A noob with just enough info to be dangerous!

[Bear]

OK guys, and ladies, I have had Mame for several years now and always dreamed of building my own system but never got around to it.  Step forward to this past weekend and I was given 4 old arcade cabinets...and two STILL WORK.  Now the question are rolling through my head and I can wait to get started.

This is what I have:

2003 Golden Tee - Works great!!
Sega Virtua Fighther - Works great!!
SVC CHAOS - powers up, can set time, but will not play game.
and Mortal Kombat II - will not power up.

My idea is to use the Golden Tee cabinet since it has the track ball and just add the necessary buttons and sticks to make it a 2 player system.  I'm thinking I need the Ipac and Opti-Pac for this set-up?

My main concerns are this, is anything from the machines salvageable for resale to help offset the costs I will endure to creating my new system?
Also, I want to take the monitors out...do they still hold a charge like the old TV tubes?

I plan on documenting the entire process for those interested and willing to help...I know I'll be a regular here and hope I may be an asset to someone down the line.

[ragnar]

I'm no pro, but I would not gut a working cab.

Find a cab that is not popular/valuable/collectible and Mame that instead.

[Bear]

Thanks for your reply!

[gilby4runner]

Another noob here.  For what its worth i wouldnt mess with a working cab.  If you dont want to keep them in a collection you can sell it off faster and use a different cab for the mame.  Its not to popular maming a working or classic cab.  This coming from the guy who is maming a Defender cab.  (Before anyone jumps on this...it was headed for the dump and it didnt have any original defender parts).  Wouldnt the MK2 be a good 2 player cab?

*Becareful with the monitors.  DISCHARGE...

Good luck from one noob to another!
Gilby

[ed12]

for what it worth if the golden tee work's
keep it or sell it
they hold there value real well
plus side is u can up-grade to 2005-this is just 1 chip and the nessary s/w

ed

[matsadona]

I'm not helping out either when I join the others asking you to please keep working games alive as they are. They aren't coming back and there is plenty of gutted games out there that can be salvaged for a few bucks.
Sooner or later you will end up in collecting games anyway. Everybody does, even though it seems convenient with just one MAME machine for thousands of games in the beginning

And try to restore the other two non-working games. It will give you more satisfaction in the end

[boardjunkie]

Another noob here.  For what its worth i wouldnt mess with a working cab.  If you dont want to keep them in a collection you can sell it off faster and use a different cab for the mame.  Its not to popular maming a working or classic cab.  This coming from the guy who is maming a Defender cab.  (Before anyone jumps on this...it was headed for the dump and it didnt have any original defender parts).  Wouldnt the MK2 be a good 2 player cab?

*Becareful with the monitors.  DISCHARGE...

Good luck from one noob to another!
Gilby

You don't need to discharge a tube just to remove the monitor from a cabinet. Hell....you don't even need to discharge it to do any repair work on the chassis (although its a good idea to check for stored voltage on the main B+ filter cap). The only way you can get lit up from tube's capacitive voltage storage is to start screwing with the contact under the rubber anode cover....

Back in my game servicing days, I'd repair/recap a monitor that was difficult to remove from the cabinet while it was still in the game. The only thing I'd disconnect would be the AC input to the monitor just in case.

[Bear]

I truly appreciate the feed back, unfortunately it's a bit late...the machine has been gutted.  I feel horrible about it, but it is what it is and time to move forward.  I'm not a fan of golf and would never play the game, so it just seemed like the thing to do at the time.  Now, with that said...I do have the parts safely stored and it brings me to a new question.  Couldn't I take these parts, build a small bar top cabinet and run the game that way?

[mgb]

Personally, I don't see gutting a Golden as bad as gutting something like an 80's era classic.
Good luck with the project.
I think a golden tee is a good cab for a project. how about some pics