I bought an old Zaxxon cabinet, which had been converted to a Mega Zone, on the 20th of February. I grew up playing all the classics in the arcade and wanted to experience the fun of it all over again. Here's how the cab looked when I got it.

I saw that cab in person, it's a good cab to Mame, freakin heavy, lol, but there's plenty of room inside and a no angles to contend with when mounting the monitor, all bonus features.

Hey Hounddoggy, looking forward to seeing the finished product!

I've been having problems logging in and kept getting 60 minute bans on my IP address. Oh well, Looks like all is fine for now. Anyways, Here's a pic of the ol' Wico trackball I got with the cabinet. It's got the 2.5" ball, just like Centipede did. I hacked a $5 PS2 ballmouse and got it working. I may pick up a $25 roller/bearing kit for it from arcadeshop.com , but it does the job. I'm sure the ball used to be white, but hey, it's old skool!!!

Off goes the Mega Zone sideart.

Sanded with the trusty Black & Decker Mouse and woodfilled dents and nicks.

Gutted the cab and outlined with chalk where I'll be cutting for the control panel to go.

Cutting is done. The control panel should fit well on these newly created ledges.

A quick cardboard mockup gives us an idea of how the control panel will look. That's the 21" Compaq monitor that will be permanently installed. I won't worry about monitor rotation as the vertical games look just fine on this one.

I'd like to thank Locash for helping me out with this cab. It's the first one I've ever worked on. After we're done fixing this one up we may start working on a minimame cab.

BTW, I realized after making the trackball/mouse hack that the trackball housing should actually be mounted diagonally, but luckily I still had room for it. Two 8-way sticks (with 6 buttons) and a 4-way (with 2) is all I figure I need. I was never really into the spinner games, except maybe for Arkanoid, and I was never much into Tron, so a Tron joystick wouldn't have been a big deal to me either.

Anyways, Locash and I went to Home Depot and picked up some wood for the control panel. Got some Russian Birch for the top of the control panel and some pine for "anything else". I ended up buying alot of new tools at Sears. Gotta love that cordless drill from Craftsman. The table saw really comes in handy too. I felt that the coin mechs were way too far apart on the original cabinet door, so I replaced it as well. Here's a shot of how things looked with the new doors and the top&bottom of the control panel propped up. We just wanted to get an idea of how the top should slope.

More fun stuff. We took the top part of the cabinet right off and redid the whole bottom. Ripped out the coin counter and reinforced everything. The subwoofer for my speakers will go down there at the bottom in the back.

Front and sides of control panel are now on.

Sides and back now as well.

Sanded her down and she's lookin' pretty sweet. Two brass hinges secure the top.

Here's how the inside of it looks. I used my neighbour's nailgun instead of glue to put it all together. Didn't bother with wood glue. Thanks, Rick!

Picked up the lock & keys for $2.99 at Princess Auto. Haven't done the coindoor mechs yet as I'll have to get a router to do those. Guess it's time for another trip to Sears. Rick came over and replaced a broken spring on one of the mechs and we also took the magnets out so they'd accept Canadian quarters.

First coat of paint. Oil-based black gloss, $25.99 at Canadian Tire. Stinks to high hell, but looks pretty damn good! Notice I took off the T-Molding earlier. I may go with either a plain gray or a deep red from t-molding.com. Haven't decided yet.

A side-shot of the first coat.

A look at the first coat from the back. I hooked up that fan and the marquee light and neither seem to work. Oh well.

OK, So I cheaped out and printed the layout on separate pieces of paper. I wasn't gonna pay $25 to have a black & white piece of paper printed out. I used a 1-1/8" hole saw for the buttons and 3/4" spade bit where the joysticks will go. The buttons on the top left are small pushbuttons for PC power, reset and mame stuff. It was a 15/32 drillbit I used for that.

Coming along now. BTW, The 2 white buttons to the left of the trackball are left and right mouse buttons, very handy. The joysticks and trackball weren't actually mounted at this time. I just wanted to see how everything looked.

Here's how it looks on the cabinet:

Thanks to Rick for the plexiglass for the marquee, bezel and control panel. The original plexiglass for the bezel was scratched all to hell, not to mention very dark.

Locash photoshopped a control panel and marquee for me. I love the Donkey Kong-style font he used. If anyone knows of a good professional printing place local to Ottawa that's got good prices please let me know. These are low resolution pics.

Coming along well!!  Keep the pics coming!

1 point - the CP overlay shouldn't have the buttons/controls whited out..  Now you have to get the print job PERFECTLY aligned, which is somewhat difficult.

I would get that printed at Staples..  

Mike

I really like the marquee.  Fresh, but classic.

Holy cow Hounddog, I never realized the Z man had such skills in photoshop, those are EXCELLENT marquees and  CP overlay!  Well done, great job!

