The first step in building my Home Server was decide on an arcade cabinet type (See Update #0 for the story so far).  There are six or seven Dimensionsdifferent types of cabinet (Wikipedia has the complete list) - but I wanted an upright cabinet.

My original plan was to buy a second hand arcade machine, and refurbish it.  As it turned out, buying a second hand cabinet is not that easy in Australia.  Most machines were ~$800+, or pickup only from Sydney (which is 12 hours drive away).

So I decided instead to make my own, with a self imposed budget of $500 AUD.

After a bit of research, I found out quickly, that the arcade controls, can be a time consuming pain in the ass if you don’t know what you’re doing - I admit, I don’t know what I’m doing, so I bought the pre made arcade controls from Xarcade.  Good choice I thought :)

Side Note:  Strangely enough, you just don’t see old school arcade machines anymore, nowadays they tend to be car racing simulators, so measuring up an existing cabinet wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be.

I ended up taking a ride to a laundromat out near Ballina just get “hands on” and old arcade machine — I probably didn’t need to, but I knew there was one there, and it was a great excuse to go for a ride :)

 Getting Dimensions, via Google.

  • In the end it was just me and google, trawling the web looking for resources
  • Getting dimensions was tough - most sites have 404s or just not there anymore.
  • I found wiki.arcadecontrols.com, a great place to look around for ideas
  • 1.8 m high seems to be the normal height — deluxe cabinets are 2.2 m high (and too expensive for timber)
  • If found Jeff McClain’s page a great site for ideas
  • and decided on using on Pier’s dimensions
  • As for the cabinet width; measure the width of your doors and where you want to put it inside.   No point building it if it wont go inside =)
  • My width is 700 mm  

imageTracing the Cabinet

  • I sketched a couple of plans onto sheets of timber - get a feel for what it would like.
  • And make sure the monitor would fit
  • For personal preference I moved 77.56 a bit higher, so it was above my knee
  • I flattened 60.106 a little bit, to fit the premade controls

Now it all looks, pretty good, so I’m off to starting cutting it out!