Alpha One - renovation to a SHMUP Tribute cab

[opt2not]

Figured I should finally post what I've been up to lately.

During the summer, I stumbled upon an Ad on CL of a warehouse full of cabinets and parts for sale. A few friends of mine went over to check it out and ended picking up 3 cabinets, a bunch of original boards, and artwork. 


There were tons of cabinets there, all mostly converted from their originals, all of them in really bad shape. This warehouse used to be an old chicken coop farm, so you can imagine the smell and filth all around the place. A poor cemetery for arcade cabs...
The seller was taking $100 per cabinet, $10 for each PCB, and random prices for artwork and control panels.

I spotted a few candidates for projects, the better conditioned ones: A Robotron that was converted to JAMMA, running R-Type 2, and 2 cabinets that were Neo Geo converts, one being a Dynamo the other a Centipede. I opted to take the Centipede convert for my project, as I felt it would make the best candidate for a SHMUP cab. This thread will be outlining my cabinet build, but I'll be posting the other 2 later.


Now, I'm a big fan of renovation projects. Mainly for the reason that I no longer have the space to wood-work, but also over the last few years I've been trying to live as "green" as possible. Waste-not, want-not.

I considered restoring this cabinet back to it's former glory, but the cabinet was so hacked up and poorly converted that I would have to spend a ton of money on getting parts, artwork, the whole shibang. In the end, Centipede was never my cup-o-tea as a game, so I figured I'd love to make a tribute to SHMUPs cabinet.

I was racking my brain on what to title this cabinet, but couldn't come up with anything that felt right. Ryglore also helped me out with a few suggestions, but again, we couldn't figure out a good suitable name. A friend of mine is in the US Airforce, so I asked him for some ideas on what to name this. He gave me a few names of past missions, and some on-base terms, but one seemed to fit the best -- Alpha One --. He says they use the call-sign "Alpha one" a lot when for inbound and outbound jets. Basically reporting that all systems are in operational order and still FMC(fully mission capable).  This was perfect!

The plan is Alpha One is going to be a SHMUP tribute. I plan on fixing the JAMMA harness wiring (since it was poorly thrown in there), and for now it's going to host original boards, but will probably throw in a MAME PC later on. I own a bunch of original boards right now, mainly shmups and fighters, so this cabinet will definitely put those to good use.  It'll host 2 players, 3-buttons each on the Control Panel, populated with Seimitsu LS-58's w/ octo-gates (my favourite stick for SHMUP'in), and Seimitsu buttons.   

The cabinet is going to be White, Black and Orange mainly.

Artwork: I'll be creating my own custom art.  The side-art is going to be a small decal, not full-sized covering the entire cabinet like what most people are doing these days, it  will be about 20" in height and sit aligned to the monitor's horizon. Old school. It's going to be showcasing SHMUP planes from various games that represent the SHMUP genre, flying towards you in perspective, a radial composition outward from the center.
I was at first planning to feature only 6 planes, but there are so many good candidates to feature that I've now doubled that count, having 6-8 different ones per side (thanks for the suggestion Ryglore!).
There is a thread I started on the shmups.forums that has a running suggestion list.

The current un-confirmed list of ships are:

• Galaga
• 1942
• Raiden
• Gyruss
• Flying Shark
• Twin Cobra
• DDP type A
• Battle Garrega: Silver Sword
• Ketsui: Tiger Schwert
• Ikaruga
• Xevious
• Daioh
• Vic Viper
• R-9
• Batsugan Type A

Here is a REALLY rough draft of the Raiden ship. Mainly an exercise for me to understand the shapes of the ship, and the overall form. It's not the right perspective or is completely accurate to the design, but I gotta start somewhere! Colours are also just place-holder...

I'm going to do another version of this, planning on modelling out the overall rough shape of the ships in 3D, setting up a camera angle with proper perspective, screenshot it and then do a paint-over in Photoshop. It'll be the best way of getting that "industrial" design with proper proportions, perspective etc... after that, it'll be taken into Illustrator and vectorized for printing. It's an ordeal, but it's a process I'm used to now that I've been doing Art commissions for various members here. For those who I've done artwork for, consider this as what I would have given you as "the rough 1st draft".

First order of business: Strip it.

Under the shoddy blue paint-work, the original Centipede artwork was there, but it was in really rough shape. Torn, scratched, half-peeled... a sad sight.

