My new project

[Thebeast]

This is my Neo-Geo 2 Cart MVS/MGS that I got off of Craigslist for 150.00

I have been wanting to build a MAME cab for nearly 2 years, slowly getting a few parts at a time. I currently have an IPAC, a complete SF2 CP kit with 2 8 way joysticks, 6 buttons per player and P1 and P2 buttons.  I also have a P4 2.8ghz Dell that I am planning to put in the cab along with a 21' NEC multisync CRT.

I have looked around on this site for a while and have a lot of ideas I want to try out. I plan to gut this machine and strip it down eventually making an awesome MAME cab.

This will be my first BYOAC project and I thought it would be cool to post my progress as it comes along. Feel free to give any suggestions if you see me doing any no-no's lol.

The cab is beat up, covered in graffiti and repainted over. It also has several holes in the wood which I am assuming came from security bars that were once on this system.

[Epyx]

This looks like it will be a great first project.  It's amazing how many 2.8ghz P4s are finding their way into Mame cabs hehe...quite the resilient little CPU.

[cmoses]

Looks like a great project to tackle.  What size monitor does it currently have?  Control panel looks pretty worn, but the rest seems stable.  You planning to sand it all down and repaint it?

Got any pictures of the outside sides?

[Thebeast]

I have not actually measured the screen yet but I would guess @ 20in. I didn't take any pictures of the sides yet but I will post them on here before I strip them down.

[Thebeast]

This looks like it will be a great first project.  It's amazing how many 2.8ghz P4s are finding their way into Mame cabs hehe...quite the resilient little CPU.

Yeah, being in IT I usually end up with lots of "gently used" systems. I always have some project or another that I am going to use them for.... and then they sit in my garage for a year until I have a yard sale lol.

This one is definitely getting made into an arcade though

[Thebeast]

Small Update:

I couldn't get my 21' CRT to fit the way I wanted in this cab even after gutting it from it's case.  I instead mounted a 19' LCD in the opening and I know this is puny and small compared to many of the folks here but I don't have a bunch of money and the LCD I already had. So far it looks pretty good and I think I will be happy with it.

I have added 3 more buttons on to each player one and player 2.  so each player actually has 7 buttons I am planning a street fighter / mortal kombat layout with the 7th button possibly being for "Coin" (I actually have a working coin door but I'm not sure if I plan on using it.) I know this is blasphemy.

I cleaned off all of the adhesive from the CP (the old art had been glued to the steel) and painted it black for now.  I ordered some "Cherry Wood" Contact paper and once it comes in I am going to test how it looks on the CP and monitor bezel. If I can make it not look completely ghetto I think the wood grain will give it that old school look.

All of the holes in the wood from all of the security hardware have just been filled in with bondo, sanded and the entire cabinet now is covered in black primer.

I think I have everything I need to get this together once I get the CP looking how I want I will install the buttons and joysticks and get that all wired up. Once the hardware is setup then I get to play with the front end and all of the emulators I want to run on here.

I will post some more pics this week hopefully. My camera batteries are dead so if I don't remember to pick some up you guys will get to see the awful pictures my blackberry takes lol.

[severdhed]

Small Update:

I couldn't get my 21' CRT to fit the way I wanted in this cab even after gutting it from it's case.  I instead mounted a 19' LCD in the opening and I know this is puny and small compared to many of the folks here but I don't have a bunch of money and the LCD I already had. So far it looks pretty good and I think I will be happy with it.

I have added 3 more buttons on to each player one and player 2.  so each player actually has 7 buttons I am planning a street fighter / mortal kombat layout with the 7th button possibly being for "Coin" (I actually have a working coin door but I'm not sure if I plan on using it.) I know this is blasphemy.

I cleaned off all of the adhesive from the CP (the old art had been glued to the steel) and painted it black for now.  I ordered some "Cherry Wood" Contact paper and once it comes in I am going to test how it looks on the CP and monitor bezel. If I can make it not look completely ghetto I think the wood grain will give it that old school look.

All of the holes in the wood from all of the security hardware have just been filled in with bondo, sanded and the entire cabinet now is covered in black primer.

I think I have everything I need to get this together once I get the CP looking how I want I will install the buttons and joysticks and get that all wired up. Once the hardware is setup then I get to play with the front end and all of the emulators I want to run on here.

