Author Topic: Kee Games' Tank Mame Conversion - Completed (Read 22409 times)

tonythemediaguy · « **on:** February 15, 2012, 08:21:02 am »

Hi,

Like every other kid who grew up in the 80's, I've always wanted an upright arcade machine at my house. I got this for free on Craigs List recently. I worked for about a month trying to restore the electronics for Tank. The monitor was a 24" B & W that had a bad flyback transformer. The transformer just continually arc'd whenever it was plugged in. This game is all solid state electronics for those who don't know the history. So I took everything out of the cabinet and saved it for a day me and my sons can work on it. Maybe can make a cocktail tank out of it.

Anyways...

I have decided to convert the cabinet to running Coinops using a gen 1 xbox. It's a really slick frontend to mame and several other emulators. I'll be doing almost all of the work outside here in my carport.

Let's get started:

I picked it up at night and didn't really get a good look at it until the next morning.

First thing to do is make it paint-ready.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #1 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:26:00 am »

I stripped everything out. My first goal was to find a crt tv that would literally fill the void left by the Black & White monitor that was in there. I went through all of these before finding one that fits perfect. Some of these are from Craigs List and some are from the side of the road. All were either free or almost nothing.

Off to the recycler for this e-waste.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:35:38 am »

I decided to go with a Ms. Pac Man blue from Glidden Paint. I got semi-gloss latex. I primed the entire cabinet with a latex primer. I painted right over top of the contact paper.....huge mistake. I ended up having to strip all of the paint off you see in these pictures. Took me days. The paint never got untacky. After these pics were taken I let it set for 2 weeks. When I came back it was really sticky and just not right. So I decided to sand it a little and paint over with some polyurethane. When I hit it with the sandpaper, the latex came off in huge long pieces. What a mess. I ended up using stripper to take off every drop of blue paint and removing all of the contact paper from the sides.

I just have the Tank bezel in there to see how it all lines up. I've also made a new control panel area. It turned out to be way too small. Also I removed the coin door to get all new mechs. I'm not finding a replacement this size though.

Look how nice this 24" flat CRT fits in there!

I took the legs off and changed them to wheels.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:44:17 am »

Since I can't find a ms. pac-man blue in spray paint. I'm just going to go with Safety Blue. It's more than fine for mame. First I primed it with this B-I-N primer http://www.homedepot.com/Paint-Primers/Zinsser/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbt0tZ3mzZ12kyZ12kx/R-100398390/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051, which is amazing btw.

I decided to redo the front panel to make a standard size coin door fit. I'm just waiting on the coin door to get here so I can cut the hole. Then I'll mount the panel.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:49:16 am »

Now to remove the fluorescent light and make a custom LED one. I used white pegboard and soldered a row of LED's parallel and then used a USB power supply.

Waiting on the hot glue to dry, giving Irwin a plug.

Looks great! And uses a fraction of the electricity.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:53:28 am »

While rolling the cabinet around the garage, it tipped over a bit and the crt which was just sitting in there fell out a broke everywhere. What a huge mess. I took that as a sign to go with an LED LCD TV. Since coinops supports 720P then I found the biggest one I could physically fit in there that also looked good. I went with a 26" LG LED.

Only $6/year! (not at Hawaii's electricity rates)

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #6 on:** February 15, 2012, 08:58:28 am »

Here's my new front panel and my new back cover (which was missing)

Here it is installed, waiting on coin door.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #7 on:** February 15, 2012, 09:06:53 am »

We have a problem. I didn't realize how non-standard the marquee size was on this. I'm trying to order artwork but the marquee size is 26 1/2" X 4". So I changed it to as big as I could get to standard 8" height while not blocking the top of my new led tv. I got it to 7 inches. So that will have to do. And now I'll have to redo my LED matrix to light up the additional area.

My outside work area

The bigger picture. I'm in the shadow of a huge condo.

How you like my license plate?

