Converting a 25" Atari drawer cabinet (Pit-Fighter/KLAX) to MAME

[dholcombe]

Hey guys, I'm new here. I've previously built a basic controller based off a single Ultrastick 360 that I use on my PC. Yesterday I picked up a pit fighter without monitor, condition of other parts unknown. I've been looking and reading about arcades for a while now. I've been googling trying to see if anyone has converted a similar cab for mame since I got this one yesterday.

What is a good replacement monitor for this style cabinet? I'm sort of leaning toward putting in an LCD because it's lighter/easier to work with. Is it worth getting an arcade LCD or at the point that you've gone LCD should you just get a PC monitor anyways. If I could find one relatively inexpensive, I'd go with the original size 25" arcade CRT.

I'm also planning on building a new 4-player control panel to bolt onto the drawer and would appreciate any pointers to articles/threads on panels for this particular style cabinet.

[dholcombe]

For reference the inside of the cabinet is 23.75" from one side to the other. So I could fit some 26" 1920x1200 computer LCD's.

Are there any CRT arcade monitors that are still made? The 24.8" that seemed popular recently, Neiman displays I believe, isn't available any longer.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/weiya-29-flat-screen-crt-arcade-monitor/

I've got one of these and enjoy it very much, but it looks like it's about an inch too wide: 24.39.

[dholcombe]

Thanks! I did a bit of looking around and it looks like Suzo-Happ carries a 25" version of the MakVision you have:

http://na.suzohapp.com/monitors/49305600.htm

I think that might be my best bet.

[dholcombe]

I ended up getting the 25" makvision even though the depth is a bit too much. I won't be able to put my back panel on, but other than that it mounts perfectly on the original mounts. I'll just store the back panel somewhere else and as long as the cabinet is up against the wall nobody will be able to tell.

Got everything hooked up enough to do a test and things run well.

Next step: Figuring out what to do about sound. I don't really want to use PC speakers unless there are some real good ones out there. I'm thinking of finding a small stereo amp to mount inside the cabinet and running output from the PC to that. The Pit-Fighter cabinet only had one speaker for mono sound, but I'm thinking I'll do stereo.

Any advice on drivers or a small amp. It looks like the original was 5", but I may be able to fit 6". I'll need to measure to be sure. Do more modern games use a full-range type driver? Do they just feed sound in raw or do most circuit boards have some kind of crossover built in before outputting to the speaker if I also want to allow for hooking up to actual PCBs.

[dashingw]

I know that this topic is years old but I just found it coincidental as I had just recently bought a Mame cabinet with most of the work already done for me and it just so happens it was originally an Atari Pit Fighter cabinet. It has a custom control panel mounted to the drawer with a 24" Acer LCD monitor, speakers mounted underneath the Marquee and a subwoofer in the bottom. I am running a Athlon 5600+ Dual Core, windows 7 x64 8gb ram and 2.9ghz

[bulbousbeard]

If you're going to get a Makvision, you might as well just get a high quality LCD.

Really, Makvisions stink. Actually, the pathetic thing is that a 4k LCD with a good shader looks MORE authentic than an SVGA Makvision.

I wouldn't get a CRT unless you were going to get a good one like a classic Wells Gardner or Nanao.