Bartop with LCD marquee for cheap

[fgh]

I thought about building a bartop with a 19-21" LCD vertically for both game and marquee. Did anyone try this before?
Looks a bit funny, but it should work, be cheaper than strech monitors, and larger than rear-view mirror monitors..
The attached design uses a 16:9 monitor IIRC. A 16:10 or slightly larger 4:3 would probably fit even better.
Just need to figure out where to place the speakers..

Any recommendations for software to display the digital marquees?

(The idea came to me when sketching my future bartop pinball with one screen for marquee+DMD )

[ark_ader]

Why stop there?

Why not have both, weecade and pinball?

How you get it to transform should be part of the fun.

I'm thinking telescopic mounts at the bottom of the display on a gimble of sorts at the top.

You would have to design the CP to lay flat and support the LCD.

Do'able.   

[chopperthedog]

http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html


good day.

[keilmillerjr]

http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html


good day.

bad day.

ping: cannot resolve http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html: Unknown host

[UFO]

http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html


good day.

bad day.

ping: cannot resolve http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html: Unknown host

Terrible day... not available...

[DaveMMR]

http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html


good day.

bad day.

ping: cannot resolve http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html: Unknown host

Terrible day... not available...

Great day... it worked fine for me.

But someone else did this as well using a widescreen monitor, vertical, and framed off the top part for the marquee.

[CoryBee]

This was on the page he linked

[UFO]

http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html


good day.

bad day.

ping: cannot resolve http://www.antolinxxl.cu.cc/vcabinetbartop.html: Unknown host

Terrible day... not available...

Great day... it worked fine for me.

But someone else did this as well using a widescreen monitor, vertical, and framed off the top part for the marquee.

I can only get a cached version... the site is unavailable through tge above link

[DaveMMR]

Why stop there?

Why not have both, weecade and pinball?

How you get it to transform should be part of the fun.

I'm thinking telescopic mounts at the bottom of the display on a gimble of sorts at the top.

You would have to design the CP to lay flat and support the LCD.

Do'able.   

Brainstorming. It might be doable, going by what the OP sketched out, to make it so you can lie it down, turn it around and it becomes a tiny Future Pinball bartop. Perhaps make the CP removable and some sort of miniature screen can fit in there (or have one under the CP that's visible when you open the CP.) Be a cool little dual-purpose cab.

[PL1]

Any recommendations for software to display the digital marquees?

Instead of using a separate software solution, consider using layout (.LAY) files.

Here's a crude working example.




Scott

[BobA]

I get a malicious software alert from my internet provider when I try to view the link.

[fgh]

Haha, what an excellent idea, plus a hybrid will be even uglier!
Having a removable CP on top of the screen would be relatively easy.
Finding a good solution for pinball buttons and speakers is more challenging.

So MAME layouts work well for the marquees, how about other emulators, are there any relatively simple way to have something displayed for them?
One image per system would be enough. Worst case, a single image for all none-mame emulators would work, too.

(The attached model has a 23" 16:9 and 17" 4:3 monitors..)

[fgh]

Pinball - vertical - horizontal..

With plunger and pinball buttons it looks even worse, haha.
Are there any descent alternatives to real arcade buttons that are less deep? These ones are gold leaf ones, but still too deep.

Edit: Guess I could do without a real plunger... Also put some speakers on the sides. (Updated attachment)

[markc74]

Yeah this is easily done with LAY files.

1. Create a folder in your artwork folder for the game you want, i.e. 1942
2. Drop the marquee image file in that directory and rename it to marquee.png
3. Copy the text at the bottom of this message to notepad and save it in the same folder called layout.lay


 You'll need to tweak it a little to get it to look how you like but this pretty much worked for me when I tried the idea.

If you're handy with batch scripts and have a folder with marquee files in it already you can automate the whole process to generate vertical layout files for all your games. I've got something laying around that does it but not at hand so let me know if you want it.

layout.lay follows:


<!-- 1942.lay -->


<mamelayout version="2">
   <element name="marquee">
      <image file="marquee.png" />
   </element>
   <element name="blank">
      <rect>
         <color red="0" green="0" blue="0" />
      </rect>
   </element>



    <view name="Upright_Artwork">
      <screen index="0">
         <bounds x="0" y="4" width="9" height="12" />
      </screen>


      <marquee element="marquee">
         <bounds x="0" y="0" width="9" height="3" />
      </marquee>

   </view>

</mamelayout>

[PL1]

Are there any descent alternatives to real arcade buttons that are less deep? These ones are gold leaf ones, but still too deep.

Goldleafs are great for flippers.

You should be able to move the near end of the screen up to position the buttons below the screen.

Here are some measurements that might be a good starting point for you, minus the real pinball shooter.



Make a test setup to be sure that you can comfortably reach the Launch button with your right thumb and the flippers with your fingers.


Scott

[404]

project log for Antolin's Vcabinet can be found below (Spanish)

http://arcadeforever.forumfree.it/?t=60590996

[DaveMMR]

Here's the project I was referring to:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,123302.0.html

(I want to do something similar but my spare monitor is 4:3 unfortunately. So next time...)

[fgh]

Dave: That one looks cool, and well executed!

404: Thanks, this guy knows what he's doing..

Mark: Perfect, I'll be looking into this. Any idea how I could have something up top for other emulators?

PL1: Excellent, thanks. I would make a cardboard mock-up for testing the button placement.. Guess I could raise the playfield monitor enough for them to go below it, if I'm unable to find something small enough to fit above it.
I did find some japanese buttons that are less deep though - a Sanwa that only extends 18,5mm below the surface (including terminals), and another one that only extends 12,3mm (plus a few mm for terminals).
Sanwa: www.arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/sanwa_parts/sanwa_button_obsn_30_r/13026.html (screw type)
Other: www.arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/push_buttons/arcade_pushbutton_33mm/13138.html (push-in type)

If I go forward with the project, I'll get a few of each. If I elevate them slightly above the surface with some washers, they should not protrude too much.

[404]

Dave: That one looks cool, and well executed!

404: Thanks, this guy knows what he's doing..

Mark: Perfect, I'll be looking into this. Any idea how I could have something up top for other emulators?

PL1: Excellent, thanks. I would make a cardboard mock-up for testing the button placement.. Guess I could raise the playfield monitor enough for them to go below it, if I'm unable to find something small enough to fit above it.
I did find some japanese buttons that are less deep though - a Sanwa that only extends 18,5mm below the surface (including terminals), and another one that only extends 12,3mm (plus a few mm for terminals).
Sanwa: www.arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/sanwa_parts/sanwa_button_obsn_30_r/13026.html (screw type)
Other: www.arcadespareparts.com/arcade_parts/push_buttons/arcade_pushbutton_33mm/13138.html (push-in type)

If I go forward with the project, I'll get a few of each. If I elevate them slightly above the surface with some washers, they should not protrude too much.

Here are some more artwork examples Antolin has made for his vcabinet. He is a member here and if you ask him for the files, I'm sure he will have no problem giving them to you.

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=275456&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1

 I'll be brutally honest. I love the idea of his vcabinet. I don't however like the idea of having such a large screen used to display such a small amount of gameplay area. I would have preferred to have the the sides of each artwork cropped for horizontal games. See his horizontal neo geo artwork at the link above for an example. While it may not look as authentic, I don't see the point in using a large 16:10 screen to display 7-9 inches worth of video game and the rest be bezel and marquee art.

[alinke]

here's an example with an LED matrix marquee

https://www.instructables.com/id/Vertical-Bartop-Arcade-With-Integrated-PIXEL-LED-D/