Luck of the MAMEish

Great News Everyone!
  I have some exciting news of just how much of a lucky SOB I truly am, but I will get to that later.  Currently I would like to go over a few things that some people have asked me about and also discuss some changes to the Control Panel.

Prices of Equipment
  I was asked to list prices of everything I will be buying, and I will be reporting these now.   I recently purchased two sets of an eBay bundle that I posted earlier.  The total cost for that was $67.90 plus $4.90 shipping.  I got 4 joysticks, blue, yellow, red, green, and 28 buttons.  I am now looking for trackball, which is a great segway into my next topic

Trackball Placement
  My brother's control panel has the trackball placed fairly high up, and we have run into some issues when getting into the bowling games where we hit the plexiglass covering his TV.  This issues arises from the trackball being too close to the TV.  Most trackball only games avoid this issue by angling the monitor more so than "standard" upright cabinets.  By standard I mean the traditional, beat'em ups, fighter, platformers, etc.  I plan on  moving the trackball down farther on the control panel and moving the one and two player controls out further.

Lucky SOB
  Now without any further delay I will present my exciting news.  My wonderful wife was looking on craigslist yesterday and found something in the free section....

Tah Dah!
  This was an arcade cabinet shell that a very nice man was giving away for free.  Thanks Kate, great find! I talked to the guy a little when I went and picked it up.  He buys and repurposes arcades.  He was in the process of cleaning out his garage and needed to get rid of this cabinet.  I didn't take any pictures but he did have a Neo-Geo Metal Slug cabinet which I geeked out about while I was there.  He helped me load up the cabinet, and now a LOT of work is already done for me to start building!  Thanks so much Jody.

Here are a few shots of the arcade standing upright.

I went about the process of breaking down the arcade cabinet.

The internal cabling and power supply were still intact, and the bezel and glass front as well as the control panel and power switch on top.  The power switch I got very excited about, I would like to mention that I am trying to do a one button to power on everything setup, but I am still trying to figure this whole thing out.  I believe I will be needing to modify a power strip.

 

  This cabinet was converted into an Ehrgeiz game, which I went back and checked my collection (more blogs possibly later) and found that I have a copy of the Ehrgeiz fighter for the original Playstation. 

 

There were a few star key screws that I had to borrow a special bit for to get out.  Thanks for the help Taylor!!

I was able to get into the back and noticed the connecting metal straps(?) that hold the CP down.  I plan on repurposing these to hold my new CP in place.

Here is the CP opened up and then completely removed. 

Here is the control panel removed.  After looking at the original button layout I assumed this was a MK3 cabinet because of the 6th button placement.

 

After removing the glass on the front I was able to get to the Bezel and Bezel stickers.  I was able to removed the Ergheiz label and found that this was originally a MK 4 cabinet, or at least as far I as can tell.

 

 I then removed the marquee glass and dismantled the speaker wires.  I was able to take all the wiring and power supply out of the cabinet.

   Here is the newly gutted cabinet.  Now I can begin working on the control panel, and TV/monitor placement.  I still cannot believe that I was able to get this, and for FREE!!!  Unbelievable, thank you so much Kate for finding this, you are the best wife ever!