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My cabinet build attempt


aland888
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Hi people—-thought I’d do a small build myself after looking at the ones on here they’re superb.

 

what a great site ….,and thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas and wisdom …great stuff.

im not too sure about how all the wizardry works but im going to hammer on and try and come up with something.

 

My plan is this -

* a bar top fruit machine and arcade combo 

* Will want it to take coins and payout at some stage  but not essential to begin with 

*want it to be as compact as possibly really

*touch screen for handiness 

*want it to be kind of factory built looking in the end .

so started with the surround of an old fruit machine…that I cut down as I wanted it more suitable to the screen size I was going to use 

 

 

 

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I searched and searched for a touchscreen for a month or so and got one eventually on good old eBay —practically new and boxed —-and the measurements were close to what I imagined ..

So a lot of measuring and cutting and other nonsense I got the general idea of what I was doing .

 

 

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Cheers for the replies folks 

It’s only put together roughly at the minute

the plan is to try and get everything built up and working ,then I’ll strip it again and repaint the whole surround and finishing touches.

 

i intentionally haven’t made the back part of the cabinet yet as i want to be make sure i can cram everything in that’s needed—-like I say I want relatively compact and easy to move .

is there a guide anywhere to show exactly what I need to purchase ??or can anyone advise ??

*I need the buttons wiring in and illuminating …..is that an Ipac I need for this??

* i also want to fit a hopper and coin mechanism ——ive one out of an old fruit machine but it’s all very bulky ..I can maybe do without some of the plastic routing sections that’ll make it smaller for me .

And with reguards a PC —any advice on this ???is there something smaller available that willl work ??and what sort of spec would I need really ..

I want to run fruit machines and arcade games ?

sorry for all the questions —

 

Happy new year 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, aland888 said:

Cheers for the replies folks 

It’s only put together roughly at the minute

the plan is to try and get everything built up and working ,then I’ll strip it again and repaint the whole surround and finishing touches.

 

i intentionally haven’t made the back part of the cabinet yet as i want to be make sure i can cram everything in that’s needed—-like I say I want relatively compact and easy to move .

is there a guide anywhere to show exactly what I need to purchase ??or can anyone advise ??

*I need the buttons wiring in and illuminating …..is that an Ipac I need for this??

* i also want to fit a hopper and coin mechanism ——ive one out of an old fruit machine but it’s all very bulky ..I can maybe do without some of the plastic routing sections that’ll make it smaller for me .

And with reguards a PC —any advice on this ???is there something smaller available that willl work ??and what sort of spec would I need really ..

I want to run fruit machines and arcade games ?

sorry for all the questions —

 

Happy new year 

 

 

Machine spec mainly based on what exactly you want to run on it, higher spec pc games will require a more powerful machine more drives, memory etc, so it will require more space, I would advise you have access to USB ports, wifi and bluetooth and as you might find somethings play better on a controller and the USB us handy for moving files and anything else you might need to plug.

I have used a coin mech off amazon simple to wire and you can program it how ever you wish current price at £9.99 and it comes with the facia simply wire it into a button input as it can be used in normally closed or normally open.

Nice and simple to wire and smaller than an arcade coin mech, 

image.png.95a8b4262e6837b5f6fe55175f76bd41.png

Thinking out loud you could have some down lights, (led) coming from the bottom of the button panel might set it off nice.

That will give you a few things to think about....

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  image.png.1d64be062996a2844825c1d2b4a24be8.png

The new MFME Frontend, are you ready ?

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That’s great —-with reguards a powerful computer ….ill not be playing any modern games really …I wouldn’t know how haha —-it’ll just be alll the oldkool arcade games really I’ll be wanting .

I’ve been looking for an ipac (that I keep seeing mentioned in other builds)…is this the correct thing I need in the picture ??I haven’t a clue about all this stuff but want to learn .

Will this be ok to work all the buttons and then a coin mechanism and hopper aswell???or is it something different I need ??

 

thanks 

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5 hours ago, aland888 said:

That’s great —-with reguards a powerful computer ….ill not be playing any modern games really …I wouldn’t know how haha —-it’ll just be alll the oldkool arcade games really I’ll be wanting .

