MAME Cabinet Project

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#1

Hey guys, I built myself a pretty neat MAME cabinet over the summer, and I thought I’d show it off. I did research for about 6 months while I was off at college, and decided I would build my design when I got back home.

After visiting a few arcades, checking out the designs, button layouts, and general aspects of the classic style arcade cabinet, I went online and found some plans for the old Moon Patrol cabinet at https://www.jakobud.com/plan-list.php, which I decided to loosely base my cabinet off of. I played around on Google SketchUp for a while and came up with this:

Next, I began to acquire some parts, like an old flat screen 19" CRT monitor that my friend’s father gave me for free, and a piece of shit desktop computer that I bought off of another friend for $50 (which has some issues, but it works for now). I also had an old Altec Lansing 2.1 computer speaker set with a subwoofer, and some 6" speakers to use, so I saved some cash on these items. Here, however, is where I started sinking some serious money into the project:

I purchased all of these components from Ultimarc, which is an awesome company, I would recommend them to anyone. I also purchased one of these babies:

I got the coin door, without the mechanism, from https://www.twistedquarter.com/.

I also picked up some medium density fiberboard (MDF) from Lowe’s, and I was ready to start.

I cut all of the pieces with a circular saw, a jigsaw, and a few hole saws, and these are what I ended up with:

I also wired all of the buttons and the LED circuit for lighting the back of the coin insert buttons.


(Wow, what a tangled mess. I’m so organized)

To make it so that the lights are only on when the computer is on, I used USB for the power.

I also rigged some really crazy stuff so that I could used the coin return buttons as buttons that would tell the computer a coin was inserted, and also placed some USB extension cords for gamepads, keyboards, or mice, which are accessible through the little flap where the coin would usually return.


(a little preview of the finished product, there)

If you can see from this poorly taken picture, I used a few pieces of extremely sharp sheet metal, some microswitches, and some scrap wire to hold the button so it wouldn’t bend when the button was pushed. It looks stupid, but it works GREAT.

I have more to show you all, but I’ll post it tomorrow. Hope you all find this interesting!

#2

While I have seen mame arcade machines being built before, I have to say, your method of going about problems and ideas to make it better is amazing, awesome job : )

#3

Awsm! I’ve created a cab as well. Very fun experience. Think yours turned out nicer than mine as the primary goals of my cab was to be as cheep as possible and indestructible (aka drunk college student proof).

What you using as a front end? Mame32 or you roll your own?

#4

Hey, thanks for the compliments.

I am currently running Mame32 as a front-end, but I am in the process of setting up MaLa for the cabinet right now, but I haven’t had much time lately. I hope to have it up soon.

#5

Can you make me a Galaga machine? That’s all I need :slight_smile: I swear I could play that game forever…

#6

Oh god, I want

#7

Alright, so here’s a little more about my cabinet.

I had another dilemma, which was, how would I be able to move this beast to and from college?

So, I decided I would make it so it could be assembled and disassembled piece by piece. This turned out to be a pain in the ass. I used almost 100 screws that had to be pre-drilled and hand tightened, so the particle board would not get stripped out. Anyway, here it is, pre-assembled.

Next, with much struggle and idiocy, I painted the cabinet. I ended up using semi-gloss latex paint, just like what you’d use to paint the inside of your house.

After that, I installed the buttons, and hooked them up the the iPac DE. It works great, I recommend anyone looking for a cheap controller solution, pick up one of those badboys.

Also put in the coin door:

And finally, this is the… Well, nearly finished product.

I still have to buy some plexiglass and make a bezel to cover up the ugly monitor. Also, I am working on a custom marquee. I’ll probably only get to that this summer though, but it’s still nice to have it as it is.

Yeah, the pictures suck, and it isn’t on right now, but I have an exam in 3 hours and I have to study. I’ll fire it up tomorrow, and take some more pics. Cheers, guys.

#8

Small recommendation, after all that work, it almost seems like a shame covering the bezel, why not simply strip the monitor of it´s bezel? everything else is stripped : )

#9

I guess stripping the monitor would make it hard to dissasemble and rebuild, the rest is modular

#10

That depends, if the wood or acrylic cover he uses for that whole area is stuck to the bare monitor panel, it acts as a bezel, so just take the screws out and treat it as one whole section

#11

I still want.

#12

I actually don’t have a bezel at this point, actually. I am planning on getting one and painting the border black, so only the screen is visible, much like a real arcade cabinet. It’s really not too difficult, just more than I’m capable of on a college campus.

#13

I’ve used soldering irons and plastic cutters in a dorm before. Just put a fan in the window :stuck_out_tongue:

Also just an FYI a cheaper option than the iPac (As the goal of my project was to build the thing with almost no dosh) Is to use a keyboard encoder coupled with fast diodes and carefully build a matrix to prevent ghosting. Or use a few cheep USB controllers you can get from goodwill. You get none of the nice screw connectors, or the nice driver options but it is cheep as free for most people.

#14

If you made one with 4 sticks you could set it up to run Team Fortress arcade.

#15

Yeah, I dont have to do anything like that, because I’m a Computer Engineering Major, so I have places to go, which is great. No fire alarms, haha. Also I agree about the other methods for controls. Definitely a good way to go. I just don’t inspire much confidence in my work, and I would like this thing to last for a while, without any major maintenance. I’m also damn lazy.

Wow, I didn’t know about Team Fortress Arcade. It looks pretty sick I could still have two player, or plug some gamepads in. I was actually thinking about setting it up to run Minecraft, but the computer I have inside is a piece of junk. It might not even run Team Fortress Arcade. I’m probably going to get a new tower eventually. I could probably get a decent one for $300.

Cool find though, I’m going to try it out.

#16

Totally add a few usb ports beneath the control deck to allow for players 3 and 4 to connect with 360 gamepads! This was a feature that I never implemented due to time/cost constraints but it would be awesome for some classic 4 player TMNT or x-men. I know mame32 has native game pad support but not sure how it plays with plugging in controllers on the fly. (Could go really fancy and make a usb switcher and forward them to a 360 as well :smiley: )

#17

I actually do have some USB extenders to use for gamepads and the like, you can access them through the coin return slots. I thought it would be easier than making a place to mount the USB Ports. Also, they can slide through a collar if you need a little more cord. You can see them in this poorly taken picture if you look closely

They’re the white cords near the bottom of the coin door. The other nice thing about those are that I can use them to plug in a USB mouse and keyboard for when I need to screw around with other stuff. I’m thinking about getting one of those Xbox 360 wireless controller hubs, so you don’t even need to plug them in. I figure, I already have two wireless controllers, so it’d be worth it.

Keep the ideas rolling in, guys; I’m loving them.

#18

If you go with the wireless controller route, make sure the receiver is easily reachable, so you can sync the controllers without too much hassle.

#19

Good Call BahamutBBob. That could get confusing because my Xbox 360 is in the same room.

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