Rando's UAII cab progress - Playable!

[Shortbus]

Welcome, and cool thread so far, I'll keep watching, the book is great, I bought it, it is dated, but so isn't pac-man, it's still worth the price, and learning a new edition is coming out, i'll probably snag that as well. The author "saint" definately did a good job with it, It will get you so excited for your build that your creativity will start flowing like mad, or atleast it did for me.  He packs everything you need to know about everything, it's a bargain, and now an updated verison, you'll be set. I had zero woodworking skills or tools for that matter, and was kinda nervous about wiring, etc, but with that book, this forum, patience and a little money, you have found an awesome hobby!

good luck to you, and once again, welcome to the best forum bar-none, for the hobby.

 

[Rando]

Alrighty,
I don't have any real Cab progress to list, other than this site has continued to be a great resource and I'm pretty sure I've narrowed down the joysticks (sanwa) and buttons (concave old style) that I want.  But I have made progress in the basement where the Cab will live.  Irony in this is that the desire for the Cab is moving my basement renovation along quicker than anticipated.  Wife is amused and now more supportive of my motivation!

But for anyone with moisture/humidity issues in their basement, so far I can recommend "dricore" panels.  not cheap, over $5 per 2x2 panel.  But they're easier than 4x8 pieces to move, have a lower profile than a traditional subfloor, and so far aren't too hard to install.  Don't get me wrong, it's not cake, my back hurts, and I've got 375 of these 8lb suckers in my basement that will feel like my living space for the next couple of months while I do this, but so far better (and cheaper) than paying somebody else to do it.  Some update pics for you:

1st pic - Current floor is just carpet on pad over concrete, which is not condusive to letting the floor "breath" and retains moisture.  Just getting that up will reduce humidity.  Annoying part, those wood tacks at the border that the carpet attaches to are embedded into the concrete with these little nails that are quite a ---smurfette--- to pull up without getting a big divot.

2nd pic - Initial laying out of some panels with some 1/4 inch boards along side as spacers.  Also fired up dehumidifier to remove any remaining humidity now present from pulling carpets.

3rd pic - 375 dricore panels that I carried down all by my lonesome.  Ouch.

4th pic - What the floor looks like after a few rows complete.  Lay panel, tongue and groove lined up, bang with rubber mallet, repeat.  And in case you're wondering, hit from rubber mallet to finger hurts almost as much as normal hammer.  Ouch again.

last pic - Other end of flooring so far, and impressed myself with jigsaw cutting to get panel around post.  will later put wraps around post once finished flloor is in, so the floor doesn't have to be too tight around post, but it's the principle of the thing.  Rando 1, post 0.

[eds1275]

Looking good! Those dricore panels are great, I have used them in the past at other people's houses.

[Rando]

Woot,
It's a good day!  Layed another 5 or 6 rows of floor panelling over the weekend.  Logged into my e-mail this morning to receive notice that my Project Arcade book is on the way!  Came into work and boss gave me my bonus information, so I just placed my order to North Coast Custom/Mameroom for my Ultimate Arcade II cabinet.  Printing out cabinet plans now.

It may be 1 degree outside, but it's a beautiful day!!

[Rando]

No major milestones, but updating for my records:

- Subfloor is done, haven't yet picked up laminate flooring yet as the ones we like are on backorder and haven't settled on alternatives yet.  Currently looking at lumber liquidators, but if anyone else has any input suggestions I'm open.

- Box 1 of the UAII cabinet arrived, but boxes 2-4 did NOT, even though Fedex shows them as delivered.  Fedex thinks they actually delivered it to my Post office and it's with them, so need to try to track down.  Had time to work on it last few days, so not happy at time lost.

- Was working with the GameEx frontend, but although some ROMs were fine, other games that worked in MameUI weren't working in GameEx.  Loaded MALA and after I got through the initial shock of the lack of intuitive feel, I'm working with the game listing to try and cut down to a reasonable amount.  Wife gets frustrated if too many options so I need to keep simple.  Looking for a good starter MALA guide, info I've found so far has been more technical, so I'm muddling along.

