hindsight is 20/20

[lukistke]

Im new to the boards here but have read a lot.  I was wondering though, as you guessed by the title, is now that you have built your cab, what would you have done different?  The thread where everyone shows off their CP is great but sometimes the best critic is yourself.

What would you have included that you didn't?
What would you have not included that you did?
What would you have done different or what do you feel could have been done to make your cab or CP better?

Examples and Pictures would be great!

[Turnarcades]

I'd have documented it better. My first build was a conversion which was documented ok, but even now I should be taking moredetailed photos for analysing.

[Octo]

On both builds I would have bought parts specifically for the purpose of going in the cab, not re-purposing random objects and wondering why they look weird together

Also, I would have taken more time while cutting the plexi overlays. My first one got chipped, and I accidentally epoxied my new one upside down.

But these are just the ramblings of a poor man....

[javeryh]

I would have never added the third side to my cocktail cabinet.

[crashwg]

I'd probably have finished my cab years ago if I had planned the build entirely rather than just winging it. 

[pinballwizard79]

Eventually...........

I will totally redo my control panel to recess the joystick bolts, trackball mounting plate & relocate the 4-way & spinner as well as move the 6 jump/fire buttons further away from the joysticks since I am a big dude (6ft 2inches, 245 lbs with I think a shoulder width of damn near if not more than 2ft) & it bothers me to play Killer Instinct like I am a kid holding an Easter basket.

Or perhaps I will acquire some type of "shrinking old lady disease" & just get a cabaret  .

The control panel database you mention is a great place to look..........pay attention to how the recent prefab control panels are looking too as their finished product is really the evolution of everyone in the hobby learning what works & what doesn't.

[z]

Same as javeryh, I would have skipped doing the 3rd side control panel on my cocktail.

[severdhed]

i would have waited until i had the right tools for the job before building a control panel.  a router and orbital sander make a world of difference in the quality of control panel you can build

[XeviouS]

I would have made mine less awesome.

[matman]

Same as javeryh, I would have skipped doing the 3rd side control panel on my cocktail.

Why do you regret this?  Is it too crammed?  Or you just don't use it enough?

[ivwshane]

I would have made a practice cp first to double make sure I really liked the layout.

[ghettodish]

I would have started with a 25" VGA-input monitor instead of wasting time/money on TVs and CGA monitors.
I know most everyone here would disagree with me though.

I would also have made more under-CP clearance. I didn't leave enough room for a trackball to fit.

[shardian]

Luckily, I delayed long enough that hindsight became foresight.  I never built my originally planned monstrosity (Extended frankenpanel on a small Taito cabinet). Instead I re-purposed perfectly usable empty cabinets and made them look stock. That is by far the best use of MAME.

[Todd H]

I would have covered it in black laminate instead of paint. I also would have flush mounted the trackball plate. I'll probably still do both but it will be after things pick up financially.

[javeryh]

Same as javeryh, I would have skipped doing the 3rd side control panel on my cocktail.

Why do you regret this?  Is it too crammed?  Or you just don't use it enough?

It looks totally tacked on - because it is.  It is not comfortable to play fighters or other 2P games.  It was my first cab and I made the classic rookie mistake of trying to build one cab to play them all.  I want to rip it off but I don't know how I'd make it look nice.  Plus, the coin door underneath was lowered so that would look weird too.  Bah, I'm annoyed just typing this...

[drventure]

I think my biggest hindsight issue is that I didn't make my CP top hinged. Originally, the plan was for it to be a "stow in the closet" type thing, and there wouldn't be a cabinet (so it'd be easy enough to just go in from the bottom), but the plan changed after I'd built the CP, and I just didn't feel up to rebuilding the whole dang thing.

At least I know better for the next time

[z]

Same as javeryh, I would have skipped doing the 3rd side control panel on my cocktail.

Why do you regret this?  Is it too crammed?  Or you just don't use it enough?

