My new cab...finished!

[ppilot]

Well, I got done a few weeks ago.  I know it's nothing compared to some of the beautiful work I've seen here, but it's mine!  And really, it suits my purposes well.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresite to take any 'in progress' pictures.  But here we go.  I modded an existing cab.  It was originally a Donkey Kong cabinet that someone had converted into a Konami Super Basketball.  The board was dead, but the monitor still worked.  Note that they painted over the bezel and then reversed it.  The marquee is also reversed, and they'd stuck a (I think) tempest sticker over the back.

[ppilot]

Here's another view.  Note the bar and hasp over the coin door. 

[ppilot]

I could see Donkey Kong still inside though, wanting to get out.  I went back and forth between maming it, or getting a DK board and restoring it.  Mame won out.

The Joystick was a Wico leaf-style joystick that just didn't feel good.  So it got removed.  I had wanted to save the control panel, but it was swiss cheese underneath.  I did get to keep the buttons.

I used an ipac for the keyboard encoder, and got some of ultimarc's t-stick pluses for the joysticks.  I tried and tried to coax the paint off of the bezel and save it, but it was no dice.  I ended up having to order a new one from Mike's arcade.  I found the marquee underneath the sticker, but unfortunately it was cracked.  I downloaded a control panel overlay, marquee and side art from local arcade.com.  A quick trip down to the local print shop, and I had my artwork.  Here's the finished product.

[MameMaster!]

that's the spirit!....excellent!....way to go.

Enjoy your new cab! 

[ppilot]

Doesn't it look better with the nice white t-molding?  Incidentally, I was more nervous about cutting the slots for it on the control panels than anything.  I know how to use a router, but I just couldn't get my head around how it would work for this.  Fortuanately, Home Depot had a slot cutting bit, and once I saw it, it became clear.

I went back and forth as to whether or not to use the arcade monitor.  I wanted authenticity, but I also wanted newer games, to be able to use windows, and to easily rotate the display.  In the end, the monitor got sold to someone with a machine to restore, and I went with a 19" LCD display.  It was easy, keeps cooler, and uses less power.

I at first thought I'd cram all the controls onto the one panel, but I didn't remember quite how small a Donkey Kong machine is.  I did some research, and decided in the end to go with swappable panels.  I used molex connectors I bought at radio shack and made three panels.  Here's a picture of the connections, along with the inside of the machine, and part of my feet.

[ppilot]

I wanted a full control panel for fighting games.  I really like the T-Sticks for this by the way.  Their short through took some getting used to, but for this they're excellent.

I made a pretty standard six button panel (didn't bother with the neo-geo button, I don't quite get the point of that.)  I made it a little different than most people in that I wanted both a right and a left handed layout.  This puts the joysticks close together for dual joystick games, and people can use whichever layout they prefer.  I have it set up so that unless it's a two-player simultaneous game you can use either side of the panel.

Note I removed the coin door bar and put in a barrel lock.  I thought I'd just stick a carriage bolt in the hole and it would balance with the one on the other side.  But, there were three holes under there.  So for now, I stuck the 'insert coin' sticker over the holes until I can fill them properly.  I know it's kind of in a weird place, but it works for now.

[ppilot]

Tempest was a must have for me, so I made an optical panel too.  It's a tornado spinner, along with a USB trackball.  Some of my Golden Tee liking friends complained about the trackball, in that you can't wind up on it like you can on Golden Tee.  It was the best I could do though, and I'm used to playing with my fingertips.  For classic trackball games it works fine.  I wanted three buttons on this panel for missile command, and went with a top-fire joystick for Tron.

[ppilot]

Here's a full-frontal view of it.  You can't tell in the light, but I put a light behind the marquee, and the trackball is also lighted from underneath.

[ppilot]

I had my family over for Christmas, and the kids went nuts over this thing.  I'm not sure you can see them all, but there are five of them crowded around.

[ppilot]

Thoughts on all of this:

1)  I built the rotating monitor because I don't like playing games with the screen oriented wrong.  I haven't found a software solution I'm too happy with (I've got two different instances of Mamewah to run the thing, is there a better way?)  I just moved into the house you see in the pictures, I built the panels in my old apartment.  Now that I have workspace, I think I'm going to build a Mario Bros. cabinet from scratch, and dedicate the Kong machine to a vertical layout.

2)  The Slikstik top-fire joystick SUCKS ASS.  It's getting replaced with a proper flight stick someday.

3)  I made the buttons on the fighter panel too far apart.  I really don't want to re-do it, but I might someday.

4)  The molex connectors work, but I don't know, they feel a little cheap.  I have a feeling they'll end up needing to be replaced every year.  I might look at fashioning a different kind of plug.

Any other thoughts from anyone?


I want to thank everyone here on this board for all the help, and especially all the people that took the time to write all of the software I ended up using...Mame, Mess, Daphne, VPinmame, Visual Pinball, CPViewer and CPVW, vp-launch4 and WinCab, and especially for giving it away for free.  I'm a computer programmer, and I know the work that goes into this.  So thank you all!

[Edgedamage]

Nice work I like the original cab with mame being almost hidden.

[IG-88]

How many/what kind of games you got on that thing? Very nice job.

[coasternuts]

Nice resto-mame!  I like the "closeness" of the earlier cabs and your shot of the kids around it captured it perfectly.

Could you post a pic of in game play with the LCD?  I've been wondering what mame looks like on an LCD.  21" CRT's are fine by me, but rotating them is not easy. 

[RayB]

I'd have a definite "NO DRINKS ON THE VIDEO GAME" rule... but to each his own. 

Hey, you found molex connectors at Radio Shack??!? What section?

[ppilot]

Thanks for all of the positive comments.

I have a 'no food or drink downstairs' policy when there's kids around, after an unfortunate incident with my pool table   Those cups you see are filled with quarters.

I found the molex connectors in those bins they have with a/v components at Radio Shack.  The catalogue numbers are 274-232 and 274-242.  If your local RS doesn't have them, they'll order them and deliver for free.

I couldn't get a real good picture of the display through the plexi and without a flash.  Here's the best I could do.  Really, if I run in native resolution & use hwstretch and triple buffering I'm quite happy with the display.

[eccs19]

My 2 cents worth.  I think you did a very nice job on that cab!  I like the fact that you have multi control panels, yet you still keep the classic DK look.

[CheffoJeffo]

Nice job -- classic lines AND everything you want.

I think the term resto-MAME is a perfect description and it is really nice to see folks putting in the effort you did instead of just bolting an X-Arcade onto it.

Cheers.

[RetroJames]

http://www.retroblast.com/newsitem.php?cid=346

Happy Holidays!

[ppilot]

Ha, that is too cool!  Thank you!

[Wade]

Neat job, but I think that LCD is too dim for this application.  Maybe it would be okay if the bezel wasn't tinted.  LCD's have advantages over CRT's but brightness is not usually one of them.

Wade