My all-in-one mame bawx [J-Rcade]

[J-Rod]

My latest project, nearing completion. Came out pretty close to what I had envisioned with the model, save for some brass mesh I am trying to get my mitts on. Inside is also a bit ghetto, but good enough for me atm. Let me know what you guys think! I am happy to answer any questions you might have. Later -JC

*edit* Here is a new valid link, image heavy since I just loaded all of them into a html. For those of you on dialup, you're SOL. =]

http://jrodder.googlepages.com/j-rcade

[pocketbikez]

very cool. a portable complete mame controller.

i like the brass hardware and the tiger stripe grain in the wood. what kind of wood is it? it looks like the wood in a mercedes benz or bmw.

nice job.

[johnnysmitch]

Nice work! Very classy looking - makes me wanna smoke a cigar...    On the back there, how did you mount those jacks?  Did you just back the video and sound card up to it, or did you find panel mount jacks for it? (I used panel mount RCAs in mine, but had to make my own S-Video panelmount because i couldn't find any anywhere...)

[Mr. Dude]

Awesome job man!  It looks really nice.  That's real cool concept to be able to bring that along anywhere and just plug it in to a TV and play.

[RetroJames]

I really liked it too.  I am planning something similar but with detachable controls.  More of a MAME console type thing.  Really great work and it looks like it matches the furniture in the house no?

[J-Rod]

Thanks for the replies guys! The wood is called curly maple. I got a 10' x 1' x 1" board from a wood warehouse in Hartville. (Amish Country) The RCA jacks in the back I kinda had to hack together. I could have gone to an electrical shop to get the part I needed, but instead I ripped one out of a junk satellite box I had laying around. The MB has onboard video, TV out and composite video. If you look at the insidebottom.jpg, you can see the 2 black wires I had to use, the svideo I just mounted, but the video I had to cut and solder to the new jack. The audio was done the same way, I bought an 1/8" stereo jack and cut the female end off, and soldered to the red and white RCA.

The plan for some future fun is to try and hack apart a wireless controller and hook it up to a laptop version of the arcade controls. I went for this model only because I knew for sure I could make it work. I left room to put in a trackball, and maybe a spinner, depending on if i can fit it in or not.

                                                                      -JC

[SNAAKE]

Very nicely done !
Very clean and all that jazz.What kind of power supply is that anyway ? Its kinda smaller then then standard once.

[Gunstar Hero]

Wow man. Classy. That bad boy belongs in the MAME museum of fine art.

Throw like a nice marble looking trackball in that thing with a brass mounting plate and a gold spinner knob and life will be complete.

[J-Rod]

I was going to go for a black trackball, but yeah, if I can find a marble one... that would look much nicer. =] The power supply is a 200 watt 1u rackmount, normally used in rackmount servers. I knew that traditional power supplies were too big for the small footprint I wanted, so I began my search for a smaller supply. I ran across that when looking around on google images and pricewatch. It's atx and fully compatible with the micro-atx. Since I am not running too many peripherals, I figured 200 watts should be enough, haven't had any problems yet. Thanks for the positive feedback guys!

                                                                 -JC

P.S. The wife pwned me in Bust-A-Move last night.

[menace]

That thing is soooo nice!!  excellent woodworking!  You should be proud of your newest offspring  

[flampoo]

I considered doing something like this but I've heard that overheating is a constant when making something like this. Have you had any problems with that when runnning the PC for an extended amount of time?
I mean, provided you have enough ventillation it shouldn't be a problem. I'm just going on what others have said.

[danny_galaga]

talk about announcing waaaay before its finished. your photos say oct 1 2004  

edit: talk about unobservant- it WAS oct 1, 2004. I might have to see someone about getting my eyes checked...

[nostrebor]

Very cool!

The woodworker in me gasped at the sight of all that curly maple. In my town, the maple would cost more than all the rest of the parts

If you really want to have some fun, post that on woodnet forums and sit back and listen to the horror and flames of the purists

[J-Rod]

     I have had no problems overheating, I didn't post a pic of the bottom of the box, but I drilled a series of vent holes underneath the CPU, as well as a slot in the front that doesn't appear in the pics. I am using a 3" 12v exhaust fan, don't remember the RPM offhand, but it's pretty meaty. Maybe if you folks want I can take a few more pics of the vent system and post them later today when I am done with appointments.

     I admit I had some help with the woodworking, my inlaws have a wood shop in the basement, so they helped with stuff like planing the rough wood and biscuit joining. I drew up the plans using Corel Draw, and then rendered an image to scale in Maya. Took that to the shop after I loaded two 5' boards into my tiny Celica. As far as the price, it wasn't really all that bad. The entire 10' board cost me 82 bucks, not sure what is was listed at in boardfeet. I was toying with the idea of making these for sale, but I doubt anyone would want to pay enough to cover costs and labor. I could cut down on cost by using veneer, or by using curly for just the top and oak for the rest, but what fun would that be?

*edit* Actually if you look close at the uncoveredfan.jpg, you can see there's a gap under the front control panel top. I am going to cover this with the same brass mesh used to cover the fanhole, and use it as a place to possibly mount a powered USB hub, after I find out how to splice it into the existing PSU. That will let me do stuff like easily plug in a racing wheel, gamepads and the like.

[goofy]

More pictures are always welcome. Please post any more that you take.

Thanks.

[Matt, GoC]

I'm getting a not found error.  I know I saw it earlier, and it looked great!

[Acids]

the links not working for me either...

[J-Rod]

ACK! Looks like my hosting space is gone. The root website is changed and i don't have ftp access anymore. I also deleted the originals off my HD. Well maybe I'll have to take a fresh set and repost somewhere else. =]

[J-Rod]

I fixed the link, and added a pic of the ugly bottom. My father in law showed me a piece of wire mesh he painted a brass color, it actually didn't look too bad, but I would really rather get myself a piece of the real deal, so there's no flaking issues and such later on down the road.