this bozo finally starts his mame cabinet

[dudebozo]

hey guys, yeah...i finally got down to it and started making my cabinet not too long ago.  this is actually mame cabinet version 2.0 for me.  see...the first time around, it was pretty weak.  i mean, i think i did alright with what tools i had at the time and i was seriously lacking woodwork experience.  so i was like, well...i'm going to redo this sucker and make it bigger better and stronger.  early january we had some gnarly flash floods so my mame cabinet version 1.0 got wiped out.  oh well...just meant to start on the new one.   
here we go...

[dudebozo]

oh man, i really am i bozo.  that's not the pic of my cabinet starting up.  hahaha.  well...thats just a pic of my dog.  here is the first pics of my mame cabinet.

[dudebozo]

of course a mame project couldn't run smooth right?  when i was turning the cabinet over, i crushed one of the corners.  yikes.     but i read several threads on here about bondo being a buddy.  yeah, it cleaned up nicely i think.

[dudebozo]

i had to borrow a digital camera from a friend until mine was fixed; so i apologize for the sporadic pics of the mame cabinet project.  it has started to go together fairly smooth i guess.  i did hit a few bumps along the way.  the project arcade book has given me some insight on stuff i didn't know.  good stuff.  it was definitely worth the investment.  it was a pain in the butt to find locally, so i just purchased it when i was up in SJ at a Fry's. 

[dudebozo]

i finally got it all sanded primer painted.  oh man was that a joy.  the 'rents were getting soooo mad with all the dust everywhere.  that lil shop vac was a nice investment.  but this is where i stand on my mame project.  i don't know, it's a fun project, but difficult too.  sometimes i get all into, and then i get all burned out on it.  i just need a lil kick in the butt to get going on it again. 

[leapinlew]

thats going to be a HUGE coin door. 

Whats your plans for finishing that off?

[dudebozo]

hahaha...yeah, it's a pretty big area for the coindoor.  i had to make it 28" wide so that sony tv would fit in there nicely.  on my old mame cabinet, i had that two slot fake coin door thing.  i'm thinking it's going to look kind of small, but it'll just have to do until i get make a bigger coin door, maybe a 4 coin slot setup. 

i'm building the control panel right now.  i think i'm going with that orange type of marquee and orange sideart from mamemarquees.com.  i'm kind of wondering if i should develop some kind of cp overlay that goes with it or whatnot, to match.  i may have to take a lil trip to the artwork section on this forums. 

[Timoe]

Here's an idea

[dudebozo]

yup yup...that's the marquee and sideart i'm talking about.  yeah, i saw those a while ago, and when you used them on your cabinet Timoe, it helped me make it as my final decision.  i really like how the orange sticks out on your cabinet, i hope it sticks out nice too on my cabinet.  i like your control panel too.  i'm still kind of up in the air about the whole layout of it.  do i want to slant the buttons, or do i want to just lay them across and such.    

i think i'm going to continue to look around at some examples of people's cp layouts and go from there.  thanks for the insight Timoe

[theCoder]

What types of games are you planning on playing on this?  Your answer(s)will influence your CP controls and layout.

It get more exciting from here.  Keep up the good work.

[dudebozo]

i actually plan on playing everything on here.  i know that sounds kind of funny but i'm hoping to pull it off.  i'm currently looking at using maximus arcade, i think that's what it is called, for my frontend.  that should cover mostly everything.  and i'm also going to feed some wires down to the back of the cabinet for my breakout box.  i can run my xbox, ps2, gamecube, dreamcast, etc. on to it too.  i have that wall faceplate thingie on the back of my cabinet.  i plan to have a coax, red white yellow IN, and a cat5 spot on that wallplate. 

i want to have some kind of area on the control panel where i can put controller ports on it.  i have one of those PS/N64 to USB adapter thingies.  maybe even some usb spots cause i've been thinking about doing this to my spare nes, snes, genesis, etc. controllers.ideally, i would like to have the actual controller when i play those sorts of games. 

http://www.retrousb.com/index.html

[IG-88]

hahaha...yeah, it's a pretty big area for the coindoor.  i had to make it 28" wide so that sony tv would fit in there nicely. 

I must be missing something You putting a TV in the bottom also?? 

Oh, and how do you like that Maximus Arcade FE?

[dudebozo]

putting a tv on the bottom...interesting.  i think if i do that, i'll score a spot on that website for the "not so great" mame cabinets.  i haven't had much time lately to work on the cabinet...damn job.  haha. 

yeah, i'm liking that Maximus Arcade FE.  it was recommended by someone in another forum.  when i first built the mame rig, i installed it and was very impressed with it.  my demo trial is up, so i'm just kind of waiting til the mame cabinet is further along until i purchase the full version and stuff.  but yeah, i would recommend it.