First cab, 4 player, wood, awsomeness

[AurorasDady]

Hi all,
First post and first cab. thanks for all the great info on here.

Before I get to my cab i need to thank DeLuSioNal29, because his x-men cab is the reason i stumbled into the hobby. You see awhile back in a moment of sober clarity I found my self wishing I could play x-men the arcade game. I had loved that game when i was a kid, the six player cab was my quarter munching dream machine. So, After a google search brought me to DeLuSioNal29's thread, and this forum I discovered mame.

Fast forward...
... I'm in a 4 bedroom house instead of a 2 bedroom apartment and no girlfriend sucking up time, money and sanity anymore; So I now have a game room to fill and the first item on the game room list was a 4 player cab for games like x-men, the simpsons and tmnt. Although, not a 6-player x-men cab, I still feel that I will finally achive the oath I made as a kid when i shouted to the heavens, " Someday I will have this game and me and my friends will play it for free when ever we want. " Then I would run from girls beacause they had qooties, I wish I would have not learned otherwise. Ignorance is bliss.


Well without further gilding the lilly here are some pics of where i am at now.

[borals]

I cant tell, but do you have your player 3 and 4 joysticks on an angle?

I had mine on a slight angle and it was a real pain in the ass. I suggest on 4 player cabs to have your joysticks with he same orientation. Even if you are standing on an angle, your brain matches the stick with the screen if you get me.

Cab looks awesome though, wicked construction 

(my CP, would keep joystick's the same as player 1 and 2, I'm actually making a new CP because of this)

[drventure]

Weird. I had the exact opposite reaction. For me, playing on the corners feels more right with the sticks angled toward the screen.

But there's a whole other thread with a debate raging about it. I'm not even going to attempt to say one's better than the other.

It's all about what works for you.

Nice work on the cab, and on the panel btw. Though if you're going to redo, you might check out those insert nuts you can screw into the bottom of the CP and screw the sticks into them, that way, there's no bolts showing on the top of the CP. Looks a little cleaner IMO.

[AurorasDady]

thanks for the info.
 I give you permission to say I told you so, when i post a rebuild of the cp months down the road, but for now I will laugh at the discord of my buddies as they try to play it this way.

[AurorasDady]

thanks doc,

I have read a good deal on the debate. The way it is now may prevnt my buddies from setting beers on the cp.
As far as inserts go, I plan on doing it just that way. the cp in the pic is just a temporary piece. the screws are pertruding from underneath as to hold the joystick in place for getting the wiring set up. You probably can't tell from the pic but on left most controls on the cp there is not enough room for the joystick. Even after I read a post where someone did the same thing I still overlooked the fact.

 It is a good thing I bought a 8' x 4' piece of mdf for $1 to prevent these errors from costing me valuable sheets of red oak ply w/mdf core.

By the way I built her out of  red oak ply w/mdf core. I will not be painting her, she will be a stained woody. The only artwork on her will be the marquee. Speeking of which, any artists want to help with that? I am brain farting on it, just want some more green on her.

[AurorasDady]

a little more info.

The monitor is a 32" lcd tv freebie, I got from a buddy I spent $73 on a new lcd inverter board and she works great. He also gave me a dell tower but it has no ps2 inputs so i will take it back to him and grab a different one. As far as specs on the pc i will post them if someone really needs to know, but with the games going in this most cell phones could run without problems.

[AurorasDady]

some wiring

[AurorasDady]

and

[borals]

Hey, what keyboard encoder is that?

[EwJ]

Nice build!
4 player cp's usually look way too wide - but with the slimmer woody and big screen, you have it looking good.

Hey, what keyboard encoder is that?

Looks like a GroovyGameGear KeyWiz40-ST

[AurorasDady]

thanks ewj.

And correct on the encoder.
Will be posting some pics of stained cab when I get time to stain it. Picked this up for $65 today so I will be busy.

[AurorasDady]

Started staining