Bartop cabinets, discuss.

DPtwiz

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Well, i have been asked about a bartop cab (many times) so lets talk about what they should look like, size, controls, monitor (very important) and i can make a prototype for everyone to see. I am thinking it's going to have to be LCD to make it feasible. Probably an i-inc brand 19" 4:3 aspect and i can make a vertical or horizontal. The I-inc monitors come on when plugged in, if the switch is on, not all do, you don't want to have to open the game up and pull the monitor to turn it on all the time.

Game won't include monitor, but if anyone here has one, it will help with dimensions, or any 19" lcd that is non widescreen (4:3 aspect) and i can leave some play in the cab to fit a variety of monitors. Also, arcadeshop makes a nice 19" lcd plastic monitor bezel for 19.00 and i will be using it to plan part of the design, to make it look clean and hide the LCD plastic edges.

So what do we want? Mini pac type one that someone posted pics of?? I am leaving at 9:30, have a 7 hour round trip to make to pick up the GF and kids, they been on vacation in WV all week. I'll check back on it tonight, see if i can come up with a design, see how many will fit on a sheet of wood, and get the price to where everyone wants one hehe Post a few pics of existing ones you like, point out likes/dislikes, etc.. thanks!!
 
Playchoice countertops are kewl. Brett, you should post the pic of the one I sent you I saw. I think that was a nice classic arcade look. Another thing to try and determine is weight. UPS shipping of one would make a big difference to people buying one (rather than freight). Advice, you should make it for LCD and make a model for CRT. Some would like an old game in a countertop using a crt. For multi-boards, LCD would be sweet. As to the CP. If you can do wood insteal metal, that would allow more of a complete cab that the CP layout to be whatever is needed.

Kevin
 
I used a 17" flat screen. Had room for a PC power supply and boards. I have a template for the side if you're interested.

Picture018.jpg
 
That does look impressive, but he is doing arcade not mame (far as I know). BTW, What is used for the sides? That is a nice look for it.

Kevin
 
I would like to see a mini pac machine. I've always liked that look. I was wondering if you make up some plans to build a counter top would you be willing to just sell the plans? I get very frustrated w/ shipping costs. I live in Alaska and it seems that shipping doubles for me.
 
The sides are cherry veneer MDF. Very nice stuff. Real cherry on an MDF base. Easy to cut with a router. This particular one was made for my Brother in Law and uses a de-cased Ultracade computer with 250 or so games on it. You could easily do a 60-in-1 as they have VGA out. There was also plenty of room to add a coin mech if I didn't center the screen in the cabinet.
 
I still like the namco bartop pac-man since the sides are like the old cabinet profile, but the screen and cp layout allows more room and better viewing.

1756_pac-man-bar-top-video-arcade-namco.jpg
 
i carved this today. Pay no mind to the border, i just needed to cut it out of the sheet to take a pic of it. I did take an 8 cabinet order today of galagas and mspac cocktails, so it will be january or so before i can play around with this more...

mini.jpg
 
I still like the namco bartop pac-man since the sides are like the old cabinet profile, but the screen and cp layout allows more room and better viewing.

I hate the way nothing lines up on that thing. I think they should have made it just look like the upper part of a Pac Man and made the control panel line up with the sides like the original.
 
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Mine 15" lcd monitor...

I just printed out the control panel and galaxian side art.. The overlay shown in the pic is a paper placeholder for now.


This is a scaled down cab with about a 1/3 of the motom cut off..

This thing is heavy and big, not sure I would go with a monitor much bigger.

Dave
 
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My worthless 2 cents: Use the top of a Pac cab, very similar in concept to Shred's, but scaled down to where whatever size monitor you use would be proportionally correct.

Keep the CP flat or nearly so, not much of a front to back angle. At most use whatever the original cab used.

And angle the screen back as much as possible to keep the viewing angle correct. LCD's have a color shift when viewed at high angles that would make the game look bad.

3 buttons max on the CP, or have multiple CP's available so the customer can choose 1, 2, 3, or 6 buttons depending on the board going into it. Red ball stick. Artwork that matches whatever cab you used as the pattern. Correct color and t-molding for the original cab.

That Namco bartop is the suck. you can do much, much better.
 
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