My MAME Project Combo MAME/Pachinko Cabinet

[doa12]

I'm really bad about starting things and not finishing. This is in theory started and is currently stuck waiting for me to get my carver repaired.

My basic plan is to make a cabinet that is a bit more than 42 inches wide, use a 42" 3D LCD panel for the MAME screen, and have a pachinko on each side facing outward.

This is my screen mockup. The cardboard is the exact size of my other 42" 3D TV. However in a bad turn of events, they no longer make the LCD TV I was going to use, so I'll have to come up with an alternative. Should have bought one when I was looking at them. I was gauging how far out a machine would stick if I put the pachinkos on the side rather than just having blank cabinet sides or carved sides. The cardboard isn't the right height, just checking width there.
Mockup.jpg

So I figured a shallow box for the panel, and pachinkos on the sides, and then a panel for the controls. Here's the evolution of my panel:
MAME_TOP1.jpgMAME_TOP2.jpgMAME_TOP3.jpg
I started with a deeper board for the panel, but then decided if I made it narrower I could do a single chop on the carver and have everything cut on that side. The back side I have slight indentations for the joy bases. This is all just mockup now, if my carver was working I could throw a piece of wood on it and carve it right out. That was my thought, build one, see how it goes, if I like it, throw another board on and do a second, or third. My first doesn't have the trackball spot, the last image I've angled the front corners.

I picked up buttons/joys and a trackball, the ipac interface and wiring to turn all those buttons into USB.
ButtonsJoys.jpgipac.jpeg

The buttons/joys were about $88, the trackball, ipac, wiring, etc were about twice that. Light Guns I plan to add also, they'll be another $180 for a pair. And then of course some kind of PC. I have spares, but I think I'll likely get a new PC for the system.

I also have an external drive I'm configuring with Hyperspin and the games. It's a 1.5TB drive and currently has almost 300GB of stuff for the system. I need to get unlazy and finish that, but I'm configuring it all as drive H, so in theory I can just plug it in to any PC and map the drive as H and the games should play.

So as planned I'll have a 4 player MAME facing the main part of the room, and pachinkos on each side facing the sides of the room. Another factor in thinking the Pachinkos would work well there is to weight balance the cabinet. LCDs don't weigh as much as CRTs, so the cabinet would be front heavy with just controls there.