Floriske.nl's "evo XR cade" xbox bartop (DONE, FINISHED, FINITO!)

[Hornet]

Thx Hornet! Still having doubts about the light bezel though. Think I might design some small artwork for it to incorporate it into the design a bit more.

I wouldn't make it too busy looking, at the moment it looks very clean to the eye. I especially like the light coloured bezel which ties the marquee and the CP together quite nicely. In all, the design is very pleasing on the eye and your attention to detail is first class. For me this is the best bartop design/build I have seen, again well done. 

[floriske.nl]

@robe_uk: Thx!

The setup of the KADE is really super simple. Plug it into your pc, run the software load the xbox profile and custimise to your likings (all I did was add the shift light to the standard config), flash to the device and you're all done.

@hornet: been experimenting with som designs and you are right, applying too much artwork to it takes of the "clean" look. What I designed for now is a very simple label to go at the bottom center of the bezel in the same style as "By floriske.nl" in the marquee. I think this small label will be enough to incorporate the bezel into the rest of the design.

edit which will result in something like this:





Not sure yet which one I'll use, the coinops or controls version, and with or withoug stripes, so I have them both printed.

As you can see I also designed a serial plate, got inspired by CoryBee.

Edit 2

I have 2 xboxes: a v1.0 and a v1.6 and I have 2 power cords: One with- and one without surge protector.

Can someone confirm that the cord with surge protector is for the v1.0 and the one without for the v1.6?

[CoryBee]

As you can see I also designed a serial plate, got inspired by CoryBee.

 

[Hornet]

I like the small additional design on the bezel and the serial plate again looks clean, IMHO these are good subtle enhancements.

You really have a good eye for this. So much so, it has given me some ideas for my next build, the one I am currently working on is for the kids. So design wise its with them in mind but my next build I feel should be a classy looking bartop along the lines of what you have achieved here. 

Your work is definitely inspirational floriske, thanks for sharing. 

[floriske.nl]

Thx again Hornet!

Good to see I give others some inspiration.



finished tidying up the internals and mounted the back door:



I had some noise on the video signal which turned out to be caused by the 12V psu for the amp and LED strips. Simply connecting a wire between the PSU negative and the monitor chassis solved this. (the black wire you see running to one of the vesa mounting holes).

With this the project is just about done 

All that's left to do is:

- Open the xbox and solder the power and eject wiring for the CP
- The little artwork detail on the bezel (decided to try and print this myself on our OKI laser at work on waterslide decal paper which I ordered today)
- The serial plate. For this I have some leftover "stainless steel" decoration foil onto which I will stick the design, once again on waterslide decal paper.

[Hornet]

floriske, one question do the discs eject through an opening in the bartop? Or do you have to lift CP to change games?

You should be really pleased with your results and it should bring you years of fun, well done!

[floriske.nl]

The disc ejects inside the cabinet. So I have to open the CP to reach it, but since the CP has hinges to open it this is no problem.

And ..... thx again 

[floriske.nl]

Decided that I'm most likely going to add 2 more buttons.

Two more ......... yeah, two more 

Been playing some pure pinball last night and playing with the LT and RT buttons on the CP isn't as much fun as when I would have side buttons.

So I'm most likely going to add two extra black buttons on the sides, parallel wired to the P1 LT and RT buttons.

[rablack97]

OH no.....s-video is boo boo....

use these and get 720p resolution.....

http://compare.ebay.com/like/200477246021?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar



http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-MICROSOFT-XBOX-AV-COMPONENT-CABLE-FOR-HIGH-DEF-HD-/190848095827?pt=US_Video_Game_Cables_Adapters&hash=item2c6f6ed653




I use these on all of my builds and the resolution is gorgeous.....

Although on my current build i have some signal noise and for the life of me i can't find out where it's coming from, how did you troubleshoot to find out where the issue was so you knew what to ground properly?

[dmarcum99]

Would the Gonbes 8200 work for this application? 

They're under $30 shipped on fleabay and thought it could be an alternative.   

[rablack97]

yep was just looking at those today, some of the models have dual vga output....

[floriske.nl]

Thx for the tip Rablack97!

Although the type that you posted is a lot more expensive if I want it shipped to the Netherlands.

I found these instead:

Single output:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD-Video-Converter-Board-HD9800-GBS8200-Arcade-Game-VGA-RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV-/400422239695?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d3b067dcf

$ 29,- incl. shipping.

Dual output:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV-to-VGA-Arcade-HD-Video-Converter-Board-abb-/190854005923?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c6fc904a3

$ 29,99 incl shipping

Think these are the Gonbes dmarcum99 was refering to, will these do as well?

Edit: just noticed on the pcb's that the single output version can be powered with 5-12V DC and the dual version somehow is 5V only.

