Bedford Market

Cabinet Tip

help planing out mame cabinet.?

im new to building my own arcade cabinet. are there any tips that anyone wishes to share to a bignner? like where to shop? safty precautions? or how much money and time and space it could take up?

I am assuming you are building from scratch. Best advice is plan, measure twice, cut once, Use quality controls, and Take Your Time.

Let me start off by saying the end product is what every thing is based on:

Money:
The wood: What you use to make the cabinet needs to be sturdy and one side finished for a good look. (I have used HDO plywood in the past very good product http://www.freemansupply.com/HDOFirPlywood.htm)
The computer: It needs to be fast enough to run the games you wish to play. You can go overboard here and just buy to fast of a cpu that you just didn't need. Remember hard drive space.
The monitor: This can very also. Mainly 3 types to use. 1 a CRT type like the original arcade games used. 2 a flat screen plasma or lcd TV/Monitor. and 3 a regular TV 20+ inch. (Note that orientation is a factor also for the install and overall size.)
The controls: You will need to know how many buttons, joysticks, rollers, spinners, ect you will need for the games you will have loaded. The control panel is what I always built my Cabinets around. I determined How many player and the needed controls and placement. Made a mock up with cardboard to see the size and function ability of the controls. Knowing this size allowed me to know how wide the cabinet would be and then the size of the monitor. Also it showed what king of hardware I needed to connect the controllers to the computer.
The Hardware: You will need wire and at least one ipac/jpac. I always added two fans, a power strip, lighting, speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse.
Cost: from scratch can run from as low as $800 to over $2000 from my experience.

Time:
As stated before TAKE YOUR TIME! plan, plan, plan. I never finished one on a set time schedules, but did make goal points.
1 acquire the computer, hardware, and controls.
2 while still acquiring parts,start design as mock build ups.
3 acquire the wood and other materials to assemble the cabinet.
4 build the cabinet.
5 build the control panel.
6 install the monitor.
7 install the wiring
8 Install the CPU
Not really that easy but generally the order.

Space?: To build? I use an 8x10 Shed. Cabinet size, I've only made one monster that was almost 4foot wide and deep. I built one that was a sit down that was two parts and they pinned together and took up about 3.5 wide and 7 foot long. But most are gust over 2 foot wide and just under 3 foot deep. All sizes are footprint size, control panels not added.

Here is a great resource sight for a lot of you needs when building. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?board=1

More reading:

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

http://www.dave-gallagher.net/arcade/porn/page17.htm

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/arcade/

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/10/mame_cabinet_build_photos.html

http://thydzik.com/mamecab/

Now the Meat and Taters:

http://www.happcontrols.com/index.html?http://www.happcontrols.com/pushbuttons/5891xxl.htm!

http://www.ultimarc.com/

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=index

http://midwestgames.stores.yahoo.net/

http://www.hagstromelectronics.com/

http://www.ozstick.com.au/

http://www.thrustvector.com/products.html

http://www.conntrol.com/default.html

http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl

http://www.arcadeshop.com/parts.htm#Monitors

http://www.twobits.com/parts/

http://www.quarterarcade.com/Default.aspx

http://www.highway.net.au/parts/wiring.html

http://www.thebuttkicker.com/

http://www.elektronforge.com/parts.htm

http://stores.ebay.com/TWISTEDQUARTER

http://www.t-molding.com/store/home.php

http://www.directron.com/mods.html

http://www.svideo.com/displayvideo.html

And lastly a good tip is use a front end program such as GameEX http://www.gameex.net/ and use mame32 version. It makes for a clean install and easy for anyone to find a game and plat, very programmable.

Congrats on on your build, take your time and have fun.

Yahoo questions closed about MAME Cabinets http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result;_ylt=AoNzY_JsDy56jbDPJsJm_OQnzKIX;_ylv=3?ps=2&p=mame+cabinet&pn=&scope=&mc=&fltr=_en&tab=1&asktime=&save_search=1&st=1