Finally! building a cabinet from scratch

[theCoder]

Thanks for the wiring pics.  Did you have any problems with the wiring or did all contacts work first try?

Your artwork really goes with the t-molding.

Very nice. 

[MaMeNnO]

Thanks for the comment.

The contacts worked first time. I made sure there was enough bare wire for the quick disconnects. I'm more affraid of the wires connected to the connector on the KeyWiz. They're very thin. Unless something snaps off I'm not replacing 'em anyway.

[MaMeNnO]

Just played some Street Fighter II. Then suddenly I was thrown back to the desktop and I was asked what I wanted to do with the 'sticky keys' 
Because some buttons use shift, ctrl etc. and if you press them quickly and to much this will become apparent.

You can easily turn 'em off. Here's a post with a link to guide you http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=50943.msg497531#msg497531

[blueznl]

dutchies galore :-) (yes, another one)

wow, that machine is great! now i need to re-read this whole thread... i'm seriously thinking about building my own cab, just haven't made up my mind yet to do something classic, or something fancy...

(i especially have to figure out where you got some of those parts)

[MaMeNnO]

Stop thinking, start building!

Got the parts from Germany, US and some wood from Holland! BTW don't use the 'betonplex' stuff. To expensive and nothing but trouble.

PS. Welcome.

[MaMeNnO]

There hasn't much changed on the cabinet itself. Only wired everything completely and replaced the black buttons for red/green ones.

I've been busy building my own front-end (Yamf, Yet Another Mame Frontend). It's built in VB6.0. Nothing world shocking or something, but just the fun of making it myself. I'm no VB guru so I had to figure out some things, but I have something I like! Mr. Google was very helpfull in finding things for me. Some screen shots maybe at the end of the weekend.

This weekend I wanna do the final things for the monitor and bezel. Still not done...  

[blueznl]

Well, as you suggested, I ordered the parts... once they arrive the real things starts...

[Kronos]

really nice cab... 

[MaMeNnO]

Well, I've been away from this post a long time... to long I guess. That's because of a lot of reasons, but the main was that I lost myself in building my own front end. I was nearly finished and I could play on it! That's a damn pitfall! You should prevent yourself from putting in the computer and screen, before every other thing is finished.

Here's a picture from an early version of the front end and a not painted bezel. On this picture there's still a glass plate. In the end I didn't use it anymore. This was because of the last little adjustments.


Here you can see the painted bezel and a far more advanced version of Yaff. Yaff stand for Yet An other Front end Front end. I named it first Yamf (Yet An other Mame Front end), but Yaff sounded and looks better. I was inspired by a program that's used for compiler build on unix like machines, Yacc (Yet An other Compiler Compiler).

The features of Yaff are still under development and a few have to be add. I'll make a post in the Software forum with a more detailed description and background. Finally! building a front end from scratch.


This is the bezel and the speaker area.


The coindoor missed a little box at the back where a plastic box could be placed to catch the coins (1 euro coins).


Yaff!


Here's the marquee with the light on. The light was a bit to bright, so I placed some papper over it to diffuse it a little. Work well. The retainers were spray painted black. That made a big difference!


The finished side. Nearly finished, because I still don't know what side art I'm gonna design. I was planning on doing a custom design for Elevator Action. Later on I had some more ideas of a more generic design, but I still haven't decided.


The full cab, front


The full cab, back

[theCoder]

...Yaff stand for Yet An other Front end Front end. I named it first Yamf (Yet An other Mame Front end), but Yaff sounded and looks better. I was inspired by a program that's used for compiler build on unix like machines, Yacc (Yet An other Compiler Compiler).

YAFF is definitely easier to say.  How about YAMS, Yet Another Menu System?  But then again, I don't know too many people that like yams.  There are a lot of "Yet Another" named programs out there.  I wrote a large scale reporting / graphing system called YARG - Yet Another Report Generator.  I thought of writing my own Mame front end, but the existing ones are very feature rich. 

