I am coming into this conversation late but here is what I did for this, works with two diffeent Mame PC's - incredibly simple and cheap and is a 1 button on/off for everything.
- 1 standard everyday power strip with everything in my cab plugged into it
- I bought a standard on/off pushbutton switch at Home Depot. That switch has two wiring posts, all I did was cut 1 wire in the the power strip cord in the middle, connect two wires from the on/off pushbutton to either side of the power strip wire (just like inserting a light switch in your house).
That's it
- On the PC, turn on your power management settings in the CMOS. What this does is boot up your PC any time power is turned on. This is different than hitting the power button on the PC, which I do not have to do. As an example, what this esentially does is if you power down your PC and then unplugged it from the wall, when you plug it back into the wall later the PC will automatically boot back up without having to hit the power button. When I hit my on/off power button I installed on the cab it is as if I just plugged it back into the wall in my example and it will boot right up. 99% of all CMOS' can do this.
- similar on the monitor, most monitors have a setting that will turn it on when power is supplied instead of having to hit the actual monitor on/off
- marquee light, etc. all powers on/off with that button as well.
So all I do is walk up to the maching, hit that one on/off pushbutton (I put on top of my cab) and everything comes on. When I finish playing, my front end will power down my PC when I tell it I am done (which I do by hitting my player 2 start and player 1 coin at the same time). I then just hit the on/off pushbutton to turn everything off. Later hitting that button will power everything back on again and I am good to go.
I understand the question of how to do this, I had it myself, but never quite understood the lengths people go to for a solution, the smartstrips people buy (which can be a bit pricey), the relays people build, etc... My solution cost about $10 (actually I had the power strip already so it really only cost about $5 for the on/off switch). My solution should work for almost everyone (would not work if your CMOS doesn't allow the power management setting - but that is rare in any PC less than 5-7 years old).