- Currently using a 26inch LCD as my gaming monitor through S-Video.  Windows screens look AWFUL on it, but games look pretty good.  Might go with this option if I can clean up the Windows appearance.


Looking forward to tracking down rest of packages and building the house!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

... LCD .... S-Video....

What's the make/model? I don't think I've seen an LCD of that size that didn't have HDMI, Component, or VGA inputs. Any of those would give you essentially 'perfect' displays from a Windows standpoint.

[Rando]

... LCD .... S-Video....

What's the make/model? I don't think I've seen an LCD of that size that didn't have HDMI, Component, or VGA inputs. Any of those would give you essentially 'perfect' displays from a Windows standpoint.

It does,
I have it setup as my second monitor with the PC Monitor using the VGA input.  Need to find a spare VGA cable to try out how it looks.  Wife almost gave it away 6 months ago and it might be perfect. 

[Rando]

- Spoke to Fedex guy, apparently delivered the boxes to my neighbor who may or may not be present the bulk of the winter.  Fedex looking for packages today, I will wander over if packages not at my door today.  Hopefully this means that I get to build the bulk of the Cab this weekend!!

- Was putting my daughter to bed last night and heard yelps of glee from the Dining Room where I have the MAME PC currently setup.  Wife finally cleared screen 1 of Donkey Kong Jr.  Had to sit by her side for 15 minutes after so she could do it again to prove to me that she did in fact clear it.  I am now fearful that I will not get to play my own Cab!!!  Guess I gotta build 2!

[JohnEDollar]

No major milestones, but updating for my records:

Looking for a good starter MALA guide, info I've found so far has been more technical, so I'm muddling along.

Rando:


Check out this topic on setting up Mala, by BYOAC member, "unclet":  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=56010.0

Link to the Mala Setup Guide can be found here:  http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/MalaInfo/MalaEmuSetup-HowTo.doc

Good Luck!

- John

[Rando]

Thanks for the Mala information John,
At a glance it's highly technical, but upon further review there is much that doesn't pertain to my setup at the moment and can be skipped.  Will see what I can learn.

At a standstill as far as build goes.  Fedex finally accepted fact that 3 of 4 boxes are missing, and Mameroom is shipping new pieces Monday hopefully.  Until then I'm working on the floor which in the end is what I NEED to do rather than what I WANT to do.  By the time the boxes arrive I should have at least completed flooring to where the cab will be.

Flooring:

[eds1275]

That's pretty slick looking!

[Rando]

Cab delivered!
Cab delivered!!
Cab delivered!!!

That's all I've got for now, please go about your business! 

[Termin8tor]

Cab delivered!
Cab delivered!!
Cab delivered!!!

That's all I've got for now, please go about your business! 

Guess it's going to be a busy weekend.

[Rando]

Finally have a cab related update.  Got the floor finished as far as I can, far side of the basement has a couple steel doors that won't clear the subfloor, so I had to tile there instead.  So while the tile sets before I can grout and complete the flooring/baseboard molding, I FINALLY got to unpack my four Mameroom boxes and get to work on my cab!!

Some observations of the Ultimate Arcade II boards and plans as provided by Mameroom:
- With everything else that I have going on, I would never have the time to cut these pieces myself, so paying more for the finished pieces make this project a reality instead of a dream.
- Boxes are heavy and really nicely packed to ensure no damage, only issue is I now have all these little white foam pieces on my new flooring and stuck to the cab.
- Directions instruct you to install the T-Molding first, and then piece the base together.  But with the T-molding installed, once the initial frame is together it can be REALLY tough to squeeze the next piece in for placement as it gets stuck on the molding.  I understand that installing the T-Molding onto the base after it was all together would be a different pain because you would be flipping around this heavy clunky object, but at least I wouldn't be damaging the molding.  I might build the top section first and then add the molding.
- Everything seems to be good and sturdy, but it creates a much bigger footprint than I imagined.  I can see why people trim the plans down to smaller sizes.  Shouldn't be an issue for where I have it selected to go, but it's a big unit.


Having said all that, I get to post a picture of the completed base, otherwise this never happened.  Woot!