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #8 on:** February 15, 2012, 09:12:05 am »

I made a new LED matrix for the enlarged marquee area. This one has 3 rows and can be switched to being full on or to "dance" with the music. The lights get brighter and dimmer as any sounds pass through the system. And speaking of sounds I picked up these cheap car speakers from wal-mart. Four of them total, two in front where the old speakers used to be and two on top in new holes I made. I got a karaoke machine at goodwill and put these car speakers on it's amplifier instead of the speakers it had. Sounds good enough. Plus now I have two mics with echo control. My kids will use this with xbmc to sing songs.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #9 on:** February 15, 2012, 09:18:54 am »

Here it is pre-artwork. This control panel has been redesigned since these pics. It's much too small that's why.

Notice the giant wheels? We upgraded them so that it could roll around effortlessly.

I have the screen mounted on an arm in the back. It floats just above the bottom of this space. You can pull it back and forth from the back. I haven't decided where the best place is for it yet.

I lined the bottom and walls with that vinyl floor mat stuff. Just waiting on the bezel to cover the other stuff up.

Green Giant · « **Reply #10 on:** February 15, 2012, 10:11:21 am »

Great job so far on your work. I am impressed with the original design of this cab. I don't ever remember a classic cab having those kind of curves and that slim of a profile.

Have to admit I was thinking this was a budget cab at first with the truck of cheap tvs, and then you go and grab a pricey led lcd tv.

What are the plans for the controls? Are you going to do it on that thin strip of wood that is almost perpendicular to the ground? A slight angle on the controls feels much more natural.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #11 on:** February 15, 2012, 10:52:36 am »

Well all of those pictures got us up until 2 days ago. I realized that the cpanel was much too small and flat to do what I wanted to do. So I removed it and built a new one yesterday. It's angled and almost twice as deep. I have to figure out today what I'm going to do control layout wise. I have the trim pieces already cut for this, they're just not installed yet in this picture which I literally took 5 minutes ago.

I have 100% light up controls from paradisearcadeshop. 3 Sanwa JLF joysticks (2 set to 8 way, 1 4 way), IL Transluscent buttons, and a 2.25" led trackball. I have a griffin power mate I would like to incorporate as a cheap spinner, but it may suck too much to use.

http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/59-il-translucent-buttons are my buttons

Shortbus · « **Reply #12 on:** February 15, 2012, 12:21:24 pm »

I like the curves on that cabinet, also, good color choice...I really like all the pics, and your plate, will be watching this one.

sharpfork · « **Reply #13 on:** February 16, 2012, 02:11:37 am »

Quote from: tonythemediaguy on February 15, 2012, 10:52:36 am

I have a griffin power mate I would like to incorporate as a cheap spinner, but it may suck too much to use.

I have a power mate and it doesn't have much of an arcade feel but it sure is fun. I use mine mostly for tron (pushing down = click = fire) and tempest. It wil work with CoinOps3 Sunset too.

Play with is some and if you like it, move the USB cable to come out of the bottom and mount it.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #14 on:** February 16, 2012, 09:36:43 am »

I just got sunset a couple of days ago. I have to look for my powermate to try it out. I only want it for Tempest really.

I finished out the new control panel last night with a couple coats of blue for the trim piece. It's in the garage drying right now so I'll have pics of that in a few hours. Today's agenda is to get these holes drilled for the buttons.

Shortbus · « **Reply #15 on:** February 16, 2012, 09:40:31 am »

question? anyone. Do you know if these (powermates) are compatible with the awesome game "Front Line" ? I love that game but needs special spinner type control with a push pull feature. If anyone knows if this, or anything else can be used for this game, I'd appreciate it.

thanks,

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #16 on:** February 16, 2012, 03:39:47 pm »

I just tried my power mate with coinops 3 sunset and it's not working. It's not doing anything. I can't see that it's recognized.

racecar · « **Reply #17 on:** February 16, 2012, 09:10:00 pm »

Tip, if your going to be using this for coinops, make sure you do the default button layout of coin ops. So you wont need to change them per each game

If you need ill check at home tonight

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #18 on:** February 16, 2012, 09:35:22 pm »

Great, thanks. I just got a brand new powermate today and it won't do anything on the xbox. Does yours light up? when I plug it into my Mac it says version 4.0
I wonder if this version has a different USB ID then the older version and xbmc and coinops aren't registering it.