I will post some more pics this week hopefully. My camera batteries are dead so if I don't remember to pick some up you guys will get to see the awful pictures my blackberry takes lol.

nothing wrong with that.  i have a 19" LCD in my cabinet and it works great

[DashRendar]

Did you have to discharge the old monitor to remove it? 

Looks like the flyback transformer was exposed.   

Anyway, with some sanding, bondo and new paint, I bet that cab will be good as new.

[Thebeast]

I don't know if I actually needed to or not but I was nervous about it so I did the whole screwdriver through the suction cup and discharged it. There was no noticeable arc or sound but it made me feel safer lol.

[Thebeast]

Well I haven't updated this in almost a year, I guess an update is due... I guess I should explain that I have 6 kids and the attention span of ... oh look Office Space is on T.V., I love this show.

When I purchased this cabinet I didn't really want a beautiful cabinet. I just wanted to have my own arcade. My original plans were to just fill in the worst of the holes, slap some black paint on it and throw a bit of contact paper on the CP and monitor bezel and I did all of those things. It looked alright but not gorgeous by anyone's standards. I have still not played a single game on this machine due to a combination of lack of tools, faulty parts, lost parts, lack of funds and no small amount of laziness on my part but we will get to all of that soon enough.

For now how about I upload those pics I mentioned oh so long ago?



If you look towards the bottom of the control panel you will see that contact paper was either a dumb idea or more likely very poorly implemented by me.



I like to call this one, "eyeballing where to drill holes in a control panel is a dumb idea". As you can see my player 2 buttons are far from evenly squared up.

[Thebeast]

I decided to wire up the CP and throw a PC in this thing and get some games going. The cut corner control panel for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of trying to wire switches in one of these is a giant PITA.  You basically get the inside of a V shape to work in, its a small space and the angles make it impossible to see what you are doing if you have big ham hock hands like I do. Despite all of this I was determined I was going to wire it up and I was going to play a game.

If you've been reading previous posts, you know this didn't happen. I was all excited, I was going to be one of the cool kids with my own arcade. I fire up MAME, load a game and my player one right direction and player one button 2 are both not working. My first thought is that in that tiny little V shaped box I either had a short or a loose connection. My first thought was wrong. After much testing (and no small amount of choice words) I came to the realization that buying a used Ipac on Ebay to save 15 bucks had been a stupid choice. Those two ports on the board are toast.

At this point I have several hundred bucks wrapped up in a cabinet that although I wouldn't say its ugly, it certainly isn't a thing of beauty and only fully works on the 2 Player side. You can imagine my wife's happiness to hear that I was going to be spending more money because I tried to cut corners and be cheap. This is where a large part of the delay since my last post comes in. Sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie   

I have recently convinced her (with the help of my begging children lol) that a keywiz was something I needed to buy. The new part has arrived but now I see that the layout of the keywiz board is completely different from my Ipac board layout. This wouldn't be an issue had I not taken the extra time of cutting every wire to length and bundling them when I wired the Ipac. Now I have to re-wire the inside of the dreaded V.



This is my quasi defective Ipac. I think I will save it anyway and use it for a single player controller somewhere along the line.



And here is my shiny new toy.

[drventure]

Sorry to hear about all the troubles. That used IPAC sounds like a pain.

And I definitely know a thing or two about "if its worth doing, it's worth doing twice"   

I guess I'd say, chalk this one up as a learning exercise, get it working and have fun with it, and then lay out plans for the next build 

[Thebeast]

Now that I have looked at Ond's thread my first idea was to go in my garage and catch my cabinet on fire....

On second thought I will not be destroying my cabinet but I do think since I am still in the earlier part of my build I think I am going to strip my cabinet down again and try for a shiny automotive finish. I do understand that my skills are definitely not on par with Ond's but I think after seeing that build I have to do better lol.

I have bookmarked and plan to use the finishing technique that Javeryh posted / used on the Bella cabinet.

I'm really starting to dislike the cut corner CP and I may and up making a custom control panel if I ever figure out how I want to attach it.




I want to say thanks to all of you guys on here for all of the awesome ideas and feedback. It may take me another 10 years but I am determined to have my dream arcade.