Mini Qbert - [FINISHED]

[CoryBee]

Friggin nice!

[8BitMonk]

Great job, love how this turned out!

[kiel0909]

did you print out a template and center punch your speaker hole drilling pattern? or did you draw it out yourself?

[Malenko]

Really great build and a really great in depth thread.  This is so much better than an aircraft carrier.

[vwalbridge]

Thanks a lot guys! Really appreciate the compliments. You have all done some really top notch work here so I'm just trying to keep up.

did you print out a template and center punch your speaker hole drilling pattern? or did you draw it out yourself?

I thought about using a template but just realized it was easier to draw it on with a straight edge and compass. I used a center punch to keep the drilling accurate.

[vwalbridge]

Put some heavy duty rubber feet on the bottom of the cab. They lift the cab up far enough to allow air intake on those vent holes on the right.


A few of the usual suspects used to wire up the inside of my cab.


I need to power my computer, monitor and marquee. So I started with one of the multi plugs. The monitor and computer will plug into this.


Cut one end off and wired up the insulated spade terminals.


Then plugged them into the back of my power socket.


Here is the back side. Those 2 white wires on the left are for the separate switch to power my marquee. (Sometimes I don't want the marquee light on while gaming. )


I'm using these little screw anchors with zip strips to keep all the wires organized.



Cannibalized the power switch wire from a computer and wired it up to my power button



Fed it thought the power hole and screwed it in. The other end plugs into the power switch pin-out on the motherboard.


On the inside of the cab I re-used the computer brass pcb feet and screwed them in the sides.


Here is one last look at my knocker assembly before it gets mounted inside.


Here it the knocker assembly all mounted inside on pcb feet.



Here is the rest of everything wired up.



Here is my usb volume knob


Here is a video of my knocker working with Qbert. (Just wanted to make sure it works one last time before mounting it up)

[Vidiot]

  Nice! Looking beautiful.

[Slippyblade]

I swear, I gotta be doing something wrong.  Every pic I see of the insides of other folks projects looks cleaner than mine.  Even the ones that claim to be "messy" look cleaner than mine.  The guts of my project tend to look like a wire factory exploded.

Oh yeah - this is an awesome build. 

[Peabo]

Great work!

[harveybirdman]

[BorgDog]

Awesome project, love the knocker.  I may have missed it somewhere, but what solenoid is that?

[vwalbridge]

I swear, I gotta be doing something wrong.  Every pic I see of the insides of other folks projects looks cleaner than mine.  Even the ones that claim to be "messy" look cleaner than mine.  The guts of my project tend to look like a wire factory exploded.

Oh yeah - this is an awesome build. 

Thanks Slippyblade! I work in IT so cable management comes with the territory.

[vwalbridge]

 

Harveybirdman get's first place prize for the first "knocker" joke of this thread! 

I was getting a little worried about you guys! I thought you were all slipping around here with the jokes! 

[vwalbridge]

Awesome project, love the knocker.  I may have missed it somewhere, but what solenoid is that?

Thanks BorgDog! Here is the exact 12V Solenoid I am using. For only 12v, this thing packs a punch.

So much punch, that I only have it hitting itself and it's loud enough.

[vwalbridge]

Here is the rear of my screen/bezel assembly. I simply used electrical tape to adhere the screen to the back of the bezel plexi. This screen was far to delicate to handle any other mounting technique


Here is the front of the assembly. The pcb on the right is the LCD control board running on HDMI.


This is a side-view of it all. Less than about 1/2 inch thick.


Mounted the control board inside the cab with some PCB feet.


Here is the entire assembly mounted inside the cab

[Malenko]

You are easily my favorite new member.

[Vigo]

+1   Love this project, appreciate your style.  I hope your work sets a precedent for future builds, because we need to see more of this kinda work around.

[vwalbridge]

You are easily my favorite new member.

+1   Love this project, appreciate your style.  I hope your work sets a precedent for future builds, because we need to see more of this kinda work around.

Thanks guys! Really means a lot coming from experienced collectors/builders such as yourselves. I haven't been doing this hobby for very long but I'm having a blast doing it. Wish I'd started it years ago.

Quite frankly, the real fun comes when I get to post updates and see what people think. It's just so much fun to BS with you guys and give each other crap every once and a while. 

[harveybirdman]

When are you building me the full-size version?

[vwalbridge]

When are you building me the full-size version?

You are totally right. I've had a lot of fun doing these mini-builds and they are challenging but I wish that I would have just built them full sized. I didn't really save any money. It takes just as much time. It certainly wasn't easier. And I have no idea why I was worried about them taking up space. Hell, I'd fill my garage with arcades right now if I could.

I can't stop thinking about new builds. Hell...I'm constantly thinking 2 builds ahead and I have not even finished the current build.

[wp34]

I'm in the middle of restoring a Qbert and love your build.  Your is smaller and nicer than mine.   

Your CP turned out fantastic.  Those red buttons in particular are a great touch.

Applied the artwork to my control panel.

[vwalbridge]

I'm in the middle of restoring a Qbert and love your build.  Your is smaller and nicer than mine.   

Thanks wp34! Appreciate it!

