Taito Cabinet Repurpose

[BrianAg95]

Technically this is my second project, though it is my first mame cabinet.   I created a Guitar hero cabinet from scratch.. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,139197.msg1439612.html#msg1439612

This started as a Taito cabinet with capcom bowling in it.  The cabinet itself was in good shape except horribly beat up T molding, but the game wasn't running well.  Turned out the trackball just needed work... But I suppose I can either keep all the internals safely labeled and stored, or sell them...  The monitor has some burn in, although not horrible.  It is a 19" cga of course.  Being that there are a fair number of capcom bowlings out there and its not exactly an in demand game... I stripped the cabinet bare.   (also because I wanted the hassle free approach of an LCD)

Once stripped, I had to do some trial and error to create control panels to fit exactly, but with that ironed out this is what I ended up with.

The cabinet has 2 minor modifications to the cabinet itself.  It still includes the original control panel latches, which hold all the control panels on, in additional to beefing up the connection with a few dowels that go into holes in each CP.  The only modifications are the angle brackets I added to hold my keystone panel, and 2 dowels added to the front CP lip to help in CP hold down.

End vision: vertical dedicated cabinet, 3 swappable control panels (trackball, 4 way single joystick, dual 8 way joysticks), seemless frontend

I still have a few things to do: 
Custom Marquee (I'm calling this cabinet "classic arcade" with a pacman ish theme)
single 4 way control panel, wood cut, but havent started customizing it yet
I'm going to redo the dual Control panel, As I did the t nut moutning style and even after I filled and sanded over them they still showed up through the vinyl
Custom graphics on each CP
Finalizing front end

I am using attract mode for my front end, which does what I need and is simple for other users to navigate. 

My third project will be the emtpy tekken tag you can see next to it. (all horizontal games)

[BrianAg95]

Customizing the cabinet for multiple control panels, I choose to use ethernet cables and plugs, and my control is a minipac opti.  Which is jest right of the kaystone jack face plate. (picture was taken just before I installed the last keystone for the trackball.)

The monitor is mounted onto a cutout square of mdf that slides right down the original monitor rails inside the cabinet. (the back is completely open to allow heat to dissipate out the monitors original venting)

The marquee is your typical 18" undercabinet $10 light from the hardware store.

For the speakers I used an old pair of battery powered PC speakers.  I drilled a hole in the side and wired the battery inputs to a cable, and then used a 5v supply from the PC to power them.  (the speakers originally ran on either a 6v ac/dc adaptor, which i could no longer find, or 4 C batteries)  Since they ran off batteries, I knew running 5v would still be acceptable as batteries do drop voltage as they die down. 

The original power switch for the cabinet was wired to an outlet strip, and the power on my pc was set to resume upon power restore.   

Each Control panel is wired and then spliced into ethernet cables and labeled so i can plug them into the jacks when I swap them.

I currently don't have it booting straight into my front end as I am still tweaking things.