Building a Cabinet, looking for suggestions, comments, and occasional help :-)

[Lecithin]

Hello,
My name is Adrian and this is my first post on these forums (yay!). I am a Technology Education teacher that teaches a broad range of courses (robotics, woodworking, drafting, etc) and am about to undertake making a Mame cabinet. I've always been a big gamer and my inspiration (although I've thought about this for years) came to me when one of my students built a cabinet for his senior exhibition (big project they have to make to graduate). Anywho, I was his advisor for it and it wound up in my classroom for a few days, long story short the obsession has begun.

After doing a lot of research I have come up with a few questions I was hoping someone could help me with.

1) I've done a layout for my CP (pic below). I was wondering what people thought of the layout, are the buttons close enough (or too far), is the layout crowded? Basically, what opinions do people have of the layout?

2) I have a two joysticks set up and am wondering if I should put a dedicated 4 way on as well? This questions kind of hinges on question 3

3) I want to play a lot of games on this CP and was wondering what my best joystick choice is (I know you've heard the question a thousand times). I've read a bunch of reviews, read the forums, and done a lot of research but without having touched most of them I don't know the specifics.  Anywho, I was thinking of a Mag Stik+ or UltraStik360 as my main joysticks (or possible only if they're as good as advertised), but that is the question, are they good enough to run 4 and 8 way without a problem or should I put a dedicated 4 way in as well (question 2), and if they're not that great should I use another combo of sticks rather then shelling out $60 each for a controller that won't do what I want? (I thought about J-stiks, Happ Supers, etc).

4) Monitor question.... I want to be in the 25" range and I've looked up some monitors, TVs, etc, but I've no idea what the best/most popular combo is. I know you can go one of three ways but can anyone give me an example of a set up they've used and been happy with?


Any ideas, comments, suggestions, or concerns are very much appreciated.

Also, a list of items I hope to include in the cabinet
Horizontal Microswitch buttons (Happ)
3" Trackball (Happ)
USB (there will be some USBs hidden under the controls for 4 player/other uses)
The keyboard will also be under the CP
the coin button will be under the CP (with the USBs behind a lockable, slidable plate)
I may add guns later
The cabinet will be 3/4" MDX except the controls 5/8" + 1/8 plexi

[Franco B]

Hi Adrian, welcome to the forum madness!

Your CP looks pretty good to me, ill give you my input to your questions.

1) Your general layout seems pretty good. I would try to bunch your buttons a little closer together as they look a little far apart to me to be played comfortably for fighters etc. Personally I think you want the buttons nearly touching but so that you have room to tighten the nuts. The Capcom (Street Fighter 2 etc) buttons spacing is 1-1/2" but personally I still think its a little to far apart. There is plenty of info on button spacing and layout types [here].

The best thing for you to do would be to decide on a layout and then make a mock up CP out of some cardboard etc and mount the buttons/joys in it to get a feel of what is right for you.

I assume the buttons above the TB are TB buttons? You could get rid of them and use two of PL1 or PL2 buttons if you wish.

2/3) I would say that unless you are a stickler for a genuine 4-way stick then I would just use a pair or U360s. They will give you the widest range of control schemes for the least amount of controls. You wont be able to play Qbert very easily with any of the other setups unless you mounted a 4-way stick at 45 degrees. I say just go with the U360s, I know many people are more than happy with them.

4) I'm not much of a monitor Guru (or any kind of Guru for that matter  ), I'm sure someone else can help you with that aspect.

Good luck with your project. Do you have any ideas for the cabinet design? It will be interesting to see what you come up with with your background. Maybe you could add a coin door and build a robotic arm to add quarters for you 

[cmoses]

Adrian,

Welcome to the forum.  I have had the desire to put together a MAME cabinet for years.  I moved into a new house this year and finally got my game room so I found a old cabinet and have been working on it over the summer and fall.  It is up and working and I love it.  Only problem is that I want more.  The cabinet I got was a Taito cabinet, mainly used for single player vertical games.  It had been converted to a 1943 Battle of Midway, so it was a 2 player machine.  It was a great starting point, got the cabinet for cheap, refinished it, used the control panel that came with it, just added a MiniPAC to enable it to talk to my computer and a LCD monitor.  Was up and running pretty quickly.

Well once you get a taste you want more and more.  The control panel is a 2 player with 2 buttons each.  Well that's a good start but you quickly find games that require more buttons and different controllers.  I am now looking at a larger cabinet so I can get more buttons, a trackball and spinners.  You look like you have all that in your plans.

I cant answer some of your questions because I haven't gotten there yet but the one thing I can answer is your joystick question.  Go with the U360's.  They are a little pricey, but well worth every penny.  My control panel had 2 Wico 8-way joysticks.  They are highly regarded, but did not work well for all games.  I did a lot of research and the U360's seemed to be the best solution.  I ordered one to test and was blown away once I installed it.  I am using the plug-in that maps the joystick before the game starts.  I ordered a second one the next day after seeing the difference in my games.  They just work for everything, 2-way, 4-way, 8-way, diagonal (Q*Bert) and analog.  I am very happy with them and highly recommend them. 

Good luck with your project.

[Lecithin]

First off, Franco thank you a lot for the link. I was hoping there was a site that would explain the buttons and layouts a bit better then my own understanding. I knew of the 6 button layout and the Neo Geo, but I wasn't sure of the specifics. I also wasn't 100% sure why there were button layouts that to me seemed logical (curved like the hand) but most were straight.  Anywho, I spent a lot of time looking at the layouts and the info and have come up with version 2 of my CP (I've attached pics with the dimensions).

The buttons end up being 1-7/16" apart (I could shoot for 1-3/8" but I can't go much closer since the Happ buttons are 1.3"). Essentially I placed my hand where I thought it would be comfortable (joystick hand and button hand) and decided that I would end up with pretty close to the layout posted below (slightly curved and my hands at a slight angle inward). My natural hand layout is a little closer together but again, the buttons don't allow and its not logical to put them as close as my hand would like.

Blah, anyway, enough of the explanation, here are my questions (again, anywho and everyone is more then welcome to comment!)

1) If I get rid of the TB buttons, am I still going to be able to map the controls so that in my front end and Mame the 1 and 2 player buttons function as intended and in windows they work as mouse clicks? I assume assign mouse click 1 and 2 to the 1 and 2 player in mame, and then outside of mame it just goes back to right and left click?

2) Regarding the Ultra 360, I'm doing some more reading up on it but have two questions. First a few details, I want the ball top and I'm thinking the long shaft (does anyone have pics of the long and short staff on a CP?)
     a) What is the best set up?, I enjoy a lot of games and can't say I'll completely favor one style of game over another (I love Street Fighter, Metal Slug, PacMan, etc) so what do people think is a good set up for the Ultra 360? Stiff spring? Octagonal restricter? Circle restricter?
     b) Concerning mapping the controls, how does it work exactly? I've read the Ultimarc page but I like to make sure I'm 100% before I put my money down. I map out the controls for a game (say PacMan for example). When my front end (does this work with Mame as well?) loads PacMan it also loads my mapped joystick controller? I switch to a new game and it loads the next?

Again, thanks for the help and I greatly appreciate any and all input!