Building a MAME cabinet?

[VideoFever1982]

I was thinking about building a MAME machine. Just not sure tho. I also plan on a game room and some older games. Should i just stick to original cabinets and games and is the MAME machine a good idea?

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Highly recommended, epsecially if you don't have several acres to devote to all the game you enjoy.

Someone once told me if at all possible buy an old cabinet and retrofit it rather than trying to build a cab from scratch (unless you're an awesome carpenter). Of course, in my case I did it to a cabinet some folks considered a classic and I got a lot of heat from the community for destroying a valued machine. So be careful not to MAME the cabinet of a classic, get some generic crap game cabinet and go to town.

The X-Arcade controller is a good input device by the way.

[VideoFever1982]

Highly recommended, epsecially if you don't have several acres to devote to all the game you enjoy.

Someone once told me if at all possible buy an old cabinet and retrofit it rather than trying to build a cab from scratch (unless you're an awesome carpenter). Of course, in my case I did it to a cabinet some folks considered a classic and I got a lot of heat from the community for destroying a valued machine. So be careful not to MAME the cabinet of a classic, get some generic crap game cabinet and go to town.

The X-Arcade controller is a good input device by the way.

Thanks for the info. I'll keep that in mind. Also, are the games in MAME legal to own?

[pablum]

I've been thinking about it as well. Seems fairly expensive to do depending on what you want. I'm going to try the mameroom.com cabinet kit route and get some Ultimarc mini-pac keyboard mappers for the control panel. When its all said and done and I've bought artwork for it, it'll be over $1,000, but I'll have what I want.

Edited September 11, 2008 by pablum

[maximebeauvais]

If you are good carpenter, you should go on ebay and buy those mame kit plan for 10.00 or so. I'm sure you could also find some FREE plan somewhere on the net. BUT you need to know what you are doing!!!!

 

I do not have any tool to built a mame cabinet so I bought a used cabinet that had a 25 inch monitor. I do not remember the name of the game but there where no board inside….just the power supply, monitor and control panel.

 

I got myshelf an old PC (P3, 800mhz with 1gig ram). I only play classic game so I do not need more then that. I bought the ultimar video car, the card for the joytick and the card for the trackball. Also bought 2 joystich: 4 way (that you could convert to 8 way in 5 seconde…do not remember the name), a trackball and around 25 buttons. I went to home depot and bought a piece of wood and built my mame control panel. Pretty easy to do.

 

Then I hook up all the wire, card, and PC stuff and voila….I have a nice mame that I can play.

 

One of my friend had like 10 arcade game….he prefer original game then mame BUT those old arcade are very fragile, there always a problem with the board. You need to know how to fix the board, solder wire…etc. If you are not good with that kind of stuff, you should go with mame. YEAH, he had a nice game room and all those classic arcade was nice to see but it's a lot of time.

 

Go on you tube and type something like: how mame and you will have great video of how to setup mame (software).

 

Good luck !!!

 

BTW: old cabinet with 25 inch monitor: 200$ (used)

Ultimart video card: 80$ (new)

Joystick card: 25$ (used)

Trackball card: 25$ (used)

Trackball: 75$ (new)

Joystick: 20$X2 (new)

Button: 40$ (new….nice translucide button and you could put LED inside !!!)

LED: 15$ (new)

PC: 0$ (I had a space pc at home)

 

I still need to get some nice marquee, side, control panel overlay…..It will be around 150$ for everything. One day…..

[yuppicide]

Check out the forums here:

 

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

 

Wonderful resources and help for building. You can get inspiration from others there as well. Some of their cabinets are really nice.

 

I'll have something in my new apartment as soon as money affords it.

[VideoFever1982]

Yeah. I was in carpentry for some time so building it wouldn't be an issue. I mean, i have everything i need in the workshop to do it with. Just not sure which way i'll go tho. Might just get a real good generic cab. I had one like that awhile back that i converted and i later sold it.