My login issue has been resolved by switching to Firefox. I deleted all cookies and stuff in IE7 and still couldn't get in. Oh well. Anyways, I found a place that seems reasonable for printing the marquee and CP. It's called 241-COPY. That's their phone number too. Anyways, I've routed out the joystick areas under the panel and am now working on the trackball housing area. Here're some pics:

Here's a smaller version of the CP I'll have printed.

Thanks for all the replies on the work that Locash and I have been doing on the cab.

Loafer: Do you have your joysticks all hooked up to the same ports on your IPAC terminal? You have the IPAC2 like I do, right? That means we have to watch we don't hit other joysticks while playing games. Hehe! That'd screw up someone's game, wouldn't it? I hooked all the wires up to the buttons and joysticks. I have zipties, but here's how the wiring mess looks right now:

Ohhh WOW !

Nice job, can't wait to see the finish product...! Keep up the good work!

Eric

Quoted from Hounddoggy

Thanks for all the replies on the work that Locash and I have been doing on the cab.

Loafer: Do you have your joysticks all hooked up to the same ports on your IPAC terminal? You have the IPAC2 like I do, right? That means we have to watch we don't hit other joysticks while playing games. Hehe! That'd screw up someone's game, wouldn't it? I hooked all the wires up to the buttons and joysticks. I have zipties, but here's how the wiring mess looks right now:

The 4-way and trigger-stick are wired to the player 1 stick... no choice with the IPAC2.

... which is no big deal HD, Unless you have your arms flying all over the place, there just is no situation where you'll hit the other joysticks.

BTW, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE FLIPPER BUTTONS???        

I haven't drilled the pinball buttons yet, but yes, they will be there. Also, What should I use to run Dragon's Lair? I'd rather run the original version than the DVD.

Daphne, no doubt about it.  Works great too though it is possible your DVD version will look a bit better. However, I believe I heard (not sure on this) that the newest Daphne's allow you to use your own DVD version?  I'm using an older version of Daphne that does the job well.   Could be wrong on the DVD thing, but check it out at daphne's homepage located here. http://www.daphne-emu.com/site3/index_hi.php

Also, check your PM's.

edit:  on the pin buttons, don't forget to have 2 on each sides, one each for the flipper and an extra one for the left/right nudging.  The front nudging is not necessary but it is cool.

[quote=658BTW, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE FLIPPER BUTTONS???        [/quote]

See what happens when you get spoiled? Sheesh... it's a good thing I didn't make you a real ball launcher!!!  

I got the CP and marquee printed out. With tax it came to $45.20 Cdn. Got it done at Rytec Printing (613-241-COPY) on Dalhousie in Ottawa. They're near Les Suites Hotel. The marquee uses backlight paper and the CP is glossy. They printed it on a $30,000 Canon printer. Sweet!!! Thanks, Michelle!

Outstanding my friend, looks great!

I dug out the trackball housing area under the top with a Dremel.

Here it all is!

Got Robotron working with the two 8-way joysticks. Works great!

Centipede is the cat's a** with this puppy! I simply used a gluegun to reinforce the trackball housing. How sweet it is!

The marquee is now in. Too bad the light doesn't work. I'll take another look at it and if it's shot I'll get another one from Canadian Tire. The speakers are where they'll be when all is done. The plexi is also on and two screws are holding it up (unseen). I'll get some thick cardboard for a bezel and that should really make it look [almost] finished.

Going to my Mom & Dad's for Easter. Will take the coindoor with me. My Dad has a good router, so I should be able to put the coin mechs in. Here's another pic of the cab with SFII running on it. Have a great Easter weekend, guys!

She's looking mighty sweet bro!  You've done a lot of great work in a very short time.  Happy Easter!

The light's been fixed. I just had to buy a new starter at Canadian Tire. Here's how it looks in the dark:

Yesterday, My Dad cut out the slots for the coin mechs. See the lights behind the coin mechs? I got them at Canadian Tire for $3. Hooked 'em up to 12V on the PC and they work like a charm.

Hey Hounddoggy, are you still sticking with the IPAC2 or upgrading to the IPAC4?  Wondering because of all the admin buttons.

No, I'll just stick with the IPAC2. The PC Power and reset will be wired to the PC itself, of course. The two coin ones will be hooked up to COIN1 and 2. The P button (Pause), F3 button (Game reset), ESC button and TAB button (Ingame options) will go into the IPAC2 though.

That's right, there's 4 spare buttons, switch 7 & 8 for both player 1 and 2.  Perfect!  Instead of your F3, I have an "enter" button, but it's also setup through the IPAC's ability to "shift" as F3, just have to hold down Player 1 start button and press the "enter" button and voila.

