Building a MAME from scratch: Cabinet, Control Panel, and PC.

[SephYuyX]

Got this guy on the cheap from a local vendor. In near perfec condition. I decided to not get the complete working mechanics just because I dont plan on using it in that fasion, and no one will ever notice the difference, and I can just get the lights working through another means.

Heres the door taken apart for cleaning.

One thing I wasnt too happy with, the slot cut bit for my router was very hard to line up straight for various reasons, so it looks a bt off center in some places, but fine in others, I guess the wood just wasnt completely flat. So Ill just get 3/4" T-Molding, and that way I can just cut off the edges to make it flush with the board, just a little bit of extra work, but itll come out fine.
Lumber/Furring for the braces.

Decided to ass some cross beam supprt. Two for the base, two for the control panel, and three for where the tv/monitor will rest.

Heres the support for the front, back and side panels. Instead of drilling directly in to the weak depth of the MDF, I drilled into the furring. Even when you countersink into the side of MDF it can split. Aside from srews, I used Titebond II glue to keep in nice and secure.

Heres the bottom 98% complete. Just have to add the 4 other cross beams, and then add the shelf to area where theres there 3 beams. Next step is to add the top.

Inside look.

Shows how I countersunk the screw holes. Going to add bondo/wood fill and then sand flat.

Material List and Total Cost at the moment.

[SephYuyX]

Bit of a break in between, but will be picking it up again. Had to focus on finals and had to figure out a few more things.

Base all done with the TV shelf on.

Sides up; took a bit to make sure they line up, but it worked out.

Side view of it.

Top and rear panels on; had to bend it in slightly, but it's all square now.

Full shot of it.

Close up. Have to cut one more panel, and thats where the speaks will rest on.

Rear view. This is what itll look when finished, no need to add any more panels

Frame for coin door, now I just need to cut it in half

My spare PC being put to use. P4 2.5ghz, 2gb ram, 80gb hd, 400watt (this will light up a few other things as well), radeon 9550. Tested it out with MAME and UMK3 and it worked fine, should run up to GC and PS2 gen fine.

PC will go inside there, not sure if I want to decase it and make a mount for it or not. Should be fine just in the case.

2.1 speaker system, cheap and good, sounds fine, and small footprint

20" TV. Slightly dissapointed; it's a Sony Trin w/ SVid which is good enough, and it does look good, but ill be looking for a bigged one (25~27"). Itll do for now. Ill have it made so that TVs can be easily interchanged if anything happened

Material List and Total Cost at the moment


Next step is the control panel, still working on a physical design for it, should have it done soon though.

mod edit: seriously why would you link facebook images

[SephYuyX]

Two updates in one week? Arent you all happy now, I can tell by all the replies :D
The big cutting is all done, and the cabinet is 'done', minus all the hours itll take making everything look pretty, and getting the CP perfect..



I finally had to buckle down and figure out a physical design for the control panel (CP) (the art on the other hand..) so I took near a whole day playing with photoshop to get that together. I think it came out pretty good. The green guide lines helped line things up

Without the guides. The black boarder is the the 5/8" MDF box the control panel will sit on and house the electronics and such

Total size is 37"x18" and curves in the front. 3 Joysticks, 2 being 8 way, and the top one being a 4 way for older games. 8 buttons per player, 2 start buttons, 2 coin buttons, 4 admin buttons, and 2 mouse buttons (these two will be connected to the SpinTrak Spinner), and a 3" U-Trak Trackball. Most are Happ components, but will be bought through GGG for a cheaper price. The Spinner and Trackball will be bought through Ultimarc, as well as an IPac2 which controls all of these things

Went to Kinkos to print it off, only $5, not bad at all.

Finally finished adding the cross beam support for the CP base, nice and sturdy now. The base will also latch on to the rear beam, and be detachable for maintenance and moving

Sides of the CP base up

All done

Side view of it, 4.5" height dropping to 3.5". I tried to cut the front and back peices at an angle too (only 2ish degrees) but it was just silly, so didnt bother

Added the speaker and light shelf finally too, 22.5 degree angle on the front to hold the marquee square

Pull back view of the 'completed' cabinet

Now with the CP base

Now with a 40x20" top thatll be carved out to look sexy. A 30" piano hinge will be put on the front face of the CP base so the CP can be lifted up to be looked at

Front close view of it

Nice looking side angle. The slots will be for the T-Molding if you dont recall from earlier

Put the cp print out on it just to see. The back of the cp will be straight, but the front will be curved to look soft

Pull back view of it completed

Side view of it

Angle view

mod edit: sorry i had to remove all the images, they were all broken links

[Lost]

Keep the updates coming! I'm really impressed by it and am thinking about doing one myself now :D

[SephYuyX]

Is it time for another update? I guess so. Took a small break to enjoy the holidays, and to work out some details, but finally got in the mood to work on it again. This was the annoying stage of the project; puttying, sanding, lots of little detail things, but only more to come.. but at least the puttying is out of the way.

