Seeing as every other thread has a "how-to" info database, this one should, too!

The MAME cabinet built in 24 hours
Exactly like it sounds. It's a how-to/making of site.

Arcade Controls
This site has a TON of info on wiring, cabinet building, and of course, custom controls! The end-all, be-all source.

The Console gone Arcade!
This is my personal favorite, the NES arcade. No, not emulation; it plays NES carts!

Step-by-step guide!
Thanks khagg!





That's all from me (for now). If you guys have any cool, completed arcade projects that you liked, or any good information on building arcade cabs, paste it here!

Thanks,
CTFan

Hey all, here is a website I made about my arcade project. It's kinda messy beause I suck at making websites, but it's there along with some good pictures.

http://personal.stthomas.edu/arfink/projects.htm

If you have questions PM me, don't put them in this thread.

wow, thanks CTfan! the 24-hour guide will definetly be useful

guide from my Basic understandings: (Delete if Im not correct)

1: Get an old PC, about 500 MHZ

2: Get a video card with RCA output on the PC

3: Install MAME and all of the games you want, or get an emulator, a program that will automatically boot the emu, etc.

4: Build a cabinet. (dont ask me how to)

5: Controll:
you need an old keyboard that you never want to use again. Put in the keys that you to use on the Emulator. Build the board with all of the buttons and joysticks, spinners and trackballs that you want .For the buttons and joysticks, take the wires for all of the switched from the parts, and solder them onto their respective keys on the keyboard.

6: Mount the TV in the cabinet so that only the screen is visible, if possible.

7: For power, you can just plug everything on the inside into a power strip. get an extension cord coming out of the thing.

8:paint, add detail.

or, you could do a dreamcast, which would be easier but probably not as cool.

You can't do this, because a keyboard uses a matrix to determine what button keys are pressed. There aren't switches that you can solder to, on most keybords that i've ever seen anyways.

How would I do controls than?

You would either have to hack the keyboard to use the keyboard encoder inside of it, although I don't reccomend it because it is quite difficult and if you do it wrong, you can f*** up your motherboard. Or you can buy a keyboard encoder designed for use in building arcade controls. this is the one I used for mine. (called the KeyWiz Max) It works very well and by defult settings, is set to MAME's default key mapping for 2 players.

Wow! That was a long post to type on the Wii. My arm is very sore!:D lol

khaag

EDIT: Here is an awsome website devoted to building MAME cabinets. It is where I got all my info to build my cabinet, which is almost complete (just need to paint it). It really is the ultimate cabinet site!

Actually, hacking the encoder of a keyboard can't hurt your computer. If anything goes wrong it's about the same as plugging a normal keyboard into your computer and pounding/mashing all the keys at the same time for several hours. Just reset your PC and everything will go back to normal. Trust me, I did this to a keyboard for the interface for my arcade machine and it worked fine. I would reccomend getting as old of a keyboard as you can find, these are usually easyer to hack because of the way the matrix films plug into the keyboard PCB. I have lots of pics and info on my project here:

http://personal.stthomas.edu/arfink/

The website isn't really done, but the arcade project section is almost completely done.

I used the keyboard for player 1, and a hacked up 4 button gravis gamepad for player 2. If you can portablieize it's easy to figure out how to make arcade controls interface to these devices.

I thought I'd post this here as no mod bothered to move it -

A list of arcade part vendors -

Buying Direct -

http://www.3tronics.com

http://www.betson.com/MainDept.asp

http://connect.to/rotary

http://www.gamecab.com

http://www.hagstromelectronics.com

http://www.happcontrols.com

http://www.groovygamegear.com

http://www.mk64.com

http://www.oscarcontrols.com

http://www.slikstik.com

http://www.wicothesource.com

http://www.ultimarc.com
Secondary Vendors -

http://www.arcadeshop.com

http://www.centsibleamusements.com

http://randyfromm.com/amusements/yellowpages

http://www.gamecabinetsinc.com

http://www.jamesgames.biz

http://www.mameworld.net/massive

http://www.mikesarcade.com

http://www.therealbobroberts.com

http://www.videoconnect.com

http://www.x-arcade.com

Enjoy!

Updated!

CTFan

Should add this site to the list of vendors.

http://jammaboards.com/store/index.php

They don't have a lot, but provide a number of electrical items, buttons, joysticks, speakers, occasionally PCBs, and JAMMA harnesses. Parts that essentially make up a large percentage of any JAMMA arcade cab.

Their main site also provides reference to and about all known JAMMA boards and wiring diagrams for the harnesses.