Building a MAME from scratch: Round Two

[Minions]

Original Thread: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/841...highlight=mame

So after much debate I found myself for quite a bit of time on my hands, and a tax return coming to me down the line. I had followed Seph making his cabinet and thought I could probably do it myself given enough time and research. That's not to say his help so far has not been essential. Pretty much any question's I've had he's been able to answer in a relatively timely manor (as he's been super busy with his new-ish job).

I figured despite being quite a bit in on the project (I wanted to convince myself I was going to finish/have something functional before I was going to make one of these threads), that I would post it to motivate other people that also want to do this/don't think they can do it.

SOFTWARE
I started toying with the front end/emulator software right off the bat. This had no overhead/cost involved as I already had the old P4 radeon9800 pc sitting in my closet from long ago. This took the better part of a week on and off to get functioning properly. Many of the old emulators require a bios file which locating a proper one can be a task in itself. There is a lot of trial and error involved especially with MESS. Other emulators had to be changed for one reason or another. Some you would open the rom and the video would play with no sound. I figured out this is because, for whatever reason, the window was not the targeted window, if you clicked the mouse, or alt tabed, you would then have sound. That means it would not run seamlessly and would have to be replaced with another emulator.

TLDR:
Old Emulators are a bitch, just takes time to make everything work fluidly.

After a week or so of that, and locating the games for each of the emulators, I was relatively certain I wanted to undertake the actual building of the cabinet, and my journey began shortly after that. I actually happened to find a 27" Sony Trinitron (just like Seph's), on craigslist for $20. Couldn't believe how lucky I was to find one with such little effort on my part, it all just fell into place.


MATERIALS:
I contacted seph and he sent me his measurements he used for the side boards of the cab. Then the fun began of figuring out what material I wanted to build the cabinet out of. Many people said MDF (a pressed fiber board), Plywood, or MDO (the best choice of the 3, though extremely expensive and hard to find). I ended up going with plywood, while it is almost twice the price of MDF, it is however stronger and lighter. It is a bigger pain in the ass to paint, but we'll get to that when we get to that point.

TLDR:
Wood: Birch Ply 3/4"
Stronger, Lighter, Pain in the ass to paint

Construction:

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/6314/48424615.jpg

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/2571/96296149.jpg

http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/896/41242958.jpg

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1060/22093542.jpg

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6669/88838358.jpg

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/2861/65478230.jpg

http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/3798/67895316.jpg

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/3406/86395950.jpg

Was really surprised how flush I got the bottom boards to be. I cut the tops at angles so that they could fit flush, but I was not sure how accurate I would be able to be. Looks like it all turned out great. This is as far as I've gotten so far, but my controls have come in the mail:

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/8363/86298617.jpg
Button Nutts

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/8712/49194648.jpg
White/Red/1/2player push buttons

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/6291/29728706.jpg
Cables

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/4093/37822895.jpg
Horizontal Push Switches (for buttons)

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/4637/77339263.jpg
Spinner, Spinner Top, Spinner Weight, Galaga/Packman Joystick, IPAC 2

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/8806/52582202.jpg
Black Competition Buttons

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/6880/10063591.jpg
Competition Joystick x2

http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/7488/32153762.jpg
Track ball

Still lots of work to go.

[Minions]

Got a little work done tonight. Cut the top board(s), two of them anyway. One is now mounted, the other is not (speaker grills need to be cut in it, and my marquee retainer needs to get here. I'm still waiting on a quote for the retainer... a little unhappy with this vendor currently as he sent me the wrong track ball as well. Guess we'll see how that pans out. Shot the people that do the plexiglass a request for a quote, hopefully I will have that on it's way soon too.

The coin door/T molding was paid for this weekend and was said it was going to be shipped Monday, and will hopefully arrive by Friday.

Pics from the work today:

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/1688/30562583.jpg

With the top board attached

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/6797/52836531.jpg

With the TV placed inside (seems to be about 1/4-1/2" of clearance on both sides. A little larger than it being "perfect" but I played the "better safe than sorry card" and gave myself an extra 1.5-2" when I started (than that of the TV in order to be sure it would fit. I believe the full width of the cab side to side is 30"

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9887/53172194.jpg

Another Picture with the TV in.

