Well using some birthday money I had saved up I took the plunge and purchased an X-Gaming Tankstick and have decided to build a bartop MAME arcade cabinet. The tankstick arrives Tuesday and I already have the other necessary pieces such as MDF and an old gaming machine/monitor to start the project. Pictures to follow and many fun nights of Simpsons Arcade, Marble Madness, TNMT, Xmen and other arcade coin-op classics to follow (especially NEO GEO)!

The tankstick is pretty awesome: http://www.xgaming.com/store/promo/produ...CFcODQgodQQUAOQ and I picked it up on amazon for $150+ shipping. This is a project I've wanted to to do for years and I'm excited to get it going. Not really a pit but I figured it belonged in this section.

Stay tuned!

Hey nice one, look forward to seeing that! I've played with MAME software a little and it's like time warping back to the 80's with 1,000's of ROM's available and simple interface that runs on a low spec PC. That's a nice looking product from X Gaming. Good luck.

watch out, if the arcade bug bites you, you start with a simple joystick and you finish like this warning big picture, it took me 3 years and a half before i was able to finish it, that's why i was so slow with my modular cockpit.

That's awesome Bluedeath I see you took the real approach building your own control panel (I hear a lot of cabinet builders frown on the Tankstick lol). At first I wanted to build a big upright but I don't want to push too many buttons with the wife (pun intended). My biggest issue right now is finding a non widescreen monitor bigger than 20" (don't want a small display). I have a 24" widescreen that I'm going to work with to start but I may use one of my 17" monitors too or maybe both one for games and the widescreen for pinball games turned sideways (getting carried away with the last bit).

I'm using MAMEUI32 for emulation and Hyperspin for the GUI frontend. Spent the last few days downloading artwork themes and sample vids for the initial setup. Hyperspin is really going to make the cabinet come alive!


PS - What kind of display did you go with? I might have a lot more questions for you too!

Actually i rebuilt an arcade cabinet tha was given to me from a friend who's wife commanded "either it goes or i go" i had to redo the panel to comply to the 6 button streetfighter layout, all the cabling and part of the crt electronic also i had to build a pc with a video card that could be forced to output a 15.75 khz signal (noml vga is 31) with the proper driver.
Screen has some burn in on the right side but since i never played an arcade that was perfectly maitained when i was a kid i kept the original tube for romantic reason (after all th thing is almost my age). Cleaning and restoring the inside was the real challenge.
Since i only play games until 1995 I used an asus m35 all in one pc mobo but i added, a radeon x600 video casd and a creative soundblaster live 1024 that I had from the leftover of my old pc
Im running cabmame64 version. 139
If you need anything just let me know, if you are into the MAME cabinet craze arcadecontrols is a goldmine for info and a nice community.

Thanks for the info you're a savage with the work you did. Most of the games I have interest in are pre-95 as well I have a thing for NEO GEO and the side scrolling brawlers like Final Fight, X-Men and the Simpsons. Then I love the older games as well Pac Man, Marble Madness, Donkey Kong, Qbert (well love hate on that one), etc.....

Not really into Fighters but I do like Street fighter and Mortal Kombat a little.

And I'm learning alot from sites like you mention above, arcadecontrols is a great resource with great ideas for everything from controls to cabinet ideas.

All neo geo cames are ok with my setup but for some specific games you could need more horsepower, salamander even if older and teoretically less demanding than snk hardware is really stuttering with my setup, mutant night is unplayable but 99%of the game are like i remembered them, x men included. Also rtype is perfect on a crt @ 55hz

Some NEO GEO games lag no matter what you do from what I've read the Metal Slug games are a great example. I've read where you can use some of the MAME options to increase CPU speed on them but it often comes with issues. My quad core machine can't even keep the stutters down. I seem to remember Metal Slug at the arcade lagging in the cabs designed for it.

