The MAME Project

Fin.

2009-03-09T07:45:00.001-07:00

We are both really pleased with the final product. Two months of work and we have an arcade machine in our dining room!

Video of the startup (with custom graphics/sounds) to come soon!

Marquee

2009-03-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Installing the marquee wasn't the most fun thing to do, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. TIP: If you are building one of these things, print two copies of your marquee graphic. The guy at formerly-Kinkos accidentally printed two, and gave me both. I'm glad he did. What you see in the photo is both copies of the graphic stacked on top of each other, lit from behind. With just one copy, the paper isn't thick enough and the graphic gets washed out by the light. Just make sure they are lined up exactly. A thin strip of gaff tape held the 2 prints and a piece of acrylic on either side. The ribbing of the t-molding was stripped out and glued on, then the whole thing stuck on the front. Looking back on it, I would have rather used magnets.

Bo Jackson from Tecmo Bowl is the unofficial mascot of Return of the Super Kombat Turtles from Space II Turbo Remix. "So real it hurts" comes from an old ad for the Mortal Kombat arcade game.

The Guts

2009-03-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Here's the inside of the cab, under the monitor shelf. The PC with all the MAME software/roms, subwoofer (doom doom), speaker controls (in plastic baggie for dust protection), and Smart Strip to turn everything on at the same time.

We drilled a hole under the CP box and installed the secret power button. One push turns everything on, one push turns everything off.

Bezel

2009-03-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

We trimmed down the monitor bezel and acrylic with the Dremel and a razor blade for a more precise fit. After giving the TV a good Windexing, we lined up both pieces, tucked them behind the speaker panel, and drilled 2 screws (bottom left, bottom right) into the 2x2s to keep everything in place.

Speakers

2009-03-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

The first order of business after the paint was completely dry was to install the speakers. We used the screws that came with them, originally for holding them into the plastic cases. I extended the length of the wires so the control board (volume, treble, bass) could rest on the floor of the cab instead of dangling behind the monitor.

And from the front:

2009-03-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

MAME Monitor Button from Dan Price on Vimeo.

Paint

2009-03-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

Not much to say...high gloss, black, oil-based enamel. Used foam rollers.

Hiccup.

2009-03-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

While we were moving the CP panel off of the box to prime it (the box), the PS/2 cable got caught and ripped from the interface, leaving the connector still in it, and the cable on the floor. I won't go into detail on the expletives used, but they were bountiful.

"I'll just pick up another cable." Dumb.

Unfortunately, male-to-male PS/2 cables (PS/2 being a connection of the past anyway) are impossible to find in a store. Sure, they sell them online, but this thing is going to be finished by the weekend.

Thanks to Dave at work, who "lent" me 2 male-to-female PS/2 cables, I able to have at it with an old Weller soldering gun. Clip-clip go the female ends and strip-strip go the wires. Then strip-strip-strip-strip-strip-strip (x2) go the wires inside...PS/2 has 6 shielded connecting wires and 1 unshielded ground wire. Thankfully they were color-coded and matched up easily. Here was my set up.

Two battery clips to hold the two cables in place, and two clamps to hold the clips upright. I had a wet sponge to keep the gun tip clean. The first 4 or 5 went swimmingly, the solder melting like a champ, me breathing in all that glorious lead smoke.

Then, the gun decided to give out, and I resorted to soldering the that last two wires using my cigar lighter. Not the cleanest connections, but it worked! I electrical-taped everything together, and used the clamps (now zip ties) to keep any undue pressure or pulling away from the new connections.

ALSO:
Alex figured out what was wrong with Player 3 controls! It was just a break in one of the ground lines. One re-crimp and we were back in business! Now ALL the controls work, and we are happy.

Up and Running! (for the most part)

2009-03-03T11:18:00.000-08:00

We finished wiring the CP yesterday. All in all, connections and grounds, it maybe took 3 hours total. Not bad. Here's the orgy of wires that resides under the buttons and joysticks (black is ground, red, the connections):

And hooked it up to the monitor (X-Men vs. Street Fighter):

Going CRT for the monitor can't be beat. It looks like the real deal, and not distorted like it would on an LCD. Here's Rambo:

(Note: "for the most part" means that the Player 3 controls, as well as 4/6 Admin buttons don't work yet. Not sure why; we haven't done any troubleshooting (too busy playing :). Hopefully it's a quick fix.)

