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My Mameroom Ultimate Arcade II review

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wbassett:
First let me start by saying three things I always wanted are:
[*]A pool table
[*]An arcade machine (or several)
[*]A projector system for a Home Theater[/list]

I have the Home Theater setup- a 106" diagonal screen with the Panasonic ax200u projector, and I am working on my arcade. (Every 'Theater needs at least one arcade machine right? :) ) and when I finish that I'll be getting a pool table... so life is grand!

I'm pretty savvy with the internet, and I am a network engineer by profession, so I know my way around computers and electronics.  I found that everytime I start a new hobby I always find sites like this after I get started.  It's mainly because when you first start you don't know what to look for or sometimes sites are buried in search engines and you may not find them right away.

For my first arcade cab I went with the Ultimate Arcade II.  As much as many will cringe, I went with their kit.  I assessed my wood working skills and tools and knew I would make some major mistakes, and for my first cab I really am more concerned with actual game setup and functionality right now.  Eventually I will build my own, especially after finding this site!

Okay enough of the introductions.  I have to upload my pictures, which I will do this weekend.  Here are my comments on their kit.

I did a search and read through several pages on the Ultimate Arcade II but mainly saw people building from the plans and not many on the pre-made kit.

The kit is expensive compared to buying the plans, but everything is pre-cut and all the parts are there (with the exception of T-molding, more on that later though).

My son was up on vacation for two weeks and he was very interested in doing this project with me.  In that respect, the UAII kit is a breeze.  Assembly is straight forward and very easy.  We did it in two evenings, but if you start Saturday morning, you'll be finished by suppertime with no problem at all.

Fit and finish is good, all panels go together easily and overall it is sturdy, but not 'rock solid'.  That is probably the biggest thing to consider.  Since it will primarily be my wife and I that use it, we won't be shaking it to death, but if you are an aggressive player, or if you know a bunch of kids will be using it, I would add extra supports.

The problem is it uses LPL press board.  I have lots of MDF laying around that I have used for other projects and this definitely isn't MDF from what I see on the edges.  That doesn't mean this is bad, but there are some potential problems that I'll mention.

The biggest problem I see and already mentioned is it needs some extra bracing and support.  EVERYTHING is secured together with Sauder style fasteners.  That a lot of weight depending on just a few cam fasteners.  The bottom isn't a problem unless you want to mount wheels, and if you ever want to move this after it's finished and has a 27" monitor, cp, speakers, PC and full electronics you'll wish you put wheels on!

Here's where one of the biggest structural problems comes into play.  The entire cab is supported by the lower assembly side panels.  The bottom panel is actually slightly recessed and isn't flush with the side panels.  This is actually nice if you want to put low profile appliance casters on the cab like I did.  You won't even see the wheels!  The problem is that now all the weight is supported by eight cams and eight cam pins.  It is easy enough to add a bracing frame inside to prevent the cam pins from ripping out of the press board under the stress and weight.  The other way they could have constructed this was to have the bottom panel go the entire width of the cabinet and then the sides would sit on the bottom and you could attach wheels to it without any worries.

The monitor shelf area could use a little extra bracing in my opinion too, but it's not as much of a problem as the bottom panel and adding wheels.

Now for the back.  I personally think this is a cool looking cab for something so easy to make, but for all the fit and finish the rest of the UAII has, the back is lacking a professional look.  I will concede that there are some tough angles that they had to contend with, but the back panels have gaps that are clearly visible and then when you throw in that the edges of the press board show in these areas... it looks pretty bad.  I saw one person comment that the back panels connect from the inside, and for all but the main back panel that's true.  They really aren't hard to get to and screw in though.   I would have liked to have had a door on the back rather than a panel I have to screw and unscrew anytime I want access.  It's not only just the added PITA aspect, but over time I can see the pressboard rounding out in the screw areas and then the screws will be loose or not hold at all.

