Building my IKEA cab, a story of pain....

CiDeRmAn

I finally got most of the pieces together.
Well, everything bar the IKEA unit itself, no sense in buying the thing, €50, unless everything else is working as it should.

So, got a donation of a really old, 2001, Dell Latitude C600, with a monstrous 10gb hdd, 5 of which seems to be free, 256mb of RAM awesomeness, and 15" of LCD real estate, which is what I need, not to mention an oddly wonky UBS port, one, singular.
It's running XP as well.

I also have my Tekken 6 Wireless Hori Fighting Stick, from the Tekken 6 set I got for the Birthday, its the PS3 stick so comes with a USB dongle, if I was to use my similar 360 T6 stick I'd have to buy a separate dongle.

I DL's a MAME pack with a not too recent MAME32 therein.

So, the lappy was running real sssllllooooowwww so I went into the msconfig amongst others and turned off a whole load of stuff I wouldn't need, also deleted the stuff left over from the previous owners, freeing up the massive 5gb of space.
I ditched the anti-virus software as well as this would never be hooked up to the net and anything for it would be coming through my main PC thats protected up the wazzoo.

Everything was now booting up swiftly and running quick.

Popped on the MAME pack, it ran quite well considering the age of the machine, happy days.
Some of the files are coming back with files missing so going to take some time to make sure the game zip's are up to date.

Then plugged the dongle in the back and let the Dell identify the Fighting stick, which it did, nice!

Ran MAME and told it to recognise the stick, so far so good.

First problem, the stick registers, not as a joystick but, as a hat switch.
Bum!
No problem, in-game I change the global settings to accept the hat switches input as the controls, UI menus, Ingame controls, coin, start, select, 1 player button and so on.

Tell MAME to only play Vertically orientated games, pop the Dell onto it's side and, BINGO, playing Do Don Pachi with the stick! Amaze Balls!

Returning to configure the MAME32 front-end we hit our first snag.
It will not accept the input of the stick as a control for the UI, no way.
I have a look for an unofficial driver to rectify this, but none to be had, so I'm stuck.
Realise I'm going to have to find an alternate front end.....

Hit the net looking for a Build Your Own Arcade Cab resource, and found one, and it led me to MALA, a freeware MAME cab front end, that'll do me I says.
But now I have to get a standard MAME program, no problem, got that.
Then I have to configure the bugger, and believe me, there is a ton to fiddle with on MALA.

I think I was at it for 5 hours, which version of MAME gave me best compatibility, why was the screen re-orientating itself every now and again?
A lot of work!

But, finally I got everything mapped again, several cfg files deleted later.
I can go up and down menus, select a game, insert credits and so on with the stick, no keyboard/mouse required.

Figure how to filter out horizontally orientated games, and we're there, finally!

Now, I am just about ready to head for IKEA and start the easy part of the project, the cutting and painting!
I have a jigsaw but may ask my brother, a carpenter, to do the work for me, I also have to pick up a large piece of black, dyed art weight card and a sheet of smoked glass contact for the underside of the tabletop.

I also have to modify the Dell by breaking open the hinges and folding back the screen, bonding it to the underside with industrial strength double-sided sticky tape, hoping there is enough of the screen-motherboard ribbon cable to let me do this.

The original was done with a broken hinged Apple Powerbook, lets see if a PC can do the same!

here are a few of the resources I have used so far..

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.zophar.net/frontends/arcade.html

http://malafe.net/index.php?page=download

http://mamedev.org/release.html

http://mamebook.blogspot.com/

Myrddin

If the screen ribbon permits, fold the screen completely over as far as it will go, therefore you'll still have access to the keyboard from the underside. Or better yet detach it completely & fit the base in a more accessible position.

Format the machine dude! What windows is it running? Format it clean & install a basic Win98 with those specs. I know it's the last think your gonna do now after all the config work, but it will improve speed.

Hyperspin > Mala

Use Clrmame Pro to scan your roms, it will advise what ones you need to update, & will auto fix if possible.

Enjoy the experience, it's so far beyond running Mame via pc normally :cool:

landsleaving

I have a broken laptop I've been meaning to try this with myself, but haven't had the time at all recently. Looks like even more work than I thought Make sure you get a few good pics up of the build in progress, if it all works out

CiDeRmAn

Thanks for the advice, might do a clean install and start again, then use the UI you suggest, its certainly harder than I expected, thought I might get away with Mame32, we'll see how we get on and I will post pics later.