Inside the cabinet:

Filthy. The original power transformer block for Centipede is still there (hence Big Blue), but also a newer switching power supply to run the PCB.
The big MVS PCB seems to power up fine, but the monitor doesn't work. I will be keeping the monitor and bringing it back to health (I've got a bit of experience with monitor repair now). The cart installed is World Heroes, not really my game, but whatever, I'll throw it up on ebay or something later.
As you can see, that massive scratched wood peice the board is mounted to is not stock. I'm assuming they put this here for security measures??  bah. a crappy convert none-the-less.

The cabinet gets stripped down to it's naked wood, using a heat-gun to remove the art. I filled in the gashes and chipping damage in the wood and sanded it baby-smooth:


The control panel was also poorly converted, after stripping it down, it looks like swiss cheese!

I've got 2 options here. 1. The easier route is to just cover it again with newly-cut plexi and keep people ignorant of all the holes underneath some sandwiched artwork, or 2. The more involved route: Re-enforce the holes I don't need, Bondo and sand it smooth and not bother with plexi at all.  I haven't come to that decision yet.

Primed:

I used a white primer. Rolled-on with foam rollers, 3 coats, sanded in-between.

Added new leg levelers, and painted:

The picture doesn't show this off well, but the paint is actually an "off-white", which isn't as bright as shown. I didn't want pure white, as I feel it would be too hard on the eyes and take away from my plans with the artwork.  Again, 3 coats of paint, sanded in-between.
The black is Rustoleum Satin Black that was sprayed on.

Clear-coated and T-molding (I couldn't wait):

The colour scheme looks really great, and I'm glad it turned out well.

Now that the majority of construction work has been done, I can move this into my apartment and work on the electrical and Control Panel work.

Monitor cleaned up nice:

It was really dirty, so I took a damp rag of water and isoprophanol, and started the clean-up.  After taking off the layer of dirt and grime on the glass, you can notice there is a slight burn, but not really that bad. I doubt it'll be that noticeable (I've seen worse!), especially since I am going to put some smoked plexi in-front of it.

The chassis:

Cleaned and re-capped. I noticed that a couple caps had legs that were ripped off the board, so my assumption is that was the cause of it not working. I haven't tested it yet, that will happen after I've got the cabinet's full wiring sorted out. But if it's still failing that's no problem at all, I have a tested working Electrohome G07 chassis I can swap in, leftover from older projects.

That's where it stands now. Still lots of stuff to do, but at least the "heavy" parts are done.
As always, comments and suggestions welcome, as brutal or nice -- I'm built of leathery scales, so do your worst.

[Ryglore]

Excellent start so far and I'm glad to be of help!

Can't wait to see this progress. 

[CoryBee]

Stunning job on cleaning that board 

[harveybirdman]

First of all, the name rocks and this looks like a ton of fun.  Every time I see a cab graveyard like that I wish I could swoop in and take them all. I'll be watching!

Are you going to vertically orient the monitor, I hope?

I want to do a SHMUP cab after I finish the Quarter Slayer and I'm going to call it Bullet Reign.

[opt2not]

Thanks gents!

@harveybirdman: thanks! One vital piece of info I forgot to mention, yes the monitor will be vertically mounted. The wood braces inside the cab doesn't look too hacked up after it was converted, so I believe I can just restore its original orientation.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Awesome man. This is going to be amazing.

What PCB's did you scoop up?

[mgb]

Looks like an awesome start.
I love shmup cabs.
Is it a 19" monitor or 25?

[opt2not]

Awesome man. This is going to be amazing.

What PCB's did you scoop up?

So far I've got Gyruss, Raiden DX, Donpachi, 1942, and I'm working on a deal to get Galaga 88 board.
Oh and I've been eyeing Strikers 1945 II, cause it's such a good value!

Looks like an awesome start.
I love shmup cabs.
Is it a 19" monitor or 25?

It's a 19" Electrohome G07-CB0.
With the amount of space that is in there, there is no way a Centipede cabinet can hold a 25".

[Ryglore]

I loooooove Strikers 1945 II! It was my most played game on the SHMUP before I borrowed my PC to my buddy for the Retrotron. Definitely pick it up if you can.

[SpaceHedgehog]

First of all, the name rocks

+1

It's not often I like personalised names but this is a good choice.

[opt2not]

Thanks! 

I forgot to mention, I did a quick mock-up of the Galaga ship:


This is loosely based on a re-interpretative design I did earlier for another member here. It doesn't have enough details that I want it to, but it's in better perspective than the Raiden ship and it's a good quick first-draft.

[Well Fed Games]

As you know, following this one closely!  Makes me feel bad for my Kangaroo-"Dedicated" Raiden II/DX that needs finished! At least I can follow this build and learn a few things!