Since I have a 12V psu in my cabinet the single output version would be the better choice for me.

[rablack97]

Yes those should work fine...A friend of mine showed me those a few days ago, I ordered 1 to check it out....

Here's the same one cheaper....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Arcade-game-RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV-to-VGA-HD-video-converter-board-HD9800-GBS8200/360690521769?rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D261%26meid%3D8862333107307474786%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D1088%26rk%3D2%26sd%3D190854005923%26

Here's nice video reviewing it....




Also, you could use one of these and plug it into the PSU of the xbox and pull 5v or 12 from the splitter.....



I do this for the amp, marquee and the and any led's i have for my xbox builds....

If you don't want to decase just drill a small hole in the case and feed the 5v and ground thru it to the video card.

Not sure if you hard modded or soft modded, if you soft modded i have a cool way to bypass the flubber and the xbox noise using the kades and a relay.....

Let me know if interested.....

[johnm]

I use a mayflash ypbpr to vga box  i got from ebay from a seller in the Netherlands, came to about £10 delivered. I think they are sold under different brand names.



It needs 6v to run so i just used a 7906 voltage regulator branched of the 12v line

If using something like this you need to enable progressive scan by switching regions to NTSC.

[robe_uk]

@rablack97 I'd be interested to see how u bypassed the Xbox startup


Cheers Rob

[johnm]

The flubber can be bypassed with a modchip/TSOP or you can hide it by delaying the monitor switching on by a timer relay.

[degenatrons]

@rablack97 I'd be interested to see how u bypassed the Xbox startup


Cheers Rob

Rob,  there is a built in delay function on KADE and you can specify the delay time in seconds.  After the delay one of the KADE pins will output about +5V DC power which you can use to power 5V items.  You can connect a 5V relay to control power switching to your monitor and/or amp. 

[rablack97]

@rablack97 I'd be interested to see how u bypassed the Xbox startup


Cheers Rob

Rob,  there is a built in delay function on KADE and you can specify the delay time in seconds.  After the delay one of the KADE pins will output about +5V DC power which you can use to power 5V items.  You can connect a 5V relay to control power switching to your monitor and/or amp. 

Yes, this is the way to do it for softmods.  Hardmods per Johns advice can be done TSOP etc, i just have no experiencing flashing and or messing with the bios....

Although what i have found if the xbox does not like to have amps powering on after the delay, the surge causes the xbox to shut off.  If your pulling 12v from the xbox psu, the amp needs to come on at the same time the xbox does.

So what i did was use the KADE to fire a 5v DPDT relay, to send 5v to the video card, and the complete the signals in between each speaker.  So you have + or - speaker inputs going into the relay from the speaker and the other out to the amp.

Here is the diagram, its a bit plain but you get the idea.



I have my KADE set to about 25 secs booting straight into COINOPS for complete invisibility, to boot to a dash its about 15 secs....

I use a mayflash ypbpr to vga box  i got from ebay from a seller in the Netherlands, came to about £10 delivered. I think they are sold under different brand names.



It needs 6v to run so i just used a 7906 voltage regulator branched of the 12v line

If using something like this you need to enable progressive scan by switching regions to NTSC.

This looks to be discontinued and those that do have it, sell if for around USD50.00...

[floriske.nl]

.....

Although on my current build i have some signal noise and for the life of me i can't find out where it's coming from, how did you troubleshoot to find out where the issue was so you knew what to ground properly?

Sorry, I missed that question earlier on.

I just started unplugging stuff and when I unplugged the audio signal from the amp the noise was gone. So it had to be the amp causing problems. Since DC adapters have a "floating ground" it would most likely be solved with grounding the negative pole and it did.

[rablack97]

sweet thx...

[rablack97]

Yes those should work fine...A friend of mine showed me those a few days ago, I ordered 1 to check it out....

Here's the same one cheaper....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Arcade-game-RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV-to-VGA-HD-video-converter-board-HD9800-GBS8200/360690521769?rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D261%26meid%3D8862333107307474786%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D1088%26rk%3D2%26sd%3D190854005923%26

Here's nice video reviewing it....




Also, you could use one of these and plug it into the PSU of the xbox and pull 5v or 12 from the splitter.....



I do this for the amp, marquee and the and any led's i have for my xbox builds....

If you don't want to decase just drill a small hole in the case and feed the 5v and ground thru it to the video card.

Not sure if you hard modded or soft modded, if you soft modded i have a cool way to bypass the flubber and the xbox noise using the kades and a relay.....

Let me know if interested.....

Do not buy these pieces of garbage for Xobx applications, i will be the guinea pig.  I purchased one and the quality, picture is terrible.