Cut, Strip, Crimp (Repeat)

2009-03-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

We began wiring the CP last night, specifically daisy-chaining the ground wires. It was much of the same process, but we got it down to an assembly line sort of, and it really didn't take that long. Cut wire to length, strip both ends, stick into quick connect, crimp. Repeat 54 times. (Pro Tip: get GOOD wire strippers, it will make your life easier).

Half of the CP is daisy-chained together and goes into one ground on the interface. The other half? You guessed it.

All buttons and joysticks are grounded.

Paint!

2009-03-02T15:25:00.000-08:00

Well, primer, if you want to get technical (and a severely underestimated amount of it, at that).

CP Box

2009-03-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

There is probably a better term for what we keep calling the control panel "box," but that's really all it is. The box that goes under the CP. We built that yesterday. Here it is.

Box on cab.

We (read: Alex) also routed for the T-molding. I didn't get a picture of the routing work because this was more interesting.

Bad guy smoke . Don't breathe this.

CP Assembly

2009-03-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

The final step before we could start putting the CP together was to countersink the joysticks so they would be taller on the top. We did this with a Dremel and a woodcutting wheel (part no. 543).

We then bolted the joysticks down (countersinking the heads on top to fit under the graphic) and mounted the feet for the I-PAC 4 controller.

We layered graphic and acrylic, then started poking holes and installing buttons (not before lining it up numerous times, clamping, unclamping, and dremeling out more acrylic for the ones that didn't fit).

Aaannnnd the front (before the graphic got trimmed):

MAMEing in a Winter Wonderland

2009-02-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

It rained this morning. Then it sleeted (slate?). Before we knew it, we were drilling joystick bolt holes in this:

Snow aside, we managed to get a fair amount done. We got the casters on (two turny, two not turny) making it much more easy to maneuver:

We also got the speaker panel installed and puttied the screw holes:

Some brainstorming work went into today as well. We finally came up with a solution for installing the marquee graphic and acrylic. It involves cutting the "ribbing" out of the t-molding and gluing it on, for a much cleaner seam (and less Dremeling of MDF).

We are not done for the day. The Dremel's battery is currently charging, after which we are going to finish routing out the spaces to countersink the joysticks. Tonight will be devoted to installing/wiring buttons and joysticks (and consequently applying the CP graphic).

Tag You're It

2009-02-26T08:26:00.000-08:00

Tags (labels) have been added to all of the posts for easier searching if you're just looking for one specific part of the building process.

Speaker Panel

2009-02-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

We've built the speaker panel, drilled the two 2 1/2" holes (small speakers...but "WITH BASS YOU CAN FEEL!"), beveled the front edge at a 40 degree angle so it will be parallel with the marquee when it is installed. We have to rout that same edge for the molding before we put it in the cab.

Here are the speaker innards. They're just going to be floating around somewhere in the bottom after the speakers get wired back together.

Misc.

2009-02-26T07:28:00.000-08:00

We got the final CP graphic printed, here's a teaser:

Also, our special power strip came in. This will turn everything (lights, speakers, computer, TV) on and off all together. We are going to plug the TV into the blue Control socket, and everything else into the white Auto sockets. When the TV is turned on (the method of which we are still debating), everything plugged into an Auto socket will turn on as well (thanks to a BIOS adjustment on the PC).

Grinding, Putty

2009-02-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

All of the protruding screw heads ground down (Dremel), we puttied last night. Next steps: rout, sand, paint! (Alex: This is the side of the cab that Dan puttied, so I'm glad it's the one he took the picture of. The other (my) side looks like a 6 year old found a putty knife and went wild.)

All Together Now...

2009-02-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

Monitor in, we placed the bottom of the CP box (along with some stacked MDF for height) under the CP/acrylic to get a feel for the overall size. We were pleased.

Monitor Shelf

2009-02-20T07:29:00.001-08:00

It's taking shape. We built and installed the monitor shelf (which fit perfectly, I might add) and put the TV in to get a feel for where we need to put the speaker panel (we have to take it out to paint).

1 piece of MDF
3 2x2s (2 support, one brace in the back so the TV doesn't slide off)
22 screws to hold it up and keep it together

More CP work

2009-02-20T07:22:00.000-08:00

The control panel piece and acrylic top have been both been cut and matched up:

Dremel

2009-02-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the many uses of a Dremel. Smoothing out acrylic.