Cut the board for the bottom of the control panel and the front and back sides. I think it sits a little lower than I want it to (did 4.5 and 3") so I may raise it to 5.5" and 4". It seems like with the 4.5" up there, there is still a reasonable gap viewable before the shelf inside. A few things to mess with when I get some time to work on the cab again.

The current cab itself, weighs around 50-60 lbs. I think once everything is in it (-computer, -tv, -control panel) it should be no more than 80-90 lbs. Much more reasonable than the 150-200 using MDF. Looking forward to continuing this project.

[SephYuyX]

Good chance at this being completed faster than mine was, lul.

[Minions]

If I can get the plexi people to respond to me, and the person to respond about the marquee retainer I will be able to progress somewhat.

I'm done with the CP box (other than the top, which I'm waiting on the plexiglass before I cut it out).

My issue really is going to be figuring out what to do for a marquee/designs/CP designs/Side art. That, and priming/sanding/painting the plywood will be the most time to invest. The actual construction of the cab is not really a huge time investment.... well that's not necessarily true.

I've spent 3 hours to cut some boards that would have taken 5-10 minutes each if I had the right tools to do it. I am however working with some less expensive saws, which require some extra work to get done some simple things more expensive saws can do accurately by default. Having to use vice grips and run a board to use a a strait edge in order to cut some larger boards is very time consuming. Some tasks I think will take a few minutes end up taking a few hours.

The main reason I am personally saving a lot of time, is due to the original time you invested in designing the actual cab and cp layout. Also using the same vendor(s) you used saved me the shopping multiple vendors you originally went through. (also looking at a guide when doing the project that nearly details the same cab is extremely helpful).

I'm just glad someone like me, with very little woodworking skill, can actually build something like this. That's not to say I don't have help from my father, who watches and essentially "manages" me and tells me things I'm doing wrong, or need to change in order to improve things. Having a second set of eyes when doing something is great.

Coin door/tmolding should be coming in, in the next couple days.

[Minions]

As I said in the last post I finished the bottom part of the control panel (essentially a box). Didn't take too long, and I believe I made a little more of a angle than Seph did in his original cabinet.

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4304/16303631.jpg

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/4731/26350033.jpg

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/4297/83857261.jpg
You can see the angle a bit in this picture. I made the box a little bit higher to account for a gap I had between where the TV will rest and the control panel top/plexiglass. Hopefully it all fits right, though it won't take much effort to change this box if it has to be changed. We'll see how this works and make changes as needed.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1844/25269371.jpg

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/7697/84951654.jpg

I also added part of the back to the cabinet. I'm going to leave the rest of it open, other than adding a back board toward the top to cover half of the back of the tv. I also added a small board on top of my 2x4's to rest the computer on. I did not put in a full floor like Seph did in his cab, in order to reduce weight, and when I move the cabinet more than a few feet I will not have anything that needs to rest on a full floor still in the cabinet.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/305/72985914.jpg

Next up was my coin door. After a failed attempt at removing the paint with a sander (my original idea was sand blasting but I figured I'd try my options available to me before I went that far). That failed so I went with this paint stripper. It worked pretty well, and showed me just how much rust was under all that paint. The door looked pretty good when I got it, but there was quite a bit of hidden surface rust. Couple pictures half way and the nearly finished product which is nearly ready for painting, just needs a little sanding.

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8408/11022267.jpg

http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/5112/96469703.jpg

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/8963/57155274.jpg

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/6655/25641664.jpg

Much better with most of the paint off. Have to go purchase some paint for this tomorrow after work. Hopefully I will have it painted tomorrow night. We'll see how it turns out. Still need to spend some time sanding this down to make sure it is all gone. (This whole process of removing the paint took a couple hours to get it all off. The process was not hard, it was just scraping all the paint off, wiping it down, and repeating over and over till it was all off). Overall I'm pretty happy with my progress.

The bad news however is the Plexi place apparently wants $200~ plus shipping for a overlay for the control panel. That's crazy (apparently you can only order a minimum of 4 sheets now?). I've contacted some other places, but otherwise I'm going to have to find an alternative as I really don't want to cut the plexi myself.

[Minions]

Have worked a little bit on the cabinet recently. Been held up a bit by barts being mailed. For example I'm waiting for the marquee retainer (which had to be cut by one company, mailed to the company I bought it from, then mailed to me... taking about 2 weeks), in order to mount the top board, and the speaker board. I wan't to see exactly how I will mount the marquee before attaching these boards. After I get that I will begin painting the cabinet. I'm currently working on filling all the screw holes with wood putty, and sanding them down to be flush with the original wood.

