Moonshot!

[Token]

No pic update--

Replaced original joystick switches with GroovyGameGear's SmoothJoy™ switches - This made all the difference!
Replaced original red balltops with GGG's Hand-Candy™ bright white balltops
Finally figured out how to get LEDBlinky to work with SKJukebox by manually editing sound driver install files

Still waiting on artwork prints from stpcore. Stuff came up on his end, and then I thought I replied to one of his emails but hadn't... long story short, I am still planning on full art and controls install by Christmas, but just barely.

[harveybirdman]

I approve this shameless bump! 

[BGoulette]

I approve this shameless bump! 

As do I, but totes not because I'm excited to see the artwork printed out, "made flesh," as it were

[Token]

I think the USPS lost my printed artwork. 

Stpcore mailed it on Dec. 9. It should have been here on Saturday.

Most worrisome is that USPS hasn't scanned it once in the past six days. Calls have been placed to the customer service line ("We can't file a trace until it has been five business days without delivery") and the last (only) post office that scanned it ("Let me go look for it and call you back" = No call back.). I just called the regional USPS office to try and get something done ("Leave a message").

Thankfully stpcore insured the shipment.

[vwalbridge]

Oh, I hear ya Token.

USPS in my area is totally worthless and incompetent. They have lost countless things of mine and I had zero recourse. Good thing you have insurance.

[Token]

Artwork arrived today.
Looks amazing.
Family visiting from out of state.
Sending this message from bathroom.
Only quiet room left in house.
Will install and post pics later.

 

[Frank Drebin]

If you're concerned about cutting perfect circles, I'd copy EMDB's method of using a bottom bearing flush cut router bit.  Little extra work but it turned out great.  Tried on my own artwork and can confirm.  You can always test with the bleed.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=130690.150

page 4

[BGoulette]

Just posting to say I got an unexpected (but welcome!) note from Token in the mail today! Thanks! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

[Token]

Just posting to say I got an unexpected (but welcome!) note from Token in the mail today! Thanks! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

The Moonshot cabinet is a huge hit with the family (we are hosting 16 people this year). It is pretty much running non-stop all day. Mostly Mortal Kombat for the teenagers and Golden Tee for the adults. The artwork looks amazing! Our guests can't believe the art is one of a kind.

I've tried to take some good pics of the installed art, but the room is too dark. I need to find my real camera.

[vwalbridge]

Time to bump this up. Give us some updates on Moonshot.

Gimme.

[BGoulette]

+1 :-)

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[harveybirdman]

I just sent an order to stpcore, better get us an update soon or I'm gonna upstage ya! 

[Token]

You want some pics, eh?

My goal was for the cab to have finished art installed before the family flew in for their Christmas visit. This year we hosted a total of 16 people for two weeks at our house. Lots of kiddos and a few game-loving adults. But the 2-day USPS delivery took 8 business days (and plenty of complaints to the USPS) to arrive. By that time the family was already here and playing on the cabinet. When art arrived, the cab was decommissioned for the art install.

A few caveats-

1) The T-molding was trashed when I acquired the cab. I will redo at some point in 2016. Your ideas for colors are much appreciated. 
2) There are still quite a few finishing details to take care of. There is a hole in the coin door where a bill acceptor used to be. There is also a hole where the player's card reader used to be. There are also some chips and nicks here and there.
3) I really screwed up one area of the CPO install. When the CP was just sanded ply, the trackball mounting plate looked fine. Once I installed the art... well, you can see the plate is not perfectly flat and level. It shows through the art.
4) Yes, that is black construction paper in the back-lit instructions window (between the speakers). I know that is a perfect space for a second screen, but the more I think about installing one, the more I don't want one. Do I really want to run CPWizard? This cab has RGB LEDs and LEDBlinky for control instructions. Feel free to try to convince me one way or another about a second screen.
4) I suck at taking photos.

So the cab isn't 100% complete, but all software, hardware, wiring, controls, and artwork are done!

I can't say enough about BGoulette's artwork. 


That is stpcore's printing. Marquee on translite (this pic shows it without the marquee light on and it still looks amazing!), and CPO on vinyl laminated with polycarbonate. This cabinet was used at least 4-6 hours a day for two weeks. The CPO stood up great.

Lots more pics in the next few posts!

[Token]

I think there are two things interesting about this project- BGoulette's retro line art, and the vertical mounted widescreen. Here are a couple pics showing under the hood of the screen is jammed in there.

Here the speaker/instruction card panel and the tinted glass have been removed. With the CP open, you can almost see the entire screen. Only the middle of the TV screen is visible when this is all closed up. The plywood near the top is to block the light from the marquee light from glaring on the TV screen below. Is that electrical tape on the TV frame?! Yes it is. It was a temporary way to black out the metal frame, but with the tinted glass you can't see it at all, so its staying put! 