There was a Viper Phase 1 board on ebay the other day (Sold by the Paradise Arcade guy, actually)... took everything in me to not bid on it. But there only tends to be 2 or 6-way Jamma switchers, and I would have had to find three more pcbs to fill the rest...

[Malenko]

Thanks! 

I forgot to mention, I did a quick mock-up of the Galaga ship:

LOVE IT! I hope you'll be giving out the art (esp the galaga ship) when its all said and done, I'd love to use the galaga ship. The raiden one is tits too, I just have a hard on for Galaga (its one of my grails)

[PL1]

I would have had to find three more pcbs to fill the rest...

You say that like it's a bad thing.   


Scott

[drventure]

Nice, I love these conversion/restoration projects.

Restore/repurpose the old stuff, definitely!

[Well Fed Games]

I would have had to find three more pcbs to fill the rest...

You say that like it's a bad thing.   


Scott

Only for my wallet.


Opt, was curious about a couple things:

I know we've talked about sticks, but what are you thinking about for buttons?

Also, the cardboard bezel on my cab was there but not worth keeping. Was yours still usable, and if not have you thought about what you will have surrounding the screen?

[opt2not]

LOVE IT! I hope you'll be giving out the art (esp the galaga ship) when its all said and done, I'd love to use the galaga ship. The raiden one is tits too, I just have a hard on for Galaga (its one of my grails)

Thanks Mal, I won't be making it the final art publicly available for everyone to grab, but I don't mind sending it to the longtime-contributors of BYOAC like yourself. I'd rather not have any of the "johnny-come-lately's" jumping in, grabbing art, and f'in off.

Opt, was curious about a couple things:

I know we've talked about sticks, but what are you thinking about for buttons?

Also, the cardboard bezel on my cab was there but not worth keeping. Was yours still usable, and if not have you thought about what you will have surrounding the screen?

For the buttons, I'm going with Seimitsu's PS-14 series. Don't know if they'll be the transparent ones (PS-14-KN) or the solid ones (PS-14-GN), as I haven't put too much thought into how the CP is going to look like.

But I do know the overall theme I'm starting with is going to look like a spaceship's dashboard, taking some queues from Lunar Lander, but updated to a more futuristic look.


As for the bezel, the cabinet didn't have one. When it was converted to a Neo Geo, they used an underlay just behind the glass which was placed flat to it. It was just a simple red paper with a square hole cut in the middle for the monitor to show through. Really ghetto.

If I did have the old one, I would have followed this guy's tutorial:
http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/Bezel/bezel_construction.html

Did you end up just throwing yours away? If not, you could use it as a template to make a new one (while your at it, wanna make me one too? )
I might have to track an original one down, just to get those measurements.

There is a plan for artwork around the monitor as well. If I can get an original stencil for the bezel, it's going to be inlet (like the above tutorial sample) and not flat to the glass. I want to have the surrounding areas look as if you're peering out of the cockpit of the spaceship, taking some queues from the Xevious cabinets as well:

This will continue the theme from the CP dash-board.

 

[Well Fed Games]

Hey, thanks for the info. I figured you'd have some good plans laid out. 

I do still have the old bezel, it just has a few tears and rough spots. Probably usable but I want this one to be a fresh from the factory vibe. Thanks for the link... if I can convince myself that I can cut the lines well enough by hand, I might give it a try, and if I do I would do a second for you no prob, I assume Centipede=Kangaroo. Just need to think on it a bit. FWIW, Joeycuda at KLOV makes them for $35, or at least did recently: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=235647.

I would love to see if the generic black plastic bezel would work but I assume it wouldn't due to the cab angles and such.

[PL1]

Joeycuda at KLOV

Great guy, solid reputation. 

Bought a pair of repro SW yoke handles from him a while back.


Scott

[Well Fed Games]

For the buttons, I'm going with Seimitsu's PS-14 series. Don't know if they'll be the transparent ones (PS-14-KN) or the solid ones (PS-14-GN), as I haven't put too much thought into how the CP is going to look like.

Hey, do you know a good source for the solid ones (GN series)? I checked out Paradise and FocusAttack and neither had them. Anyone in the US you know of carry them?

[PL1]

For the buttons, I'm going with Seimitsu's PS-14 series. Don't know if they'll be the transparent ones (PS-14-KN) or the solid ones (PS-14-GN), as I haven't put too much thought into how the CP is going to look like.

Hey, do you know a good source for the solid ones (GN series)? I checked out Paradise and FocusAttack and neither had them. Anyone in the US you know of carry them?

