Anyone Tried Building A Mame Cabinet Yet ?

[joyrider]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone here made a mame cabinet for himself to use, because i wanna make one myself as well. It would be cool to get some information from people who already made one to give me tips on what to do and what not to do etc. I never did any wood cutting or other stuff but i'm farely handy, i already made an arcade controller for my pc using a hacked playstation joystick and that turned out more or less ok. I do have a problem with some of the plans i found on the internet they are all in inches and i / we use centimeters. I would love to see some pictures of the ones u actually made cause i'm still thinking about the design as well.

cheers

 

[Gruntfuggly]

Here's my old one:
http://www.zaonce.com/mamecab/mamecab.shtml

I've currently got a different one in a nice little caberet cabinet (keeps the missus happier)...

The website you want to check out is:
http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

For interfaces, you can't beat Andy Warnes gear:
http://www.ultimarc.com/

 

[DemonStar55]

I've "been building" one...

 

[telengard]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone here made a mame cabinet for himself to use, because i wanna make one myself as well. It would be cool to get some information from people who already made one to give me tips on what to do and what not to do etc. I never did any wood cutting or other stuff but i'm farely handy, i already made an arcade controller for my pc using a hacked playstation joystick and that turned out more or less ok. I do have a problem with some of the plans i found on the internet they are all in inches and i / we use centimeters. I would love to see some pictures of the ones u actually made cause i'm still thinking about the design as well.

cheers

I have one although I didn't make the cabinet itself. I bought a shelled game (not a classic!) and did the rest. Here's a link to mine if it's not in my sig.

my mame cabinet

If you have any questions just let you know I can probably help. Good luck!

~telengard

 

[joyrider]

damn very cool looking cabinets, i like the modular aproach for the control panel but i don't think i'll be able to pull that off. I bought some plans from http://www.mameroom.com/ for the arcade cabinet 1 along with the life sized templates so i don't have to measure anything. My main problem was that every single diagram or plans ive found / bought uses inches for measurements and its really hard to convert them all this gives weird sizes in cm's. So i'm hopping those templates will do the trick, building the rest of the cabinet should be no problem then i hope. Except for cutting the grooves for the T Molding. Can this be done with a "dremel" ? thats what i'm going to attempt at least but first i have to get it all toghter ! I'll keep u all posted, the plans should arrive in about 2 weeks i think

 

[saehn]

Except for cutting the grooves for the T Molding. Can this be done with a "dremel" ? thats what i'm going to attempt at least but first i have to get it all toghter!

No, you'll have to use a router with the blade described in the plans. I made a MAME cabinet and also tried to come up with some other way of doing it. No luck. The blade and shaft (forget what it's called) will be about $30 USD total, and you can always rent/borrow a router.

 

[joyrider]

ah damn it, i'm not even sure what a router is called in dutch or a T molding how am i goin to explain that to the clerck lol hehe ah well that's for finishing touches

 

[saehn]

ah damn it, i'm not even sure what a router is called in dutch or a T molding how am i goin to explain that to the clerck lol hehe ah well that's for finishing touches

Just show him pictures. Here are some bits, make sure to get the one that is the right width for your t-molding.

http://www.t-molding.com/cart/customer/home.php?cat=5

And here's a router:

 

[psj3809]

A guy over at the www.retrogamer.org forum build a bartop (eg a mame cabinet but just the 'top half) which he did a great job of, totally love it. You can always ask him for lots of tips etc, he used to have a MAME building website and still builds a few for people

The posters name is 'boyo' and is very friendly and will answer i'm sure any MAME questions you have

 

[andyB911]

I've been putting off getting myself a MAME cab for years, but it a task for 2007. Unfortunately I'm pretty lazy... and also time poor. And not even money rich to compensate

So building from scratch isn't a realistic option if I want to use it this decade.

So I'm thinking either buy as a finished article (rather expensive and you lose the accomplishment) or go half way and buy an old cab and convert.

Has anybody bought a MAME cab? New or used? I see there are a few companies selling them as completed articles. Or how about has anyone bought a jamma and converted to use a PC and MAME?

I know there are plenty of web-sites that deal with conversion, but wondered if anyone has personal experience and can say how much work regard.

PS Telengard - saw your web-site and the rotating screen looks cool although mucho effort involved.

 

[TelcoLou]

Here's the one I'm getting as soon as we can finish our basement:

http://www.slikstik.com/detail.aspx?ID=134

^ it's the middle one

 

[telengard]

<snip>
PS Telengard - saw your web-site and the rotating screen looks cool although mucho effort involved.

Yep, it was a ton of work as was the modular controls but I'm a LOT happier with them. I'm kinda picky though. I didn't have these things at first.

Playing Pac-Man or Centipede on a horizontal monitor would drive me nuts. Some folks get around this w/ a bigger monitor, like 25". I like the classic look of the 19".