[Rando]

Tomorrow I grout the tile, today I did some more work on the cab and built the top half.  Installing the top onto the bottom is a two man job, cause that sucker is heavy.  Unfortunately I'm the only guy I know around here.  Fortunately I'm freakishly strong.  Top section fit great, and I got a bit lucky that it set right into place on the first try, cause again, that sucker was heavy.

Pic below shows 26" LCD screen that I'm currently planning to use.  Doesn't fill out the entire space, but this could work.  Leaning horizontal, might fiddle.  But here is what we've got so far:

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

The red and black really look nice together.

[mgb]

Lookin good 

[Rando]

The red and black really look nice together.

Thanks Cot,
I saw in a couple posts where people were assessing folk's builds and some said that the red/black theme had been overdone, but when I thought about it, it wasn't overdone in MY house, so that made the selection of the color combo easy for me.

Everything is going together well, the cab is nice and stable, and I will start putting the PC/Monitor/Speaker components in there this week.  Then to order the buttons/sticks and build my test CP.  I posted some pics on my Facebook page and people are already making plans to come over to play.  Goal is to get everything playable by Easter when I have some family over.

Thanks all!

[mgb]

I thought it was more that the blue and black theme was overdone.
the red and black theme looks great.

[eds1275]

some said that the red/black theme had been overdone

I'm with you on this. Maybe seeing post after post had been over done with colour x and colour y but if you think about it... we're re-envisioning machines made 10-20-30-40 years ago. People are always complimenting things that are modern yet classic. I think there's a reason people use certain colour combos, black and red or electric blue, the galaxian green, etc. Black and red are a great combo, and yours is no exception. It looks wicked!

[Rando]

Just an update,
After completing about 95% of my floor project, we got massive rain in NJ.  Sometime during the storm my sump pump tripped the circuit that it was on and stopped.  That night my wife went downstairs to get something and screamed up that the floor was making "squishy" noises as she walked on it.
 

I flipped the breaker and the pump cranked back up, but the overflow put 1-2 inches throughout the entire basement.  For the next 12 hours I removed almost all of the laminate flooring and subfloor panels, so I could get to the water left on the floor and suck it up with my most recent purchase: Wet/Dry vac.

The bad news:
- The laminate flooring has a fiber base, so whereever it got wet it expanded, so I had to trash about 40% of the flooring
- I also trashed about 75% of the subflooring panels, basically wherever the water rose above the rubber bottom and saturated the actual wood panel.  I probably could have saved more but I damaged a lot during removal and didn't want to risk moldy panels
- The sheetrock in most places was all the way to the floor and some sections held so much water they crumbled when I yanked on them (This was obviously not the first time this happened)

The good news:
- Because of the subfloor, everything was raised off the cement floor, so nothing in the basement actually got wet or was damaged.  So cabinet, extra PC cases, cardboard boxes with homework I did when I was 5, all okay.
- Flooring and subflooring were both on sale at 10%, and we were able to get another 10% off, so replacement flooring was cheaper the second time around
- Insurance gave us a check to cover materials without issue.  Doesn't cover the time I spent, but so be it

After moping around for a day or so, I got to work:
- Cleaned up, cut out damaged sheetrock, got dumpster for ruined flooring and other crap
- Replaced Sump pump with stronger newer model
- Changed outlet powering pump to avoid shutoff in future
- Sheetrock has been replaced, spackling now, should be able to repaint today/tomorrow
- Ordered backup pump, battery, and moisture alarm - To prevent repeat disaster in future
  (I recommend this to all with basements!!!)

Entire basement has french drains around border, which were working as intended, but water wasn't flowing out, so it just overflowed. 

Obviously all work on Cabinet has been halted.  I plan to take a day or two off, hope to have flooring completed AGAIN by the end of next week.  I had the project timed so well to have basement and cabinet completed by the time it got nice outside so I could move to yardwork.

Side note, this was the same weekend as the Japan disaster, so whoever I complained to came back with "At least you're not in Japan!"  Yes, I know that tragedy is FAR superior to my own, but in my little world MY personal tragedy sucks too!!! 

[TopJimmyCooks]

Stay strong bro. Sounds like you dove right in on the fix and it'll be a distant memory soon. 