Do you mind posting info about your working powermate?

PIZZ · « **Reply #19 on:** February 18, 2012, 12:23:11 pm »

Thats very cool cab. Would have been nice too restore too

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #20 on:** February 18, 2012, 12:40:43 pm »

I've abandoned the powermate idea until I can get one to work. And when that happens I'll just plug it in on the side ports I added. I found an Oscar spinner on eBay though it's just as expensive as a turbotwist and much larger under the panel.

I rounded the edge on my new panel, cut the t-slot, cut the plexi, trimmed the plexi. Made several practice runs on some scrap pieces. Then finally got enough courage to drill the holes in the panel.

iceman87 · « **Reply #21 on:** February 20, 2012, 09:06:24 pm »

Seeing the images of this classic game, inspired me to research discrete logic (non-CPU/non-MAMEable) games. Didn't realize that someone had created an emulator for such games (called DICE) which currently supports 3 discrete logic games including the legendary classic, Pong. I contacted the author about possible updates to include games like Tank, waiting to hear back. Having the original circuit boards (even non-working) of any of these discrete logic games could prove highly valuable for a project like DICE, as my understanding is that for the most part is emulating basic logical chips, which when supplied with the 'schematic' of the games circuit board, can then emulate the game with great accuracy.

Keep up the great work with your conversion....
Maybe down the road you will be able to emulate Tank on your Tank cabinet via the Dice emulator .. that would be cool!

cw · « **Reply #22 on:** February 20, 2012, 10:03:32 pm »

must have missed what you did with the parts from this game... I have one that I would love to save and would like to buy the cp and pcbs from you if you still have them

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #23 on:** February 21, 2012, 11:17:36 am »

I saved the boards and the control panel. Only things I didn't save were the black and white monitor and the giant transformer.

cw, are you restoring a tank game?

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #24 on:** February 21, 2012, 11:29:03 am »

Quote from: iceman87 on February 20, 2012, 09:06:24 pm

I contacted the author about possible updates to include games like Tank, waiting to hear back. Having the original circuit boards (even non-working) of any of these discrete logic games could prove highly valuable for a project like DICE, as my understanding is that for the most part is emulating basic logical chips, which when supplied with the 'schematic' of the games circuit board, can then emulate the game with great accuracy.

I would happily donate the boards to a project like that. The full schematic is in the owners manual here: http://ia600605.us.archive.org/32/items/ArcadeGameManualTank/tank.pdf Back then people actually fixed boards instead of just replace

Apparently, this is one of the first 50 units, because the coin door area sticks out in the front. http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=12989

cw · « **Reply #25 on:** February 22, 2012, 07:27:51 am »

I am working on bring a tank game back from the dead.. happy to buy any parts you dont find
a home for..

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #26 on:** February 23, 2012, 11:04:09 am »

sorry, out of order

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #27 on:** February 23, 2012, 11:16:53 am »

Time to start soldering!

Since my cabinet is using CoinOps and hacked xbox controllers, I really wanted to preserve the left analog stick on the controller. There are a lot of games that use or can use that analog stick.

So I thought if I can mount the xbox controller right under my panel and somehow have the analog poke through. So I looked around the office for something that would fit into the analog shaft (which luckily for me was hollow!) and I found these two screwdrivers that fit perfectly.

The only thing is they were a bit too long, so I used bolt cutters to hack them off a little.

So I then mounted the xbox controller to my panel just so my hole I made on top aligned with the left analog stick. I then put some hot glue all of the top of the controller and then put in some screws to hold it up. The glue was to give it some cushion for the pushin'.

Then I shoved the screwdriver in which goes in very nice and tight.

Making sure all is aligned and I get full range on the stick.

I added a huge dust washer I had laying around. This thing has a lot of movement!

Here's the utility I use on the xbox that lets me test each button and the range of the sticks. Very helpful.

And it all works! A cheap way to get analog sticks on your Xbox cab.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #28 on:** February 23, 2012, 11:19:06 am »

Been working on the control panel the last few days. My angle is way off and now I have to fix it! Here's pics of the panel as it is right now. I'm still waiting on the artwork, I just put a piece of black poster board in there now just to have something in there. All of my controls light up, I thought the kids would like that. It may be too annoying though for the adults, I'll have to add a switch to turn them on and off.

