SeverdHed's 4-Player Showcase cabinet - keywiz frustrations

[severdhed]

Hey guys, as you may or may not know from reading my other threads, i managed to pick up an empty showcase cabinet a little while ago, with the intention of turning into a 4 player mame cabinet.  It is not done yet, but i have enough progress i think to at least start this thread...this is my journey so far:

I somehow managed to talk my wife into letting me bring home a showcase cabinet...i don't know how i did it, i can only assume that the only reason she agreed is because she is pregnant with our third child, and her hormone levels are not right.  But, no matter what the reason, I win

Here is the cabinet as it was when i first brought it home...it was too big to fit where I put it, so I eventually moved it:



the cabinet was pretty much gutted when i took it, however they did let me keep the happ gun (this will eventually be used for an aim-trak).  the coin door is intact, but there are no mechs.

Here is the control panel opened up, apparently this cabinet wasn't always a Carnival King gun game...


after removing most of the old overlay, i discovered that this used to be a fighting game called Fighting Bujitsu.  i have never heard of it.


i removed the old panel, traced around it onto a piece of scrap 5/8" MDF i found in my basement (it was there when we bought the house).  i then cut the new panel about 1/4" outside the line:


then i flipped them over, clamped them together and went around the outside with a flush trim router bit, using the old panel as a guide.



I then decided to attach the hinges and latches, and attach it to the cabinet for a test fit:


while attached, i traced the outside edge of the control panel box onto the bottom side of the new panel, then removed it...while it was of, i measured and marked the thickness of the box so i knew where the controls could go without interfering with the box.


I then proceded to spend a very long time trying to lay out where the controls would all fit.  this was difficult to do, because even though the panel is 45" x 19", the box is considerably smaller than that.  I also wanted to leave room in case i decided to add a trackball later.  to top it off, since all the edges were curved, it would have been really difficult to measure to determine where the box was, so i couldn't just mark the box location on the top side.  this means i had to lay out all of my controls backwards since they were on the bottom.  i should have printed out some templates or something, but i just did it all by hand with a ruler and a compass.  it turned out OK


so, after a really long time in the hot sun, i was finally ready to start drilling.  I picked up a drill guide from harbor freight the last time i did a control panel, it is great for keeping the drill at a right angle to the panel:


i drilled a small pilot hole through the centers of all of the button holes to guide the forstner bit through.  i then started to drill from the back, just slightly to keep it from bljavascript:void(0);owing out.


i then flipped it over, using the pilot holes, i proceded to drill out all of the button and joystick holes with the forstner bit:


I then routed out the back side for the joystick plates, i routed out about half the thickness away, it still feels pretty solid and makes the sticks feel just right.  I also used a countersink bit to recess the joystick bolt heads.



here is the panel with all of the controls mounted.  i went with Happ buttons, with the colors matching up to the TMNT games.  i have two U360s for players 1 and 2, and two Sanwa JLWs for players 3 and 4.  i had purchased colored ball tops in case i wanted to use them, but since the colors don't match very well, i went with the bat tops.


the orange and red match up pretty well, but the blue and purple do not ( i got both the light blue and dark blue sanwa balltops)



i didn't want a cluttered panel, so i decided to move the coin buttons to the control panel box.  this keeps the panel clean, and still gives you that feeling of reaching down to insert a coin. i normally just hook up the coin door, but since it is only a 2 player coin door, that won't work for players 3 and 4.  i will probably eventually rig up the coin reject buttons as coins as well.


here is the back side of the panel, with all of the wiring done (at least at this point)


since the coin buttons are not on the panel, i wanted to be able to disconnect them easily.  i wired the four buttons into a terminal strip, and then attached that to a wire harness i found in the cabinet.


i wanted the exit game button to stand out, but GGG was sold out of the novagems that i used in my last panel, so i did the next best thing...i got a translucent IL button, and an EXIT button insert and a red button blaster LED from GGG.  i drilled the button and installed the LED, which is wired to teh 5v on the keywiz encoder i am using.



i still have to get teh 27" sony TV to fit into the cabinet, but it is a little too wide.  i will either have to decase the tv (don't want to do) or modify the cabinet a little to fit the TV.  until then, i didn't want to wait to test things, so i installed a 17" LCD that i had sitting around, it works, and it is amusing to look at:



there will be more to come.  the reason i left the control panel bare MDF, is i want to test the button layout before i spent the money on plexiglass to finish it off.  once i use it for a little while, i will take it off, make a new panel if i have to, or cover this one in plexiglass and T-molding.

