Just recently I finally found myself with the time to get a hobby! So, as I was looking around for one I noticed my M.A.M.E cabinet staring at me with judgment in its eyes. I've had the thing in a state of partial disassembly for about a decade. So here's what I did:
1. The O/S & Frontend
I'm currently leaning toward Windows 7 Starter edition and Hyperspin. This is apparently one of the most resource intensive ways to accomplish my goal. This isn't an issue as I have an extra AMD quad core laying around! My other thought was to go with a Raspberry Pi 3 and their O/S with EmulationStation integrated. It's low power, cheap, and feature rich but, I have no Idea how the performance is going to be using Daphne and NeoGeo. My buddy Stan has one and we'll be testing it out. I'll post an update with my findings / final decision. So, currently i'll be going the Hyperspin route.
2. The Cabinet, Controls, and Display
I already had a re-purposed Capcom Bowling Cabinet. Ironically this is the easiest part of the equation. You can pickup cabinet on the cheap from a local Arcade machine place, Craig's list, or eBay. You'll be looking for a broken machine or one that's missing parts since we'll be gutting it anyway. If you want that authentic CRT experience & your machine has a working one; there is an adapter board to convert the signal to VGA. Also, if you're happy with the existing controls; you can grab a PC to Jamma adapter board. My cabinet already had a working coin door but, if yours doesn't; you can snag one for less than $100 on eBay.
You can snag a pre-built control panel from X-Arcade that's 2 player and has a trackball for around $200. I wanted to build my own and use the existing panel on my machine so I bought the parts myself. I got them from eBay for around $80 including the trackball (PS/2 connection). Most kits come with the adapter boards and all the wiring you need to connect it all up via USB.
The display is a Dell 19" LCD. I had it laying around and the mounts were very easy to fabricate. You can mod most cabinets to take an LCD that has VESA mounts with some pipe strap, screws, an existing CRT mount, and creativity... or just rip it all out and put in a shelf then screw down the base LOL. I also was able to grab a generic bezel that fit perfectly from our pals at eBay. I lucked out and the existing Plexiglas (display & marquee) was in excellent condition! If you aren't so lucky you can have Lowes or your local building supply company custom cut you a piece of Plexiglas or Mylar. You can then mark, tape, and paint off the back of the Plexiglas using Krylon flat black paint available from your local Walmart for about $4.
The next part of my cabinet adventure has to deal with the audio and lighting. Most arcade machines were mono. Now, there are a few of ways I considered to deal with this:
1. Install a set of PC speakers in the cabinet
2. Re-Use the existing mono speaker if it's in good shape (mine is and i'll be doing this)
3. Get a stereo amp and speakers
I ended up going with a mono amp and a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male cable to cannibalize. That gave me the authentic sound and required almost no real effort to get working. The trick is to tie the 2 positive and 2 negative together from the cable going into the amp - that'll combine the 2 channels of audio into a single. Amazon and eBay are your best friends here - whatever solution you choose.
For the lighting, I already had a 120 VAC mini fluorescent light in my cabinet. If you don't - check out this one.
3. Power
This is actually an issue. How do you get everything to come on at once without hitting a ton of buttons? Enter the energy saving surge protector! This is great, when the "Master" device is fired up it then enables the other outlets. I used the PC as my master device with a really long cable fabricated to an arcade button mounted to the top right of my cabinet (where the original power switch was). It's cake to wire and it's a momentary push button so, it works fine with the mobo & ACPI functions. You just have to splice it in / add a 2 wire connector for the motherboard. The other way is to wire inline with the light or something (splice a switch into one of the power lines in the cord). I went with the push button as it doesn't carry line voltage. You may need to mess with your monitors settings to get it to come on with the power - mine did it automatically.
4. PC / Raspberry PI
Like I said earlier i'm still messing with the Raspberry Pi concept and playing around with it. The PC is a slam dunk and pretty idiot proof thanks to Hyperspin and it's rabid following / amazing forums!
For a PC:
The AMD APU is pretty perfect for this kind of project and you can pick up an ITX Setup for $69
from Newegg.
8GB DDR3 - Gskill is king of value RAM!
256 GB SSD - Now if you're planning on going nuts and adding tons of systems / roms you'll want to go with a larger mechanical here. I used an SSD and a 2 TB mechanical. I have MAME / Daphne on the SSD and everything else on the mechanical.
Power Supply - You don't need much to run everything. You'll also want to grab one of these pigtails. That'll let you connect up the coin door / button lighting and other 12V stuff inside the cabinet.
Note: Do Not use this to power the amplifier if you go that route - It doesn't have enough juice!
Case - None cut down a cheap Bic pen for mobo / any board standoffs and mount everything to the side of the cabinet. You can use the pipe strap from earlier to mount the power supply and make drive brackets.
5. Emulators
I'm not really going to spend a ton of time on this because others have better writeups and walkthrus! Check out Hyperspin's forums and they have all the info you need. That said, there are a few systems that are a certifiable nightmare to configure / get roms for. Your best bet is to just buy preconfigured packs from this company. I'd use them for Daphne and NeoGeo at a minimum. I'll also say this: Less is more! Having every game for every system is cool and all but think about what you'll actually be playing. Having a massive list makes selecting a game to play a chore and you'll probably only really be playing the classics anyway!
Disclaimer: I do not encourage software piracy in any way! Do not get roms for games that you don't own! Use this or any other guide at your own risk! The author assumes no responsibility for how you use the information contained in this blog.
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