MAME MK3/MK2 style PC/X360 cabinet

[tcleary]

update:  done with the 3 main panels on this thing. 


xbox/pc dual sf4 fightsticks


traditional MK panel


happ 6 button sf mame layout panel








new project that I've been working on for a bit now.  I obtained a MK4 in pretty good shape that had the MK4 and MK3 boards.  At first I was going to keep those and set it up to switch back and forth between the boards and mame, but I decided it's too much hassle to do that and instead create a MAME/X360 cabinet with swappable control panels.  So I pretty much ripped out all the arcade stuff, it's a MK4 so I don't think too many people care, but oh well if they do.

so all I am keeping from the original cabinet is the cab, speakers, control panel, jamma harness. 

I've already used the jamma harness and some extra wire to hook up the original MK4 control panel to a Jpac, so there's my swappable MK control panel, easy enough.

next I'm trying to obtain another MK control panel which I'll use for MAME/X360 controls.  My idea at the moment to do this is to obtain 2 street fighter IV TE control sticks.  which will probably cost me $400 at this point, they retail for $150 but you can't find them for that at the moment.  So if I pick up two of those and get the control panel I can remove the top piece, cut some wood, then somehow arrange all the stuff from the x360 sticks on it, I'm leaning toward just using the big top red piece of the SF4 sticks if you've seen it, that way would be the easiest way to do it, but I'm thinking it might look a little goofy with SF4 logos on the control panel and MK on the rest of the cabinet, but I have the original MK4 control panel to slap on there too, little torn at the moment as to what I will really end up doing. 

what's cool about this setup is the X360 sticks are recognized in windows, you just plug in the usb and it recognizes it as a controller and it's easy to configure.  so all I have to do is hook up a USB switcher between the PC and the X360 and I've got easy to switch controls.

For the monitor I tested out hooking a X360 through VGA to my brother's Betson 27" multisync at 640X480 and it looked pretty good with Street Fighter IV.  the characters are smaller at that resolution but it looked pretty good to me.  I've tried running the monitor at 720p and it actually worked, but I didn't do that for long because I'm not sure if that's bad for the monitor or not, I would guess it's ok but I don't want to take a chance with ruining a $500 monitor without being absolutely certain it is ok to run it at higher than 640X480 resolution.  Even at 640X480 I'm satisfied so I"m planning on ordering one and modding my MK cabinet to fit it.  I know it will fit in there but I have to rig it or move the brackets about 1 and 1/4 inch down.  I'm leaning towards moving two of the brackets because I can still do it and not put more holes in my new side art.

As for the side art, i've already overlayed the left side original MK4 (which I don't really like, have no idea who that character is and it's goofy looking anyway) and replaced it with MK3.  I plan on overlaying full size MK2 on the right side.  This is why I'm a little torn with just using the SF4 control panels as the main controls for the cabinet.  originally I wanted to do a kind of hybrid MK3/MK2 control panel.  if you look at the originals the MK2 has lightning going to the buttons and the MK3 is a shadowy square looking thing.  I think it would be pretty cool to combine the two in photoshop so the left side looks like MK3 and the right MK2 and arrange the buttons in the SF4 layout (6 buttons first two are a little lower, which I find more comfortable)  It would also be cool if I can come up with a hybrid MK3/MK2 marquee to go with it.  I'm thinking the standard black MIDWAy signs on the side of the control panel would be good.  then there's just the front of the control panel which I'll have to figure out also. 

I want to use sanwa joysticks and buttons for the MAME/X360 control panel.  So to do all the above I should probably just buy some cheapo X360 arcade sticks for the interface and hack sanwa parts to it instead of using the more expensive SF4 TE stick as my base.  Another problem with the sanwa parts is they are kind of a pain to install in a wood panel.  I've heard of people using the snap ins to snap to plexi then routing grooves in the wood for the snap ins to fit in, so I'm leaning towards that route if I decide to fully design the panel.  the alternative would be to somehow mount a metal top to the panel.

for sound I have some cheapo logitech stereo PC speakers hacked to the 8" speakers that came with the MK4, which sounds ok and is nice because it has the volume control/headphone jack unit which I can mount to the inside of the coin door. 

