My First time ever cabinet project! :)

[sr.lucas]

Hi Everyone!

A friend of mine recently told me they had a cabinet lying around their office that needed restoration and they would give it away for free if I would pick it up.

So I decided to restore and setup a MAME cabinet...

now I've been reading through most of the pages and  the FAQ here but I'd like to share with you some of my concern/thoughts:

1.- I haven't decided yet if I should go CRT or LCD. I would really like to keep the old-school idea of having a CRT but I'd really like to know what is widely used now. I really like the "easy" setup of an LCD and the weight issue...

2.- I can't decide on the side art and markee art for the project.... I was thinking something star wars based (my cousins love SW and i'm building it for them)... any ideas?

3.- I am about to buy the kit on the link, and I'd like to know if it is any good: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Arcade-parts-Bundles-With-Illuminated-button-LED-bulbs-holders-nuts-Joystick-player-buttons-Microswitch-USB-adapter/1592469951.html

Thanks a lot for your help and for making such a great forum!

[sr.lucas]

Here are some pics of it

This is how it arrived:


After removing the coin door:


Some side damage:


Coin door is extremely rusty:

[danny_galaga]

Lots of work there, but a prime candidate for MAMEing. I don't know much about the kit you linked to. I would hold off until some of the others comment. It seems awfully cheap. I think one Sanwa joy costs more than that bundle! But like I say, just hold off for a few more informed comments.

I'm close to building another cab myself, and I am going to use an NEC TV I found on the side of the road and get a conversion chassis for it. That makes it an 'arcade' monitor. That is, it runs at 15khz and has 'arcade' input (which for the life of me I can't recall what that is! RGB?). If I wasn't going to use that TV, I have a Dell 19" 4:3 monitor.

That's the big issue in my mind. If you go LCD, wide screen seems like a waste to me, unless you pick up one of those Dells. Those Dells are pretty cheap though, and are quite nice, so that could be an option (",) A drawback would be that 19" is going to be as big as you'll find in 4:3

here's a couple of Dells on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-UltraSharp-1908FPB-19-4-3-1280x1024-LCD-Monitor-/151349939242?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item233d28cc2a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-UltraSharp-1908FP-1908FPb-19-4-3-5-4-LCD-Monitor-VGA-DVI-output-/261542225888?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item3ce521a7e0

[Slippyblade]

As far as that kit is concerned, the Zippyy sticks are good sticks.  About $9 a pop if bought seperately.  And that looks like a Xin-Mo encoder, which I've used in the past reliably.  Interesting that they've stolen the image of the Xin-Mo off of Groovy Game Gear's website and then watermarked over the top of it.  Losers.

All in all, looks like you got a solid project on your hands that you'll have a lot of fun working on.  Good on ya!