[patm95]

Interested in this as I plan on getting a UA II cab sometime soon.

[Rando]

Thanks all,
Walls are spackled and repainted, Subfloor is done, as is 2/3 of the flooring and about half of the baseboard molding.  Should be completed to where I was before by the end of the weekend.
 

Interested in this as I plan on getting a UA II cab sometime soon.

So far my feedback is positive, though I haven't loaded any components into it.  I have my questions about the pull-out drawer tray but we'll see how that goes.  Overall it feels very solid though and is heavy as hell.  Would definitely take components out and separate into its two pieces prior to moving if needed.  Don't plan on moving it too much once it's in place however.

[Endaar]

Sorry to hear about the basement...

But with the T-molding installed, once the initial frame is together it can be REALLY tough to squeeze the next piece in for placement as it gets stuck on the molding.

You HAVE to trim the T-Moulding flush with the inside edge of the various panels, especially if you ever want to remove the rear access panel or if you will be adding glass in front of the monitor. I really did not want to do so, but it's not difficult with a sharp razor blade, and it came out clean.

I have my questions about the pull-out drawer tray but we'll see how that goes.

The tray is the weakest part of the entire design IMO. I've been wanting to hinge the front panel so that it swings down, but haven't been able to find the right type of hinge. I'm (really) hesitant to screw into the diagonal edge of the panel right below the tray, so some sort of scissor hinge would be necessary.

Endaar

[Encryptor]

Any updates?

[Rando]

Any updates?

Sure!

Basement is complete, flooring looks great, walls back to new, sump pump replaced, backup sump installed.  Space needs to be cleaned up, but looks good & will try to post a pic or two.

Cabinet is built.  I'm not crazy about the keyboard tray, but learned in another thread that inserting a coin between the track and board will help the keyboard to roll much better.  Will try that out soon.

Moved the PC, monitor and speakers into cabinet to test fit, and experienced a bunch of trouble getting the PC to power on.  Seems my Dell has a common quirk where it doesn't like to turn on all the time.  Tried some fixes and ended up swapping out the Power Supply with one that I had in a broken PC.  That solved the Power issue, but the PC wouldn't boot properly as the Hard Drive took a beating with all the power starts/stops.  Tried formatting the Hard Drive/reinstalling XP but still didn't appear to be 100%.  HD was an old 80G, so I dumped it for a 250G that I had lying around but hadn't formatted yet as I still have some files on it I don't want to lose.  Installed the HD and realized that I had a version of XP on it, so computer booted cleanly although I think it's looking for the ASUS MB it used to be connected to.  But as of last night, it appears to be stable.

So now I will reinstall MAME, MALA, and ROMs.  Once I confirm the PC is back up to running/playable conditions, I order the buttons/sticks etc.

On my list to get:
IPac - Need to read up on options
Two 4/8 joysticks - Need to read up on options (Probably go with a Sanwa JLW?)
6 Red buttons (Older concave style)
6 Blue buttons
1/2 player buttons
Extra ESC or Admin button

Once I have that I will build a "test" Control panel since I have no idea what I'm doing there.  Whenever I say that people say "it's not so bad, it's actually really easy..." which I'm sure it is, but wires and holes and cables... Oh my!

Once the CP is working, I'll see how I like the configuration, and add a Spinner, Trackball, and likely a Tron type stick as time goes on.  Also want to add a push coin button for credits.

Then I try to build a "finished" CP.

If I left anything out above, please let me know... So much to do!!!

[Encryptor]

Thanks for the update. I'm glad you got your basement situation taken care of so it won't happen again. In your research for joysticks you should also look at the U360 from Ultimarc. Do a search for U360 and read the many many comments from various people about them. I look forward to seeing the pics as well.

The CP wiring really isn't bad. It's fairly basic.

[Rando]

The CP wiring really isn't bad. It's fairly basic.

I know I know...   Basic is the replacing the ugly brass light at the top of the light with something more game-roomy.  Less basic is replacing standard lights with Ceiling fans in my house.  Both of those I can do without issue, if the CP skill level is somewhere in between, I'm good to go!

