Starting My First MAME Build

[24champ]

Hi everybody!

As my very first post (I think), I'm announcing my very first attempt at building a MAME cabinet.  Well, build is subjective because I'm not actually building the cabinet itself, but installing new components into one.  I found a dealer near my office (Scottsdale, AZ), that has an old Sky Soldiers cabinet in good condition that he's letting me have for $75.  Does that sound like a good deal?  He said there's no monitor, and not sure whether there are still controls, but the cabinet is intact and solid.

So my thought is to clean it from top to bottom, possibly sand and re-laminate if needed, install some new controls, and the PC.  I have an old 2.4GHz intel with 512MB RAM just sitting around doing nothing, so that'll be my platform.  I also have a 25" tv that I can use as a monitor, so I need a video card with tv out.  Any suggestions?  Other than that, I have already downloaded the latest MAME emulator and have it working, so that is done.

Anyone have any tips or hints before I actually get started with all of the hardware?  Or perhaps pitfalls to watch out for?  Either way, I'll try to keep this thread as up to date as possible as I build.  Thanks in advance to anyone who chimes in with their two cents.

Steve

[postalp123]

Grats on starting your own cabby!

I guess a few things you could do to make things go more smoothly are:

• Make sure that your 25" TV can fit in the Cabinet (Most 25" TV's need at least 23"+ width clearance)
• On that note for your TV, Make sure that your TV has an S-Video output.
• ATI cards are great for TV to PC output. Depending on whether your PC has AGP or only PCI slots:
  AGP: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161150
  PCI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814241001
  Both are great cards and cost between $30-$36.
• As far as your Keyboard encoder is concerned, if you havent picked up one yet, may I reccomend the MiniPac from www.ultimarc.com, as long as you dont need more than 28 switches (Word of advice, get the optional wire harness, best $12 you will ever spend)
• Take a good look at the cabinet and find out (structurally) what you might want to change/add on. This is especially important for the Control Panel, a "Vanilla" control panel for an Upright normally doesn't have enough surface area for the standard MAME layout (2-players, 6-Button Layouts, Trackball, Spinner, Admin buttons, etc...) and may require you to fashion a new CP Box. IMHO it all comes down to what your ideal control layout is VS. how much work you want to do to the cabinet. It may go as far as having to do some major cutting of the front of the cabby to mount a new CP box.

Here is an example of a Machine I recently did for my boss, he had no need for more than 3 buttons, so the existing CP was sufficient:


As you can see, the existing CP just BARELY had enough for even that limited layout. I made another cab at the same time for myself, almost exactly the same used cabinet as this one, but I wanted a larger 6-button layout with a spinner, trackball and admin buttons. The work involved in cutting, reshaping and building a new larger CP almost doubled the time involved, but I knew that was what I wanted. I'll post pics of the sister-cab to this one with the custom CP front to show you the difference when I get home from work.

[24champ]

Hey postalp123... that is some great advice, thanks!

I didn't even think about the width of the tv... I'll have to do some measuring this weekend.  As for the control layout, I think I may need to build a new one because I want two controllers with six buttons each, along with the 1-player and 2-player buttons.  Probably also a couple admin buttons like you mentioned.  In regards to the controller, I have been looking at the MiniPac and iPac, but never really thought about the optional wire harness.  Eventually I think a trackball would be great to add on, but I need to take baby steps right now.

It looks like you are quite the expert with this stuff, so don't think this is the last time we'll chat!  I look foward to your other pictures.  Thanks again!

Steve

[postalp123]

Thanks for the compliment, although I'm hardly an expert.

I've made (Career-Hobby-Wise) 4 total MAME cabinets, all uprights. My first one Project Odyssey was a train wreck as far as building was concerned, my woodworking motto back then was "Measure Once, Cut Twice". After that one, I only built my projects out of used Cabbie's from there on out.

