Newcomer getting into MAME

[cmarion1024]

Hello everyone.  I have been reading and reading for a while now and decided it would be best to join the forum to make it easier.  I have always wanted to have my own arcade machines in my home ever since I was a kid.  I remember telling my mother when I had my own house it would have arcade games.  Years passed and children came along, its my time now!  I thought about building a cabinet, but for my first I thought I would pick up a cabinet if the price was right.  Just so happens good old craigslist lead me to three cabinets for $50. One large and two medium, I couldn't pass it up. She wanted $25 a piece and I didn't need more than one, but she wanted them gone and said have three for $50! A friend said he would buy one of the medium cabinets for $25 to do a build with. So I have one extra for free.

Loaded them up and here we are.  I took measurements of the cabinet I wanted to begin with and will be using for this MAME build.  I am trying to figure out what was the cabinet originally for and wished she would not have sold the trackball off it for $20.  Not sure if it was specifically for World Class Bowling or not.  I plan on changing the control panel, but I am not sure what to do with the red laminate.  Its in very nice condition for its age, except for the T-molding, but I'm not a fan of the red. So here are the pictures of what I have to start off with.

It does have the rear black cover which is not damaged, I just took it off for the pictures.  I really like how the control panel slides in and out, kind of slick.  To me at least.








































And the two medium sized cabinets.  God only knows which one will be left here.





What do you guys think?  I like the cabinet size and its very clean.  Not much repair work appears to be needed.  The bottom is not damaged, corners are good.  My plan is to use a 27" CRT television for the screen and I have plenty of space inside for just about anything.  I have an idea for the control panel layout, actually two I'm deciding between, that have already been posted previously.  They are perfect for what I want and the original builders did an outstanding job.  Just the design scheme is what I'm stuck on.  I like MOUNTAIN's build with the simple MAME logo on black, but I am also partial to my original fighting games and stumbled upon this website.
http://fighter101.net/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=37

I absolutely love the banner including many of the best fighting games from the 90's.   Granted my kids will eventually play it too, I want this one to be for me.

[ABACABB]

Very Sweet deal man and some nice looking cabinets, you found an awesome deal.  I just finshed my first cabinet about 6 months ago so I know where you coming from.  The cabinet I stumbled upon was an old Dynamo cabinet that used to be an "X-Men Children of the Atom" game.  I had spent many months figuring out MAME, getting roms to work and configuring my frontend so by the time I was ready to put it all in a cab I was very excited and kinda rushed it a little.  My cabinet plays great but now i wish I would have taken my time a little more to make it look nicer.  But when my friends come over to play they say that it looks good and they wish they had one exactly like it so maybe it doesn't look as rough as i think it does.  You said you're not a fan of red but that chrome T-molding looks great on a black cabinet so with a fresh coat of paint and the way your control panel is so easily accessible, you're off to a huge start already.

I basically just threw my PC in there and I used a 20" vga monitor because my graphics card does not a an S-video out to connect a tv.  I would love the extra size but I run some newer arcade emulators also (Sega Model2, Model3 and Naomi) and these emulators require a beefy graphics card which most likely won't include an S-video output.  So that is one thing for you to consider - if you're going to want to play some other arcade games that MAME cant' run and sacrifice screen size to be able to play them.  I bought an X-Arcade Tankstick with the trackball for my controls and this is my dilemma.  The Tankstick works great and feels very solid it's just that this is where my cabinet doesn't look as nice......I think it is tough to slap one of these on to an old cabinet and have it look "professional"  So I am already thinking about making another cabinet someday and if I were to do it again I think I would build a custom control panel.  Don't get me wrong for the price and the quality - you can't beat the tankstick and if you're just starting out, it makes the project very easy to complete and saves hours of time.

Good Luck.  

P.S. I love the link to that fighting 101 theme, I am a big fan of fighters myself, but Golden Tee is my favorite!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129143

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130501

Two more modern cards with S-Video.

[cmarion1024]

I am going to have to make my own control panel, but try to keep the functionality of it the same.  Its not wide enough to do the layout I want.  Its currently 30 inches wide, and I need it to be 38 inches.  The depth is good at 14.5 inches and height at front is 5.25 inches ( increases to 10 inches at the back).  I had thought of going with black for the main color of the cabinet. 

