Hello everyone, here is my first thread to present you my project : a Weecade Mario Paper oriented. I'll be a little taller than the original Weecade (height is 10cm bigger).
Me : I live Bordeaux, France (yeah zone arcade is internacional baby !), I'm 34, got my first console at 4 years old, a Vectrex, and never stop playing since that day ! I'm a huge Apple addict (no one is perfect), and Nintendo to cause they're just doing the best games since the NES. Super Nes still my favorite console, even if I own a ps3/wii/xbox360...
I'm definitely not a handyman so pardon my futures approximations in this post...
The project :
In this thread I'll try to give you all the links/sources I grab everywhere to inspire me building a cab. Building this Weecade wouldn't be possible for me without reading a lot of forums and blogs, that's why I wanted to share my experience : if this thread can help at least one person, I'll be glad.
My weecade will be a little bigger than this one. Plans used :
www.koenigs.dk/mame/WeeCade_plans_1.0.pdf To make it bigger I used a video projector to project the plan directly on the wood, like in this video (it's a must see if you're thinking make your) :
http://vimeo.com/30660820 . I want to make it a little bigger than the original so I can put a 19" lcd monitor in it without problems, and play at 2 players comfortably. It'll be powered by a mini itx pc motherboard, running mostly Mame and Snes/PCEngine emulators.
Decoration : It should be based/inspired by
"La máquina recreativa de Diviciacos dedicada a "Paper Mario" . But I'm in need of these artwork, megaupload links are dead for the reason you know, hope someone can hook me up with those files...
It'll be a mix between
The Mystery Machine for the painting style with rays (but in blue) and the Paper Mario one.
My Weecade ingredients :
Wood : MDF 16mm (12mm is used for the original weecade, but I wanted something robust) backdoor and control panel will be smaller)
Control Panel : 4mm MDF
Screen : It'll be a 19" 4/3 lcd monitor
Pc with XP :
www.msi.com/product/mb/E350IA-E45.html I chose an AMD based motherboard for his reasonable performance/price. 500go old hard drive.
Joystick button : 2 players, with 6 sanwa buttons per player + buttons for Insert coins, 1P/2P. I ordered them here :
www.arcadeshop.de/Minipaq :
www.ultimarc.com/minipac.htmlSpeakers :
www.lacie.com/fr/products/product.htm?id=10541A scanline hardware generator trying to reproduce old tubes tv graphics :
www.brunofreitas.com/?q=node/36Frontend : Maximus (looks like dead !?) or Hyperspin. What are you guys using ? I know Maximus it's simple,
The firsts steps :
- Determine the size
Like I already said, I used a video projector to project the PDF plan on a giant paper, I tried to draw it at various size before finding the right one. Then I projected and drawdirectly on the MDF wood.
- Wood cutting... did by myself then I gave the woof to a carpenter who finish the job. He cleaned irregularity.
Like you see there are four sides, because one of my friend is making his to, he's not a huge video game fan, but he build it for his 6 years son. He'll probably use a theme around Cars Pixar's movie, not sure yet. But get ready to see more pics of his weecade too, they'll be both strictly identical.
Got the Minipaq today :
While I was shopping in Leroy Merlin I find those plexi stuffs, in fact it's a very thin pexiglas that you can twist, I think I'll use it to protect the control panel stickers. It looks like this :
