Chris's mame Cabinet build

Chris_Heilong

Here is a quick build thread and what I have done in the process of creating a mame/emulation cabinet, the project is still WIP but with a Wife, Child and a Job to contend with I know there is a limit to the amount of time and money I can spend on this. Also its in my sitting room:D

I looked at what I had, what I could use and what I needed to buy.

I had a great 20" CRT TV that could do 50/60 hz and looked great running older systems trough RGB scart, one other reason I was keeping it was so I could play House of the dead 2 on Dreamcast and still use the guns. I also enjoyed playing games with my 8 year old son, stuff that I could only dream about playing when I was his age but I wanted the real experience, not just sitting infront of a PC with a xbox 360 controller, I wanted the Arcade experience.

First thing first, I started watching videos on youtube of peoples builds which leads us to my first mistake, I bought an X-Arcade tank stick….I know now, but I didn’t know any better then as this seems to be the way of a lot of American youtubers.

I was going to build my own cab until I realized I didn’t have too may tools and little space for such an undertaking, another option was to buy an old cabinet an convert, this is what I choose and search the Arcade and Retro forum for ideas on where to source one, I found out Mitchmagic was the man when it came to buying the real deal and so I was on the phone and agreeing on buying a ‘Challenger cabinet off him before knew it.

The cabinet was in great condition but as Mitch said…was a bit dusty…

So 3 hours of scrubbing and removing old wiring and clips it cleaned up well.

I managed to unlock the top coin door by unscrewing a nut from behind the door which was holding the lock. The bottom door was more stubborn, I could see someone had been at it with a screw driver, there was a little access from the top door but not enough for me to get my spanner down as the coin box was blocking access, I had to cut into the wood a bit and take the box apart from the inside, not a pretty picture but worked.

This allowed me to remove the coin doors so they could be repainted.

Looking at the Joysticks that came with the cabinet it would be a shame to mount an ugly X-arcade stick when the buttons already there were perfect. I quickly looked up solutions on how to connect to a PC, easier than I thought. I ended up buying a Xin Mo board which acted as a 2 Joypad configuration. A simple case of attach a wire to each button which inturn is attached to the xin mo board to the corresponding pin, finishing it off with a daisy chained ground.


Now, thanks to me, my son is a big Street fighter fan, so it was him who said “dad, there is not enough buttons for streetfighter.” Fear not, up to aldi to buy the hole saw bit, a 1 1/8 or a 28mm is just whats needed, just make sure its for both wood and metal, my control panel is metal so this worked.



A before.

And after.


more to come...

Myrddin

Great stuff, that's a lovely cab actually as far as woodies go

Hygro

Hygro

I think that there IS a way to use an X-Arcade stick on an arcade build, but it has to be done in a way that almost disguises the fact that it is an X-Arcade control panel...I think they're a great stick, really annoyed at myself for selling mine a couple of years back!

Chris_Heilong

Hygro wrote: »

I think that there IS a way to use an X-Arcade stick on an arcade build, but it has to be done in a way that almost disguises the fact that it is an X-Arcade control panel...I think they're a great stick, really annoyed at myself for selling mine a couple of years back!

Mine may be up for sale soon:cool:

Chris_Heilong

I removed the front glass and put the tv into the cabinet, it just fit....one bullet dodged, but there was no shelf to hold it, I had considered deceasing it and watched lots of videos on discharging, but from advice I got from here I just kept the case and build a shelf for the tv to sit on from an Ikea table I had.

There is still enough room under the shelf so I can get access to the joysticks.


The TV fit nice and snug but it was clear it was a TV, it was grey in color and you could see buttons. I went to woodies and got a can of matte black spray paint, I saw some large pieces of foam board my job was throwing out so grabbed one or two and got out the scalpel and cut a bezel to fit around my TV, I painted both this and the front of the TV black, The TV screen was masked off using newspaper and masking tape for this. I put black electric tape around the edges I cut on the foam board to make it look better. I think it turned out well.


Now I know most people like to completely Change the colors of their cabs when doing it up for mame but I like the blue, the only part I don't like is the Challenger marquee, So a quick temp Photoshop job just to make it more presentable.


To remove the paint that was originally on the glass I had to use a razor blade with water and washing up liquid as lube:o
I also put 2 small PC speakers behind the glass which fit fine and even illuminate when on.

