I picked up my 3rd cabinet tonight!!!

[severdhed]

i bought my first empty cabinet to mame about 2 weeks before i proposed to my wife, so that one was pretty easy.  ( i didn't tell her i was getting it until it was in the basement).  i mamed it and all was good.  eventually, i named it zakman after our son Zak.  i had talked about getting another cabinet, but she always said "NO".  well, as it turns out, we found out a few weeks ago that we are expecting our second child in December.  well, i can't hardly have a cabinet named after 1 child, and not the other.  so based on that argument,  she agreed that i needed a second cabinet.  i was torn between building a vertical monitor cabinet with spinner, trackball, and 4way stick, or a playstation 2 powered  gun cabinet.  well, i bought a twin tigers cabinet that had been converted to p-47 phantom fighter, thinking that it was not large enough to hold the 26" TV that i had, so i would build the vertical cabinet and give up on the gun cabinet.  well, as it turns out, that cabinet was just wide enough to fit the TV, and since i already had the TV, PS2, and some guns, it just seemed natural to build the gun cabinet instead, since it was much cheaper.   well, i kept hinting around that i really needed another cabinet so i could play Centipede. and after agreeing to get rid of the second couch i have in the basement, she agreed.

i looked around a little while for a suitable cabinet, but couldn't find much.  but then the other day i stopped by a local arcade/play area and talked to the manager...as it turns out, he was the guy i bought my other two cabinets off of.  he wasn't making any money running his own amusements business, so he took a job at this place.  anyway, he had two cabinets he would sell. one i immediately dismissed because it was dropped off of a truck and pretty smashed up in a few places.  the other was what i beleive to be a dynamo cabinet that was a super puzzle fighter 2 cabinet.  it had no monitor or boards. but the marquee, control panel, coin door and monitor glass were all intact.  he let me have it for $20.   

my friend let me borrow his jeep cherokee and we picked up the cabinet and he helped me get it into the basement.  it isn't in the best shape, the sides are a little scraped up and it is pretty dirty, but i'll clean it up this weekend.  i don't mind the beat up look, it makes it seem that much more authentic.

there is only a tiny opening on the back side of the cabinet, there is a wooden tray attached to the metal control panel.  that entire peice slides out, so i can mount the pc motherboard directly to that.    i wasnt sure if this was goign to be my horizontal cabinet with the 8 way sticks adn street fighter layout, or my vertical trackball cabinet..but once i looked at the back of the control panel, i made up my mind.  you can't see by the pic because a new vinyl overlay has been installed, but there are already holes drilled in the metal panel for the 6 button street fighter layout...so this will be my horizontal monitor cabinet.    i can easily rotate the LCD monitor in my zakman cabinet and build  a new panel for it.

there are two 8way sticks in the panel,i havent taken them out yet to see what they are.  they are both very stiff, and the one feels like there is sand or something in it.  there are also two large, strange buttons.  they use a standard button hole, and have two switches on them.  i  don't know what i will do with them, but i'll clean them up just in case i find a use.   

i have a PC i can use for this cabinet.  it is a pentium 4 1.8ghz with 512mb of ram.  i figure if i bump up the ram to 1gb, it should be sufficient for what i need it to do.    i'll probably end up using the x-arcade components that are currently in my zakman cabinet for now, since i already own them.  eventually i'd like to get a keywiz or ipac and happ sticks and buttons.  but money is tight right now and i'd rather spend it on stuff i need, instead of replacing stuff i have.  i'll need an encoder for my vertical cabinet for the 4 way stick and coin and start buttons...i'm thinking of hacking a usb gamepad since they are cheap, but i'm not sure if it is worth it, or if i should just drop the $30 on a keywiz.   i already have the trackball and spinner both setup with mouse hacks.

i will keep the puzzle fighter marquee and probably keep the control panel overlay for now anyway.  i'll try to name this one after our child once it is born, but until we know if it is a boy or girl, and pick a name, there is no point in making new artwork.

 my other concern at this point is the monitor.  from teh looks of the cabinet, it was set up for a 25" monitor.  i was planning on using a 19 or 20" LCD monitor, like i did in my other cabinet...but i am a little concerned that it may look too small.  i don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a monitor though.  i liked the LCD option because i can get one for under $200 and they are lightweight, easy to work with, and interface to the PC easily.  i havent priced arcade monitors, but i doubt i can get a 25" arcade monitor for $200.    i could go the TV route, if i could find one with component input, but am still afraid that it will not look good.  also, it is very difficult to find CRT televisions.

so, any suggestions?

[Kajoq]

Puzzle Fighter rules so hard!  Those buttons are crazy.

[GAJoe]

There are appears to be a cat living inside the cabinet. 

[severdhed]

yeah, that's Joey in the cabinet.  as soon as i brought the cabinet in, he jumped in through the little door in the back.  you can't see it in the picture, but my other cat, Roger is sitting just off to the left of the cabinet watching Joey through the glass.

[GAJoe]

yeah, that's Joey in the cabinet.  as soon as i brought the cabinet in, he jumped in through the little door in the back.  you can't see it in the picture, but my other cat, Roger is sitting just off to the left of the cabinet watching Joey through the glass.

Smokey the Jingle Cat was not pleased when I got the coin door and rear door reinstalled on my cabinet.  No more super hiding place for him.

[RetroJames]

The cat is pretty funny. I have a cab just like that. Good platform for Mame, though I'm 86ing the CP eventually for something more accommodating.

[Ninten-doh]

though I'm 86ing the CP eventually for something more accommodating.

If either of you decide to get rid of your metal cut-corner cp's, please let me know as I would be interested.   

[severdhed]

when i saw the cabinet, i figured it would be a perfect candidate for mame.  it is generic, so no classic value or anything like that.  and if it were my only cabinet, the control panel wouldn't probably be suitable for all of my controls, but since i'll have a dedicated cabinet for trackball, spinner and 4 way games, i can make this one a simple 2 player street fighter layout...so the panel should work just fine.  i'll just need to buy a better hole saw, since the cheap set i bought is only for cutting wood.  all of the standard button holes are already in the metal, just not the plexi..but i need to add an escape button, and possibly a pause button(i still havent made up my mind on that one.  i hate to buy a hole saw just to cut one hole in the panel, but i guess i'll end up using it more down the road. 

my cats are always in/on my cabinets.  if i leave teh back door off, or the coin door open, it doesn't take very long for a cat to jump in there.    they also like to sleep on top of the cabinet or control panel...and i often find that one of them has turned on my zakman cabinet in the middle of the night. (i think they were trying to play Magical Cat Adventures...lol)

i cleaned up the dynamo cabinet this afternoon, and i found $6 in quarters lying in the bottom, so it really ony cost me $14 for the cabinet..

i also found a local guy through craigslist who had some guncon2 guns for sale for my gun cabinet, so i picked those up today.  now i just need to build a new panel for that cabinet and figure out how to make some gun holsters.  unfotunately, i wiped out my cabinet fund by buying the guns this afternoon, so any progress made will have to be with stuff i already own for a little while.  i'll be taking pics of teh process, adn when i get these two cabinets pretty much done, i'll post a project announcement thread.

[Ninten-doh]

This is an extra one that I have that I would trade if either of you are interested.  The holes I colored in are also empty holes.  I just colored them in to mock up a layout recently.