MAME Material Update Part 1

Stocking Up
  So I have been spending my time with gathering more materials for the MAMEcade.  I know that I will need to acquire the rest of the controller parts (i.e. Trackball and Keyboard Encoder), a new control panel for the cabinet, a new hanging light for the marquee, a new set of speakers, t-molding for the control panel, and a new monitor for the arcade.  I started my material gathering with the control panel.

Control Panel MDF 
  I decided to make the control panel out of 3/4" MDF wood.  I read about this on the byoac forum, and also my brothers entire cabinet was made out of this.  The main reason to use MDF is that it is already smooth, so sanding is not needed except on areas you cut, and the 3/4" will allow for t-molding to be put in place.  I bought one sheet of 3/4" MDF 48 X 96 wood at Lowe's for $33.97 plus tax.  I bought this size because my control panel will need to be 62" x 19" and I will need some additional wood for TV shelf, etc.  After buying this wood I realized how freaking heavy it was, and that I might need some help moving it.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any help to off load the wood from my truck, but I managed to get it setup in my garage.

Arcade Parts Are IN!
    My arcade parts have come in from eBay!  Here are some pics of the joy sticks and buttons.  I am very excited to get these in, and the order came in correctly and on time, thanks DirtCheapTrading!!!

 

Here are all the parts, Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow.  I have spread them out in the same way they should be when they are all placed on the control panel.

 

Keyboard Encoder and Trackball

  The final arcade parts I need are the trackball and keyboard encoder.  I researched the keyboard encoder option and it seemed like the best (and possible only) option for my setup.  I could not find many encoders, especially four player encoders, but I did find the IPAC4, which will accept up to 4 players with 14 switches each, 4 for the joystick, 8 buttons, and 2 for coin and start.  I will go into more detail on how the keyboard encoder works when I start to wire it up.  I purchased the IPAC 4 and it is on its way now, I bought it from the Ultimarc website for 65.00 plus shipping.

  The trackball has been a somewhat big discussion point with my brother.  He was not satisfied with his trackball and he told me that he had gone on the cheap when purchasing.  If he had to do it over again he would have paid more money for a better product.  After a lot of searching I finally found a 3 inch trackball that had it's own ps/2 hookup.  It cost me $45 plus $12 shipping.  The trackball is stated to have come out of a Golden Tee game, which I would think would make it a good trackball...for some reason.  If anyone has any good in depth information on trackball performance or the like, please let me know and I can follow up with this later.  Here is a picture of a similar trackball that I bought, sorry the ebay listing is already gone for mine.  

The trackball I purchased also came with a mounting plate, so I should be in business as far as controller parts go.  I'll cover the rest of the cabinet on the next post, thanks for reading!