MameGamers - Mame Arcade Cabinet Making & More

For years I have been playing with the idea of building an arcade cabinet. After deciding that I didn’t have enough space for full sized arcade I started looking into my options. After doing countless hours of research I found a bunch of information leading me to the conclusion that a bartop was the best choice for playing my favorite classic games. This information was spread across the internet on a bunch of different forums and websites. Not a lot of them had all the information on one site. Luckily for you, we are going to go over all the things you are going to need to consider when building a bartop. Im also going to go over the decisions that I made for my personal arcade as an example to see what you can end up with good planning and understanding of what all it takes to assemble a bartop arcade.

We are going to start off by listing all the parts you will need before you can start the actual cabinet construction. Planning is the most crucial part of building your own arcade cabinet. Hopefully this guide will help you cut down on common mistake that you can make when taking on a project such as this. I’m also going to point out ways you can save money by using old parts and building your own components. So lets get started listing out the parts you need. As I’m pointing out parts keep your project in mind. Decide whats best for you pocketbook and your skill level.

LCD or CRT?

First and foremost, the part that you are going to be looking at the most. The Screen. Being that its a bartop you need to consider whats best for the size of your project. CRT monitors are easy to come by and they are pretty cheap nowadays. If you plan on using a light gun then this is definitely your best choice. Although it is possible to use a light gun on a LCD many of the reviews on the guns say that they are hard to calibrate and setup. So if you plan on using an LCD then you have to take that into account. Another thing you need to consider is the size of where you would like to keep your bartop. If you end up using a CRT its going to affect the design of your cabinet. Making it bigger and heavier. After weighing out the pros and cons I decided to go with an LCD. The size in depth was the biggest factor. My personal preference was to have something that was “like” a two player stand-up, but without the bottom part below the control panel.

After deciding on going with an LCD, I looked at my options. The one thing I noticed is that if you want to go with an LCD that the larger you go the more likely it is going to be a wide screen aspect ratio. Which plays a factor in a lot of the games you play. If the game was played on monitor that was mounted vertically then its going to show up with a lot of black space on the sides. If your not okay with that then try to keep to a lower sized 4:3 aspect ratio monitor. You can usually find on in a 17″ or 19″ at a decent price. I personally decided that I wanted to have a bartop that was wide enough for two people with a trackball that a monitor that was smaller than 20″ would of been too small in my design. Being that the number of games that are played on a vertical monitor were outnumbered it didn’t matter that the monitor was a wide screen format. I found a cheap off brand AOC 20″ Monitor that has a maximum resolution of 1600×1050 for $130 shipped. My budget was $150 on a monitor. This was under that price and had decent reviews. This monitor is pretty basic, and that being said only had a power and VGA outputs. Which for my project was acceptable. (We’ll get to why in the next section.) Just keep the connections in mind while planning your cabinet. Those are the big things you need to consider when deciding on a monitor. If you have the budget, go with something that has a HDMI or component hook-ups. With those as options you could hook up a console, such as an XBOX 360 or PS3, to the monitor and have a second monitor just in case. Also, you can interface the controls to work depending on which keyboard encoder you use. More on that in a bit.

The Brain

The next component you want to consider is the PC you’re going to use for your cabinet. Keep in mind the space and your budget. The specs on the computer should be enough to run MAME, and any other emulators or games you plan on using. This is going to change depending on what your trying to achieve on your cabinet. The size is the biggest concern. One of your best options if you have the budget is to go with a new mini-atx motherboard with a built-in graphics card and power supply mounted inside. While your dishing that dough out pick up a motherboard that can run a solid state drive so your system boots a little faster and makes it safer to move the cabinet around. I went another route though. I didn’t feel so lucky when my old laptop decided that the cable that went to the monitor wanted to screw up and only display half the screen. So I put up in the closet til I found something to do with it. So when I decided to build my own cabinet I felt pretty lucky to have this thing to donate to the cause. It a powerhouse for this project. It sports a 1.9ghz Dual Core Athlon Processor, with 2 gig of RAM. Also has a built in ATI video card to boot. Definitely enough for this project.

If you plan on using a laptop for your project like I did then keep these things in mind. First being size. I knew the laptop wasn’t wider than that monitor so I knew I could work its space into the design. It would be less work to install it being it has everything like power supply and fans already contained. When you output to a monitor some laptops require you to boot up and press an function and monitor output key for the screen to display. My laptop automatically output if the VGA is hooked up when turned on so it wasn’t a problem. The power button is the only thing I ran into. To turn the computer on you have to crack the lid and press the button for it to turn on. To defeat doing this every time I just put the laptop in a hibernate which also puts the monitor into power-save mode. I plan on replacing the laptop with the motherboard/power supply combo later on as mentioned above, but this setup will suffice for the time being. Or if you  plan on using an laptop you can take it apart wire a button up to the switch.