Keep in mind for your CP:

2 X Joystick Inputs...........8 switches
2 X 6 Button Layouts.......12 switches
2 X Start Buttons.............2 switches
2 X Coin Buttons..............2 switches

Universal Admin Buttons:

All purpose "Enter" Button.................1 switch
Menu "Tab" Button..........................1 switch
Pause "P" Button.............................1 switch
All purpose "Escape" Button...............1 switch

TOTAL SWITCHES: 28 (Exactly as many as an I-Pac 2 or a Mini-Pac)

As far as the wire harness is concerned, only the Mini-Pac requires a wire harness, it has a molex IDE connector on it and is well made by Andy @ Ultimarc.

BTW: You mentioned that you might institue a trackball in your CP, I have a spare HAPPS 3" Blue Trackball, PM me if your interested.

[24champ]

Ooh... just enough inputs!  Thanks for the offer on the trackball, but my wife is already not keen on how much the whole project is going to cost, so I need to keep things low until this one is done.

As far as power is concerned, I was thinking to have a power strip in the cabinet and having only one cord coming out of the back.  Also I wanted to mount the PC's power switch with the admin buttons, as well as perhaps a light for the marquee.  Do you leave the whole PC (case and all) in the cabinet, or do you mount the motherboard, peripherals, power supply, etc... on a shelf under the monitor?  I think a cool hidden sliding keyboard shelf would be nice on the off chance I need mouse support.  Hm... so much to plan.

[postalp123]

Here is the twin as promised:


Notice despite the same cabinet dimensions, the CP area was totally overhauled:


The colored buttons are the admin buttons as follows:

Green = Enter
Yellow = Pause "P"
Orange = Menu "Tab"
Red = Escape

* Here's what I did for my power button. Notice how it's mounted totally out of the way, even away from the Admin buttons, there is a reason  :



Simply mount a standard CP push button near the speakers, and wire the switches directly to the pins that control the PC's powering up on the motherboard (see below in green circle):



* As far as your powerstrip idea, that is a popular one among MAME builders, mounting it along the inner-wall.

* As far as a whole PC case inside or mounting the internals inside the cabinet, IMO it's better to just leave the intact PC inside (maybe have the case secured to one side at the most), the case & cabinet together shouldnt make a heat issue if you have one or more vents.

* Mouse/Keyboard storage for me was simply a matter of taking the coin-bucket out of the coin door and using that compartment for storage to great success.

[theCoder]

A common problem with monitors/TVs is the depth.  Does it stick out the back?

There is plenty of room inside to keep the PC in its case.  It looks cooler to pull the components out and mount them on the sidewalls but, the only real reason I can see to do it is for heat.  But how often does the PC on your desk overheat?

On the issue of buttons, the lions share of the popular Mame games out there use only 2 buttons;  A few more use 3.  The only games that I can think of that require 6 buttons are fighters (except for Defender).  If you are into fighter games, go for it.  They really reek havoc on your wrists however.  My last build had only 3 buttons (plus a few admin) and I have no regrets.

One last comment on your build.  Don't get into "analysis paralysis".  In other words, don't anguish for weeks, on a given dimension, color, font, screw length, button location, controls vendor, video card, etc., etc., etc.  You WILL regret some decisions you make along the way.  But at least you will have a playable cab.  Make your decision and move on. 

Good luck on your build.

[postalp123]

There is plenty of room inside to keep the PC in its case.  It looks cooler to pull the components out and mount them on the sidewalls but, the only real reason I can see to do it is for heat.  But how often does the PC on your desk overheat?

Good points made Coder, As far as the PC overheating, from what I've researched what really causes spikes in temperatures is running 3D with a Vid Card, but if keeping the venting on the PC case is an issue, simply removing the side panel would have almost the same effect as a segmented system. Plus if you ever want to take the PC out of the cabby or, gasp, replace it altogether, the unit is in one piece for easy removal.

