Has anyone ever built their own arcade cabinet?

[kc78]

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I don't need help with the technical/computer side of things. Instead I have no real skills with woodworking. I've found some plans that don't seem overly difficult, but at some point I want to give it a try, probably using some of the plug and play controllers from x-arcade rather than trying to build the controllers myself.

Does anyone know of any affordable pre-cut kits or easy to use plans to cut and install yourself?

 

[BOwens21]

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I don't need help with the technical/computer side of things. Instead I have no real skills with woodworking. I've found some plans that don't seem overly difficult, but at some point I want to give it a try, probably using some of the plug and play controllers from x-arcade rather than trying to build the controllers myself.

Does anyone know of any affordable pre-cut kits or easy to use plans to cut and install yourself?

I looked into it years ago. I'd love to do it someday, but I haven't gotten around to it. I do have a RetroPi for the kids with every NES, SNES and Sega Genesis game ever.

 

[Scalphunter]

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I don't need help with the technical/computer side of things. Instead I have no real skills with woodworking. I've found some plans that don't seem overly difficult, but at some point I want to give it a try, probably using some of the plug and play controllers from x-arcade rather than trying to build the controllers myself.

Does anyone know of any affordable pre-cut kits or easy to use plans to cut and install yourself?

The guys that own this place in Tally do this all the time: http://flippingreat.com/ I'm sure he could lead you in the right direction rob@flippingreat.com

 

[kc78]

These seem to be the simplest and most affordable plans I've seen online. I'm not interested in going the CRT route and am perfectly fine just using the flat screen monitor this uses.

Does anyone have any input on how difficult this truly would be, any advice, or any input on other plans that may be even simpler for a complete wood working newbie?

http://www.arcadecab.com/Intro.htm

 

[FSUTribe76]

These seem to be the simplest and most affordable plans I've seen online. I'm not interested in going the CRT route and am perfectly fine just using the flat screen monitor this uses.

Does anyone have any input on how difficult this truly would be, any advice, or any input on other plans that may be even simpler for a complete wood working newbie?

http://www.arcadecab.com/Intro.htm

I’m busy at the moment but I did some research into this and saved some plans back in the past. I’ll take a look at yours and my old plans and see how they differ. I only put it on hold because my current place is a little cramped and I need a bigger entertainment room to have it fit in nicely, but in a year or so whenever I move I plan on building a Mame and other emulator station for a purpose built cabinet. For my facility, I have to have everything on the up and up so I went with Suncoast Arcades to build a cocktail table for me with an appropriately licensed motherboard that has quite a few (600 or so from memory) old arcade games that are themselves appropriately licensed.

At home I’ll want the flexibility emulation gives you. I’ve already setup Launchbox and Retroarch with a ton of emulators and games on the Alienware Alpha I have hooked up to my main tv so I won’t have much software work to do. But I will tell you this, it took me probably three to four months of doodling with it two to three hours a day everyday to fully get Launchbox running WITH images of each game and with all of the games and emulators I wanted. If you only want the most popular emulated systems (SNES, NES, Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Sega Mastersystem and SG1000, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, TG-16, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, NeoGeo, and some others on Retroarch, the old Arcade Games on MAME, the newer Capcom arcade games, and Nintendo GameCube and Wii on Dolphin) and to launch newer Windows games then it might only take a couple of weeks. But if you want the more older and/or obscure systems emulated (the Laserdisk games like Dragon’s Lair, old Apple 2E games, Commodore 64, TI-99, Nintendo Pokémon Mini, TRS-80 “Coco”, Intellivision, Colecovision, Magnavox Odyssey, Arcadia, Fairchild Channel F, CD-I, 1970s discrete logic games (like Pong and breakout where it was true hardware not software) etc...) as well as the systems where good emulators haven’t really been built and you need to use multiple emulators for the same old console and/or tweak them to get good results (Nintendo 64, Xbox, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, old DOS Games, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast etc...) then as a word of warning...you’ll be in the weeds for awhile.

