Emphatic MAME cabinet (completed old project)

[emphatic]

Hi,

I've seen so many nice projects here that I thought I'd put up my MAME cabinet that I (and a friend) built from scratch. The pictures are OK, but does have comments that I can't remove now, so some spelling errors will appear. I'm Swedish, so it's not like it's my native language.











































































































Here's a final picture of my custom Marquee:



As you see in these pictures, lots of things here could have gone smoother, but it was a nice learing experience. Hopefully this'll inspire someone.

[Epyx]

Nice job you two!

Great job on the documentation.  Although, I would have loved to read about the PC hardware you chose to go with. 

[Gatsu]

thats pretty cool.

[severdhed]

very cool...unique design.  i like it

[Bender]

So is that a thin metal CP over the X-arcade stick?

love the curved front! nice work 

[emphatic]

So is that a thin metal CP over the X-arcade stick?

love the curved front! nice work 

Yes, it's just a sheet of tin that's curved a bit. About the same as the "roof" of it.

Everyone: Thanks for your kind words. It came out really nice, but was a bit too big to keep, so it's sold a while back. The PC I used in it was a Pentium 4, 2.6Ghz with 2GB RAM running Windows XP and GameEx. As I mostly play vertical games (shmup fan) I got myself a couple of candy cabs instead and a bunch of JAMMA games. I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to playing games, so I couldn't stand the lag from emulation. Also, a MAME cab usually acts up pretty often, and the time it takes to fix this is time I'd rather spend dodging colorful bullet patterns.

It was quite easy getting those curves, as I used plywood instead of MDF.

[Benevolance]

The white on polished black looks slick! For some reason, this reminds me something that would belong in Ed Dillinger's office room in Tron. Which is cool.

[ratzz]

Very nice build... Well done. 

[ryofire]

hehehe clever and sexy

[Encryptor]

Very sleek design! 

Encryptor

[emphatic]

Yes, when I had the curves layout in my plans, I knew that this would look really nice. If I ever build another cabinet (probably not though) I would exaggerate them even more, or go with something like this:



The best thing with my design IMHO is that you have lots of leg room if you sit on a bar stool. Initially, the control panel would have been tighter, but as we messed up the plans measurements slightly, the control panel ended up somewhat broader, and because of this it had to be higher up to allow player 1's left arm the needed comfort. It worked out OK in the end, but my plans WAS right.