Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph

[javeryh]

Looks GREAT.  The monitor issue stinks and I have no idea how to fix it but everyone says doing a cap kit is easy so maybe it won't be so bad. 

I'm sure you've said it before but how is Wreck-It-Ralph/Fix-It-Felix running?  Is there a ROM that runs in MAME or is it still a .exe file like it was a bunch of years ago?

[meyer980]

Looks GREAT.  The monitor issue stinks and I have no idea how to fix it but everyone says doing a cap kit is easy so maybe it won't be so bad. 

I'm sure you've said it before but how is Wreck-It-Ralph/Fix-It-Felix running?  Is there a ROM that runs in MAME or is it still a .exe file like it was a bunch of years ago?

Not to speak for UnclearHermit but the most common method is still running the leaked Disney copy of Fix It Felix which is a Windows .exe, often using the wrapper that Howard/The Dragon King made which lets you customize controls and other stuff. The game uses a plain old image sprite sheet so he edited one of the images to essentially "change" the title.

Unless someone codes a Z80/Assembly version of Felix I don't think it'll ever run in MAME    OR I guess if MAME starts emulating x86 Windows PCs!
There are some weird homebrew versions though, like one that runs on Genesis emulators. Not as good in my opinion.

[UnclearHermit]

I can't help you on sourcing the parts, but there are lots of good videos on YouTube showing how to do a cap kit. I'm especially a fan of John's Arcade. He often shows the full process, making some videos 1+ hours long but good for learning.

Thanks.  That's pretty much my plan, if I can source the parts.  I'm tempted to drop an email to some of the US-based sites selling the kits to see if I can buy the part list/instructions so they don't have to actually ship anything and I can then just try to order the individual caps locally.  Like I said though, I imagine this'll end up being a "later" thing.

Not to speak for UnclearHermit but the most common method is still running the leaked Disney copy of Fix It Felix which is a Windows .exe, often using the wrapper that Howard/The Dragon King made which lets you customize controls and other stuff. The game uses a plain old image sprite sheet so he edited one of the images to essentially "change" the title.

Yup, exactly that!  The cabinet will boot into that game, but allow exit to get to a selection of vertical games in MAME.  That's the plan, anyway.

I've been doing a bit of work on the control panel and come to realise that I have a small problem with the dust washer for the Servostik.  A DK control panel has a clear washer on top, black washer under the plexi, so nothing obscures the artwork and the hole is hidden by the black washer.  Because I'm not going down the original joystick route then things are a bit different.  The Servostik has a black dust washer that would cover the joystick hole, but it's so large (about 52mm) that it would cover the directional arrows that are part of the CPO art.  So I either need a smaller washer, or I need to mount it routed below the plexi (a bit worried about any potential damage to the reverse-printed art if it lifts at all) with a clear washer on top.  Obviously the EASIER route here is a smaller black washer, if I can source one.  I'm hoping that a plastic circle can't be that hard to find in some form.  I can find a few, but nothing so far that mentions dimensions.  My fallback is a joystick that I can pick up from eBay for under a tenner that looks to have a much smaller washer - an expensive way to just get a washer though!  That said, other places just selling the washers aren't actually that far off this price once I add in postage.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zippyy-Ball-Top-Short-Shaft-Arcade-Joystick-2-4-8-Way-Red-MAME-JAMMA/182485256588?epid=625059223&hash=item2a7cf8098c:g:Or4AAOSw~qxaufhC

[UnclearHermit]

Think I’ve sourced my dust washer...

[javeryh]

Think I’ve sourced my dust washer...

Focus Attack sells 38mm clear dust washers for $1.  Hit it with some black paint on the bottom and you are good to go.  That’s what I did and it came out looking great.

[ChanceKJ]

.

[UnclearHermit]

Yeah, I was worried about scratching.  I remember reading something from someone on here about putting a thin layer of felt on the underside of the washer.

So is your black washer between the plexi and the wood?  I take it that means the top of the wood is routed out slightly to take it?  I should stress my joystick is not original and is under-mounted, so right now there'd be a big hole visible without a washer covering it somewhere 

[ChanceKJ]

.

[UnclearHermit]

Thanks, yes, I'd seen that but got confused by the mention of metal washers!

I could easily route and put a washer under the plexi, and it is tempting so long as I don't get a mountain of dust that then manages to get down there during normal use and gather where it's harder to clean!

[ChanceKJ]

.

