125 replies to this topic

[Galooch]

So I have been infected with the cabinet bug and I am starting my due diligence.  My plan is to document my process so that I can give something back to the community more so than just a good build thread.  With that being said, one of main reasons I think many new people take so long to get going is the pace of this hobby.  It is difficult to keep track of the "latest and greatest" and what the current "best practices" are.  I do understand that this is very subjective since everyone's needs, budgets, and wants are different.  I want to use polls more often as an easy way for people to track what the current trends are.

 

It seems that many cabinets nowadays are widebody. In fact, I purchased a Samsung 46" UN46F6350 anticipating that I would build a widebody. However, since we are using the TV in our living room (and it works quite well), I have an opportunity to rethink this decision.

 

What did you choose for your cabinet and what was the reason for your choice?  I would love to collect a list of pros/cons and other considerations that new cab builders can reference as they begin their project.

 

Thanks!

 

UPDATE: I'll add to the pro/con list below as they come up.

 

Standard Cabinet (Pros/Cons)

[+] many more standard tables than widebody cabinets (maintains original dimensions)

[+] easier for smaller children to play

[-] 39"- 40" are not as close to standard tables dimensions as widebody and 46" screens (when considering both length and width)

[-] have to "cover-up" any gaps in the front/back (position screens/create spacers)

 

Widebody Cabinet (Pros/Cons)

[+] larger viewable screen area

[+] 46" screens are extremely close to inside widebody table dimensions

[-] harder for smaller children to play

Edited by Galooch, 02 September 2014 - 05:38 PM.

[gamefixer]

I bought the same monitor for my cab because I wanted a large playfield screen. I actually owned a VirtuaPin built by GlobalVR and the 32" screen was just too small to really enjoy any of the games.

 

I think that some sort of feedback from the cab is important too. Both visual (LED's) and physical (solenoids/contactors). I have a background in Car Stereo so I put some of that to use in the cab as well. Instead of pulling apart some cheapo PC speakers I built a sub enclosure into the bottom of the cab with 2 8" Kicker Comp drivers. The backbox has a pair of 6.5" 2 way Polk's (I think) and the amp is a 400 Watt 2/3/4 channel Alpine with built in Crossovers. For the record I tried one of those Lepia 2.1 amps with the Flipper Fidelity speakers and the cab sounded like shit (I used the speakers in a Stern Metallica and it sounds great). That Amp is a waste of money!

 

I too wish there was a way to keep up with the latest and the greatest but the only way to do that is to stay on this site and the other sites that support Virtual pinball.

 

Good luck with your build. Looking forward to some pics and details. 

[mjr]

I went with standard width, mostly for the aesthetics of the cabinet exterior.  It's a personal bias, though.  I have some real pinballs from the 80s and 90s, and they're all standard width machines, so it's what looks "right" to me.  The wide-bodies look kind of bloated to my eye.  Plus I figured they wouldn't harmonize as well with my other machines.  This is all very subjective, and even if you agree with me on the cabinet aesthetics, the bigger screen size afforded by a wide body might outweigh that for you.  I happen to think a bigger screen isn't necessarily a plus - the 39-40" screen size you can fit in a standard body is just about right for most tables.  After all, most tables actually are standard bodies in real life, so a TV that approximates the dimensions of a standard body playfield will be yield an image that's close to actual size for many tables.  On the other hand, the human eye is great at doing scaling without you even noticing consciously, so if you go with a 46" screen, you probably won't even notice that some of the images are bigger than life.

[freneticamnesic]

I bought the same monitor for my cab because I wanted a large playfield screen. I actually owned a VirtuaPin built by GlobalVR and the 32" screen was just too small to really enjoy any of the games.

 

I think that some sort of feedback from the cab is important too. Both visual (LED's) and physical (solenoids/contactors). I have a background in Car Stereo so I put some of that to use in the cab as well. Instead of pulling apart some cheapo PC speakers I built a sub enclosure into the bottom of the cab with 2 8" Kicker Comp drivers. The backbox has a pair of 6.5" 2 way Polk's (I think) and the amp is a 400 Watt 2/3/4 channel Alpine with built in Crossovers. For the record I tried one of those Lepia 2.1 amps with the Flipper Fidelity speakers and the cab sounded like shit (I used the speakers in a Stern Metallica and it sounds great). That Amp is a waste of money!

 

I too wish there was a way to keep up with the latest and the greatest but the only way to do that is to stay on this site and the other sites that support Virtual pinball.

 

Good luck with your build. Looking forward to some pics and details. 

 

UltraPin*

[FreeMason]

I think widebody came in the picture since there was nothing that fitted a standard 22" wide cabinet, and a 42" was great for a widebody. But with the relatively new 39" screens that problem is solved, they fit great in a standard cab.