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Close up view of the place where the marquee will be resting against. I may have to trim some of the 2x2 away show the light doesnt cast a shadow.

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Im very very happy I found this TV. This is a different TV from the one I posted before. The previous one is 20", this one is 27", and it was complete luck I stumbled upon it. Same brand, just bigger, and got it for cheaper too. Ill have to sell the old one now. When I got this TV I was very happy, and this is really the best TV i could have gotten. Well, aside from an actual arcade monitor, if I had to pick a TV from all the TVs in the world, this would be #2. My #1 would be the same size, but with an RGB hookup. This one is an SVid, but it still looks great, better than RCA, and I can deal w/o component. Ill have to raise it up slightly and secure it in.

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The time came to make the control panel. My options were to make my own, or buy. To make my own id use my full size template, cut it out of wood, buy plexi, buy a router bit, and then cut out the plexi using the wood as a template. However I stumbled upon OCIP a company in orange county who would cut out the plexi for me for 45$ Great deal, considering buying the plexi and the bit would cost about the same. So to save time and stress, I went with OCIP. Plus it's done with lasers, so no need to make any touchups if there are any.

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However OCIP needed a vector drawing, and that would mean id have to use my nemesis, AutoCAD. Ive used it randomly in the past, and it's just everything I hate in one package. After using Photoshop and Illustrator for so many years, ACAD is completly bassakwards. So I downloed the newest trial version, got the hang of it and drew this up in about 2hrs. I just imported the image of my drawing, and traced red lines around it. If I knew how to use ACAD, this would have taken my about 5minuts, but oh well. It's done, and worked out perfectly.

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Ah yes, my old friend mr coin door frame. Over the holidays I asked my Uncle Mark if he has something around his workshop to cut cast iron and luckily he did. So thanks to his effot he got it cut in half and shaped it up to look very good, and I have to say im quite happy with how it came out.

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And here we go with the door just placed in the frame. Yup yup looks good.

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And heres come the fun part.. filling the holes and sanding.. Sanding and painting are probably me two least favorite things when it comes to building things, but what are you going to do. I first had to sand down the little ridges around the holes.

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I bought some all purpose bondo putty, and it's not very fun to work with. The putty comes in a paint can, and then the hardener comes in a squeeze tube. Both things smell bad, and doesnt like to cooperate. Take a scoop of the putty, put a bead of the hardener in a cup, mix, and then you have 5mins to work with it. This is the first coat, just to fill the holes. It took me four mixes to go over everything.

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Heres the second coat. Looks pretty bad. I realised after the first coat that the stuff isnt easy to get off the putty knife, so it left divits on the knife, and when spreading the second coat, it left divits. It worked out in the end, just had to batter it on more. I used four more mixes. I used one more mix to fill random misscuts and such.

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All I can say is hurray for power tools. Hand sanding this would have been a pain. It took me about two hours to sand everything down flat. It may look bad, but its all smooth. Once painted youll never know.

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Well I finally got the plexi in from OCIP, oddly enough they gave me two of them, and dunno why. But wasnt charged for two, so oh well. 37x18” dimension (with radiused bottom) cut from a 1/8” thick clear acrylic plexiglass sheet. 31 holes in total, one being 3-1/2” in diameter and the other 30 holes in a 1-1/8” diameter. It came out perfect.

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I didnt feel bad about using one plexi to be used as a template since the other one still has its film on. I didnt scratch it up, but it sure is getting dirty. I lined up the plexi on the wood, leaving a bit of play room, and traced out the sides and holes.

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Everything Marked.

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I cut out some construction paper to fit the circle, and poked a hole through it, and this let me find the center of all the holes quite quick. Ill be using a 1-1/8" spade bit to but them out.

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I put the control panel ontop of some junk wood to reduce the tear out, and it worked pretty well, still a bit, but not bad. I poked the center of the holes with the bit, and then drilled one by one. It took about 5 minutes. I then grabbed my jigsaw, cut out the bigger hole, and off the sides and radius.

