The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of my 2nd build....

[aldub516]

Hello and thanks all for looking! Ive been here for quite awhile now, and while I do ask and get a lot of help, if failed to update some of my projects so you fine people can see the results.. So todays post is for my 2nd ever build. It was meant to be a bartop arcade, and i basically just drew a random shape and went with it. Basically winged it. Now originally it was for my girlfriend at the time who loved spongebob, so you will see its original birth as a sponge bob themed arcade which i think came out great. After that our relationship ended up like most old arcades, worn out and in the garbage for other people to take... And thus became the transformation into a new cabinet. I stripped it down and re did it. It was for my tattoo artist. A few things to note, any and all defects, problems, or things that dont look great, im fully aware of. It was an amateur build, especially compared to my pedestal after that. Everything was basically thrown together at the end to finally just get rid of it. I feel like i achieved a pretty damn clean and nice machine for the given circumstances. The only thing im not crazy about is my pc mounting in the back. I have refined that method by a million, but this one looks rough. I tried the method of keeping it half in the case and cutting out what i dont need. Regardless of my rant, i present to you a bunch of pictures and the rise, fall and rebirth of my 2nd mame machine ever. Thank you for looking! It appears for one reason or another i dont have a picture of the spongebob fully down with all artwork installed at once, but in seperate pictures you can see the eventual marquee, bezel and cp art.

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[aldub516]

AND THEN THE TRANSFORMATION. Not many pics of the change because it was basically just paint and new artwork/buttons.. Looking at it now, im pretty proud of the end result. I wish i know half of what i know now, then. But here ya go guys! My 2nd build.. The others are to come soon

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[tthurman]

Your spoiling me man, I love build threads!

You've certainly covered the bases of cabinet builds.

[aldub516]

Thanks for always having good things to say. Again it's crazy what I've achieved with how novice I feel and how little I know compared to you guys. Flywheel what?

[AcidBrain]

wow cool!! And Beautiful Theme

[stigzler]

Wow. You win the prize for the most random placement of a fan in a mame machine ever!

[tthurman]

Well, I'm thinkin', and yes that is dangerous for sure!

Fan blowing toward the CPU heatsink, right below the power supply intake fan, and in the same area as the 120mm ejection fan. Is this a bad idea?

[Draco1962]

My guess is that it is mounted far enough away to allow egress to the main board for repairs and replacements without having to remove the cage, yet provide additional airflow to cool the CPU. I probably would have formed and added a removable duct from the fan towards the CPU to concentrate the airflow across it.

It makes sense to me in that you lose airflow concentration across the vitals without the case which would have been obstructed by the monitor and bezel assembly and would likely tend to overheat.

[stigzler]

There we are - Draco's nailed it!

I do still wonder whether it's like trying to do a cheerful whistle in a Tornado, though! (that's the polite euphemism)