Space Invaders PTII cocktail table undo/redo. (2/7/13 complete)

[chopperthedog]

Need to overhaul/redo a build I did over 6 years ago. This thing is my kitchen table... What? Doesn't everyone have one of these in their kitchen? But time for a new computer (old one needs to have the ram stick wiggled sometimes to get it to boot. Despite adding tension and cleaning all the pins it still sucks and will freeze on occasion mid game), joysticks (got a pair of servostik's comin' from across the pond along with ipac and servo control board), accent lighting (woo hoo more classy led's. and not blue strips that were meant for a car dash board) and monitor along with addressing 2 major annoying factors of this cab.



The computer that was used originally was found on the side of the road (blue screen of death upon boot and pulled a ram stick and it boot ) it's a P3 800mhz with 98 running mame .084.



L O f'ing L  at my handy work. I didn't have money back then. Looks like a prototype ipac from 1953. I did take the time to figure out the proper key matrix (hence the numbers written on the board) some of the old school guys will understand.



At least I didn't botch both control panel holes when adding the 4 ways originally.



I'm gonna screw the crt and get rid of that black box hanging from the bottom. I can't stand it. That's the one thing keeping it from being a comfortable table to eat at. Plus the chairs will be able to slide in further once removed. Gonna use a sheet of .100 thick black HDPE to cover the hole left from the ammo box removal.



The other annoying melon scratch er is player 2 gets all the sound. Gonna replicate the speaker slots on the player one side opposite the coin slot. Each side of the table will have a speaker finally. Couple of spots along the edges of the glass seemed to have sustained a spill of sorts and screwed up the paint. Easy fix since the glass is removed to accommodate the new monitor into the wood top.



Also anyone happen to have a new coin slot image underlay? I might just scan it and attack the black logo in gimp and print on new day glow card stock. The instruction cards are in great shape. The coin slot one has some stains and is warped. Since I have the glass off my ocd is honing in on that underlay.


good day.

[chopperthedog]

Got the gutting complete. Once I dropped the ammo box, sat down and slid in (perfect).





Used a trimming router bit to create a template of the speaker slots and added 4 slots to player one side. The button (used for start/end game) sits in the original lock hole for the top. It would have looked cluttered with squeezing 5 slots in. Once interior was painted they look natural like they were meant to be. And have no fear the player 2 speaker slots are cut through the Taito logo the same way.



The other lock hole was painted on the inside and had a stereo volume pot added to it.





Got monitor and computer mounted. Made a smart box using a 5v relay powered off the usb of the computer, 1 outlet constant / 3 switched. Was able to add some wires in parallel to powerswitch/usb board in the computer with power button added to bottom of machine. Scrapping the loose paint off the edges of the glass and painting those areas went great (curing now). Shall wait for package from ultimarc and putz with game list along with adding sound system.


good day.

[danny_galaga]

Nice, I love me a Japanese cocktail cab. In Australia, that's mostly what we saw, so they bring back fond memories. Gonna add this thread to my links page:

http://dannygalaga.com/mame.htm

I actually love the 'busy' and crowded look of your original conversion, and am a bit sad about the LCD. But everyone has their own preferences. I myself need to try and find some old 15" CRTs in case mine dies (which I bought new for the cab. Shoulda bought two!). In the end, I'll probably be eating my words and fitting an LCD myself!

Anyway, good work and we would all agree that whatever you do, you are saving a cab from landfill. Not just saving it, but tastefully saving it (",)

Edit: While I was adding this thread to my list of projects, I remembered Corey Feldmans Table For 2. Check it out here:

http://dannygalaga.com/mirroredsites/tablefor2/tfor2.html

If you ever get sore wrists from the control panel, check out what he did. Nice solution I'm sure you'll agree (",)

[Automark]

Why didn't you build a new table from scratch? These originals are worth some money.

[chopperthedog]

Nice, I love me a Japanese cocktail cab. In Australia, that's mostly what we saw, so they bring back fond memories. Gonna add this thread to my links page:

http://dannygalaga.com/mame.htm

I actually love the 'busy' and crowded look of your original conversion, and am a bit sad about the LCD. But everyone has their own preferences. I myself need to try and find some old 15" CRTs in case mine dies (which I bought new for the cab. Shoulda bought two!). In the end, I'll probably be eating my words and fitting an LCD myself!

Anyway, good work and we would all agree that whatever you do, you are saving a cab from landfill. Not just saving it, but tastefully saving it (",)

Edit: While I was adding this thread to my list of projects, I remembered Corey Feldmans Table For 2. Check it out here:

http://dannygalaga.com/mirroredsites/tablefor2/tfor2.html

If you ever get sore wrists from the control panel, check out what he did. Nice solution I'm sure you'll agree (",)

Yeah going lcd was a tough consideration. Once I tested laying the glass over the screen and saw how it looked any sort of regret quickly faded. Wow Corey did do a sweet job, that's neat! For the height that I've used it at over the years it has never been an issue with long gaming sessions. During game play my arms are resting on top of my thighs.

