Building a Vectrex Cabinet

[Pezcore343]

I was thinking about making an upright (or possibly Cocktail but I doubt it) cabinet for my Vectrex to give it a more acrade like experience. I was thinking about leaving the monitor exposed while keeping the controller ports inside the cabinet, then resting the actual Vectrex controllers in slots on the front of the cabinet rather than wire it to an arcade stick. In terms of switch games and whatnot I was thinking about just leaving the back of the cabinet open so as to provide easy access to the system. I figure it should be a pretty easy job since their won't really be any extra wiring, unless I decide to make a marquee for it. What does everyone think? This will be my first such project so any advice or information would be great.

[theChad]

Instead of leaving the back open, you could just get a multicart.

Also, have a look at this:

http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/others/minicade.htm

[Pezcore343]

That minicade is almost exactly what I was planning on doing minus the coin slot. The only difference I was planning on doing a full upright unit. Thanks for the image though, might help me with designing the thing.

As for the multicart, that's a possibility too. I might look into putting a hinged door onto the side or the back for easy maintenance instead or just leaving it open.

[Pantechnicon]

I don't why exactly I think this, but a full-sized cab (assuming that' what you have in mind) just doesn't seem like the most appropriate structure for a project like this. It's almost overkill, given the somewhat small size of a Vectrex display. Have you considered building something more mini-cab sized, maybe a little more narrow? Seems like that would be a more agreeable aesthetic for a Vectrex casing.

Either way please keep us all in the loop how this goes, and best of luck with the project.

[Pezcore343]

Yeah I was planning on making it more narrow than a typical arcade cabinet, something more appropriate to the Vectrex, but I was thinking I would make it normal height so I could still stand or sit in front of it to play. Making it more of a tabletop size might be more appropriate, but I feel like it would be uglier to have it sitting on top of something instead of just being free standing.

And thanks for the luck, it will be needed.

EDIT: Also, I just remembered that I wanted to make sure I made it wide enough to mount two Vectrex controllers on the cabinet, but this may be a bit too wide. I'll have to do some measurements.

[jb143]

It might be a bit more of a project than you had in mind, but I bet a vectrex could be made to display on an actually arcade vector monitor fairly easily. Of course then you'd need to make larger overlays as well.

[Pantechnicon]

@Pezcore: When I'm talking about a "mini-cab", what I'm talking about is a cab between 5 and 5-1/2 feet in height, and perhaps 2/3 the width of standard JAMMA. Example:

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Arcade%20Stuff%20For%20Sale/Mini1.jpg

They were somewhat common in the early to mid-80's as a space saving alternative to full-sized machines. Something like this would be pretty cool for a Vectrex cab since there would be less dead space around the display. I'm pretty sure the panel would be large enough to accommodate two controllers as well.

The only catch, I guess, is that cabinets in these dimensions are harder to find nowadays, assuming you'd rather do a conversion than build one outright.

[Cornelius]

They were somewhat common in the early to mid-80's as an space saving alternative to full-sized machines.
These are typically called 'cabaret' cabinets. They pop up from time to time around here, but are typically functional games that I wouldn't want to gut.

[Pantechnicon]

These are typically called 'cabaret' cabinets. They pop up from time to time around here, but are typically functional games that I wouldn't want to gut.

"Cabaret", yes. Thank you. I couldn't remember the exact term for them. :?

[Pezcore343]

Oh ok I understand now. Yeah those are about the dimensions I'm going for.

[Pezcore343]

Here's kind of a quick design I did of what I'd like the marquee to look like.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/pezcore343/vectrex.jpg

[Pezcore343]

I wasn't going to tear apart the Vectrex. I was literally going to build a cabinet to put it in. Like I said, very little wiring or anything involved here, just building a wooden cabinet to house the Vectrex with slots on front to hold two controllers.

[Kid Ice]

Instead of tearing apart a Vectrex, another option would be to use a Vectrex emulator + standard PC monitor (or you could opt to drive a vector monitor using a Zektor Vector Generator) :)

That *really* sounds like a fun idea. Is there a Vectrex emulator out there good enough to pull it off? I've never had a good experience with DVE, but it's been a few years since I've tried it.

[Flack]

http://www.minimame.com ?