I’ve seen MAME Cabinets around, and have loved emulation forever, and I’m taking the dive. I made this page to show progress of making a MAME Cabinet.

• Step #1 - Work out the hardware, and software.

The first thing I did was make sure I had a working PC, with a working front end. luckily I have an old Inspirion 8000 that I loaded Windows 2000 on, and installed Maximus Arcade onto. Maximus Arcade is a commercial frontend that I absolutely love. It looks amazing, sets up easily, and has the capability of running tons of emulators. It even has a built in .MP3 Jukebox which is awesome for a finished cabinet to have. The problem with Maximus is it cost $25 bucks, but considering how well it runs its worth it. I haven’t purchased it yet, still running off the trial. Looking into buying it right now.

UPDATE(5/20/07)

I did indeed buy Maximus. Pain free process, works really well. Setting up the new version was tough, but I got it going. I highly reccomend this to avoid a big headache with front ends.

On the ROMS side of this, I downloaded a torrent of about 50 games that are just great. All worked fine, snapshots worked fine, and its all good. If you want to download that, click here. (If you do not know what Bittorrent is, simply put, download a client like uTorrent, and open the torrent file in the client. It should download. for more info, go here.)

So, now that we’ve got a PC, a nice frontend, and some games, lets start getting into controls.

• Step #2 - Controls. Planning, planning, and more planning.

The control panel is the core of a cabinet. A poor control panel, and you mine as well not have the whole cabinet. The best way to decide how you want to lay out controls is looking at old games you loved, or cabinets other people have made. Decide if you want 2 players, or 4 players. A trackball, or a lightgun.

For my cab, I went with 2 players, 6 buttons each, joystick, and player 1 and 2 start buttons. I bought Happ Controls from this Ebay Auction. 38 bucks, which is decent. And I decided to buy an I-PAC2 and the wiring kit from Ultimarc. Together I spent about 110 bucks. At this point, I just ordered everything, so no details on how wiring went, etc. I will update when I do get to building around Christmas time.

UPDATE(1/2/07)

I got all the controls and the I-PAC. Nice buttons, feel and look authentic. Well, they really are authentic. Joysticks are perfect too. I was shocked at the simplicity of them. They are all just extensions that hit microswitches. Not really a complaint, more a relief to know that.

Once I began planning my new bartop plan (see below) I built a mock up of the control panel, in scale, into cardboard.
This turned out to be a great tool and reminded me to widen my control panel as much as possible. This is a must in anyones planning of a cabinet.

UPDATE(5/20/07)

I just finished up my control panel. What a hassle! It was really a tough process.

To start off, I refered to all of my sketchs, matched up with my finished cabinet, and learned I was short some wood. I decieded to go for it. 1/2 inch turned out to be too much. It just dosn’t sit right on the cabinet. But, in the act of a loss of patients, I just kept working on.

I spent atleast 2 hours drawing the panel, erasing, and redrawing before I came out with the perfect set up. I was excited, so I ran right outside to start drilling holes. I was using a 1 1/8″ spade drill bit in a very old corded drill. Each hole took a good minute to bore. After a lot of drilling, I moved onto the bolt holes for the joysticks, and finally the hole for the joystick to pass through. It turned out looking decent. A few poorly aligned holes, but I kept going.

I’m no where near happy with my control panel design, and will no doubt redo it when I have more wood, and time.

Wiring the control panel was my favorite part of this whole process. The wiring kit I purchased from Ultimarc came into great use, specificly the crimps that fit the pins on the microswitch so perfectly. I wasn’t sure how to approach grounding the buttons at first, but I quickly figured it out. I just made a chain of wire, from one switch to the next, and into the I-PAC.

The I-PAC worked nicely. Everything went in smooth, and interfaced perfectly. If your looking for the easy way out for a little bit more money, its the way to go, but the keyboard hack is much cheaper. I would have went this route if I had known more about electronics when I started this project.

Now all I need to do is build the cabinet itself.

• Step #3 - The Cabinet - The hard part?

I planned on building my own cabinet from scratch. Sounds fun, but in all honesty, I can’t do it. I have zero tools, and minimal experience. So, I went the easy road and decided to just attempt to find a broken cheap empty cabinet to build into. luckily, that search was a lot easier then I expected. A run over to Craiglist showed a lot of people have them, and for cheap. Due to lack of patience, I also posted a wanted ad on ArcadeControls.com, and great resource for anyone building a cabinet. Shockingly, a few minutes later I had an offer for a free cabinet not to far from me. (Thanks MrTroy.)

At this point I havn’t picked up the cabinet, so no comment on anything like weight, size, condition, pros or cons. I’ll update when I do pick it up.

