Scratch Build 4 Player Mame Pedestal

[LostCarrier]

I am a new member to arcade controls but have been reading and watching the forum with interest.  For a few years I have been thinking of building a mame cabinet but couldn’t see how I had a proper place for it.  Recently I have seen a few pedestals that I liked and thought I could make it work.

A couple of weeks ago I DL’ed some Mame stuff and was playing with it…  I thought I would love to play with real buttons and joysticks with my 8 year old and 5 year old twins.  So ordered buttons, joysticks and IPAC-4. 
   
My plan is a quick build that is functional.  I know I can play games but with a computer inside running on a ~40” lcd on the wall I can stream cartoons for the kids from this as well.  So I will need a keyboard and mouse accessible fairly easily. 

My table saw, chop saw, router, spray gun and most of my tools are at my brothers house about 150 miles away so I am just going to using what I got and we will see what will happen.  My friend had a really cheap sheet of MDF that he game to me to get rid of so it is no loss if I have to rebuild.  The last few times I used MDF for a project, I got it from a high quality kitchen cabinet maker who is another friend.  This MDF that I am using is not the same in any way but that is alright.

My plans are for me so they are not overly detailed.  Just one sheet of graph paper to get an idea of what I want to do.  I thought the top of the control panel is ¼” bigger all the way around than the box it sits on even though my ‘plan’ make no mention of it




I was really thinking of doing buttons with lights or RGB lights.  I almost did but then I thought I am not having the lights on all the time.  If someone came to my house I would say, ‘wait here while I turn the lights on my mame cabinet.’  Then we would look at it and be awed… Then I would turn the lights off while we played and the lights would wait till the next time someone saw the cabinet for the first time.

My wife did not want anything too retro or ‘old’ as she says it.  I had a lot of different thoughts on a theme but decided to wait for my next cabinet.  I got a 16” by 48” vinyl sticker from a local company who makes store signs for $40 Canadian ($35 US).  Turned out better than I could have hoped.

I have just under 2 weeks working on it in my spare time and have been out of town working about half the time..  The kids take most of my free time but that isn’t a bad thing.  I am almost done.  Another 2 hours or so and I should be all finished.  A couple of doors to put on and 4 more buttons with wires.  I did all the wiring from 8:30 in the evening, after I put the kids to bed, till about 1:30 am. Just over 100 wire ends for 4 joysticks and 36 buttons (so far).  Just 4 coin buttons to go but the system does work already.