I'm considering two ideas for power management of my cabinet. I need some advice from the Pros here.
Once finished, my setup (a converted Mortal Kombat cabinet) will have three power cords:
- The cabinet power, which powers everything the original game had except the PCB board (power will feed the CRT monitor, the marquee light and the coin door lights)
- The Windows PC running MAME/HyperSpin/Hyperlauncher
- The audio speakers (high-end computer PC speakers connected directly to the Windows PC)
Option 1: The hacked/extended PC power button w/ smart power strip
The idea here is to hack/extend the PC power button to a button on the outside of the cabinet. That will turn the PC power on directly, and a smart power strip will then provide power to the other outlets on the power strip which will turn on the cabinet (CRT/marquee/coins) and the PC speakers.
Option 2: A dumb power strip with a PC bios trick
The idea here is to attach all three cords (PC, cabinet and speakers) to a normal ("dumb") power strip. When I turn on the power strip, the PC will auto-boot (using the BIOS setting "Restore on AC/Power Loss") and the cabinet and PC speakers simultaneously.
Question: Which option is better?
In either case, I'll have windows auto-login and then auto-launch MAME/HyperSpin.
I'm a bit concerned about how to turn off the cabinet properly. Option 1 seems pretty easy for shutdown: Configure Windows to logout/shutdown when the power button is pressed. Once the PC powers off, the smart strip will automatically cut power to the cabinet and speakers. Option 2 would be a bit less convenient (I think) as I would have to configure MAME to initiate Windows logout/shutdown when MAME exits (I've read that MAME can be setup to do that - is that true??), and then wait for the PC to complete shut down before I would turn off the power to the dumb power strip.
Suggestions?
Gedman