I would also recommend "shifting" the ESC button with the delete key and the F6 key with the "tab" button, since F6 calls up a menu for dipswitches in Visual Pinball (my "tab" button is labelled "menu" so it's perfect). Except for whatever button you use as the "shift function", which does retain it's primary use (my "shift" button is the default "Player 1 start"), every buttons allows shifting, though not every keyboard key is "shiftable".  I believe you can't shift the "pause/break" key and maybe print screen too.  Believe it or not, the pause/break key can be handy, it's the pause button in Future Pinball and unfortunately, I don't believe Future Pinball allows that key to be modified, it's hard coded.  I'll have to contact the dev of Future Pinball and mention to him it would be cool for arcade cabs if he'd consider making it a modifiable option.

Looking good, I like your lit up insert coin buttons, very nice!

Gutted my old Cambridge Soundworks speakers and mounted them. Will paint that strip black and will put the original speaker cages on after I spraypaint them. Starting to take shape now. The bezel looks great! Locash helped me with that.

Here's another look at it:

Looks great, keep up with the updates!

I've found two places with the red t-molding I want for the cab. t-molding.com and groovygamegear.com. Groovy Gamegear's is 10 cents cheaper at 40 cents a foot. Anyone know how they are and what the shipping prices would be like to the Ottawa area? I know that sometimes you can get stuck with a surprise shipping cost you don't expect. Thanks!

/-/ound...

Not sure, but there may be a thread at arcadecontrols.com about this, I remember reading a huge thread on issues with shipping to canada (assuming both company are americans?).  Incidentally, imho, it's not the shipping that kills you, it's the "brokerage" fees.  I highly recommend whatever you order, insist they ship via USPS (United States Postal Service) where so far, I've NEVER had to pay any brokerage fee.  FedEx and UPS are killers for this, so beware.  For whatever it's worth, groovygamegear is starting to develop an excellent rep for their spinners/steering wheel combos, so maybe that's a sign of their quality.

I have ordered from t-mold.com a couple of times, they only use USPS for international shipping so no brokerage charges to deal with.

1SW7 on my IPAC2 doesn't seem to be working. Everything else does. Maybe I should get it replaced.

$12 US with free shipping, takes about 3 weeks to a month to get here.  Just email andy at Ultimarc first at: andy@ultimarc.com and tell him about your problem, maybe it's resolvable via email.

A common problem is a "stuck key", which in my case necessitated a replacement chip (called an "upgrade" on their website).  The price is right.  But before you do that, take a look at the light on the ipac 2 controller.  When you turn on your PC, does it flash several times?  If it doesn't flash but just stays on, you may not have a bad problem.  Do you have it connected via USB or keyboard PS2?  Try through PS2 and if your pc beeps and you need to press F1 to continue passed the PC bios, it's a stuck key.

I'd recommend checking out their IPAC2 section on their website, I believe they have a few hints on troubleshooting it.  Last resort as mentioned, send Andy an email. The guy answered me very quick and is very helpful, hough don't forget to take into account he's in England and you're not, so time zone differences!   Personally, I find their upgrade price pretty fantastic, but check first because maybe, there's nothing wrong with your chip. Where did you get it?

I got it from Andy. So you're saying that if the IPAC2's green LED blinks a few times when I boot up it may be that the key is stuck? It flickers just as I turn the PC on, but stays solid during and after POST. BTW, I ordered 40' of the red 3/4" t-molding from http://www.t-molding.com. 37c per foot. Will see how long USPS First Class International takes.

Nah, if it barely flickers, it's probably not a stuck key.  Mine blinked something like 15 times which indicated it's the 15 switched.  If your 1sw7 is really bad, I think it's supposed to blink 7 times (I could be wrong). I got this from their website, check it out. If you bought it brand new, then it should still be under warranty I gather, maybe you will get a free replacement.

Plexi is now on top of the control panel and all the buttons fit perfectly:

I'm looking for an oldschool arcade cabinet ashtray. Anyone know where I could find one? Also, It was an arcade rule that you put your quarter on the machine to get in line to play. Wondering if I should put some kinda ledge where a coupla quarters can sit... Maybe I'd glue a few to it and watch friends try and pry 'em off.

/-/ound...

This might be good:

http://www.happcontrols.com/accessories/51030200.htm

Anyone have one?

I might have one at the shop but i wont be there till Tuesday.

Thanks, ethous! Please let me know. BTW, Locash had me look for a tutorial on hacking the coin mechs so they'll take Canadian quarters. I found this site:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=19200

I took the two small e-ring pieces off and straightened the piece of metal that would initially guide a "bad" coin to the coin release door. Now all quarters go right through. Dimes are too light so they still get released, but this means I could now get some "Hound Dog Arcade" tokens made up and use those, just for fun. Woohoo!

That's pretty cool, would be a nice touch to have your own coins.  Not sure if it would be cheap though but there are a few companies that do custom coins.