I'll post some pictures of this thing later tonight.

progress:
obtained MK4
ripped out arcade parts
tossed in new marquee light
hacked jamma harness to jpac for MK control panel
hacked computer speakers to original speakers
used wood putty to fill in scratches on front and left side
applyed full size MK3 side art to left side of cab
painted front coin door section and the coin door
replaced missing coin mech in the coin door
put mame pc together (2.4 quadcore/4 gigs ram/ arc VGA pciexpress/ sb audigy 2)
mounteded lower monitor brackets 1 and 1/4 inch lower to fit 27" Betson Multisync
obtained and installed new monitor

left to do:

apply right side art (MK2)
obtain 2nd control panel
create new top for it
hack some X360 control sticks for my MAME/X360 interface
obtain sanwa joysticks/buttons for the MAME/X360 panel
figure out new hybrid MK3/MK2 control panel artwork for the top and front
figure out new hybrid MK3/MK2 marquee
obtain usb switcher to switch between MK and MAME/X360 control panels
obtain VGA switcher to switch between PC and X360 vga input
figure out how I will switch between PC and X360 audio (get it to rca and use a rca switcher I'm guessing)
probably other stuff I'm not thinking about

[tcleary]

update:

got a kortek 2914f  27" and had to figure out how to fit it in the mk4 cabinet.

I was able to barely fit it in,  with the monitor glass braces there is little breathing room but it went in.

I drilled 4 new holes in the monitor chasis and drilled 4 new holes in the sides of the MK4 cabinet about 1 and a quarter inch lower than the standard holes to move the monitor brackets down far enough.  I have not tested the monitor yet because I'm waiting on a vga breakout cable.


next up I'm still deciding if I want to create a multiwillaims/defender control panel top, or just go ahead and get a defender machine (defender is the only williams game I really want to play that a standard cp does not do justice to,  and I don't like the reverse button placement on the multiwillaims)

also need to come up with my default MAME layout and get components to build it, so at the moment all I have is the MK4 control panel.


27" monitor in a MK cabinet



coin door with volume control/headphone output and monitor adj controls

[Gatsu]

thats lookin pretty cool man.

So you're keeping the MK4 control panel, with UMK3 & MK2 sideart? You've gotta use a MK1 marquee just because. hehe.

The ultimate MK cab.....all of dem!

[MK3FAN]

The ultimate MK cab.....all of dem!

Like this...?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNM1uwjOM6A[/youtube]


Great job on everything man. Looks great so far! Good luck on the rest of it. Have you com across the full MK2 sideart or did I already send that to you? If not, here is a sample and I can e-mail you the full size one..

[tcleary]

thats lookin pretty cool man.

So you're keeping the MK4 control panel, with UMK3 & MK2 sideart? You've gotta use a MK1 marquee just because. hehe.

The ultimate MK cab.....all of dem!

yeah I'm keeping the mk4 cp like it is to play all the MKs.  I have another mk control panel coming that I'm going to use as my swappable base.  I think it doesn't have any front or side art, the top is mk2, I'll take the top piece off and keep it.  I'm planning on taking the hinge off and adding 2 latches so for each top piece I make with different controls I can just swap out the top piece, plug in usb, and secure 4 latches so it will be easy to swap stuff out.  I'm sure I want to put the midway logo on the two sides of the other MK cp i'm getting, but I'm not sure what to do with the front.  maybe I'll just go with MK3, it looks cool and doesn't have the MK3 purple or the MK2 blue so it should look cool from either side.  then i'm just left with what to do for my MAME cpo and the marquee. 

I'm getting a defender control panel in a few days so that's going to be the first swappable panel I put together.  I'll toss some pics of it when I get it

I should get a MK1 marquee, since I already  have 2, umk3, and 4 marquees.  so I guess I should get a MK3 marquee too so I have them all

[tcleary]

The ultimate MK cab.....all of dem!

Great job on everything man. Looks great so far! Good luck on the rest of it. Have you com across the full MK2 sideart or did I already send that to you? If not, here is a sample and I can e-mail you the full size one..

I plan on ordering the MK2 from mamemarquees, but I would appreciate if you sent the image so I'd have it if I want to do anything with it in the future.   

[tcleary]

paid too much for it, but I got a defender control panel.  now I just need to find a way to attach it to a piece of wood the same size as the top of the MK control panel.

[tcleary]

got a 2nd mk control panel from a MK2.  I was just expecting to use the box portion as the base for my swappable control panels but it turned out the top piece cleaned up nicely and I think will work great for a generic street fighter/mame type control panel, and it fits in perfectly with my MK3/MK2 theme for the cabinet.  it came like this, must have been a street fighter conversion, i didn't cut the extra holes.

I'm figuring I will get a lexan piece (MK3Fan is going to cut it for me) and paint the extra space  where the missing block button will be black on the underside of the lexan, I think that will turn out pretty good. 

Many thanks go out to SirPeale for digging up and shipping out the entire control panel.

[MortalManiak]

am I the only one getting red X's on the pics??

--------

1st of all...    I hate to see any MK cab get hacked and slashed from it's original form. 

...even MK4. 

okay... </soapbox>   

So, maybe i am missing something, but why don't you get Street Fighter IV for the PC and play it on your MAME instead of hacking up a 360 stick?

...oh wait, you did ask for advice on it. 


