Let's build a bartop arcade (was: donate donate lcd for bartop arcade build)

There may be some monitors over at the Treasure Trove Warehouse, @wandrson did you see some? I think I saw them in two different places.

At the warehouse there are tons of old CRT monitors and dumb terminals but I have not really seen any LCD monitors that would likely be suitable for this type of project. Early tomorrow morning is the First Saturday Sidewalk Sale in downtown Dallas under the bridge next to the West End. Usually lots of LCD monitors, cheap computers, and lots of other misc stuff. It is nowhere as big as it used to be back in the 80’s and 90’s but still has a few dozen vendors who still show up. I miss the days of it covering several large parking lots around Ross on the east side of downtown. For more information visit http://www.sidewalksale.com/

I’d be interested in a class. I could probably come up with an LCD monitor and I have an old X-box that is not being used, too. I also have several Raspberry Pi’s.

Please let me know when and if there is a meeting or a class build set up.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

How many do we have interested so far, around 5 or 6 folks?

You can email me the info on the monitors, too. $10 a piece is too good to pass up. [email protected]

How does this wednsday sound for first meet and greet. 7 to 9pm? Ill put it on the calendar if everyone is ok with it.

Hey, his name is Gary. You can reach him at [email protected] or
214-642-9552. He is in and out of the warehouse all the time, so make sure
to get him on the phone and confirm someone will be around to sell them to
you when you plan to come by. It’s more of shipping and receiving than a
proper store front out here.

Thanks,
Ross

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is it just a meet and greet or are we bringing stuff up there to show as well.

Well sharing is caring! We can talk about design approaches, your experience building yours, and go over some plans to build a cabinet. if you want to share yours that’s fine, if not i have some plans that I have designed for my bartop build. I’ll be using the laser to cut mine, so it might be nice to see one that was made on a cnc.

Agenda-wise, it would be nice to:
Discuss pros and cons of several different styles
1 player vs 2
Vertical vs horizontal (pros/cons)
Innards (xbox vs raspberry pi)
Control choices (ebay happ noisy buttons vs high quality sanwa)

From there we should be able to have a plan for actually creating a bill of materials and schedule a time to build one cabinet with Nick and the CNC router.

The 50,000 foot goal is to provide participants knowledge and resources to build a bartop arcade on their own through some hands on building a DMS demo unit.

I’d like to work on the DMS artwork and finding some public domain games to host on the system, maybe we can ultimately put it on display in the lobby.

Also, I should point out that after the meet and greet, the first class will have a cost associated with it, to cover the cost of purchasing the materials and hardware for the build, unless we could get VECTOR to pony up some fundage.

A set of joysticks and buttons: $60 (2 player); LCD monitor, $10 or donation; Raspberry PI 2, $35; 4x8 sheet mdf: $30? vinyl for artwork?? power supply? wire, we have plenty of that. probably some misc i’m leaving out. but thats all i can think of for the moment.

Ditto on missing the days when 1st Saturday computer sale covered several blocks.

I suggest hitting up Tornado Terry’s in Keller.

37.00 for this set, buttons and stick can be customized to color.

You will also need the following…

  • MDF 5/8" sheet of MDF (The best route is to get melamine 5/8 or 3/4) Particle board core will work but mdf core is preferred, this will eliminate painting or laminating the MDF
  • Monitor
  • Power Supply
  • Led Strip lighting $10-15$ or we could buy one roll for the group (for Marquee
  • Marquee holders - L Channel Aluminum
  • Wire
  • Female Wire connectors
  • Power outlet and cord
  • T-molding
  • Batons (if we are doing a pocketless design
  • Vinyl for printing
  • Encoder for pi/xbox to jstick and button interface
  • VGA to RGB conversion board (xbox builds only)
  • Cam Lock
  • 80 mm fan (1 or 2)

Or if we do a jamma config, the encoder interface may not be needed, but i dont think has a 6 button setup, i may be wrong…

This is the bulk of it, so we need to see what will be donated and what can be sourced the cheapest for the group build.

The personal builds can be as expensive as you want them to be.

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Those buttons would be fine for a dms build but personally im going for leaf style buttons for the real arcade feel and no noisey click sound

The DFW Pinball & Arcade Club will be having our holiday party at Tornado Terry’s on Saturday afternoon from 6pm until midnight. VECTOR is invited to come to our club’s holiday party since we have a bunch of crossover in members. Terry has great prices on arcade parts and you can pick them up in person at the arcade and save on shipping.

As an IT guy I may be able to come up with a few smaller 17 inch 4:3 aspect ratio Dell LCD monitors.

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Cool i think i will be there!!

Ok so I have my cabinet design down to a single piece of 5/8" 15.25" wide x 48" melamine shelving, and a 2x4 foot piece of 1/4" hard board. That brings the cabinet down in price a lot. It might not have enough room for 2 player controls though.The screen is from a 17" 4:3 lcd monitor, perfect size for platform games like Galaga (my fav game ever)

What did you use to create the design?

I hope its not too premature to discuss design pros and cons, but I was thinking the other day a bartop arcade would fit great in my current apartment because I have a massive breakfast bar to put it on. If I move however it may be less versatile and I might have to buy a table just for it to sit on.

So I was thinking a cocktail design would be way more versatile since its not dependent on counter-top space or a table to raise it. Pus with its deign it makes it easier to add multilayer controls without taking up much more of a foot print. The downside I see however is that it prevents you from playing certain multilayer games like Raiden

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I think he said he was using Fusion 360 or that kinda looks like sketchup

Cocktails are a little more in depth in design. If you wanna keep it simple, just widen @thetazzbot’s design and extend the bottom to make a mini cab that stands about 4 ft high.

Here are some of my designs…to give folks ideas…

This isnt mine, but you can take this and extend the bottom down for a nice compact cocktail.

This is another one of mine i built that plugs into a TV, and is portable.

This is what i was talking about by extending the bartop base down a few feet to make a mini…

@thetazzbot

Are you using tmolding and do you plan on doing pockets or batons, if pockets make sure you have your middle support pieces pushed back far enough so the slot cutter doesnt cut into them…

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How durable are these Cowboys cabinets? Do they go down for weeks at a time?

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The cabs are no reflection of the team sir.
I just build em…

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S® 6.

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