Hi everyone,
I've been lurking for quite a while now, but I've decided that I've now done enough up-front design on my first MAME cab that it's time to share some renders and get some feedback...
I'm going for a stand-up cab with a rotating 21" CRT computer monitor (
kindly donated by Franco B - thanks!), and I'm intending to have a semi-modular control panel.
I'm going with a computer monitor over an arcade one because I like the old vector games and I want to be able to play them without them looking awful. (I'm happy that a hi-res raster CRT can fake being a low-res raster CRT much better than a low-res raster CRT can fake being a vector monitor.)
And I'm going with a CRT over an LCD, becuase I don't like the look of LCDs.
So, first off a general view of what I'm thinking at the moment:
Dark cab, blue illuminated cp. Not decided what to do art-wise yet. Very much liked Ghost in the Machine, and might try something simular for vector art. Or, I might go for a mimimalist approach, and have a plain panel like in the render.
For the marquee, I'm planning illuminated space invaders, but I've not done a render of that yet.
One reason for going for lighting over printed art is that it means that when the machine is off, it all goes black, and is less intrusive (since it's going to be in a family area...
Next, here's a shot showing the machine in its designated alcove. Fitting it in there puts some size/shape constraints on the cab.
Looking down at the cp:
Now the rotation support assembly:
Since it's quite a heavy CRT, the mechanism is quite beefy. I'm using some big rubber wheeled castors for the main supports,
and some smaller nylon ones to stop the whole thing moving forwards or backwards (you can just see the back ones in this image).
In theory the monitor will never try to go forwards, but I want to make sure that the monitor stays put, so they are in there. Also, by pressing back on the top of the rear monitor support wheel they will also make sure that it doesn't lift up - there being no space in the cab for top-rear castors to do this.
Another view of the rotation assembly:
Some of the smaller front-back support wheels are visible. The top shelf is shorter than the bottom one, and a different design at the top, due to space constraints.
I'm intending to build this rotation assembly first, so that if it ends up being a nightmare, I can scrap the idea without having to rework the cab. Assuming all goes well, this will be a self-contained assembly, which I can then just slide into the cab frame as a single unit onto support rails attached to the cab sides. The thought of trying to assemble it and align it within a cabinet didn't appeal...
Side view showing the fairly tight fit of the monitor plus rotator:
Proportions still look a little off to me - cp too high?
(I'm very tall (6'4"), and I want this thing to be comfortable to play, so I'm still struggling with this a bit.)
The 'semi-modular' control panel, showing centre section removed:
My plan here is to have the joysticks and buttons fixed, and to have a replaceable centre section for specialist controls.
The standard option shown for the centre section is a spinner, because I'm keen on Tempest...
I've sized the centre panel so that it would hold a trackball, and of course other panels could be analoge sticks, etc.
Since most games use sticks and buttons, I decided they should be permanent. This also means that the front-end can rely on them always being there, so that simplifies that.
I'm thinking of having the centre panels pressing on one or more of a set of hidden microswitches, so that each panel effectively has a different binary id, so the front end knows which panel is plugged in.
I'm going to use a uHID for input, and a LedWiz for driving the LEDs.
For monitor rotation I'm going to use a car window motor, driven by a H-bridge, under parallel port control, as discussed in this
excellent thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=94350.0I'm going with a 'controls in use light up' plan, and in theory, the blue rings around the spinner and sticks are also included in that.
In practice though, I don't know if I'm realistically going to be able to make them... (For the sticks I've gone for Seimitsu LS-32-01, which have an S-plate for mounting in wooden panels. However, once I've routed out the space for them, and allowed for a perspex cp cover, I'm only going to have a few mm thickness of wood left, so squeezing a lighting arrangement into that might be tough...).
Anyway, this is what I've got now, I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts, since at this stage most things can still be changed.
Cheers - Steve