This TV is 42". It fits, barely, in this cab. Griff somehow jammed a 50" plasma into his build. He is also rich and insane. This pic shows one of the few pieces of interior framing that I kept from the original cab. It holds the glass and has a nifty cut-out for your finger. I had to cut it out and relocate it, which required some pocket holes (Kreg Jig  ).


For anyone trying to mount a vertical widescreen, the powerstrip utility is a must-have. Keep in mind that some emulators don't play nice with this set-up in full-screen mode, but Hyperspin and MAME do just fine.

[Token]

I have neither the ability nor patience to wire a control panel like Chance. Here's the evidence--



What's in there? Two crappy Zippyy joysticks (with upgraded soft switches from GGG), 16 RGB Classic pushbuttons from Ultimarc, the original HAPP trackball, an Ultimarc I-Pac Ultimate, and a mess of wires.

[Token]

You all convinced me to go with original art. You helped me layout the controls. Thank you! It turned out great.

I replaced the red balltops with GGG white replacements. Neither balltops nor trackball are LED backlit (like the buttons), but when the cab is off they all look like they were made to go together.



Yeah, see the trackball plate? BGoulette's art makes up for my mistake there.

And the control layout looks good and plays fantastic! Golden Tee and Street Fighter play equally well on this PGA Tour cab. I have no need for other admin buttons or even shifted keys. That's what this is for--




This pic does not do the marquee justice. It looks so nice backlit. And I can't remember who originally posted the pincushioned scanlined Williams S. Sessions splash-screen, but thanks because I love it as my windows background.

[Token]

Hyperspin runs in a custom 768x768 resolution. Horizontal MAME games run in 768x576. Vertical run 576x768. Or maybe I got that backwards. You get the idea.

Hyperspin



Horizontal (with terribly photographed game-specific RGB buttons powered through the body of an I-PAC Ultimate and the brain of LEDBlinky).


Vertical with instruction card


Vertical without instruction card


Vertical with bezel art


Yes, I have played quite a lot of this cabinet's spiritual ancestor (It plays OK with two joysticks, but analog would be nice).

[harveybirdman]

Just put a mesh grill between those speakers. You don't need a second monitor.

Get orange, blue, and white t-molding samples and pick your favorite.

[harveybirdman]

Oh and 

Looking real good!

[Token]

Moonshot has no 3rd or 4th player. No spinner. No lightguns. No steering wheel.

But I did put in a jukebox.

SKJukebox


Its a bunch of Top 40 hits that you might find in a juke back in the day. There is a strict cut-off at 1989.

If you put a jukebox in a MAME cabinet, you probably need a numpad. Cordless is nice. MAME defaults 5 and 6 as coin1 and coin2. This makes selecting songs in the jukebox challenging if they contain numerals 5 or 6. But numpad 5 and numpad 6 are distinct from regular 5 and 6.




That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed all the pics of the luxurious 1950s paneling in my den.

Thanks to all who offered encouragement and advice in this thread! You really made this project so much better than it would have been by myself.

I know BGoulette would appreciate some help with his cabinet fund, so give that dude some work! He does great art and is a pleasure to work with. 

[alexkyriak]

Token, absolutely awesome project mate, love it. Great attention to detail and quality.

Am interested in your use of the tv in the vertical. I have a few queries:

1. What is the max resolution of this tv?
2. Is the screen resolution aspect ratio controlled with standard windows resolution control or via dedicated graphics card application? Looks to be an Asus specific app to your graphics card?
3. Does the tv turn on automatically when you power up the cab?

Thanks! 

[yotsuya]

This TV is 42". It fits, barely, in this cab. Griff somehow jammed a 50" plasma into his build.

I've seen the cab in person. It's huge. He probably had room to spare.

He is also rich and insane.

Well, this too....

[Token]

1. What is the max resolution of this tv?

Off the top of my head, I think its 1366x768. I can check later to make sure.

2. Is the screen resolution aspect ratio controlled with standard windows resolution control or via dedicated graphics card application? Looks to be an Asus specific app to your graphics card?

Powerstrip allows you to set all kinds of crazy custom resolutions and has limited ability to re-position the visible screen. I was able to mount this almost perfectly centered where I needed it, so I didn't have to re-position much. If you need more re-positioning than powerstrip allows, Retroarch is probably the way to go.

3. Does the tv turn on automatically when you power up the cab?

Yes. I'm using a smart powerstrip. The CPU is plugged into the "master" outlet. The monitor, marquee light, and speaker amp are plugged into the secondary outlets. When I power on the cpu, all secondary outlets receive power.

[alexkyriak]

Thanks a lot, Token. Was also thinking of running a large portrait format to allow vertical games to run in a big format, whilst not disadvantaging landscape format games (hence using oversized screen). 

However, was interested to see your custom resolution solution of 768x768. The tv I am thinking of using is 1920x1080 pixels 42 inch. To appropriate your technique would yield a 1080x1080 square. Presumably this could be set at 1080x1440 (once tv is physically rotated into portrait) to maximise width and height in this format assuming a 4:3 ratio.