 

[kc78]

I’m busy at the moment but I did some research into this and saved some plans back in the past. I’ll take a look at yours and my old plans and see how they differ. I only put it on hold because my current place is a little cramped and I need a bigger entertainment room to have it fit in nicely, but in a year or so whenever I move I plan on building a Mame and other emulator station for a purpose built cabinet. For my facility, I have to have everything on the up and up so I went with Suncoast Arcades to build a cocktail table for me with an appropriately licensed motherboard that has quite a few (600 or so from memory) old arcade games that are themselves appropriately licensed.

At home I’ll want the flexibility emulation gives you. I’ve already setup Launchbox and Retroarch with a ton of emulators and games on the Alienware Alpha I have hooked up to my main tv so I won’t have much software work to do. But I will tell you this, it took me probably three to four months of doodling with it two to three hours a day everyday to fully get Launchbox running WITH images of each game and with all of the games and emulators I wanted. If you only want the most popular emulated systems (SNES, NES, Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Sega Mastersystem and SG1000, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, TG-16, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, NeoGeo, and some others on Retroarch, the old Arcade Games on MAME, the newer Capcom arcade games, and Nintendo GameCube and Wii on Dolphin) and to launch newer Windows games then it might only take a couple of weeks. But if you want the more older and/or obscure systems emulated (the Laserdisk games like Dragon’s Lair, old Apple 2E games, Commodore 64, TI-99, Nintendo Pokémon Mini, TRS-80 “Coco”, Intellivision, Colecovision, Magnavox Odyssey, Arcadia, Fairchild Channel F, CD-I, 1970s discrete logic games (like Pong and breakout where it was true hardware not software) etc...) as well as the systems where good emulators haven’t really been built and you need to use multiple emulators for the same old console and/or tweak them to get good results (Nintendo 64, Xbox, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, old DOS Games, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast etc...) then as a word of warning...you’ll be in the weeds for awhile.

The biggest issue with the plans I linked to is that it uses an old 19" CRT monitor. I'd have to find some way to mount a flat panel and determine what would best fit in the space allowed.

As for emulation, I'd be primarily interested in MAME for the arcade cabinet and maybe the older main systems like SNES, NES, Atari 2600, and Sega Genesis.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Cman is the resident cabinetmaker. I'm sure he can give you some tips.

 

[FSUTribe76]

The biggest issue with the plans I linked to is that it uses an old 19" CRT monitor. I'd have to find some way to mount a flat panel and determine what would best fit in the space allowed.

As for emulation, I'd be primarily interested in MAME for the arcade cabinet and maybe the older main systems like SNES, NES, Atari 2600, and Sega Genesis.

I’d go ahead and start working on downloading the correct files (a certain large flightless bird on a tropical island website is the best place to find those) and working on integrating them into Launchbox and Retroarch. There are videos on how to do both. If you only want the popular stuff (other than XBox, N64 and Sega Dreamcast which are popular but there aren’t good easy to use emulators) you’ll be able to find the Roms and image files quickly and easily but even then you’re looking at a two week project at least. I spent a lot longer but only because I was viewing it as a “preservation” historian exhibit and wanted to be a completist and get all of the older systems. Some of those take awhile to find roms and images and even longer to get their poorly written/written for techno nerds/programmers up and running properly. I honestly spent at least two weeks just working on getting the TRS-80 CoCo games working.

 

[kc78]

I’d go ahead and start working on downloading the correct files (a certain large flightless bird on a tropical island website is the best place to find those) and working on integrating them into Launchbox and Retroarch. There are videos on how to do both. If you only want the popular stuff (other than XBox, N64 and Sega Dreamcast which are popular but there aren’t good easy to use emulators) you’ll be able to find the Roms and image files quickly and easily but even then you’re looking at a two week project at least. I spent a lot longer but only because I was viewing it as a “preservation” historian exhibit and wanted to be a completist and get all of the older systems. Some of those take awhile to find roms and images and even longer to get their poorly written/written for techno nerds/programmers up and running properly. I honestly spent at least two weeks just working on getting the TRS-80 CoCo games working.

Yeah, a lot of that work has already been done with the RetroPie portion. I haven't tried setting up MAME Arcade stuff, but I also haven't purchased the controller board from X-Arcade that I want to use with that yet. As a computer tech nerd, I'm not that concerned with the software part. I just have no experience with the hardware part, so that's the challenge for me.

 

[cmanole]

Cman is the resident cabinetmaker. I'm sure he can give you some tips.

I should have posted here...