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First time builder


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Hi guys,

 

My first glimpses of arcade gaming when growing up was on a variety of cocktail cabs at the local leisure centre (about 30 years ago). I've been wanting to build a MAME based cocktail cab for quite a few years and have finally decided to embark on building a mini cocktail (I don't have really have enough room for a full sized one). I'm fairly new to MAME and completely new to building cabs so this is my first project.

 

Essentially the plan is to build a "bar top" cocktail and mount it on a set of steel legs that were originally part of a school desk. I'll probably give them a coat of black paint before I use them.

 

IMG_20171001_102029123.thumb.jpg.e5b44624dd8448966f868aaaaf589a9c.jpg

 

So far I have measured up the legs and used the measurements to figure out some rough dimensions for the cab. From there I've started a rough plan in SketchUp.

 

mame-mini-6.thumb.jpg.ba5fcd0232ef9c3a24e1432f1118d56e.jpg

 

The legs aren't shown in the drawing but they will bolt to the underside of the cab and raise it up so that the glass top is about 76cm off the ground. I might use form ply for the sides and it would give me a nice smooth surface to stick the wood-grain vinyl to. I plan to use a 20" Dell 2007FP 4:3 LCD with the case removed as the monitor. I have sized the cutout appropriately. I'm hoping the IPS panel will provide sufficient viewing angle. I already have a pair or Sanwa JL-W joystics, a bunch of buttons, a 2 player Xin-mo encoder, T-moulding, glass clips, some speakers etc. For running MAME I plan to use some thin clients I have sitting around. They are HP T610's with 4GB of RAM and hopefully they should be well and truly powerful enough to run the old cocktail games.

 

I could use some advice in a few areas from those with more experience. I haven't settled on the control layout but I figure the joystick and a couple of buttons probably covers most of the old cocktail style games? I imagine six buttons would be over the top. I'm also trying to work out the best way to go for vertical/cocktail front-end software. Finally, I would like to get some grey glass cut for the top with the rounded corners and beveled edges. Can anyone recommend somewhere in Brisbane?

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Thanks for the warm welcome. I have refined the design a little more while waiting for a few parts.

 

mame-mini-7.thumb.png.eae34c0045a64f1535dd910bba70b626.png

 

mame-mini-7-2.thumb.jpg.b64b1c2caa7fd445a1c3d6d34376d2eb.jpg

 

Mostly double checking dimensions (The whole layout was 20mm too short for the base so it was good to check) and working on the control panel layout. I tried cutting some ply with a jigsaw but for the straight cuts it's NFG. So I'll be down to the old mans place to borrow a table saw this weekend I think.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Not finished yet but it is slowly progressing.

 

IMG_20171111_173356777.thumb.jpg.e16e9582485b61ef1e298a3fcc1a58b6.jpg

 

Started on the control panels and routed out slots for the T-moulding. My Grandfather has been helping with the build and letting me use his workshop and tools. He's a retired Headmaster (with many years of woodworking experience) so I think converting an old school desk to an arcade cab with him is pretty funny.

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I agree that it is the traditional look and the cabs I used to play on were like that but if I was to go that way the whole cabinet would have to be considerably larger to accommodate a monitor of the same size. I'm trying to minimize the overall footprint of this unit while retaining a functional design. The desk legs look like they would get in the way but when sitting down the players knees are on either side of the central column can comfortably tuck under the base of the cab. If it was a major issue then the cab could become a table top unit. It's only held down to the desk legs with four bolts. I also have another school desk for the next experiment if it all goes to hell. ;)
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Another Sunday and another few hours spent working with my grandfather. Mostly doing the final assembly of the main box section of the cab, routing out more T-molding slots and working out a good way to do speaker slots neatly. The rough draft came out okay so I'll do the ones on the side of the cabinet next.

 

IMG_20171119_171447909.thumb.jpg.24d9c618359f5935118d2b39b1d3fa94.jpg

 

Progress is slow but I think it has been worth taking the time rather than rushing.