[meyer980]

Saw this sideart image today and thought of your build. Very much a play on Donkey Kong Jr. sideart. I love how fun it is.

I know it doesn't fit your theme/style at all but just thought it would be fun to share.

[UnclearHermit]

Nice, where was that from? Another project?

Meanwhile, I've been having fun in software-land.  The plan, which I've probably mentioned before, is to have the cabinet boot into Wreck-It Ralph, then drop back into Attract Mode for a bunch of vertical titles with MAME.  This requires a bit of jiggling around to get Windows shell out of the way and have as clean an experience as possible.  The easiest way to do this is to replace Explorer as the shell, but I decided that the best replacement would be a little executable that did all the bits that I need.  After a bit of (very bad) coding I now have a tiny program that I can run as shell that does the following:
- Fires up WiR
- When that closes, terminate some of the WiR executables that sometimes seem to linger.  I found that sometimes I'd be in Attract Mode but WiR was still running in the background, stealing about half the CPU.
- Launch Attract Mode.
- When that closes (Attract Mode does confirm exit first) then shut down Windows and hence the cab.

This means that the "hidden" button now powers up the PC, which in turn triggers the smart strip to light the marquee and power the monitor.  When Windows shuts down, the smart strip kills the power to the monitor and marquee.  So far, so good.

I've also been testing the ServoStik and making sure I can switch between 4-way and 8-way when I switch between games.  There's a plug-in for Attract Mode that does this, so that bit was easy enough, but at some point I found that the switching wasn't happening any more and had to look into it.  I first assumed I had a loose wire or even the the control board or motor had died, but eventually I found that the joytray executable that does the switching was no longer switching.  After some more messing around I figured out that this was because the Explorer shell wasn't running.  If I put Explorer back in place of my launcher then it worked fine.

It seems that joytray.exe does switching, but that it also puts a little icon in the system tray (hence the name, I suppose).  I can only think that it's trying to do this even when called with a command line parameter that's explicit in telling it just to switch, but it's failing to register in systray (because it's not running) and so just fails.  This was a concern.  If I could only have the rotation switching working with Explorer then it screwed up the whole custom shell approach, leaving me to fight with Windows and the desktop etc. all the time.  I had a quick Google around, including this site, and found someone who had hit something a couple of years ago but no resolution.

The only approach I could think of was to write my own switching utility, but I had no idea how to interact with the control board.  A bit more Google uncovered that people had written things for Linux, but I couldn't find anything for Windows other than mention of native integration with other launchers.  The fact that other people had written such integration at least meant it must be possible, so I went back to the Ultimarc site and then kicked myself when I found that there was an API on the site.  Armed with that it didn't take me long to knock up "joytraylite", which now just switches to 4-way or 8-way and doesn't go near systray.  A quick test with my shell showed it works a treat 

So I'm getting there.  I need to look and see if I can hide some of the quick windows that pop up when the WiR wrappers fire up, and I need to trigger joytraylite to 4-way at start-up (otherwise it could be in 8-way from the previous machine boot) but that's pretty much it on the software side.  The only other thing that this has raised for me is that it's a pain getting to the back of the machine to plug in keyboard/USB storage when doing any updates or troubleshooting, so I've just spent a few pounds on eBay for a little USB hub.  I'll route that so that it's permanently connected and mount the ports somewhere accessible from the coin door. 

[meyer980]

I just stumbled upon it! I was doing some research for a Donkey Kong 3 style game I'm working on and saw it on Pinterest.

A few google searches later, and looking closer. It appears to be made by this guy: https://cargocollective.com/dcay
And at least at one point sold it: https://twitter.com/slashfilm/status/929857462412263424

Can't find it for sale now though. Which is too bad, it'd be a great hanging piece in a game room.

You should consider sharing your joytraylite app. If it helped you, it may help others!

[UnclearHermit]

Happy to share joytraylite with anyone who needs it, although I'll warn that it has absolutely zero error checking etc. and so isn't going to be popping up friendly error messages if anything goes wrong 

[UnclearHermit]

A few updates incoming.

I've been keeping quiet about this, but the artwork for the cabinet was finalised around Christmas and I've been working with Olly over at https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ since on getting it into its physical form.  In January I had an exciting moment when this lot arrived. 



Unfortunately there were a couple of issues, one with the marquee (position/scale got a bit corrupted somewhere along the way) and one with the bezel, which was suffering with some kind of marking on the surface, which is apparently grease that's hardened under UV light:



It also wasn't helped by the fact that, in cleaning up the Illustrator file for printing, I'd managed to remove the colour from behind the lower part of the building.  You can see the window surround has the "correct" colour in the upper window but it's missing from the lower one.



