Original Project Thread: /https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/30859-latest-mame-cab-project/
At the time I’d had this machine sitting neglected in my garage for almost 2 years. Had the parts just not the inclination but over Christmas the bug got hold of me and I started working on it.
The cab is an old LAI Rampage cab:
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9261
There was no board, jamma harness, control panel, coin mech’s or artwork included. What was included was the original 19″ arcade monitor, power supply, fluro light and dodgy mame marquee.
I started by creating a new control panel. The original was a 3 player setup but I’ve built this with 2 players in mind and a centre spinner. As my art skills are non-existant, in the short term I built the panel out of ply and stained and varnished it. Sure not original or normal but it came up okay with the result below:
As you can see the player 2 joystick is a top fire as I wanted to be able to play Tron, Battlezone and Two Tigers easily. I’m sure there are other games with possibly doubling the top fire button as a push pull option for games like Discs Of Tron and Frontline.
The Top Fire is a normal 8way stick with a modified shaft and top button. I have to say that the joystick itself is a little sloppy on movements and the shaft feels is too short due to the flange at the top. For normal games it’s not so bad but I think I need to adjust it and put stronger springs in it.
The left joystick is a baton type which I’ve never used before. I’m a huge fan of MCA’s but I had no black ones left so used this out of a Mame pack I’d bought ages ago. I’m actually quite surprised at how good it is and would definitely use them again if I had to.
The panel has 6 player buttons each, Player 1 start, Player 2 start and Select & Escape buttons. The Select and Escape buttons are temporary until I grab some clear ones so I can print labels for them. Coin Inserts are supplied for P1 & P2 by using a custom made label and 12 volt LED rectangular buttons I had laying around.
The spinner is a Turbotwist 2 that I got for christmas 2 years ago 😕 It is a fantastic piece of kit. USB interface, engineered to fit into a standard 28mm arcade button hole and has a range of options for knobs and wheels. I stuck with a reasonable std blue anodised knob with room for an insert. Many have mounted BYOAC tokens of which I have 100. I’d like to use an Aussie Arcade one 😉 I also added the energy storage cylinder which is effectively a steel piece that fits to the base and lets inertia keep spin going for a LONG time. It works REALLY well. You can check them out here:
http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=86&products_id=268
The spinner really comes into it’s own for the games I’ve tried it on so far. Tempest and Arkanoid are simply awesome. Cameltry is now an extremely enjoyable game. Star Trek which I only ever play in Sydney’s George st arcades in the 80’s brings a tear to my eye 😉 Sure it’s not in the original environmental cab but I can now play it properly. Other games I’ve played so far are Blasteroids, Cosmic Chasm, a few other racers and finally Tron. If the Top Fire joystick was restricted to 4 way (it does come with a restrictor) Tron would play much better. Spinner wise though it’s perfect. What I need to do is wire in one of David’s digital restrictors…..a project for another day.
Bare Spinner
Blue Anodised Knob
6″ Steering wheel
The steering wheel is well made and works great but is limited without pedals. Works really well on 360deg driving games such as Pole Position, Sprint, Super Sprint etc but gear changes etc are an issue. What I’ve done is use the top fire as a gear stick and the top fire button as the accelerator until I get my Pole Position cab rebuilt. I mainly bought the wheel for unknown future uses and due to the fact that shipping separately at a later date was going to cost a bundle.
Here’s a shot of the bare bones PC components. Using a old GeForce 4 video card and Soft 15khz. Works great on this dodgy old arcade monitor.
You can probably see the mini amp up the back. That’s a $9.00 Ebay special and interfaces to an old set of car audio speakers.
Currently trying out Maximus Arcade as the FE but having a few issues with it. It works but seems to have a few niggles with extra buttons and long delays on exiting games :unsure I’ll see if I can tweak it some more and if not ditch it for good old Mamewah or Mala.
Still to be done on this cab, tidy the wiring up, new artwork/marquee and I need to purchase decent bolts for the control panel and joysticks. The ones I have used are rat-shit.
Oh and one last thing. Just a note to any boofheads like myself. If your using a laser mouse to setup your Mame Cab, stay away from using red cocktail stools as a platform. It took me about 5 mins to dawn on me why it didn’t work…….the damn mouse laser is also red and obviously the red laser was being absorbed by the red stool. I didn’t realise the spectrum was so wide.
This is a very old build thread and in fact the control have been changed. The horrible bat top joystick has been replaced with an excellent Mag Stick Plus and the Top Fire on the right has been replaced with a flight-stick version. The flight-stick has both a trigger and thumb button but is also an 8 way joystick.
I’ll get around to updating this post some day 😉