Today was an incredible day. Over the last several weeks, I have been in touch with with a gentleman who owns a company that rents, sells, services, and deals with arcade machines, slot machines, ATMs, coin pushers, pinball machines and more. It’s a very cool business and his company provided and maintained the arcade machines that are on the Van Dyke campus of Grace Family Church. He recently caught wind of our arcade-centric project “Light Quest” and almost instantly offered to help with the project.
After I had reached out to him and explained a little bit about what I was trying to achieve, he didn’t even hesitate to generously donate an arcade cabinet to help get us started with the project. Once we’d set a date, I drove down to his warehouse and got the grand tour of the entire property. It was filled with all kinds of arcade games, pool tables, slot machines, pinball machines, ATMs, all in various stages of completion. It was amazing to see all the hard work and dedication put into these fascinating machines and got me all the more excited for our very own arcade cabinet build!
Once I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, it was time to actually load up the cabinet I’d come by to pick up. I was unsure of what to expect, as the original offer was a “blank cabinet”, so I’d prepared by bringing along some furniture blankets and some ratchet straps, just in case I’d need them. I also wasn’t sure if the cabinet would be built to a point where it’d be sturdy enough to transport, or if it’d be a brand new Ikea-style in a flat box I’d have to assemble back at the office. After I had speculated all possibilities of what a blank cabinet might look like, the word was given, “Oh, hey- just give him that Galaga machine over there!”
By the way, before I go any further into the story, I just want to take a minute and point out these awesome workbenches. It was so cool seeing all of the parts from original arcade games all laying out on a table with manuals and instructions on how to put everything together! All the soldering irons, tiny screwdrivers, and specialty tools were absolutely awesome to see.
Enter: The Project
Obviously, this one had seen better days, but this was one heck of a head start (and an EPIC cheat sheet) on our very own custom arcade cabinet. Coming up next, we start tearing this cabinet apart and start rebuilding it from the inside out.