CiDeRmAn

A complete nightmare, ran clrmame pro, off it went to fix roms, but because the gap between my romset and the version of mame I was checking it against, it came back with a shed load of rom issues...
Looks like it might be quicker just to get the games I want for the emu fresh and updated, instead of going through them all, one by one....
Never knew this side of things was going to be so hard!

Optimus Prime

I cant figure any of that stuff out, half the roms i have dont work, they run really slow etc. well half may be an exageration, i cant for the life of me get one paticular game working and i want this game more than anything (not sure if your allowed mention specific roms on here)!

Retr0gamer

clrmame pro just never worked for me.

Myrddin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I could never figure out to to use clrmame pro just never worked for me.

Fyp Strange, wasn't it you who reckons hex editing an ecrypted region code to make a console region free was simple, & yet clrmame pro befuddled you?

It's a fantastic tool for anyone who's in this predicament. Stick with it Cider, if you need any assistance I've used the tool many times in the past so I should be able to help. You are correct though, if your roms are so old, they may just need to be redownloaded again.

Lab_Mouse

keithgeo wrote: »

I cant figure any of that stuff out, half the roms i have dont work, they run really slow etc. well half may be an exageration, i cant for the life of me get one paticular game working and i want this game more than anything (not sure if your allowed mention specific roms on here)!

well some roms only work with different versions of mame.

Also for the particular rom that you cant get working it could be what I said above or its jsut a clone or regional version and you might not have the 'parent' rom.Best bet is just to download all versions of the rom,one of them is bound to be the parent.

@ciderman looking forward to seeing the finished mame cab

CiDeRmAn

You have to have the new roms to replace the missing files if a rom is failing because those files are missing, it will not create files from nothing, or download them for you.
It will rename, resize and fix other common faults, so thats good.

I may wind up trying Mame32 as the version I have is running the most of the roms.
Only problem is getting it, the actual Mame32 UI to be viewed vertically, no way to do that so far, the display options of the lappy won't accept a vertically orientated screen.

We'll keep trying though, and Romcenter seems easier to use than Clrmame Pro so far.

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

You have to have the new roms to replace the missing files if a rom is failing because those files are missing, it will not create files from nothing, or download them for you.
It will rename, resize and fix other common faults, so thats good.

I may wind up trying Mame32 as the version I have is running the most of the roms.
Only problem is getting it, the actual Mame32 UI to be viewed vertically, no way to do that so far, the display options of the lappy won't accept a vertically orientated screen.

We'll keep trying though, and Romcenter seems easier to use than Clrmame Pro so far.

Yep it definitely won't create files from nothing Renaming, resizing, & other more advanced functions are what it does. I've often had over a hundred roms marked as missing or wrong versions & after a clrmame pro scan it will have sorted well over 75% of problems.

Anything left after that will need to be redownloaded, & bare in mind some roms need bios files such as the Sony ZN1/ZN2 roms. And some roms need the relevant CHD images also.

Optimus Prime

I think my brain just exploded. My problem is its working in Mame.. but not in the front end max arcade. just get a black screen when i run it.

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

I think my brain just exploded. My problem is its working in Mame.. but not in the front end max arcade. just get a black screen when i run it.

Front ends sometimes require further configuration, as they usually run the rom with a command to the emulator, which nirmally includes rom directories etc. Have you configured your rom directory within the front end?

Optimus Prime

ah yeh i have 20gb of roms working grand, theres a few that dont but im not worried about them, there are 2 games in paticular that just wont work from it and i want to play these ones.

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

ah yeh i have 20gb of roms working grand, theres a few that dont but im not worried about them, there are 2 games in paticular that just wont work from it and i want to play these ones.

And yet these two play from mame? Verd odd Are they chd games?

Optimus Prime

honestly, not sure what that is haha.. they are 4 player games and im trying to get the 2 player clone of them going. both games 2 player clone works fine from mame but not when launched through the front end. which by the way is using the exact same mame! i just get a black screen, no messages nothing.

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

honestly, not sure what that is haha.. they are 4 player games and im trying to get the 2 player clone of them going. both games 2 player clone works fine from mame but not when launched through the front end. which by the way is using the exact same mame! i just get a black screen, no messages nothing.

Bizarre one alright. A CHD game is an arcade game that also had a hard-disc inside the cabinet. So not only does it need to rom data to tun, but needs an image of the arcade hard-drive presren too (CHD).