[HaRuMaN]

Nice work...   

And yeah, that 17 inch does look funny in there...   

[Hoopz]

Good write up and great work. 

Are you connecting the PC to the TV via s-video? 

I have a project like this waiting so I'm going to be following your progress.  I am definitely going with a trackball though.  Have you thought about the height of the CP on it's base relative to how tall you are?  Will you have to sit to play?  I'm pretty sure that's the only option for me and I'm not that tall (5'11").

 

[severdhed]

thanks for the kind words.

i am connecting the TV via component video.  after i get all of that done, i will also be adding a playstation 2, so i can play my lightgun games as well. 

I have a feeling i will end up with a trackball in this one as well, however my other cabinet used to have my u360s and a trackball.  after i get this cab done, i will be building a new panel for my other cab, basically just a 4way joystick, trackball, and 3 buttons.  i will also rotate the monitor in that cabinet and basically set it up for classics.  i figured since the only trackball games i really play are centipede and millipede, it makes more sense to leave the trackball in that cabinet. (my son does like to play world class bowling, but i'm sure he won't mind playing it on the other cab for a while). i just didn't want to spend the extra money on a second trackball right now, but there is plenty of space to add one if i get it later.

the control panel is a little lower than i would like...the front is about 33.5" from the floor, which is a full 6" lower than the panel on my other cab, which i think is perfect. 

once i get everything else finished, i may end up building a small extension box to sit between the pedestal and the control panel box, to raise it, probably at least 4 inches....although the lower height might be better for the kids.

i'm really hoping i can find a way to buff out the scratches on the plexiglass that covers the screen...it is pretty marked up.  but it is really large and the speaker grill slots are cut into it, so replacing it would be a pain in the butt.

[saloonstudios]

i wanted the exit game button to stand out, but GGG was sold out of the novagems that i used in my last panel, so i did the next best thing...i got a translucent IL button, and an EXIT button insert and a red button blaster LED from GGG.  i drilled the button and installed the LED, which is wired to teh 5v on the keywiz encoder i am using.

Can you take a couple photos of your LED mod? I'm going to be using the exact same buttons and LEDs for all of my buttons and I'm curious how you attached the resistor, secured LED into button, wired, etc. Also, which EXIT button insert did you use exactly, the ones meant for the novagems?
Thanks-

[severdhed]

i'll try to snap a few pics tonight.  i used the button inserts for the novagems, they fit perfectly inside the IL buttons.  as for securing the LED, i just drilled the hole so that it was tight, i had to press the LED into it, it is held in place by friction.  i simply soldered a wire to each leg of the LEd and covered it with heat shrink tube. bent the wires so that they didn't interfere with the plunger and   i soldered the resistor to the other end of one of the wires.  then connected it to th 5v and ground on my keywiz.

[Hoopz]

the control panel is a little lower than i would like...the front is about 33.5" from the floor, which is a full 6" lower than the panel on my other cab, which i think is perfect. 

once i get everything else finished, i may end up building a small extension box to sit between the pedestal and the control panel box, to raise it, probably at least 4 inches....although the lower height might be better for the kids.

I had thought about building an extension box too.  I'm glad you may be the guinea pig on that first though.   

[severdhed]

here is a pic of my exit button, not really much to look at.  like i said, i just drilled the hole so it was tight, and pressed the LED into place. i just soldered a wire to each leg of the LED and then bent them around so that they aren't in the way.  according to RandyT, it doesnt matter which leg you solder the resistor to.  to make it easier, instead of attaching the resistor directly to the LED, i put it on the other end of the wire, where it connects to the 5v.





the novagem button inserts fit the iL buttons perfectly.  i just checked the two novagem buttons i have, and guess what, they are iL buttons.

[darcyp]

Can you take a couple photos of your LED mod? I'm going to be using the exact same buttons and LEDs for all of my buttons and I'm curious how you attached the resistor, secured LED into button, wired, etc. Also, which EXIT button insert did you use exactly, the ones meant for the novagems?
Thanks-

use a 3/16" drill bit to drill the holes in the buttons, the led will fit nice and snug in there. also, i explain a fairly easy way to handle all the resistors and such in this thread.

great looking showcase so far! i almost thought the dark blue balltop went pretty well with the purple buttons, but maybe thats just the camera playing tricks on me.