I’ve been looking for an ipac (that I keep seeing mentioned in other builds)…is this the correct thing I need in the picture ??I haven’t a clue about all this stuff but want to learn .

Will this be ok to work all the buttons and then a coin mechanism and hopper aswell???or is it something different I need ??

 

thanks 

IMG_6800.png

That iPAC looks suitable. I've got several iPACs here, and PACdrives (used for driving button LEDs, hopper motors, e.t.c.).

I was planning on finishing off several cabinets but ultimately disposed of them and kept the driver boards, PCs, e.t.c.

The coin mechs and hopper (Azkoyen Parallel) I have do work and have come out of previously running cabinets - but if you are only ever planning on single coin entry that cheapo one from Amazon would be fine I guess. 

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

That iPAC looks suitable. I've got several iPACs here, and PACdrives (used for driving button LEDs, hopper motors, e.t.c.).

I was planning on finishing off several cabinets but ultimately disposed of them and kept the driver boards, PCs, e.t.c.

The coin mechs and hopper (Azkoyen Parallel) I have do work and have come out of previously running cabinets - but if you are only ever planning on single coin entry that cheapo one from Amazon would be fine I guess. 

Thanks for the reply—

So I need an ipac and a pacdrive then??—-I might be able to go with the  coin mechanism and hopper that I have from an old fruit machine —

 

would this work?

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1 hour ago, aland888 said:

Thanks for the reply—

So I need an ipac and a pacdrive then??—-I might be able to go with the  coin mechanism and hopper that I have from an old fruit machine —

 

would this work?

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Coin mech should work (edit - I note it doesn't have a 'new £1 ready' sticker so hopefully you know it takes the bi-metal £1 coins already) - you'd need to set it in to parallel mode, and it should have another pin header somewhere else for parallel connector. I believe it's on the opposite side of the mech to what you have shown. Off the top of my head it'll be about 17 pins in a straight line. Your hopper is serial only I believe and I don't know if anyone has successfully got serial / CCTalk components to work - not saying it's impossible, but parallel coin mechs and hoppers are known workers and have simpler pinouts.

With a parallel hopper for example you have pins for power, hopper motor, hopper opto, ground. With serial you'll see the pinouts (they should be on a sticker on the hopper) are for DATA and stuff, rather than the specific components of the hopper. I've no idea how you'd even connect that to a PACdrive / iPAC, if it's even possible.

My honest opinion? I'd try and source a parallel hopper. If you require the same form factor as that hopper you'd be looking for another Compact Hopper but parallel. Otherwise something like my Azkoyen Parallel or one sourced elsewhere would work, albeit with different dimensions. 

 

 

 

As for the iPAC and PACdrive - them of them as input and output devices.

iPAC handles inputs (button presses, coin inputs from the mech, hopper opto sensor inputs). It's basically a keyboard encoder, it turns microswitch and similar inputs into keyboard presses which MFME detects.

PACdrive drives outputs (lamps for your buttons, hopper motor). So you connect (for example) a lamp - 5V LED if you want to power direct from the PACdrive as I do - and when that fruit machine lamp is 'on' within MFME, the PACdrive powers the corresponding LED within your physical button. Or in the case of a hopper, the PACdrive acts like a middleman between MFME and the hopper, and turns the hopper motor on as required to pay out coins, then the iPAC detects the coins being paid by the physical hopper as they pass through an opto sensor, sending a keypress to MFME so that the emulator is aware a coin has been paid out.

 

Edited by slotsmagic

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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12 hours ago, slotsmagic said:

Coin mech should work (edit - I note it doesn't have a 'new £1 ready' sticker so hopefully you know it takes the bi-metal £1 coins already) - you'd need to set it in to parallel mode, and it should have another pin header somewhere else for parallel connector. I believe it's on the opposite side of the mech to what you have shown. Off the top of my head it'll be about 17 pins in a straight line. Your hopper is serial only I believe and I don't know if anyone has successfully got serial / CCTalk components to work - not saying it's impossible, but parallel coin mechs and hoppers are known workers and have simpler pinouts.