I do *highly* recommend going the gutted cab route as you mentioned. Probably would save 75% time on the project in my estimation and they are rock solid (as long as they don't have water damage). From what I've read they can be had for cheap at auctions and some people just throw them out! h34r:

~telengard

 

[MrHillBilly]

Here are some of the links that I used when I was building mine. I think I have a CD full of plans also, not sure where it is, I will see if I can find it.

Also do not put a computer in it untill you are done. Mine has been about 90% made for 4 years now. When I go to work on it I start to play it and never get anything done.

Here is a bad pic of mine. http://hillbillyarcade.tripod.com/ I now have a 3" trackball so I can make the 3rd. version of my control panel. (I hope this is the last time I change it, version 2 {This one was a bad idea})


http://mysite.verizon.net/vze3j45f/arcade/
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index...;threadid=20175
http://dragonsden.emuunlim.com/ddkeytutl.htm http://www.brightsight.com/Arcade/MAMEv1/d...ads/KEYHOOK.ZIP
http://www.happcontrols.com/
http://www.mameworld.net/massive/How-to/how-to.html
http://www.minimame.com
http://www.jakobud.com/cabinetPlans.shtml
http://localarcade.com/4images/
http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20020904/
http://www.oscarcontrols.com
http://www.mame.net/mamefaq.html
http://www.richpsx.com/mame/mame32_for_windows.htm
http://webpages.charter.net/rbecker5/
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php
http://www.inanna.com/~calhoun/ibox/index.html
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index...098&start=0
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/files/Uploads/cabreio.jpg
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/files/Upload...e_blueprint.jpg
http://www.zophar.net/windos.phtml
http://www.fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/
http://www.junkmachine.com/

BTW a 27" TV is a little to big, that is what I have in mine. Also stick with HAPPs products.

 

[joyrider]

cool thanks for the links !

pretty cool stuff inside there.

i'm still waiting for the plans to arrive from mameroom.com i have the instructions but the real life sized templates are still not here which i'll need cause i'm not good at measuring, i have a friend who can do the cutting in a machine shop I already bought 3 MDF plates 244x122x1.8 cm and i'm currently browsing through ebay for a 21 inch pc monitor. i do have some other links i can try for a cabinet but now that i know some friend of mine can cut it all i think i'll go for the cabinet from mameroom.

at first i was thinking on creating this one : http://chris.polymathic.net/cabinet/index.shtml which seemed pretty simple compared to the mameroom one.

i'll have to wait some more i hope the plans will arrive this week or next week

i'll keep u guys posted, i'll see that i'll make some page about the cabinet

oh yeah in the mean time i'm preparing everything software wise, i'm goana use Mamewah as a frontend, i already adapted a skin, and i'm currently makeing movie previews from all my mame games (using buddamame / mamemoviemaker) to get them to show up in the frontend pretty cool ! The only thing i hate about mamewah is the slow switching between game lists on windows 98 se, unfortunatly i can't run xp because some of the drivers for the motherboard's netwerk card make the system unstable, windows 98 runs stable and boots very fast + it's easier to change the bootscreens in windows 98.

What software are u guys using ?

 

[Gruntfuggly]

I avoided Windows completely - boots into ArcadeOs. Which means, it can be switched off at the plug...

 

[andyB911]

Here's the one I'm getting as soon as we can finish our basement:

http://www.slikstik.com/detail.aspx?ID=134

^ it's the middle one

These look fantastic. You can even have pin-ball buttons - then only missing a steering wheel

Thanks for the link - I'll ask them how much they charge for international shipping... think I'd better be sitting down when I work out the total price...

 

[TelcoLou]

Here's the one I'm getting as soon as we can finish our basement:

http://www.slikstik.com/detail.aspx?ID=134

^ it's the middle one

These look fantastic. You can even have pin-ball buttons - then only missing a steering wheel

Thanks for the link - I'll ask them how much they charge for international shipping... think I'd better be sitting down when I work out the total price...

No prob ... I'm a bit lacking in the free time department, and don't mind absorbing the extra cost to have a simple plug-n-play kit type setup.

 

[MrHillBilly]

I use GameEX for a front end. You can set it up to run about anything from games to videos, it even does internet radio. The free version is a full version just has a long nag screen on boot.

If interested check out http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/

 

[joyrider]

I use GameEX for a front end. You can set it up to run about anything from games to videos, it even does internet radio. The free version is a full version just has a long nag screen on boot.

If interested check out http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/

ah yeah i downloaded that but i thought it stopped working when it was on that nag screen, should have waited longer, but indeed it looks very cool and slick might give it another shot then and wait a bit longer this time :x damn it have to set it up again was a pain in the ass

anyway mamewah is cool also i've set up mame with video previews created using mame moviemaker, snes,genesis,game gear, master system, zinc and more will come

i like the way it gives u all these options to run applications before and after the emu has run, with the ipac u can set up ure keys then.

i don't suppose there are snes, genesis etc snapshots availible somewhere or even movie previews in the goodgen file format. Would save me a lot of hassle figuring out a way to create them automaticly

 

[TelcoLou]

I plan on using MAME32's front end ... it works just fine for me. I only plan on using the cab. for MAME and no other emus or video playback etc ...

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