Which cabinate should I buy?

[Damo_T]

Hi All,
New member here.
I am interested in building an Arcade Machine.  I use a Mame emulator on my PC at the moment and looking at moving it into a cabinet unless anyone can persuade me otherwise with a better way of doing things.
I am not good with woodworking and don't really have the tools so will probably end up buying the cabinet. 

What is the best style or supplier to go with as they all look slightly different and I do not want to make a mistake at the very start.  I am not sure if I should do for a cocktail type cabinet or stand up so advice requested if there are any advantages/disadvantages to each.

I would ideally like to put some space invader artwork on it at some point.
Thanks for any help in advance.

[Mike A]

Cocktail cabinets take up a lot of space. You have to measure space for the machine and two adults seated in chairs.

[Deek069]

I am not really in a position to offer advice, but I would encourage you to think again about building your own cabinet.

I struggle putting up a shelf in my house, but I've just finished my first cabinet. I didn't break the bank buying tools, and to be honest it wasn't that much more difficult than putting together flat pack furniture once you figure out how you are going to build it.

I had so much fun building mine and it is so much fun to play.

In regard to what you put in the cabinet, I've used a Raspberry Pi 3 b+ in mine with RetroPie (https://retropie.org.uk/) installed. The pi was cheap, easy to set up and ideal for the job.

[Howard_Casto]

Cocktail cabinets take up a lot of space. You have to measure space for the machine and two adults seated in chairs.

^This^

Cabaret cabs don't really save you space either as they are just ever so slightly narrower.  If you are going to build a traditional looking cab you'll need to have space to put a small fridge in your house... it's essentially the same footprint. 

[keilmillerjr]

Vendors on this site have some great flat pack bar top kits. Or buy a used real arcade machine thats already gutted or beyond repair to what it was. Seen some flat pack nintendo cabs too.

[the_77x42]

You can't go wrong with a standard 6-button Street Fighter dynamo cabinet. Six buttons makes it perfect for pretty much every game you can throw at it. The dynamo control panel folds down allowing easy access to the PC inside so you don't have to pull it away from the wall. When you are looking for one, a simple check is to look for the black triangles on the very outside edges of the control panel. If it has those then it's a metal panel that folds down. They're also a standard doorway wide so they're easy to move.

Check your local Craigslist or go to an arcade machine auction. If you can get one with an old busted Wells Garner monitor, they usually only need to be recapped to get it working again. Configure GroovyMAME and get some VGA adapters for the monitor and you're good to go.

A decade ago these things with monitor were only a couple hundred dollars. They are still everywhere.

[Damo_T]

Thanks all for your information.
Space will not really be an issue.
I live in the UK and it is quite difficult to get hold of used Cabinets.
I have seen various flat pack ones on Ebay but wasn't sure if I needed to look out for anything specifically.
It looks like I just need to make sure it has holes for 6 button configuration and joytick?
Thanks

[langlem]

I would second the suggestion of a gutted Dynamo cab.  I found an old HS-5 over a decade ago to do my first ever mame cab.

In fact, Im in the process of completely re-redoing  it over the next few weeks...

But understand it may be a different situation accross the pond.