I'm also waiting on the plexi glass to come in before I cut the top part of my control panel. I want to make sure that it matches the print out I have of what it should look like. I'm still uncertain on how to make my own marquee designs, and side panels. It seems this will be the very last things I get to on this cabinet. I want/wanted to do a retro Zelda cabinet, but I am not all that great with photoshop, nor know exactly how to make an image to scale. The marquee for example (and the sides I assume) need 300 DPI images, and need to be huge resolutions. I think my marquee needs to be 29x300= 8700x2100 resolution or something. I read somewhere it's inchesx300 or something for the correct resolution. I'm not entirely sure about that though, but the examples I have seen are huge.

The work I have done on the cab consisted in cutting a lot of the boards with my slot cutter for T-molding. This required disassembling some of the boards, which made it interesting when I had to re-lign up my holes I drilled. It ended up working out though, I'm debating whether to put T-molding all over the place or just the front. We will see how it goes,

Here is the cab with some of the slot's cut for T-Molding

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9463/56978476.jpg

I repainted the coin door, and while it does not have the same paint texture as it did, which had some blobiness to it, I think it looks much better now. I replaced the reject buttons with new ones with the 25 cent decals (turns out I could have probably used the ones I had, but they were pretty scratched to hell, so I still stick by my purchase), and got new 7/8" cam locks which are keyed alike.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3955/97163838.jpg

Cut the hole in the cabinet to fit this in, the coin door itself is pretty big, more-so than you might expect. It fit nicely on the front of the cab with little issues. I have put it in the front to make sure it al fits, with coin mechs and coin bucket, but have not left it mounted as I will be painting it soon.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/492/73964637.jpg

Last but not least is the T-molding I ordered. It came in as described, I have tested putting it in some of the slots I cut and have had a few issues where I have had to run the router over the spots again. I think the main issue is some trapped saw dust being left after the router cuts. I have not cut it to size at all, I am going to deal with all of that in it's entirety once the cabinet is painted.

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1603/57767689.jpg

Overall I feel like I want to work on the cabinet more and more, but have to wait for all these pieces to fall into place. It is more of a waiting game than anything now. Once the plexi arrives I can cut the top of the control panel and then have fun wiring it all up. Once it is all wired I can actually get to mapping all the buttons in the emulators.

Currently waiting to arrive:
Control Panel PlexiGlass
Marquee Holder
NovaMatrix LINX™ LED Marquee Light with Extra LINX x2
Optional Wiring Drive Cable Power Splitter

Need to order or get locally:
Wiring for CP
Glass for front of Cabinet
Marquee Art (Self designed, or otherwise)
Side Art of cabinet (Self designed, or otherwise)
Various parts for mointing the joysticks/trackball
Latch for control panel (to keep it closed)
L brackets to hold the glass from the back
Felt pads to protect the glass from the L brackets
Also need to find some LED's to light the reject buttons

Most of the heavy spending is over (thank god), Thank's to Scott at OCIP for helping me resolve my plexiglass issues. Hopefully it arrives in the next day or two.

[Xcrunner]

These build threads are always fun to follow. Keep up the good work! I look forward to seeing the finished product

[Cheerios]

What Front end are you gonna end up using? I finally settled with GameEx when I finished my system, but if I had a more powerful PC in my cab (just threw a spare pc in there) and a TV instead of an arcade monitor, I would've probably opted for Hyperspin.

[Minions]

I'm using Maximus Arcade. I've already gone through getting all the emulators to work properly with it. It was one of the first things I did on this project. I just need to configure all the emulators to work with the buttons once I finish my control panel. I noticed there are a few problems with certain emulators that are listed as supported by MA. However, reverting to older versions, fixed the compatibility problems in most cases. Getting the correct bios for the older emu's was the biggest pain in the ass, as was getting the older emulators to work. (MESS for example was a pain in the ass)

[Cheerios]

I ended up getting a lot of things I needed from http://www.underground-gamer.com/ and other torrent sites, but configuring everything was such a mess. That was the last thing I worked on, but it probably should've been my first now that I think about it!

