Pacman: From hacked trash pile to minty goodness (but as a multicade...)

shardian

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Pacman: From hacked trash pile to minty goodness (but as a multicade...)

A little backstory is in order. I got this cabinet over 4 years ago from KLOV member MacPDaddy. He sold this on ebay as non-working. I wanted to bid, but my wife said no. The auction ended to some guy from California who just wanted all of the guts. I knew this, so I wrote the seller and asked if I could have the shell.

Once I showed up, I realized I knew the seller from a work contact. Anyways, back to the game. For a pacman, the control panels are glued in and the cabinet is a solid glued/feather joined unit. The only thing left was the shell, the monitor mounts, and the glass top. The control panels had been cut out crudely with a sawzall. Honestly, I had no business messing with this thing...but I was determined.

Over the next 1-2 years, I started acquiring all of the parts needed through trades, and but selling stuff to offset costs. It takes time to get parts at bargain prices. Once I had most of the parts onhand, I went over the costs and explained to my wife that next time she better just let me bid!!! Building a pac cocktail piece by piece is considerably more expensive than just buying a dead but complete one.

I spent years 2-4 occasionally working on it, but it often got shelved due to some other new project that distracted me. The first thing I had to do was rebuild the sides. I used 3/4" melamine trimmed to size, then glued/brad nailed into place with 1/4" hard board bracing. Then I recut the control panel openings, adjusted for 1/2" control panel sides. I had a coworker cut the CP sides, since he had a nice scroll saw in his shop. I laid out the sides in autoCAD to have a 1:1 scale template. Special note here: Mike's Arcade Pacman plans are absolutely spot on perfect.

Next I spent a boatload of time patching the sides and making them smooth from the rebuild. Once I was satisfied with the finish using glazing putty (that stuff rocks), I primed the whole cabinet, painted the inside flat black, and painted the rounded corners glossy black.

At this point I did all of the vinyl except for the hinge side. I didn't have a hinge, so I waited and shelved the project again. I also didn't have control panels.

During this extended shelving, I started to ponder what I would do for the guts of the cabinet. I had tossed around a full resto, and a MAME pc. I've grown to despise MAME PC's so it was out. Authentic was out too, mainly due to cost but also due to resale value.

I finally settled on a 48/1 multi board, but only playing the 4 -way no button games. So at this point I mounted a PC monitor, which was a ROYAL BITCH!!! I also started to re-wire the entire cabinet. I replaced all of the molex connectors to keep the modular aspect of the wiring. The wiring was NEVER ENDING!!!

About 2/3 of the way through wiring the controls, I got yet another pin project and shelved the project again. It sat in the corner as a nice conversation piece storage table. A glowing example of my failure at finishing a project. I had finally convinced myself that if it took me this long, that I probably didn't really want the game. Thus, I planned on finishing it and selling it. However, it just kept sitting there...

Then one day a guy came over to look at one of my other games. While looking around, he inquired about the pac cocktail. I explained I was eventually going to finish it and sell it, and that it had the potential to play everything my Xevious Multi could play. Dude asked me a price, to which I quoted my high end dream price. At this, he said deal and handed me a hefty down payment!

So for the last 2 weeks I have been busting my ass to get the game finished. The wiring was a back breaker! I never want to wire another cab from scratch ever again. The worst part is that I normally to half-assed work and just get stuff to 'working but cosmetically ass-tacular' status. On this one I spared no expense or effort in getting the wiring done the right way, no matter how bad I wanted to cheat.

At this point, I am kind of tired of talking and you are tired of reading. Here is a link to my byoac post with old pictures and general project log chatter. The byoac folks never comment anymore, so I've pretty much gave up over there.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64874.0

I used as many original parts as I could, and salvaged all original that I could. I even did an interesting trim job on the original 1P CPO to save it and make it look nice.

One last thing, I was REALLY hesitant to add the buttons. I was showing my wife my dilemma and how I was gonna have to slap buttons in the middle of pac and ghosts faces. She recomended I locate the buttons near the top left corner. Damn that Idea was BRILLIANT! They are minimally invasive, are quite comfortable to use, and look pretty darn sharp.

Without further ado, pics.
 

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Vinyl work. There was an extended hiatus after the primed/assembled stage, and after the partial vinyl/assembled stage.
 

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Here is the repainted parts. Take note of the old vs. new pics. I trimmed that bad tear on the 1P panel up and made it a rounded square. It looks much more natural. I am very happy with how these turned out. My only wish is that I would have used the high end spray paint I am using on a pinball resto. Krylon Unversal = super nice! Walmart 99cent spray = crap.

Also of note, I sold off the original joysticks and replaced them with Bob Roberts pac micro joys and mounting plate adaptors. Also new start buttons.
 

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And so now the project has came to a close. I present to you the completed project picture gallery. I spent a ridiculous amount of hours on this, spent too much money on parts, and spilled my share of blood sweat and tears.

How much time did I log enjoying the fruits of my labor before I got it loaded in the buyer's truck? Oh about an hour or so...

I never even turned the damn thing on until yesterday... I tell ya, it was quite a relief to know that it worked!

I did have the in-laws over, and we all played it for a good while before the buyer showed. I got plenty of pics and vids of my daughter going town. Maybe someday I'll get another cocktail when I have room. Until then, I'll just have to go swim in the pile of cash I collected for my efforts. Remember - I said I quoted my high-end dream price and the buyer didn't haggle. ;) I don't miss it too much because of that.
 

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Some shots showing the lighting. Also a shot of the guts...well most of the guts. The monitor is blocking some of it since I was just holding it open.

A couple quick notes: I am well aware of all the flaws.

- the glass is original and scratched all to hell. I removed the trashed original artwork ink to salvage the glass.
- Yeah I missed touching up the black on a corner. It was corrected after I noticed it in the picture.
- The top 1.5" T-molding is original and scuffed.

Minor issues though, and I feel keeping the original parts adds a little more warmth and life to the machine than if I just made a 'from scratch' cabinet. Those brand new cabs always feel like cheap knockoffs to me...
 

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Lastly, some shots of my play testers. They all gave it their seal of approval!
 

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That is weird. I have no clue what to tell you then. I did post a few over at byoac in the misc. arcade forum if you wanna look there. Either you're at work and pics are being blocked, or you have pics turned off in your profile.
 
I sent a report to the mods to see what is going on. They show up fine for me, and I have confirmation from several people that they are showing for them too. Hopefully it gets figured out. How frustrating!
 
They all show up in thumb form for me. I started to click on them and lo and behold, the damn pictures don't pop up. I don't know what happened, but it pisses me off because I spent way too much time downconverting and indiviually loading those pics on here. The pic upload function of this place sucks!

I suppose I'll have to do it all over again...
 
i did a simular multi project ona old converted converted converted then gutted galaxian...

when i was done she was beautiful. I gave mine away for $500 though. sounds like you got new multi price out of yours, which is great. Its nice when your skills can pay off to (continually) fund your addiction, i mean hobby lol

l_bb99837ca86242fba16a7e7bb5a11d69.jpg
 
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I have to assume the pics will come back at some point. In the meantime, here are a few pics I kept the internet format for. Most of the pics I cropped/resized just to upload and then tossed the downsized version. I didn't think I would have to ever do all of that work again.

So, here are a few finished product pics.
 

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