Early design considerations

I've read as many sites and looked for as many diagrams as possible to try to discover the dimensions of a relatively authentic looking cabinet without it taking up an entire room. I have found this task rather fruitless - there are so few sites willing to share their designs - maybe because, like mine, they consider them works in progress, and the finished cabinets never match the original design, but still, they would have been useful a starting point.

I found one good looking, well described design and adjusted in for my priorities (see my posting on Motivations for more details) to come up with something I think will work.

Design points:

1. 6' (1.8m) tall, but separated into upper and lower sections, with all the hardware in the top, and the lower essentially an authentic looking stand, 2' (0.6m) wide by 2' deep


2. 10 degree tilt on the control panel, 9" (225mm) depth for wrist-resting


3. 75 degree tilt on the screen panel to improve notoriously poor viewing angles on most TFT/LCD monitors


4. 45 degree tilt on the speaker panel so the speakers face your face


5. 6" (150mm) marquee panel


6. Slot-cut top panel for ventilation (reduces cost of buying a vent plate)


7. Perspex covered control panel and monitor panel for cleaning and aesthetics


8. Rounded over edges of the side panels to remove need for T-Molding

Using these points, I came up with a design like this...
PHOTO/SCAN TBA