Man, you are very lucky to have an original Qbert. They have become VERY popular as of late and it's like a feeding frenzy whenever one pops up for sale. Even the fugly ones.

Speaking of which...why did people beat up Qberts so bad? Man, every time I seen an un-restored Qbert, it's always beat to hell.

Not sure if you have started a "restore thread" here or not but I'd love to follow your progress.

[wp34]

I have a thread but have not updated it in 4 years.   

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=103771.0#lastPost

The cabinet is waiting for yellow paint at this point.  For the black I used the same spray paint as you.  Several of your build pictures remind me of my project which is really cool.  In a few days I'll be posting updated pics.

[CoryBee]

You are easily my favorite new member.

I miss when you use to say that to me...

[Malenko]

You are easily my favorite new member.

I miss when you use to say that to me...

You aint new no more bro, I still love you though :* <3

[vwalbridge]

For my marquee retainers, I scored and snapped off a 1" piece of kydex.




Then I took that 1" piece of kydex and scored 1/4" edge.


Then bent over that 1/4" edge.


Took a center punch and marked the holes for the screws.


Drilled the holes in the kydex then center punched through the holes into the top of the cab to mark the holes


Removed the kydex and drilled the pilot holes for the screws.


Marquee is now fully mounted with screws I previously painted satin black. No need to paint the kydex. It already has a nice finsh.




I'm getting close to the finish line on this build. Just need to work on software/FE setup now.

[Vidiot]

Beautiful solution for the marquee retainers. Looks great!
Do you buy the kydex material online? eBay perhaps? I might want to get some of that for future projects.

[vwalbridge]

Beautiful solution for the marquee retainers. Looks great!
Do you buy the kydex material online? eBay perhaps? I might want to get some of that for future projects.

Thanks Vidiot! Man, I was really racking my brain trying to figure out a solution to these retainers and I sort of came up with this by accident. I just realized that I could carefully score one side and bend it over with out it breaking. It works if you don't bend it on the same side you score it on.

I've purchased all my Kydex Sheets from Amazon.com but you can also get an alternative product called ABS Sheets

Both available on Amazon.com and both come in multiple sheet thickness. Usually penny-thick or half-penny-thickness variants.

Both also are heat bendable with a heat gun. (This can be very tricky though)

[yotsuya]

That Kydex will say bent like that?

[vwalbridge]

That Kydex will stay bent like that?

That's the first thing I was worried about. When I came out in the garage this morning, I was expecting it to have sprung right back out but it definitely holds it's shape. I was entertaining the idea of having some metal bent for me but this solution is 100% cheaper.

I certainly wouldn't do this on a full-size cab because it just wouldn't be rigid enough for a longer distance.  But for something this small, it works.

[Slippyblade]

That plastic bends beautifully with a little heat.  As thin as that is, a hair dryer would do the trick.  I use similar stuff, much thicker though, when building armor for stick fighting.

[harveybirdman]

That plastic bends beautifully with a little heat.  As thin as that is, a hair dryer would do the trick.  I use similar stuff, much thicker though, when building armor for stick fighting.

Nerd alert....

  

[vwalbridge]

That plastic bends beautifully with a little heat.  As thin as that is, a hair dryer would do the trick.  I use similar stuff, much thicker though, when building armor for stick fighting.

Nerd alert....

  

We need a LARP-ing thread.

In fact, just the other day I was at a public park and there were about 25 LARPers doing their thing. Full gear, acting, the whole bit. It was everything I've been told...and more.

[Vigo]

I've purchased all my Kydex Sheets from Amazon.com but you can also get an alternative product called ABS Sheets

Both available on Amazon.com and both come in multiple sheet thickness. Usually penny-thick or half-penny-thickness variants.

Both also are heat bendable with a heat gun. (This can be very tricky though)

Thanks for the tip, man! I got a couple sheets of black ABS from my work that I now know what to do with.

[Slippyblade]

Yeah - we've covered this before.  Not a LARP.

[vwalbridge]

Yeah - we've covered this before.  Not a LARP.

Wow, those guys are not fooling around. 

Makes the group I saw at the park look like kids acting out an episode of Dora the explorer.

[Slippyblade]

We aren't even the most hard-core, though we are the largest.  If you want to see some serious ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- - look up "Historical Medievel Battles".  Live steel, full contact, grappling, shield punching, the works.  That one is gaining traction internationally.  They require EMT personnel onsite at all times cause armor penetration isn't uncommon.

Sorry for the thread de-rail.

[vwalbridge]

I took a break from Qbert for a while but recently picked it back up and took it to the finish line. Mini Qbert is 100% finished. I have it running the following games in Hyperspin:

- Qbert


- FHMC Qbert (Faster Harder More Challenging)


-Qbert's Qubes


I've had some time to play on it and I'm pleasantly surprised how well it controls. The U360 performs very well for Qbert's unique joystick controls.

A big THANK YOU to everyone that followed my build. I'd also like to send a special "thanks" the following BYOAC members:

sellsellsell2000 for vectoring my Qbert Serial Tag

and

stpcore for the vinyl artwork and translite marquee prints.

[vwalbridge]

Here is a flood of final build pictures:

[harveybirdman]

Just might be non trad build of year.