Turtle Box - Severdhed inspired pedestal cabinet

[pbj]

First things first.  I woke up this morning to work on my gift of blindness for everyone's Christmas present.



Later, I get a phone call.  "I need a bigger TV for my new apartment, can we haul it in your car?"     "Sure."   

So we shove a new 55" into my Scion and haul it to his place.  "I don't want this old TV... do you want it?"  "How much?"  "$100"  "Sold"  "Wait, really?"  "Yes, here's $100"

It's smaller than I had envisioned for this cabinet, but I can't argue with the price, and maybe I'll upgrade it some day.  I believe it's 37" and, frankly, looks great from the current distance.  At least I can stop being butthurt about my $200 42" taking a dump on me and go throw that in the attic to rot.



The 5 SMD LEDs are brighter than the sun and run great off the Xbox 12VDC line.  I put an IDE splitter off the power supply and routed a plug out the back of the system.



And here's Gauntlet looking much better:



So, time to wrap this one up.  Looks like it took me just under 3 months.  Off to go hit things.



 

[Malenko]

do you have the factory stand for that TV? I'll trade you a Pole Position marquee for it

[pbj]

Yes I do and LOL no.

 

[TopJimmyCooks]

i have one of those vizio 37" looks to be the same model.  backlight flaked out.  I was going to toss it but I do have the stand and the box if anyone wants it. 

[Locke141]

Looks Good. The new TV makes a big difference 

Have you played any Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara?

[pbj]

I drove 200+ miles and beat on a post office door, "I know you're in there, it's not a holiday" to get my import copy for Sega Saturn.  Rest assured that title will be played on this cabinet. 

[Nephasth]

I drove 200+ miles and beat on a post office door, "I know you're in there, it's not a holiday" to get my import copy for Sega Saturn.  Rest assured that title will be played on this cabinet.

I take it D&D is the only reason why you have 4 buttons for players 3 and 4?

[pbj]

Sure, we'll go with that and not, "everyone else was doing it and I didn't put much thought to it."

My dust washers finally arrived from Paradise Arcade.  It only took them a month!



They were a silly thing to waste money on, but there you go.  Will not be doing business with that company again.

 

[ChanceKJ]

That looks really good! It's the little things right? 

They were a silly thing to waste money on, but there you go.  Will not be doing business with that company again.

....and cue the controversy in 3..2..1.....

[severdhed]

That looks awesome. I was going to buy a 37"tv for mine, but I accidentally tripped a breaker in the house doing some electrical work and managed to kill all of the hdmi ports on the 42" tv my wife watches...so I replaced hers and took the old one for the arcade since I could still use the vga.

It looks like you are in for a treat with that cabinet, congratulations on a great build.

[pbj]

Straight from the 90s, Sir Dim the chaotic-evil cleric emerges to spam zombies with his turn undead chant of "POWERGLOVE!"

Seriously, why does he yell POWERGLOVE?

It looks like you are in for a treat with that cabinet, congratulations on a great build.

Thanks for the kind words.  There's a lot of things I'd do better/different but it was a great learning experience and I'm satisfied with the final product.

 

[severdhed]

there are always things you would do differently the next time..that's when you sell the one you have to fund the next one!

when i did mine, it was my first complete cabinet build, but my 7th or 8th control panel build...each one i learned from the previous and made huge improvements.  I think i'm finally pretty happy with what i've ended up with, but i'm sure the next time ill do something a little different.

[pbj]

So, just a quick couple of notes here:

Go to advanced and enable pc testing for firmwares, you will see test show up next to xbox, make your changes and the upload firmware to the minimus.

Do that, and your Xbox programmed Minimus will work with a PC as an emulated Xbox controller. 

100% plug and play with my Windows 8 laptop running:



Jamestown



SF4

 

[pbj]

Got two friends over last night.  Happy to report the Xbox performed without a hitch and we blasted through TMNT in about 20 minutes.

