Homemade Arcade Cabinet


PeeZapp

Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
158
Age
37
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Was thinking of making my own and dreamcast arcade cabinet using an X-Arcade tankstick as the controls. Was wondering of anyone on here has done it? Is it easy? Would I be better off just buying one in aus from mygamesroom.com
 
I have built one, but from PC Hardware.


I thought it is much nicer to design my own controlpanel and used an Microsoft sidewinder gamepad as an interface for my controlpanel.


If you want to use an xarcade, that is fine, you will just need to design round it, what not always gives the look you wanted.
 
I bought an X-Arcade cabinet. If you look a the pics on the website, there are cut-outs around where the stick goes in so you can hit the buttons on the sides. I bought the parts to build a new custom control panel because I'm not really a fan of their button layout (and I don't like the cut outs to get to the side buttons). I would imagine if you are going to go through the whole cabinet building process, you might as well build your own control panel. There are a lot of cool custom buttons out there if you google around. The control panel would probably be the hardest part of it, though. I haven't been able to build mine yet because I work overseas at the moment. All of my buttons, joysticks, light guns and whatnot are in a box waiting for me to get home and show them some love. :(
 
If you buy a kit, its probably not too bad; building up a machine from scratch, just buying a pile of wood, is some hard work :) Fun project though, a few days of cutting out the shapes, sanding down, painting, running T-moldign trenches, all that, but great project.


I like authentic machines, and at least around here its usually not too hard to come by a 10 year old beat up cabinet, so I usually just get real cabinets.. cheaper than buying the wood to make one yourself :/


jeff
 
I've built one from scratch and converted a couple of original cabinets. Building from scratch is fun and rewarding, but at the end I found it strangely unemotional. Playing on a converted cab is much more realistic for me and I think that's why I prefer them... especially when they are a bit 'beat up' as jeff says... :cool:
 
Those cigarette burn marks aren't going to burn themselves in!


jeff


Really, everyone should get an original Beer Tapper cabinet, and have some whisky while playing .. the one with the brass rail to rest your feet on,m and the beer holders on the panel :)
 
Thanks for the replies guys found a place near me that sells second hand cabinets with light guns think i will go down that route for the arcade stuff and just build a small bartop one for my dreamcast and maybe original xbox to sit in gotta love those dreamcast shumps and fighting games
 
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