Other uses include, but are not limited to: T-molding routing; Joystick plunge routing; Screw head grinding.

Cheating Death...sort of.

2009-02-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

There seem to be two different schools of thought when it comes to discharging a CRT TV. The first (and unfortunately the less popular) is the "it's really not that bad if you're careful" school. The second, and more abundant, is the "this will probably kill you/there is no hope" school. I would like to say I was trying to adhere to the former, but its hard to deny the ubiquity of the latter when looking at the high voltage-conducting copper and steel innards of a piece of electronic equipment that was manufactured a decade ago.

But I digress.

Blame the cold, blame the fact that we did zero work on Saturday, but sometime Sunday afternoon we decided to tackle the TV portion of the project which involved removing the TV from the case and discharging it--removing the remaining voltage stored in the cathode ray tube so it is safe to handle (the shock from a still-charged tube can kill you). There are plenty of resources out there on how and why (to prevent your ceasing to be) to discharge a TV. We read most of them and were sufficiently scared, to say the least. While being fairly knowledgeable about computers and gadgets in general, the two of us have a combined electronics (read: volts, watts, amps, circuit boards and copper wire) knowledge of a whopping zero. That being said, if you are trying to do this yourself, do not use this post as a guide. We are not professionals, we are hobbyists. There are people with similar sites that do not post how to discharge a TV for liability reasons, but the information is out there, and you won't have much of a case if you try to sue us. Also, we had a different experience from others discharging a TV, and this is just to add to the knowledge base about the topic.

Here is what we did:

1.) Removed the back casing (our JVC had 6 screws).

2.) Performed the discharge (pardon the language, I was scared).

CRT Discharge 1 from Dan Price on Vimeo.

As you can see, our TV was no longer holding a charge. It had been unplugged for a few weeks, and in some TVs (not all) this is enough to drain the remaining voltage in the tube. Some TVs can hold electricity for years, even if unplugged. I was much more comfortable moving the TV around once we had done this step.

3.) We did it again (and again) to be sure.

CRT Discharge 2 from Dan Price on Vimeo.

4.) Removed the front casing (4 bolts, unplugged front control board).

5.) Attacked the front casing with the reciprocating saw. (Note: this is the best and worst tool ever invented. It will cut the crap out of stuff, just not very gracefully. This is not a precision tool. This is a "I don't really care what this looks like" tool. And since this will all be covered by the bezel...we don't really care what this looks like.) The point of this is so the bezel will fit flush to the glass.

6.) Put everything back together (with the help of some gaff tape).

We decided to keep the TV in its case for a few reasons: First, because we could. It fits perfectly inside of the cabinet (within 1/8 of an inch). Second, because it is safer. The TV will regain its charge once it is plugged in, and we don't want the insides exposed if we have to go in the back and do some work. Third, it eliminates the need for us to build a frame for the TV so it will stand up. We will place the TV on the shelf (once it is installed) and hold it in place with some 2x2 braces.

That's it! Monitor work = done (the scary stuff at least). It is a big weight off of our shoulders.

Quick Post

2009-02-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

We went into the BIOS of the PC we're using and changed the power settings so that it boots when AC power is applied to it. This will let us turn on a single item in the whole cabinet (TV, speakers, marquee light) and the computer will turn on without having to push the power button (with the help of this special power strip). Bigger post coming tomorrow of the whole weekend progress.

Holy CP!

2009-02-12T20:01:00.000-08:00

Exhibit A:
Alex, with the drill, on the patio.

Exhibit B:
Control Panel and acrylic, post-drill.

State of the Union

2009-02-10T06:28:00.001-08:00

Dan had a pretty epic post yesterday, but I wanted to throw a few pictures in, give an update on the progress thus far, and detail where we go from here. The only new addition since the weekend is the picture above: the light for the marquee. (Edit: Sorry again for the crap formatting, I can't get the two pictures below to resize.)

