Arcade Team Bondurant Begins

[dislecksea]

I have been lurking for a while and I guess it is time to announce that I am beginning work on my second cabinet.  My first, which I completed in early 2001was totally custom built and, due to my poor woodworking skills, looked like hell.  I dismantled it after a couple of years with the intent of doing better next time.

Well, next time is here.  Now that I have had the experience of building a cab, and now that I know my woodworking skills suck, I have purchased a full sized cabinet from http://www.arcadeshop.com.  It is basically a 27 inch cab based upon the design of the recent John Madden arcade games (just without the huge marquee thing).  It is made out of 3/4 inch plywood covered in laminate, is over 6 and 1/2 feet tall, and weighs roughly eight tons (or at least it felt like it did when we moved it).

The control panel top is 43 inches wide by 16.75 inches deep, but it is curved along the front so that the depth at the sides is only 13 inches.  The control panel box has interior dimensions (i.e., usable space) of 40.5 inches wide, 13.5 inches deep in the middle, 10.5 inches deep on the sides, and is 3 inches deep.

What I have:

I kept the control panel from my old build so I already have 2 joysticks (Happs 8-ways, not sure what model), a Happs trackball (3 inch, I think), a bunch of buttons, and both an iPac (2 player) and an OptiPac.  I also kept the monitor from my old cab.  It is a 27 inch television monitor

[leapinlew]

Good luck! I can personally vouch for Game Creature - he's amazing.

As for your control panel - I realize you don't have a problem with frankenpanels, but from my experience - half the fun is watching others play classics from their youth. The more controls, the more confused people get. I still have people try to use the joystick in a game of world class bowling... It almost sounds like you could justify a second machine just for Tron and DOT.

I look forward to reading about your build!

[_) (V) (-)]

Hi Dislecksea,

Welcome to the board!

I know what you mean about the wealth of knowledge available to us here. When I first discovered Mame about 4-5 years ago, it was like a dirty little secret and nobody talked about it much. I just knew immediately it should be played on a cabnet style system with old school controls but never knew where to find them or who/what to ask for.

This place has pointed me to so many great resources, all in the last 2 months! Much more information than I'd gathered in the last few years of trial and error testing.

Sounds like you are pretty far along with cab #2. Do you have an you pictures?

[dislecksea]

As promised, not much to look at yet.  But you requested it so here you go.  I will try to post more as I move forward.