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And here it is all cut out, looks good yup. Still needs to be sanded, but im going to be doing that later after I get my CP supplies in as ill have to do some chisel work to fit the joysticks and trackball, so ill finish it up later.

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Here is is with the plexi places on top, looks good. Now to just figure out the graphics to place under the plexi..

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View from the topfront.

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Some sideage.

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A front shot.

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And an angled. Yup, looks good. More detail work to come..

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Material List and Total Cost at the moment.

[SephYuyX]

Control Panel supplies have been ordered! Ouf! Pricey, but this is the best price I possibly could have gotten short of buying used. Cant beat that shipping Ill post a break down of prices in my next big update. The bulk of the cost (a bit over $200) comes from the trackball and spinner; who knew you could charge so much for glorified mice.

I was originally planning to go with 3 or 4 different sellers as they carried only certain items, and some places were cheaper than others, however I was afriad of what the shipping would be, coming from 4 different places. But by some luck the owner of this webstore pointed me to his place where it had everything in one stop, so big props to him. Im hoping this all goes smoothly so I can give him a great recommendation.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/126/cpordr.jpg

[SephYuyX]

Orz, back again.
Couldnt really do anything since the cold came, but it's been nice the past week, so did a tiny bit of work.

Hopefully ill be back in full swing soon.

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Added some corner braces to the CP base for more strength.

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Got a sheet of 6x24-7/8x.125" Diamond Plate for the bottom of the cabinet, I thought it would make it a bit more snazzy looking, and would help it from taking any extra damage.

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Just setting it in place to see how it looks.

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Ordered a ton of components:
.187 Female Quick Disconnects (100 pack)
8 Way Competition Joystick (Black)
4 Way MS Pac-Man/GALAGA Joystick (Red)
1 & 2 Player Pushbuttons (White)
Pushbutton Wrench
Concave Pushbutton w/ Horizontal Mircoswitch (White)
Concave Pushbutton w/ Horizontal Mircoswitch (Red)
Convex Competition Pushbutton w/ Horizontal Microswitch (Black)
I-PAC 2 Interface
SpinTrak Rotary Control Spinner w/ USB Interface
Flyweight for SpinTrak (Large)
Knob for SpinTrak (Large Red/Silver)
U-TRAK Trackball w/ USB Interface (CueBall White)
Trim Bezel for U-Trak

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Spinner Stuff.

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Joysticks.

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Buttons.

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Trackball Stuff.

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Interface and Misc.

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And here it is all laid out. Looks good I think at least.

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Material List and Total Cost at the moment.

[Omniyoji]

Good job so far. I'd also like to build one some day for fun and nostalgia. I'm more of a fan of the JP cabinets sitting versus standing, either way the outcome is fun fun fun!

Was also wondering how much the cost would run on a build. Thanks for the info.

[Warudo Ecksu]

We just recently finished slapping together a MAME cabinet. This is an astro city cabinet in pretty good condition that we bought off some shady asian guy down the street. We had to do some digging to find this guy, and if we hadn't I don't know what we would have done for a cabinet honestly b/c they're expensive as fuck to ship. We likely would have ended up with a shit condition cabinet for double the price.

Spoiler: show

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He wanted 900 for it, but Scunsion's dad haggled him down to $650. It took our friend a couple of weeks to build a computer and get everything working. We went through 4 J-packs before we actually got one that worked (broke the first one, next two were already broken, 4th was fine). Since we used a full tower case, we actually have the PC behind the cabinet.

We're still doing a bit of tweeking b/c it worked fine the first couple of days, and then MAME randomly crashed and went to hell. It's a hell of a project but worth it. It works right now, but it's bitchy as hell and sometimes decides it doesn't want to play with you any more and shuts down.

Spoiler: show

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...5_915097_n.jpg

Total cost: ~$1100. The boyfriend's dad did a lot of haggling for some of the other parts from the asian dude.

@Seph, your cabinet looks really nice, hurry and finish it!

[kuronosan]

Damn good job so far man. I wish I had the money to do that. I love DIY projects.

[Linliel]

Wow, nice job!

[desertigloo]

amateur observation, but will your hand hit the joysticks if you're using the ball thing?
I've never played a game using it, so no idea, just would suck to have it all complete and you bash your hand every time.

