I want to build a Sinistar game

[Sinistar*]

Following some helpful advice already.   I hope this question is more specific.   Here are some questions I have so far:

*Cabinet is easy for me, but should I keep anything in mind when designing and building it--future expansion, changes, and such?

*What are the most common mistakes first time builders make?  No offense but I hope to learn from bad experiences some of you may have had

More to come!

[cdbrown]

do you want to build a dedicated Sinistar cab? or a sinistar shaped cab and have mame and heaps of games?

Tips - try to make the control panel removable so that way you can have different panels in the future.

Common mistakes - not doing a mock up with cardboard or some cheap ply/chipboard.  Nothing better to iron out those little design problems than a mock up.

Welcome and good luck.

Cheers
-cdbrown

[Flinkly]

get project arcade and read it through.  that'll help you with the most common mistakes.  other than that, don't make the cabinet too smal in case you want a bigger monitor later on.  all in all, the bok will lift all the weight of your shoulderss and open your eyes to even more possobilities.  as for the sinistar cab thing, it's shaped just like moon patrol i think and jakobud has the plans for that on his website.  i think it's www.jakobud.com .  as for sideart, they have that at the arcade art library.  just gogle the name and you'll be able to find it.  to get graphics printed, go to mamemarquees, their the current best for the price.  and lastly, for controls, go to ponyboy here in the forum.  he's a happ distributer and almost always has better prices than happ.  you might ahve already known all this, but i figured i'd try to help you out as much as possible.  good luck.

[PokerMan]

Unless you are interested in recreating a Sinistar game for persol historic reasons, DO NOT build a real sinistar game.   Now if you are restoring an existing Sinistar cab - that's different.  A real working original game has value both astecticly and historicly.

However, the PCB, video deflection boards, sound boards, power supply and monitor you will need is nothing short of very difficult to maintian.  I know this as I used to do this.  For FUN if you believe it.

Build your cabnet that looks like a sinistar cab, but throw a PC running MAME in it.  Trust me - much much easier and cheaper.

Poker

[Crazy Cooter]

I just grabbed a nice marquee (got it today) and will be scratch building one.  I actually looked on Jakobuds site this morning but didn't know it was the same cab as the moon patrol.  I grabbed the file just now.

I'm going with the standard fighter setup for controls.  I've got a control panel on the way that has a couple red balltops and I'll toss in 6 buttons per side.  I won't be starting it until after the middle of April though.  I'm going to check out putting a 49-way in the center, but I haven't looked into that aspect of it yet.  I'll probably start some control panel graphics before mid-April...

When are you looking to start building?  Maybe we can compare notes.  I'm going for as authentic looking as I can (with the extra controls plopped all over).

[Flinkly]

just to cover my --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules--, the moon patrol cab may not be exactly the same as the sinistar cab, bu they should be.  might want to talk to someone like paigeoliver, who seems to know just about everything when it comes to arcade machines (and cabinets).

[paigeoliver]

just to cover my --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules--, the moon patrol cab may not be exactly the same as the sinistar cab, bu they should be.  might want to talk to someone like paigeoliver, who seems to know just about everything when it comes to arcade machines (and cabinets).

As far as those go the best I can say is "I think they are the same". If you are scratchbuilding everything then it won't matter, if you are using any original parts then order them first, so you can be sure that they fit.

[Crazy Cooter]

Looks to be close enough.

[paigeoliver]

Ok, there only appears to be one difference between those two, the sinistar goes straight down from the panel instead of cutting back in like the Moon Patrol does.

Still, get your panel, bezel and marquee FIRST.