Formatted the new HD, loaded XP, went through updates, and am writing this from the gaming PC.  Progress!

[Rando]

Ok,
First off, let me say that Ultimarc and GroovyGear are AWESOME with regards to shipping.  Placed my order to both a few days ago, and everything arrived today.  Would have actually received the bulk of it yesterday but DHL needed my signature.  Here is what I got:

Ultimarc:
2 Black leaf buttons
7 Blue leaf buttons
7 Red leaf buttons
Mini-Pac with Harness
Player 1 and Player 2 buttons
2 1/4 inch trackball with mounting plate
2 Ultrastick 360's, extra blue ball top

GroovyGear:
Faux Coin door
2 NovaGem Coin drop pushbuttons
1 Button wrench

[Rando]

Now that everything has arrived, it is quite clear that I have NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!!!

Buttons look like buttons, trackball looks like trackball, mini-pac looks like... well, a really tiny computer board much smaller than I pictured.  And lots and lots of wires.  What connects to what?  How does this all work?  I have no idea.  I had kinda hoped for instructions like, I don't know, some idiot guide saying plug THIS wire into THIS thingee... or something like that.

I got the harness (x2?) connected to the mini-pac, it only connected one way, score!  And I assume the other ends connect to buttons, but there are lots of connectors, and each button has 2 prongs... do two wires go to each button?  Just 1?  I don't know.  And what is this collection of prongs that are connected to each other in a long daisy chain?  Do I need this with the harness?  I don't know.

What I DO know is that tomorrow I buy wood, and build a shoddy box, and put lots of holes into it... and then cross my fingers.

Honestly, no clue.  Any help/guidance appreciated!!! 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

There is a wiring guide on ultimarc.com
http://www.ultimarc.com/mp_inst.html

[Rando]

There is a wiring guide on ultimarc.com
http://www.ultimarc.com/mp_inst.html

Thanks Cot,
That one is a little clearer than the one that came with the box.  I also found some wiring videos here that helped alleviate some stress.  Got a little overwhelmed with everything spread out like that.

That daisy chain collection of wires appears to be for grounding, not sure which prong on the leafs is the ground though.  So I connect one end of the chain to the mini-pac, the rest to the buttons once I figure out which prong... do I have to do anything with the other end of the chain?  Connect to something or leave hanging?

[kingchimp]

With switches on buttons it doesn't matter which prong you use for ground.

You are correct in thinking one end of the chain goes to the mini-pac, and the other end can be left hanging (or cut off, whatever you do just make sure it doesn't end up accidentally making contact with anything in there.  You don't want spooky phantom button presses because your ground wire is swinging around inside your cp).

[BobA]

It does not matter what goes where if you use COM and NO but the convention is Ground wire (daisy chain) to COM and the wire to the interface to NO.

[kingchimp]

I stand (sort of) corrected. 

Also, if you're using a microswitch with three terminals (NC as well as NO), it starts to matter more.  Fortunately those leaf switches are keeping life (relatively) simple for you.

[Rando]

Alrighty,
Although nothing is actually WIRED, I made a bunch of progress today/tonight: Built CP box, mapped out buttons/sticks, made some holes, and got everything into place.  Didn't use any sort of CP mapping, schematics, blueprints, etc.  Just did some measurements, drew some lines, circles, saw how it felt, and went for it.

This is intended to be my test CP, for me to trying out a configuation, figure things out, etc, but so far, Rando pleased.

Only problem is that my Trackball is sagging, but I'll post that to a different thread to try to attract a solution.

Question I have, is I repeatedly see the joystick dustcover debate.  Right not mine are on top obviously, but the dustcover moves when you move the joystick, so how could you have it under something anyway?  Wouldn't the exposed hole be real big? Confused.

But progress pics below:

[BobA]

Nice progress.  Glad to see you finally were able to square away your mess due to the flooding. 

Thanks are due as I noticed your sump pump problem in this thread and checked mine.  The breaker was tripped and there was water only a couple of inches from the top.  My basement is not finished but it would have made a mess.  Pump was seized so had to do an emergency run to Home Depot for a new one and had do a wet replacement.