Mainly lack of use.  Track and Field is still fun on the cocktail cab with two people wedged side by side on the 3rd panel but 99% of the time it is used in normal cocktail mode for classic verticals like Donkey Kong and Ms PacMan.  If all I had was the cocktail cab then I would feel different about the 3rd side CP, but having an upright cab makes it feel unnecessary.

[matman]

Thanks, I started a thread specifically around this top as to not dilute this thread on a 3rd side cocktail cab debate here:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=91135.0

[SirPoonga]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/SirPoonga/cabinet/y_cab11.jpg

The admin button shelf, yeah.  It needs to be flush with the control panel for bowling and golf games.

[xtravbx]

I like the 3rd side to my cocktail, but it is fairly large and makes playing 2 player games with my girlfriend a lot of fun...

I would hate not having it, to be honest..

[AMDman13]

I would have used laminate instead of paint. I used oil base Rustoleum Black Satin which turned out fairly good, but laminate would have been sweet. I even found a Wilsonart wholesale here in Phoenix. Also, would not have put the spinner in front of my trackball. I bought my CPT from Knievel, so there is a hole in the plexi and CPT for a spinner. We like to play a lot of Golden Tee and I never installed my spinner. It would just be too brutal.  I would also design or pay someone to design an artwork theme instead of the generic Atomic Mame artwork.

[Lilwolf]

I would have made 10 instead of hot swap control panels...

why?

because I would have been done with 4 of them so far instead of my current almost done with 10

But it does make things a bit easier when you get a new starwars control panel... You only have to worry about a few things.

oh plus...  I would have never written a frontend... 50x the effort then building a cab...

[ArcadeBliss]

Hmmm.... Seeing as how I am in the process of building my second cab, what "lessons learned" can I bestow:

1. Finish the cab before playing on it. Or else the building stops short.
2. An internal frame is unnecessary. The CRT will not fall using only a monitor shelf and angle supports.
3. Design the cab to allow taking the entire body apart for moving it far distances i.e. Upstairs or during a house move
4. Don't ignore a cosmetic woodworking mistake. Throw the piece out and redo it or repair it or else you will always notice it later (and hate yourself    for not doing it right in the first place!)
5. Use the experience collected in this forum to answer any "unknowns" before just diving in and ending up living point 4 

Those are my top ones for now.

[councilface]

I would have used vinyl instead of paint (To be sorted this week)

A one piece CP instead of the box I have (To be done this summer)

I would have used 4-8 way switchables instead of the happs supers that I have (Soon to be sorted)

I would have used Hyperspin instead of Mamewah (now sorted).

[shmokes]

My biggest mistake was in wood thickness.  I used 3/4" melamine and laminated one side of it, so now my t-molding is ever so slightly not big enough.  Should have used 5/8" plywood.  Would have looked better and weighed far far less.

I made surprisingly good choices, looking back.  I initially wanted to do an Ultimate Arcade 2 with a 4-player panel.  I now think that's just about the ugliest thing in existence.  I wanted a frankenpanel, but somehow had therestraint to talk myself down off that ledge.  There are some things I'd do differently today because of new product development.  I probably would not have put in a dedicated 4-way, now that we have things like the UltraStick 360.  I also didn't include any spinners on my panel  because of lack of space.  The new button-hole spinners from GGG and Ultimarc would solve that problem.  Additionally, I decased a TV for the monitor.  It works very well, but I find myself wishing I'd just ponied up for a D9200.  There are quite a few PC games (mostly racing games) that I want to play but they simply won't run below 800x600.  My PC is plenty powerful to play them, but since my resolution is capped at 640x480 the game just gives me an error message.

There are MANY things I would do differently in terms of the build process.  I knew nothing about carpentry when I started and I made my job much much harder than it needed to be.  Also, I built my cab with ingenious little hidden locking mechanisms on every panel so that I can break it down completely to move it.  I would still do that, but I found a far superior way to do it that I used on some of the later panels and I wish I had done the whole cab that way. 

