(another) my first MAME cab - finished!

[xkrylonx]

well its mostly finished, i still need to decide if i'm going to do artwork. and i have to get the marquee finished up. but besides that its all together and moved to my place. we almost died getting it down the stairs! but that was a risk we had to take haha.

my original intent with all of this was to make a nice controller to play my MAME games with. but after looking around and finding these forums, and all the great tutorial write ups, i was convinced i had to make my own cabinet. so i ran the idea across to my father (i live in the city with no workplace, he lives in the suburbs with tools and a driveway!) and he was into it. so once again, father and son start a project. i was determined to complete this project however. a few of my past efforts never reached the completed stage (engine swap project for my car, custom pc case, etc), but this time we were going to get it done.

the CP was giving me the most trouble as far as design went. i reached the whole "do i make a super controller?" with ever stick known to man on it. or do i try to go for a modular approach (probably the best idea in the long run)? so i thought about the games i played the most. in the end 2d fighters seemed to be the most popular, so i knew i wanted some nice 8-way sticks and i also went with the 7-button layout for a natural neo-geo feel. i also thought about fitting a trackball, which would be nice as it could double as the mouse. with all these options it felt overwhelming, then i remembered that i wanted to reach my end goal. so i decided to keep it simple and clean. i got 2 Mag-Stik pluses (8-way/4-way switchable) from Ultimarc and a bunch of buttons and kept the look as a 2-player fighter.



the CP is seperate from the cabinet. so i had comfort knowing once i got the thing built and could see how much play it actually got (and by how many people), i could decide if i needed to make another CP. i really would like a spinner and a proper setup to play Tron. and everyone seems to love this Golden Tee (i never played it), so definitely a trackball in there too. so in the future i think i'll design a nice CP that has all single player controls on it that i could swap in when i need (and store it inside the cab - got lots of room in there!)

i wanted the biggest screen i could fit. from what i read it looked like a tv was a viable option. so i found a 27" samsung that just fit the width and stuck it in there. definitely no good for reading text in windows though! i'm using s-video and its rough, but i did order a component dongle for the DVI output of the video card. not sure how much it will help but we'll see. if i get enough play out of this, i will eventually upgrade to one of those Betson multisyncs.



here are some final pics of it all together.

[xkrylonx]

I forget to link the rest of the pics. You can see the entire project here (i put notes on many of the pics): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattx/sets/72057594115063537/

my goal was a simple and clean MAME cabinet that i could enjoy with my roommates, and i think i achieved that. i wanna thank the arcadecontrols community for giving me the motivation to actually sit down and create this. and hopefully mine will help others get motivated to work on their project ideas!

some things i learned:

-plywood will warp. make sure you use it soon after getting it and keep it away from humidity. (i would use MDF if i did another one)

-keep a nice amount of space between your joysticks and buttons (try prototyping first). my first CP top was kind of cramped and the mount holes for the stick interfered with the 7th button. the top also warped though, so i recut it out of MDF.

-TV's are an inexpensive option for a large monitor, but dont expect much from the windows desktop. the games all look great on the tv - but computer resolutions are rough (this is to be expected though).

-wood putty is awesome

let me know what you think, thanks!

[IG-88]

Looks great! You guys did a bang-up job for your first cab. Mine was so pathetic that I won't even post pics of it    I'm interested to see how the DVI thing comes out. Make sure to post back in this thread to let me/us know.

By the way, how are you powering your system on & off? And how do you control the TV volume? Remote?

Oh ya, what kind of hardware & software you running in it?

[TOK]

Love it! Very simple and clean design, which appeals to me a lot. I think I'm one of the few that doesn't like cabs wtih art from 20 different games on them. I'd get a red translucent Happ trackball, a lit marquee and call it done!

[toe.]

i think its great.
its very much like i want my first cab
to be.

[leapinlew]

Looks great!

Couple comments:
Do you have screenshots setup? I notice in all your shots the mamewah is where the screenshots normally are.

Keep your eye out for a coin door - it's amazing how much better it makes the arcade games look.

Very nice setup! You should be proud.

[xkrylonx]

thanks for all the kind words!

By the way, how are you powering your system on & off? And how do you control the TV volume? Remote?

Oh ya, what kind of hardware & software you running in it?

right now its all powered by a power strip in the back, and I turn on the pc and monitor manually. but i plan on getting a smartstrip so i can just power up the pc and turn on the rest. the tv volume is all the way down, and the audio is coming from a powered sub/satellite (single speaker) system i have hooked up to the computer. i do have a tiny hole in my bezel that i made so i could shoot the remote through it to change the tv settings.

the pc is a Intel Celeron 2.4gig with 512mb of ram and a 120gig hd i believe. something close to that anyway. it was the cheapest computer i could find new at a computer show. more than enough power for anything i'm doing with this machine.

Couple comments:
Do you have screenshots setup? I notice in all your shots the mamewah is where the screenshots normally are.

Keep your eye out for a coin door - it's amazing how much better it makes the arcade games look.

those pics were taken before i started playing around with the mamewah layout editor. currently i don't have screenshots enabled just because i was making more space for the text. (i turned up the font size a lot) but i will continue to tinker with it, cause the screenshots would be pretty sweet to have.

and i did source a coin-door (look through the flickr photoset, you can see my roommates in the garbage scavenging parts), but i decided not to install it at first. now that everything is together, i may see about fitting it to the door though.

I'd get a red translucent Happ trackball, a lit marquee and call it done!

yeah, i think that would definitely finish it up nicely!

[Havok]

Looks great! Nice and clean - no clutter. Definitely work in a spinner and trackball at least, some sideart and marquee, and you're done!

[Hockeyboy]

Very nicely done...

I can't wait to get started on my first cab myself...just have to wait until the new house is built and we've moved in...

Great pics on that linked site too. Good detail stuff. 

[Crafty]

If my first effort looks as good I will be stoked...

Well Done

[dpz147]

Looks great...congrats!!!