[EvilNuff]

Nice progress so far, thanks for sharing!

I saw the first pics and thought those look just like my harbor freight clamps!  Then saw the drill guide and said that is my HF guide!  Sure enough, lol.

I highly recommend Harbor Freight for anyone who has one, when clamps go on sale they're insanely cheap vs anyplace else...and you can never have enough clamps.  There are several here in the Dallas area, and I know they're in other areas as my father in law goes to them too.

[severdhed]

harbor freight is awesome.  i have so many tools from there, it isn't funny.  it maybe isn't the best stuff, but for hobby use, it is perfect.

[severdhed]

got some more done this weekend...still alot to do though.  The biggest accomplishment was replacing the 17" LCD with the 27" TV.  this is a Sony Trinitron Flat CRT tv with component video input.  i had to remove part of the case on the TV to get it to fit in the cabinet.  i also had to cut a few inches off of the front of two of the wooden supports to get the TV to slide in there. ( i didn't want to destroy the TV, in case i replace it someday, i could use it for something else)




i screwed a few boards together to create a brace to use to hold the TV in place.




I have since trimmed the front board so that it doesn't hang down in front of the screen, but i forgot to take a new pic.

i also got a piece of foam core posterboard at a local craft store to make a bezel for the TV.  it isn't perfect, but it works well enough for me.  i will probably use some black tape on the silver tv bezel to make it not stand out as much.




while this isn't exactly related to the cabinet, my wife picked up a Donkey Kong figure to sit on top of the cabinet...i love it.  now i need to get the mario figure to go with it.  (yeah there is a lot of crap piled up on top of the cabinet, i have to keep everything up high so my kids don't get into it.




Here is a shot of the cables where the two pieces of the cabinet come together.  i set it up so that i can easily disconnect the control panel portion to move it out of the way if i have to.  visible here are 4 usb cables (two u360s, two guncons on the PS2) one RCA video cable (guncon) and a PS2 cable (keywiz)


i just managed to get my ps2 installed this afternoon.  the PC and PS2 all sit in the cabinet below the monitor, i haven't taken any pics of that yet, since i need to clean up the wiring first.(and also add an exhaust fan since it gets pretty warm in there.  the PS2 is only there for lightgun games, i dont have any of the joysticks or buttons wired up to the ps2.  i wanted to be able to easily connect and disconnect my guns, because i don't want the kids to destroy them.(also my wife doesn't really like them playing with guns).

the guncon2 guns require a USB plug, and an RCA video plug wired either to the composite or the green cable in the component video cables.  naturally, i went with the component cables since they give a much better picture.  there is a switch box that i use to change between the PC and PS2.  anyway, since the ps2 is in the back half of the cabinet, i had to extend the cables up to the other part.  i had two usb ports i pulled out of an old pc case, so i spliced some cables together to add actual USB ports to the cables, and ran them down so that they plug into usb extension cables at the place where the two pieces of the cabinet meet.  i also got two RCA jacks at radio shack, wired them together and added a long cable with a male RCA connector on the other end, this plugs into the special video cable that comes with the guncon guns.  i quickly mounted them to a scrap piece of plexiglass and mounted it to one of the coin return openings on the coin door.  i figured i'm not planning on using the coin door anyway, so i can utilize this space.  it makes a nice easy place to plug in the guns.  conveniently the two guns fit perfectly into the coin box below for storage. ( i need to get another lock for that door.





the panel i cut for the usb ports doesn't exactly look real nice, but i can redo it later.  my goal this weekend was to get the cabinet functional, now i can play it a while tweak what i need to, and then work on the cosmetic stuff.  the plexiglass bezel is really scratched, i dont know if there is anything i can do about that or not, it is annoying at first, but after a few minutes of play, you don't really even notice it. 

i got to play some TMNT with the kids this weekend and they had alot of fun. (my 3 year old loved it, my 19 month old just pounded buttons and wasn't really playing)

well, that is it for now, hopefully over the course of this week, i can get the wiring cleaned up maybe work on the plexi bezel.

i also forgot to mention, but i am using a phillips smart strip i picked up at walmart, there is a button on the top of the cabinet that powers up the PC, and the strips turns everything else on.  fortunately, the TV powers on and goes to the proper input upon receiving power, so that works very well.  i have a remote control i use to adjust the volume.

