CABINET


It's really hard to photograph a black cabinet with black buttons and a reflective top.
The Disaster Area stunt ship colour scheme has its drawbacks...
DESIGN
The aim of this project was to produce a cocktail cabinet that looked reasonably authentic in design (to a non-expert anyway). The cabinet's dimensions are based on those of an original one, with some small modifications here and there to make it easier to build or more comfortable. The cabinet itself is made from 12mm and 16mm thick MDF (medium density fibreboard). It's more expensive than regular particle board, but is stronger, easier to finish and paint, and so much nicer to work with. The cabinet was pretty straightforward to assemble, built with butt joints secured by 25mm particle board screws and wood glue. The legs and feet are welded up from 25mm angle iron and bolted to the cabinet sides from the inside. The top of the cabinet is covered by a piece of 6mm thick glass.

MATERIALS LIST
(DIMENSIONS IN MM UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

900 x 600 x 16 MDF - 1 off
1200 x 900 x 12 MDF - 2 off
900 x 600 x 12 MDF - 1 off
865 x 560 x 6 glass - 1 off
Screws, particle board - pack of 100 - 2 off
PVA wood glue, wood primer, oil based undercoat, black enamel
Hinges & stay rods
Assorted small self-tapping screws

CONSTRUCTION COMMENCES!
After months of head scratching, it was time to cut some wood. The lower section of then cabinet is fairly straightforward, with only the odd bevel angels to complicate cutting. Be careful here, it's easy to cut these the wrong way around... The upper section was built upon the lower cabinet one piece at a time starting with the bottom of the end 'trays', then progressing to the sides. The monitor supports were cut to size and fitted at this stage. These distribute the weight of the monitor to the sides and base of the cabinet. Countersunk particle board screws were used to hold the cabinet together during construction. Remember to leave plenty of edge distance when putting screws into the end grain of MDF as it splits easily. I later took the whole thing apart and reassembled using PVA wood glue to reinforce all the joints.


Here we see inside the cabinet with the monitor supports visible.

Next step was to the top. First of all I had the 6mm thick glass top cut at a local glass supplier. That way I could cut the 16mm MDF base to match it precisely. A jig saw was used to cut the round corners and monitor cutout.


With the top trial fitted, this thing is starting to look like a real arcade machine.
No control panels at this stage.


Another view with top in place.


Now your talking! Monitor in, glass top resting in place, visible progress is being made!

Next the control panels were made. These are simple boxes made from 12mm MDF. Nothing startling here, just make sure you have enough clearance between the joysticks and the glass. I found that doing this made the control panels too low to get my knees under, which is why I made the legs taller. I never found cocktail cabinets particularly comfortable to use (did anyone?) but this mod helps. To make the holes for the buttons and joysticks I bought a sharp new 1 1/8" speedbore ("Speedbor 2000" no less!) which worked a treat.

The legs were made next. I looked all over the place for some suitable rectangular section steel, even a few dumpsters, but didn't find any. So I decided to fabricate the legs from 25mm x 3mm thick steel angle section MIG welded up to form a C-section. The legs are attached to the cabinet by bolts which thread into nuts attached to cross pieces welded inside the C-section. Sorry I didn't get a photo of it. This was all a bit labour intensive, but the end result was a set of legs that would support your car. They then had to be filled, primed and painted with both silver and clear gloss enamel. Like I said, labour intensive. Next time I'll look harder for some rectangular section..


The cabinet tries out its new and unpainted set of legs.


Inside we see the top hinges fitted and monitor in position.

Right from the beginning of this project I realised that careful attention to cooling was going to be important. Monitors generate quite a bit of heat, as do power supplies and overclocked CPUs and space is at a premium in these cabinets. I'd originally intended to make a large cutout in the cabinet bottom covered with some sort of perforated mesh. Space limitations caused my the monitor supports and power supply location ruled this out, so instead I installed a small 12V fan to draw air in through the bottom. Assisted by convection, this air blows around the monitor, through the power supply, up past the motherboard and out through holes in the cabinet sides. I've yet to add a planned second fan attached to the monitor case to prevent excessive buildup of hot air inside, but haven't had any problems so far.

As you may have read elsewhere, mounting monitors in orientations they weren't designed for should be done at your own risk. I have had no problems myself with my monitor, but this doesn't mean that your monitor won't explode, destroy your home and kill your goldfish. In any case, I wouldn't leave my machine turned on while unattended and recommend that you don't either. Also, unless you know what you're doing, do NOT open up the case of your monitor. They have extremely large static charges in them that can stay there for years and can easily kill you. Enough said.

So, next step was to drill the air outlet holes and cut holes for the cooling fan and speakers. I used a 5/8" speedbore for the series of 9 outlet holes on each end. The speaker, fan and power socket cutouts were made using a jig saw. More 1 1/8" holes were drilled for the MAME buttons.

Painting came next, and it took ages. Preparation involved sanding all edges and corners to a slight round and filling any gaps and screw heads with automotive body filler. As for painting, just slapping some paint onto MDF is not going to give you a good finish. The surface needs to be filled using a wood primer, followed by an oil based undercoat before adding the topcoat. Despite thinning the primer and undercoat, I still ended up with a lot of brush marks that required sanding back to a flat finish. This took a long time, so I would recommend tracking down some aerosol spray cans of these or hiring a spray gun. The black top coat was applied using spray cans and ended up being more of a semi-gloss than gloss finish, but still looks acceptable.

Now came the best bit, fitting all those electrical bits inside. First the fan and grille (cut from an old power supply), the speakers, power supply and power socket were mounted. Then came the motherboard, which uses the backplate from an old desktop case to support the graphics and sound cards. The hard drive and amplifier were also added at this stage.


Fitting out the painted cabinet. The control panels are still unfinished.
The device at top left is a stereo amplifier.


Here's another view of the painted cabinet being fitted out.
You can sort of see how the motherboard is mounted.
Apologies for the blurry photo.


The cabinet bottom, showing speakers, cooling fan inlet, power socket and finished legs.

The remaining components were fitted, including keyboard hack, monitor, and floppy drive. The control panel was actually finished after this, but here's a photo of the completed installation with ArcadeOS up and running.


All the bits are in there and doing their job.
Note the four monitor stays (one each corner).

Finally everything was together and working. Don't think this happened overnight though, I spent weeks finishing off minor details like securing and covering the control panels, rewiring everything and adding a fan for the monitor. Minimal MAME artwork has been added, but more is required, maybe some Galaxian or Defender art.


In case you missed it on the introduction page, here's the finished result.
Sorry about the poor quality photo, I used a borrowed digital camera for a few of the final shots.

All content and images on this page (except link buttons) are copyright ihs 2000, 2001