[cmarion1024]

Spending time searching, reading and looking at different cabinets I began working on updating this one.  I think it looks good so far.  I'm even more impressed by my wife thinking it looks good.  Only because she was not impressed by the idea of having an arcade cabinet in the house.  So her approval thus far means a lot to me.

I sanded the entire cab with 220 grit using my small orbital, then filled in all the drill holes and any scratches with Bondo.  Followed by 100 grit sanding, then with 220.  I used Rustoleum that was recommended in another post.




Following recommendations I applied one coat, waited 24 hours and repeated to keep it smooth.  I was going to paint the inside, but it would make it very dark.










My brother in law suggested going to Lowes and buying a small overhead light used for sinks or bathrooms as my marquee light, instead of reusing the older setup.  This enabled me to just plug it into my power strip.

[cmarion1024]

After researching some more on the forums, I definitely decided the original control panel size was not adequate for room and the button layouts with a trackball.  I only used measurements given on some post's in the "Show off your control panel" thread, as most did not give their dimensions.  *This would have been nice to know, since its hard to gauge the size of a panel from a picture*
This also meant I would need to build a new slide out panel.  So I got to work using 3/4, pictures for an idea and drawing on the wood sheet.  This is what I came up with and I love the extra space.  Feels more comfortable.  I only designed this in my head (took about four hours) just staring at the cabinet, then drew it onto the wood and cut it out.








I took a construction idea from the original panel of using small footers along the walls of the control panel.  This provied an extra area to screw in the sides for more support, which prevent any flexing and the possibility of the screws ripping the 3/4 sheet as the base.  I am impressed at the extra strength it provided.  All external screws utilized a pilot hole, countersunk, filled in and sanded.  I did not spend the extra time of filling/sanding the internal screws.  Mainly because I wanted to know where they were just in case.  

Now it was time to cut out my control panel top.  I combined a few different ideas from completed projects.






Finding and printing out "to scale" layouts was a pain in the butt.  After that was done, I mocked up the control panel. I came to a decision and pulled the trigger as the new control panel art will lay over this, no intricate designs are in the art.  










I added the chain like the original had to prevent over extension of the panel and also it keeps it upright at a slight angle if I needed to work on it.  I also added a door magnet set to keep the panel locked down.




This is where I am so far.  The old coin slot cutout in the front will house a computer speaker subwoofer enclosure and a 200mm case fan for added air flow, but that is another day.  I'm currently hunting for a decently priced 27" tv to use as my monitor, picking up a Logitech S220 computer speaker system.  I am completing my program portion of the build on my desktop, so far I have Hyperspin running Mame 1.43u6, Mess for Atari 5200 and Nestopia for NES.  Working out the bugs on the NES roms.  I would like to add SNES and maybe NeoGeo and thats it. 


So far, I think its turning out good.  Thoughts?

[mgb]

Hello and welcome,
 Your cabinet progress is looking good. Your control panel looks like it'll be a nice layout with good room.

[cmarion1024]

I decided to purchase my processor and motherboard tonight.  Reading other threads I stumbled upon this link to an awesome deal.
http://www.microcenter.com/specials/promotions/AMDbundlePROMO.html

I purchased the Phenom II X2 560 BE with the Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Socket AM3+ 760G mATX motherboard combo. With tax it is $102 and my buddy will pick it up/ship to me.  I already have a Phenom II X2 555 BE in my desktop now with a Gigabyte MoBo, unlocked to a quad and overclocked to 3.7Ghz stable with 8GB of ram.  This runs everything flawlessly so far and this combo deal package is unbeatable.  Thought I would also post it here in case someone doesnt read it in the other thread and miss out on a very good combo price, basically a free motherboard.

[cmarion1024]

Thanks! I am hoping by or at Christmas to have all the buttons, joysticks and what nots.  Have to work extra gigs to buy the goodies.  With bills and kids there is no "extra" money.  I figure for my Christmas presents I will get the buttons and the two joysticks.