a bit difficult to re-open it 😉 )

Hopefully I can start putting the cabinet together next weekend, so that I can finally get a feeling of how big it will be in the end.

Small update

Here’s a picture of the planks with the buttons on them.

The box at the top is my former Pop’n Music ASC (Arcade Style Controller).
Notice the difference in the space between the upper and lower row of buttons. (screwed that up last time)

Hopefully it’ll play a little bit better, but at least it’ll look more like the real arcade this way 🙂

Creating the control panel

The first thing I did this morning was looking for the right button spacing measurements.

On various sites I found that the most common used space between the buttons is 13,97-14,7 cm.
For no particular reason I went for 14cm for my control panel.

Since the control panel will be enduring a lot of force, It’s made out of 2 planks.
The buttons “sink” in the upper plank, and then will rest on both planks, which will spread the force over a greater surface.

So I went ahead and made my planks ready to be sawn.

A few hours later I finished the top plank
(I know, it looks like it could be done in 5 minutes, but I’m not that great 😉 )

And at the end of the day, when the lower plank was finished, it looked like this.
(The thing in the lower right corner is one of the Pop’n Music buttons )

I’ll try to insert all the buttons tonight, so I can make a comparison with my former Pop’n Music Controller.
(I messed up the button spacing with that one)
 

I finally started…

It might seem like I only started today, but I’ve been busy with the arcade for a few weeks now.

 I’ll just sum up everything I need to complete my Arcade:
– Wood
– Paint
– screws, glue etc.
– Lights
– Sound
– Pop’n Music Buttons with PS1 circuit board etc.
– a PS2
– TV

The first thing I did was making a complete 3d-model of the cabinet.
It would give me a good idea what it will be looking like, and how big it will be.
After some fine tuning (Made it way too big at first) it looked like this:

(Yes, it looks like crap. But I only made it to give me some idea what it would look like)

Since I already made a Pop’n Music ASC, I already had all the stuff I needed to control the game.
(Believe me, it took me a lot of time to find an old,”not-sony-brand”,”no-analog” PS1 controller, which is needed to make it work correctly)

After this I went for some Audio shopping.
To make my Arcade to be heard, I spent roughly €400 on my Sound installation.
This includes:
– VX200 Amplifier by JBSystems
– 2x 3-way audio filter
– 2x Sub woofer (200Watt, 91dB)
– 2x Mid-range speaker (100Watt, 90dB)
– 2x High-range speaker (100Watt, 90dB)
– Light organ (Makes the lights react to the music)

I also needed something to see what game I was playing, so i bought a second hand TV ( €40)

After that it was quite for a while, but last Saturday I finally went shopping for wood, and I could finally begin building 😀

The first thing I did was make blueprints out of my 3d-model I made.
Almost all the wood was cut for my by the guy at the DIY-shop, but both sides of the Cabinet are one complete piece and oddly shaped, so I had to cut those out myself.

On one of the big wooden planks, I drew the outline for the left side of the cabinet.

After I saw it out and shaved it, I attached it to the second wooden plank using frame clamps and I drew the outline for the right side. Saw it out, and shaved it.

Tomorrow I’ll be working on the “button-board”, and from what I remember of my Pop’n Music ASC it’ll cost me a few hours….

Greetings!

Hello and welcome to my first Blog.

This complete blog is dedicated to my Arcade machine i’m going to build.
Since I currently live in Leeuwarden, and I’m building the Arcade in my parents shed, the most updates will be done in the weekends.