What's worse, thinking you're being paranoid or knowing you should be?

So I took the admin panel from J's garage and brought it home to mount the buttons. I originally went out looking for a 3/4" nut for the Bulgin Vandal power button. I should have been more observant, because it already comes with a half height 3/4" nut on it.

Lots of driving around wasted on that.


After mounting the admin buttons and the power button the paint ended up getting scuffed up, and the paint had some indents in it from behind handled.

Sanded it with a 120 grit sand paper, put a few more coats of enamel paint on it (after taping off the buttons. It's now nice and shiny.

Very difficult to get a good shot of the button. The button doesn't come with the 'power' symbol on it, I ended up getting a sheet of vinyl decals from Pongo in the BYOAC forums. I'm very happy with the results.

I had originally planned on 2 inch spacing between the buttons, but I was concerned about the vinyl labels overlapping. I increased it to 3 inches and I'm very happy with the results. All the buttons are vertically aligned and the net resulted is a very appealing look.

J came over to look at the progress I was making, and I managed to leverage him to help me install the glass. The L brackets I was using were too large, so we ended up putting a slight bend in them so they wouldn't cover the control box bolt holes.


I'm very pleased with the results. The glass, as you can see, is quite dark. It adds that missing element of 'arcade feel' to the cabinet.


The challenge with taking a picture with a dSLR is that it's constantly trying to increase the light levels. The net result is light reflections off the glass, when in reality there is very little reflection at all.


Here is the heart of the machine. Motherboard on a Lian-Li motherboard tray, with a Vantec hot swap drive case, and the power supply. I used some beefy panel clamps on the top and bottom and they hold very securely.


Another angle.


I need to practice taking more shots with my camera. This is with the ISO turned up and the flash turned off. The effect doesn't quite come out like I wanted, but you get the idea.


This is the back of the control box with the admin panel securely mounted. I used 4 x 1-1/2" L brackets.


A picture inside with the motherboard mounted securely. Looking much more tidy now.


The admin panel serves to fill the gap at the top of the control panel, and add that little bit of polish.


I can't wait to see the control panel with some artwork applied.


My Pac-Man 4-way reunion stick came in. Now I can mount it, and use it on the games I need to, rather than trying to struggle with an 8-way.


Unfortunately the mount is slightly different from what I had routed. As you can see there's some damage to the wood that requires some bondo to repair.

I finished the afternoon by taping the underside and applying bondo liberally to fill the holes and the notched areas. I'll drill new holes tomorrow, and securely mount the 4-way.

Well, we kinda face to the north and real subtle-like turn left.

Well the admin panel is mounted to the control panel box, and it fits into the space it needs to. There was some serious concern on my part I wouldn't be able to mount it properly the first time around, but I marked out the edges with chalk and that seemed to do the trick.

I also mounted the motherboard and associated computer equipment to the board I wanted to use. I'm using large panel clamps on the inside, and that seems to hold with a significant amount of force.

After years in the computer industry I figured it would be a walk in the park. I couldn't have been more wrong. For starters, I decided to dust the motherboard a bit. At that point I realized it looked like someones scalp was stuck in the heat sink. I disassembled the heat sink and fought back my gag reflex. It was pretty nasty. Put some new silver thermal paste on there, cleaned it up and reassembled. (totally expected it to boot with beep codes but had no issues).

The challenge became when I attempted to mount the motherboard to the Lian-Li tray I had purchased. Two brass stand offs broke off (yes, broke) in the mounting holes. I was pissed off and took an 1/8" drill bit and expanded the holes. That seemed to work perfectly.

Just need to finish mounting the hard drive, wire up the admin panel, and attach the wood piece that will keep the glass in place.

That will finish things until the artwork is done.

I just blew up a hotel. How the hell do you think I am?

Well I've been busy. The cab has gone through some serious play testing, and it's clear that setting up all the games with all the controls is going to take some time.

The trackballs had to have the y wires reversed, as it was functioning like a flight stick. Down was up and up was down. Easily fixed by reversing the outside wires that plug into the Mini-PAC.

It's alive! A beautiful sight indeed.
Here's Lyle playing some track and field.

Here's Darcy playing some track and field.
The camera doesn't do justice showing off the greylite #14 glass. It's dark. Very very dark.
Had to load up joust, because it's a classic.

Here is the glass outside of the cabinet.

Spent 2 days applying bondo, priming, sanding and painting the control panel box. It looks significantly better if you check out some of the older pictures.

Nice curves to it now.
The admin panel, waiting for the paint to try so I can install it.


The diamondplate came in, after I ended up going to the FedEx depot to pick it up. FedEx claimed they attempted delivery, yet no truck appeared in my parking lot and no one rang the door bell.

Tomorrow I'll take pictures of the work I've done mounting the computer onto the wood panel. I'll also take pictures of the admin panel mounted, with the cool illuminated Bulgin Vandal power switch.

Also, the cab has a name;

Conquest.