Mame cab build.

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hpglow
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 am

Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

I've been busy working on a MAME cab recently so I figured I would share. I haven't nailed down all the details yet. It won't be full size because my house is too small for a full size cab I'm planning on bolting it to the wall in my study or living room. I'm building it out of some free 3/4" particle board that the people who built my house left over 11 years agao. I'm planning on using KADE (http://www.kadevice.com) to encode the buttons and right now the plan is to use a raspberry pi to power the thing (mostly because I have two laying around), but if I can't at least get a decent X-men VS Street Fighter game going with a Pi then I will spend the money on a full-flavor PC. Anyway today I did the dry-fit of my components and here are the pictures.

I still need to trim some of the wood off the bottom, as you can see I went with a slanted layout to help alleviate crowding of two players on such a narrow panel.
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joystick dryrunLOW.jpg
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CunningFellow
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Location: Brisbane, Australia

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by CunningFellow »

nice.

I'd like to build a mame cabinet one day.
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Janka
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Location: inside Out

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by Janka »

It would be nice to have a cabinet which can be folded so one could it transport to conventions.
hpglow
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 am

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

CunningFellow wrote:nice.

I'd like to build a mame cabinet one day.
This thing has been a long time in the comming for me as well. I finally have enough time and money to make it happen. It only took me 35 years.

I need to do more work on this thing but its only 12 degrees today and my garage isn't heated.
hpglow
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 am

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

Things are coming along slowly due to weather. I did some more wood cutting and routing of edges on the wood over the last couple days. Many of the components have started to roll in the door. I got the encoders I'm going to be using. I plan on loading the minimus AVR boards with the KADE firmware. In order to save some money I didn't order a full KADE kit I just ordered the main board and then got some screw terminals from Digikey. I didn't quite order the proper screw terminals but they were close enough that I was able to force them through the holes on the board. Here is a picture with a 1" button and my thumb as reference. The screw terminals are a 0.1" pitch. They are tiny but I have a screwdriver that will fit them.
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Minimus.jpg
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uze6666
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Re: Mame cab build.

Post by uze6666 »

This thing has been a long time in the comming for me as well. I finally have enough time and money to make it happen. It only took me 35 years.
:lol: Well, seems it's going to be the same for me also! One day...

Keep up posting updates! It's great to see progress and to know the efforts involved in making that kind of stuff.
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Kerby
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Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:02 pm

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by Kerby »

Drafts fascinating! And what is the green thing on the last photo on the left?
hpglow
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Re: Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

Kerby wrote:Drafts fascinating! And what is the green thing on the last photo on the left?
That is a side profile of a standard 1" diameter convex arcade pushbutton without the microswitch. In the first photo you can see them sitting in their holes in the control pannel. If you are used to the look of the swana and siemitsu snap in buttons these may look odd.
hpglow
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 am

Re: Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

Yesterday I soldered my minimus up but I could only find a chisel tip for my soldering iron for some reason. I put a couple coats of brown with gold metallic flake in it on the control panel today. I have one more coat to put over the control panel before it is ready for decals. I'm going for a 70's look to this cab.
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pannelPaint1.jpg
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pannelMask.jpg
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solderTip.jpg
solderTip.jpg (103.28 KiB) Viewed 29282 times
hpglow
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Re: Mame cab build.

Post by hpglow »

Here is the final paint for the control panel with the last coat of paint and white pin striping. The pin-striping isn't the best I've ever done but it's ok. All that it needs is some decals and this control panel will be finished.
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finalPaint.jpg
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