If you're willing to go north of the border, Canadian Joysticks carries PS-14-GN's.


Scott

[Well Fed Games]

Thanks Scott, looks like a good option. 

[opt2not]

If you're willing to go north of the border, Canadian Joysticks carries PS-14-GN's.

I can't recommend Canandian joysticks enough. Jackson is a great guy to deal with and his service is top-notch. I have bought from him many times, and it was always a good transaction. Also helps me for shipping since he's in the same city.

So A1 work has been halted due to the holidays. I'm visiting my in-laws right now, so I haven't been able to do much work on it. But I did get a chance to get a couple more primarily sketches for the side art.  Again, these are mostly exercises for me to understand the design of the planes, and what kind of shapes and objects they involve.  sorry about the quality of image, I don't have access to a scanner or Photoshop..so I had to do the image editing on my iphone's photoshop...which has very limited editing capabilities.

Dodonpachi A-type


Flying shark

[Ryglore]

Those are sexy as hell!

[opt2not]

Those are sexy as hell!

Thanks bro. I'm going to put together the proper arrangement when I get home after Christmas. That way I can figure out which planes/ships are going on what side, what angle to create them at, and how they with compose with each other.

Hey, thanks for the info. I figured you'd have some good plans laid out. 

I do still have the old bezel, it just has a few tears and rough spots. Probably usable but I want this one to be a fresh from the factory vibe. Thanks for the link... if I can convince myself that I can cut the lines well enough by hand, I might give it a try, and if I do I would do a second for you no prob, I assume Centipede=Kangaroo. Just need to think on it a bit. FWIW, Joeycuda at KLOV makes them for $35, or at least did recently: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=235647.

I would love to see if the generic black plastic bezel would work but I assume it wouldn't due to the cab angles and such.

Hey Well Fed, if you think you won't be able to tackle this, would you be willing to send me your bezel? I could try to fabricate a couple copies from it, using that link as a guide. One for me one for you!  I'll need to get my hands on one for measurements because I'd want to print out artwork onto hard-stock, or some type of bristol, then use the guide to assemble the shape using the proper dimensions.

[rCadeGaming]

Wow, great project thread.  Between the vertical CRT, great control panel, and real PCB's, this sounds like my dream shmup cab.

Yeah, that chicken coop looks pretty dirty.  Your cab looks pretty beat up, but then only halfway through the first post it's looking pretty darn good.

If you're focusing on shmups, I'd suggest making it compatible with Dreamcast and Xbox 360, in addition to PCB's and MAME.  You could build a physical switch to change between these or design a switching circuit.  I'm doing something like that with a combination of 4066 chips and optical relays.

The plans for the artwork sound epic, and I like your sketches so far.  Maybe you could separate the airplanes and the space ships somehow, like the two groups veering out toward opposite directions?

I'd go with plexi on the control panel, but I like the feel of it and the way it protects the art anyway.

[Well Fed Games]

would you be willing to send me your bezel?

Yeah, sounds good. Sending a PM...

[Malenko]

if youre runnin PCBs to a JAMMA switcher, you can get a DC to JAMMA converter, or use a VGA box and a controller hack into a jamma harness. I just got a mad catz light gun and House of the Dead 2 for the ShoRyuKade (powered by DreamCast) and its pretty great. I play Mars Matrix on it the most though. I almost wanna build a dedicated JamesTown Weecade and now your project has me wanting to make a dedicated Vertical cab :/

[emphatic]

Very nice work!

[opt2not]

Small update: 

After the holidays I got completely slammed at work, so I haven't had much time and energy to work on A-1, but I've been putting some plans together that I hope to get to as soon as the next couple weeks are over.

First, I've received an old centipede bezel/shroud from Well Fed Games, to reproduce. The bezel is in decent enough shape to trace and repro.
I will post pictures of the process soon.  Thanks bro! 

Second, our good buddy Ryglore graciously offered to make me a few orange dust-washers to go onto my panel! Here's an early shot of what it looks like. It's on-route now!

They are transparent orange, and will go really well with my CP colour scheme. Thank you Ryglore! 