 

[pbj]

Ignore that this is a stitched together print propped up with a Venetian blind.

Thoughts on this marque idea welcome:



Good thing about choosing a popular theme is there's lots of fan art of them glowering.

[pbj]

Better pic...



Hmm.. this is probably happening.

[Malenko]

I like it.  You keeping it that size or going to make it as wide as the TV?

[yotsuya]

How's the rotgut coming?

[pbj]

Well, I'm quite chuffed you asked.

The mead was moved into glass bottles with very little air:



It's starting to clarify and I'm pondering how I'm going to get that out of the bottles without disturbing the yeast.  Probably some high tech system involving coffee filters and empty 2 liter coke bottles.

The strawberry/grape stuff is starting to freak me out, as it's still actively fermenting as of last night.


On the cabinet front, I bought this silly thing on E-bay:



Figured it was cheaper than anything I'd concoct, it's got a built in light fixture, and it's pretty modular.

Also discovered that if you have weird file names, imgur occasionally gives you something random.

No idea what the hell this is but I can dig it:



This one just confuses me more than arouses, but....

 

[yotsuya]

I like that marquee idea. They say you can't polish a turd, but PBJ has found a way! 

[Malenko]

No idea what the hell this is but I can dig it:

This one just confuses me more than arouses, but....

Top one is one of the Inkigayo Girls. The lower one....... no clue, but I have the strangest boner right now.

[pbj]

Tin eye says it's Emily Ratajkowski and she was in Sports Illustrated.

 

[Malenko]

Tin eye says it's Emily Ratajkowski and she was in Sports Illustrated.

 

 Emily Ratajkowski was the chick in the "Blurred Lines" video, thats all I know about her.

[pbj]

Marquee box showed up last night.  Cut off the cord connector and spliced a PC power cord to it for now.  Tossed a piece of scrap behind the TV and mounted it to a 2x4 with an L-bracket.

It was almost disappointing how easy that was.

It photographs horribly, but here it is with the Golden Tee marquee in it.





Just need to swap that out for some turtle art..... who's printing marquees cheap these days?   

[yotsuya]

I'm not a big pedestal fan myself, but honestly James, you've really does a nice job with the overall look to this. Not too gaudy, just the right amount of controls, a nice looking marquee concept... That homemade swill must have fixed your head. 

[HaRuMaN]

Needs more weecade

[yotsuya]

[pbj]

My wife said that the original background didn't mesh with Donatello at all, so it had to go.

I took my net-swiped Shredder on a throne image, shopped out enough Donatello to get some background imagery, and slapped Shredder on top of the blue background.



Just ran the smudge tool around the edges to smear around some of the pixels.  I decided that any text was going to take away from the imagery. 

I printed it out on non-gloss paper and I'll line it up with the plexi later and see how it looks.

[Malenko]

no Krang? fer shame

[pbj]

Meh, ---fudgesicle--- Krang.  I didn't like him until his comeback in Squidbillies.

[Malenko]

Meh, ---fudgesicle--- Krang.  I didn't like him until his comeback in Squidbillies.

Well I'm torn, Krang sucked, but his robot was awesome.

[Slippyblade]

Meh, ---fudgesicle--- Krang.  I didn't like him until his comeback in Squidbillies.

That is EXACTLY what I thought first time I saw Squidbillies.

[pbj]

It honestly never occurred to me until I played through TMNT again with my friends.  The resemblance is eerie, though.

Anyway, printed out my marquee and shoved it in the box:



It's not perfect lit up, but does look better than this photograph:



At the price of $0 I doubt I'm replacing it.

And not 5 moments after I wrap this on up, the UPS man shows up with my super cheap PS4.



Ahh.. but that is a story for another thread.

 

[Gatsu]

Friggin sweet setup man. Love the artwork and colors. After I get my MK cab done, I'm debating on whether or not to do a pedestal setup, but I'd have to try for a sit-down style pedestal if it's possible. Overall are pretty happy with how it plays?