[andrewbean90]

i like it

[severdhed]

thanks.


i also forgot to mention, but i disconnected the small TV speakers and connected the cabinet's speakers directly to the TV.  the sound is OK, i have no complaints there, and it is easy to adjust the volume using the TV remote.

[Dr Zero]

Looks good! 

Keep us posted, I like the big ol showcase cabs!

[severdhed]

i got a little more done this evening...but not alot.  first of all, i color coded the rest of my cables so i don't plug them into the wrong place. (i dont plan on taking it apart much once it is done, but during the setup process, i pull the control panel out of the way to make it easier to get into the main cabinet)



this was all possible to the awesome colored electrical tape i picked up today at a local hardware store ( 95 cents each)


i also took the time to organize the main cabinet area, straightened up the cables, and just organized it a bit...it isn't perfect, but i'm ok with it.  I also added a 120mm fan to the back of the cabinet to cool it down...it was getting very hot in there without it.  I think i may add a second 120mm fan next to that one and straighten them up to fill up that hole in the back.(it is where the original power supply used to be).  i left the PC run for a while and then checked the temp, the fan is making a huge difference on the internal temps of the cabinet.


i didn't have any component video switches lying around that weren't gigantic, so i decided to use two composite video switches instead.  the black one on the bottom is set up to switch the component video, the gray one on top with the knob switches the audio.  i'll probably eventually pick up a cheap component video switchbox and replace those two, but for now they will be fine, and since i already had them, the price was right.


here is the power strip that I am using.  i power the PC on and it turns power on to the TV and PS2.  the only down side to this is I have to have the PC powered up in order to play the PS2, i may change this at some point in time, but for now, it is fine.


here is a shot of the guncon controllers plugged into the front panel i mounted in the coin chute.


i dont have any gun holsters installed on the cabinet, since i will put them away when they are not being used, however i did find that the joysticks do a good job of keeping them from falling down.


here is a shot of me trying to play Vampire Night while taking a picture with my left hand (not easy)


here is another side project I am working on.  I know it is not really necessary since there are lots of buttons on the guncon 2 guns, but there is something cool about having a reload pedal to play time crisis.  this is an alesis foot switch that a friend of mine was throwing away.  the switch inside the pedal broke and he had another one lying around to replace it.  this was used as a sustain pedal on a keyboard.  well, i took it apart and decided that i could fix it.  I basically hot glued a standard pushbutton microswitch in place and soldered the wires onto it.  the pedal activates the switch perfectly.   there is a 1/4" mono plug on the end of the cable.  i just need to stop by radio shack tomorrow and pick up a 1/4" mono jack to mount to the cabinet somewhere. (probably in the other coin chute).  i will then hack a PS2 controller so that the footswitch will activate one of the buttons on the gamepad.  There is a local bargain store here where i can pick up a used controller for a few bucks..i'll try to do that tomorrow if i can.




and here is a long shot of the cabinet so far, running xmen.  i still need to clean up my work area around the cabinet, but all of my tools and wires and extra buttons and all kinds of stuff are in thos boxes on top, and all over those shelves on the wall.

[DCsegaDH]

Sweet! Did you decide on what kind of artwork yet? I'm a sucker for showcase cabinets, I like the shape and it reminds me of my childhood when I was playing fighters in the 1990's 

[andrewbean90]

sprites from karate champ vs edition would look sweet on that

[severdhed]

i'm really not sure about artwork.  to keep my wife happy, i'll probably keep the artwork to a minimum.  this thing is gigantic, she isn't too keen on the idea of lots of bright colors and making it stand out any more than it already does.  im considering just spray painting the back side of the control panel plexiglass black or dark gray for a very plain look.  That is what i did on my other cabinet and i like the look of it. 

however i have considered doing some kind of control panel artwork, i'm just not sure what.  due to the color scheme of the buttons, i'm considering using TMNT graphics, perhaps a large ninja turtle near the appropriate player locations, but i dont know if i can get that approved.

