A Day of Shopping...

Went to Lowes today. Bought most everything to get my cabinet going. Spent WAY more than i intended. Ah well, no one said this hobby would be cheap. But at least now I have something to get going on. Thankfully I had my girlfriend along to help move those MDFs - those things are heavy! I think I'm gunna need to return these screws for some shorter ones. I'm thinking 2.5" screws for screwing the 2" pieces into the walls of the cabinet and maybe 3.5" to screw the 2" into the 2x4's. Hope to get the pieces cut this week sometime. Will try to remember to take pictures.

As an aside, I think Sasquatch meant to say 2"x2" pieces instead of 1"x1". I'll need to ask him about this. Poor guy, he's gunna get tired of me quick. :-P Also I need to ask him about screw length.

2 x 4 x 92 Wood	x2	$ 5.86
2 x 2 x 8 Wood	x2	$ 3.50
MDF 5/8" 4 x 8	x1	$ 12.99
Drywall screws (1 lb)	x1	$ 4.31
2" corner braces	x4	$ 9.40
2.5" corner braces	x2	$ 5.26
24" x 48" Plexiglass	x1	$ 13.97
MDF 3/4 4 x 8	x3	$ 65.25
Tax		$ 6.03
TOTAL		$126.57

More thoughts before I forget them...

I wrote Sasquatch regarding the black finish he put on the AP3 and he kindly responded with the following:

"I used a couple coats of a basic tinted wood primer, and a couple of coats of "Rustoleum Satin Classic Low-Sheen Finish" paint in satin black. The Rustoleum Satin has a really nice "Williams cabinet" quality to it: it's not a gloss, but it's not dull either. Oh, and I rolled the primer and paint on with a fine-nap roller, and I sanded in between each coat of primer and paint with a fine-grit sandpaper."

Hopefully he does not mind me quoting him here. :-)

I plan to go purchase the MDF boards tomorrow, as well as a sheet of plexi glass. I really don't have the money to be spending on this now, but I have to get started on *something*! I did order the book "Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine" from amazon.com yesterday. Though I'm sure I could find a lot of this information on the web, it'll be nice to have it all in one place.

I'm still not sure how my control panel design will work out. I plan to use the AP3 layout, but I'm tossing around the idea of replacing the flight stick he has with another 4-way joystick. I'm also curious how comfortable using the spinner and the 4-ways are seeing as they require some repositioning of the hands in not-so-natural configurations.

Other modifications I'm considering are:
* Instead of having two sets of pause/quit buttons, I may use the extra space on the keyboard-converter to make two side buttons for pinball usage.
* Modifying the coin acceptor to accept any type of coin, thus making it a piggy bank of sorts. Saw a website page regarding this. Will update later. I really like the idea of having the machine take tokens or coins, because it did detract from the experience to be able to just pound the "5" key for more credits. So in my case, this is a must-have.

EDIT: Decided to use the CP & Artwork Layout from Arc-Eden (from ras2a). http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,22149.0.html

The MAME machine will likely find its eventual home in the corner of our living room which has double wide doors to make load ins and outs easier for future moves if necessary. I plan to do initial building in our garage though once I clear some space out.

Welcome and Hello!

This site is going to be dedicated to the building of a MAME Arcade Cabinet. I'm going to do this so I can document all my steps and maybe answer a few of the questions that other people have as I get to them.

I've never done a MAME cabinet before, so I'm likely more clueless than most about what it takes. But I'm excited to take on this project and see where it goes.

Last night I had a few friends over and we had a blast replaying the Simpsons arcade game on my PC and I think the prospect of having everyone play on an actual machine and the enjoyment they'd probably experience makes this whole project worth doing.

I've settled on using Arcade Paradise 3 (http://www.arcadeparadise.org) as the main design. I may make a few changes to the control panel and artwork but the main design will likely stay the same. I must say that a 4-player control panel is certainly appealing, but for the price and space, a small USB port on the bottom (as suggested by Sasquatch) may make things more practical.

I have a friend who works at a sign shop and he said i could bring him my medium-density fiberboards and he could type all the designs into the computer and get this .... the computer will cut everything perfectly on its own! Button holes, plexiglass and everything! So the woodworking seems like it'll mostly be done by machine, and I can't say I'm disappointed. :-) Yeah I know, I lose points on the do-it-yourself scale.

For now... more research on the BYOAC Forums... (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com)