Since i have the cabinet in my livingroom i think an standard cabinet is better for me. My gameroom is coming but not within a year or two. I have to sell some motorcycles before i can build my gameroom in my garage

[njgsx96]

I went with the standard body because I grew up on the old EM pinball machines and like the look of that style moreso that the widebody.  The widebody is too bulky for my tastes as I like a more traditional looking pinball cabinet.  I did use a newer style backbox design though as well as a little more angle to the cabinet itself...  not quite as much as a widebody, but a little... so I kind of mixed the 2 into my own creation.  I may have to name her Frankenpin!

[Galooch]

Thanks for the opinions!

With the standard cabs and the 39"-40" monitors, one of my concerns has been the length of the monitor and how to "fill-in" any gaps. In trying make as faithful a recreation as possible, I thought this might hurt the appearance. This was one of the reason I started leaning towards widebody. Are you standard body folks happy with how you filled in those gaps (either up front or in back)? I'm guessing you don't even notice it anymore anyway.

I see that in many recent builds, folks are putting the flasher bar at the back so that helps a little but I feel like there is much more room to cover up if you go with a 39-40 inch.

[Swisslizard]

My cab is a widebody. The main reason is the fact that the size of a 64'' sceen is quite close to the size of a widebody playfield.

[njgsx96]

I used a 40" TV in my standard cabinet.  I have a 3" gap in the back that I made a shelf for the monitor with and left room for flashers in case I decide to go with them in the future.  You don't even notice the gap in the back, painted black.  There is about a 4" gap in the front as well which I plan to put a black spacer in there.  it is currently just open since I am not done yet but it is not a distraction at all.   

[mistermixer]

I rescued a standard Williams'Millionaire' from going to the junkyard. Advantage is having all the parts (legs,sidebar,knocker ...) allmost for scratch.

If you're going to build your own project ( wood, parts ,working hours ) you can match the LCD perfectly but it's more costeffective. Choosing this option i would go for a widebody 'look a like'.

Edited by mistermixer, 02 September 2014 - 02:16 PM.

[xzotic]

Thanks for the opinions!

With the standard cabs and the 39"-40" monitors, one of my concerns has been the length of the monitor and how to "fill-in" any gaps. In trying make as faithful a recreation as possible, I thought this might hurt the appearance. This was one of the reason I started leaning towards widebody. Are you standard body folks happy with how you filled in those gaps (either up front or in back)? I'm guessing you don't even notice it anymore anyway.

I see that in many recent builds, folks are putting the flasher bar at the back so that helps a little but I feel like there is much more room to cover up if you go with a 39-40 inch.

 

Galooch, if you look at my cab below I opted to drop the back box on the standard cab and bring it forward from the back by exactly one bolt position (The back box is held by four bolts I simply moved it forward so that only the two forward bolts are being used). It's really not noticeable from any angle unless you stand dead side on to it and are near the back of the cab! No-one stands there (and can't with my setup anyway).

 

This allows the back of my 37" LCD display to finish exactly where the back box begins. The LCD also is snug to the front ensuring that the flippers play in the right position and there is no gap at the start of the play field.  I also opted to place the real CREE lights around the play field and keep just two strobes at the back to provide a much more realistic lighting experience. Overall I'm really happy with this setup and I'm glad I went for a standard cab and a smaller 37" option (Although if I could have got a 40" de-cased flush fit then I would have but I'm not looking to replace the current 37" one). 

 

 

[Galooch]

Wow xzotic...love the TOM theme! Any chance of getting some side shots of your backbox positioning? That is a great idea to keep the flippers as close as possible and keep the "illusion."  Not to get too far off topic but how many LEDs do you have total?  I have not seen many put them under the glass along the sides as you did.  Very cool!  

[mjr]

With the standard cabs and the 39"-40" monitors, one of my concerns has been the length of the monitor and how to "fill-in" any gaps. In trying make as faithful a recreation as possible, I thought this might hurt the appearance. This was one of the reason I started leaning towards widebody. Are you standard body folks happy with how you filled in those gaps (either up front or in back)? I'm guessing you don't even notice it anymore anyway.

I see that in many recent builds, folks are putting the flasher bar at the back so that helps a little but I feel like there is much more room to cover up if you go with a 39-40 inch.

 

Here's how I set mine up (one pic with the TV off, one on, for comparison):

 

 

 

I used the space in back for flashers, and the space in front for an apron with cards for instructions and pricing.  Apart from the need to pad out the front-back space left over by the 39" screen size, the apron is necessary on my build to make room for the plunger and flipper buttons.  I wanted to position those in the standard places, which puts them vertically in the same plane as the TV, so the TV had to be set back by about 4" anyway to make room.  It's a happy coincidence that this distributes the leftover space roughly evenly between the front and back, so the apron has a nice visual balance with the flasher panel.