[andrewbean90]

who said anything about artwork i was talking about playing it on there you got 4 joysticks use them man

[Rick Dangerous]

Well done, i love the guns with reload pedals, thats hurts !!!! well done

[severdhed]

who said anything about artwork i was talking about playing it on there you got 4 joysticks use them man

ahh, i've never played that game.  looks like it requires two 4way sticks per player.  i guess i could manually rotate the restrictors on teh outside sticks and set the u360s to 4way mode, might be a little weird though

[severdhed]

well, this afternoon, i stopped by a local pawn shop and picked up a used 3rd party playstation 2 controller for $4.  this will be used as an interface for my reload pedal for my playstation 2.

first of all, i plugged the controller in and made sure it worked, and discovered that every button on the controller will work as a reload pedal in the time crisis games, this means that i can use any button i want.  upon opening it up, i discovered that the L1,L2,R1 and R2 buttons would probably be the easiest choices, since they had a small separate pcb that was clearly labled, as well as solder pads just begging to be attached to.



i had a small 1/8" mono panel mount audio jack lying around, so i attached the two wires to the L2 solder pads, and put a small hole in the back of the controller to mount the jack.  this way the controller is still fully functional if i ever wanted to use it for something else.(not that i would, it is pretty crappy). 



then i took a piece of speaker wire i had, and soldered a 1/8" mini jack onto one end, and on the other end, i soldered on a 1/4" audio jack.  (since the pedal i fixed the other day already had a 1/4" mono plug on it.




i then connected a controller extension cable to my ps2, plugged the controller in, plugged the 1/4" to 1/8" adapter cable i just made into the controller, and finally plugged the pedal into the adapter cable.  i fired up my ps2 with time crisis 2, and it works beautifully



right now, i just have the 1/4" jack just sitting in the coin return slot, i need to cut a new panel to mount it on.  i also need to search for a different controller extension cable, that one is attached to a spool which is hard to tuck away in the small opening between the two peices of cabinet. i know i have another one somewhere, but i'm not sure where right now.  the controller just lays in the bottom of the pedestal portion of the cabinet, i will probably mount it with zip ties or something to keep it from moving around and possibly depressing one of the buttons. 

i cant get over how much more fun time crisis is with the pedal.  the buttons on the guncon 2 work just fine, but the pedal is just so much more fun.  i dont see it being real necessary to have a second one, since i'll probably only ever use it by myself, but if i see the need, i can add another one down the road.

also, on a side note, i was having a problem with my u360 maps, and i finally got it resolved.  I had a hard time peforming dragon punches, and many other special moves in fighting games, i found that on my old cabinet, by editing the 8way map to increase the size of the deadzone in the center, it made it feel perfect.  well, i did this the other day on this cabinet, but it didn't seem to make a difference.  i'm using MALA as my front end, with the plugin to automatically load the maps when you launch a game.  after playing around a little, i discovered that when i installed that plugin, it asked me where my u360 maps were saved.  the problem is, it apparently copied those maps into a maps folder inside my mala directory.  if i would have edited my maps before installing the plugin, all would have worked well, but when i updated the maps in the ultramap program, it changed them in the default location, but not in the new mala location.  after a quick copy/paste, my u360s are now performing very well.

i also forgot to mention the specs of my mame pc in this cabinet.  it isn't really a power house, but it works well and plays the majority of the games very well.  it is:

Pentium 4 3ghz CPU /hyperthreading
4gb DDR400 ram
80gb 7200rpm sata hard drive
ATI Radeon X1650 video card
windows xp pro

i still need to tweak the overscan settings to make the picture fit a little better, but for the most part, it is coming along very nicely.  my next major project is to build a small box to sit between the control panel box and the pedestal to raise the panel up a little higher..it is just too low to be comfortable for extended playing.

