Newbie with wild ideas

[Blinkey]

New guy here (long time lurker), full of admiration for you guys and the projects on here.

I am thinking of starting a mame project, which would be a compromise between my full cabinet ambitions and something "wife-friendly" which will fit inside a 20-inch deep cupboard in our spare room.

I love the depth and the more horizontal screen position of the classic midway pac/galaga style cabs. Bartop designs often seem a bit too cramped and upright for my liking.

I thought of designing something deeper than a bartop, but without the full height of a cab, that can still go on a low shelf or on the wall. Like a slimmer pac man cab with LCD screen, cut short just below the cp.  Are there any examples of this sort of hybrid being done ? Any problems you can envisage ?  I would appreciate your expertise.

[GregD]

Not sure what exactly you are describing.  Is it going to be free standing?  What would the size of the monitor be?  Would it be vertical or horizontal?

[paigeoliver]

Think about a cocktail. Women seem to think of them as not taking up much room, even though they eat like 3 times the space of an upright. You aren't going to be happy with something hiding in the cupboard.

And why exactly do you have to hide your machine in the cupboard anyway.

[Blinkey]

Think of the cupboard more as an 'alcove' in the room with doors. It houses some shelves with books and junk. It's quite wide - wide enough for a cab to go in and still see the side decal. But not deep enough for a full size cab.

The idea is : a few low, deep shelves for the books etc. then the cab placed on on the top of the shelves. A bartop would be ideal, but my idea is for a bigger, deeper bartop where the screen can "lay back" at more of an angle away from the controls. Picture just the top half of a PAC man cab. Probably a 19" screen, probably vertical for real old school games.

[kahlid74]

There's a bunch of slim designs people have used in the projects section but I would still be weary of the weight.  MDF even with a slim design is still going to weigh a bit and if you're planning to put it on a shelf that concerns me.  I like the cocktail idea and if you check the project section one guy is building a coffee table cocktail cab that hides in the coffee table.

So are you wanting to build a regular width, bartop height, slim depth cabinet or am I missing something?

[DaOld Man]

How about a slim cabinet with big rollers so it moves easy, remove all the shelves from the alcove, and just push the cab back into it when you are not using it, then pull it out a couple of feet when you do want to use it?
Read some of darthpauls automated cab project, you could rig up an actuator that would push the cab out of the wall and pull it back into the wall at the flip of a switch.

[Donkbaca]

I think wheels on a cab are a bad idea, if i had to roll the thing out everytime I wanted to play with it, it would just never get used.  My, is that if its in a closet, it will stay in the closet and not get much use.

FWIW, just build a LCD bar top with a 19 inch screen, there are a ton of those.  I would make sure I got a good screen though, a lot of LCD's laid vertical like that look like ass because of the viewing angles.

[Le Chuck]

Terminus is slim, and would fit the bill if you went with the original wall mount design (which I always favored as better anyway).

[Blinkey]

So are you wanting to build a regular width, bartop height, slim depth cabinet or am I missing something?

Yes, i guess that almost sums it up, Although many of the slim cabinets like terminus have the flat screen "in your face" upright to make it slim. I can hopefully allow for a little more depth to angle the screen backwards and downwards more.

[yotsuya]

The idea is : a few low, deep shelves for the books etc. then the cab placed on on the top of the shelves. A bartop would be ideal, but my idea is for a bigger, deeper bartop where the screen can "lay back" at more of an angle away from the controls. Picture just the top half of a PAC man cab. Probably a 19" screen, probably vertical for real old school games.

[EightBySix]

You can get workbenches for garages that need room for the car, where the bench folds up against the wall when not in use, and then the legs fold out of the way. Here's an example. http://www.loadedshopper.com/home_sweet_home/folding_workbench_is_good_for_garages_tight_on_space.php

Could something similar work for you, if you had a thin cocktail design?

[Vigo]

Need a wild idea? Try mameing this: 

[Spacedueler]

My project (under construction) is similar to what you are describing. In the photos you'll see I've removed 2 of the cabinet doors and the shelves (in my garage) and rolled in my monitor (which is on a temporary plywood t.v. stand). Out in front is the CP, which is on a desk (which has 4 casters). The final plan I envision has the whole garage cabinet rebuilt. The section with the arcade will have 2 doors that open to reveal the monitor which will be built into the shelving (with a bezel and a finished look). The CP will be on a new rolling stand and stored under the monitor (tucked away neatly behind the doors). When I'm ready to use the arcade, I'll simply roll the CP forward into position for a nice showcase set-up. I may have some sort of tracking system so the CP rolls out straight - maybe eventually a motorized mechanism to push it out for me.

Yours could be similar but on a smaller scale. Build your monitor into the cabinet shelving. Have the CP slide out from under the monitor like a large drawer. After game time push in the drawer, close the cabinet doors and it's out of sight - just like that ironing board in the previous post!

[Blinkey]

Thanks for all the input and ideas guys. I really appreciate it. The "mame my ironing board" project is a really funny idea !

 Here's a pic of the rough kind of idea I originally had in mind. Don't worry, my   Woodwork skills are better than my photoshop skills !

I will do more research, maybe get busy with some cardboard and see what I can realistically come up with as a prototype.

[ark_ader]

Just make a pedestal.

[Yenome]

i would suggest a lowboy or something along those lines and have the shelfs be above the cab. unless your unable to move the shelving. course from the look of the photo shop you should just build that exactly as it is photoshoped. with an lcd at that angle and 5inchs of clearance beneath the cp you would be able to easily get a mobo stuck under the lcd. more so if you use a mini-itx board that uses the laptop style power supplys.

[Blanka]

A bouquet of flowers every Saturday you are building is wife friendly.

[TOK]

Build a giant cab that will fall on her and look like an accident, then get what you really want!

[ragnar]

I did a shallow depth full size cab.  It's in my signature.

I did it out of oak and stained it.  No decals other than the marquee.  Very wife friendly and when family is over, they don't even realzie that it is an arcade cabinet till they notice hte control panel.  It just looks like a piece of furniture to the passer by.  The trick is not size.  It is making it look like it belongs in the room.  A brgiht yellow bartop might be hated more than a furntiure styled full size.

No one has done a bartop woody yet.  That's a thought ;-)

If you like it, let me know and I can measure it.