UPDATE(1/2/07)

I have decided to build my own cabinet from scratch. After some measurements, I would have trouble getting a cabinet in the car, and down the stairs into my basement, so I have to deal with building my own cabinet, and I decided to build a bartop cabinet. I have a bar in my basement that is just dying for some entertainment.

The way I figure it, I will need to build my cabinet like so: Cut 2 side panels from 5/8″ MDF wood. These side panels will have to accommodate the depth of my monitor, and laptop, about 20″ back. I have yet to design my own plans, but I plan on doing that soon.

With the side panels cut, I have to make dividers that will be screwed in between the sidepanels. I have to cut these at an angle to make my cabinet get gradually wider to make sure 2 players can play, with out being cramped.

This weekend I will pick up what I need:

• 5/8″ MDF Wood (Not sure what size exactly, will upadate as soon as I know the size and cost.)
• A Spade Drillbit for dilling button holes. (Not sure exactly what size, but again, will update.)
• Workhorses (Can’t be more then 20 bucks, right?)

I plan on using only the tools I have:

• Circular Saw
• Drill

But obviously I may pick up some new tools.

• Sander (Belt or Orbital, at my local Big Lots, they have cheap tools. In price, and probably quality.)
• Jigsaw (They have these at my Big Lots as well. Not expecting much out of the $25 price tag, but if I need it, its cheap.)

I’m not really an ace carpenter, only really building things in tech classes, so this might turn into a challenge, no matter how simple it seems in my head.

UPDATE(5/1/07)

About a week after I wrote up my plans for building the cabinet by hand, I did infact go to the hardware store and pick everything up. The wood, screws, nuts and bolts, drill bits, cost me about 25 dollars. Moving my running total to ~$135.

But now I am about 4 months from the same time I got the materials, and I have nothing to show. I put the project aside because I lacked workhorses, and feared what may come out if I did not take my time and use them. So, I held off until the cabinet was the last thing on my mind. Now I’m back, and looking forward to finishing the cabinet.

Please don’t do what I did, don’t put any projects off. I’ve taken a new vow to finish everything I start, and everyone should follow my example! It feels great when you finally follow through. So, stick to it. Stop starting, and start finishing!

• Step #4 - Build it.

The last step is build it, but I’m not there yet, so nothing I can tell you. I’ll update later on.

UPDATE(5/20/07)

Well, construction went alright. I didn’t have any trouble cutting out the pieces with just the old circular saw I had. It all came out fine.

When I began to piece the thing together, I started to ruin it. MDF doesn’t like dry wall screws, and would split and screech as I drove them in. The splitting wasn’t too bad, so I stuck to it.

Nothing was really too bad about building the cabinet, and I enjoyed doing it. I just wish I took my time more, and was a bit of a better carpenter. I’m happy that I have finished it, but it did not come out very nice.

I’m not happy with the end result of the cabinet, but it will do. Its simple, but very shoddy. I was not expecting much more from my self, so I am not let down, but I would have liked to have seen my self spend more time and planning with it.

UPDATE ( 5/23/07)

 

I spent some time last night adding a new external power switch to turn this bad boy on. I was worried about ripping a laptop open, but I went ahead, and did it. It fell apart perfectly. Just the panel where the powerswitch was poped off.

(Don’t worry, I’m working on a new camera. ;))

I used a standard STSP style “ON/OFF” switch. I’m thinking about switching to a new key lock switch like this:

It just depends whats easiest to mount. I’m just happy I got that done and out of the way. Now all I have to do it mount it and I’m ready to rock.

More (poor) images are in my Flickr account. Check them out here

UPDATE! (7/2/07)

Sorry for my lack of updates. I’ve been quite fed up with my cabinet recently. Giving me all sorts of annoying little errors and such.

Since my last update, the big deal is my brand new control panel. I have added an escape button, and 2 coin buttons below the control panel. Its also been rewired, and running just fine.

I also decided to add a new emulator. Project64. I’ve loved N64 forever, and mostly for the multiplayer. So now I have Mario Cart, Super Smash Brothers, and more running perfectly. My BIG issue at the moment with them, is making them able to play through Maximus Arcade. I’m not sure of the command line codes to book games, and can’t seem to find them. Its quite annoying. I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out later.

The bezel has given me another big pain in the ass. Its really difficult to size it up PERFECTLY for the monitor size, and position in the cabinet, and not to mention, I can’t match the color of the hardboard I am using to the color of my monitor, which I spray painted in an (failed) attempt to mesh the colors. I’m going to come back to working on the bezel a little bit later. I’m trying to take my mind off of it for now.

So, to recap, still to do is: Get N64 roms loading. Install Bezel. Paint. Declare finished.I’ll be sure to keep you all posted!

Remeber you can email me at any time if you have any questions. rybarnes@gmail.com