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My Cabinet: The Final Chapter
Chris:
Planning mounting the monitor. It fits in quite nicely; here's a diagram of how it fits in. I'll use this to plan where to add mounting parts; it's unfortunate 1UP doesn't have his monitor brackets available. right now.
Chris:
Still haven't mounted that monitor. I've been working on the insides instead.
I finally settled on an Athlon 64 4000+ on a Biostar GeForce-6100 motherboard It brings a few games that I really wanted on my cab frustratingly close to playable: Cruis'n USA, Soul Edge, Tekken, CarnEvil, etc. So for the first time in my life I'm actually experimenting with overclocking. The processor's native speed is 2.4 GHz; I had it up to 2.8 for a short time but couldn't keep it stable. Right now it's running well at 2.6 after adding a heat sink to the motherboard's onboard GPU, upon which I could have fried teeny tiny eggs. The board and processor support AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet, so when there's no CPU activity the speed drops to 1.1 GHz; starting MAME brings it up to full speed in less than a quarter of a second. It'll be interersting when I get to the front-end selection phase to see if it runs at 1.1 or 2.6 while running the front end.
I think all my major expenditures are over. I have all kinds of nickel and dime ideas that, if all implemented, could add up in a huge hurry to close to an extra grand. I think the last place I'm going to really spend money is on artwork; I've printed my marquees and CPO in the past but this time I may have them professionally done. I do need to think of a new theme, though. My cab currently has MAME plastered all over it, which I'm sick of, and the "nebula/stars" artwork and paintjob just didn't look as good as I was expecting. I was really taken by the nice clean look of some of the more abstract sideart designs like the grid currently on the news page, or the stripes on the Starfighter cabinet. I like lines; I may go with something reminiscent of Tron without actually making it a Tron theme.
The other major hurdle is the control panel. Yes, I still haven't decided on a new control panel design. Part of me is tempted to just keep what I have, as it's worked for years, but I've never been truly happy with it. I haven't even completely decided what controls to include! The dedicated 4-way is probably going to go; I only use it for Donkey Kong anyway. The trackball is a must-stay, and it's center point must be at least 6-8 inches from the glass. But I still don't know whether to keep my Supers, or go to switchable sticks or U360's. I'd love to use the U360's but it's hard to justify sinking another $200 into the cabinet to help out the handful of games that need it. It wouldn't be such a pain if those few games weren't among the best. :-\
Anyway, enough rambling. I need to force myself to select a CP design soon so I can start the woodwork.
Bobbler:
Just a thought regarding the modular control panel. I was thinking about the ability of your daughter to plug them in being an issue. Being 12 myself (though quite some time ago LOL), I thought back to things of an arcade nature that I would have been playing with back then. I came up with the NES games console where you would swap a game cartridge over.
So how about using a circuit board type connection, like you have on a PC PCI/AGP slot? Should work out pretty good as its a sturdy reliable connection designed to be swapped out all the time.
http://www.coin.demon.co.uk/-video.htm#conn
Just my two cents :)
In addition to that you could have connection points wired at both front and back of the panel (and removable controls) which would allow the option of flipping them 180 AND holding them in place
Chris:
The more I think and tinker the more I'm moving away from modular/removable designs. I came up with an idea last night where I might be able to keep it all in one panel within the natural sides of the cabinet if I keep my diamond button layout rather than convert to a Neo-Geo layout. It's not ideal, but it's always about compromise. As it is, with lighting and LCD wiring and everything, the connections are going to be a bear as it is.
Chris:
Augh! Everything is just going to be so tight internally!
I think I'm going to have to pre-build this in 1/3 scale to make sure it all fits. 1/4" foamcore should make a perfect stand-in for MDF.
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