Why didn't you build a new table from scratch? These originals are worth some money.

Huh? Why the hell would I want to put myself through that when I got this thing empty and for free. Meh, you could tell me that someone would pay $3000 for it and I wouldn't care. My own personal enjoyment is priceless.


WOOT! DHL just rang mah bell. ipac, sevostiks and control board are in hand. 


good day.

[Automark]

My own personal enjoyment is priceless.

True, that is always the most important thing 

[chopperthedog]

Got a layout created for mala. The one thing bugging me is the font. I've tried a number of different types but they become unreadable. Anyone have an idea for a readable theme type font?


good day.

[Louis Tully]

.

[chopperthedog]

Stumbled upon a pretty damn good looking font and made some other graphic and list tweaks. /me happy





*edit* OK, now I'm done . Not sure what I was thinking with the white border for the snaps box.


good day.

[dextercf]

I Want to see this happen

[Furry131]

Would you mind sharing your mala layout?  I really like it and I think it would go great on the bar top I'm going to build!

[chopperthedog]

Would you mind sharing your mala layout?  I really like it and I think it would go great on the bar top I'm going to build!

Sure. I'll get to it once I get past my servostik hell.


So the servostik's haven't been quite the bolt on and go experience as I had hoped. Getting DaOldMan's mala plug in set up was easy. But I just mounted one to get the software up and running. While that was happening things started going wrong. By design of the table with the plastic cup control panel type thing it was amplifying certain noises. When installed the servo horn is about 1/64th higher than the arm of the restrict er plate. During operation you would hear the sweeping of the 2 surfaces. So the plate was never laying flat it was on a pitch. Also many many times during testing the little springs were falling through the nylon washers. At that point it would just freeze up. The other main issue was I noticed when I first got them that the plate was hard to turn on both. When the 4 screws from the base were removed the plate would remain. It pretty much snapped in and was very hard to turn.


Smaller nylon washers used with added diameter to base of springs.


After plate was shimmed.

The above pictures show the solutions. First was sanding all the edges of the plate so that operation was smooth and not binding. The nylon washers used are #8 which is fine IF the base of the springs had a widened base to them. I first added a little widening to base of the springs, but they still managed to slip through the washers after a very short period of time. Used some #6 nylon washers and made them, hmmmmm #7 ish and used the original #8's that came with the stik to shim up the plate. You can see the nice gap between the servo horn and plate arm now and the plate lays flat. So after 6 or so hours of mucking with this thing. It finally operates the way it's supposed to. The motor no longer changes pitch or gives evidence of struggling. And the rubbing noise of the horn and arm along with the added resistance that came with those surfaces touching is gone too. There is very little chatter about the servostiks. I almost feel like I was the first one to buy these after the hell I've been through and no other documentation of a similar experience.

Well on to the second one.


good day.

[danny_galaga]

I almost feel like I was the first one to buy these after the hell I've been through and no other documentation of a similar experience.

I only just noticed these the other day, and thought they looked sweet. Seems to me you may just about be the first. You should send this report back to the seller (was it Ultimarc? I can't remember where I saw them). That way they can at least start on ironing the bugs out.

[chopperthedog]

Original monitor that was initially installed I had laying around. But it would cloud up and wash out at a sitting level. The specs for the model I used only had 120° horizontal viewing angle. Snagged a new monitor with a 160° horizontal viewing angle that works out much better.



Got all the lighting and computer wiring done. Makes my original wiring job look even funnier now :p.





The lighting came out great. I love these things http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/component-leds/little-dot-smd-led-accent-light/639/. Ordered 5 warm white (2 for each control panel and 1 for the coin slot) and 3 UV blacklight ones for the under accent. The panels and coin slot are wired to a dimmer http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/dimmers/mld-5a-12-volt-dc-single-color-led-mini-dimmer/1082/2573/ and it does remember dimmer setting during power cycles. The UV led's are just wired to full 12v. I really like the subtle blacklight glow and they reflect nicely off of the chrome base. My 30mm black balls, M6/M8 thread inserts and buttons are due to come in monday or tuesday. SUCKS that I'll be out of town all this week for work . Also after ironing out the servostik wrinkles they are pretty f'ing sweet. Haven't had any issues at all during the last week. With DaOldMans joy choose plug in and mala it's a pretty slick set up.

Also I attached the mala layout including the space invader font. The background image is not mine it came from a google search (I'm not that artistic). FYI: I only edited the vertical orientation and have it set to 1024x768.


good day.