Speaking of the CP, I've decided to go with the easier route of just covering the CP with artwork and acrylic/plexi. It's going to be too much effort and time needed to repair the metal panel, and I'd like to get this done as soon as possible.
As long as I cut and shape my plexi clean enough, it should be fine.  I plan on round-over, or chamfer routing the front edge like I did with my Canucks cocktail:


Then I'm going to Flame polish the cut edges to bring it back to a clear shine, rather than leaving the white-cut-edge:


Art-wise:  I've got a couple more ships started, but I have kept it on hold till I get a couple of the first ships roughly modeled in 3D. I wan't to prove the process of 3D models --> 2D screen-shots --> photoshop paint-overs and see what kind of result I can get.  This will be a good test to get going on and make sure that it's sound.
I'll update this thread soon with my findings/outcome.

On a cool note:  I managed to make that deal for the Strikers 1945 II board!

I'm definitely going to have this featured in the cabinet's board rotation!    

[opt2not]

Very nice work!

Thanks bud! 

if youre runnin PCBs to a JAMMA switcher, you can get a DC to JAMMA converter, or use a VGA box and a controller hack into a jamma harness. I just got a mad catz light gun and House of the Dead 2 for the ShoRyuKade (powered by DreamCast) and its pretty great. I play Mars Matrix on it the most though. I almost wanna build a dedicated JamesTown Weecade and now your project has me wanting to make a dedicated Vertical cab :/

Haha, I was thinking about that.  But for now I'm going to keep it a board-run cabinet. I do have plans for that too though (for the future)!  Since I wasn't able to sell my hacked controllers, I figured I'd eventually wire up a little Jamma box featuring a VGA Box, and the two controllers connected to a Jamma connector.  That why I can have Ikaruga, Under Defeat, Gunbird 2, Mars Matrix, and the others on this cabinet. I know they are emulated, but I haven't looked up how well they are right now.

[Ryglore]

Second, our good buddy Ryglore graciously offered to make me a few orange dust-washers to go onto my panel! Here's an early shot of what it looks like. It's on-route now!

They are transparent orange, and will go really well with my CP colour scheme. Thank you Ryglore! 

You're welcome man! I'm really happy with how they turned out, hopefully they get to you soon! 

[sharpfork]

With the amount of space that is in there, there is no way a Centipede cabinet can hold a 25".

I've mounted a 25" CRT both vertically and horizontally in my previously gutted centipede cab.  The attached pic is all I have on my phone at the moment. 

This is a super cool project I'll be keeping an eye on.

SIII + Cyanogen + Tapatalk 2

[opt2not]

Been working on a solid process for getting these ships done quickly with proper perspective angles. I've got a point where I think it's solid, only requiring a few hours per ship:



From my initial sketch, I put together a quick 3D mock-up -- simple overall shapes, nothing too complex in modeling so it doesn't soak up all my time. Then I find the right camera angle and focal point, snap a screen-shot then paste into Photoshop. I then start processing the screen-shot, painting it over and adding details.  Galaga took about 4 hours total, not including the initial sketch.

Style-wise, I'm going for a look similar in fashion to the Xevious, Battlezone, Gravitar side-art but with a bit more complex shading.

[Ryglore]

That ship is sweet looking! I can't wait to see the rest of the set.

Looking at the side art of those cabs confuses me. I thought you said you weren't doing full side art on this one?

[BadMouth]

The style is dead on. 

[Malenko]

amazing. Im thinkin I might replace my Galaga marquee with something custom now......

[rCadeGaming]

Wow, very professional.   

[floriske.nl]

That ship is looking sweet indeed!

Just wondering: why are you using photoshop for this type of vector looking at? Creating it in actual vector in illustrator would result in a lot more flexibility regarding scaling etc.  (vector at can be scaled unlimited)

[opt2not]

The style is dead on. 

amazing. Im thinkin I might replace my Galaga marquee with something custom now......

Wow, very professional.   

Thanks for the comments guys! GALAGA is one of the more simple ones in design too, wait till you see what I have in mind for the more complex designed ships.

Looking at the side art of those cabs confuses me. I thought you said you weren't doing full side art on this one?

Yup, I'm still sticking with my plan. The examples there are for art-style references. Not for the dimensions or coverage, just examples of the actual art look I'm going for.

Just wondering: why are you using photoshop for this type of vector looking at? Creating it in actual vector in illustrator would result in a lot more flexibility regarding scaling etc.  (vector at can be scaled unlimited)

Yup, you're right! But as I stated earlier, I will be vectorizing it as a final pass before print. Photoshop is much quicker for me to get the image completed from scratch. I can't stand drawing or painting in illustrator, it tends to become tedious, pulling points and handles all around.
What I do is get the image as close to final in photoshop because the tools are a lot quicker and easier to work with, then port the image over to illustrator, auto-trace and clean-up, then export a PDF for printing. It's my tried and true process that has been working really well for me.