Okay... YES!!!  Take the previously-hacked CP and put in buttons, wire up an IPAC, and enjoy the non-ghettoness!!! 

[Malenko]

I hate to see any MK cab get hacked and slashed from it's original form.

I dont see how hes hacking it up, it could easily be reverted back to an MK4.
Believe me, it pains me to see MKs getting MAMEd but nothing hurts as much as seeing an MKII's sides being stripped.

[MK3FAN]

I got the New lexan cpos done for him. The MK4 one is off my cab because I screwed up the one I was making for him and was out of replacement lexan, so I am giving him my overlay until I can make myself a new one. It's still in great shape. I made it less than a year ago. They both should work out great for him.

[tcleary]

well, I am hacking it up, I already covered up the original MK4 left side with MK3 and I'm pretty sure if I remove the MK3 it will tear up the mk4 art.  The right side is still MK4 at this point but I'll probably cover it with MK2 eventually.  I ripped out all the arcade parts, but it could be converted back to MK arcade with little trouble.  I'm preserving the MK4 control panel.  If I could go back I'd probably look around for something else to hack up, but MK4, 3, or 2 was ideal because I wanted the control panel and always liked the midway cabinet style. (if it was MK3 or MK2 i wouldn't do anything to the side art but I pretty much hate MK4's side art)  Anyway I'm stuck with this cab now since I've done so much work already, so I'm making it my own.  I'm bringing a MK2 control panel back from the dead, so that should count for something. 

I hate to see any MK cab get hacked and slashed from it's original form.

I dont see how hes hacking it up, it could easily be reverted back to an MK4.
Believe me, it pains me to see MKs getting MAMEd but nothing hurts as much as seeing an MKII's sides being stripped.

[tcleary]

awesome, those pieces are the last 2 things I need to complete my 2 main control panels.

I'm still waiting on a stupid vga cable for my monitor, but I'm hoping to get this thing up and running this weekend finally, and post some pics.  On sunday I made a ghetto looking box to house my defender control panel until I get around to creating an entire new top piece and moving all the leaf switches/defender stick/buttons over to it.  that will be hacking up a defender control panel but I'll keep the original board and all the parts, I may buy a defender project one day when I have more space, then I'll put all the parts back in the original control panel, that's one of the few dedicated games I'd like to have.

I got the New lexan cpos done for him. The MK4 one is off my cab because I screwed up the one I was making for him and was out of replacement lexan, so I am giving him my overlay until I can make myself a new one. It's still in great shape. I made it less than a year ago. They both should work out great for him.

[tcleary]

sf4 in windows is not really an option because I'm running an ArcadeVGA card.  It won't cost me anything to try the x360 in the cabinet so I'll give it a whirl and determine if it's worth the trouble. 

[tcleary]

as promised here are some pics of my ghetto defender control panel housing.  it's sturdy and swappable and functional but looks noice (ok maybe not noice bad, but you get the idea)

[tcleary]

alright, got my lexan pieces, one of them had a piece missing, but the mk4 looks great.  I hacked up the cabinet some more to install some pc on/off and reset buttons just inside the coin door.  I also got a few remote switches from big lots. one will turn on my monitor and the other will turn on a power strip to power everything else.  this is pretty cool because I have all 4 power switches (power strip, monitor, pc, sound) all in the same area.

[tcleary]

after doing some thinking, I'm going with my original idea of junking up 2 street fighter 4 TE sticks to make a panel out of it, I took one apart tonight and it looks like it will be a pretty easy project really and I think it will turn out pretty cool.   it turns out it isn't much more expensive than buying the parts individually. 

$150 sf4 stick, by itself ready for MAME and x360 plug and play

sanwa joystick and buttons from lizard dick.com - $60
x360 joystick hack service (i don't want to soder the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- $40 + sacrifice an x360 controller (around $30)
so just those things add up to $130, ---fudgesicle--- it, hack the sf4 stick it is.  plus I kind of like the art on the sf4 sticks anyway.  I plan on painting the rest of the panel black. 

here's what I need to do for this project

get a nice piece of wood the same size as a MK CP top
route out a small area to fit the sf4 red cp bezel.  cut a nice big hole to fit the buttons and joystick.  do the same thing for player 2 (only have one stick at the moment so I just want to get all the prep done so when I get a 2nd I can just pop the ---smurfette--- in)

drill some extra holes for the headset jack, start button, and back button.  cut a t-molding groove on the front (no idea how to do this)

prime and paint the wood.  fit bezel into place, fit metal sf4 cp into place.  mount sf4 main pcb, button pcb, and tiny headset pcb to the under side of the cp.  mount the usb cord plastic box to the underside of the CP.  screw on some latches on the sides.  wire up everything and hope it still works. 

first picture is a proof of concept that two of these things will barely fit on a mk cp top, there is about 0 extra space, it was just meant to be I guess.  2nd pic is all the parts I have to  deal with.