[AndyWarne]

Would you mind sharing your mala layout?  I really like it and I think it would go great on the bar top I'm going to build!

Sure. I'll get to it once I get past my servostik hell.


 The other main issue was I noticed when I first got them that the plate was hard to turn on both. When the 4 screws from the base were removed the plate would remain. It pretty much snapped in and was very hard to turn.

We have found this is happening since we started using genuine Sanwa sticks as the base. There is a simpler fix which we are now applying, which is to grip the raised ridge of the black housing with large pliers and bend very slightly outwards. Repeat for the other 3 locations. These being the parts which appear to "grip" the restrictor.

[chopperthedog]

We have found this is happening since we started using genuine Sanwa sticks as the base. There is a simpler fix which we are now applying, which is to grip the raised ridge of the black housing with large pliers and bend very slightly outwards. Repeat for the other 3 locations. These being the parts which appear to "grip" the restrictor.

I guess the use of a different base could explain the servo horn being higher than the plate arm? Your thoughts on the springs slipping through the nylon washers?


good day.

[chopperthedog]

Finished job in milwaukee 1 day early and came home to the goodies. The 30mm ball tops are great (plus they feel much better than the 35mm balls for the table) and the M6/M8 thread adapter worked perfectly. The new buttons are sweet and a great way to increase game list potential without turning the panel into swiss cheese. I was a little concerned at how the buttons would play on the panel. After install played a quick game of galaga and made it to level 12 with ease. Might look into making the springs in the button housing a little less stiff (giggidy).


good day.

[CrazyKongFan]

L O f'ing L  at my handy work. I didn't have money back then. Looks like a prototype ipac from 1953. I did take the time to figure out the proper key matrix (hence the numbers written on the board) some of the old school guys will understand.

Heh, I did the same thing when I did my MAME cab...I was too cheap to order an IPAC, so I bought a used keyboard locally for $1 

[chopperthedog]

Screw that acer aspire revo thingy. Stupid audio glitch that has plagued me ever since I bought that thing annoyed me even in mame. New dual core AMD emachines something or another fit perfectly in the cab and runs the games perfectly. Also craftymech's miniSLG is a nice addition. It's amazing how cool these newer dual core pc's run compaired to what I've been used to (keep in mind I've been out of it for 6 years). My old hardware would have all fans running at max during game play sounding like a jet engine . You can see a single slot exhaust fan with speed controler mounted to the top on the right. With new computer interior cabinet temp runs about 76~8° during game play. Even though it was a minor uphill battle, the servostiks are friggin' awesome. I have fallin' in love with juno first and other games on this table now that it has a proper 8 way when needed.



The white thing on top of the coin slot is the led controller (from superbriteleds.com) for the accent LED's that light up the control panels, start/stop button and coin slot (purple UV LED's in the bottom are full 12v).



Speaker amp tucked in the corner next to the sub. There are just some games that need that low end. Original 2.1 audio system that carried over from original build. But the shielded main speakers are from a BOSE center channel speaker cab found at a thrift store for $2. Once pulled apart I metered them and found they were 4Ω which was a perfect load for the amp. Small pcb next to the ipac is the servo driver board for the servostiks.



For the triple buttons I ended up ordering some zippy micro switches from GGG and also taking apart the triple button housing and nipping off 1 1/2 turns of the interior springs of each button. Between the micro switches and spring shortening these things are pretty neat now. Previously I had the red button also #1 with mame in the lower left. But for the schmups I find it easier to use the top button as the main #1 fire button. So i just reassembled it differently without having to rotate the whole unit and mucking up the existing wiring.



I love how the chairs actually slide in and it can be used a legit "table" now. The accent lighting really gives it some life below the glass level now. The LCD screen has been a nice addition since it has a full 15" diag viewing and being mounted close to the glass. Unlike the 15" crt that ends up being only 13 1/2" and was mounted much lower forcing you alter sitting during game play. I ended up not touching any of the artwork in the glass. Just scraping and repainting the massive areas of the glass that were flaked was enough to cure my ocd. The creation of the speaker slot for player 1 is perfect. Player 2 is no longer having to say "what" during conversation while playing since each side is balanced now. Ehhh, I spent way more than projected, but bada$$ comes with a price.


good day.

[DaOld Man]

This build is frickin sweet!

Great job chop!
 

[ark_ader]

Looks so cool! 

[Draco_Elessar]

Nice build, you gave me some ideas for mine! Where did you find the triple button? Does it have a larger thread diameter than regular buttons? I would like to try that before adding another hole to my control panel.

[chopperthedog]

http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=TRIPLEBUTTON They use the same 1 1/8" hole as regular arcade buttons use. There is also a 2 button model I've seen (I think relief pitcher used them), but I never found them complete or under $25 each.


good day.

[JimmyU]

Love the Old Style clock above the cocktail.