shardian
New member
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.
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.