I did something like this with Sunset Riders. The parent rom is the four player rom, with the two player one being a child rom. On my cab, running the four player rom I couldn't add credits to P2 for some reason, so I changed the front end to load the 2 player rom instead which resolved the problem. I never had display issues or black screens though, does your frontend generate a log file? If so, run the game, let it blackscreen, & see if there's anything in the log about roms not found etc.

Optimus Prime

funny you should mention that game...

im giving up for tonight. ive been trying to get the two player going through this front end all day!

cant figure it out at all..

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

funny you should mention that game...

im giving up for tonight. ive been trying to get the two player going through this front end all day!

cant figure it out at all..

Go into the frontends install directory & see if there's a log file. When you've gathered thogether your sanity that is, Mamecab's are a thing of awesome beauty and coolness, but by the time you have it built & configured, you hate their guts!

Optimus Prime

No log files that i can see, im using maximus arcade.

Myrddin

keithgeo wrote: »

No log files that i can see, im using maximus arcade.

Seems your right - http://maximusarcade.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2046

Though there is mention of an option to show the command string before a game is launched, check it out & let me know what the command is it's sending to mame.

Optimus Prime

ill check it out, wont get a chance to now tonight though. thanks for you help so far! Hopefully get a chance to spend some time on it again tomorrow.

Optimus Prime

Hey sorry kinda went off on a tangent on your thread.

Just wondering, what ikea furniture are you going to use for the cab? do you have a link to it off the website?

ondafly

keithgeo wrote: »

Hey sorry kinda went off on a tangent on your thread.

Just wondering, what ikea furniture are you going to use for the cab? do you have a link to it off the website?

This is the one I think

http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/50103717

seems an easy enough project too - would work well with wireless xbox 360 joypads too.

Optimus Prime

Could be cool, is that a glass top on it? Has this table been turned into a cocktail before by some one?

sham69

im starting one of these next week as my second cab.
I am then starting a bartop for my niece.
Hopefully the ikea will be easy enough, I have all the parts minus the ipac.
The one I saw originally had a less glass coverage and the controls covered in metal or aluminium, looked great.
One of the other ones I saw had the controls in the drawer which didnt look so great.
I will post pics once complete.
I think they also do a larger ramvik in ikea that I have seen as a cocktail but I think the smaller one looks better.

This is the finished one that I am aiming for.
Not sure about the speaker grills at the side though, might do something different. different.

CiDeRmAn

I saw that one too, that guy was using a windows solution and a home made/pro parts controller build, while the Mamebook guy was using a broken hinged G4 Powerbook and a modified PS/Namco arcade stick.

I finally decided to use Mala, Hyperspin looks nice but is a resource hog and the pc I'm using is really, really old.
I have spilt my romset into two, horizontal and vertical, ditched the former and use the latter.
The I went into the remaining games and selected the ones I want to play using the Mala gamelist editor, that brought the number down to a navigable 150 or so.
I'm using an older version of Mame that kinda guarantees best compatibility with my romset, although Galaga and DK don't see the sample folder at all
Also Mala seems to reorientate itself once any button is pressed and I have to turn and flip it back into position.
I also have to set the game to filter out clones each time too.
Will keep working on it til I hit the best solution.

I have been using a combination of Romchecker and Clrmame Pro to keep the roms in line as well.

CiDeRmAn

Right, I think I can live with Mala needing to be reorientated at each power up, I'll get over it.
Otherwise everything seems alright.
I have finally gotten my samples right, Galaga is up and running and DK and Space Invaders sound as they should.
Next stop is disconnecting the laptop hinges and picking up the Ramvik.
Must head for Halfords and get a sheet of lightly tinted window film, as thats what the original creators of this Ikea hack use.
The laptop power button is probably the only issue I see, having to reach inside the unit for it could be a pain.
May see if there is a way to create a plain toggle switch an mount it on the cab instead...

edit
Found one!
Might buy a soldering iron, some solder, a multimeter and have a go myself!
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/how-power-laptop/108758-simple-clean-remote-laptop-power-switch.html

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Right, I think I can live with Mala needing to be reorientated at each power up, I'll get over it.
Otherwise everything seems alright.
I have finally gotten my samples right, Galaga is up and running and DK and Space Invaders sound as they should.
Next stop is disconnecting the laptop hinges and picking up the Ramvik.
Must head for Halfords and get a sheet of lightly tinted window film, as thats what the original creators of this Ikea hack use.
The laptop power button is probably the only issue I see, having to reach inside the unit for it could be a pain.
May see if there is a way to create a plain toggle switch an mount it on the cab instead...

edit
Found one!
Might buy a soldering iron, some solder, a multimeter and have a go myself!
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/how-power-laptop/108758-simple-clean-remote-laptop-power-switch.html

How do you reorient Mala? Could you write a scipt to automate it & run it at startup?