[severdhed]

well, i didn't get as much done to the cabinet as i would have liked this weekend, (wife was sick, plus i had some home improvement stuff that sat a little higher on her list than the cabinet).  anyway, i did manage to get the control panel raised up to a reasonable level.  it was just too low, it was uncomfortable to play for more than a few minutes. 

here is the pedestal portion with the control panel box removed:



this isn't really the final product, i was just throwing together something quick to see how it would work.  i wasn't sure if the height was right, and i didn't have enough MDF at the house to do it right, so i used some scrap mdf and a few 1x4 pine boards.  i quickly cut them out (not very well) on my table saw that i have never used before.(should have clamped a board down as a fence i guess)  i cut the pieces, glued them all together and slapped 2 quick coats of paint on it. (no sanding, just wanted a black box).  i set it on the pedestal and ran a few screws in to hold it in place.


i then placed the control panel back on, and screwed it in place.  this put the panel at a much more comfortable height. (just under 38" at the front edge)



i also took the time to clean up some of my mess around the cabinet, i figured now that there wasn't a bunch of crap sitting on top of it (i moved it all to the DVD shelf on the wall)  i could take a pic of the power button i mounted on the top of the cabinet (in the hole where the wiring use to run through to get to the marquee box i removed).  this button was in the original control panel when i picked it up, and since it covered the large hole completely, it seemed like the right choice.



finally, here is a long shot from the other side of my family room.  as you can see, this thing takes up a big portion of the room, but it seems to work well where it is.  obviously i have alot of cleaning up to do.  not to mention getting my other cabinet back up and running.  this room is really dark, since there are no overhead lights in the room.  i mounted an 18" florescent light fixture to the back side of the cabinet to provide a little more light in that half of the room.


well, that's it for now.  i need to play with this for a while to make sure the panel height is good, if it is, then i will make a new booster box to replace the crappy one i threw in there yesterday. 

[DCsegaDH]

Nice job

[severdhed]

thanks.

i didn't really get much done on the cabinet tonight, but i did manage to work on my mala layout while watching TV with my wife.  i'm not sure that it is 100% done yet, but it is close.  it is strange designing a layout at such low resolution, my other cab has an LCD monitor, at 1280x1024, so switching to 640x432 is a big change.

anyway, here is a shot of the front end on the cabinet...i wanted to keep it fairly simple.



feedback is welcomed

[upprc04]

How far is the 3rd and 4th player JLW joysticks recessed?  I see you have them bottom mounted.  Your control panel was 5/8" MDF, correct?  I am planning on using the JLWs and like how yours are mounted but I'm worried about the strength from just having them recessed slightly or being too short.

[KagatoAMV]

Your Mala layout looks nice and clean. I need to start working on something like that myself.

[severdhed]

i'll have to measure tonight when i get home..i didn't measure when routing it out, i just set it to roughly half the thickness of the panel and went to town. yes, it is 5/8" thick, i haven't gotten around to buying the plexiglass for on it yet.  

they have held up very well, i can't imagine this not being strong enough.  i caught my my kids hanging from the joysticks the other day and they are fine.  it hasn't been abused or anything like that, but my kids and I have banged around on it for a while and it's holding strong.  i bolted them in from the top, and countersunk the bolt heads.  i can measure the stick height if you want tonight as well.

and to KagatoAMV...thank you..i'm not sure it is 100% done, but i like it.  i wanted something clean and simple

[upprc04]

I don't think specific numbers are needed.  It just confirmed my thoughts of how I was going to mount the joysticks.  Thanks for the response and very nice cab.

[DirtyDachshunds]

thanks.

i didn't really get much done on the cabinet tonight, but i did manage to work on my mala layout while watching TV with my wife.  i'm not sure that it is 100% done yet, but it is close.  it is strange designing a layout at such low resolution, my other cab has an LCD monitor, at 1280x1024, so switching to 640x432 is a big change.

feedback is welcomed

I know what you mean.  I've been configuring my Hyperspin project on a 640x480 TV.  I finally gave up and brought my LCD monitor down for the dual display.  Much easier now.

Anyway, the cab is looking great!  I'll be following this to see how it comes out.

[severdhed]

Well, it has been a while since i have done anything with this, i just haven't had the time.  However i knew that with the holidays coming up, we would be likely to have people come over and visit, and i didn't want to have a bare mdf panel on this cabinet...so i finally purchased the plexiglass and took this panel to the next level.  I am not completely happy with the way it turned out.  i had planned on painting the back side of the plexi black to give it a nice glossy black finish, which i have successfully done in the past on my other cabinet.  however at the last minute, i decided to go with a dark gray textured paint instead.  i really like the shade of gray, since it makes the black controls stand out a little better, but the first coat of paint apparently didnt go on evenly enough, and no matter how many more coats i put on it, it still is splotchy. it is better than nothing, and since it is getting cold out, it will stay like this until spring...at that point i hope to add a trackball to this panel..so i'll get a new piece of plexi and paint it black like i should have in the first place....