[Minions]

Small update so far today. Saw a couple of these barstool/chair things that I've been monitoring them every few days at Target. I originally wanted full wood ones, but they sold at 30% off clearance. However, today that 30% jumped to 75% off. So I got lucky and snagged a couple of these bad boys for about $33/ea+ tax, but after my discount and target debit card, I walked out the door with 2 for $60.12 (reg $119.99/ea) After sitting in the chairs in front of the cabinet, I think they will be at the perfect height.

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/7162/26806005.jpg

My Control Panel PlexiGlass overlay also came in today. Looks good, so glad I didn't have to try to cut this thing by hand. Today I am just working with sanding/wood putty and such and prepping for priming/painting. Tomorrow I hope to cut the control panel top, and drill the holes, as well as routing out the back of the control panel in order to mount the joysticks/track ball. If I get all this done tomorrow I will get to mounting and wiring everything up, which could be fun (I guess)

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1268/36699562.jpg

I forgot in the last posts need to buy/do, I need to get black matte material to make the bezel out of. All in all I'm glad the plexi arrived safe and sound. It was probably the item I was most worried about getting after hearing the $200 price quotes from pretty much every alternative company I contacted.

[Minions]

Bah! Put quite a bit of work into the Cab today. It won't seem like much, but it took a couple hours when it was all said and done. Had one issue with the control panel pdf image I got from seph. It didn't exactly line up (for whatever reason), which made me have to resort to another means of locating the center of each button hole, but more on that later.

I first laid the plexiglass on the board I wanted to use for the control panel top. Turns out both of the long sides were not strait. In fact I went to the effort of writing NOT STRAIT on the edges when I originally cut the boards for something else on the cab. I remember having to trim the edge again as it was a little angled so I wrote not strait on it. Good thing I did. So we spent a good 10 minutes finding a way to straiten the board.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/8125/58715913.jpg

Once that was fixed we used the plexiglass to trace out the width needed, as well as the curve. Once the board was cut on the side (we used the manufactured cut side for one side, and this cut made the other one strait), we moved on to using our band saw to cut the curve. The first cut we made we went a little wide to get rid of the extra weight/board and made it more manageable. The second cut was much more accurate. Right at the edge (the last part cut) was a little larger than needed (mainly because I didn't want to cut my hand), so I used a file to make it flush.


http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3391/77728125.jpg

After checking the plexiglass I was very pleased with the results. So we went on to preparing to drill all the holes we traced from the plexiglass. This is where the trouble began. Because the control panel design we printed up (and were going to line up with the wood/plexi to locate the center of the buttons that needed to be drilled) we had to result to other options. Initially I cut out the button from the print out, hit nail through the middle while putting that piece of paper as close to centered as I could. (this worked, I did it for about half of the holes) However a friend brought us a compass which we also attempted to match the circles. It was relatively accurate, about as accurate as the other way we did it. It seems using the spade bit makes the hole a little bit bigger (I think) so it gave us a little leeway.



So we popped all the buttons in to make sure that the plexi and the wood lined up, and that all the buttons fit. This was a huge relief for me, as this was the part I was most concerned about.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/5832/19096409.jpg

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/8241/99475713.jpg

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8361/94717674.jpg

The 2 player button is out of place (needs to be the 4th button), but it was just for checking. I also popped a button in each of the joystick holes and they all fit fine there too.

As you can see the track ball still needed to be cut out. I used the spade bit to drill a hole out, and then used the jig saw to cut out the remainder of the circle. I then out lined the back of the track ball (as I had to recess the back of the control panel by 1/8th to make up for the 1/8" plexi on the top), and used the router to recess it by 1/8". I had to chip away at the sides and check to see if the track ball would fit (had to do this quite a few times) until finally it fit.

However, when I tried to fit the bezel in the hole and over the trackball, it would not fit. So I had to sand the crap out of the sides to make it more circular. Finally the trackball and bezel fit.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8265/48616561.jpg

Had a little tear out on the bottom of the control panel (despite having another board under it), I guess we did not have it compressed enough. It will be fine, and if it bothers me I can bondo/wood putty it.

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3131/30283672.jpg

Final look at it on the control panel box (sitting on it), going to paint them separately, and still need to route the joystick bottoms. Happy with how today went, need to route out the bottom of the joysticks and figure out how to mount them (what I need to get from home depot) Once all of that is done, it is paint and prime time. (or actually I will probably be wiring the control panel first. . . I guess we will see. I think it is smarter to paint the control panel first, but we will see how time permits.