Looks fantastic though overall, kick plate is a fantastic move as well

[Darwinion]

Mame rocks! Here is the latest project I built last year....

http://forums.finalels.com/showthrea...to-Donkey-Kong

It's a half size replica of the top half of a Donkey Kong cabinet. (My all time favourite arcade game). If you are interested in the actual build then there is a link to the build thread on BYOAC in the first post.



EDIT: Having had time to read the full thread properly.... I must say you are doing really well there. But sometimes I just feel that woodworking can be the main skill in these projects. I don't mind the DIY element of doing this kind of thing, but my woodworking skills are a bit limited in all honesty. I take my hat off to you in attempting a full size cabinet from scratch. Personally I would prefer to take an existing cabinet and strip out it's CP and build a new one from scratch (space permitting). The CP after all is 80% of the project where playability and enjoyment is concerned. After that it's aesthetics where the artwork really rounds off a project.

All the woodworking in making a new cabinet is superfluous to the end result in my opinion. But that's just me... some people have amazing skills in this department and some of the projects I've seen are simply jaw dropping in creativity and WW skill. My skills (or lack of) don't justify that amount of input in the WW of a full project.

As regards the choice of monitor I would agree that in a full size setup you should go CRT for the sake of authenticity. But there is a place for LCD in bartop creations where space is at a premium.

[SephYuyX]

Thanks for the compliments guys, it's been a fun and stressful job at the same time, cant wait for it to get finished.

Was also wondering how much the cost would run on a build. Thanks for the info.

From what ive seen looking at a lot of BYOAC builds, $1k is about standard if you go all out, and if you just go with a basic setup, and depending what material/tools you already have, can probably knock it down to around $6~800.

Honestly I think I spent less money building it, than if I were to buy a used cabient, like Setsuko said, $1k for a good condition astrocity is pretty common, and most american cabinets can run around that same price too. Unless you can find a really good deal (sub $600) on a great looking cabinet, it's almost better to build.

Obviously theres a bigger time sink, plus if you dont have the tools you have to borrow/buy them too.

amateur observation, but will your hand hit the joysticks if you're using the ball thing?

Yes and no, the big trackball games, like golden tee, usually require a forward motion, or small side motions, so it shouldnt be a problem, but I guess we'll see. I modeled my layout after some popular builds, so it should work. I honestly dont plan to use it that much, I just put it in for completion sake.


Darwinion:
I saw you project over at BYOAC when I was looking for some ideas, very nicely done.

I agree with the woodworking bit, at least in my case, small wiring and and PC stuff come second nature to me, but woodworking takes a lot of time, precision, and skill. Looking back, at some of the time I put in to cutting one piece, I would never want to build my own house, it would take me forever, im far to meticulous, and you need to be able to move quick when building big projects. Ive been lucky(?) enough to move three times with my parents from an 1880 house, to brand new, and two of the three weve completly remodeled them. It was tons of work, but learned a lot of basics from doing that.

It is kind of a meh feeling that a lot of my work wont be able to shine through, in the end the screen and CP only matter, yeah, you could really just play on a floor lol. But I gess it feels good knowing that I built it from the ground up.

[Darus Grey]

ke Setsuko said, $1k for a good condition astrocity is pretty common

Not really, I bought 10 NAC at $375, got my windy for $400, Egret 29 for $500, and Egret2(which is generally the most desired cab for hobbyists) for $650.

It's also really easy to find used american cabs with serviceable monitors in the $200-$300 range, just have to shop around craigslist.

Just requires shopping around and maybe renting a truck for a day to pick up one.

$1000 for a NAC is a rip-off TBH for a bare cab, though they said they spent $1000 getting it all together including mame, which is closer to reality.

[SephYuyX]

CL in my area must suck then. When I was looking around, 6~800 was common, anything under 600 was a complete mess.

[desertigloo]

Okay, just wanted to make sure the trackball wouldnt be an issue for you, as everything else looks great!

[Warudo Ecksu]

It probably just depends on your area. Some places probably don't have many people selling cabinets. The "Shady Asian" is the only guy who sells them around here, at least without a bit of a car trip. This guy had $400 astro city cabinets, but they looked pretty bad. Our total cost would actually be less if we hadn't gone through 4 Jpacks like I said, and the computer we built is way overkill- it's better than the gaming computer I'm using right now lol

[SephYuyX]

It's that time again.

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Had to buckle down and cut some speaker holes. I wasnt sure which direction to go with them at first. I orginally thought I would just cut out rectangle-ish, and make a cover using speaker mesh. I also thought about using some sort of unique cut out design, but in the end I figured it woulder be easiest, and also the most authentic to go the way of the traditional slot cut.