With a parallel hopper for example you have pins for power, hopper motor, hopper opto, ground. With serial you'll see the pinouts (they should be on a sticker on the hopper) are for DATA and stuff, rather than the specific components of the hopper. I've no idea how you'd even connect that to a PACdrive / iPAC, if it's even possible.

My honest opinion? I'd try and source a parallel hopper. If you require the same form factor as that hopper you'd be looking for another Compact Hopper but parallel. Otherwise something like my Azkoyen Parallel or one sourced elsewhere would work, albeit with different dimensions. 

 

 

 

As for the iPAC and PACdrive - them of them as input and output devices.

iPAC handles inputs (button presses, coin inputs from the mech, hopper opto sensor inputs). It's basically a keyboard encoder, it turns microswitch and similar inputs into keyboard presses which MFME detects.

PACdrive drives outputs (lamps for your buttons, hopper motor). So you connect (for example) a lamp - 5V LED if you want to power direct from the PACdrive as I do - and when that fruit machine lamp is 'on' within MFME, the PACdrive powers the corresponding LED within your physical button. Or in the case of a hopper, the PACdrive acts like a middleman between MFME and the hopper, and turns the hopper motor on as required to pay out coins, then the iPAC detects the coins being paid by the physical hopper as they pass through an opto sensor, sending a keypress to MFME so that the emulator is aware a coin has been paid out.

 

That’s great information there ….thanks very much 

 

the coin mechanism is on new coins yes —-

it’s not essential I use this —-like I said it’s just something I had left over from a fruit machine I scrapped .

you say you have Ipac and a pacdrive and a hopper —-would that do all that I need??would they be for sale possibly ??

then a pc would be the only thing I need after that ??

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On 01/01/2025 at 22:40, slotsmagic said:

Coin mech should work (edit - I note it doesn't have a 'new £1 ready' sticker so hopefully you know it takes the bi-metal £1 coins already) - you'd need to set it in to parallel mode, and it should have another pin header somewhere else for parallel connector. I believe it's on the opposite side of the mech to what you have shown. Off the top of my head it'll be about 17 pins in a straight line. Your hopper is serial only I believe and I don't know if anyone has successfully got serial / CCTalk components to work - not saying it's impossible, but parallel coin mechs and hoppers are known workers and have simpler pinouts.

With a parallel hopper for example you have pins for power, hopper motor, hopper opto, ground. With serial you'll see the pinouts (they should be on a sticker on the hopper) are for DATA and stuff, rather than the specific components of the hopper. I've no idea how you'd even connect that to a PACdrive / iPAC, if it's even possible.

My honest opinion? I'd try and source a parallel hopper. If you require the same form factor as that hopper you'd be looking for another Compact Hopper but parallel. Otherwise something like my Azkoyen Parallel or one sourced elsewhere would work, albeit with different dimensions. 

 

 

 

As for the iPAC and PACdrive - them of them as input and output devices.

iPAC handles inputs (button presses, coin inputs from the mech, hopper opto sensor inputs). It's basically a keyboard encoder, it turns microswitch and similar inputs into keyboard presses which MFME detects.

PACdrive drives outputs (lamps for your buttons, hopper motor). So you connect (for example) a lamp - 5V LED if you want to power direct from the PACdrive as I do - and when that fruit machine lamp is 'on' within MFME, the PACdrive powers the corresponding LED within your physical button. Or in the case of a hopper, the PACdrive acts like a middleman between MFME and the hopper, and turns the hopper motor on as required to pay out coins, then the iPAC detects the coins being paid by the physical hopper as they pass through an opto sensor, sending a keypress to MFME so that the emulator is aware a coin has been paid out.

 

Yes, all the bits I have will be for sale, I'm at work now until Sunday afternoon (I work 3 long days over the weekend but then have Mon - Thurs off), but should have everything you could need, apart from a complete wiring loom for it. To be honest the wiring isn't that bad!

As said above by @davep180 the way I learned what to do was to trawl the Cabinet Building subforum and see how others had wired their bits together.

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(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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On 03/01/2025 at 09:37, slotsmagic said:

Yes, all the bits I have will be for sale, I'm at work now until Sunday afternoon (I work 3 long days over the weekend but then have Mon - Thurs off), but should have everything you could need, apart from a complete wiring loom for it. To be honest the wiring isn't that bad!