[Gatsu]

while yes...it isn't that much more expensive to buy the TE sticks than it is to get all the parts individually...

Tournament Edition sticks are retarded-ass rare. I would have sold one on ebay for $250 and used that cash to buy all the parts I needed to build another panel from scratch.

So I gotta say boo to messin up the TE sticks...because I've been looking for 1 myself for a while now.

But overall I think the project is pretty kick ass. I like the swappable CP idea. I might do something similar in my next cab.

[MrMojoZ]

while yes...it isn't that much more expensive to buy the TE sticks than it is to get all the parts individually...

Only if you have to pay someone to solder them. Otherwise $60ish for stick/buttons and $22 for a pad. Thats $82 vs $150. I know which way I'd go.

[tcleary]

I don't think they are that rare anymore.  I actually had a ps3 one that I ebayed and only banked (after fees, shipping, etc) around the same as it was to buy a new one retail.  I got the x360 one from bestbuy.com.  there's a thread on shourken forums where people let eachother know when they pop up somewhere for sale.  I'm pretty sure with the demand they will get more out there.  i just checked bestbuy.com and they have the ps3 ones available right now.  and yeah I don't want to deal with sodering, it would be a headache for me and I'd probably screw it up, and like I said I like the art so it'll look cool without a CPO which would cost some money too.   another advantage is if you did the controller hack thing it still wouldn't have some of the nice features on the TE stick like being able to switch the stick from the left analog, right analog, and digital stick, and it has turbo, which I don't care about.  it will also be easy to mount on wood, sanwa buttons are more of a pain to mount, but since it is all on the metal plate it should be easy. 

[MK3FAN]

Ok, since the last MK2 Lexan overlay I made for you arrived broken, I made a new one and will ship it out tomorrow. Hopefully, this one will arrive safely and work out well for you.

[MK3FAN]

Lexan should have arrived today. Did you get it?

[tcleary]

got the lexan and it worked out great.  thanks again for cutting it for me!

I now have my happ/6 button layout ready to play. 

i got a bezel from betson, but of course it's the wrong thing, my monitor is not flat, and it isn't a standard monitor either, it's in between.  so I don't know if you can even get a bezel that fits it.  I'll probably end up getting one of those mk3 move list ones and attach it to the inside of the glass.

 now starts work on the street fighter 4 panel and another project.  I got a defender off of good old craigslist!  it was in pretty rough shape but I've been cleaning it up and did some painting and it almost looks respectable now.  I intend on getting the stencils so I can really give it a fresh coat of paint, and I need to bondo some of the edges, but it's workable. It was dirty as hell in the inside so I did a lot of cleaning.

it came with the original bezel, and a reproduction marquee that will probably be ok.  the control panel was modified and junked up pretty bad, but I since I have a nice one to toss in it I didn't care too much about that. 

It was mamed and had remnants of the original defender components.    I ripped out everything and I'm going to wire it up jamma to jrok's multiwilliams board, which I hear plays just like from the original boardset. 

now I don't need to create a good defender panel after all. 

[tcleary]

update on my defender.  after a lot of work I finally got a picture on the monitor.  i totally messed up the horizontal/vertical sync pins so I had to soder a wire under the board to connect them because apparently the jamma standard has composite sync instead of seperate horizontal/vertical sync on my old monitor.  anyway I eventually got it working and hooked up a rastan PCB.  unfortunately when I hooked up the jrok multiwilliams jamma board it didn't work, it gave me some text at the top of the screen.  i emailed him, hope I can get that working tomorrow.

that's right I have a kull poster on the wall, the movie is horrible, i actually watched it on netflix online.  my dad runs a video rental business that's why I have it.

my brother totally beat the rastan board's high score on one credit on his first try.  he plays it on mame every now and then though.  this game keeps your score when you continue so who knows how many credits the person used to get that high score.



jrok board message

[tcleary]

defender finally works!  time to mess with the MK project more

[tcleary]

time for another update.  got 1 player of my street fighter 4 x360 panel done.  now I need to track down another one of these joysticks.  I ended up filling in the blank space with some 1 dollar black marble floor tiles from home depot.  I think it looks ok, and was a cheap solution.  still need to drill some holes for the back and start buttons

[tcleary]

updated top post, 3 main panels are done.  i'll probably give this project a rest for a while but there is most likely a spinner/trackball/4way panel in its future.

[Gatsu]

good luck tracking down a 2nd TE stick for a reasonable price.

But what you've got so far looks pretty good.

[tcleary]

i got lucky and found one for a good price on amazon marketplace. see the first post for the finished panel!