The Keyboard drawer is simplistic and functional, but if you plan on doing any lengthy configurations that require the keyboard, it can be awkward to use for lengthy periods.  My knee was blown out at the time and I had to sit in a chair and accessing the keyboard was absolutely miserable.  This is where a hinged front on the drawer would have really been nice.  All in all though, it's only a minor issue since we won't be using a keyboard all that often.

T-Molding:
I am not knocking Mameroom at all.  Overall I am very happy with the UAII kit, but it isn't perfect.  (Is anything?)  It could however be improved... but one thing that was lacking for a kit that costs $500 is T-molding!  At a minimum they should have supplied at least the standard black and then sold the other colors as an option (although I see no reason why a person couldn't specify a different color if they wanted it).  Their pricing on T-molding is extremely reasonable and competitive.  In fact it was the least expensive of anyplace I checked.  They have all the basic colors, but if you want something fancy you'll have to look elsewhere.

All the T-Molding slots were clean and centered perfectly.  There was only on spot that had some minor debris that I had to use a screw driver to remove.  It took me all of twenty minutes (probably less actually) to put the T-Molding on, and this was after the cabinet was fully assembled.

The reason why I put it on after assembly... For whatever reason, I assumed black T-molding was included and it was not.  Since this was a father/son project and we had limited time to do this, we went ahead and put the cabinet together and I ordered the T-molding.  It wasn't the worse shipping I ever dealt with, but it wasn't the fastest either.  I ordered early in the week hoping to get it by the weekend, but even though the order was processed, it wasn't shipped for a couple of days, which threw the delivery off until the following week.

Other than that, this is a very nice cabinet that is super easy to construct and reasonably solid.  Anyone with basic tools can assemble this with ease.  From start to game play... two evenings!  Now I already had my MAME PC setup, and to ensure we would be able to play before my son had to go home to PA, I also ordered a TankStick.  Once the cabinet was together, we just put everything inside and fired it up!

As I said, I will be adding pictures this weekend.  I still have to do the extra frame bracing that I mentioned but it's up and my wife and I play it all the time while I am designing the final CP and I add the artwork.

Oh, one last thing to mention, Marquee retainers and plexi...

Save yourself some money on the retainers.  I used some clear plastic corner trim that was something like $2 at Home Depot.  I sprayed it black and screwed it down and it works perfectly.  As far as the marquee plexi, Mameroom charges $10 for it pre-cut to the right size.  If you're worried about cutting plexi without cracking it, the $10 isn't bad.  Otherwise I just used some thin plexi I had and cut it myself.

Havok:
Nice writeup - I look forward to seeing the pictures of your build. What about the software end of things? Are you planning on multiple emulators, and what front end are you considering to launch the games?

wbassett:
Right now I am using MAMEUI32.  Keep in mind I started this project before finding this site!  I probably would have gone a different route if I had known about this site first.  Definitely putting a link to it on the forum where I moderate for home theater stuff!

My son wants me to add an Xbox to it, and I already have a PS3 and Dreamcast, so yeah down the road I probably will try to integrate those as well.

I'm still looking at front ends and haven't decided on one yet.  To be honest, at this point I haven't played around with too many enough to make a decision.

wbassett:
I thought my son took more pictures during the build, but guess not.  These should be enough though and then I'll take some of the 'semi-finished' cab.  The bezel, monitor, marquee artwork, and cp are all temp just so we could get it up and running while he was here on vacation...

There is no reason to show a step by step of the build, it really is that straight forward and easy.

Here is the lower section on its side with the bottom panel installed.  I don't know if you can make it out in the picture, but the bottom panel isn't flush with the bottom of the sides. 

Also shown are the appliance casters I used.  No fear of these not being able to support the weight- they are designed to put under refrigerators/freezers so you can move them around more easily.  No MAME or arcade cabinet that I know of would exceed the weight capacity of these.  I like them because of their strength and they are very low profile.


Here are the casters mounted on the bottom panel.

Lower Cab finished with casters installed and standing up.  It rolls around easily but you can't see the wheels and they only add less than a 1/4" to the height.

