Rebuilding/Upgrading my 6 year old MAME cabinet

[timekiller]

Well, just like the subject says. I built a MAME cabinet (Linux based) 6 years ago, I had no idea how far this hobby had come until I decided to add light guns. Now I'm doing a complete rebuild with artwork, RGB buttons and Hyperspin.

Original project page: http://timekiller.org/projects/xmame

New Project page: http://timekiller.org/projects/arcade-2-0/

Here are a few pictures:

Old arcade:


New cabinet panel art (designed by me):


EL Wire test:


More updates to come.

[yotsuya]

Well, if you are looking for feedback, I'd ditch all the arcade characters from the panel except for the Tron figures at the bottom. I like the look of the layout, but the other characters seem out of place.

[Le Chuck]

Always nice to see a cab get a facelift.  I don't know if you're shopping for advice so I decided to fish for some more information by way of a long list of comments and questions:

Great decision to clip the wings on the CP, I think you'll be much happier with the overall look and feel.  Are you moving to two player because you just didn't get that much 4P love?  

Love the EL wire, love the TRON theme and integration of the trackball.  Not sold on adding in clipart characters from other genres scattered around.

Screenshot button?  Favorites and Genres buttons?  I kinda like having a hotkey for your favorites menu, that's unique, but if you really want to have screenshots it could pull double duty in game as that favorites button and what's the reason that you don't use the joys to navigate through your game menus?  Seems like unnecessary clutter.  

Nine player buttons?  I've seen eight to be pretty common for consolers but nine less so.  Layout is somewhat unusual also, do you mind elaborating on the need?

Three volume buttons?  Why not one knob?  Why three rather than two?  Mute button?  Are any of these many admin buttons pulling double duty as P1/P2 Start and Coin?

Sorry to blast you with questions but thanks for posting.

[drventure]

Gotta second the comments about the clipart chars. I'm not even sure having the tron chars at the bottom works. I think keeping it simple with just the blue glow lines, the trackball highlight and the space invaders "shadow texture" in the background is classy.

I'd also reconsider the angle on the sticks and player buttons. There's quite a lot of dissent about whether to angle p3 and p4 sticks, but on a two player cab, I think it's pretty universal that the sticks are perpendicular to the screen. Fortunately, you're layout could easily be changed to accomodate that.

And finally, I'm guessing those upper 2 extra buttons for each player are P1 P2 Coin and Start?
If so, I'd consider moving them.

I do like the volume controls right there front and center, though a Knob or mouse hack might work better than 3 buttons. Is the idea "Low, medium, High"? Volume, Pause and Escape the the three admin buttons I find I ALWAYS use, and I failed to put a volume control easily accessible on my cab 

[Seith]

It's always interesting to see threads pop up where home builds get rebuilt.  The owner has years of experience with what he/she misses and wants to keep from the old build.  As a first-time builder, i'm always thinking "what if I build this and after a year of owning it I don't like something about it?"

A lot of the advice from other board members seems sound - the button count on your new panel seems high.

[leapinlew]

Whats the mechanism to add credits?

[timekiller]

Wow, clipart gets no love hehe. I liked the artwork on this arcade: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=100445.0 and wanted to do something similar. Besides, I liked the idea of all these game characters running around on "The Grid".

So, to answer a few questions:

- Went with 2 players because we almost never had 4 playing at the same time, mainly I think because it gets crowded.
- The 2 players are spread out to make sure there is plenty of elbow room - and because I have plans of putting a clampable steering wheel on the front. That's why the big open space in the front.
- 3 volume buttons for up/down/mute - didn't go with a knob partially because I couldn't find anything out-of-the-box and didn't feel like building my own, and partially because more RGB buttons means more pretty in "attract mode"
- Favorites and Genre are built into Hyperspin, so I wanted button that took advantage.
- dedicated screenshot button mainly because I wanted something to balance out the Favorites/Genre on the other side.
- the 9 player buttons include Player 1/2 and Coin. (the 2 top buttons). They will also be Start/Select in NES and similar consoles. then you have the normal 6 buttons, and I added the one at the bottom to do a more faithful Neo-Geo layout when playing those games.

[leapinlew]

I'd ditch the angled joysticks and raise them up and make them parallel to the screen. I'd also put top fire joysticks for both player 1 and player 2. This will allow you some tank games and smashTV.