i also relocated two of the player 4 (red) buttons.  i somehow had them laid out in a square pattern, even though all of the other players were set up more in a diamond shape.  so when i took the panel out, i used some bondo to fill in the holes and moved them to where they needed to be.  i forgot to take pics of the process.

here you can see the old player 4 button layout:


and here is the new one. not that dramatic, but at least now they match the other ones (noone ever noticed that but me)




While i was at it, i switched out some of the components.  i had two u360s for players 1 and 2, and Sanwa JLWs for players 3 and 4.  i really liked the feel of the JLWs...much more than the u360s.  so i figured since i had to remove everything to add the plexi, i should just remove the u360s.  i still need to purchase two more JLWs, but with Christmas coming up, i need to keep costs down until January.  I moved the JLWs to players 1 and 2, and installed two old xarcade sticks for players 3 and 4....not exactly ideal, but they are fine for now.  i also installed ball tops on my JLWs, i think i will go all 4 balltops when i get my new joysticks, even though the colors dont exactly match the happ buttons.





I had a good bit of rewiring to do, since my player 1 and 2 buttons used to be wired to the u360s.  now everything is running off of a single keywiz.  I had to get a little creative and remap mame completely, but all is working great.  the keywiz is clearly designed for a 2 player panel, however with 40 inputs, and 32 additional shifted inputs, it can be used for a 4 player setup.  as you can see, i have 4 joysticks, 6 buttons each for players 1 and 2, and 4 buttons each for players 3 and 4.  plus 4 start buttons, 4 coin buttons and a pause/exit button....that all adds up to 45 inputs.  i wired up all of the sticks, action buttons and start buttons to the 40 inputs on the keywiz, and then i used the shazaam button adapters on my coin and exit/pause buttons. these adapters allow you to send a shifted input with only a single button press....i was a little skeptical at first, but after using them, they work great.  the adapter looks like a Y adapter....one side goes to an input on the keywiz, and the other goes to the shazaam input.  when you press the button, it sends the shifted input instead of the normal one. GGG seems to discourage you from using these as gameplay buttons, but for coin or admin functions, they are fine.    since the keywiz doesnt retain any custom programming, i decided to stick with the default button config and just adapted mame to use that.  after testing i have had to change my shifted keys to different inputs, because the ones i chose aren't perhaps the best choice.  (F2 for instance, even though i went into the mame config and told it not to use f2 for the service switch, a few games didn't like it (mortal kombat series)...but that was easy enough to overcome by just moving it to a different input.



here is the shazaam adapter



and just a few more shots of the panel.





you can see the coin buttons on the edge of the control panel box..i made the outside rings of the buttons yellow instead of black so they would stand out a little more. i dont think they will stay that way, but i may replace the yellow parts with white ones the next time i order some parts.






like i said, i'm not super thrilled with the way the paint turned out, but at least the panel is nice and smooth, the tmolding is installed and it still looks better than the bare MDF.  i will be replacing it in the spring.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

that's too bad about the streakiness because I like that color.

[severdhed]

i know...i was pretty upset when i first saw it.  i really like the color alot.  i coulnd't find a plain gray spray paint that was that dark..all the ones i could find were pretty light.  when i found this textured one, i thought it would look awesome, and if it would have come out even, it probably would have...i'm not sure what went wrong...i guess i should have coated it very heavily all over the first time. 

i'll probably just make it black the next time, but i dont think i will like that as much as the dark gray.  i thought about doing artwork for the panel instead, but it is pretty expensive to do on a large panel like that.

[Rick]

Looking good!  Good progress!  I did have a quick question, and it looks like you're the man to ask!

When you partially decased your 27" TV, what is your rough estimation of the plastic surrounding the tube at the front?  From this pic, I would say it looks to be about 2"-3" on each side.  I'm asking, as I've yet to decase the 27" TV for my build, and I'm hoping it has as much 'wasted space' in between the tube and walls.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

It'

Looking good!  Good progress!  I did have a quick question, and it looks like you're the man to ask!