All in all, though, I think it turned out incredibly well (though it's not quite finished).  There's little I'd change about it.

[lukistke]

Also, I built my cab with ingenious little hidden locking mechanisms on every panel so that I can break it down completely to move it.  I would still do that, but I found a far superior way to do it that I used on some of the later panels and I wish I had done the whole cab that way.

Please share....

[Kayden]

I think my biggest mistake was starting with a cabinet that only had a 19" monitor.

I also should have payed attention to the bottom of my CP when I remade it from the original.  The switch on the P1 start button hits the glass of the monitor bezel and pops out of the button.  So I have to have it rotated 30 degrees    .  Oddly, the P2 button doesn't have the same issue and it's at the same height.  The wood lip that holds the glass up also hit some of the P1 buttons so I just took my saw to it and it fits now. 

I also wouldn't have sold off my 27" CRT TV for $50 last year if I knew I was going to make an arcade cabinet.   

[Octo]

Also, would not have put the spinner in front of my trackball. I bought my CPT from Knievel, so there is a hole in the plexi and CPT for a spinner. We like to play a lot of Golden Tee and I never installed my spinner. It would just be too brutal.

My solution to that would be to make a mounting bracket under the CP using some of those dual-position cabinet locks. You know the ones that you push and they pop open, then push to close... That way you can push the spinner down flush with the CP when not in use. I've never seen it done, but that goes for a lot of stuff I see on here. 

[shmokes]

Also, I built my cab with ingenious little hidden locking mechanisms on every panel so that I can break it down completely to move it.  I would still do that, but I found a far superior way to do it that I used on some of the later panels and I wish I had done the whole cab that way.

Please share....

I describe it in a rather comical thread here.  You don't spend much time in the EE or Political forums so you may not know this, but many people try their hardest to dislike anything I do.  It's hilarious.   

Here are some pictures.  It's more complete now, with real brushed aluminum t-molding and the monitor installed, but I can't seem to find where the newer pictures are.  Anyway, the first pic shows all the braces and the base attached to one side panel.  The other side panel has eight bolts permanently mounted to it that fit into all the pre-drilled holes on the base and braces.  So it will just slide into place and then I screw nuts onto the bolts.  The second picture shows a close-up of how it works.  All of those long bolts are carriage bolts that are permanently mounted in the side-panels (counter-sunk and laminated over, so you can't see the hardware).  But if you notice the top panels in the second picture, I worked it opposite.  Instead of permanently mounting carriage bolts into the panels, I mounted t-nuts in the panels and laminated over the top of them, so I just need to align the holes and then screw in a bolt.  It's much easier to work with, and when I move it the panels don't have big bolts sticking out of them -- they can be stacked flat.  It's a much better way of doing it and I wish I had done the whole thing that way.

The rest of the pictures just show the project coming together.

[Kayden]

That is ridiculously awesome.  How do you make sure people don't keep rotating it the same way until the wires snap?

[shmokes]

Thank you.  The steering wheel is too big to clear the monitor so it cannot spin more than one revolution in either direction.

Funny thing is, I was drinking with the neighbors and let their 10-year-old and his friend play with it.  But I hadn't installed the steering wheel yet.  They figured out it could spin and did exactly that.  Destroyed the USB hub inside.  Completely ripped out its innards.  It also effed up the keyboard encoder.  It would just constantly send random keystrokes to the PC.  I was incredibly lucky there, though, as that keyboard encoder was already defective and the player 3 and 4 sections of it didn't work, so I already had a replacement en route, so I was only out about $20 for the USB hub.

[Kayden]

Further justification for my loathing of hellspawn.   

I don't suppose you want to make a kit for me?   

