When I began this project I knew that I wanted to use a Midway design used for the Mortal Kombat cabinets. Soon I came across LuSid's Arcade Flashback. He loosely based his design of the Midway design. So I loosely based my design off of his plans.
The entire exterior of the cabinet is 5/8" MDF. It has a MUCH smoother finish than normal plywood. The Sony Wega is sitting on 1" particle board. Contained inside the cabinet is a heavy duty 2x4 frame. This made the construction super strong (and not very light). The MDF is screwed onto the 2x4 frame. The screw holes were spackled over before painting.
The control panel is significantly wider than the cabinet. Since the cabinet can barely fit through a door by itself, I had to make the control panel removable. It's basically an MDF box, with a basic 2x2 frame inside. The top has hinges in the front so it opens up toward the player. I created the graphic overlay in Photoshop. The control panel is covered in a layer of lexan.
The back of the cabinet has a large door for access to all the internals. There are two exhaust fans just above the rear of the Sony Wega. There is also one exhaust fan right next to the power supply and then one inlet fan near the computer inside. The back also has a power connector and ethernet jack.
The marquee is sandwiched between lexan and backlite with a florescent bulb from Home Depot. I created the graphic in Photoshop and had it printed on some sort of velum film at Kinko's.
