"Avengerless Avenger" - [11/17/15] Finished!

[yotsuya]

That guy was always my favorite ---uvula---.

But I thought I was your favourite?

 

You're not an ---uvula---, though. Fourth favorite Canadian, if that counts for anything.

[Rick]

You're not an ---uvula---, though.

I may just add this to my signature line. For posterity. Appreciated!

Fourth favorite Canadian, if that counts for anything.

This one brought a tear to my eye. Thanks, man!

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looks great!  Just watched your video on Youtube and left my own comments.  LOL.

Nice!

D

[vwalbridge]

Looks nice! Always like it when builders wrap up with a demo video.

I've always wondered why a 2nd monitor would be necessary but you have certainly demonstrated its usefulness and practicality. 

[Frank Drebin]

The cables you used - were they just db25 extension cables?

[RxBrad]

Thanks, all... Now I need to look through my profile settings and try to figure out what a --uvula-- is.   

(EDIT: Aha..  I thought so.  Although the uvula is actually on the other end, you know......)

The cables you used - were they just db25 extension cables?

Yup.  3ft M/F DB25 cables.  Monoprice.com part #1591, to be exact.

[Frank Drebin]

Thanks!  Love Monoprice.

[RxBrad]

Thoughts after a couple months of use....

• I swapped in this USB-powered LED tape to light the marquee.  The speaker hum I'd complained about is now gone.  I wish I'd have bought that in the first place, as it's half the price of the LED tape + power supply I originally bought.
• My sister-in-law was playing some Frogger, and she's a huge spazz with the joystick.  I need to install some kind of bracket on the CP box to keep the detachable control panel from sliding back toward the inside of the cab when someone slams the joystick upwards really hard.  Should be easy enough.
• Even though the mouse/keyboard surface was copied directly from the control panel using the router's flush-trim bit, it fits a lot tighter than the CP does.  Too tight, really.  I need to trim about 1/16" off the width of the KB/mouse panel (hopefully without ruining the vinyl that's on it).
• It's easy enough to reach under the CP to switch between 4 & 8-way mode on the OMNI2 stick, but I'm really wishing I'd used a ServoStik for Player 1.  Looks like the mounting plate is the same size as the OMNI2 -- but I have a bad feeling I didn't leave enough room on the side to fit the servo mechanism (I'm certain there isn't enough room between the stick and the buttons).
• On my next go-around, I think I can nix the front door.  It's not bad having it there; but as often as I need to get into the cab, backdoor access would've been just fine.
• Occasionally, my cab turns itself on from complete power-down.  Nothing in the BIOS seems to allow this, nor do any of the component power settings in Windows (ethernet, etc).  Clearly this is because my house is haunted.  (Or maybe a short in the power switch on my crappy PC case; or maybe the power supply in the PC is flaky.  I'm going with ghosts, though.)

A co-worker apparently has access to free Pi2 boards(!).  Between that and the 19" 4:3 monitor I picked up over the summer, I now have visions of bartops in my head...

[stigzler]

On the last snag, who ya gonna call?

[sollyscomputers]

If I'd have bought a top-bearing bit in the first place, I could have avoided so many of the mishaps I've run into.  Trying to awkwardly position templates underneath your work where you cant see them; or trying to balance your work on scraps so it's level.  This all just leads to trouble. 

Sure, this thing worked great for trimming the plexi to fit my admin panel, and it will probably work well to trim my CP/AP graphics to fit.  But aside from that, it can go eff itself.

Friends don't let friends try doing template work with bottom-bearing flush trim bits.

Grrr.

I use bottom bearing trim bit also, but I use it on my router table which mounts upside down making it a top bearing trim bit

[RxBrad]

Almost a year later....  I realized that by flipping the 7" display upside-down, it is now perfectly viewable.  Before, I had to stoop down to see it.  Took a bit of Dremeling to get it in there; but it's much better now.

So, just a reminder to everyone to check the viewing angles of their monitors.  They might look better mounted upside down.


Also, I was eventually able to track down my cab turning itself on to a BIOS setting on the motherboard in my PC.

[stigzler]

Cool beans. Saves turning your cab upside-down.

[skmastaz]

I'm so glad I found this thread. I'm in the design stage of my cabinet and I LOVE the admin panel! I am stealing your idea for sure. Awesome job. Super clean. I love it!

[Vincefaro]

Excellent Cab. The graphics are very clean . I like the admin panel too.

[RxBrad]

She's still alive and kicking.  And she has a newly-finished basement to live in.  I even built a little side table using some of the newer, cooler tools I've collected in the last 5 years, since I didn't want to profane my cab with a cupholder.

Aside from occasionally getting the urge to redo the control panel so I can fit in a Servo-Stik, I'm happy with all of the decisions I made.  I did look through my build pics here, and I cringe a little at my lack of woodworking skills back then.  It's a wonder that I didn't kill myself with that jalopy of a router I was using.

[wp34]

Not sure how I missed this one.   That's a very nice clean design and I really like your admin panel.   

[RxBrad]

I'm doing some PC upgrades, and my now-aging MAME cab got fresh hand-me-down PC upgrades out of the deal (from a Pentium G3258 to a Ryzen 1600)...  I wiped the old PC back to a fresh Windows install, and decided I'd have a better time unloading it on Facebook Marketplace if it had an OS and a PC case. 

So, no PC case inside my cab anymore, because what's the point when you can bolt everything to the cab itself.  And I decided to go with an Ubuntu OS install on the new hardware (I know I could just use un-activated Windows forever, but where's the fun in that?).  This has been.... an adventure.  I'm about 2 weeks in, and I think I have about 75% of the software configuration work done.  Anyone who tries to say that any flavor Linux is ready for prime-time with normies is full of  .


Stuff I've Done (that I really should've taken notes on):

• Basic Ubuntu configuration ---smurf-poo---
• Installed & configured MAME & AttractMode (harder than it sounds)
• Culled MAME full ROMset down to something mostly manageable (via ROMLister in Wine and the "All Killer No Filler" list here on BYOAC) -- Fun Fact: For whatever reason, AttractMode in Ubuntu is unable to "see" any ROMs that you copy to a folder via automated Bash script.  You have to use "cp -r /path/to/sourceRoms/{comma.zip,delineated.zip,list.zip} /path/to/destinationRoms/" in the Terminal
• Tweaked AttractMode Nevato theme to work on dual monitors (without the display getting all jacked up when coming out of games)

Stuff to do still:

• Get the network mount to my SMB shares working consistently
• Try and get any Windows/GameEx functionality I previously used working with AttractMode/Linux (getting the last-played game's marquee auto-embedded on my-blog-that-nobody-reads is about my last hurdle)
• Autoboot into AttractMode (shouldn't be too hard)
• Batch-reconfigure controls for stuff like Street Fighter, and re-generate the control panel instruction cards (that display in the admin panel) which I neglected to archive (Hopefully CPWizard works in Wine)