What is width of your Cabinet

[r32]

Newbie here, but I have been Mame'ing for years. So much cool stuff here I am pretty excited to have found you guys.

I have a few questions on cabinet WIDTH(s).

What is your width of your cabinet (at widest point)?
What is the width of your controls (at widest point)?
Did you first determine width, then pick a monitor to fit? Or the other way around?
Are you happy with the width/depth you chose, or do you wish you would have done something different?

I'm building my first arcade and while I have some experience in woodworking, I am trying to think economically here. I want to be able to move my new toy from house to house as I move.

Thanks  

[smalltownguy]

I'm building my first arcade and while....

Hee hee -- I'll bite.

Welcome! Glad to have you. Just a point of order, so as to prevent you from further teasing...you build an arcade cabinet, not an arcade. Of course, if you're ambitious, you could build an arcade. But I doubt you could take it with you from house to house as you move

FWIW, my cab is 26" wide -- it's a Rolling Thunder conversion.

[CheffoJeffo]

you build an arcade cabinet, not an arcade

 

EDIT: I should say that if you are looking to build a cabinet -- just make sure that you can move it to where you want it. It doesn't really matter how wide everybody else goes if you need to slide your cabinet down to the basement and the landing on the stairs is 2'x2'. Maybe you could borrow someone else's cabinet to see if it would fit. 

[Nacimroc]

Oh its off again  

I based the width of my cab solely on the width of my doorway. If you can't get it into the house its useless! I looked for a TV no wider than...(whatever the figure was)!

My arcade....cough....machine is 25 1/2 inches and my CP is 28.5 inches!

The TV you get may well depend on the speakers on the side. If you want to remove the TV's case and lose the speakers it could make it much thinner!

[t3design]

My arcade cabinet is under construction, however, when built it will be 27" from the inside of one side to the inside of the other. The CP fits between the sides. I bought a 27″ Flat Tri-Mode CRT Display from Nieman Displays. Then I sized the cabinet to fit as close to that as possible and then designed the CP to fit the 27" dimension. My cab is a little different as I am copying the shape of the Tempest Cab so the CP HAS to fit between the sides.

I agree with the door comment. Make sure you plan for moving it around. I also had wife constraints. If I had wanted a frankinpanel i would never have gotten into the house

[r32]

Doh! 

Arcade Cabinet. I'm building and arcade cabinet. I don't have enough wood lying around for an arcade.

Thanks for the feedback! I've got a lot of ideas going for my cabinet and based off what you guys said, I think I'll go 28.5" for width. Because that's the exact width opening (with .20" to spare) of my doors in the house. Now to figure out depth and other details. Hmm.

[DashRendar]

The cabinet itself is one thing- the control panel can be super wide, as long as it's removable (which they usually are if they hang over).

Also remember that moving a cabinet through a doorway isn't always precise- having that two-tenths of an inch free space is ok if the cabinet goes through STRAIGHT, but if it's at even a slight angle, that free space quickly disappears and you could damage your door frame.

 

[Nation]

The inside dimensions of mine are 26 1/4" wide.  I got a wells gardner arcade monitor + the bezel and so I based my width on the bezel.  Didn't want to cut all four sides of the bezel and also thought the width looked good.  I made sure it would fit through my door before building it though.  My CP is 33" wide however like another poster mentioned it is removable and so it can be as wide as you need.  It was pretty tight getting it through the door but it worked.

[RobbyMac]

Wide enough for a 27" tv, narrow enoug to fit through a 29.5" doorway
At its widest point, it is 29"

The CP is latched (removeable) but it's 43" (4 player)

[javeryh]

23-5/8"

The only playable cab on the first floor of my house at the moment is my DK+