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The Rats Nest
gazz292:
tar, i wanted to keep it simple, plenty of room for resting palms etc, i have arthritis in my hands amoungst other joints, so i need to be able to rest my whole hand on the panel or i cant last more than 2 minutes.
gonna put a spinner to the left of the trackball, about where lionhearts bum is in the last pic,
the trackball is going to be mounted the same way it origionaly was, the square plate goes on the bottom... to spread the load on the bottom of the case, and the trackball is mounted directly on the plexi, counter sunk holes for the 4 bolts around the ball hold it on, it works for golden tee, so should hold up to any other game,
Gotta go shopping for some bits, need a relay to make up my own auto power strip thingy, the power distribution box on these and most euro cabs is a big metal box with a filter in it, it also holds the main switch, kettle lead input, backdoor switch, and 5 outlets that run the monitor, psu, marquee light etc,
theres a 6 way socket and plug on it that is just a pair of jumper wires, takes power from one side to the other to feed the outlets, if that plug is removed, no power gets out, so i'll put a relay between the 2 sets of pins on that plug, powered by the computer psu's 12 volt line,
the computer psu will be connected before the relay... so it gets power all the time the cab is plugged in, this makes the 5 volt line live, so when the computers power button is pressed, it starts the computer and the full voltages come up on the psu... so when 12 volts comes up, it'll switch on the other outlets, and thus power on the monitors and so on.
likewise, when the computer shuts down, it'll power down everything else
Rick:
--- Quote from: BurgerKingDiamond on November 02, 2010, 07:19:23 pm ---Are you left handed? Do you expect anyone else that you play with to be left handed too?
--- End quote ---
Are you blind? Those are easily right handed layouts. (What? I'm the only guy who likes his joystick in his right hand?)
Err...
;)
gazz292:
lol,
my story for the joysticks, i'm in england, we drive on the left, hence sit on the right hand side of the car, so my cab is right hand drive :P
gazz292:
just been and got the wood for the CP, tried B&Q... which is a diy store over here, stands for Been and Queued as the busier the store gets, the fewer tills are open :D
they had a sheet of 18mm mdf, about 1200mm x 650mm, so a 3rd of a sheet i guess, they wanted £16.50 for it!!!!! no saw at this b&q so i couldent get it home anyways (i drive a smart car, i might have just got it in by folding the passenger seat, but had my GF with me, so she wouldent have been pleased)
So i tried a few more diy stores, all prices ranged from 14 to 18 quid for a 1/3 sheet.
i was going to try the builders merchants next when i remembered a little wood place just up the road from me, so called in, they had an off cut already, but would have cut a whole sheet and only charged me for the bit i needed,
So i got it cut to the size i needed... 800 x 600mm, and the price.....
....
...
£2!!!, i couldent believe it , i forgot to ask how much for a full sheet, but it just proves you should try these little places before the big diy chain stores.
i'm still messing about with the computer for he cab, setting mame and mala up, havin a problem with mala atm, and i'm getting rid of things i dont need in windows,
i'll make the vga to arcade monitor cable up next, i have a vga cable one of my rats chewed at one end, taking out the sync wire, i remembered about it when i was in maplins to get one but baulked at the price, a tenner for a bog standard one, and 20 quid for a gold plated one,
i also wanted a couple of long ide cables to wire the mini-pac up with, but again, at 5 quid each for a 70cm one they can get stuffed, and that was for the flat ones that i didnt want to use, i want to use the round ones with individual wires,
Maybe the name of this cab should be 'tight arse' or something, as that's what i'm like at the moment ::)
gazz292:
Not sure if anyone is actually interested in this project, i'm not doing anything groundbreaking or new, except maybe leting my pet rats play with the machine :dunno
Even the 2nd monitor as a marquee has been done before, tho i do hope this thread can help others converting golden tee machines on the electrocoin zeon cabinet, as when i searched for ideas, i found very few people use this cab.
Anyway, i think i will deffo have to name the cab along the lines of money saving/budget build/penny pinching/beng a tight arse ;D as this really is a budget build due to my extreme lack of funds.
The cab cost me around 20 quid, i got about 90 quids worth of ultimarc stuff for my last birthday (joysticks, buttons, avga card and mini-pac)
The computer was given to me by my parents when they got a new one.
2 quids worth of mdf for the CP, luckily all the tools i already own (table saw, router, drills, jigsaw, 6lb lump hammer etc)
So yesterday i went shopping for the perspex to cover the CP, my GF is going to design the CP artwork, i went to B&Q again, why i keep going there i don't know, they keep putting signs out saying 'at B&Q prices you can do it for less' i am soooo tempted to remove the 'it for' words, as 'at B&Q prices, you can do less' is much more accurate :soapbox:
I need a 1 meter square sheet of 5mm perspex, this is to give me the 800 by 600mm bit for the CP, and the 300 by 650 or so mm for the active marquee piece.
B&Q dont do 5mm perspex, 4mm is the thickets, so i considered that, untill i saw the price, 65 quid, bloomin eck, it's a bit of clear plastic, not a stained glass panel from the cistene chapel.
Tried the other places, similar prices, that local wood place dosent do perspex, so now i'm searching for a decently priced piece of 5mm perspex 1 meter square.
found some on ebay, cheapest is 23 quid, plus a tenner postage, a lot more for around 30 quid, going right upto 80 quid at some places, these are all shops selling on ebay, so may be a little cheaper going direct, as i know ebays fees are silly nowadays.
unfortunately none of the places selling it cheap are no where near nottingham, so it'd cost me about half the postage cost in fuel to collect, plus the hassle of driving 80 miles each way, just for a bit of plastic sheet.
I don't supose anyone knows of a reasonably priced perspex seller near nottingham (england)???
So, fed up of not being able to get the perspex and do the CP, i made up a few wires, did the vga to monitor cable, nice and easy using a cheapo vga cable that used standard wires instead of those ultra thick coax ones, the wires were colour coded right too, but i checked with my multimeter,
then i made up the plug for the main power, how i mentioned it earlier, i.e. with the relay that will turn the whole cab on when the computer is started up,
and then i dug out an old pc speaker system, a creatie labs 4.1 system, i mounted the sub in the very bottom of the cab (these cabs have a pull out electronics shelf, so there was plenty of space below that for the sub to be screwed to the actuall floor of the cab)
wired the psu for the sub/amp to one of the cabs power connectors that gplug into the filter box, and hence powered with the pooter starting up, then ran the remote volume dial, it mounted nicely where most people put a pinball plunger button on cabs,
Then i made up a wiring loom to mate the sub's speaker outputs to the cabs speakers, using the cabs origional plugs and sockets, this way it looks kinda origional, nowt worse than tons of wires running all over the place getting in the way of other components in a cab i think.
doing a bit more farting about wih the computer, ran 'mydefrag' blimey what a differance, all the mame files are in one cluster, all windowz files at the begining, highly recomended, it blows the windiwz defrag utility away big time,
i tried a few games that struggled on my last system, ran stun runner at 100% zero frame skip, same with area 51, so i'm pleased with the computers performance so far.
i just need to figure out the gamelists problem i'm having with mala now, (played games get put to the top of the list after playing them, screwing the whole list structure up.,