Hello all. It's time to make myself known and to give back to the community which has caused me great joy these last four months. I have completed my cabinet and posted the results.
http://mtrello1.tripod.comI have been reading through these various forums religiously for the last five months but this is my first posting. In December I constructed my first cabinet over the course of two weeks, getting it into working working by my New Years Eve party. It was a huge hit. Of course, it took another two months to finally get the marquee ordered and installed. Tough to find the time when I was playing on it non-stop. Although the design pales in comparison to some of the highly original works shown here, I'm quite proud of it. I had marginal woodworking skills at best, but it was a great experience and I learned much from it. I consider all the goofs just as adding to its 'personality'.
The site gives a fairly detailed account of the cabinet's construction, simple enough for a novice (like I was) to follow and use for ideas. I took a slew of pics with my handy digicam. I had been distributing a CD version to interested parties locally and was harrassed by my friends to make it web accessible.
Yes, it uses an X-arcade as the controller... for now. I wanted the machine running as soon as possible (I'm not real patient) and that was a solution that worked for me. The price was right and the size was acceptable to the significant other. I will have my custom CP complete in the next month or so, and post pics of it on the site. Nothing too fancy.
I hope this helps anyone who is hesitant to construct their own Mame cab. It's really not that scary.
Thanks for all the help you didn't know you gave me.
I welcome any questions or remarks.