The Leavicade (DONE)

[Turbo23]

Going by the pictures I would say you really should inlay or paint the etching in the front. It is not standing out like it should.

Honestly, it looks just fine in person.  I'm most likely going to leave it as-is.  I didn't want it to to be a main focal point from the get-go.  It does stand out more that it looks like it does in the photos.

[Toxik Bones]

7/23/17


I didn't get as much done today as I wanted to, but I had other things to do tonight so I was short on time.  What I did get done was installing the marquee, installing the buttons into the front of the cab, attaching locator strips to the back of the glass for the monitor, and installing the glass.  To mount the locator strips on the glass I just used plaque tape, which is a strong, double-sided tape.  It's not supporting the weight of the monitor or anything.  They're just so I make sure the monitor gets mounted in exactly the right place. 


The marquee is just being held in with screws at the moment.  Once I finish installing the monitor I'm going to apply a black sealant to all of the interior corners and around the glass and marquee.  This will both help hold them in place and prevent any possible light leaks.


Earlier today I was thing think on how I was going to mount the controller encoder.  3D printer to the rescue again!  I printed out an enclosure and I'll mount it, probably, to the bottom of the control panel.


I really wanted to start on wiring tonight, but I ran out of time doing other, unrelated things, and I don't want to start on it at 2:30am.  Still, it at least looks almost complete.  I'm liking it.

I love that you even have a case for the xin mo board. I think this looks fantastic

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[Turbo23]

7/24/17


Exciting stuff today.  Got the buttons and joysticks wired up and tested, and it's now a rats nest in there.  Installed a hinge on the control panel.  Also got the monitor installed, which is a milestone for me because I've been wanting to knock that out for a while.  Last thing I did was apply black silicone around the monitor glass and marquee.  This thing is darn near finished now. 


I kind of switched directions on the control panel mounting.  I was originally going to mount it solely with the magnets, but it had a little wobble to it no matter what I did.  So I threw a piano hinge on there and it's much more secure and solid now.  I didn't really want to see a hinge back there, but it doesn't stand out too much and I'm fine with it.  It'll be easier this way anyways, when I have to get in there.  I just need to come up with a prop rod to keep it open.


The button wiring went pretty smooth.  The only problem with the control wiring was the diagram I had for the joysticks had them hooked up totally backwards.  Not a big deal, though.  I'm just glad this encoder is able to be tested on the PC with ease.  The wiring for the illumination was a little more of a hassle due to the polarity being different from button to button, but still went pretty quick.  One LED was DOA, but thankfully there was an extra of each color.


The monitor wasn't too bad to install.  The back has a removable plate which will make swapping it a breeze, should the need arise.  I have one extra monitor which is the exact same model so I can just detach one and attach the other if needed.  I simply glued and nailed wood strips to the sides of the cab, to which I screwed the board which is attached to the monitor's removable plate.  The monitor and wood attachment piece just went in as a unit.


I almost hooked up the Pi and fired it up, but I decided to wait until tomorrow for that.  Other than setting up the Pi, I have to cut back covers for the cabinet.  I didn't cut any of those when I did my initial cuts.  I think those are really the last two things I have to do other than cleaning up the control panel wiring a bit.  I'm actually on schedule for once!

[Turbo23]

I love that you even have a case for the xin mo board. I think this looks fantastic

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Thank you kindly.  I'm having fun with it, for sure.  Definitely helps with the little stuff to have the 3D printer here.  I have to pick up some screws to mount the board and it's case to the control panel.  I don't keep screws that small around here.  I'm really looking forward to unveiling this to my kids.

[lcmgadgets]

'Turbo' is definitely the right name for you! You're racing through this build, and it is beautiful!

...I guess my name should be 'turtle', or 'near dead'. Or maybe Lcm should stand for Lack of confidence, Confusion, and...Moron? I can't find a more relevant term that starts with M

[Turbo23]

Thanks, lcm.  It feels like it's taking forever.  I'm sure your doing better than how you make it sound!

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[lcmgadgets]

Thanks, lcm.  It feels like it's taking forever.  I'm sure your doing better than how you make it sound!
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Pffft! Someone pointed out today that I just picked my project back up, which started I announced in 2013, & haven't posted anything in for about 2 years! I'm sure mine is the slowest growing project on this forum. But I'm back, & I'm gonna get it done

[Turbo23]

Pffft! Someone pointed out today that I just picked my project back up, which started I announced in 2013, & haven't posted anything in for about 2 years! I'm sure mine is the slowest growing project on this forum. But I'm back, & I'm gonna get it done

Hey it's never too late to pick back up on it.  Personally, I just decide I'm going to do something and jump in, whether I know what I'm doing or not.  If I wait, I know it'll never materialize.  I also don't plan too much.  Mostly just figure out what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to do it, when the time comes to get it done.

[Turbo23]

7/25/17-7/26/17


I did most of what's been done in the past couple of days Sunday night, but I was messing with it until 4:30am and didn't feel like sitting here and typing afterwards.  I got Retropie set up and roms loaded.  It was a pain to get Retropie running, though.  Only because the monitor didn't like the resolution the Pi wanted to run at and would not give me any video.  It took probably an hour to figure out how to fix that, but once I did, the rest of the setup went fine.  So I've got a working machine now.  Loaded with MAME roms, NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Genesis, Game Gear, Atari Linx, and maybe a couple others so far.


