For a long time I've wanted an upright MAME cabinet, but none of the places I've lived in the last 7 years have had the space for it. A good few years ago I had the idea to build a self-contained MAME machine using a Raspberry Pi: build a control panel box and mount the Pi inside it.
The catalyst for finally getting this off the ground was when a friend of mine got this:
That's an original Neo Geo MVS arcade motherboard hooked up to a custom built SuperGun - a device designed to let you use arcade hardware on modern TVs. I have some Neo Geo carts, but I haven't as yet got round to getting the motherboard or a supergun. As soon as I tried this out I thought, "Right, damn you Alex, I'm going to build my arcade thing and IT'LL BE COOLER THAN THIS DAMN YOU". To be fair there's no substitute for playing on the original hardware; emulation comes close, especially with a proper arcade stick, but the original is beyond compare. Alex still has one up on me there, but I'm not going to admit that
.First order of business: the joysticks and buttons
I'm using a kit from Arcade World: 20 buttons, 2 sticks, 20 microswitches, wiring, and the I-Pac 2 USB interface. The interface is a damn handy piece of kit: it's pre-configured to use the standard MAME control layout, but the firmware can be easily reprogrammed. All completely interrupt driven, no matrix, debounced switch inputs, and no delays.
Obviously I need something in which to mount all of this. Now, I don't have any woodworking tools of my own: I have a 12v cordless drill and more screwdrivers than I'd care to count, but that's about it. A job like this however will need a lot of tools: workbench/saw horse, jigsaw, sander, hand saws, etc. I did start pricing up tools and sheets of MDF, but I found a seller on ebay offering pre-cut kits. I happened to find a kit that was exactly what I wanted and it was far far cheaper than buying all the tools myself. So I cheated and basically bought a flat pack kit.
Yes I've shamelessly stolen his image. Sorry. Anyway, this kit is in white and has t-moulding - mine was bare MDF and has no t-moulding slots, but the layout is identical.
So. Here we are after mounting the joysticks:
EXCITEMENT LEVELS: RISING. Not kidding, I was giggling when I took this photo.
The next part, after fitting the buttons, was the wiring. The kit from Arcade World included a continuous daisy chain harness for ground - very handy indeed.
The next bit was not fun. In total, there are 27 switches to connect to the I-Pac. NOT FUN.
All that cutting and stripping... Not fun.
The finished product however did somewhat fill me with glee:
I haven't had this much fun playing games in a long time. It's SO MUCH BETTER using an arcade stick than a joypad.
Next step, we need to paint that sucker:
Now before we go any further let me tell you about the fun I had with paint. Skip over this bit if you want.
I've never done anything with MDF, so I did some reading. Apparently you need to prime MDF before you paint it, because it's highly porous: it'll absorb all the moisture in the paint and leave a crappy blistered finish. There is such a thing as MDF primer, so this is not an insurmountable problem: the MDF primer seals the MDF so that the paint will properly adhere to the primer - then you can undercoat and top coat as normal.
Do you think I could find MDF primer on the B&Q or Homebase websites? Could I hell. The local B&Q store I went to is massive, so if they sold it then the chances are that this store would have it. Nope. Can't see any MDF primer. OK, so is there any combined primer/undercoat that's suitable for use specifically on MDF? Not that I could see. Plenty of tins of combined primer/undercoat, but nothing that explicitly said it was suitable for MDF. Also the staff there were no help at all.
I ended up getting a tin of this Ronseal one coat stuff which doesn't need primer or undercoat; however the tin explicity says that it's suitable for use on MDF. Expensive, but in the absence of anything else it'll have to do.
Oh dear. Apparently I am teh suck at painting.
Well... Bugger. OK, no big deal. It needs a second coat anyway, so I have some sanding work to do tomorrow. None of the other panels look this bad, so this was pure bad form on my part.
I started putting a bunch of stuff into the shed and noticed that a previous tenant had left a large 2x2 batten in the shed. "Hey, that'd be a handy sanding block", says I, "I just need a saw to cut it... Like that saw over there!". I gleefully set about sawing a chunk of this batten off.... less than 4 feet away from where there was paint drying.
You see, I tend to rush into things, and sometimes I miss the most obvious details. Such as: sawing wood less than 4 feet away from wet paint is a stupid idea.
Something else I'll have to sand out.
Oh, and I got paint all over my damn hands.
So here's what my poor job on the top panel looks like in the cold light of the next day
Yeah I really messed this one didn't I.... Never mind, onwards to sanding!
I used 240 grit sandpaper on each visible panel. The top panel still looks pretty poor but it was smooth as an android's bum, I can assure you. I've fondled several androids in my time, so I should know.
One coat of goopy, snot-like paint later, and....
It still looks like crap. Well... Let's see what it looks like when the paint has dried. If it really is that bad I'll sand it off again and get a vinyl sticker made for it.
The other panels came out reasonably well though - barring a few bare patches that my puny human eyes missed and my 13mp phone camera picks up.
CAT TAX! While writing this post a random Fry appeared on my desk and started doing this. This is actually a photo from a few weeks ago, because he wouldn't sit still and the claws came out when I tried to move him. But this is exactly what he was doing.
