Next I made a 1:10 model in cardboard, from an old box.

Having no experience with JAMMA, I choose to buy a X-Arcade board, even though I designed the cabinet to fit a custom-made at a later point. (As you will see, I have replaced the X-arcade)

Some of the key elements in my design is:

- Compact design using a TFT monitor
- Keeping the retro feel and look
- Good ergonomics
- Rather low weight

With the drawings, I visited my dads, knowing he has a lot of tools.

I bought theese items at the builders merchant:
-1x 16mm MDF/HDF board
-1/2 12mm MDF/HDF board
-6 meters of 25x25mm strips, made with a circular saw.
-3mm plexiglass 700x1000mm

Then it was just a question of cutting the boards and put it together by glue and screws.

All the edges was processed by a milling machine, to make it nice and smooth.

This is the back of the mame cabinet. Good ventilation for PC in the bottom and the monitor in the top. Thank God for the milling machine.

The X-Arcade fits like a glove and there is a draw for the keyboard and mouse. I think it is a nice touch.

A layer of primer, makes the paint stick better.

A whole lot of sanding afterwards...

And then another coat of primer :D

Then it was time to give it a layer of nice shiny paint.

A second coat of paint :)

The ventilation for the PC...

Then it was time for the light behind the marquee. I modded a cheap outdoor lamp to fit the cabinet.

It needs a bulb too...

Then i mounted two 4" car-speakers. They work as satellites for a Creative sub in the buttom. Sounds nice, but a little weak on the vokals, but perfect for electronic music.

Then the 19" LCD TFT screen was mounted.

And finally the marquee. The DEFENDER logo is placed between two pieces of 3mm plexi-glass.

Turn on the light BABY!!!!!

I decided to paint the bezel on the plexi-glass in front of the screen. Now it works both as protection and bezel. The paint in on the back of the plexi, and it looks very nice and shiny :)

Lets mount the bezel. Looks better than expected!

Almost done, love the result.

Made some cover for the computer and sub in plexi-glass. I think i will change it later, with some black painted aluminum netting. That will look alot nicer. But it is ok for now.

FINALLY! I got the posters for my side-art. It is just normal door-posters mounted with wallpaper adhesive.

Then I gave it a coat of varnish with UV filter to make it last longer.

New and improved speakers from Pioneer. 4" neodyme with kevlar. Sounds awesome. Looks alot better too!

Finally time to make a custom controller board! I made the layout in autocad and printed it on A4 paper.

It's hard to drill this many 28mm holes for the pushbottons!

Looks alot better than the x-arcade, also better ergonomics. Now I am just waiting on my new sanwa joysticks and new orange and red pushbottons!

I decided to make my own custom made marquee in adobe illustrator. I had it printed in a local copy-shop. The result was very nice i think.

Finally I recieved my Sanwa balltop joysticks and new buttons. Now it was time to make a new af much better controlpanel in steel and plexi. The metal and plexi were cut on a laser.

I also created my own custom made controlpanel art in illustrator. This makes it so much more fun to play and looks awesome to me :)

The result was absolutely stunning!!!

Time to wire up the whole thing. Takes a long time, but eventually it worked fine. Im still using my x-arcade PCB. Wondering if I should get an I-PAC? Maybe, maybe not.

The final result after installing the new controlpanel and marquee.

Another shot of the new controlpanel :D

Finally i recieved my vinyl artwork for the kickplate, speakers and front of controlpanel.

I also recieved a bezel artwork, but desided not to use it. It was too confusing to look at.

Time to mount the artwork.

Here it's installed in the cabinet. It wasn't as hard as I expected, the vinyl was exelent to use.

Here is the artwork in front of the controlpanel.

And around the speakers.

Another picture. Hope you like it.

A picture of the whole cabinet including the new artwork.

Finally some detailed shots. Here is the controlpanel up close.

Speaker artwork

The kickplate

The controlpanel