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Took a bit of thinking to figure out how to make a perfect straight line, but I 'duh'd' a bit after when I saw the router had a straight edge, so I just clamped down a straight line, and followed it, chewing out the holes.

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While I dont think it came out perfect, it wasnt as circlish as I would have liked, and there are some slits jumps in it, but after sanding it doesnt look too too bad.

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Finished shot. After a little more sanding, and paint, I doubt anything will be noticable. Also going to put some speaker mesh behind it so you cant see through it, as well as something to keep the marquee light from coming out.

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I also had to figure out a way to mount the control panel base to the cabinet; I thought about using a latch, or something, but I came up with this idea after some pondering. This furring was mainly just used for support, and it didnt even occur to me to use it in this way.

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So what I did was just drill a hole through it, use a 3" bolt, a washer, put it through the hole, another washer, and a bolt to keep it in place. The other two nuts are used as washers, and also help it keep the base in place.

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Pic of both of them.

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I drilled a hole in the base, and was lucky to see how perfectly it matched up. There were a lot of things while working on this project that just worked out perfectly without any advanced planning, I couldnt have planned a lot of things better even if I wanted to.

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When dropped down, the nuts are tight within the hole, and keep the base from moving around.

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With another washer and wing nute, it keeps the base from popping up.

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View of both. It really worked out perfectly, and holds flawlessly, it doesnt budge at all.

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I waived back and forth if I should fill this gap in front, it did look quite good, however it doesnt give a finished look, so I decided to fill it up. I didnt want to use all my bondo on this huge hole, and it would be hard to get it in such a big space, so I filled it with some random caulk I found in the garage. I let it harden for more than a week, and it more or less hardened fully.

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So I globbed the bondo over it, filling it the rest of the way, and the surrounding area. Doesnt really matter what caulk I used, the bondo just needed to use it as a mold pretty much. Itll be set in stone forever. I love bondo, going to use it on everything now.

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Sanded it up, and looks pretty good, just needs to be smoothed down a bit.

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The other thing I needed to finish up was the control panel. Firstly I had to fit the button holes a bit better; I was a bit sloppy in my drilling so I had to do a bit of sanding to have the mdf and plexi match up, but oh well, it fits fine now.

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The other thing I had to do was to route out some of the back so the joysticks andstrack ball fit properly and had enough length up top. The track ball fits perfectly with the trim on, but the joysticks still may be a bit too short for some people that use an under grip to play, but im not using ball tops for 1/2p, so it shouldnt matter. Im mainly worried about the the 4 way stick up top, it has a really short shaft, so I routed out a bit more than the other two, hopefully itll be fine. The other thing Im slightly worried about the the strength of the panel now, I think itll be fine, and I can always reinforce, but with rough playing, I dunno. Ill take that in to account later.

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In order to mount the sticks, im using T-Nuts to give it a flush front, so I had to drill out a bit of relief for it to fit, yet again another thing that may weaken it slightly, but hopefully that wont be the case. Ill have to be very cautious when hammering them in. The trackball is mounted with blind nuts, so no need to drill through that.

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Here are the TNuts with the bolts. Some 3/4 and 1/2, and I may need to use some washers and enlarge the holes on the sticks. I just couldnt find the right bolt that would fit properly. All of this work will be finished after I get painting.

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Yet another thing I had to figure out was how to mount the glass. I thought about various ways, but was still iffy, so I asked my uncle for an idea, and he simply suggested a frame. Duh, I think I thought about it before, but quickly wrote it off for some reason I dont remember, so it never crossed my mind again. So a frame, plus a peice of hardware pushing up against it from the back will keep it in place. Ill also need to make a bevel to go behind the glass and in front of the tv. Of which ill have to slip the tv in from the back from now on. I didnt glue down the rear panels in anticipation of maintenance.

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My miter work has always been iffy, and I had always done it the old box and saw way, but the box went missing, so I found an old home made one and it seemed like the angles were right on it. Took a bit of time, and a lot of sanding to get everything to fit right because of the different slops, but I think it worked out.

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I bondo'd it up, covering the nail brads, and corners, and then sanded. I may have to chisel out the back flat side a bit to get the glass to fit flush against it

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I think it came out pretty well. I like the rounded corners better that the sharp angles too. Again, just a bit of finish sanding should do the trick.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7856966_n.jpg
Annnd I also had to figure out how to mount the control panel to the base, so I figured a piano hinge would work best. I thought about just using some random hindges, but I think this way works best, and it did. Very strong, and I only had 4 screw is out of the like 30. The front panel of the base has just enough of a gap to perfectly fit the hindge. Again one of those mistakes that worked out for the best.

