New Guy Building Xenophobes style MAME cabinet

[BigJon]

So I'm a newbie here.   I'm familiar with the idea of using MAME with a computer and putting it into a video game cabinet...but I've never had the time to put together a cabinet myself.  Two nights ago I got on craigslist to find that someone nearby was giving away a free Xenophobes style arcade cabinet (had been converted into a Golden Tee cabinet but still has Xenophobes paperwork stapled inside).

I decided on a whim...2 hours after the posting, to go see if it was still there and if it was in any decent condition.  I rolled up to the address and found the hulking beast sitting there.  It's not that bad of shape...has some spots that need to be reworked with a new piece of panelboard.  None of the electronics are included...except a set of speakers and the coin door (which seems to have all the hardware and wiring intact).

Currently this badboy is lying in the back of my van (add some great weight for winter driving in a formerly empty cargo van) as I don't quite yet have the space in the house for it.  I've been spending the past 24 hours browsing this forum reading all the great information posted here.  I'm really excited to start this project.

My plan is to make a simple 2 player 6 button per player game cabinet running MAME (or MAMEWah...not sure yet).  I'm going to lay out the control panel (which was completely missing and needs to be hand built) in a way so that I can possibly add more player controls and extra buttons later if I need.  I'm going to toss a regular CRT monitor into it since I have a ton lying around.  I'm not sure yet on what computer I'm putting into it...but I have a few components from past computers lying around which should give me a head start and not have to buy a brand new system.

This is going to be a long, slow build...but I will update whenever I work on something.   I hope to get it pulled out of the van here in a few weeks into a friends' garage so I can at least take some pics of it standing from all angles.

Enjoy so far:

[leapinlew]

Welcome to the forums!

Golden Tee eh? Weird. They are very heavy cabinets. Be careful with the floor levelers on yours. Mine did a number on the wood floors in my old house. My Xenophobe cabinet had a decent top, but after looking at my options I decided to convert mine into a showcase cabinet. It's not the prettiest build, as it was one of my first cabinets, but it's still being used today. You can see my build here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55021.0

Another build I liked was lowerhell. You can see it here: http://lowerhell.com/mame/

Good luck.

[BigJon]

Thanks!

Yeah, your thread was one of the first ones I was reading yesterday when I searched for Xenophobe cabinets on here.  I like the way yours turned out.  Yes, these cabinets are heavy as hell.  I loaded it in to the back of my van myself...thankfully the rollers were still intact on the back...but 3 inches of snow on the ground didn't help too much.  Where I plan to put mine we have carpet...so shouldn't be too much of an issue but I'll have to watch the linoleum on the way in.  The feet do look a bit worn and sharp in some spots.

[Warborg]

I actually converted an old Xenophobe cab a while back to MAME...  Never got around to finishing the marquee area but the rest was ok...

http://s229.photobucket.com/albums/ee296/Warborg/Arcade%20Cabinet/

[BigJon]

That looks pretty sharp!  I like the red trim and black panels.  What kind/size monitor did you use in yours?

[Warborg]

That looks pretty sharp!  I like the red trim and black panels.  What kind/size monitor did you use in yours?

If I remember, it was a 22" Viewsonic pro series I had sitting in the back of my closet...  It's a nice monitor, but have recently given thought to removing it and the top section and modifying the cab to use an HDTV/LCD Monitor...  I know it's not an accurate way to display it, but I'm not as much a purist as I just want to be able to enjoy the games...  And the space/power requirements of an LCD are obviously quite a bit nicer.

[BigJon]

Ok, I know it's been a while since I last posted...but now that winter is finally over in Ohio (hopefully) I've gotten to move this thing in from the back of my van.  Previously, the only time I saw it standing was when I picked it up...and it was dark.

Now that I have it in the light and standing I'm seeing it's minor flaws and places I need to fix.  I can tell it had some water damage on the bottom (one pic shows 2-3 ring of darkend wood inside the bottom) and water damage on the top left side.  Without having to replace the mdf, what can be done for that?  Sanding it down flush to the rest of the wood and give it some bondo skim?

I'm probably going to order new trim for it....probably going to sand a lot of it down and repaint.  Most likely at this point I'm looking at purchasing a used 17-20 inch LCD monitor to install in it for now.  I'm also going to pick up a $99 refurbished desktop from Microcenter that seems like it should run one of the emulators pretty well.

Most likely at this point it's going to be a long project...so I'll make do with what I can and update parts later.  Here are some pics:

















Let me know if you guys have any major tips or some good threads for me to read to get the answers to fixing water damage and best hardware setups (just toss the box in with fans or take it out of the case and mount it to the wall inside?)

Thanks for looking!

[Donkbaca]

just toss the box in, it should be fine, plenty of air flow and space in that cab.  I think people here go crazy with fans.

The old "what computer do I put in this beast" question.  A pentium 4 3.0ghz will suit 99% of your needs.

It should turn out pretty cool!

Good luck,
MH

[BigJon]

I had a question for anyone who might know...is there a way to remove the little doors from the coin returns?  I tried getting at them from inside (under the mechs) but it looks like I might have to pry the bevel off the front of the coin return in order to remove the flap?  I'm just afraid I won't be able to put it back together.

Issue I have is it looks like someone took a screwdriver and tried to pry at the coin return flap.  Yes, the tiny little flap where the coins fall when you push return.  No idea why...it's not like they could access the cash box from there.  It just bugs me and was thinking if I could remove the flap I could flatten it out and put it back.

Any ideas?

[Donkbaca]

They probably did it because if you take a penny and push it up into the coin return shoot, you can often times have it fall down into the the coin acceptor chute and trigger the microswitch to play games for a penny.  When I was a kid, we would always look for coin doors that had the coin return doors missing...

Anyhow, they should come right off, there are probably a couple of screw holding the bezel on from the back

[BigJon]

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the "squares" around the coin return doors come off from the back.  There are no screws there, just screw posts for the boxes in the back.  I can't tell if they just pry off from the front or what...I've seen a few pictures of dismantled coin doors and the squares are removed...I just am afraid I'm going to break something.

I may do some video searching at lunch today to see if I can't find a vid on youtube of someone dismantling a coin door.

I picked up some slightly used X-Arcade controls from someone on craigslist last night.  2 joysticks, a trackball, and 20 buttons.  Also came with the X-Arcade keyboard converter card to plug all the controls into.  I've done some reading on X-Arcade controls and while not everyone loves them, these turned out to be a pretty good deal to start with.

[scream1973]

The coin door i have everything comes off.. you just need to take all the screws and mechs out to get to those pieces..