Optimus Prime

no power on if it recieves power setting in the bios? or using a "wake-on lan" solution over your home network to wake it up?

CiDeRmAn

Mala has it all in its settings menu, simply tell it to be in the vertical and go into the Mame config menu to rewrite the .ini file using the autorotl or autorotr check box depending on which way up your monitor is fixed, it's pretty simple.
Only thing is when I boot it up and Mala autostarts, the moment I press any button or move the stick in any direction, the Mala menu re-orientates itself and I have to press a button or two to bring it back to rights.
Maybe this is because of the nature of the stick I'm using, I don't know.

CiDeRmAn

Success!
Popped in a new theme for Mala and a complete snapshot as well.
Now it all works as It should, awesome!
Next step, de-hinge the screen and install an external power switch, I hit maplins yesterday for the parts.
All I need now is my brothers time to help me do it!
Then off to Ikea!

Optimus Prime

Im thinking about doing this cocktail myself, i have a spare laptop sitting around doing nothing thats actually wasted because its fairly new. so i may be asking you some questions about how you setup mala working etc!

CiDeRmAn

To be honest I'm not to sure how much help I can be, I just read the readme and checked out the various build your own mame cab sites out there for help.
No matter what the enthusiasts say there is no easy way to do it but a major time saver is an up to date romset, sample set, snap, marquee and cab photo set too.
It helps to figure what you want your cab to play, horizontal, vertical, classics, everything? Then cut that installed romset down to size.
Thats what i did and it made things a lot easier, certainly meant I was updating 30 roms instead of 300!
Anyway not there yet, have some carpentry and a wee bit of soldering to do yet, this has plenty of scope to go pearshaped yet!

Optimus Prime

Im thinking of just putting classics in it. interested to hear what way you are planning on doing the joysticks and buttons. are you going to leave them in the drawer to slide out or put them on the top of the desk?

CiDeRmAn

Well, you see that's were my genius comes in
Some peeps have wired in professional quality sticks and buttons.
Others have wired in PS2 or PS1 arcade sticks.
So, I'm like a lazy bum and have zero tolerance for necessary wiring, so I decided to use a PS3 tekken 6 fighting stick.
It has an arcade quality stick, microswitched.
It has 10 arcade quality buttons.
It is wireless and comes with a dongle for your PS3 which also has the PC drivers built in do any pc can use the stick with no other purchase of adaptors.
And its made my Hori who build professional set ups.

Oh, and it only cost 40 euro in Gamestop, and came with a copy of Tekken6, since traded in!

Now, hopefully they'll fit in the drawer and can be taken out when required.
At some point I may take it apart and mount it elsewhere, we'll see.

The provision of an external power button for the laptop also means no awkward reach arounds ( he, he, he)...

CiDeRmAn

Going to dehinge it this evening and install the external power button, hopefully.
Stay tuned for photos!

batari

The more I watch this thread, the more this looks like a very tempting cab to attempt..

eddhorse

Following this with great interest

Bye bye old laptop with Backtrack on it !

CiDeRmAn

Some serious surgery going on, commanded by Kerbdog himself.

Hopefully the machine will still have some life in it at the end.
More work than one would imagine.
Don't assume that your laptop has enough cable to allow the screen to be folded back.
A bungled attempt will mean you are buying another screen....

weeder

was going to build a mame bartop before but lost interest, this has rekindled that interest so stay tuned for my own project log

CiDeRmAn

Well the laptop is unhinged, looking good, touch and go as far as the connecting ribbon between the screen and motherboard are concerned.
Everything seems to be fine, installed some cabinet scans as well.
Can't wait to put this thing together.
A few points of concern, not sure the drawer is deep enough to take the controller and still leave room for the laptop above...
I have also got to finish wiring the on/off button and sort out the power cable, make everything neat and tidy.
I have to get the photos up with a timeline.
If it all works out it'll provide some inspiration, If It all goes belly up it'll give you food for thought!

ondafly

what are you going to do about cooling for the laptop ? I have an old inspiron I was considering using, but with the screen folded back on itself, it would end up blocking some of the fan vents - and Dell laptops always seem to run hot !