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs575...._3020982_n.jpg
I thought about using some sort of wire strand between the panel and base to keep it from going forward to much.. but here it is with just 4 screws, and no back support, and it's doing well, so I may not add anything. It will rarely ever be in this position anyway.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...9_890034_n.jpg
I then had to figure out how to keep the panel from popping up and down when playing, so again I thought of using some soft of hand applied latch, but yeah, id have to be able to get my hand underneth to get access to it, or drill a hole underneth to reach it. So the best way I figured out was to just use a blind roller latch. Mental tongue on the panel, and the roller latch on the base, and they just snap together very fluidly, and it works perfectly.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5101352_n.jpg
I had originally planned to leave the speaker panel ungluded to be taken off for maint, and easy access to the speakers and lights, but when putting the frame in, I realized that wouldnt work. So I ended up gluing it up, and bondoing the screws.

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs575....1_326493_n.jpg
I had the TV in to figure out how to mount it from falling out, but when sat it, it his the back panel and keeps it in place, so I dont think Im going to be latching it down since it sits in there nicely. However another issue is, is that the angle of the screen and the angle of the cabinet wernt even so I had to raise the tv front up a bit to get them even. I toyed around with a few ways to do this.. but a simple 26"x1.5" strip of mdf holding it up does the trick no problem.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2549791_n.jpg
Just a random shot. Ive been so busy with all these little things, that it just made it kind of unfun to work on the thing. Im a very meticulous person, so instead of measure twice, cut once, its measure 20 times, think about it in different angles, then cut, and then some other stuff. So things that would take someone who does this daily 5 minutes, itll take me 2hrs. But in the end I know itll pay off. One thing ive seen with some of these homemade arcade machines is that they looked real rushed, and no real care went in to them. I wanted to make this with the best of my ability (minus a little). There would be a few things I would do differently, but nothing really enough to drive me crazy. I think it all turned out well.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7144614_n.jpg
Wait, that sounded like a wrap up. Does that mean im done? Yup, I think I am, ive completed all the construction of the cabinet. There are some slight additions ill need to add like glass retainer, a bevel, the marquee back lights, and speakers, but all those will have to be done after painting. Yes.. painting.. since im done with construction, the next step is priming after a bit more sanding.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7456632_n.jpg
And then it came down to the design.. yes the design.. something ive been thinking about before I bought the first peice of wood, however I think I finally came to a decision. I printed out the template I made, and saw that I was off, so ill have to keep that in mind. I dont know how I made this mistake when cutting the mdf to be off that much, but it should be fine.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3780203_n.jpg
This is it! Well, sort of. Just a quick mock up. A few months back I decided I wanted to go with a griffin theme, and found this really cool griffin design, but I had no idea what to use as a background. So I just was randomly looking around and realized that yeah, I like me some old japanese/chinese art, and started looking around. After awhile I managed to find this very old japanese drawing, and I think itll work out fine. Obviously I have a lot of tweeking to do, this wont be the final design, dont worrk. Plus I still have to work out the details of the control panel overlay, and the marquee. But at least I know which path im going. And a name to go with it? Ill be calling the machine, 'The Griffin'.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3116819_n.jpg
Material List and Total Cost at the moment.

[Cheerios]

Nice work so far on it. The price isn't too shabby yet either. It's kind of a bummer that you're using that TV. I hope your method of switching displays out is as easy as you make it sound!

I'm also in the process of redoing an arcade cabinet (a giant ass Mortal Kombat 1 one).

I've kind of run into a wall with the J-PAC though. I'm not sure at all when it comes to setting this thing up! The cabinet only has Buttons 1-4 for Player 1 and 2, Coin, and Start. I'd be adding Buttons 5-6 (possibly 5-7) to my control panel, and I'm not sure how to go about wiring those :/. If anyone has J-PAC experience, shoot me a PM!

I'm also interested in your control panel layout. Is there any way you could resize it accurately? (the forum didn't!) Either that, or help direct me to a 1:1 scale of a control panel printout for 2 players. I've spent too much time thinking about how I want this damn thing to look.

For reference, it'll only be 2 joysticks, 6-8 buttons per player. Coin and Start buttons for both players in addition.