I also remember neo geo games stuttering in the arcades, also ghosts and goblins lose some frame here even in the original machine (this was intentionally recreated in the amiga conversion years later), but salamander i remember silk smooth scrolling. whne in doubt just activate fps counter (F11) if the speed is 100% but the game stutters then the original one did.

I received my Tankstick today and the last couple days I've spent priming my MDF white then painting it gloss black (pictures will follow). My neighbor also has a decal printer so I can get some designs going when its finished. I've also decided to just use my standard 4:3 19" monitor for the display for now since I can't find a larger 4:3 monitor on my limited budget.

I've also continued loading ROMs and artwork/videos for the frontend GUI. I'm up to about 41 right now and feel prety satisfied with the selection. I can't say enough about the artwork resources on the http://hyperspin-fe.com/ site as well as www.emumovies.com which provides sample videos for the menu selection. I'm going to try and make a video of the frontend on my home theater tonight and if I have time upload to youtube along with the pictures of my project beginnings!

In any case I'm very excited.

So here are the pictures so far:


Priming white using three pieces of 1/2" 2'x4' MDF and will use 1x2s for the internal framing (wishing I would have bought 3/4" MDF so I cut route a line for T-Molding... oh well).


Gloss black paint (mainly because I had some = free)


The old PC I'm going to gut for to run everything (will post specs later but its a capable machine).




The control deck that's making this all possible. I could have bought all the parts individually and built my own control panel but I really wanted a plug and play solution this time.


I have a short, badly filmed iPhone video uploading to youtube and will post it later.

Apologies for the shakiness and poor filming, although I couldn't stand any further back and manipulate the controls with such a huge screen lol! Tankstick was acting up a bit as I don't have fully configured in Hyperspin yet (that why the menu goes out of control a few times....

you achieved a very good surface finish on those panels,but why didn't you cut them to shape and routed the tmolding canal before painting?

That is a great question! I get excited........ too much sometimes and I rush things because of it lol

As for the T-Molding though I don't have the right bits (really old router) to plunge a groove so I think I'm going to leave that part out. I do have some cove bits so I may try and round out the edges to get the molding look.

That's why i almost never remember to take pictures while i am working on a project.



If you find the right size you could use the laminated tape that is used on kitchen cabinets to hide cut sides on laminated MFD,i used it on my first custom built joystick.

You could try to build a jig and cut the groove for the T-Molding either using a small bit and running the router side-on on the panel, or using a small handheld circular saw the same way. Better try it on a piece of scrap first though. and watch out for power tools going berserk, ruined panels are a shame, but not as much as lost fingers.

also if you have a dremel you can use the router attachment and (a lot of) grinding disks. the dremel circular saw should be ok also.

I'll have to think about the T-molding some more I have a dremel but no fancy attachments and while I'm handy with tools I know I can't freehand it. Something tells me I'll be building a second nicer cabinet down the road and I've barely gotten started on the first! I started sketching the side panels on the MDF today but the pictures don't show the pencil markings very well, any case I have free time Saturday to really work on this.

EDIT: If the end result doesn't have T-molding I won't lose sleep functionality is the main focus....

if you don't' use T molding is not really big deal, t molding on mu cabinet is just flat hard plastic, nothing fancy. but remebre to seal the cut sides a s MDF is easly damaged by environment moisture.

Made some great progress today in the construction phaze and although there are some things that bug me I think it turned out really good for a first attempt.


Both sides cut!


1x2 runners I'm using for frame construction.



More framimg.




Things starting to take shape.


Starting to look like a arcade cabinet now. More or less a dry fit.


This is what will run everything taken out of my old PC
C2D 8600
4G Ram
ATI 4870 1g GFX
and I'm using an old set of Harman Kardon speakers for sound that I'll take apart and mount underneath on top along with the fans.

I actually had everything up and running tonight but didn't take pics definitely has the arcade feel! and works great. If all goes well tomorrow I'll work on the finishing touches and mounting everything inside properly.