As said above by @davep180 the way I learned what to do was to trawl the Cabinet Building subforum and see how others had wired their bits together.

Yeah that’s cool there’s no panic -I’m not too bothered about the wiring loom ….im happy enough to sort all that myself —-I have the original loom  for the buttons still which is a good start -I’m going to order 12v led bulbs as I see that’s what people seem to do -

 

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1 hour ago, aland888 said:

Yeah that’s cool there’s no panic -I’m not too bothered about the wiring loom ….im happy enough to sort all that myself —-I have the original loom  for the buttons still which is a good start -I’m going to order 12v led bulbs as I see that’s what people seem to do -

 

@aland888 5V LED if powering from PACdrive, 12V will blow it up! :)

I have 5V 10mm LEDs too, that I can bundle, so you can have all the bits together. 

Edited by slotsmagic

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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On 04/01/2025 at 10:55, slotsmagic said:

@aland888 5V LED if powering from PACdrive, 12V will blow it up! :)

I have 5V 10mm LEDs too, that I can bundle, so you can have all the bits together. 

Hi—-any luck seeing what you have available ??the leds and all would be great 👍 

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1 hour ago, aland888 said:

Hi—-any luck seeing what you have available ??the leds and all would be great 👍 

Sorry chap, had forgotten about this as gave up on the garage when it turned chilly!

I can nip out and grab photos and stuff at some point today, but to give you an idea I at least have the following, and possibly more :

2 X genuine iPAC

3 X genuine PACdrive (1x Special, 2x Normal)

Azkoyen Parallel Hopper

SR5e front entry coin mech (known working with MFME, tested by me in Interplay cabinet).

Top entry 9524e coin mech (known working with MFME but I did butcher the reject door at the top)

An assortment of wiring although not 100% sure which will be of use to you so I'd need to check!

Square buttons with 10mm LEDs and some spare 10mm LEDs (probably about 20 LEDs total but I would need to go and confirm).

Also various PC bits, motherboards, SFF PSUs, that sort of thing.

 

Edited by slotsmagic

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

Sorry chap, had forgotten about this as gave up on the garage when it turned chilly!

I can nip out and grab photos and stuff at some point today, but to give you an idea I at least have the following, and possibly more :

2 X genuine iPAC

3 X genuine PACdrive (1x Special, 2x Normal)

Azkoyen Parallel Hopper

SR5e front entry coin mech (known working with MFME, tested by me in Interplay cabinet).

Top entry 9524e coin mech (known working with MFME but I did butcher the reject door at the top)

An assortment of wiring although not 100% sure which will be of use to you so I'd need to check!

Square buttons with 10mm LEDs and some spare 10mm LEDs (probably about 20 LEDs total but I would need to go and confirm).

Also various PC bits, motherboards, SFF PSUs, that sort of thing.

 

Oh I understand —-the garage is no place to be in this weather .

id definatly want 

i pac 

special pac drive 

led bulbs 

and if you can get photos and information on anything else id need as i really don’t know much about this sort of thing…..only what im reading in various threads on here 👍

 

that would be great 

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31 minutes ago, aland888 said:

Oh I understand —-the garage is no place to be in this weather .

id definatly want 

i pac 

special pac drive 

led bulbs 

and if you can get photos and information on anything else id need as i really don’t know much about this sort of thing…..only what im reading in various threads on here 👍

 

that would be great 

No worries. Everything was disassembled so there won't be any complete looms or owt but I'll see what I can do. I'm out trainspotting at the moment :D

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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6 hours ago, aland888 said:

Oh I understand —-the garage is no place to be in this weather .

id definatly want 

i pac 

special pac drive 

led bulbs 

and if you can get photos and information on anything else id need as i really don’t know much about this sort of thing…..only what im reading in various threads on here 👍

 

that would be great 

No worries. So here for example is an iPAC, PACdrive (special) and 7 x 10mm LEDs (fit into almost all fruit machine button lamp holders), as well as a couple of spacer legs if needed, just to raise one or both boards away from any conductive surface if that's an issue. These would be ready to post out, I've got a mountain of USB cables and stuff so will include appropriate ones and extension cables if needed. I do have more LEDs here somewhere, 7 is because the machine I pulled these from had 7 buttons (pretty common amount!). I'll get them found tomorrow :)

The issue you would really have would be the wiring of everything together. I'm not great at explaining things off the top of my head, all I did was spend hours researching the Cabinet Building subforum, seeing what others had done and documented and worked back from there!

