Mods to cabinets what changes have you made?

[Shieldwolf]

It's been 4 years since I updated my cab so I thought I would add some mods in addition to updates.  I'm just curious what things people have been adding that work well and what they did.

For example.
Led lights that flash in conjuction to the game being played sounds cool. Which means new buttons, an encoder that will work with my hagstrom and more wiring. I'm reading up on it now.
I know guns have been a big thing. Cup holders, lcd demo videos ,Flashing lights etc.
So what have you added or want to add?

[M.Lanza]

So far, i'll be using capacitive proximity sensors behind tinted glass that will
act as hidden admin buttons ( power, exit ) and interfacing xbox controllers to
happ/midway 49-way joysticks to simulate analog control ( it's not exactly plug and play ).

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81918.0

[SavannahLion]

I'm not real crazy about the lit buttons thing.  If you have dead buttons on your panel, it's because you were lazy and didn't reprogram the inputs for each game.

That's why I keep delaying ordering any of the LED controllers even though I think it's pretty cool. Programming the buttons for that many games. Even if I cut the list down to say... 100 games. That's an awful lot of work and time that I'd rather be spending doing something else... like playing the games.

Anyone try transmuting standard light patterns to their custom panel?

[Shieldwolf]

Really? I guess I need to do more home work. I thought someone had compiled a program that lit up the buttons in attract mode so as you scroll down a game it showed you what buttons to push. Maybe I need to think about this LED thing. If that's not the case then maybe I'll hold off or just put in some light up buttons.

[SavannahLion]

Really? I guess I need to do more home work. I thought someone had compiled a program that lit up the buttons in attract mode so as you scroll down a game it showed you what buttons to push.

I'm not sure actually. I'm 40% sure someone accomplished this but I keep forgetting to look around for it every time I visit. Every time I do remember, it's 2AM and I'm just too damn tired to fire up the PC and do the search.

[SavannahLion]

OK, I think I have my answer.

Checking a couple of the FE's not entirely blocked at work, GameEX has a plugin that does this. So I have to assume at least a few other FE's support this feature too.

It's pretty cool too. It takes the original button assignments and "filters" it through MAME's configuration files to tweak the output for specific games.

[Shieldwolf]

So then maybe I will continue with this project. If I could get that, A great light up metal dance pad and a gun with recoil and foot pedal I'd be good to go.