After almost two years of planning, research and designing - but mostly procrastination, I've finally started work on building my first MAME cabinet. This is a work log of my progress on the cabinet and this first post in the topic will be modified on a regular basis to show my latest update. Please read through the remaider of the topic for additional details on my progress.
I've put a lot of thought into building the ultimate gaming cabinet and have always been impressed by the work of members in this forum. Along with my own ideas, I've incorporated some of my favorite design aspects from many of the skilled members here. The list of those to thank is long, but some of the more obvious include -
Tivogre,
1UP,
Frostillicus,
Knievel, and
Pixelhugger.
My goal is to build a cabinet with a three-sided rotating control panel. Two of the sides will have stationary controls, while the third side will be used for modularity - allowing me to easily connect and remove a four-player control panel, Star Wars flight yoke, Super Hang-On handlebar, steering wheel and shifter as well as any future specialized controls.
I live on the second floor of a multi-family house, so another design consideration was mobility. My cabinet uses casters, but I also have the ability to break the cabinet down into modular sub-components (sides, top frame, bottom frame, controls, etc.). With this design, I'm able to tear-down, move and reassemble the cabinet on my own - with a little help on the 27" Wells-Gardner monitor
I got quite a bit accomplished over the weekend - the biggest task having moved the cabinet inside since it's getting cold up here in New England.
It's not functional yet, but I did manage to get the monitor and marquee fired-up. The four-player control panel still needs to be wired and is just resting on the cabinet (with support from a chair). It's really starting to come together now and I'm getting excited to play the first game...