The prior models i mentioned are plug and play and way more reliable with virtually no tweaks to get it to work.  I am returning mine...

FYI

[floriske.nl]

Too late 

I bought one and won the auction of a second one because I didn't expect to win it with the bid I placed.

I've been reading pretty ok reviews about it though, just as long as you take your time to get the settings right.

[rablack97]

Please let me know what you find out and if you get it working......

From what i see, it doesn't play well with the component cable to vga....

Here are some good reviews which you may have already read, after reading, it seems this board is unstable, and is power finicky.  Also I found out the newer boards have the dual vga output, so not sure which one you ordered.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=123399.0

I played around with the settings, but it was just awful right out of the box....The reds were terrible, it was blurry, the screen jumped and the signal flickered to black screen.

Also in one of the write-up 5v 2amps is the recommended power input 12v seems to heat up the board pretty good.

I'm going back to my bread and butter, it runs fine off of the xbox 5v and there's no tweaking and the picture/resolution looks good, i will pay 5-6 more for that stability.

[rablack97]

Super apologies, it works..........

This was a mistake on my part....I have 6 xboxes in my closet and the one i hooked up to just so happened to have the softmod vga hack installed, so the card was fighting the hack.

I hooked it up to a different xbox and voila, perfect output.....so all i well....

 

[floriske.nl]

That's great news!

Thx a lot for being a Guinea pig 

[rablack97]

No worries, i have a few builds in the works the would of needed these guys anyhow....

Although be careful with the 12v its been know to overheat the boards.

[schmurtz]

Hi, this is my first post here. And it is to thank you. All your posts have been my reference to start my work on my bartop !
As JDFan I 've made some adjustments but the evo XR was my inspiration !

By the way, the final picture (in big size) of your control panel's sticker is missing, it is hard to understand what is the use of the little buttons:p ).

2 little pictures of the work in progress of one of the evo XR child





There will be a little surprise with my bartop, more informations soon

[EMDB]

Hi, this is my first post here. And it is to thank you. All your posts have been my reference to start my work on my bartop !
As JDFan I 've made some adjustments but the evo XR was my inspiration !

By the way, the final picture (in big size) of your control panel's sticker is missing, it is hard to understand what is the use of the little buttons:p ).

2 little pictures of the work in progress of one of the evo XR child


There will be a little surprise with my bartop, more informations soon

You should create your own topic for this...

[schmurtz]

You should create your own topic for this...

I'm not going to create a new topic to say "thank you"...
But yes there will be a topic about my work in progress (these are two differents things).

[floriske.nl]

Just a quick status update for those who might be curious 

In the meantime I've been busy with my CNC router and didn't spend much time  on finishing this project, but did make some progress.

I've created an external molex connection on the xbox for the yuv-vga converter and soldered wires to the power and eject buttons for external use as well (the small buttons on the cp).

So now all that's left is mounting and connecting the yuv-vga converter.

I want to mount it onto the vesa mounting holes of the monitor for which I need to route an adapter on my cnc router.

Currently I'm working on an upgrade of my CNC machine bed, so that needs to be finished first.

[waramp]

This thread is the reason why I'm now piecing together a xbox bartop

Do you have any pictures of how the hardware is laid out inside?

Amazing craftsmanship!

[floriske.nl]

You can see this in the 3d pic in this post:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,123039.msg1371207.html#msg1371207

[floriske.nl]

Time to call this project "Done!"

After playing around with my cnc router a lot I decided that it was time to finish this project.

A few small things still had to be done.

First of all the serial plate and bezel "logo":



Next the component to vga converter (glad I decided to go for this instead of s-video, picture is way better):



And a small dimmer for the marque led strips:


And with that it's finally finished:



Thanks everybody, for all the help and inspiration!! And special thanks to the people of KADE and Arcadewinkel.nl

[Rick]

All right. Now this...



...is just ridiculous. Oh my god, dude. This looks fantastic, right down to the last detail.

Very slick.

[emphatic]

Very, very nice. 

[edekoning]

Finally, you finished it 

It looks awesome, well done sir 

[floriske.nl]

@Rick: Thx, but it's not flawless though, since it's all done by hand with a normal router

@emphatic and edekoning: Thx guys, took me a while to finish it, but am very pleased with the result!

[Rick]

@Rick: Thx, but it's not flawless though, since it's all done by hand with a normal router

Do you want people to hate you?



You're nuts. The fact that this is all done by hand is proof that artisans still exist. You're one, and you should be proud. We all stand on your shoulders, and the shoulders of those like you.

[floriske.nl]

Nah, I'm a lovable person 

Thx for all the feathers up my  now I've got a terrible itch next to pain in the shoulders 

[swaffar]

Very nice.