NEW Member , NEW Cabinet , and Really Confused

[General Zod]

:-)

Hello All,

While doing some hefty searching on the web about MAME cabinets, I stumbled upon this site, and I haven't left since. Every post I've read thus far has been EXTREMELY helpful. I hope my questions as a newbie don't discourage others, as you probably see quite a few like me.

I'm not sure where to start, so let me begin by telling of my finding.

I picked up this past weekend, at a small garage sale, what looks to be in my opinion, a perfect cab to begin my MAME project. It is an NBA Hangtime cab(but not for long), and I plan on stripping the entire unit.

As I can't build my entire project in one night, and I don't care to make enemies by asking a barrage of questions at one time, I'll make it short.

Everything works but the monitor, which is a WG U2000, which looks as if it has seen better days. So besides being DOA when I bought the cab, I decided the remove the monitor and give it a "decent burial" , you could say. A suitable replacement as recommended by WG is the K7400, which is a 25" monitor. I've read of connectors and wire hacks that would allow such a monitor to be used on a PC, but is this a safe method for building my MAME cab? I do have my eyes on the 9200, and I've read all the posts on this monitor and the problems a few are having. The issue I have is this, if any of you are familiar with the Midway Cabs, for the NBA games, the 25" is a standard mount, and I'm not sure if I could even use the 27" without some serious mods to the cab. Has anyone successfully swapped out the monitor on any of these Midway cabs? If so what size?

Considering I have the bezel which is in perfect condition, and I'm a sucker for perfection, the 25" is still what the back of my head is telling me to go for, which in turn will require a wire hack to fit my VGA card. This is where I need some help. Can anyone offer a suggestion as to what is best for my cabinet?

Thank you so much in advance for your time and patience.

Michael

[paigeoliver]

Eeek. I certainly hope you didn't throw the monitor away. Most monitors are pretty easily repairable, a cap kit or flyback is all most wonky or dead monitors ever need.

In the case of your cabinet I would recommend any standard res 25" monitor. Any of them should bolt up to your cabinet. You don't need to do any hackery to hook it up, just get an arcadeVGA card from www.ultimarc.com

It doesn't really matter much what brand or model you get, because even the cheapest ones will likely be good for 6-8 years of 24 hour a day service, and who actually leaves their cabinet on all the time anyway.

[Vectoraster]

I'm not sure if I could even use the 27" without some serious mods to the cab

If your monitor space is 26" wide (horizontal) then the D9200 will fit. >VR<

[rampy]

I second paid olivers recommendation...

If you get an arcadeVGA card from ultimarc... it does specifically that... take the PC screens and force them down the to level (15khz) that standard resolution arcade monitors understand.  

There are other ways  to accomplish the same goal, but require much more tinkering and tech savvy/patience than the mostly plug and play ArcadeVGA card.

Depending on the symptoms of the DOA monitor, you could take it to a local TV shop for repair (if you didn't feel comfortable fixing it yourself) or if you have a local arcade distributor might have cheap(er) used 25" standard res arcade monitors... Or you can order a new one =)

What are some of you project goals? You mention perfectionism, does that also mean a strong desire for authenticity (tm howard_casto)?

*Shrug* well welcome to the board and don't be shy about asking questions --> just don't spam them in different posts all in one shot in the same day unless you aboslutely have to... =)

good luck!

Rampy

[hyiu]

can't be of much help here...

but assuming you have some budget to work on...

you really should visit ultimarc's site....

I think he'll have a lot of stuffs that fits your need...

arcadevga card.... ipac.... jpac..... etc...

good luck....

ps:  would you mind telling us how much you paid for the cab ??... also... post some pics !!...  

[General Zod]

Thank you all for the advice on getting started with my MAME project. I'm sure I'll have quite a few roadblocks in my quest, but fun nevertheless, and I eagerly await its completion.

One had inquired about the price I paid for the cab. Well, not knowing a great deal about ArcadeCabs yet, I'm not sure if I paid a fair price or not, but I am satisfied, and I feel good about it. $100.00 is the price I paid, and all I knew to look for were chips and water damage, which the cab had neither. So I figured it might end up being a little more than $100 to build a cab, so this a good chance to grab a head start and then I can focus strictly on electronic aspect, controls, PC specs and what not.

As far as pics right now, I'm not able to find a good host, and tripod doesn's allow linking, but I will manage to get some ASAP. I work 2 jobs, pretty much back to back, so this will indeed take a while to complete. The PC will be the last addition to the CAB. Right now, I'm using an AMD 550 as my MAME Tester.

AMD 550mhz 384mb 133 SDRAM
Windows 2000 ( with the Services tweaked tremendously) ... Which allows me better use of the memory in my PC
I currently have an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI in the TEST unit, but I'm looking into that VGA card on the Ultimarc website that I've read so many others praise about.

And as far as the perfection goes for my cab, chances are it will be a while before I even think of doing another one, so I'm just wanting this one to be "right the first time" and with detail and accuracy, both of those can be achieved. Or so I hope. :-)

Now that I know with a little help I can easily(optimism kicks in) wire an Arcade Monitor to my VGA card, that right there is a big hill I needn't worry about crossing ..... Now if I only had my monitor back. :-(

Although the 9200 is indeed a nice monitor, and it allows a direct connection, I think I'm becoming more swayed to getting a K7400, as a replacement for the U2000. This insures a perfect match on the brackets inside the cab. Has anyone used the K7400 for building their cabs? Any advice?

I look forward to hearing from y'all after while. I need to run for now. Take care and thank you again.  :-)

michael