Mame Cab Build (Northcoast Kit) (Complete, Updated 6/1/11)

[WindDrake]

Hey Folks.

Let me start off by prefacing this with the usual. It's a MAME Cabinet. I live in an Apartment. Up three flights of stairs. And I have lazy friends.   So a standard cab/refurbishing was right out.

This is actually my second build. The first is Deceased (Disassembled mid-05), and was a homebrew particleboard monster. I miss that thing.

A little about me? I'm an arcade junkie, former Amusement Tech (still am, on-and-off-again), Videogame junkie, IT Geek, and currently the Head of Engineering for a decent sized laptop/desktop PCB-Level repair company. I love electronics.

I've been chronicling this whole debacle over on Wordpress, because my Login here was all munched up. Now that it's fixed, I'll be crossposting (or atleast posting the Cliffnotes-and-pictures version here for you short-attention-span types.)

http://wdarcade.wordpress.com

Long Story short, here's the mockup image of what I want it to look like (Photoshop Fu'ed the Northcoast mockup.) The image here is missing the CPO (Data East Starfield) and the coin door, however.



And here's part 1 (after unboxing) of the Box Hurricane I'll be recieving in the next few days, with any luck.



The heart of the beast will be pretty good. AMD Athlon II X3 3.2ghz, 4GB PC1660 DDR3, 750GB WD Caviar Black, Radeon 4870 1GB. All on Windows 7 x64. I figure if I'm going to play games, I'm going to play some freakin' games.

[BobA]

Welcome to project announcements.   Looking forward to seeing your build.
 

[DCsegaDH]

I like seeing other people's projects

[grasspuddle]

Looks like they really hook you up. They even included a rubber mallet for the t-molding. Beefy comp so I'm guessing some modern games and not just mame?

[WindDrake]

Mame, Supermodel, SSF4:AE, etc. Whatever I want to run on it. This is all stuff I bought so far, btw. I didn't yet own a rubber mallet, so I had to buy one, as I know the disaster that T-Molding can be without it. Northcoast is just supplying the cab kit.

Here's Day 2's parts table (before I started/finished assembling the Arcade box's PC a few hours ago. Been loading software since.)
I got the Radeon 6870 1GB, Arcade Box's board, Coin Door, and lighting stuff for the door and trackball today.
A word of caution: TwistedQuarter's 2-Player coin doors have yellow inserts. I already had a blue one, but expecting red meant I had to give LizardLick more money. ;P ($4.50 part, $1.30 to ship it.)



I also shoved the Radeon 6870 1GB into my PC, as the Arcade Box is getting my 4870 1GB. It's freaking huge! It's the Gigabyte OC edition card (3 Fans).



If you are building an AM3 Rig, I definitely reccomend the MSI 880GM-E41. After getting my hands on it, it's a solid piece of hardware. Heavy, solid PCB, no radial electrolytic caps, great BIOS. Very nice piece of kit.

[jmike]

WOW, that is an awesome looking mallet!

Seriously though, good luck with your build and remember take plenty of pics.


 

[WindDrake]

Here's s'more info for the weekend.

So, a few things have happened.

I got the Sideart/Marquee/CPO Friday from GameOnGrafix. It looks amazing!

I tested the speakers and amplifier. Sounds great.

I got the Red/Blue Coin Door reject inserts installed with custom inserts. Looks great!



I found the inserts at ArcadeCab.com. http://www.arcadecab.com/CabinetPlans2/CabinetPlans2_Door.html

Speaking of Tokens, I had to modify my coin mechs to take anything I shoved in them. I don't care what, as I primarily would be running tokens of all shape/sizes.

Here's a pic of the Mechs I have (Suzo-Happ 0.25$ Ultimechs.)



I want to run tokens and stuff, so I had to make some changes.





Now the mechs take whatever I give them. Tokens, quarters, nickels, Susan B.'s, whatever fits. The ramp was required because without the rotating tumbler, the coins would get stuck. The ramp's angle is important so coins don't just fall through or get stuck in the reject side.

I built the ramp out of a small ziptie chunk, super glue, and some modeling epoxy I had been using at the time (was helping a friend assemble Warhammer 40,000 Models.)

[WindDrake]

Quick update before I hit the hay.

Cab arrived today. Construction began. I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.

No boards arrived damaged, but the Plexi monitor overlay was incorrectly cut. I fixed that.

My monitor also sits about 3" too low to be comfortably viewable. I'm going to fix that by stacking 3 8x8x1 peices of wood/mdf ontop of eachother as a raised platform, then dropping lag bolts through the whole stack and the monitor shelf, as well as the monitor's foot to secure it all into position.

No pictures came out well, so I'll leave you with this. The cab itself's instructions are straight forward. It's simple. The thing's also a ---smurfing--- tank. For Particle Board, it's REALLY SOLID. There was one damaged board, but it' s in a spot you can't see (inside, top), so I don't really care. If it was a bigger issue, I'd have Northcoast send me a new one, but meh. It's fine. It's a minor split.

[WindDrake]

Here's the recap for the weekend.

As it stands, the cab is 80% complete. I started building it on Friday Evening. I think I've got about 20 manhours into this freaking thing.

