I need to pick up some sandpaper before I can continue, then I have a nice glossy black paint to put on.

Holy cow, you drink some serious beer. I actually prefer my beer to taste more like water.

Looks like progress is being made :)

BUMP...from hell :D


Fill us in Goblin

(I think) you can see a picture of Goblincat's completed cab in Draven's Thread from a while back . It was that thread that inspired me to make my own cabinet. I finished all of it except the marquee a week ago.

Pics?

That reminds me, I need to post my updated ones...

I recently finished my cabinet. Most of this stuff was all bought at slikstik.com.

http://webpages.charter.net/solinari6/slikstik1.jpg

That looks great and is the path I'm considering since I don't have the tools/workspace to cut all the wood etc.

What exactly did you buy from SlikStik and how much did it cost you?

I got the classic slikstik and the arcade cabinet that fits a 27 inch monitor. For upgrades, I went with the illuminated trackball (a must!) and pinball buttons on the side of the controller (do this if you're even considering pinmame). You can see the prices of these things at their website.

I picked up the 27 inch Wells Garner D9200 moniter, which was a cool $500. Mine works great, but other people have had a lot of problems with these. It's been pretty much the standard people are using, because it has easy VGA hookups to it. Now a few other manufacturers are coming out with compatible monitors, so you may be able to save some money.

I got some 5 1/4 inch Blaukpunt speakers from Chrutchfield ($70). They're translucent blue, and glow slightly when the marquee light is on.

I also got a Creative 2.1 speaker set up from Buy.com for around $30.

There's a ArcadeVGA card I installed for $100, which enables a ton of native arcade resolutions. If you don't have this, you'll have to stetch all games to 640x480 or 800x600. I'm not completley sold on this purchase. I think it might be more hassle than it's worth.

Finally, there's a $30 power strip I bought which is pretty essential. It has a "main power input" that controls all the other power inputs. You hook your computer up to the main one, and when you power on/off your computer, it automatically powers on/off any other devices hooked up to the strip.

For more information, check out slikstik's forums.

As for total I spent, well... let's just say it's more than I'd admit on a public forum! :D

Check out the DIY cabinet kits at The Mame Room. Their cabinets are much cheaper than the SlikStik cabinets, but you'll have to paint it. Then you can add a Slikstik controller to it if you're not going to build your own.

D300, very interesting, thanks.

jowblow: I'm interested in cost specifics even more so, along with hours worked... maybe you could send them to me? [email protected] Thanks.

I too am interested. I was saving up to buy one of the 20th anniversary cocktail table versions of Ms. Pac Man/ Galaga. But with that running over $2000, the more I look, for that price I wanna play all the classics. So building one seems to be the way to go.

Is there somewhere I can d/l instructions w/o having to buy them off ebay? Just so I can look and see what all is involved. I'm not a hands on kinda guy when it comes to this type thing. So I am kinda curious if someone like me can pull it off.

Does the coin slot actually work, or is it just for looks to make it look authentic?

I'm working on getting the pictures of mine. I'm without a digitial camera currently, so I've got to scan them the old fashioned way. Maybe I'll have them by this weekend.

You can download instructions atLusid's Arcade Plans. They're the ones I used.

I'm not hardware inclined in the least, and really there wasn't a ton to cut. I wouldn't say it looks as nice as some out there do, but I'm happy enough with it. I've got a few places where I made miscuts, but they're not noticable.

I built my own controls and that was probably the most fun. In total, I'd guess I spent around $300 for the whole cabinet, but I had a spare computer and monitor already.

The coin slots actually work. I didn't put one in, but if I did, it would just have wired into the rest of the stuff. By the way, the wiring was also easy to do. I used an I-PAC board from http://www.ultimarc.com/ .

Could you put working coin slots in these?

I recently picked up these two machines (for free). not easy games to emulate.
http://www.omsoft.com/home/dninja/tank_scope.jpg

Can anyone recommend if they would use a tv or a monitor for a system like this?

You need to read the other 6 parts (though I don't think the pics work anymore)
I'm building an arcade game pt. 2
I'm building an arcade game pt. 3
I'm building an arcade game pt. 4
I'm building an arcade game pt. 4.5
I'm building an arcade game pt. 5
I'm building an arcade game pt. 6 (almost done!)

Here it is in its current state:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/goblincat/MAME.jpg

I used a 27-inch TV for mine, mostly for size reasons (and the fact that I bought a widescreen tv and had an "extra" 27-inch because of it.)

Still, you get a lot more bang for your buck over a monitor IMHO.

Current pic of my setup:

http://www.flaming-egg.com/mame/DSCF0006.jpg

My SlikStik bill came to $1,789.85. Add that to all the rest of the things I mentioned above, and you'll get a pretty good idea of the total cost. (Oh yeah, I forgot to add the price of the computer I put in there! That ups the price by about $300, I guess).

As for hours to assemble, I had a friend help me, and it only took about an hour or so to put the cabinet together. The computer was another hour, and loading the 6 DVDs of mame games and setting up the software took another hour.

sorry i'm a newbie on this. Does are all these MAME game backup require high CPU and RAM? for example, would a higher cpu speed (like 4 Ghz) and more ram (512MB) would enable the games to run smoothly? I play mortal combat 2 and killer instinct 2 in my xbox and it is very slow, if i put them in the faster computer would it run smoothly? thanx

I have a Athlon 2100+ with 256 megs of ram in my mame cabinet. Mortal Kombat 2 plays fine, but Killer Instinct 2 is a choppy mess.

Thank Joe..

so it's mean that in the future, when i decide to build a MAME cabinet for my house I could put the say.. (by then).. P4 machine with lot of RAM and 'most' games should run fine right? When, i played the ROM on my xbox.. i thought it was the best thing ever happend already.. i guess when i have more time in the future, i should build a MAME machine...

Is the reason that say game like MKII stutter when I play on my xbox is because the xbox only have like 64MB of RAM? thanx

Yes, and they have the cutout for the coin door already. I just read this on another forum that until tonight 6/2 the price is $100 cheaper and is only $299.

So I take it the 27" is worth it?