[shmokes]

Hah!  I'm not as talented as this makes me appear.  Prior to starting this project I had zero woodworking experience (well, I had woodshop in 8th grade, but I was 13-years-old).  You just have to be careful and go really slowly and think things through and figure out how to work around obstacles.  And you'll make some ridiculous mistakes along the way.  Things like cutting on the wrong side of the line and having to start a piece over from scratch cos it's suddenly 1/8" too short.  And after a while you'll find that your brain just works better, and you think of solutions faster, and you make fewer mistakes and pretty soon you realize, "Hey . . . am I getting better at this stuff?"   

At any rate, it has been a LONG time in the making.  I've taken years off at a time from the project when I got too busy with school and a new baby.  But it's finally almost complete five years later  .   Probably will be finished this summer.

So . . . the upshot is, I won't make one for you, but you totally can just make one yourself.  I did and it would be impossible to have less woodworking skill than me when I started.  What I lacked in skill I made up for with this amazing community (and a fair amount of trial and error and patience ).

[shmokes]

Oh yeah . . . and based on how long this one has taken me to finish, I'm pretty sure I'd be divorced if I started another one.   

[drventure]

Wow. 5 years. Now that's persistence. 

My cab is going on two years now, and I don't even have the monitor or PC for it yet.

But, just like the Cylons, I have a plan.

[shmokes]

Yeah, but even starting with no experience, I could easily have completed it over the first summer when I started it if I wasn't so undisciplined.  I'm bad ADHD and have a terrible time staying on task.  That's why I spend so much time here.   

[Kayden]

5 years?

I think I've been working on mine for about a month and it's "done", but not perfect.

But I cheated and started with an existing cab.  I just had to recreate the CP, and change all the components except the monitor.  I built the pc, spliced the monitor wire and had things running the day after I got the cabinet.  It only took me this long because I had to wait for my parts to come from Randy and Andy and then I had to get to my grandparents to use their wood shop.

I'm too big on instant gratification to draw something out that long.  I think I'd explode from anticipation.

[drventure]

@shmokes

I know not of what you speak 

[shmokes]

Yeah . . . granted, the vast vast majority of that time it was just sitting in storage not being worked on, but even going at it hardcore on nights and weekends I couldn't have finished it in a month.

[Paul Olson]

My biggest regret is always trying to use cheap parts. If I could do it over, I would buy all of my authentic controls either NOS or in really nice condition. I have way too many parts laying around waiting to be fixed up.

I wish I would have cut a lot more panels for the modular CP. I ran out, so now I need to do another run and hope that I can duplicate them exactly.

Other than that, I am pretty happy with the progression. I started with a regular 2 player panel, then went modular after I knew I needed to. My CP is designed to be able to do everything, and I may eventually get there, but there is no rush. I don't feel the same pressing need to get every type of panel done anymore since I started buying dedicated games; but it is nice to know that I can.

I planned to have a 3 player 360 driving setup, a 270 wheel, and motorcycle handlebars; not I own a Super Sprint, Ridge Racer, Outrun, and Hang On. It is weird how things work out. I still want the functionality on the MAME cab, but I never seem to make the time to get it done.

Let's see, what else?

I rarely use my Tron stick, but I consider it one of the best additions to the cab. Case of nice when you need it.

I own over 30 joysticks, and my least favorite is the Happ reunion stick. On a similar note, I only like the other Happ sticks for fighting games. When I started this thing, I was under the impression that Happ sticks were all I would ever want or need.


A couple of suggestions based on things I would not change at all:

Make sure the cab is a comfortable size! If you and your friends are big, you need a big cab! We can stand side by side comfortably, knees fit under the CP when sitting on stools, etc.

Either be able to play the game with the right controls, or don't bother.

There are thousands of games that you can play...maybe 200 that you would ever want to.

Have fun! If it starts to feel like a job, you better be making money at it.

Paul

I think I will be at 6 years in a couple of months, but my cab was originally playable within a month. A lot of upgrades over the years have sometimes taken it out of commission, but it has been playable for most of the time. If you are like me and prone to procrastinate, try to get at least basic functionality before you stop working on it for a while. It sucks when you don't have time or money to work on it, and you can't play it.