When you partially decased your 27" TV, what is your rough estimation of the plastic surrounding the tube at the front?  From this pic, I would say it looks to be about 2"-3" on each side.  I'm asking, as I've yet to decase the 27" TV for my build, and I'm hoping it has as much 'wasted space' in between the tube and walls.

It's gonna vary for individual TV's. The one I just decased didn't have much wasted space. maybe and inch and a half.

[severdhed]

I'll have to look, probably 3 inches on each side, but that is because my tv had speakers mounted on either side of the  screen.

[severdhed]

well, i ran into some problems with the keywiz.  this thing is clearly designed for a 2 player setup, and since i am trying to run a 4 player panel off of it, i was bound to run into a few problems.  i wanted to stick with the standard keywiz config, since it does not have a way to store a custom profile on the device.  the keywiz has 40 inputs, 32 of which have shifted inputs (all of them except the ones designated for the two joysticks).  i needed 45 inputs to handle all of my buttons and joysticks.  I did not want to use shifted button presses to add coins or exit,  so i used the shazaam adapters for my exit and coin buttons, so that pressing a single button would send the shifted command instead of the standard one.

this is where i started running into problems.  first of all, the default keywiz profile sucks for a 4 player setup.  it apparently is set up with the default mame config for two players.  i though that isn't a big deal since i can reprogram mame to however i want it.  the problems i ran into though are this:

some of the inputs are mapped to shift,alt,ctrl keys, which can cause weird problems when combined with other inputs. 
also, 14 of the shifted inputs are keys that are already mapped to the standard inputs, which is just stupid...most of the rest of them are the "f" keys (f2, f7, etc)

anyway i tried to make the best of it, but after playing games for a few hours with my two sons (almost 2 years old, and almost 4 years old) we had quite a few problems.  for instance, if player 4 hit down and left on the joystick while player 1 hit button 2, it would open task manager (ctrl, shift, esc)
also, there were some problems if you pressed a coin button at the same time as some of the other buttons, weird things would happen. (the coin buttons are wired to both the shazaam and one other input, so while it was held down, if you pressed another button, it would send the shifted fuction instead.  so sometimes it would pause, or exit the game, or somehow make all of the controls stop responding properly. (my coin buttons were mapped to f1,f2,f7 and f11.)

so tonight i finally decided that if i want to keep this working, i was going to have to reprogram the keywiz...or buy another encoder.  Well, i'm cheap, so reprogram it was!!!  i had to do some reading to see how to load the profiles, and even though it was a little confusing at first, it wasnt that bad to get working.. you save your config as a profile, and then load it into the keywiz.  you can then launch the program with command line parameters to load a specific profile.  you can also associate an application with a profile, so that after it loads, it will launch the application.  so i made a profile, and associated it with mala.exe  then set my windows shell to the keywiz loader, with the switches to load my profile.  windows boots up, my keywiz is flashed, and then mala is launched and everything is good.

i decided to take a more cautious approach with my profile.  i wanted to avoid using the ctrl,shift and alt keys for obvious reasons.   so i mapped out my 40 inputs using the letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and the four arrow keys. (26 letters + 10 numbers + 4 arrows = 40). i then mapped the shifted inputs to various other keys, esc,enter, number pad keys, and various symbol keys. 

this seems to be working so much better.  i went through and reprogrammed mame to match may key setup and so far so good.  i didn't get to do this until after the kids went to bed, so i'll have to test it with them tomorrow evening when i get home from work.  but from the little bit of testing i managed to do by myself, and by just knowing that there arent any stupid keys assigned, i think it will work out much better this way. 

i just wish this wasn't necessary, i understand that Randy wants the keywiz to be a plug n play solution so no mame config needs done...but i just don't see that as being that important.  i would think that anyone dedicated enough to buy a keywiz and build their own arcade controls, won't be afraid to reconfigure mame.  i think it would be better to have a key layout that avoids problem keys (ctrl,alt,shift,fkeys, etc) and doesnt' have any overlapping shifted commands. they could always have a downloadable cfg file for mame like x-arcade uses.

anyway, i'll post again once i get to thoroughly test this config. (if it can survive two small children randomly pushing all kinds of stupid buttons for an hour or so, without it doing stupid stuff, it should be good).  i just wanted to post this so if any of you are considering trying to do a 4 player setup with only a keywiz, you wouldn't have to go through the problems that i did.