Anyone here set up a MAME cabinet?

Question

Tell us about it. Was it easy? Expensive?

Answer 1

There are a few ways to go about building a cabinet,

From Scratch: The most rewarding one in that you made something from nothing. Is it easy? NO...Is it expensive? Can be.... By making an cabinet yourself you have more control of your end product. There is a lot of planning before the build. Lets just say you already have a running Mame system and are looking to place it in a cabinet, You already know what you need placed inside and how big the screen is, But you can build it to accommodate a larger screen if wanted/needed in the future. You can design the control panel and have it so you could change control panels to different ones to accommodate different games instead of cramming every type of control on one control top. THIS IS THE HARDEST WAY TO GO BUT IF DONE RIGHT THE BEST WAY TO GO.

Pre engineered: Example http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp they are like a new standard in the build your own home system. Is it easy? Fairly...Is it expensive? Moderately. You can see they are a clean, well build cabinet and are able to be modified to suit. RECOMMENDED FOR MOST PEOPLE BECAUSE IT TAKES A LOT OF THE THOUGHT PROCESS OUT AND IF THE PERSON IS MORE THE GEEK THAN THE HANDYMAN THIS IS THE ONE FOR THEM.

Retro fitted: You can come across old arcade games for sale in not working condition. Is it easy? Basically...Is it expensive? lower budget.. If you come across one you not really need to be concerned of the electronics for that's going to be disposed of (EBAY). You need to look at the cabinet and see if it is damages from bugs or water. The control panel can be removed and a new one built to accommodate the controls you may want. ALL IN ALL THIS WAY REQUIRES ONLY ABOUT 1/3 THE EFFORT OF THE OTHERS AND SOME MODIFICATIONS WILL BE MADE BUT ALL IN ALL SIMPLE.

Lastly there are plenty of sights that offer information, parts, and designs for cabinets. I have been designing mine for over a year now and buying parts here and there, My strongest suggestion to you is to incorporate an wireless keyboard and mouse and look at running an Front End Program like http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/ , have fun and good luck, Hope to come across you creation on the web someday....

Answer 2

I had a friend who set one up, it wasn't easy and definately wasn't cheap either, cost him nearly $2000 with most of the cost going towards the actually cabinet itself.

Answer 3

me and my boyfriend had the same issue so we bought a glass top coffee table from ikea with space inside and he's currently making all the insides because i'm not really technical so yeh that's all i really know i'm afraid anyways i got the idea for it from if you search google for 'ikea hacker' and it comes up as some website devoted to people buying stuff from ikea and making it into other stuff and theres a guy on there that did it :) or else try car boot sales, ebay, gumtree etc