4 replies to this topic

[settingsons]

I always dreamt of one-day making my own arcade cabinet ever since I played the pre-Mame Sparcade arcade emulator by Dave Spicer many moons ago (mid 90's). It was always a long-term plan but never materialised. Then around 1999 when these forums were created and I saw the first vritual pinball cabinets appearing by the early pioneers such as Rawd, and then I knew my priority was to build a Virtual Pinball cabinet. I did that at last year and I love it.

But now it was time to build a mame cabinet. I liked the bartops that have been made but I also wanted an upright arcade machine to re-kindle my youth (). Therefore I decided to build a self-contained bartop, and then build a simple base to stand it on to make it like an upright arcade cabinet (the bartop bolts to the base and can be easily removed). The base is in fact a cupboard for my wife to use for her books/paperwork/etc. so that is how I convinced her to let me put it in the living room .

I was very lucky to find a secondhand 19" Dell 4:3 LCD monitor with a stand which allows the screen to rotate. Absolutely perfect and only 5 euros at a street market! I managed to detach the rotating bracket from the monitor stand and mount it on a baton.

I built this last Oct/Nov and started with a cardboard prototype. I used the Ultimarc 4-way/8-way switchable joysticks with ball-tops which I have to say are superb. Pacman plays so well in 4-way mode.

I use the Mala front-end with videos, and have a button to rotate the video output between Portrait and Landscape. The screen is easily rotated manually by removing the plexi-glass, rotating the screen by hand, and replacing the plexi (as shown in the video).

I currently run Mame, Atari VCS Stella, and Dolphin. I use a desktop PC standing at the side of the cabinet for now, but there is plenty of room in the bartop to build a dedicated PC (once funds allow). I we vill eventually add two pinball buttons on the side although this isn't a priority as I have the Pincab.

I have uploaded a few pictures below (probably too many) and a youtube video. Any questions please ask!

Cheers

Mame Bartop/Upright Arcade Video

Edited by settingsons, 06 April 2012 - 12:24 PM.

[mameman23]

Looks good, just building a bartop myself. You should post it over on byoac forum also.

[Zablon]

NICE! Can I has the cardboard version? lol

[settingsons]

Looks good, just building a bartop myself. You should post it over on byoac forum also.

Thanks mameman - funnily enough I was preparing a post over there as you wrote this..... it is now done

NICE! Can I has the cardboard version? lol

lol - I think the wife has burnt it , but if I had known......

[Tomcat Leader]

Nice cab!

Edited by Tomcat Leader, 06 April 2012 - 04:15 PM.