look what I picked up today...

[severdhed]

i had a few minutes to waste this morning, so i drove by the arcade repair shop that i bought my first cabinet from.. the guy is getting ready to close up shop, because he just isnt making an money..i wanted to see if he had any cabinets he would part with for very little money...he had some unknown empty cabinet that had once been an arkanoid game, a donkey kong JR cab that was in pretty rough shape, and this:



he says the powersupply and boards are good, but the monitor is dead.  he sold me the cabinet for $20, and even delivered it to my house (only a few blocks away) for free.

it is in my garage now until my friend comes over tonight to help me get it downstairs into the basement.

it isn't in the best shape, but i am happy with it.  the side art is is really good shape on both sides, with only a few scratches here and there.  the control panel needs redone, but i am going to mame this thing anyway..so no big deal there.  the bezel is kinda cool, and i will try to keep it intact.    i don't know what this cabinet was originally, but for $20, i couldn't pass it up.

he is getting rid of stuff, and was about to throw away a control panel to a final lap 2 player cabinet, so he gave it to me for free.  he also has the full side by side final lap cabinet, with monitor glass, that i can have for $20 if i want it.  he no longer has the seats, and the cabinet is empty.  i would love to have it, but i just don't have the room.    it looks like this:



i hate to pass it up, but i dont know if you can even do a mame cabinet with a side by side setup like that.

i'll take more pics as i go along.  i'm probably going to do a standard street fighter setup in this cabinet for horizontal games, and then rotate my monitor so it is vertical in my other cabinet and install the 4 way, trackball and spinner.

[Ginsu Victim]

Looks good enough. Good find

[IG-88]

Keep us posted on what you do with that P-47. I liked that game.

[severdhed]

well, i plugged the cabinet in tonight, it makes a humming sound, but nothing else seems to happen.  my friend came over to help me get it into the basement, we removed the dead monitor and the power supply to take some weight out of it...(it is a heavy cabinet).  we eventually got it down stairs and next to my other cabinet....it is a good bit larger than my first cabinet.  it is quite a few inches taller, 2 inches wider, and a little deeper.  it had a 20" monitor in it, so i had planned on getting a 19 or 20" LCD pc monitor, since they are easy to work with, and i am pretty happy with the one in my other cabinet.    but once i started looking at the size of this cabinet, and did a little measuring, it looks like the 26" tv that i brought downstairs the other day will fit into it perfectly.  so now i have a dilemma.

i originally wanted 2 cabinets, that way i could have one with a horizontal monitor, with two 8way sticks and 6 buttons each, and one with a vertical monitor, with a 4way stick, trackball, spinner and 3 buttons. 

then the other day i saw a lightgun game at a local pizza place, and it really got me wanting a lightgun cabinet.  from what i read, doing multiple lightguns in mame is a pain in the butt, so i decided that i would use a console.  i already have a 26" TV that rarely gets used, so my wife said i could use it, and i already have plenty of old game consoles sitting around...i picked up a few lightguns and games and have been playing them with the tv sitting on the bar in the basement.  i thought i would try to find a cabinet to put that stuff in and make a gun cabinet.  i could then just install the trackball, spinner and 4way into my existing horizontal cabinet.

so today when i brought the new cabinet home, i figured the tv wouldn't fit, so i'd build my veritical cabinet instead...but as it turns out, i think the TV will fit as long as i move one of the internal shelves down a few inches.    due to the design of this cabinet (shallow control panel, and the monitor is not slanted back at all, it goes straight up and down)  it would be ideal for the gun cabinet.  but i kinda have my heart set on a vertical monitor cabinet. 

another option i guess would be to install both a PC and a ps2 into this cabinet using the TV as the monitor.  the only problem is, the TV only has composite video inputs, i don't know how well that will work for the PC side of things.  i could use this has my horizontal cabinet, install two 8ways and 6 buttons each, and also put gun holsters on, and have it set to use either the pc or the ps2, and then rotate the LCD in my other cabinet so that it is vertical, and install the trackball, spinner and 4way stick. 

so, my question now is, does anyone here use a TV and composite video for their mame cabinet, and if so, are you happy with the picture?  i think the video card in my working cabinet has S-video out, and i think i have an adapter around here somewhere to convert that to composite video..so i guess i could hook it up to the TV and see how it works.  i will just have to make a new MALA layout since i am currently runnign everythign at 1280x1024.  i guess 640x480 will be all i can use if i use the TV. 



on  a side note, the new cabinet has two 8way Wico leaf sticks in it.  i havent taken them out of the panel yet, or hooked them up to anything, but they seem to feel pretty good.  they don't click like my microswitch sticks, which is a little weird, but i may hook them up to my other cabinet to see how they fell during actual gameplay.  i dont' know if i am going to use them in either of the cabinets though, because i am not a big fan of ball top sticks, except for my 4way stick for the classics.

[severdhed]

i just hooked up my existing cabinet to my TV via composite video, and while it looks OK from a few feet away, when you are as close to the screen as you would be if it were in the cabinet, it is blurry and hard on your eyes.  so now I know i can't have the best of both worlds.  i am going to have to choose between a gun cabinet, and a vertical classics cabinet.    I may go try to move a shelf down a little and try to get the TV in there..i'm just a little concerned with the weight of it.  the shelf that is in there now sits on a few little strips of wood that appear to be nailed or stapled to the side of the cabinet...i think if i am going to install a TV, i will need a brace in the middle or something, like a 2x4 that goes to the bottom of the cabinet.   i guess first things first, i need to clean out the cabinet and remove the boards.

[severdhed]

i decided since i had most of the stuff already, i'd go with the TV and the PS2 and make a lightgun cabinet out of it.  the TV was a really, really tight fit.  i made a shelf for it to sit on, and tried to get it to go into the cabinet...but it was too tight, so i had to remove the wood strips that the monitor glass sits on.  then i tried again, but it just wouldn't go in, so i had to remove the speaker panel, and also the strips that it attaches to to finally get it in.  then i put all of those pieces back in, only to find out that i forgot to account for the thickness of the wood when i measured where my tv shelf should be, so i had to tear it all back apart and lower the shelf about an inch.  i got it all put back together and hooked up the PS2.  right now it just sits in the bottom of the cabinet, and i can access it through the coin door.  i  need a new monitor glass, i'll probably go with plexi since it is cheap and easy to work with.  i also need to design a marquee, and cut a board to replace the control panel, and add gun holsters.    but i can do that a little at a time.  i removed all of the controls from the panel and installed 2 bolts that i can use to hold the guns in place temporarily.  I also need to extend the cables on the guns, since they are a little short.  but that should be pretty easy.  now i just need to find another guncon 2, and perhaps some dreamcast guns. 

my wife says i'm not allowed to get a 3rd cabinet...but i think once i get this one finished, i'll just bring one home one day and she'll just have to deal with it

i'll post some pics in the next day or so