I sandwiched the CP layout between the plexi and the main wood panel. Used an x-acto knife and cut out the holes. Here's how it looks on its own:

I just need to cut the corners of the plexi and will then hook it all back up. Here it is on the panel:

I cut the corners on the plexi. All I need to do is X-Acto the excess paper off the edges. I'm lovin' it! Here's how it looks with the plexi on:

I also did some touchup painting and I also painted around the screen just so there's no white showing around the edges when the bezel's in. Here's the before:

See if you can guess where I painted. Here's the after:

That's a good looking control panel you have there, the plexi will look even better in person than just a pic!

We'll have to have a MAME-Day! One at your house, one at mine. Hehe! I put the CP on the cab. I haven't reinstalled the sticks or the trackball yet. I'll do that tomorrow. Here's a pic:

I never did go into particulars on the guts, so here goes:

Unmodified Compaq 21" CRT Monitor, set horizontally. Thanks to Billy Jones for that.
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Barton 2500+ CPU
80 GB IDE Hard Drive
2GB Corsair DDR Dual Channel RAM
Cambridge Soundworks, 2 speakers and subwoofer (secured in bottom of cab)
18" fluorescent light with ballast and starter - uses AC power
Fan at back to keep insides cool - uses AC power

The two latter items came with the cab originally. I just had to add plugs and get a new starter and light from Canadian Tire.

All of the buttons and joysticks are used, most came from Locash and all use Cherry microswitches. I believe the two blue joysticks are Happ. The cherrytop joystick and trackball (2.5") are WICO. Everything's old skool!

Locash and I were talking about creating a bezel to replace the basic black one we already made. Perhaps another shoutout to DK or something. I'm debating over whether to photoshop sideart and have it printed it on vinyl or having Elvira, my wife, paint something cool on the sides. We shall see.

I think the bezel is fine. I was thinking about just putting some artwork on it. Also have some mame instructions on there as well, similar to the way they would display game play instructions on the bezel.

Quoted from Hounddoggy

I never did go into particulars on the guts, so here goes:

Unmodified Compaq 21" CRT Monitor, set horizontally. Thanks to Billy Jones for that.
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Barton 2500+ CPU
80 GB IDE Hard Drive
2GB Corsair DDR Dual Channel RAM
Cambridge Soundworks, 2 speakers and subwoofer (secured in bottom of cab)
18" fluorescent light with ballast and starter - uses AC power
Fan at back to keep insides cool - uses AC power

The two latter items came with the cab originally. I just had to add plugs and get a new starter and light from Canadian Tire.

All of the buttons and joysticks are used, most came from Locash and all use Cherry microswitches. I believe the two blue joysticks are Happ. The cherrytop joystick and trackball (2.5") are WICO. Everything's old skool!

Locash and I were talking about creating a bezel to replace the basic black one we already made. Perhaps another shoutout to DK or something. I'm debating over whether to photoshop sideart and have it printed it on vinyl or having Elvira, my wife, paint something cool on the sides. We shall see.

The instructions thing isn't a bad idea at all, I like it and I've seen many examples on other cabs, a nice touch. As it is, the pics probably doesn't do it justice but right now, it kind of looks like construction paper (I think that's what it's called?  You know, light cardboard that kids use for school projects?).  It's one of the advantages to using smokey plexiglass, it kind of hides a bit some of the background, the problem is, using too dark a smokey glass means you have to turn up the brightness/contrast to compensate.  The lighting of the flash is probably creating that illusion I think, in person it probably looks way better and with some mame instructions I betcha it would look perfect.  When you see my plexi, you'll have a better idea on if it's a good fit. With the instructions card thing, I betcha it wouldn't need any smokey glass at all!

Say "hi" to Elvira for me, I'd love to see whatever art she can paint on.  It's funny, I was considering going with the painted art myself.

At least you can have an area to put instructions card. With my cab, the monitor is such a tight fit, there's no room at all!

Yes, It is dollar store construction paper, two sheets spray-glued together. I do have access to a thin plastic I could use instead. Will see how it looks compared to this. If anyone knows where I could find some more authentic looking board for the bezel, please let me know. Thanks!

/-/ound...

Just got an authentic arcade ashtray. Thanks again to Ethous! I cleaned it up a bit and it looks great! Will probably mount it on the left side of the cabinet.

Locash and I have remounted and soldered everything. Looks alot cleaner with zipties too.

This pic was taken without flash:

Looks great, you just need your t-molding and you're all set!

I ordered the t-molding on the 29th of March and I still don't have a t-molding.com tracking number, so I doubt if it's even been shipped yet. Maybe the red is backordered.

/-/ound...

EDIT: T-Molding emailed me back and they said that the t-molding was sent on the 31st of March. No tracking number yet, but I expect it in the mail sometime this week.

Got the t-molding this morning. Looks pretty sweet!

She looks great, congrats!