Controls

After you get your monitor and computer figured out, its time to think about what kind of controls your going to have on your cabinet. For the size of a bartop your only going to be able to fit two people comfortably.  The monitor I ordered was 19″ wide with the bezel on the screen. So I knew thats the least amount of space I had to work with. I knew going in that I wanted to have at least a “Fighting Style” layout. 8-way joystick with 6 buttons for each person. Also wanted each person to have a start button, a coin button, and two buttons on each of the sides for Pinball. Thats a total of 20 buttons. I knew I wanted to add a trackball to have to option to play games compatible with it. When planning out your cabinet, its best to get all the control you plan on using from the get go. Decide what games your going to play the most and what will help you acheive the controls the easiest. Theres not a lot of games that require more than 6 buttons so I knew my layout would be okay for my cabinet.

I ended up ordering my parts from X-Arcade. They offer a lifetime warranty and had exactly what I was looking for. I bought their arcade parts package, that included two 8-way joysticks with microswithes, and 20  black arcade buttons, two of which were white player 1 & 2 buttons with microswithes. While I was there I grabbed their authentic feeling 3″ trackball to go with my system. After measuring and laying out the control panel, I found that 24″ was about how wide I needed to fit the joystick, 2 rows of 3 buttons and and a trackball in the middle of the layouts comfortably. The other 8 buttons weren’t going to be an issue as long as I planned for them in the design. More on this later.

Keyboard Encoder

Next you need to decide how you are going to hook your controls up to your computer. The easiest way is to get a keyboard encoder. Basically you hook the micro switches from the buttons or joysticks to your encoder and when the micro switch is pressed it sends a keystroke like a keyboard. Most encoders hook up with to your computer through ps-2 or usb. X-Arcade offers a great encoder that is used in their Tankstick Controller which is known for its reliability and ease of use. The only downfall is that it only has 28 inputs on it. Enough for 20 buttons and two joysticks. Another great keyboard encoder is the i-Pac from Ultimarc. They offer several different models to suit any arcade you think about building. After taking a look at the encoders at Ultimarc, I decided to use their i-Pac2. It is built for running MAME specifically and out of the box is programmed with the keys by default in MAME. All you have to do is hook the buttons up the appropriate connection on the board and your up and running. It has 32 inputs. Which only 28 are needed for the control panel I plan on running. But leaves 4 extra down the road for either 4 buttons or 1 joystick, like a true 4-way for games that were originally played that way.

Final Touches

Now there’s only a few more things you need to think about before you can get into designing your cabinet. Sound is one of them. You need to plan for what kind of speakers your going to be using. The easiest way is to get a pair that are USB powered. So you don’t have to worry about hooking them up to a plug for power. If you got a set of speakers from an old computer laying around don’t be afraid to take them apart and see if you can’t fit them into your cabinet somehow. I got lucky and had a friend donate a pair of old harmon kardon speakers that I took apart and got the guts from. With a little bit of soldering I was able to use these speakers in my cabinet.

If you are going to use a marquee, then you need to plan for the size of it, and decide if you are going to light it up or not. If you plan to light it up make sure you include enough space in your design to place lights. Depending how you are powering you cabinet, you will need to decide if you can use a USB powered light, or if you will need a plug for it.

Are you going to have a keyboard and mouse? A keyboard and mouse isn’t required but is helpful to have. Having a nice wireless mouse and keyboard combo will help you retain the value of the computer and monitor you are using. When your not spending your time putting up new high scores you can use the arcade as a computer still.

Since we haven’t really touched on power, now is a good time. As I mentioned before, you may need a power strip to power your computer, monitor, speakers, lights, or anything else that you can’t power by USB. If you are going to run a power strip then I suggest using the Smart Strip by SmartHomeUSA.

“The Smart Strip Power Strip features advanced circuitry that not only offers excellent power surge protection and line noise filtering, but is actually able to ’sense’ the flow of electrical current through the strip’s control outlet. Because of this unique ability, the Smart Strip can turn off selected equipment when its not in use — creating benefit that no other power strip on the market today can offer.”

This unique ability lets you plug your computer up to the main spot, and when you turn it on, it will automatically turn anything else associated with it on, like your monitor, lights, and speakers without having to hit their power buttons.

The last thing you need is protection for your screen. Most people use either a plexi-glass or lexan material to protect their screen. Its cheap and gives your arcade an authentic look. The best tip I can offer you is to go take a look at your local hardware store or place you plan on buying it from and see what sizes they offer it in as you want to try and cut it as least as possible. When I took a look around I saw that 24″ wide was a standard size at my local Home Depot. Which if you remember was what I said was how wide I needed for my control panel. So this worked out perfectly as I would only need to cut it once to the height if needed to.

Conclusion

As far as parts goes, this is all you need to start planning out you cabinet. These parts will get you playing all your favorite classic games. I cannot stress how much easier it will make your build go if you have all your parts your using first. Don’t start any type of construction until you have everything your going to need for it. Be sure to check out my next write up where I take you through the design and construction process of my personal cabinet.