Everything in the previous post happened while I was overseas, once I got back to Australia I started acquiring parts and making an accurate 3D model. At this point I should mention that I joined the Aussie Arcade forums (https://www.aussiearcade.com/forum.php) which became an incredibly valuable resource for for both acquiring parts and for figuring out how to go about building, or hooking up, particular features of the cab. That helped a lot when making a proper set of plans to build from. My initial model had the look I wanted, but there were many details such as wheels, doors, marquee lighting, etc. that I hadn't thought about.
The first thing I had to do was turn my basic model into something that had actual dimensions. I didn't really know what the dimensions "should" be. I did a lot of standing around with a tape measure, next to different pieces of furniture (e.g. a kitchen bench) and resting my hands on them to see if they seemed like the right height for the control panel. It seemed like if I could decide on the height and angle of the control panel, the rest would pretty much fall into place. And that's basically what happened. I decided that a control panel height of approximately 1010mm from the floor to the centre of the panel felt right, with a panel angle of 15 degrees. Once I had those dimensions I took a side view of my initial 3D model,
imported it into a drawing program (Inkscape - an amazing program!), and started to modify it based on some real world dimensions. Once I had a rough idea of the monitor dimensions, and the marquee dimensions the rest fell into place, sort of... The process looked a bit like this:
I actually spent a long time on this. There was something about that initial model that just looked so "right", but some of it's proportions weren't appropriate. For example, the marquee was far too short relative to it's width, which would have made the marquees of most arcade games an impossible fit. There were many small things like that, but eventually I got something as close to the initial concept as I could with sensible dimensions.
So I went into SketchUp (another awesome piece of software) and started to build a proper model. Here are some pictures from the more or less final plan:
But I couldn't actually decide whether I wanted a 29, or 25 inch screen. I designed the cab to be as narrow as it possibly could be while still accomodating a 29 inch tube, which would still look perfectly fine if I ultimately decided to go with a 25 inch one. This resulted in a cab that was 615mm wide between side panels (which add an extra 19mm each for a total width of 653mm). I had initially decided I wanted the cab to be no more than 600mm wide between panels, so this was only a slight increase in size while keeping my options open.
You will notice that this plan is clearly not complete. There were some details that were difficult to decide without having a physical cabinet and parts sitting in front of me, so I decided that I had enough worked out to begin construction and the rest I would figure out as I went. For some things this was fine, e.g. the precise location of the coin door, but other details were more crucial, such as how I would mount the monitor glass, and if there would be enough room between the monitor and the glass for the screen bezel. Not working that particular detail out ahead of time would bite me in the arse later...
While all this was happening I was ordering parts. I got the coin door and some coin mechs, the MCA sticks, and the keyboard encoder (IPAC VE from https://www.ultimarc.com/), and ArcadeVGA video card (also from https://www.ultimarc.com/) and a few other generic bits and pieces. I couldn't get a Coin Controls over under door, they were very hard to find in decent condition, so I settled for a single door Coin Controls door which was in nice condition, and had a Capcom sticker in the middle which I thought was cool.
I decided to go with red player one and blue player two joysticks and buttons. And I decided on the following layout for my buttons, which I decided on mainly for aesthetic reasons rather than ergonomic considerations:
A friend of mine to lasercut a stainless steel panel for me. I actually got this cut before I decided to widen the cabinet to accomodate a 29 inch tube, so it's 15mm too narrow. Here's the panel (protective film still on) with the buttons screwed in and the joysticks held on with zip ties. This felt good to put together :)
They actually made a slight error when they cut this, placing the left and right most buttons for player one at the same height. but I decided it was good like that, given that when two people play they will both be grabbing the controls at a bit of an angle.
At this point, I purchased a sheet of 19mm plywood, and began building. Which I'll cover in the next entry.
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