 

I had the same instincts as you going in that the ideal is to get the TV's front edge as close to the front edge of the cabinet as possible.  Before I got everything together I thought having the apron was a bit of a compromise.  But now that I have it together I think it might actually be better having the TV set back a little bit - it makes for a more natural viewing angle in the flipper area.

[xzotic]

Wow xzotic...love the TOM theme! Any chance of getting some side shots of your backbox positioning? That is a great idea to keep the flippers as close as possible and keep the "illusion."  Not to get too far off topic but how many LEDs do you have total?  I have not seen many put them under the glass along the sides as you did.  Very cool!  

I'll get another shot of the side and will post it up. In terms of the LEDS I have the standard 5 + strobes (which maps to the 5 RGB LEDS and strobes supported in DOF). They are placed under the glass around the play field as per the pics. There are two along the right and three along the left in positions that closely seem to align to most tables flashers. It really is amazing how close they are to most tables set up.  DOF triggers them in sync with the software lights which makes the effect truly realistic. 

 

The 5 lights are hooked up with an additional light each to the topper on the back box. So each of the topper lights goes off with each of the play field lights to improve the overall lighting effect. I have two additional strobes on the top of the play field that are also in duplicate in the topper. 

 

One thing I am looking forward to is seeing (or maybe myself creating) some DOF configs for some of the older tables that simply flood the playfield area with a soft yellow/white colour for older style tables. This would give the effect of real table lighting on those old tables that don't have flashing RGB lights. I'm surprised how such lighting changes the look of the actual LCD play field. You wouldn't think it would as the LCD is emitting light itself however the light appears to get colored by the real lights (possibly because it is reflecting off the actual LCD screen rather than anything else). 

 

Finally the placement of these lights around the play field was a late addition after my cab was almost complete. If I was doing a cab again I would make special recesses in the side of the play field areas where the real LEDS could be flush mounted (Currently they are protruding on to the LCD bezel which means I have to unscrew them to lift the LCD out for servicing). Secondly the flush mount would obscure the side of the lighting which is a good thing as they are extremely bright. My workaround has been to place black electrical tape over the side of the LED plastic bubble cases and this works well. But properly recessing them would be the ultimate solution. 

[Galooch]

Aaaannnnddddd now I need to rethink my LED strategy.  The idea of embedding them within the side of the cabinet along the playfield is very tempting but does add to the difficulty for me (I was planning on getting a pre-wired lightbar from Zeb).  I'll cross that bridge when I get to it though.  From your description, it sounds much like the new Stern Star Trek LE where they embedded flush LED strips along the playfield.

 

Also, the idea of setting up DOF to replicate the real lighting of those older tables is another great one and the first I have read about it.  I love the idea of toning DOF down in the right tables and using it more like a "utility" to add to the realism.  Good stuff!

[xzotic]

I used the space in back for flashers, and the space in front for an apron with cards for instructions and pricing.  Apart from the need to pad out the front-back space left over by the 39" screen size, the apron is necessary on my build to make room for the plunger and flipper buttons.  I wanted to position those in the standard places, which puts them vertically in the same plane as the TV, so the TV had to be set back by about 4" anyway to make room.  It's a happy coincidence that this distributes the leftover space roughly evenly between the front and back, so the apron has a nice visual balance with the flasher panel.

 

I had the same instincts as you going in that the ideal is to get the TV's front edge as close to the front edge of the cabinet as possible.  Before I got everything together I thought having the apron was a bit of a compromise.  But now that I have it together I think it might actually be better having the TV set back a little bit - it makes for a more natural viewing angle in the flipper area.

 

 

Interestingly to get around the issue of lining up the plunger with the plane of the monitor I accidentally found a solution after I tilted the front of my monitor down to give the illusion of more play field depth (from the glass reflections) and also to improve the viewing angle contrast. In doing so my plunger (which is situated under the launch button) now appears to be inline with the play field surface when looking down through the glass even though it is slightly under it to allow the plunger pole to slide under the LCD. 

 

Also, I still think getting the LCD as close to the front of the cab as possible is the way to go to avoid the 'double apron' and having the flippers too far up the play field. I appreciate that your setup is nicely balanced with your LED bar and probably plays nice regardless but for me I like to have the flippers in-line with the actual flipper buttons and have a single apron that closely mirrors a real machine layout. Just my personal preference of course.

Aaaannnnddddd now I need to rethink my LED strategy.  The idea of embedding them within the side of the cabinet along the playfield is very tempting but does add to the difficulty for me (I was planning on getting a pre-wired lightbar from Zeb).  I'll cross that bridge when I get to it though.  From your description, it sounds much like the new Stern Star Trek LE where they embedded flush LED strips along the playfield.