I searched adverts for an old computer to use, I didn't want modern but I didn't want too old either, I settled on a Dell optiplex GX620 SSF for 80 euro, it came with 3 gigs of Ram and a Duel core pentium D.


Next step was how am I going to connect my computer to my TV, I learned it needed to output a 15khz signal which is what old TV and arcade monitors ran. I searched the ArcadeVGA graphic cards but they where outside my budget, so I then read about soft 15khz and also the ATI calamity driver which worked with Groovy mame. So I quickly went onto adverts and as my computer was too small to take an ordinary graphics card I needed to find a low profile card. I also ordered the Ultimate scart adaptor which would allow me to connect my via cable to my scart TV.


I found a Redeon HD6450 which seemed perfect, 1GB of video ram and could run Model 2 and zinc emu beautifully, this was mistake number 2. I didn't realise that the 15khz options would only work up to the Redeon HD4xxx series cards.....doh!

Chris_Heilong

So while I am waiting to get a new Graphics card, hopefully tomorrow. I am also trying to get the software end up and running, Hyperspin annoyed me in that it was almost unusable in unsubscribed form and all the movies and sound effects coming on every time you boot up would drive me crazy so Maximus Arcade it is. I have configured it to run many emulators and display pictures, it is using a version of my theme that I used as the Marquee and for ambient sound I choose the Shopping mall theme from Dead Rising. I just need to modify a few of the icons so they match the PAL systems instead of the American ones.

Its also working with the Joysticks with the exception of the exit function, I am looking into getting a dedicated button for this. I have boot loader installed and used a street fighter theme for windows xp start up screen and am just trying to get a few newer emulators to work like Null DC.

I personally love maximus.
There is an exit bug tho that's very annoying.
Afair when you exit sometimes the maximus full screen window looses priority in Windows and won't respond until a mouse click is pressed!
I think the guy that made is disappeared too and never fixed it!

Chris_Heilong

Well I got the Graphics card yesterday, a Radeon HD3450 and installed the CRT drivers, Everything is up and running now. The new card is good enough for Model 2,zinc and Null DC which is great but its not so good with the PSP emulator which I was only going to use for Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur 5 so no great loss. It looks great on a CRT, its very bright and I will have to check each emu for a brightness option as I dont have the TV remote.


I also Found a good way to exit Maximus, by setting the 2p Start as an exit button with a 4 sec hold function means I dont need extra buttons as immediately.

Chris_Heilong

I would like to know what some of you guys have done when it come to the powering off of your systems. I have set the PC to turn on when it gets power and the TV is Just left on and will stay on AV, however I have always powered down my PC as its the safe way to turn it off(no writing to disc when it loses power) but at the moment I am just using a switch plug socket. When I want everything on I click the switch and when I want everything off I press the off switch but is this safe or are there other options?

Optimus Prime

on my Hyperspin setup, when i exit hyperspin by holding 1p and pressing 2p, hyperspin automatically shuts down the pc.

Chris_Heilong

keithgeo wrote: »

on my Hyperspin setup, when i exit hyperspin by holding 1p and pressing 2p, hyperspin automatically shuts down the pc.

Ok, I am sure there is an option in Maximus, I will check tonight. Thanks.

TechnoFreek

keithgeo wrote: »

on my Hyperspin setup, when i exit hyperspin by holding 1p and pressing 2p, hyperspin automatically shuts down the pc.

Same here. Hyperspin has a shutdown on exit option. Then I knock the cab master switch off.

Power on requires the cab and pc to be powered on individually.

Think you can bridge the power header connectors on the pc motherboard to force it to automatically power on when main power is received.

Optimus Prime

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Think you can bridge the power header connectors on the pc motherboard to force it to automatically power on when main power is received.

Its an option in most bios to do that. power on automatically when it recieves power.

TechnoFreek

keithgeo wrote: »

Its an option in most bios to do that. power on automatically when it recieves power.

Except mine :-(

Optimus Prime

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Except mine :-(

doh! its a handy feature for a mame cab.

Myrddin

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Except mine :-(

See if there's a bios update for your mobo...

Chris_Heilong

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Except mine :-(

Look for an option in the bios, under power managment.

It will read something like "in the event of an power outage what do you want the computer to do"
you should look for "switch on when power is detected."

If you can find these options give us a photo of your bios screen.