Good advice on checking the depth clearance of the TV as well, can't believe I overlooked that 

[24champ]

Hey coder... "analysis paralysis" is definitely something I suffer from.  I tend to over analyse everything to the point of I can't even remember what my original idea was.  This being my first project, I am expecting problems here and there, but nothing that will keep me from having a very fun, playable cabinet.  I think I will end up just keeping the PC and case intact and hidden.  There's no reason to have all the parts out except for that 'looks cool' factor.  Hey, I know of a cabinet dealer, so when I'm ready for build #2, I'll try other things.

I'm hoping to pick it up tonight... so I'll post some photos once I'm home.  Thanks guys!

[24champ]

Holy cow... I picked up my cabinet and woah... it's a huge piece of junk.  Luckily it was about as expensive as dirt, so I'm not too worried.  I think with some hard work and a few pieces of MDF, this will be a nice cabinet.  No pictures yet, but soon enough.  Thanks again for all of the advice.  I will be back once I can do some work on it and find out what I'm dealing with.  Thanks!

[postalp123]

As long as the shell of the cabinet is good (No wood-rot or water damage) you should be golden. If the internals are destroyed and your making a MAME rebuild, your still good.

Got a pic of the cab??

[24champ]

That's just it, there's some water damage from the bottom of the sides that runs up about 1 foot.  It's not terrible, but there is some splitting.  The more I look at it, the more I think maybe I just need to buy some sheets of MDF and use this old cabinet as a template to trace out all new pieces.  Unfortunately that's gonna' hurt my budget a bit.  If nothing else, this first cabinet can be my how not to do things for my second build.  For now, I want it to be functional first, and pretty second.  It's going to live in my garage, so aesthetics is not high on my list.  Not to say I want it to look like sh!t, but I want to be able to play it.  What do you think?

[leapinlew]

Unfortunately that's gonna' hurt my budget a bit.   

Welcome to arcade cabinet building

If nothing else, this first cabinet can be my how not to do things for my second build.   

This should be our slogan.

Did you check out the water repair guide at the top of the wood working forum? It might be just what you need:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49927.0

Do yourself a favor and make it as pretty as you can at first, unless you want it only to be functional for a few days till you decide to tear it all down again.

And for gods sakes.... give us some pictures!

[postalp123]

That's just it, there's some water damage from the bottom of the sides that runs up about 1 foot.  It's not terrible, but there is some splitting.  The more I look at it, the more I think maybe I just need to buy some sheets of MDF and use this old cabinet as a template to trace out all new pieces.  Unfortunately that's gonna' hurt my budget a bit. 

As long as the wood doesn't crumble at your slightest touch, you can cosmetically fix it, my opinion is to simply sand the split areas smooth, then simply use some bondo (Dries in 5 minutes) then sand smooth again, then Paint, that's it!

Another tip is to use a Flat Black paint, which will cover up the blemishes.

I have a confession to make, of the 2 cabinets I made (One for me and one for my Boss at work) the one for my boss was a heavily water damaged cabinet before I got to work on it, you will be amazed how well the above tips will clean her up, check it out:

Remember this? Looks fairly nice, doesn't it?


Look again.....


There was a 4" hole in the side of it when i got it, no lie.


And see here, hard to see the horrible water damage, I didnt even heed my own advice above, I just simply painted over it:


Another easy fix is to get a Kick Plate for your cab to cover up the front.

The MDF replacement has been done before, but only to a side or two from what i've seen around here, It shouldn't be too expensive, but it will be very time consuming and probably hard work.

If nothing else, this first cabinet can be my how not to do things for my second build.  For now, I want it to be functional first, and pretty second.  It's going to live in my garage, so aesthetics is not high on my list.  Not to say I want it to look like sh!t, but I want to be able to play it.  What do you think?

I think you have the right idea there, if you remember this in my earlier post, it looked like crap, but played like a dream. Plus what I learned from my mistakes helped me to hit the ground running on my second cab. And it's not like your spending the same amount of money the second time, simply transplant your old internals and arcade parts to the newly designed cab down the road.