Control Panel:
- We've mentioned before that we're working with acrylic as the CP overlay, and it's extremely difficult. We almost broke a whole sheet trying to cut it the first time and I think both of us got a little frustrated. Well, after all the building on Sunday, we tried a different approach and it worked perfectly. We clamped the entire piece in between two pieces of MDF, except for the portion that was being cut off. After scoring it about 10-12 times a side, we simply hit the exposed part with a hammer and it came right off.
- With that victory in our pocket, we decided to go for broke and start drilling holes. Using the same setup (acrylic in between two pieces of MDF), we starting cutting holes with a 1 1/8" boring bit. The fear here was that we would crack the acrylic, but after four holes, it looks pretty good. We still have another 37 to go, so we're not out of the woods yet, but it's a good start. (Cut some arcylic once, the sound and smell are interesting...)
- Dan has been working on the CP graphic, and it looks great thus far. We decided to go with an amalgam of classic game characters and arrange them. The version below is very low res and just a mock up with the images cut out and randomly placed; they will be resized and arranged in the final product. (Edit: direct link to the CP mock.)

Sound:
- I'm hoping to pick up speakers in the next couple of days so we can go ahead and cut our speaker panel and get them mounted along with speaker grills. (Just not THESE speaker grills.)

Cabinet:
- I think we'll start painting sooner than we think. We're probably using a couple of coats of primer and then black satin paint.
- Ordering T-molding this week and I'm guessing we're just going to rent a router from Home Depot to make the cuts.
- The marquee has been planned and making the graphic shouldn't be a problem.
- We're still in the process of planning an efficient power on/off system.

TV:
- This is our last big hurdle I feel like, and something that we still can't mess around with. We're almost certainly going to take the tv out of it's case, but that's as much as we can plan for right now. Once we get it out, we'll be able to see our options for mounting it. To ensure that we don't kill ourselves, we did make a nice little tool similar to this: (Edit: direct link to the discharge tool.)

Software:
- I still have a little bit of work to do in terms of the front end, but for the actual emulator is nearly 100% ready to go.
- I still need to program the interface, but I can't do that until we wire the CP.

Big Weekend

2009-02-09T14:00:00.001-08:00

I'm posting these in reverse chrono to keep the flow of the whole blog thing going the right direction. Start from the bottom of this post to see it in the correct order. And sorry about the weird layout & formatting. Posting multiple pics w/text on Blogger kind of sucks. I'll be posting more frequently to avoid this problem.

This is essentially what we are looking at after this weekend. That's some progress if I do say so myself. It actually looks like a cabinet!
The bezel is just resting on the frame. It needs to be cut and mounted after the TV is installed, but we just wanted to see what it looked like.
And yes, it is almost in our kitchen (it's supposed to rain for three days...).

Sorry about the weird white balance on this one, it was about 5pm and we had half daylight/half patio light and cameras get confused when that happens. This is the cab frame from the back. We are trying to decide how much of the back to actually cover, be it a door or just more MDF. We have to consider ventilation, access, and safety (with the naked TV back there and all).

Is that 90 degrees or what?

The cab with front, back and side panels, now with marquee top. (Alex: The marquee is recessed 1" from the front and the top.)

Yours truly, with the cab, in what might just be the smallest MAME building space ever. The patio stops about three inches to the right of the frame.

First side attached!

The 2x2 studs on the inside of side one to hold the top marquee and slanted back panels. (Alex: We decided to use 2x2s to put the angled panel on because it was what we had available. Most others that I've seen have used L brackets, but this seems to work fine and maybe adds some stability to the frame.)

Both sides now cut, we clamped them together and took a sander to the edges to get them identical. Also notice the bottom piece under it with the newly attached front panel.

The base of the cab, now with bottom back panel.

Bottom panel w/ 2x2 studs for front, back and side joints. All studs attached with wood glue and #8, 1-1/2" screws every 5 inches.

Alex's "I'm holding the freshly cut 2nd side of the cabinet, along with the first side which was cut a week ago" face. (Alex: No, I was just excited because someone passing by finally waved at me.)

MDF scraps and panels. The circular saw got a workout. (Alex: I was relieved that it looks like we will only need three panels of MDF. Our 2x2 supply might run out though.)

Thanks to Will for lending us his worktable, which I promptly destroyed by running the circular saw through it. Alas, the only casualty of the weekend, save a couple of stripped screws. (Alex: This happened about 10 minutes into the day's work.)

CP

2009-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

This is the Control Panel as it sits in the living room, all marked and ready for cutting/drilling/boring. The next step is to cut a duplicate piece of MDF between which we will sandwich the acrylic so only one pass is needed per hole. And I think there are around 54 holes to be drilled, so...that will help. Now let's pray we don't crack the acrylic...