Next is the speaker panel and speakers.  I didn't go nuts with audio because it's just an arcade and not a THX sound system or anything like that.  Surprisingly though the car speakers sound much better than either my son or I thought they would.  They are just some cheapo 4" Durabrands I bought at Walmart and are hooked into a 30W powered subwoofer I had laying around for a 2.1 system. (Except for the UAII and TankStick, and speakers, everything else were things I literally had laying around not being used)
One thing to note about the UAII speaker panel- They cut out curved slots and although it somewhat looks like a 'grill' there is a lot of wood still there.  Still, in the end it sounds much better than I expected.  Second note, the 'grill area' isn't black on the inside where they made the cuts.  You'll definitely want to paint them black or they will look terrible.

Here's an inside shot from the back of the cabinet of the speaker panel and light installed.  For the light I had a 20" fluorescent light that I also had laying around brand new and never used.  They are pretty cheap though at Walmart.  I think new it costs $10 or less.  Just use the included paper template for the mounts, screw them in then snap the light in place.

Here is the wiring run for the marquee lighting and speakers.  Yes, I know... power and speaker wires in the same run... I would never do this for a home theater install, but I wasn't as concerned about fidelity here.  If I ran into a 60hz buzz in the speakers I would have moved them to the other side of the cab.

Last  picture for now.  I decided I did not want a permanent power cord coming out of the back of my console.  What I did was I got a switch/outlet combo.  I wired it so that the switch turns on and off the power from the outlet.  I made a power cable with two male ends, one for the wall outlet and the other plugs into the switched outlet.  On the inside (and I'll take more pictures of that) I used a good surge suppressor warrantied up to $10,000 of equipment protection.  I cut the plug off and wired that to my 'on/off switch'.  Now I just flip the switch and the cab has power.

I haven't decided whether I want to make a relay to also turn the PC on, or just relocate the PC power button to some inconspicuous location on the console.

Other than the wheels and power switch addition, the rest is all stock kit.  I will be adding some braces on the bottom to support the weight better though.

I'll get the pictures of the top and bottom together as well as with the T-Molding in place.  This isn't anything super fancy or anything like that, just showing the build of an Ultimate Arcade II is all. :)

Ease factor- 5 Stars
Quality- 4 1/2 Stars
Value- 3 Stars, unless you have absolutely no wood working skills or want a super quick cab, then it's 4 Stars.  (If T-Molding and Shipping were included in the price I'd give it 4 1/2 Stars, but it is a bit expensive, shipping was $80, but it is heavy and came in four boxes... but still, a little salty for some I am sure at $530)

wbassett:
Here are some shots of the completed cabinet up an running with the TankStick.

This is just a semi-temporary control panel because I am planning on building a custom modular panel.  For now it works great and lets us play games while I work on the main control panels.




Here is a shot of the keyboard drawer.


And one of the TankStick.  Since I knew this was going to be a temp setup, I made a shelf out of MDF and painted it black and put satin poly on it.  It looks a lot better than the raw rough looking MDF and actually this is rather nice because it also allows us to have a spot to put soda's on!


Here is a shot of the Marquee.  It looks better than in the picture.  This isn't anything fancy or thought out, I just wanted some artwork up while I decide on the final look.  This is a Marvel super hero poster that I just trimmed and put behind some pexi.


A shot of the Defender game screen.


Here are a couple looking from the hallway door into the room with everything on!  Chronical's of Riddick is on the projector, Assassin's Creed is on the SXRD from the PS3, and then the Arcade in the corner!  First is all lights on, which include three 60W bulbs off to the left of the screen and a 60W lamp in the adjacent corner of the room.  The next shot is with lights out.



Another gatuitous shot with just the three 60W bulbs on...


This should give anyone interested the amount of light we're talking about and it's location to the screen.


And then some of the other 'toys' I have to rig up to the arcade for the modular panel.



This one is kinda interesting... It's not a real coin door but a printed sticker! It looks real until you get up close to it and is a nice, yet easy finishing touch.  I plan on getting a real coin door though but for a different reason- I plan on converting the coin slot push buttons into on/off switches for the computer and sound system.  That's a bit overkill though for some, so I wanted to show how good this printed decal looks.

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