The trackball was a surprise. A Highball mounting plate has DIFFERENT MOUNTING DIMENSIONS then the regular trackball! So, I had to modify things. With a mini-hacksaw. Ugh.



Ugly, but it works.

The control panel wiring came next.



Not pretty, but it works fine.

Then the CP top.



I also installed an Admin switch to disable the coin buttons on top. This works by switching the coin button's shared ground.



Then the monitor was too low. MDF Squares to the rescue! (8x8x3/4")



This pic here has the amplifier in the image as well, which is mounted to the rear of the screen (keeping it away from the PC.)



And the test-run..



I still need to touch up the edges of the CPO. The white underlay shows through. Sharpie or oil pen to the recue, there. I may also touch it over with varnish or something to protect the edges. Admittedly, I suck at cutting vinyl.

Last pic will be of the bezel, taken about midnight last night. I'll have a better pic up once I paint the exposed wood edges of the plexi retainer. You can see the bezel I made. It's not terribly pretty, constructed of black-core black foamcore board after I accidentally turned the original cutout into a trapezoid. Oops. But thankfully with the plexi in place, it actually looks quite good!



More to come later today when I get home and finish this beast!

[DirtyDachshunds]

Very nice.  Looks a lot like the cab I just finished.  Some people will flame you for the large CP but it comes in handy for some serious 4P turtles action!

cowabunga!

[WindDrake]

And finally, it's complete.







The regular bulbs in the coin door and trackball are underwhelming. I've got LED Replacements on the way to solve that issue. Other then that, this bad boy is finally done!

[WindDrake]

So, I was unhappy with the regular lights in the cabinet. The Trackball was dull, and the coin door lights were definitely unacceptable brightness with the red and blue reject inserts.

So, I got LED's to fix this. I hit up SuperBrightLEDs.com for some wedge-base bulbs.

I used these in RED and BLUE for the coin door. The WLED-x6, as I wanted plenty of light. I also got white, but the extra wavelengths lower the total light seen once the red or blue plastic strips everything else away. With Red and Blue LED's, you don't waste luminosity.



Much better!

I used these (WLED-xHP6-DAC) in BLUE for the trackball, as a regular 6-bulb LED doesn't have a wide enough beam to get at the trackball, as the normal bulb is mounted sideways through the hole. I did, however, have to modify the bulb holder to turn L-Shaped in order to shorten it up, so that the LED paddle shined into the illumination hole completely. I also got white, but the blue was just a smidge brighter. Remember, the pics here will show a lot of glow because there is no UV filter on my smartphone's camera.



Lights on, and now, lights off.



I'm waiting on fans still, as the cab is very warm inside, which meant I had to clock the Athlon II X3 450 down to 3.2ghz (Stock) from it's 3.76ghz Overclock. Some of the 3D games pushed it hard enough to get it to puke. I'll have more pics once that's all in.

[rcub3]

4 player CP FTW!

BTW, did you have any problems with the drawer?  I am working on the same cab, but my keyboard drawer seems to not be wide enough (the rails won't stay in their tracks because of this). 

[WindDrake]

Yeah, I have the exact same issue. Going to eMail Northcoast now about it, actually. Thanks for reminding me.

[rcub3]

Great!  Let me know what they say.  I'm surprised bc everything else fits perfectly with everything else.

[WindDrake]

Here's the response I got from Northcoast.

The instructions show that the screws should be attached from the sides of panel "Y".  Due to manufacturing changes made to the rails, which caused the rails to be slightly narrower, this step required an update.  My apologies, the owner has not updated the PDF yet to reflect this change.  On the bottom of panel "Y" are piloted holes where the screws should be located for attaching the slides.  For best results use a coin as a spacer between panel "Y" and the slide before screwing it in.  This will provide the necessary spacing required to keep the slides in the rails.
 
Thanks,
Gerry Greene
 
MameRoom Designs LLC / NorthCoast Custom Arcades
34601 Mills Rd. Unit B
North Ridgeville, OH 44039
 
440-327-2482
http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp

[WindDrake]

Here’s a fast update.

I had to get fans installed about.. Oh. A month ago.

So I went and did it. I’m largely happy, however, the cut I had to make on the back panel’s brace bar? Definitely not proud of that. Did it freehand with a holesaw. Yeah, not safe or smart. I know. DO NOT DO THIS. But whatever, I guess. It’s just a panel mount.





The intake is the smaller panel, which is actually piece J on the assembly manual. The back panel is exhaust, piece K.
With the intake at the extreme low point, and exhaust midway up, it makes for ambient temps or lower inside the cabinet, even with a full load on a big overclock. The fans are 120mm Panaflow fans. Absolutely worth it. The fan grilles are filter grilles, some generic ones from Newegg. 120mm holes made with a 4.5″ Holesaw. Freehand.

Here’s the embarassing cut.



DO NOT DO THAT.

But atleast my heat issues are fixed now.

The cut had to happen due to me being retarded and not premeasuring clearances. The exhaust fan was too high, and collided with the bracket bar.

Cab’s working great otherwise. No issues thus far. Looks like I worked out the gremlins during the initial build.

Edit: I also remounted the Keyboard Drawer rails using a coin as a spacer, as Northcoast suggested. Rails mount fine now, and it's sliding normally, as it should!