Good job on this project.  It looks very crisp and clean.

[MaMeNnO]

I thought of writing my own Mame front end, but the existing ones are very feature rich. 

Good job on this project.  It looks very crisp and clean.

Thanks Coder. There's no doubt there are many feature rich FE's, but making it your own is more than half the fun! I tried a few, but my experience was that it didn't work intuitive enough.

[Freeplay]

MaMeNm0

I've just read your Cab Build from start to finish.

I must say.. you've done a great job of documenting your project.
Most people tend to forget to take time to take the pics and make the posts.

It was most enjoyable read.. and you cab came out great.

[psychotech]

Well..,

that is a great cab!

Like the others, I'll thank you for the good documentation and congratulate you on a cab well done!

..we're just waiting for more info on your custom FE ..and you know ..MORE PIX - of EVERYTHING !½!

[MaMeNnO]

MaMeNm0

I've just read your Cab Build from start to finish.

I must say.. you've done a great job of documenting your project.
Most people tend to forget to take time to take the pics and make the posts.

It was most enjoyable read.. and you cab came out great.

That's good to hear! Thanks for that. I wanted to document the project as good as I could.
Actually, I hate those posts where people only show a few pictures of the end result.

@psychotech, thanks again and I'll start the post right now!

[MaximRecoil]

Here's a little update of the wiring job I did so far. I didn't want to solder anything as all switches can can take quick disconnects. This made it for me easier. It made it also more flexible if I want to change something.

I started with the ground (black wire). For the inputs I used red wire. My father in law sat down next to me when I did the wiring. I explained what my plan was (this used to be part of his job) and he said how I could do that the most easiest and cleanest way. I used little loops to wire the ground contacts. When you do it like this you can use one long wire without ever cutting it for except the terminating quick disconnect.

Make two cuts in the wire and remove the part between the two cuts...


Bend the cleaned wire and put it in the quick disconnect.


Finally, press the quick disconnect together and connect the quick disconnect to the contact.
For the next contact measure the wire that you need by dragging it to the next contact and
repeat it from picture one. That´s all!

I *really* like your father-in-law's method of making ground loops. It is very clean and secure. I have used this method on two of my machines since I read this post of yours some time ago, to replace the stock ground loops in the OEM JAMMA harnesses. It is a lot stronger than how the factory did it, which was the typical method of a bunch of short sections of wire daisy-chained via the crimp on QD's. One of those short sections of wire even pulled out/broke off from the QD as I was removing the old ground loop. That would never happen with your father-in-law's method.

[MaMeNnO]

Yeah, when he told me this method, I immediately was convinced that this was the way to go.

He will be happy to hear that his method is adopted by you and maybe others, but then again this forum is to inspire/help others.

[Mirickle]

Nice work! I especially like your CP overlay.

Question: being a fellow Dutchie, I will also use metric-system-sized wood for my little MAME project. T-molding.com only lists t-molding dimensions in imperial units. Which size t-molding did you use for 18mm wood? My guess would be 3/4", but I am not 100% sure...

[blueznl]

Hey, more dutchies :-) You're planning to order anything soon? I guess I'll need to order some stuff as well, perhaps we could order a bundle?

[Mirickle]

Hey, more dutchies :-) You're planning to order anything soon? I guess I'll need to order some stuff as well, perhaps we could order a bundle?

Maybe some stuff from GGG, but it might be a while before I get round to actually starting my project (first I will have to decide what the project will be (bartop, fullsize, 1P, 2P etc...).

[blueznl]

Heh :-) I planned a bar top originally, but in the end (ie. right now, or about right now  ) I decided to settle for a full sized stand up. It's just that every time I start working on it, Real Life Interference (TM) gets in the way. At least I just bought the wood... And I have some of the other stuff, such as buttons, sticks, a trackball, etc... It's just that, now summer is mostly over, suddenly working on it becomes less interesting