Saying Hello and Laying out my plans

[Indyplumber]

Hello,

I've been interested in a custom arcade cabinet since I discovered MAME about 10 years ago.  But life has been keeping me occupied all this time.  I've thrown down the Gauntlet and exorcised my Ghost n Goblins and now I'm going ahead with this.  My disease came back to me at Christmas when my wife bought the family a 52" Sharp Aquas TV for our loft.  This left the 27" Phillips that was up there without a home.  That's when I began to get the hunger again.  I've had a complete set of roms for about a year now and I'm tired of trying to play Black Tiger and Ikari Warriors on a keyboard.  Thankfully I've kept most of my bookmarks for the various Arcade websites and I'm so grateful this is one of them.  I have spent most of this past week and a half viewing hundreds of photos and forum post.  I'm starting to formulate my plan.

#1 - I plan to use 3/4" MDO.  I found a supplier that has it 1 sided or double sided.
#2 - I'll be using my 27" TV as my monitor.
#3 - My control panel will be a 2-player with 6 buttons each, 4-way, spinner and trackball.

Things I need to research more are:

#1 - Best angle to set TV at and whether I will remove it from the plastic case.
#2 - How everyone is getting their custom graphics made
#3 - How to incorporate Rotary Controls for ikari warriors and heavy barrel
#4 - Which interface will be easiest.  I've got my eye on the KE-USB108
#5 - I need to learn more about Frontends.  I've always used MAME32.
        (I have Daphne with ripped disk, roms and framefiles but for the life of me
        I have not been able to get them to work.)

Anyway, I think I have my wife annoyed already at my planning so I must be doing something right for starters.
I'll be lurking around here and may pop a question or two when needed.  Thanks to everyone here in advance
for the help you seem to give to others and for keeping this communtiy alive long enought for me to procrastinate
for 10 years.

 

[venkman]

good luck!

i'm sure you'll find answers to the stuff you are looking to find out in these forums.
remember to post pictures of the project

[javeryh]

Anyway, I think I have my wife annoyed already at my planning so I must be doing something right for starters.

Welcome!   

[kruluk]

Good luck with your project I am in the process of starting/planning my own. Maybe we could be of help to each other.

[severdhed]

welcome, and good luck