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Black and Blood Red MAME Cocktail Cabinet
hockeyfreak186:
Hey everyone, :D
I've been wanting to build an arcade cabinet for as long as i can remember, so after looking around on this site and others i finally decided to dive in! I worked at a family fun park with an arcade and loved it. I eventually bought a Tekken 3 cab off eBay. It was fun and i enjoyed it but i wanted to be able to play multiple games especially the classics. So about 4 years later I finally planned and planned some more and decided to go with a 3 sided cocktail instead of an upright or bar top. I wanted to spend as little as possible while making it look as good as I can, so i decided to keep the controls simple and skip the coin box and other aesthetic accessories for now. I plan on lugging it around a lot from my apartment in college and my parents house, so I didn't want anything too big.
As far as the computer goes, it's nothing special, just an old family computer that had a hard drive fail so i bought a new one and got to keep the computer. I'ts not powerful enough to run newer higher graphic games, but perfect to run the lighter older games. I might get a friends LCD monitor for the screen, i assume its a 19", otherwise i have an extra CRT one I can use, but it would just be a pain. I got all my controls from groovy game gear and am happy with the feel/colors. I plan to wire them using an Ipac.
I decided to make it three sided because i wanted to play games like pac man vertically, but also be able to play games like TMNT or Street fighter with a friend horizontally. So the 2 vertical sides will have 1 joystick with 3 player buttons while the horizontal side will have 2 joysticks with 6 player buttons per player. I feel this will be enough for the types of games i want to play and am pretty happy with the idea.
I have been working on and off for three weeks but have really only put in a few hours of work over 4 different days. Here are my pictures of what I have so far.
this is just a pic of the parts i ordered from GGG
The top holes are for the control pannel wires and mounting while the middle hole is for the handles I have to move it around and the bottom ones are for the speakers.
I still need to get some hinges for the back of the cocktail so its open right now.
Just a pic of the brackets and the inside
here is my list of the things I have and the money I spent so far:
Computer: Already Had
Monitor: Already Had
Speakers: Already Had
tools/hardware: Already Had
0.75" plywood: $35
Brackets: $9
Speaker Grilles and Handles: $9
Button/joysticks/Misc from GGG: $105
T-Molding: $20
Shipping/Misc: $25
total: $203
I think thats pretty cheap considering I can finish it up for under $100
I plan on covering the cabinet in a textured black adhesive vinyl and putting plexi over the screen. So thats it for now, any comments, advice or questions are very welcome and hopefully this post will motivate me to get this thing done before summer ends because I have a history of leaving projects unfinished, :P Thanks!
IG-88:
Looks pretty cool. :cheers: Do you have any plans that you could post? May like to build one like this myself.
hockeyfreak186:
Thanks! I used Kyle Lindstrom's plans which I found here: http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/cabplans.html . I modified them a bit but that's what i used for guidance as the most part and they are pretty detailed. I used the Pac-man plans.
hockeyfreak186:
So I had some time to work on my cabinet for the first time in awhile. I didn't get as much as I wanted done, but progress is progress. :laugh:
So I attached the top and back on to the cab with the hinges I ordered. They fit pretty well, not perfect, but well enough that its not noticeable.
This is a picture of the progress I made today.
With the top open
With the Back Open
With both open
this is the Fan with red leds that I want to mount on the front of the cab and put a speaker cover over it.
This is the TV im gonna try to mount. Its a 21" which is different than the 19" lcd i was gonna use, but i liked the way it looked better. This beast barely fits in the cab and its gonna be a pain making a mount to hold it. I don't really wanna de-case it so i can use it for something else later if I want to take it out or whatever. Same thing with the computer, im keeping it in its case, but with this new tv it needs to lay on its side on the floor with the side open to fit.
Here is the black vinyl I got from parts express, I cant wait to put it on!
So tomorrow I hope to start on my control panels and get the tv mounted. I do have one question tho, how much bigger should I cut the hole in the top part of my cab than the actual screen size?
Thanks! ;D
hockeyfreak186:
So I worked on the project again today, thats two days in a row! :applaud:
Today I cut the monitor opening and mounted it with 2 rails. The screen doesn't quite line up with the opening on the vertical sides because of the case's stand. Having the screen offset would drive me crazy so i will probably work some dremel magic or something. The computer and TV cased fit perfectly as you can see in the pics below.
Here is the case opened with monitor and computer in for sizing.
I don't know if it gets any closer than that :laugh2:
It fits!
I mounted the monitor bars with some brackets and combined with the tv, they kinda cover up where the wires from the CP were gonna go, but i should be able to squeeze em In somewhere. ;)
Just a shot of the inside. It's a bit messy i guess.. :laugh:
Well I think my next step is to finally get working on the CPs. I have been putting it off for awhile but its gotta get done sometime right? Well hopefully i have some updates soon, I don't know when I'll be able to work on it again, but i wanna finish and use this puppy! :D