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Yet another new guy building a MAME cab
AlienInferno:
Hi all,
I've been reading like a mad man (all my possible free time) to read these forums. I must say that I never though about building a MAME cabinet before until a friend of mine started talking about modding his xbox steering wheel and shifter. I was surfing around looking for stuff related to his work and BAM came across someone's build. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I enjoy building things and playing games so this is right up my alley.
I have got the basic plans for a cab all ready drawn up. And am looking for a 25"/27" TV on craigslist to use as a monitor. The computer that will be running everything is an old Sony Vaio with an 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4, 512MB SDRAM, 2 Hard Drives (1-80GB & 1-40GB) and an Nvidia video card. Haven't thought of a theme yet but am planning on making it an all around cab to get some experience under my belt. I am undecided on the controls layout. I know I want a 2 player setup with joysticks, player 1 & 2 start buttons, a couple admin buttons, and whatever number of game playing buttons ( 6 seems to be the most common number). As well as a trackball and possibly a spinner.
Once I get this build I would like to plan on several stand up cabs. In a perfect world they would be for my favorite games as a kid. A 4 player setup (for TMNT The Arcade Game, Simpson's, and Rampage), A light-gun setup for shooting games (Area 51, Police Trainer, etc.), and a 4 player racing controls for Super Off Road. But that's all in the future so we will see.
But since this IS the projects thread. I'll redraw my plans and try to post them up sometime tomorrow. I also may end up getting the TV. As far as building goes it may be a few weeks since I need to purchase some tools. A router and all associated bits and possibly a new circular saw. The one I have is a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down so it's starting to get rather worn. Plus it's rusty enough to make it extremely hard to replace the blade.
Sorry for the rather long post but I'm a newb on the forum and really excited so I tend to ramble a bit. :-[
Roo:
Welcome to the forums! And certainly no one can fault you for lack of excitement! :cheers:
My advice is that it's OK to plan big, but try to stay grounded a bit too. It's a big project to actually build a cab, and that goes double if you plan on doing a really good job that you'll be happy with and proud to show people.
That and cabinets take up a lot of room ;D
That said it's a great hobby and a lot of fun, so welcome and enjoy! :applaud:
AlienInferno:
Yes I am doing my best to stay grounded. That's why I'm just planning on building one good all around cab for now. As the only room I have is a corner in the living room until I can re-skin my garage/game room.
Rick:
You know you're dealing with a serious gamer when you read this:
--- Quote from: AlienInferno on September 20, 2010, 09:25:59 pm ---As the only room I have is a corner in the living room until I can re-skin my garage/game room.
--- End quote ---
Good luck! As one of the other resident new and overly-excited residents here, welcome!
AlienInferno:
Well a slight update. I installed TinyXP on what is to be the mame computer. Took a few times before I figured out what I was doing wrong though but now it works and I can surf the net. Good enough for me. Tommorrow hopefully I will get everything setup on this computer to test it out. Also I remembered we had a spare "broke" tv sitting in a corner of our living room floor collecting dust. Measured it and it's a 27" Sharp Model # 2ZN-S100. ??? Plugged it in and it came on so hooked up the RCA inputs to test it with a movie. The rca plugs on the back (INPUT 1) were not working (which by the way is also were the composite and S-video outputs are located). Didn't get any sound or picture. Hooked it up to Input 2 on the front and it seemed to work well. The picture would cut out on occasion. But I think it's a loose connection on the inside. I could wiggle the yellow video plug and push it in a slight downward direction and would get a good picture. I should have a PC to TV adapter in the shed somewhere so if I do I'll test the other connections on the back. Otherwise I may be taking this one apart and seeing if I can repair it.
Still learning/working with Google sketchup trying to create my cab and control panel. Will do some of that tomorrow as well once I get some yard work done.