Finally finished my first build

[Kordova]

After a busy summer (Bar Exam studying) I am finally getting around to posting this.  I finished this build a couple of months ago.  This was my first build, so I had a lot of research to do.  

Cabinet:
I found the cabinet on Craigslist about 80 miles away.  It was set up as a nice little GoldenTee2K that the guy said was hopelessly broken.  He only wanted $200 for the whole getup, including the WG K7191 25” monitor.  After getting it back to the house, I had it working in about five minutes.  The ground wire on the JAMMA connector was loose.  Certainly a quick fix.  Looked a little closer at the cabinet and did some research and found that it was originally a NBA JAM TE.  The original artwork is still on the side under the paint.  Thought about removing the paint with some Mostenbochers, but not knowing the condition, I left it as it.  I pulled most of the JAMMA wiring out, only left the JAMMA harness for the video.  Got a JPAC and an ArcadeVGA from Andy over at Ultimarc and it interfaced beautifully with the WG monitor.  




Control Panel:
The control panel is the customer 4-player from Mameroom.com. See my review of the panel here.  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=90582.msg950733#msg950733  Used the custom design tool and just e-mailed the CAD file to them, came out great.  Made a dumb mistake with a couple of the admin buttons on the side though.  They wouldn’t fit because the player one joystick.  Notice the hole plugs.  Escape button works well though.  Wired the whole unit into a IPAC-4 and the trackball into an Opti-Wiz from GroovyGameGear.com.  The LED coin buttons are also from Groovy Game Gear.com.  I had the originaly 5v power supply from the cabinet, but I instead just wire them together and hacked them into an old USB cable.  That way the entire panel was self contained USB and mobile (I had it finished well before the cabinet was ready).  I had to improvize a good bit on the mounting.  I needed to more inches of lift, so what you see is as 2x4 and some half inch ply wood screwed together.  It seems to work well.




Computer:
Ordered and built the machine myself from TigerDirect.com.  I prefer NewEgg.com usually, but this turned out the be the better deal.  I also recommend building your own machine if you know how.  It saves a lot of money and only takes a few minutes to build.  The build is an ASUS SE2 GeForce, AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition, 500GB WD caviar, 2GB Corsair PC8500, all in a compact Aspire case.  I opted to run Windows XP for stability.  




Front End:
I like GameEx the best for the front end.  Got it for only a $20 donation for the full version, but the free version is very capable, but includes a nag screen.  I’ve very happy with it and still play it every day.  Even my 60 year old dad got in on the action with some Galaga, apparently he used to pump quarters into that at the local pizza joint years ago.  



Let me know if you have any questions or anything.  The next move is custom marquee and side art, but I’ll get around to that later.