[Minions]

Got a bit of work done today (which seemingly takes much longer than originally planned)

First off I got a couple things in the mail I ordered. I received the Marquee Retainers cut to 29" (I think my actual width is 28"~ but I ordered it big in order to give me the ability to size it myself), and the Marquee Backlight LED's.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5441/49200756.jpg

I ordered the normal 6 sets (LINX) of leds, as well as an additional 2 LINX. I also ordered the optional power splitter which uses molex and splits off a 12v, 5v, and two grounds, as well as an additional molex connector. This will allow me to power the LED's for the marquee as well as the coin door lights. (12v marquee, 5v coin door).

As far as working on the cab, I put wood filler over all the screw holes on the control panel, and prepped it for priming/painting which I plan to do tomorrow. Used wood filler on the back, where I had some tear out, (just because it slightly bothered me, it wouldn't get seen by anyone else), and now it looks much better. I'm sure if you compare this picture to the one in the last post you can see the difference wood filler can make.
1
I also got around to routing out the bottom of the control panel to mount the joysticks. I routed out a considerable amount, at least half of my 3/4" plywood. I found some metal plates that line up with the bottom of the joysticks which I plan to attach to add some extra support. The pacman 4 way stick however is a little short (the base) so it is much lower in the hole than the competition joysticks. A little oversight on my part (I thought they were all the same thickness), however I'm sure I will remedy this pretty soon. Here is what the bottom looks like after all the routing. a little mess up on 1 of the 3 holes, not too bad though, it still fits snug in all of them.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/348/54633403.jpg

I also got around to slot cutting the CP/CP top for T-molding. This is slightly annoying in some cases as you have to take screws out in order to cut for T-molding. This also means I have to either notch the T-molding around screws, or screw through the T-molding. If I do screw through it, it means I will have to then putty the screw(s) again and paint the cab with the t-molding on. I think I am going to just notch the t-molding as it won't be that big a deal, and I would rather paint the cab then put the molding on. I guess another option would be put the screws through the molding after painting the cab/cp everywhere except the screw holes. I guess I will think about it, I have time.

The last couple things that I did were finally cutting/putting the top board on the cab. I also cut the speaker board. I also removed the back board, and installed a small oak board on both sides of the inside of the cabinet. This will allow me to putty over the screws (on the sides of the cab) while keeping the screws uncovered on the very back of the cabinet. Doing this will allow me to open and remove the back of the cab without taking away from the overall look.

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6740/37768742.jpg

The last of my time spent today was spent figuring out how big a circle, and how big a router bit to use to make the speaker grills. I spent a good 45 minutes figuring this out, and have it drawn out on the board. I plan to route those holes out some time tomorrow hopefully, and would like to mount it too. The edge of the speaker board is at an angle (to make it flat like the top board) so that the marquee will be pinched between the marquee retainer and the board properly. All in all it always seems like you think you can get more done than you actually do, but that is part of the fun.

[Minions]

Painting takes forever.... at least when you do 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of paint on everything. Just painting the box/control panel top that way took a good 6 hours or so between painting and drying. Given I did use a paint brush as I didn't want to waste a roller on such a small area.

I think they look good, painted the CP top completely, and the CP base on the outside of it and the top of the walls.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/553/14096550.jpg

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9470/21543639.jpg

I also started cutting the speaker grills in the speaker board. I also figured out after all this painting that I need to take one of the boards off and resize it, to account for the hinge being on top of the board. I thought about just routing out part of the board which would resolve this problem, but in the end I think resizing the whole board will look better and painted wood wears out router bits really fast.

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/6131/72530596.jpg

Ran out of time tonight, will have to finish routing out the speakers another day. Have been using clamps and a strait edge with my router and a drilled hole to route them out. Takes a couple passes to clear it, (I set the bit lower on the second pass to cut all the way through), this takes quite a bit of time which is the reason I have not completed it. But it gives me the results I want so I can't complain.

[Emirii]

really cool! I have no idea how much effort it takes to make these things, but looks like you spent a lot of time on it! Cant wait to see it done, will follow.

[Minions]

Got a little more work done of the cab today. It always seems like an estimate of what you actually will get done can be found by the following equation.