I have a couple of problems I'm having the darnedest time figuring out, and Google is not being much help.  First off, most of the MAME roms will not work.  I think it's because they are not compatible with the emulator I inadvertently set as default when asked.  Now I have no idea how to change the default MAME emulator.  I have tried getting the runcommand menu to open at game selection, but it's not cooperating at all.  So I'd say, at this point only 10% of the MAME games will play.  I have the same symptoms when trying to play Super Nintendo games.  I select a game, it goes to the SNES loading screen, but then just kicks it back out to the games list.  So I have no idea what to do about that now.


The second problem is, in Attract Mode, all of these systems show up even though I have no games for them, which as I understand, is not supposed to happen.  I've even moved the roms folders for the systems I don't use, but they still show up.  Doesn't happen in Emulation Station - only Attract Mode.  I think I might be able to get rid of them the by editing the attract.cfg file, but haven't gotten around to it yet.


Overall though...  I'm happy that it's at least up and running.

[Dal1980]

Regarding turning off 'systems' i think there's an option in the displays setting for each of the displays/system. You shouldn't need to go into the cfg file directly on that one.

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[Titchgamer]

Regarding the roms:

They have to match the version of mame etc that you are using.

If you go on retro pie wiki it tells you which version it runs and how to rebuild the sets to work.

[Turbo23]

Regarding turning off 'systems' i think there's an option in the displays setting for each of the displays/system. You shouldn't need to go into the cfg file directly on that one.

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Ah yes, I see it now, thanks.  Much easier than editing configuration files!

[Turbo23]

Regarding the roms:

They have to match the version of mame etc that you are using.

If you go on retro pie wiki it tells you which version it runs and how to rebuild the sets to work.

I'll have to look at that wiki.  I didn't know there was one.  I just read the readme for the romset and it says to set the default emulator to mame2010.  I did figure out how to change the emulator on a per-game basis and the emulator called "MAME (ADVANCE)", which I'm guessing is mame2010, seems to work with at least some games.  I still need to figure out how to change the default emulator for all of the mame games.  Thanks for the info.


I have to put a back on this cabinet so I can move it inside this weekend.  I can envision cats jumping in and sleeping or peeing in it if I don't.

[Turbo23]

Well I'm calling it.  I'm still working on a software side a little.  Trying to get the SNES games to work, but I downloaded a different MAME rom set and most of those work so I'm sticking with that set.  I unveiled the unit to the kids today and they freaked out.  Almost exactly a month of nightly work on this and I'm happy with the result.  It's been a fun and educational first build.  Now I'm kind of sad to not have it in the garage anymore, so I'm thinking of building another one to keep in here since it's where I spend a lot of time.  Thanks to anyone who took the time to read through this thread.  I'm glad to have a log of what all went in to this build.

[JudgeRob]

Congrats man.  You should be proud to crank that out in just a month.  Thumbs up!

[Dal1980]

Awesome! Well done, and done well

I'd heard on the grapevine that pi can support the latest set 187 or 188. That's all I know as I've not had a chance to check this out or even validate the rumour. Thought Id pass on the chatter for what's worth. Someone's bound to come on here correcting me no doubt haha.


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[Titchgamer]

Great stuff

[n3wt0n]

Looks good!   

[Turbo23]

Thank you, guys.  It's been a journey.  I've been planning on uploading a video, but haven't had time.  Looks like I may be building another one sooner rather than later.  I showed the photos to my boss at work and he offered me $3000 to build him one.  I think I might take him up on that if he throws in a car canopy to keep my love... I mean my car out of the rain while I work on it.

[Smoke-Inator]

Nicely done!

I'd take 3k off my boss...nothing like taking cash to hang in the garage

[JudgeRob]

Since he can make it a tax write-off, you should get at least $5K. 

[Richie_jones]

Wow a month excellent work..

[reptileink]

I read through the entire build log, and I was very impressed. Of course, helps when you have all the fun toys to play with

My only let down was the fact that you used an asteroids theme instead of leaving it something custom. Was really digging the wood grain look, and the etching, but I can't complain much as it's a beauty to look at regardless.

 

[Turbo23]

I read through the entire build log, and I was very impressed. Of course, helps when you have all the fun toys to play with

My only let down was the fact that you used an asteroids theme instead of leaving it something custom. Was really digging the wood grain look, and the etching, but I can't complain much as it's a beauty to look at regardless.

 

Thanks, reptileink.  A few on here are critical of my choice of using graphics instead of lasering certain parts.  Criticism doesn't bother me, and I always welcome any of the constructive variety, but I do like it the way it is.  I thought about doing my own custom graphics as well, but when I found these, they just fit perfectly with the look I wanted to do so I decided not to go ahead with that.

Now that it's been in here for a little while, and I've had time to look it over many times, I've decided I'm not changing anything.  I had a backup plan to possibly do a lasered control panel, but I'm keeping the graphics.  The only thing that's bothering me about this thing is a still can't get the snes or game gear games to work.

Anyways...  I'm on to number two now.  About to get started on a cab for my boss.  Told him to give me two months, but I intend to get it done much sooner than that.  I don't think I'll be doing any kind of build thread on that one since it'll be mostly the same as the LEAVICADE.

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