Week Two - Part One
Saturday 9th February 2002
After a whole five days away from my new soon-to-be-toy, it was back to Mark's for the start of probably the biggest project (bar maybe putting up shelves in my bedroom) I've done since birth. First job of the day was a stock take to see exactly what I had got for me money, and what I would be needing to buy.
Below is the cabinet with all the junk thrown inside it. Unexciting I know but there purely for documentary purposes.
Looks a bit of a state doesn't it, and your probably already thinking that it might have been easier to make your own with some chipboard and a jigsaw, but the actual state of this wooden monstrosity is pretty good and whilst the control panel had clearly taken a bit of a battering, the rest just needed a clean. Yes there is the odd chip in it but nothing to complain about, certainly for £20.
Plus of course it looks like an arcade cabinet because it bloody well is one, so before you consider making your own just search the net and check out a few of the horrible boxy attempts that some careful patient ebaying will save you from.
Cooo look at those coin doors, the top is where the money goes in (but at present only to a theoretical coin mechanism) and drops down through the holes into a coin collector box. What looks like a bird nesting box in the bottom is removeable and although it doesn't exactly fit properly the noise of coins dropping into it is authentic enough so all it will get is a bit of a clean up.
You should also have noticed (See how I make you feel dumb by saying things like that? Cos you didn't notice did you, and to be honest neither would I, but it helps to make me look cleverer than I am, which for me is good as I need all the help I can get) the green earthing wire in the top coin door. With so much exposed nasty voltage floating around an arcade monitor it makes sense to prevent any lawsuits by making sure EVERY exposed metal part of the cabinet is fully earthed.
No, not whips for sexual gratification, this is a bunch of black rubber edging (okay still sounds erotic if thats what floats your boat but bear with me) which is T shaped and if memory serves entited T-Edging. The guy I bought the cab off threw in a load of this because he was sure that some of it fitted my cabinet perfectly but he wasn't sure which bits and was chucking it all anyway.
He also gave me an additional perspex marquee to go with the glass one already on the cab. Neither would turn out to be used because the former was opaque whilst the latter had suffered some scratching on the back which made it look grotty when a light was shone through.
Talking of lights, here is the light assembly which fits behind the marquee. As you can see it comes with one crappy tiny speaker of barely measureable wattage which had seen better days and was destined for the bin. A second spot for an additional speaker would soon be utilised for the cunning purpose of providing stereo sound.
I also got a working Mars coin mechanism, well actually it was a bit intermittent and would eventually die on me during the testing process so I had to get a replacement. But without it I wouldn't have considered actually using one so I'm glad it gave me a taster.