CiDeRmAn

Ah, cooling....
Now, there's a problem.
The fan in the laptop is knackered so as regards cooling....
there is none
But I may be able to install a fan in to do the job, or maybe a USB device is out there, sitting on a Maplins shelf to save me trying to solder!

o1s1n

You could always make it into one of those hybrid arcade machine/beer keg systems.

That'd keep her cool :pac:

CiDeRmAn

So here we are,
step by step, kinda...

Here's the wireless Tekken 6 Fightstick, for PS3, 40 euro including a copy of Tekken 6!


The soon to be repurposed Dell Latitude C600,


Here's the Mala front end, looking lovely and orientated the right way, took a while to set up, I have added cabinet shots since,

CiDeRmAn

This is the combined lappy and stick with a game running, all is well.

It was surprisingly hard to get it this far.
Getting Mala to work properly and then using a combination of Clrmame Pro and Romchecker to sort out my collection, not to mention a nice little .bat file that sorted my horizontal games from the vertical.
Then it was a matter of using Malalist to create a custom gamelist for the front end that had only the games I wanted.


Here is the now detached screen from the laptop, dear gods, could this work???


Here is Kerbdog soldering away, creating an external power button for the cabinet, this was one awkard bugger as the internal switch had all its points below on a mini-board of its own, so there was much swearing, cutting and more swearing, this was probably the most time consuming part of the evening!


If you are a sensitive soul look away, here are the splayed open guts of the Dell!

CiDeRmAn

So, I had bought a roll of carpet tape, a really strong double sided stick tape, from B&Q, on my way over.
This was applied to the old base of the laptop.
The ribbon cable between the screen and motherboard was wound around the hinge joint but this was very hard to unravel, always waiting for that "crack" of a snapped circuit and a bolloxed project.
Thankfully it was all ok there.
The screen connection was restored and then folded back over the rear of the laptop.
It *just* fitted, very tight indeed though.
And then the moment of truth, would it work???




Hurrah!
It worked!

Fantastic!

I am a very happy bunny!
And thanks to Kerbdog for all the work he put in.
Overall, the de-hinge and powerbutton took about 2hours, so not too bad.

So, now to Ikea and we'll see what other disasters await.
As I said I have a feeling that the drawer may not be both wide enough for the controller or deep enough, either way much modifications may be needed to overcome them.
The first may require the controller to be either stored on the little shelf in the unit, not the tidiest idea and not the desired one, or perhaps the controller may be cut down, superfluous casing cut away to let the device sit neatly into the drawer.

As for the depth of the drawer, there I could be buggered, not sure how that is going to play out, just have to buy the unit and see....

Fingers crossed!

Optimus Prime

Excellent guide! Im going to get the table myself and do this, but i think i might change it so the drawer is constantly out and install a control panel into it instead. great job though! are you going to put speakers in the side of the table? also, did you say you where putting some sort of lightly smoked cover over the glass? Where do you get something like that from?

Cheers!

Myrddin

The Kerb in the modding position I remember doing my jtag sitting like that, at the end I thought my legs were gonna have to be amputated

Nice work Kerbdog :cool:

Cider, where is the base of the laptop? Is if folder 180 degrees now aitting at the back of the screen? As mentioned above cooling now becomes paramount. Would you consider decasing the laptop base & exposing the innards. The at least ad a small fan directly onto the innards

CiDeRmAn

Well most of the interior of the laptop is now naked, and pointing down, so a fan could be easily got to sit in there, pointing up!
Will figure something out if needed.

I was in Ikea and picked up the table, smaller than I imagined, but the drawer is the right size, everything should fit (famous last words!).

There seemed to be around 11 other ones on the shelf so I say go for it!

Regarding the speakers, I will install a simple set later on, pop two holes in the side of the cabinet and put a pair of car speaker grills over them to neaten it all up.

The smoked glass stuff is easily bought in Halfords, just get some window tinting film, that should do it I think.

Problems I reckon could be putting the power wire somewhere it can't be fouled by the transit of the drawer.
Also getting the hole cut in the top panel should be no problem but I have a feeling getting a template just right for the cardboard bezel could be a pain!

The devil is in the details!

I'm going to get a cheap usb mouse as well, stick it to the underside of the laptop with some of that velcro stuff, so it can be got at when you alter/add stuff.
While the front end is now *just right* there are some cabinet scans missing, I also want to alter the start up screen and the windows wallpaper that you are forced to see momentarily as the machine powers up.

I reckon I can look forward to doing it again in a year or so when the ancient laptop goes to silicon heaven (that's where all the calculators go).