Mario Bros Mame Project

[nosecondcity]

I acquired a mostly empty cab for free, so I am beginning my mario bros themed mame arcade. Here are some pics of the cabinet as it sits in my kitchen. The marquee says Battle Balls, which is a pretty fun game, but there's nothing inside except for some stray wires that connect to the speakers. The control panel is removed because it wouldn't fit through my apt. doorway (I'm on the 2nd floor and this was insane getting it up a flight of curving stairs).

This will be a 2 person/6 buttons/1 trackball control panel. There's a pic of the cp I printed out in b&w to make sure I liked the spacing and layout. It uses the basic design of the original cp with some mods for a 2 player and trackball.  It's approximately 14in width by 34in length.

The sideart and marquee will be reproduction from mamemarquees (oops-gameongraphics!).

Right now, I'm debating as to whether or not to paint the cab orange or red...will go to lowes tonight to pick up the paint, so I better make up my mind.

Can't wait to get this going...hopefully this weekend I'll be able to prime the cab and drill the holes for the cp.

[tjterrill]

Very cool.

 I was very close to doing Mario Bros on the exact same cab shape. However after thinking more about it, I decided against it so I could do Mario Bros, and DK on the original Nintendo arcade shape. That's just my preference hoewever, especially after seeing so many well done reproductions.

Good luck! Ill be following.

[nosecondcity]

Yea, I went back and forth on the same thing, but to do a repro, the width of the cab was just too small to have 2players and a trackball. I don't want it to be cramped while playing.

I was going to try to re-use the base part of the cp, but I think I'm going to slant the top of the control panel for more comfort (similar to how the Simpsons/X-men, etc control panels were). And the length of it is too short so that one of my joysticks wouldn't fit inside. 

I placed my printout on my mdf and stuck it on the cab and the viewing angle seems good for both players, so I'm happy about that at least.

[nosecondcity]

Okay, so this past week I got a good amount of work done. I painted the cab using a paint code from one of the members here. I think it came out well. I had wanted to use Buckethead's red paint code from Lowes, but the dude from Lowes told me Valspar had changed their base colors, so the gallon he mixed off the code was magenta-ish--just a head's up for those interested in using the red color.

I then drilled the holes for the cp. The trackball's a bit of a problem since I didn't have a 3 1/4 inch bit. I ended up using a compass to draw 3 1/4 inch hole, then used a 1 inch bit and made repeated cuts in it. I used a file to go around it. It worked okay, but I have a little more to do on it.

I received the artwork from Scott at mamemarquees and it is fantastic. The control panel is great--I can't wait to see it with the controls on.

Built the control panel box but still have to drill a couple holes in it for attaching it to the cab.

The marquee cover had some old stickers on it, so I used goof off to remove it. Worked great but now there's a white film on it (see pic). Any suggestions as to how to get it off?

I've set up everything with the computer using MaLa frontend and running Mame, Znes, and Mala's jukebox. I might switch to Uncle T's but I'll see how Mala is first. Mala is f***ing fantastic!

Today I'm going to install the cp overlay and controls. There's a problem with my utrak, so while I can mount it, I won't be able to plug it in.

If I skip a bbq today, I can probably swing the wiring too, but most likely that will be tomorrow night.

Waiting on Pongo's set of vinyls for my pause and esc buttons.

The one problem I'm having is not being able to remove the e-clip from my U360s. I'm having trouble pulling it off. For those of you who have replaced the shaft/put on a restrictor, how did you remove the clip?

More pics to come when I finish the control panel.  

[jmike]

Looks great so far. Keep those pics coming.

BTW Love the control panel art!

 

[nosecondcity]

Well I finally finished last month but haven't had time to post. Here are the rest of the pics.

A few things I learned along the way:
1. this forum is your friend. Your very, very knowledgeable friend.
2. Don't rush ahead to things because you'll pay for it in the long run. For example, after I built the control panel box, I primed and painted it. Then, I drilled and hacked away to secure it on the cabinet. I should have painted it last.
3. When you print out (or have mamemarquees print out) your cpo, don't drill on your cp until you have the overlay. Otherwise, it may not match up exactly (even if you measure and re-measure).
4. Use the correct drill bits. If you don't have the right size, suck it up and buy it or borrow it from a friend. I didn't have 1 1/8" for the buttons, so I used my 1" bit, then spent hours with a file trying to perfectly make a larger circle. I got A LOT of blisters.
5. Prime. I know it's tempting to want your arcade finished and play ready, but priming really is worth it.
6. Make sure all your software/frontend/ipac, etc. is up and running the way you want it before putting everything in the cab. Test your buttons-make sure everything is programmed the way you want it. It's a royal pain after the fact.
7. When you find paint codes on the site here, be careful if it is an old post. I originally was going to use a paint code for Mario Bros Red. However, after having the dude at Lowe's mix the Valspar, he told me the base had changed to magenta. So the end color in no way resembled what I was looking for.
8. MaLa is an excellent frontend, especially if you are using more than Mame (I have Mame, ZNES, and Kega Genesis). All work flawless using a tree so player can easily scroll to what they want to play. I cannot say enough good things about the frontend.
9. I'd highly recommend using the coin reject button as a way to tell Mame you've 'inserted coin'. I was looking for a way to incorporate my coin door without having to use actual coins. A few of the people on the forum had posted about it and I borrowed the idea. I love it and I love the simplicity--very easy to setup (just like a pushbutton).
10. Make sure your cp has space to play. Make a mock out of cardboard or just draw straight on the mdf with pencil to get an idea. It really helped me with spacing.

These are probably pretty obvious things to most people on the board, but I just wanted to share my thoughts. I'm really proud of the way things turned out. Of course, just soon after I finished, I find I have to move out west for work. So now I have to figure out what to do with this since I can't bring it with me.

Anyways, below are the specs:

1. 2 Ultimarc U360s, long shaft, red ball tops
2. 1 Red Ultimarc UTrak
3. Ipac
4. 25.5" LCD monitor
5. HP desktop 250gb, 2gb memory, Intel Pent 4, 8 usb ports
6. Admin buttons-vinyl overlays from Pongo
7. Mamemarquee print outs for marquee and cpo

Enjoy and thanks again to everyone on the board for advice, input, and knowledge!

[nosecondcity]

More pics....

[emphatic]

Very clever trackball artwork! 

[nosecondcity]

Thanks man. I got the idea after seeing Sardu's control panel pic on the CP database post. I liked how he had pipes on the cp, so I played around a little bit and came up with this.

I wanted to keep the cp original looking, but thought the trackball coming out of the pipe was a good way to make it my own.

[WhereEaglesDare]

This cabinet looks fantastic.  Did you paint over the old Laminate?  Did you have any trouble?

[nosecondcity]

Thanks a lot--I appreciate the compliment.

As for the cab, I primed it with two coats using Kilz. Then I painted on 3 coats of Behr (the orange). The actual control panel box I built myself using mdf. Same deal--2 coats Kilz, 3 coats paint. Oh-and sanded lightly in between each coat.

I really hated waiting for the coats to dry---I have NO patience!

[Rick Dangerous]

Nice work The only thing you need now is a great SideArt !!