What you think you can get done / 2 = what will actually get done

Anyways, I got around to finishing the routing of the speaker board. Overall I think it turned out pretty well. It's not perfect by any means but that's one of the main things I learned while doing this project. Pretty much no matter how much you overlook (I overlooked the height on the front of my CP base, and had to take it apart and remove the wood putty, which will cause me to repaint quite a bit), you can fix it. It may just take a lot more work to make it work, or fix your problems. (Unless you cut the boards too small, in which case you fix that error with more $). I also got the speaker shelf installed now.

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/488/33178996.jpg

I was thinking of materials I could use to block the holes from the inside (in order to block light from coming through) and found some cheap felt which seems like it may do the job. I have 4 sheets (2 per hole) so I can double layer it if needed. Pretty much the cheapest solution I can think of (20 cents a sheet).

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1419/10026631.jpg

After finishing that I moved on to fixing the base of the CP. Disassembled the front of the box and cut it down by 1/8" or so. This was needed to allow the piano hinge to rest on top of the board. Otherwise not only would all the weight of the CP top be on the hinge itself, it would also decrease the angle the CP is going at. Once that was fixed I went through the fun of mounting the hinge itself. I screwed it first to the box (directly in the middle as to keep it centered), and figured out that the hinge itself needed to be further forward in order for it to open completely. (good thing I tested by screwing 2 screws in, instead of all of them) Upon fixing this it was pretty annoying keeping the CP top centered properly and screwing hinge into the top. It eventually got done and it looks good. (despite my hinge being a little bent from when I bought it)

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/5739/34291617.jpg

The last thing I did was install some roller catches. I messed around with them for a good 45 minutes and only seem to have gotten one to work properly. The other does not seem to catch for some reason. It seems these are very picky about hitting strait in the center. A little above or below and it has little to no resistance when you pull on the catch itself. The one catch that is working properly seems to be more than enough to keep the lid closed on the Control panel, but it may annoy me enough down the road that I will keep messing with the other catch till it works.

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/8774/49218882.jpg

You can see the rollers on the side of the box, and the other part attached to the bottom of the control panel top. Tomorrow I think I will be filling in holes on the CP with wood putty and repainting the damage I've done making this hinge work. I think I only need to cut 1 more board (the back) and fill in a few holes with putty, then I'll be ready to start painting the actual cab.

Things still to do:
Buy Matte material for the bezel/Make the bezel
Contact local glass places and get estimates
Mount the speakers/marquee lights
Cover speaker holes with felt
Cut the 2 sheets of plexi for the marquee
Mount the marquee retainers
Figure out how far back/mount the quarter round to hold the glass in place from the front
Install L brackets in the back to hold the glass from behind
Cut/mount the board for the back of the cab
Button installation (need Control panel art first)
Wiring of all the buttons/joysticks/trackball/spinner
programming all the emulators to work with the working buttons
mount the coin door and wire coin door lights/wire to ipac2 to add credits (must be done after painting)

Figure out what to do for artwork on the marquee/sideart/cpart
and of course painting

I'm sure there is stuff I'm forgetting, but still a ton of work to do.

[Vandole]

what's your estimate on total cost? i'm looking at making one of these.

[Omniyoji]

what's your estimate on total cost? i'm looking at making one of these.

I'm pretty sure you can build one for as little as $500 or more likely $600 and a really great one with $1000+

[Minions]

My costs atm are around 900 but I still need glass for the front and other various stuff. I already had the pc, but if you did this cheap style u might be able to do it for 600 but that won't include any tools (router, drills, band saw etc but if you want it to look nice (which you do unless you want your house to look like crap) them you will be spending 1k+ (tmolding, slot cutting bit, Plexiglass top, control panel overlay, side art. Marquee) in controls alone ( joystick, track ball, spinner, and buttons) I spent around $340 or so. If you made it 1 player it would also reduce costs. Probably going to cost me $1200 or so when all said and done, but 200 is going to be side art, marquee etc.

[Minions]

Here is a current list of my materials/prices/total

It's huge like xbox so I'm going to spoiler it

Spoiler: show

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8329/currentv.png

Also I saw some 3/4" cabinet grade plywood at home depot today on sale for 26.97.... wish that was around when I needed my wood. I paid almost double that, and at $27 it is basically the same price as MDF.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6020/plyq.jpg