A while ago, I build an upright arcade machine for one of my neighbors. It should meet the following criteria: look like an 80s wodden cabinet arcade machine, work without having to fiddle with coins, contain as many original arcade games as possible and be plug and play… After agreeing on the general theme of the cabinet, I got started on the build. I used the same cabinet templates I used for the Metal Slug Arcade build (link).
After a trip to the hardware store, the chipboards were cut, assembled and black T-molds were added to finish the upright cabinet. Two small arcade loudspeakers were added below the marquee and finished off with some black covers. Then a small LED lamp was mounted behind the marquee to light up the piece of transparent plexiglass with a Street Fighter themed sticker.
The control panel was made from a piece of metal, that was bent for strength and holes were made for the joysticks and buttons. Another Street Fighter themed sticker was added to the control panel in accordance with the overall theme.
Lastly, all the electronics were added to the machine. I used a standard arcade PSU to power everything including the 24 inch LCD screen. I used buttons from Seimitsu and Sanwa JLF joysticks. The games came from a Pandora Saga XII with a JAMMA plug for easy connection to of all the buttons and joysticks. Through the JAMMA plug, it is also possible to control the sound volume and therefore a small potentiometer was added to the control panel. The Pandora Saga XII box is an easy way to repair or upgrade the system in the future as everything is plug and play. I know this is definately not the ‘genuine’ way to play arcade games. However, the main goal was to create a machine that has almost every arcade game ever made readily available with almost zero maintenance from my side…
And here are a few shots of the finished machine. And the neighbor seemed quite happy with the result 🙂
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