Also, I've gotta ask. I've seen a lot of the fellas here on the forums go on about how the player 3 & 4 joysticks are oriented. They essentially need to be oriented the same way that players 1 and 2 are, only the buttons are angled differently? Is that right?

[PL1]

Also, I've gotta ask. I've seen a lot of the fellas here on the forums go on about how the player 3 & 4 joysticks are oriented. They essentially need to be oriented the same way that players 1 and 2 are, only the buttons are angled differently? Is that right?

From the Wiki -- green = good, red = bad.




Scott

[Gatsu]

Also, I've gotta ask. I've seen a lot of the fellas here on the forums go on about how the player 3 & 4 joysticks are oriented. They essentially need to be oriented the same way that players 1 and 2 are, only the buttons are angled differently? Is that right?

From the Wiki -- green = good, red = bad.




Scott

Cool. That's what I thought. Thanks for the clarification. It's appreciated. 

[pbj]

While the PS4 downloads moar gamez.........


The player 3 and 4 joysticks have been previously addressed by PL1.  Orient them properly and you can even use the damn things to play Smash TV acceptably.

As far as how the pedestal plays, here are a few notes.

The toggle switch under the control panel has been a godsend for idiot proof admin functions.  When I flip it over to the mode that allows analog stick emulation, the EXIT button converts into the CoinOps config menu button.  So, you flip the switch, thump EXIT, make whatever changes you need, flip the switch back and turn the cabinet back over to the people playing it and you can ignore the cabinet.  I am a firm believer in not having any admin functions readily available.

Arcade games are meant to be played standing up.  If you're sitting down, you may as well be laying down.  If you're laying down, you may as well be holding a controller, and if you're holding a controller, you may as well be playing on a JTAG/RGH Xbox 360 that allows you to easily turn it off and on and flip over to vintage Cindy Crawford workout videos from the comfort of laying on your back. 

If you want to sit and play these games properly, buy a stool.  This control panel is actually fairly high so I don't have to hunch over it.

Would I do anything different?

1 - I'd top mount the joysticks in a recessed hole that have them flush with the wood.  Undermounting them when you don't want visible carriage bolts is a mistake.  I think at the time I was skeptical I'd be able to scrounge free artwork.

2 - I'd move joysticks for players 1 & 2 and associated buttons about an inch higher up the control panel.  I'm a big guy, and I'm used to the middle of my palms digging into the edge of the control panel.  The answer to why I went with the "this is what feels like I remember" barometer when I was in control of everything continues to elude me.



I still flip flop on the location of the credit buttons.  They're aligned relative to each individual players buttons rather than symmetrically laid out relative to the dimensions of the control panel.  So it's very easy to slam on them during a multiplayer game but they look a little off when nobody's playing it. 



And if you do build one of these things, brace yourself for spending some money.  I squeezed this as cheap as a person can and we're still in the $600-800 range.  This is NOT a $50 beater JAMMA cabinet with a JPAC and dumpster computer thrown in it.   

[Gatsu]

Thanks for the info. Definitely a lot to consider.

What is the benefit of using a modded original xbox instead of using a dedicated pc? I mean other than cost. Is it ridiculously easy to mod and setup?

As for the admin programming - that's pretty bad-ass. Can anything similar be done with an ipac?

Again though, very cool build. And thanks again for all the info. It's appreciated. 

[pbj]

The 39" TV always bugged me.  It was an excellent size but didn't impress people like I wanted.  Instead of trolling the Internet so hard, I spent a lot of 2014 idle time grinding "free" money.  I decided to wrap up the year with an upgrade.

And here we go:



The TV is basically the same width as the control panel.  My mother in law is in town and throughly disapproves of the excess - so I know it's mission accomplished.

Spend the extra $200.

[Rockhart]

Fantastic! Now you just need a bigger marquee