It isn't difficult :)

To give you an idea for these bits I'd be looking at £30 including postage and the anti-static box. I'm pretty sure that's a fair price as I feel just an iPAC is around £30 these days.

I can certainly have a rummage around (I've got plenty of free time before work tomorrow).

I definitely have another box of MFME bits but not sure where off the top of my head, that other box is the one with hopper and stuff (and maybe some wiring loom?).

IMG_20250109_174733.jpg

Edited by slotsmagic

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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18 hours ago, slotsmagic said:

No worries. So here for example is an iPAC, PACdrive (special) and 7 x 10mm LEDs (fit into almost all fruit machine button lamp holders), as well as a couple of spacer legs if needed, just to raise one or both boards away from any conductive surface if that's an issue. These would be ready to post out, I've got a mountain of USB cables and stuff so will include appropriate ones and extension cables if needed. I do have more LEDs here somewhere, 7 is because the machine I pulled these from had 7 buttons (pretty common amount!). I'll get them found tomorrow :)

The issue you would really have would be the wiring of everything together. I'm not great at explaining things off the top of my head, all I did was spend hours researching the Cabinet Building subforum, seeing what others had done and documented and worked back from there!

It isn't difficult :)

To give you an idea for these bits I'd be looking at £30 including postage and the anti-static box. I'm pretty sure that's a fair price as I feel just an iPAC is around £30 these days.

I can certainly have a rummage around (I've got plenty of free time before work tomorrow).

I definitely have another box of MFME bits but not sure where off the top of my head, that other box is the one with hopper and stuff (and maybe some wiring loom?).

IMG_20250109_174733.jpg

Yeah that’s great—I’ll take them —

ill have a good go at the wiring no problem ….im just worried about connectors/plugs that would go into hoppers or coin mechanisms etc 

just wondering with reguards the hopper and coin mech you have …..are they 12v??

I’ve a feeling mine are 24v after reading somewhere —-so that could be an extra ball ache I don’t need .

a small power unit then I assume I need,and then obviously a half decent computer I’ll look out for ——

I want to play the old arcade games aswell ,so I’m not to sure how good a computer I will need —-

like I say ……I’m not too up to speed with all that kinda stuff 😂😂

 

 

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5 minutes ago, aland888 said:

Yeah that’s great—I’ll take them —

ill have a good go at the wiring no problem ….im just worried about connectors/plugs that would go into hoppers or coin mechanisms etc 

just wondering with reguards the hopper and coin mech you have …..are they 12v??

I’ve a feeling mine are 24v after reading somewhere —-so that could be an extra ball ache I don’t need .

a small power unit then I assume I need,and then obviously a half decent computer I’ll look out for ——

I want to play the old arcade games aswell ,so I’m not to sure how good a computer I will need —-

like I say ……I’m not too up to speed with all that kinda stuff 😂😂

 

 

The hopper is now sold, it was a 12/24V Azkoyen Parallel and someone else asked me about it last night. The coin mechs I have ran fine off 12V. You could try running a 24V hopper off a 12V PSU - it might work fine, work slowly, or not work, depending on the hopper type.

I have a spare plug for a coin mech with some length of wiring attached (probably about 1ft?) - if not long enough to use as-is you could always extend the wires using wago / chockblock or similar. The coin mechs I have are front-entry SR5 and top entry 9524 (I could have the wrong number!).

The PC I was using in the Interplay is still here, but it would probably be too big? It's an intel i3 7100 with 8GB RAM. I did remove the plastics and whatnot so it's an open metal chassis with mATX motherboard, 250W Gold rated small form factor PSU.

Happy non-gambler since 1st January 2025!
(if anyone else needs or wants to quit, I recommend Allen Carr's 'Easyway to Stop Gambling'.

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