New here - A few beginner questions.

[lungdart]

Hey Everyone! Might as well introduce myself. I am an Electronic Engineering Technician from Canada. I first got introduced to MAME through the first xbox (Was a huge into that scene). I became interested in a cabinet build long ago, but due to some recent unemployment, I know have some spare time and am going forward with it. So, on to the questions!

1) I see some people have dedicated joysticks and buttons for controlling the front end. Is this necessary? Is it cumbersome to assign the menu buttons to be the same as player 1?

2) MDF and Plywood seem to be the most popular choices for building materials. Are these products both naturally wood grain, and require laminating before artwork? Or could you get away with applying artwork to the MDF/Ply wood with nothing more then a few coats of paint in between?

3) before applying T-Molding, do you need to route the center of the edge for the inserting part?

4) I plan to start with the control panel. I think doing that step first will show me the most gain for my work and will keep me motivated (Electronics will also be the easiest part for me, so I am not deterred there). What are peoples experience with doing this first?

[Ginsu Victim]

1) I see some people have dedicated joysticks and buttons for controlling the front end. Is this necessary? Is it cumbersome to assign the menu buttons to be the same as player 1?

Where? I've never seen dedicated joysticks.

Most people use the player one controls and buttons. Some people add admin buttons where they aren't needed.

[bkenobi]

Admin buttons used to be pretty common, but were never needed for a strictly MAME cabinet.  The common practice today is to use button combinations to eliminate the need for front end/admin buttons.  I personally put a couple dedicated admin buttons on the CP (Exit and Pause).  I also have coin and player start buttons, but I don't personally consider those admin buttons.

On my second cab I didn't add any admin buttons to the CP as I was keeping the original Championship Sprint CP stock.  I hid a couple small pushbuttons under the CP to be used for admin functions.  I made the coin reject buttons work for P1 and P2 coin and set the player buttons work as start.

[Spaz Monkey]

2) MDF and Plywood seem to be the most popular choices for building materials. Are these products both naturally wood grain, and require laminating before artwork? Or could you get away with applying artwork to the MDF/Ply wood with nothing more then a few coats of paint in between?

3) before applying T-Molding, do you need to route the center of the edge for the inserting part?

4) I plan to start with the control panel. I think doing that step first will show me the most gain for my work and will keep me motivated (Electronics will also be the easiest part for me, so I am not deterred there). What are peoples experience with doing this first?

2) They do have wood in them, but they aren't like 2'x4's. They're made with wood shavings (best way to describe it).  You may want to use paint primer before painting.  Laminate costs money, time, and is an extra and is not needed.  You can put some clear coat on top of your paint, but I think a lot of people just put a flat black cover.

3)If you're building you own cabinet and not from a kit, yes you would need to use a router to make the channel for your T-Molding.  The other option is to use something else, or use nothing at all.

4)Doing the control panel first is a good idea, but let me point a few things out.  Unless you know 100%, set-in-stone, 'til-death-do-us-part, exactly how your layout is going to be, don't start there.  The reason, you want to do it once, and be happy. 

Here is a quick list of things to think of when designing your panel:

• How many people do I want playing at a time? (The 2 vs. 4 player question)
• What types of games will I be playing? (The "Do I need spinners/trackballs/joystick" question)
• What type of joystick do I want? (The 4-way vs 8-way question)
• Will I be using real arcade boards or MAME? (The interface question)

Follow-up thoughts:

• If you're going to do the 4player panel, remember that typically, players 3 & 4 only need 3-4 buttons.
• When you're thinking about the types of games, remember you'll want to give some room between the control types.  Don't want to be playing Golden Tee and smash your hand on the Tron knob.
• Some games don't like a 8-way joystick (like Pacman). Do you want to have a dedicated 4-way joystick?
• What type of button layout do you want to have? Street Fighter style, Mortal Kombat style, NeoGeo style, Street Fighter + 1 (aka 7 buttons) style all have good and bad things about them.
• Do you want to angle players 3 & 4 or have them straight? Are you going to angle their joysticks/buttons?

The only other general question is arcade monitor or TV/Computer monitor.

Search the board for what other people have done.  Go to http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/index.html to look at people's bad designs.  Semi-NSFW (no F-bombs, but there are S-bombs). For me, I bought an old Street Fighter type cabinet.  I'm planning to have it as a dual JAMMA machine with a MAME setup as well.  Currently it's running MvC2 but needs work for having multiple Jamma games in it.