John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

General Category => Introduce Yourself => Topic started by: ZeroRex on April 28, 2017, 11:15:05 am



Title: Hello from New York!
Post by: ZeroRex on April 28, 2017, 11:15:05 am
I've been following John for quite some time and absolutely love arcades. Ever since I was a kid, I loved playing on arcade machines. My family traveled a lot when I was young and I loved jumping on an arcade game wherever we were.

A cabinet I wanted for a really long time was the classic Donkey Kong. I am pretty decent at woodworking so I decided to give it a shot and make one with the help of my best friend. Getting into the hobby seemed daunting and costly (DK cabinets were over 2k). So the goal was to make a DK cabinet as accurate as we could. We actually did pretty good, besides the top is 1.5" too long (You can see it in the pics below, no one notices according to my fiancé, but I notice...and it haunts me lol)

I have a small place ATM, so with my background in electronics and coding, I figured a Retropie w/ working switches could give me the opportunity to play multiple arcade games while maintaining that realistic feel by using a mix of original pieces, as well as reproduction pieces from mikesarcade.com. For the screen i used the biggest 4:3 screen I could find (A NEC 21.5" LCD). Gotta have 4:3 lol

Its sacrilegious, I get it lol, but it was the best way to step into it and work hard to really understand what goes into an arcade cabinet. Honestly building it was probably one of the best things I ever did. It really opened my eyes to the intricacies and beauty of arcades. Don't mind the newbie asking all the questions.

Here's some pics from the build:

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/08Zz1NIzJwGVGTxg8Fz70bTtnWM1XLtOwoRhJoMH9esdtGwdbGnj0vSxhtxsJ7oKsYgKZfbd18-SS8Q=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/HEJE0hl9jKrfIUrsPwGqQLAjiC8QsPAyc8F5aLerCNmW8-Yq2Ghhp_TQUYDiPgC7V9sNZxnCAenQ2ts=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1VuH27Y9BfQXPSQG9MAYZiSlLhDgrN5yVuS8mbL6x25_JSbpHvaLzugb1QsUcAMMGd4KOLJgI4_Epbg=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/PRRgaMFFzuLXYRqP6YRBiVKj36j3YsQompx_7M9-p8nB2hfyfbqo8iVQnySoNH11_KCnFXDLkZTNElE=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MUYD07jPa3tWtWHdKCK8oYnB5jaOYlgKaIKk4gJkHXSc3lzp6_ccebcZ50nNUT2i5V_cN6F8puVZg38=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/r95yhYuknr9lXTwYYAaAHcWTNZJeuBRJPrPqKnMb-RgMCehZFjgXhDqqgGT_fYm7oNPYJcCp4tksMZI=w2003-h1236)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/uPL3_q1PakWEVQQmH8y8zcUDtMxEvcGJ54iWbeFq39pC3vXylwZ9RgdmlLLXny8Thu_l27EpYB_XJOs=w2003-h1236)

Bonus pic of my brother and Goddaugther on the cabinet:

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/qLqZGkTbQ6fVZdm0I7eeUeO8uCVHcnc3yGghf2ArxoMZ4MDPdYolQ9nw39CQiqNl7zdfgkvwINpdcR4=w2003-h1236)