Day 1

2009-01-31T23:51:00.000-08:00

Building has officially begun. Went on a Home Depot/Lowe's marathon run today, and made the first cut around 5pm. We got the first sheet (out of 3) of MDF cut into pieces, resulting in one of the cabinet sides, the monitor shelf, and the control panel. We have plenty of scraps around for practice routing for the T-molding, and are going to try to have the control panel up and running tomorrow (just two players, for testing). Hopefully we will get the rest of the cutting done tomorrow as well. Back to Home Depot in the morning for some drill bits and other misc. items.

On the drafting table (read: kitchen counter)

2009-01-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

Button mock-ups to get a feel for spacing. CP measurements done! Read Alex's detailed post below.

Mock Draft

2009-01-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

Last night we really finished up most of our planning. After finally having all the pieces in hand, we sat down and starting to seriously look at dimensions. We're almost certainly going with LuSiD's plans for the cabinet. (Judging from the research I've done, I bet 75%+ of MAME builders use these.) However, we're going to freelance a little bit on the control panel, since we're going to have 4 players.

For the CP stuff, Talking Octopus' site was a huge help. In the end, we decided on 47" for the length and mocked it up (below) in a piece of cardboard.

I'm so glad we decided to do this, because seeing the sticks and buttons in person really helped. We also did some research about taking the case off and discharging a tv. There are mixed reviews about it to be honest, with some people saying it's not big deal, and others saying that it shouldn't be tried under any circumstances. After some careful consideration, we're going to do the smart thing and discharge it. As Dan said in a previous post: /gulp. He'll be following this post with another pic of the CP too.

Tonight is reserved for the kick-assery that is AC/DC, but tomorrow the cutting begins...

Box O' Buttons

2009-01-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

All the buttons, joysticks, and quick connects, as well as the screen bezel, arrived today! The interface would have been here, too, but DHL doesn't like to orphan their children on patios riddled with bags of trash (for shame, UPS, for shame). The buttons have a nice action to them, and although only the "1 Player, 2 Player..." buttons are concave, they all feel like the real deal and will definitely hold up to their fair share of mashing. Also, the joysticks are much heavier than expected. The better to wreck you with, my dear.

Let the Madness Begin

2009-01-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Alex nerding out with two computers and three monitors working on the software. The TV we acquired seems to be perfect for a MAME, the key specs being 27" w/an S-Video in, and the ability to turn back on to the same input after being unplugged. Now let's just hope we don't kill ourselves taking off the case and discharging it with a screwdriver. Gulp.

Controls Panel Pieces Have Been Ordered

2009-01-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

I had a nice spreadsheet with links and pricing information made up, but since it had been a while (5+ months) since I really researched it all, I've spent the last few days making sure of what I wanted again. Today I finally got the stuff ordered. Here's a quick rundown:

An Ipac4 interface:

Happ Competition Joysticks x4: (In red, blue, green, and yellow)

Happ Competition Pushbuttons for controls and admin:

Happ Players 1-4 Pushbuttons:

I'm stoked now, because this is really going to come together quick it seems. I still have about 15gigs of roms to sift through on the computer, but it'll be worth it. If anyone has a suggestion on a front end, let me know. Right now I'm leaning towards MAMEWAH, but that could change.

Next up: buying the hardware and starting to make some cuts.

Update!

2009-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

Ordering buttons, joysticks, etc today and getting the process going. Construction is tentatively planned to begin on Super Bowl weekend!

Up and Running

2008-09-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a series of posts detailing the construction of our MAME machine. Don't expect it to be updated too often because extra capital and time will be hard to come by at first. I wanted to do this because there are so many resources online that have been invaluable in the planning process for this project. More or less, I want to give back to that community.

I'll add some of the links I found most helpful to the right.

Right now, we're in software and procurement mode. Above is a picture of the computer we'll be using. It's my old tower and houses a 1.8ghz P4, 768mb of RAM, and a 6 series 256mb nVidia card - tested the svideo out this morning and it looks horrible on a hig def screen at a high resolution. Inside the MAME program, however, it looks great - I'm excited to see how it looks on this:

That's the monitor we're using. A simple 27 inch tv with an svideo input. Still haven't completely decided if we'll have to take the case off, but it doesn't look like it.

Currently downloading a huge file (18gb) of games and other utilities. The next post will more than likely come when that's finished.