 

Also, the idea of setting up DOF to replicate the real lighting of those older tables is another great one and the first I have read about it.  I love the idea of toning DOF down in the right tables and using it more like a "utility" to add to the realism.  Good stuff!

What you could do is buy the RGB LEDS on their own and cable them up to see if you like the effect on the play field and then make a decision either way. You can still order the light bar after if you decide to relocate them to the back. However based upon experience my guess is you'll be finding a way to route them in to the sides because the effect is simply amazing! If you don't want to get too complex with the build you can do what I have done and simply screw them in to the sides using standard pinball plastic mini domes and just drop the wires under the LCD. It does mean taking them off to get your LCD out but once your cab is done you shouldn't need to service it much. Of course you could just have them placed in the right position and not screwed in temporarily until you are done and then finally fix them when everything is finished. 

 

....and yes I really need to looking into how to create DOF configs so I can explore the soft flood lighting idea. I think it will really work well. In fact I almost got the effect I was looking for by accident when I copied a DOF config from playboy to the Stringray table (as it didn't have one) and somehow each light stays on white when each drop target gets hit! So once they are all hit the play field is glowing with white sidelights! I'll see if I can take a pic at some stage to show you what it looks like...

[mjr]

Also, I still think getting the LCD as close to the front of the cab as possible is the way to go to avoid the 'double apron' and having the flippers too far up the play field. I appreciate that your setup is nicely balanced with your LED bar and probably plays nice regardless but for me I like to have the flippers in-line with the actual flipper buttons and have a single apron that closely mirrors a real machine layout. Just my personal preference of course.

 

It's a compromise either way, in my opinion.  You get to pick which trade-off you prefer.  Most VP FS tables show about half of the original table's apron.  If you put the TV all the way at the front, you get half an apron, and the flippers are too close to the front of the cabinet.  If you have a physical apron like I do, you get an apron and a half, and the flippers are a little further back.  You might be surprised at real flipper placement, though - in a real cab (typical 80s-90s Williams models), the flipper fulcrum is at 10" back from the front outside edge (bottom tip of the flipper at rest is at 9" back).  With my physical apron setup, that's pretty close to where the on-screen flippers land on most tables.  It does vary by table; some FS tables cut off practically all of the apron, some show practically all of it.  On average it seems to be about half, and that works out well with a physical apron for flipper placement.

 

But at any rate, I expect both approaches produce pretty much identical playing experiences - the human brain is an excellent visual scaling device.

 

There is one bit of noticeable un-reality that the physical apron introduces, though - the plunger is set back too far.  That's noticeable because it's realistic enough in placement, appearance, and movement in connection with the physical plunger that the extra set-back makes it seem like you have a plunger that's much longer than normal when you operate the mechanical one.  It's a trade-off to get the physical plunger placement I preferred.

[Brandje]

Galooch, if you look at my cab below I opted to drop the back box on the standard cab and bring it forward from the back by exactly one bolt position (The back box is held by four bolts I simply moved it forward so that only the two forward bolts are being used). It's really not noticeable from any angle unless you stand dead side on to it and are near the back of the cab! No-one stands there (and can't with my setup anyway).
 
This allows the back of my 37" LCD display to finish exactly where the back box begins. The LCD also is snug to the front ensuring that the flippers play in the right position and there is no gap at the start of the play field.  I also opted to place the real CREE lights around the play field and keep just two strobes at the back to provide a much more realistic lighting experience. Overall I'm really happy with this setup and I'm glad I went for a standard cab and a smaller 37" option (Although if I could have got a 40" de-cased flush fit then I would have but I'm not looking to replace the current 37" one).

wow great Idea, I think i might try this too!

[mrarcade]

I went with a Bally standard width simply because I had an existing machine that was going to be too expensive to repair. I decided to part it out and put that money towards my project. instead of having to invest in hardware and wood and build a cabinet, I have a cabinet plus money to invest in the project after selling the components. I am trying to keep this project as affordable as possible.

[parabolic]

I went with a Widebody for my 46/32/17 for a couple reasons - I really wanted a playfield (TV) that would fit the cabinet without routing and look more proportional. No offence to the guys that have the "spacers" in front and back of the screens on a narrowbody, but I think it takes away too much from the experience and doesnt look proportional - for my tastes at least.  I was lucky enough to acquire an Atari "middle earth" cabinet sans backbox so it made it that much easier to go that route.  Im still way in the process of building it, Im using my 3D printer to print the bezels for both monitors and an overlay for the speaker grilles and DMD. Ill eventually put LEDs in the playfield bezel...just as soon as I figure out what the hell they are for and why they are needed! LOL!