My crooked buttons. This is only for testing. That's left trigger and right trigger in case anybody was wondering, since this is using a hacked xbox controller.

jammin0 · « **Reply #29 on:** February 23, 2012, 12:11:50 pm »

Ingenius use of the analog sticks. I wish I had done this on my 4-player pedestal. My 5-year old son always loads up N64 games and then gets bummed when he can't play them because of the lack of analog stick. I left him with a babysitter and then came back once with him opening the CP to play by using the little nub on the controller PCB.

Nice work, I'd be interested to see it in action.

racecar · « **Reply #30 on:** February 23, 2012, 08:37:05 pm »

Looking great, Just with controller layout. If you plan on playing things like street fighter and other (CPS2) fighting games.

Mabye you should do two rows of 4 buttons because the default control panel at the moment is different to what is on your machine.

Just a heads up as you dont want to have to manually change each game an I dont think you can change each game in one go either if that makes sense

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #31 on:** February 23, 2012, 09:25:09 pm »

With CoinOps, you can change the keymap for all games or just one at at time.

The sticks were pretty well. I tried some 64 games and some racing games. So far, so good.

racecar · « **Reply #32 on:** February 26, 2012, 04:48:44 pm »

I think its only one at a time. hopefully coinops 4 you can do all at once

Uncle Monkey · « **Reply #33 on:** February 27, 2012, 06:15:52 am »

What a unique project, i'm loving every concept.....

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #34 on:** February 28, 2012, 01:51:05 pm »

Quote from: racecar on February 26, 2012, 04:48:44 pm

I think its only one at a time. hopefully coinops 4 you can do all at once

No it's definitely all at once or one at a time. You enable gamepad remapping. Go into an arcade game, choose back+white, then either choose "remap gamepad" for all or "remap this game" for just that game. Works great.

racecar · « **Reply #35 on:** February 28, 2012, 09:09:48 pm »

oh sweet! Didnt know that thanks.

was hacking the control panel hard?

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #36 on:** March 03, 2012, 10:38:10 am »

Just a standard xbox controller hack. pretty easy.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #37 on:** March 03, 2012, 10:41:43 am »

I got the artwork in. I put the marquee up to check it out. I have a small light leak on the left side. I'll fix that with a small bit of black electrical tape on the backside.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #38 on:** March 10, 2012, 05:49:29 pm »

I got the coin door all wired up. After fighting with multiple xbox controller hacks to get just two switches working, I finally gave in and used a MC Cthulhu board. I then velcro'd it to the coin door and ran all of my wires. I also ran the leads from the 5v on the board to these red leds. Of course I had to find the right size resistor but they look great! And I got my token inserts in there as well so nobody tries to put a quarter in there mistakingly

.

tonythemediaguy · « **Reply #39 on:** March 14, 2012, 02:16:58 am »

I got the control panel background online and had it printed at Costco, for only $9!! Looks GREAT. This was attempt number 2 at getting it printed though. The first time, the photo person enlarged it/cropped it to make it fit 30x20. I needed a 26.5 X 13 so I had to go back and manually add that blank black space with words "DO NOT CROP". They reprinted it for me at no charge.

I got the sideart on today. Got the sideart and the marquee from eBay.

The Disco ball thing is one of my 6 year olds, he wanted it up there, so I put it up there. Don't forget this is a Karaoke machine as well. There are 2 microphones inside the coin door I can pull out. I have a little mixer in there I can add reverb and adjust levels.

I would say this thing is pretty well finished out. I'll take a final set of pictures tomorrow. The big birthday party for my twins is this Sunday. Each kid will get 8 tokens to play one of a few dozen games that I'll pre-select. These are 6 year olds so I don't need too many beat-em-ups or otherwise age inappropriate. It will mostly be games that are on that multicade artwork like pac-man, frogger, galaga, DK etc... I have all of the dip switch settings set to give the most amount of lives per credit that way their tokens go a little longer. I can post some video of it in action after this weekend.


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