Custom Arcade Cab Build

[Tizz]

Hey everyone,

Wow this is like my first post for around 3 years on this forum. Have recently been getting back into all pc and gaming things after having to focus on things in life to enable me to be able to .. well live.

Recently I've started building an Arcade cabinet in my spare time, it’s an upright which will run either my current pc (overkill but I’m not sure how much I could sell it for) or a duel core atom based thing (you know the lightweight pc's that normally sit next to a TV for quick web browsing etc) On the final hardware it will be all emulation running Atari 2600 - N64 era, including classic Arcade games.

I've started putting up my build process on my personal site as I haven’t been active anywhere for some time, so rather than posting a project build diary on a site, i would simply let people know about it on sites I once use to be active in to see if anyone was interested

Please feel free to ask me anything etc or simply look at the pretty pictures, here’s the link:
http://www.re7ox.com/portfolio/derezzed-by-retox/

Always love to share things, and as I’ve gathered various pieces of info from all over the web I thought I would try and give something back where at least someone thinking of doing the same could find the images helpful for planning their own.

Cheers,
Tizz.

[Ferral]

Welcome back to the boards.

I was thinking about doing this at some point. There was an article on Gamespy doing the same thing which was an interesting enjoyable read. Got me thinking about a project for myself, you dont need a really high powered system for MAME to work flawlessley.

Why not use this thread as a blog on your progress, maybe add a few of the images here also

[Tizz]

Hey, thanks a lot

Sounds cool, you should go for it, tbh I'm going to have a lot of MDF left over I'm thinking about a fight stick for Tekken + SF on the ps3 afterwards .

I've got most of the emu + games running on my little netbook which is a single core atom job, the only thing that struggles is the front end I'm using. It's called Maximus arcade and i think is Flash based so I was thinking about getting a more modern but still low power system like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/279898-acer-as...p-pt-semec-036 .. Although someone said about using my current PC (in my spec to the left) It's totally over kill but I was looking to sell it. The advantage is i could then get SF4 etc on the pc.. and run some modern fighters... Decisions!

Yeh I think i shall deff post pics and updates here as I go

Tizz.

[roorooroo]

Hi Tizz..i have a cab too..although it's nothing as grand as yours i'm sure..it's just a redesigned candy cab with control panel and side art added etc etc.
I'm running Hyperspin (very nice free FE) though Maximus is cool too.

[Tizz]

Ahh wow that's awesome!! I love those cabs Played SF many times on them

Oo Hyperspin, that's a really cool interface. It was a toss up between that one and Maximus for me. I quite liked that I can modify Maximus's skins and plan on designing a custom skin for it to match the colour ways of the cabinet (red, white and black).

[Orion1971]

Wow nice cabinets can u send me one 1st class postage? I will throw in a cuppa tea ^_^

[Tizz]

Well mines a wood box atm, but cupa tea u say?! Now thats tempting

Should have a few more parts I need this week so will drop an update when I crack on a bit more

[roorooroo]

Find myself playing Gorf, Galaga, Pacman, Defender etc the most and hardly touch the other emulators..luckily mine has a touchscreen so i don't have to mess around with keyboard and mouse when the need arises.

Good luck on your build Tizz.

[RoyceHawk]

I had a Motal Kombat 3, 4 player cab, converted into a Mame cabinet with a P4 PC and well over 4000 titles

I got rid of two of the sticks and put in a central trackball, third and forth players had to use PS2 pads (with flush inputs for them on the sides)

Two sticks with 8 buttons each, two pinball buttons on either side and a wireless keyboard and mouse tray for PC use.

I put a creative 5.1 sound system in with two speakers in the marquee and the bass in the bottom of the cabinet, cut out a large circle on each side for speaker grills, mainly for venting really, though the monitor did have side speakers, another two grills on the front for the bass speaker and some dumbell weights in the base to hold it upright at the large screen made it somewhat top heavy.

So I ended up with a beast of a machine that took up a large part of my living room, but I loved her!

Sadly though in the end it had to be dismantled to make way for a dining table...............................

But now I have moved to a bigger property and the old cab might be due a rebuild, watch this space!