[Green Giant]

Wow, clipart gets no love hehe. I liked the artwork on this arcade: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=100445.0 and wanted to do something similar. Besides, I liked the idea of all these game characters running around on "The Grid".

I have no problem with adding characters, but if your idea is to interface them with the grid, I have a few suggestions.  Use fewer but bigger characters.  If you have any experience with photoshop see about tweaking the brightness of the characters so they look like they belong and not stickers.

- The 2 players are spread out to make sure there is plenty of elbow room - and because I have plans of putting a clampable steering wheel on the front. That's why the big open space in the front.

Spreading them out is fine and makes sense, but you might want to get rid of the angle.  Keep the control panel angle, but put the players parallel to the screen.  I am a fan of utilizing the maximum space given on control panels.  I hate when there is an 8” border of nothing on the outside of CPs.

- 3 volume buttons for up/down/mute - didn't go with a knob partially because I couldn't find anything out-of-the-box and didn't feel like building my own, and partially because more RGB buttons means more pretty in "attract mode"

A very simple hack for volume control is to splice an audio potentiometer into a stereo extension cable.  You could then have the adjustment rod extending into the control panel.  For added LED fun you could choose some sort of transparent disc (of tron) as the adjustment knob.  With that you could have 1 or 2 leds on the underside lighting up the volume control.

If you are dead set on buttons, lose the mute button.  If you must shut up your machine immediately, you have pause.

- Favorites and Genre are built into Hyperspin, so I wanted button that took advantage.

One very cool thing about RGB leds is in most front ends you can have different main buttons do different things and light up to show it.  On my CP my game select buttons in mala glow red, my game information button glows blue, I think I made my random game button green, and then I have skip by page and by letter another 2 colors.
With RGB led buttons you need fewer dedicated buttons since every interface can be customized via the LEDs.

- dedicated screenshot button mainly because I wanted something to balance out the Favorites/Genre on the other side.

Lose the screen shot button and replace it with Exit.  I know you have navigation buttons, but just lose those altogether.  Handle game selection with player 1 and 2 buttons 1.

- the 9 player buttons include Player 1/2 and Coin. (the 2 top buttons). They will also be Start/Select in NES and similar consoles. then you have the normal 6 buttons, and I added the one at the bottom to do a more faithful Neo-Geo layout when playing those games.

Separate player 1/2 and coin.  4 inches above the perpendicular button layout I suggested should suffice.

[DaveMMR]

Angled controls will make your friends curse and/or cry during heated gaming sessions. Straighten them.    And ditching those admin buttons will make your CP ten times more user-friendly (shifted buttons and joysticks will do all that stuff for you without the clutter and wiring).  And I agree, the artwork looks better without any of those characters hovering around.  Random clip-art is just that, random - a little too much so.

Good luck!

[yaksplat]

- 3 volume buttons for up/down/mute - didn't go with a knob partially because I couldn't find anything out-of-the-box and didn't feel like building my own, and partially because more RGB buttons means more pretty in "attract mode"

Griffin powermate knob works well and you can push the knob in for mute.  Works well on my cab.

[Drnick]

I definitely concur with others, Straighten up the sticks, lose some of the admin buttons. Shift the player 1/2 and coin ups. Switch out the volume to a pot or the Griffin Powermate, (Pricey, but oh so sweet, kinda hard to find in the UK for reasonable amounts). Lose all of the console characters (Although I don't mind the positioning of Dirk and Link Swap them out for some Lightcycles.  Loving the El Wire, are you going to run a strip across your CP where the blue line crosses on the artwork, that could look good.

[Dervacumen]

It's always interesting to see threads pop up where home builds get rebuilt.  The owner has years of experience with what he/she misses and wants to keep from the old build.  As a first-time builder, i'm always thinking "what if I build this and after a year of owning it I don't like something about it?"

A lot of the advice from other board members seems sound - the button count on your new panel seems high.

I find it easier and more exciting to build a new one from scratch.  I've used my cabinets for a long time now, and what's the point on retrofitting?  Surely someone, somewhere must want your old castoffs.  Even if you're selling at par with labor out of the equation that still gives you enough cash to move on to the good stuff - building more custom cabs.  For me, the first cabinet was all about cutting costs.  The second, not so much because I learned what I liked and didn't like about the first one and then I made the right choices for Me.