The sump now is hooked up to a level alarm and a power fail alarm via my central alarm panel.   For $50 I could not chance having it go again. Talking to the alarm guy gave me an insight into the problem.  2 or 3 homes on our block have had the same alarm installed but only AFTER they have had a flood.  I have seen the restoration trucks indicating a flood several times lately and it looks like the pumps in these 5+ year old houses are only lasting about 6 years.  Used to be a pump would last 10 to 15 years or longer. 





Thanks again Rando 
 

[Rando]

Contining to progress,
Got Player 1 controls and joystick working, as well as ESC key.  Some questions I have so far:

The 360 joysticks I have don't connect to the Mini-Pac, they connect to the PC via USB cables.  Problem is when I connect the second Joystick, it reads it as Player 1 and I lose the initial Player 1.

The trackball works, in windows, but doesn't respond when I start up games that would normally use a trackball, like Missile Command or Centipede.  Mind you, I'm using the MAMEUI32 interface, and am pretty much doing things via trial and error.

I have the pushbuttons from GroovyGear to do the coin 1 and 2 inputs, but those buttons are different from my leaf buttons, there are extra wires, and not really sure what the heck I'm supposed to do to hook these up.

Also mounted my joysticks wrong initially.  What I assumed was UP was actually left, so I had to rotate those which left my Player 2 stick a little tight.  WHY isn't the stick labeled showing which way is up, or am I completely cluless.

But fired up and played a few games successfully, very excited!!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Contining to progress,
Got Player 1 controls and joystick working, as well as ESC key.  Some questions I have so far:

The 360 joysticks I have don't connect to the Mini-Pac, they connect to the PC via USB cables.  Problem is when I connect the second Joystick, it reads it as Player 1 and I lose the initial Player 1.

The trackball works, in windows, but doesn't respond when I start up games that would normally use a trackball, like Missile Command or Centipede.  Mind you, I'm using the MAMEUI32 interface, and am pretty much doing things via trial and error.

I have the pushbuttons from GroovyGear to do the coin 1 and 2 inputs, but those buttons are different from my leaf buttons, there are extra wires, and not really sure what the heck I'm supposed to do to hook these up.

Also mounted my joysticks wrong initially.  What I assumed was UP was actually left, so I had to rotate those which left my Player 2 stick a little tight.  WHY isn't the stick labeled showing which way is up, or am I completely cluless.

But fired up and played a few games successfully, very excited!!

http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_inst.html

Assigning an ID:
When the joysticks are supplied, all are set to an ID of ONE. You must change as required so IDs in use are unique. This is how to do it:
Plug ONE UltraStik 360 into the PC via USB.
Start the UltraMap software.
Click on "Assign ID" Select the required ID, 2, 3 or 4.
Unplug and reconnect the USB cable.
Repeat with each joystick as required.
After each one has been assigned with a unique ID, all can be connected to USB.

http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/FAQ:Controls#Why_doesn.27t_my_mouse_or_trackball_work.3F

The most common solution is, in mame.ini, replace "mouse 0"with mouse 1.
For the mouse to work in mame, it has to work in windows. So if it doesn't work in windows (ie doesn't more the mouse pointer), fix this first as this isn't a mame problem. However, some virtual mice that work in windows won't work in mame; mame is currently using RawInput for mouse and keyboard inputs in Windows XP & Vista, and if the virtual mouse driver isn't RawInput compatable, it won't work in mame.
In MAME, try pressing "Tab" and choose "Input: This Game" and make sure that the game's inputs are mapped with the appropriate mouse inputs. If not, see How do I configure the keys? for remapping the buttons, and How can I change what axes the mouse and joystick control? for mapping the mouse axes to analog game axes.

Be sure mouse inputs are enabled in the config.


http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=295

Power Requirements: 100ma @ 5v DC Per button.

Connection:

The buttons have 2 wires attached to them. One is RED and the other is BLACK. The BLACK lead goes to the LED-Wiz™. The RED wire goes to +5v.

black can also go to ground if you don't have an LED-Wiz.

http://pinouts.ru/Power/SmallPower_pinout.shtml
the floppy disk power connector is an easy 5v source.