 

IMG_20171119_171516314.thumb.jpg.539678ccdbeac42cda73eaece77c13db.jpg

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Another Sunday and another few hours spent working with my grandfather. Mostly doing the final assembly of the main box section of the cab, routing out more T-molding slots and working out a good way to do speaker slots neatly. The rough draft came out okay so I'll do the ones on the side of the cabinet next.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]119814[/ATTACH]

 

Progress is slow but I think it has been worth taking the time rather than rushing.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]119815[/ATTACH]

 

Looks good so far, don't worry about the slow progress.

It's better to take your time, plan it out and get the measurements right and double check before cutting.

Formply is great for the reasons stated, though expensive it will save time and paint etc.

A scratch build normally takes me about 40 hours to complete.

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Thanks for the kind words. I found a few more hours today and cut the speaker grills into the sides of the cabinet. Then started on the control panels.

 

IMG_20171126_172416986.thumb.jpg.747b15c4a923bdc690419716ab52d381.jpg

 

So far it's looking fairly close the the original model.

 

mame-mini-9.jpg.0fd664fa260d0be0b27786e1fc8ae1e4.jpg

 

 

Looks too good for thoes legs.

I wonder if you have been thinking of sourcing more traditional legs. I understand though if you have a sentimental attachment to them.

 

I think once the legs get painted black they will look much less out of place. But it will certainly be possible to go another way with it if they let the rest of the build down

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As a distraction from the woodwork I've been trying to sort out an OS and front end I want to use for the build. I like the look of RetoPie but there's no x86_64 port of its buildroot based Linux distribution and I didn't want to install a full Linux distro to run it (I've had good experience with other buildroot based projects in the past in terms of performance and stability. They also give a very "appliance like" experience). I have a RPi 3 board I could use one of the pre-built images on but I'd prefer to use the thin client hardware as it will perform better (greater CPU speed, more RAM and GFX capabilities), they were cheap (considering what needs to be added to a Pi for a working system), are fan-less/run cool and I have spares. Using the RPi display_rotate option in the config.txt file to rotate the framebuffer and get portrait also does horrible things to the performance (the reasons for which are explained here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/403). I'm not against the Pie (I have three) but decided against it for this build.

 

I have also tried Lakka and Recalbox which are buildroot based and are available for PC hardware. I found that both were good options but the built in front end for Lakka is designed for landscape displays only. Recalbox uses EmulationStation as a front end. I preferred it slightly but it is also designed for landscape displays. On the plus side it is written mostly using OpenGL to generate the graphics and the source code is available. So the next step has been to create patches for the EmulationStation package in Recalbox to rotate the graphics 90˚ clockwise. This was easy enough to do using OpenGL and as a result it uses the graphics hardware acceleration so there is not the massive performance hit that would come from rotating the whole framebuffer.

 

In terms of the results it is about 70% of the way there.

IMG_20171127_230010327.thumb.jpg.6515964eeeb45dfd5b14d355da0a6080.jpg

 

Some of the elements on the screen (in particular the fonts) need re-scaling to suit the vertical layout but that should not be too much work (hopefully).

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I've done some more work on the control panels and making holes for wiring and fans (but neglected to take pics). I've also made much more progress with a code changes and vertical theme work for Recalbox.

 

IMG_20171204_193850186.thumb.jpg.7fa7608db13e37e4bd848be4dad01a94.jpg

 

It's probably 90% of the way there now (and quite usable). I just need to stop the controller guidance going beyond the width of the screen but that will require another code change in EmulationStation.

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  • 1 month later...
Are you leaving it open under neath the control panels? Your 3d model and what you've built so far makes it look that way.

 

No. It was done mostly to confirm the key dimensions would work. Its not there mostly because I hadn't committed to how I was going to mount the bottom cover. I would like the wiring to be easily accessible for maintenance. I've actually built the real covers but they aren't attached yet.

 

Christmas had already slowed this down and my grandfather is a bit unwell so I'm not going to do much in his workshop till he has some time to rest and recover (and hopefully the worst of the summer heat has passed). I haven't had much time either but have been working on the software side and looking at some artwork options whenever possible. Looking forward to picking it back up though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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