What is the rationale for the square 768x768 resolution and how does it relate to the aspect ratios of the various games? I understand your glass screen masking correlates to the screen resolution once centred using powerstrip?

Cheers.


Ps. Insane artwork by the way.

[vwalbridge]

Looks like a fun cab to play on token. Some blue side-art to compliment that control panel would really be nice.

So now that you have played it for a while...what games do you find get the most action on it?

[Token]

Looks like a fun cab to play on token. Some blue side-art to compliment that control panel would really be nice.

So now that you have played it for a while...what games do you find get the most action on it?

Side art... I know. It needs that and T-Molding to really pop.

I was worried it wouldn't get played much after I finished, as the kids have their phones, the Wii, XBox, etc. But even after the holidays ended, it still gets played every day. We will see how long that lasts. I'm making an effort to try out a lot of games I'd never played before in the arcade. For example, I had never touched a game of Joust before this build. Lots of famous and not-so-famous games are getting a few tokens.

Games getting lots of tokens so far-
Mortal Kombat (by the visiting cousins)
Golden Tee (by the visiting adults)
Street Fighter II
Maniac Square (just played by me for the high score competition here on BYOAC)
Metal Slug games
Lunar Lander
Donkey Kong
Mille Miglia 2
Pitfall 2

Nobody seems very interested in Shmups.

The MAME gamelist is being aggressively trimmed. Guests were definitely overcome with decision paralysis when they first turned on the cabinet. I also removed a bunch of systems and then a guest mentioned how great it would be to play Colecovision, so I had to add it back (temporarily). Super Mario World (Super Nintendo) gets a ton of play, so I guess the Super Nintendo stuff can stay. I'll leave Dreamcast, as a lot of those are arcade ports that I like. MUGEN refuses to work in full screen at a 4:3 aspect ratio with my sideways screen, which is a shame. The kids love fighters.

The Jukebox is played about as much as the games. I think my plan to indoctrinate my children with cool older music is working, but I greatly regret putting "Surfing Bird" in the mix.  At least I left off  

[harveybirdman]

Nobody seems very interested in Shmups.

BLASPHEMY!

[BGoulette]

Nobody seems very interested in Shmups.

BLASPHEMY!

Yeah, you need better friends. And family! 

[harveybirdman]

yeah I mean... Surely there's SOMEBODY that said, "Yeah, but can it play Galaga?"

[Token]

Nobody seems very interested in Shmups.

BLASPHEMY!

Yeah, you need better friends. And family! 

My youngest daughter loves Bells & Whistles, the cutest Shmup ever, so I guess there's that...   

yeah I mean... Surely there's SOMEBODY that said, "Yeah, but can it play Galaga?"

Yeah, it got played. Lots of other classics too. But nobody camped out on those games.

[yotsuya]

Rule #22 in this hobby: No one gives a crap about your favorite games/genres, they just want to play Galaga.

[Peabo]

Very nice build!  Love the use of the vertical tv

[scoodidabop]

Rule #22 in this hobby: No one gives a crap about your favorite games/genres, they just want to play Galaga.

lol! Totally accurate.

[Token]

It's time to set-up a power-button.

I want it to fit the cabinet thematically. I'd really like it to have a cover.

Feel free to chime in with ideas/suggestions.

As cool as the covered toggle switches are, I think it needs to be a pushbutton.


That hazard tape is terrible, but something along these lines might work.

[Token]

Just found some more ideas on Amazon.


http://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Switch-Mushroom-Button-Station/dp/B008ZY9CXE/ref=pd_sim_328_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41op6-qWdAL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0QH2GD478T9F2Y272M3Q


http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Momentary-Button-Switch-Cover/dp/B0094GM1O4/ref=pd_sim_60_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=414c%2Bg7qo7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=1YC95ZBGVR7SGPM2170M

[vwalbridge]

A little pricey, but another option:



Another pricey option:

[yotsuya]

Those are interesting. Most people hide the power button out of sight.

[Token]

Those are interesting. Most people hide the power button out of sight.

Yeah, that's the backup plan. I would like to find something that will nicely cover up the player's card reader hole in the front of my cab.

A little pricey, but another option:

Those are ridiculously good looking. Thanks!

[vwalbridge]

Hey Token,

2 Questions:

1. How are you powering on your TV inside of Moonshot right now?
2. Does powerstrip allow you to set very precise windows resolutions...like say 1800x1080? And then only have that portion shifted directly to the left or right of the screen? Does that make sense?

[Token]

1. How are you powering on your TV inside of Moonshot right now?

I have a hole in the front of the cab where the players' card reader used to be. I mounted the old Dell's power button inside there.

2. Does powerstrip allow you to set very precise windows resolutions...like say 1800x1080? And then only have that portion shifted directly to the left or right of the screen? Does that make sense?

Yes, very precise windows resolutions are doable. However, they are automatically centered. You can adjust the position on screen, but in my experience if I try to move it around too far off-center everything crashes. YMMV. My TV is mounted almost centered, so my custom resolution is only a couple inches off center.