The Vinyl Wrap
To give the Metal Slug Arcade machine an industrial look, some vinyl wrap with a faux metal finish was ordered from rockstarprint (link).
And the final result…
The acrylic plate in front of the LCD screen was painted on the backside to hide the frame of the monitor. I used a mix of chrome, yellow and matte grey spray paint to give it a raw factory look.
The Light Mod
Inspired by my Dashing Flashing Commodore 64 RGB LED mod (link), I wanted to add lights to the bottom of the Metal Slug Arcade machine. To make the mod, I used a 2 meter (6.6 ft) strip of RGB LED’s (SMD size 5050) that are capable of producing a variety of colors. I used the type with 60 LED’s per running meter to get as much light as possible. The LED strip costed about 2.5 $ on Ebay including shipping from China. To run the LED strip I used a controller PCB with a build-in sound sensor and a 20 key infrared remote. This device can make the lights flash to the tones of the music being played. It set me back about 3 $ including shipping from China. I really love cheap Chinese electronics!!
The contoller needs 12-24 V to run. The bullet connector was removed and a Molex plug was installed so it could be powered directly from the installed ATX based PSU.
The LED strip has adhesive on the back, so it was pretty easy to install. I added some cable ties just to make sure it would stay in place. The front feet are adjustable and made from two washing machine feet. They were a lot cheaper than ordering real arcade cabinet feet (and they are invisible when the machine is standing up)…
The light mod in daylight action! The matching Metal Slug arcade coat hanger can be seen in the background (link)
The Finished Machine
Here are some final images of the machine.
Two 92 mm (3.6 in) low-noise computer case fans have been placed on the backside of the cabinet to keep the LCD screen and the rest of the electronics running cool.
An orange power cable is supporting the general color theme of the machine.
And some fancy speaker grills…
Here is a small video of the Metal Slug Arcade machine in action.
The Metal Slug Nephew
The arcade machine was carefully wrapped in blankets and strapped to the trailer for safe transport. Don’t want to scratch them T-molds!
The nephew is already looking like pro! We did not see him too much that weekend…
I guess being a hero to a 6 year old is not that hard after all 🙂
© breadbox64.com 2016
f****ng beauty! I’m a serious gamer too, and I also build arcade cabinets (MAME) using old PC’s.
Thanks ricardo86 🙂 Glad you liked it.
Hello, where did you find that Metal Slug 3 marquee? It’s exactly what I need for my own project 😛 The website you linked to doesn’t have it in the list of marquees they sell.
It’s because rockstarprint just printed the marquee for me. The actual print can be found here (link). Good luck with your project!
Thank you very much. This is what mine looks like for now (link) but I like yours better 🙂
No problem and thanks 🙂
Do you have blueprints of all your woodwork?
Hi BaNZ, I don’t have any blueprints of the woodwork. I simply used my standard arcade machine (link) as a template and adjusted the shape to fit the larger control panel.