Given the problem with the marking Olly kindly offered to re-print.  I took the opportunity to fix the building colour issue, and also to brighten up a few of the bezel graphics since they were looking a little dark when printed on the tinted plexi.  Olly also said he'd print an extra layer of white on the next run to try and help lift the colours.

In better news, the CPO was perfect and allowed me to get on with drilling the control panel.  I had this cut from ages ago, and had done an initial bit of priming/painting, but I'd been unable to go any further until I could get exact hole positions from the overlay.  I used the overlay to mark the hole positions, then took exact centres by aligning a paper print of the CPO with hole centres marked.



I've had the control panel retainer piece since I got the order from Mike's Arcade, but finally got around to routing out the back of the control panel and figuring out the position on the front panel.  I stuck it in place temporarily so that I could get the position/depth right, the screwed it on when I was happy.





Once I was happy with the position I drilled and fixed it into place, and was then able to test putting the control panel into place and making sure the retainer worked as expected.  Needless to say, my routed hole ended up being slightly too far forward so I had to widen it a couple of times until I got the panel moving into place cleanly.

[UnclearHermit]

I just had to try quickly assembling it at this point...



On the rear side, I marked for the joystick and drilled/inserted the blind hole mounts.



So then I just had to actually add some controls to this thing and put in in place   My original paper print is above.



No wiring in place at this stage, so it's just a temporary showcase.

Meanwhile, the replacement bezel arrived.  Opening the package I was instantly a bit worried when I noticed some kind of tear in the top-left.



Upon closer inspection, the paper has been sliced by a break in the corner.



So it seems somewhere in delivery somebody dropped it hard or, more likely, actually trod on it



Again, Olly at https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ was fantastic and got to work on another replacement.  Meanwhile, I was at least able to use the bezel to figure out positioning of the bezel supports and the retainer bar.



I used little spacers to allow me to hold the side supports in place in the right place as I let the glue dry.

[meyer980]

Seeing artwork for the first time might be the BEST part of a build. And yours (the stuff that survived) looks excellent.

Super minor, but with all the red, I think a black ball-top on the joystick would look a little better. IMO

Anyway, great stuff.

[UnclearHermit]

I know, it's a great moment 

Black joystick ball is a very likely alteration.  It's in keeping with the cabinet's DK and FF roots, but being a Nintendo joystick the ball is slightly smaller.  I've been on the lookout for a smaller, black ball to replace the red one that came with the Servostik.  So far I can only find 35mm ones.  Worst case I'll grab one of those at some point down the line if I can't get hold of a smaller one that'll fit on the same thread.  I just haven't jumped at it yet because I didn't want to waste money if I could find something better.

[meyer980]

Looking a second time, did you get your CPO printed directly on plexi/glass? Cause if so wow! It looks slick. I didn't know you could essentially get remade DK CPO's with custom artwork like that.

[UnclearHermit]

Yes, it's reverse printed directly onto the plexi.  Looks REALLY good.  Just going to keep saying https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ for those in the UK!

[ChanceKJ]

.

[Arroyo]

It’s nice to see you keeping the build quality and materials really high.  There is a tendency  to try to go cheap when building these cabs and I think a lot of people regret it afterwards.  Those graphic prints look top notch.

[UnclearHermit]

 

Moving on, some miscellaneous updates.

Controls all wired.  This part is slightly extravagant (but really not, given the overall cost...) but I'm using a U-HID mounted onto the control panel to keep all the wiring local.  It allows me to easily disconnect by removing the USB leads that go to the U-HID and the Servostik control board.  It didn't seem worth looking at other connectors when USB did the job perfectly.



I can't find photos of this bit, but I ended up routing out the MDF on the top of the control panel to allow the dust washer to sit underneath the plexi.  So there's nothing on top of the plexi now, and you just see the washer directly underneath.  I'd already painted the top side when I made that decision, so ended up marking the surface enough that it needed to be repainted.  It's not a big piece so it wasn't a major disaster.  The surface of the MDF is just primed, rollered in cheap black and finally sprayed, with the roller texture sanded level before the spray coat.  The spray coats were high-grit sanded to give a nice finish.



Changing topics, whilst testing the cabinet I've had keyboard and mouse and USB storage plugged into the PC that's mounted where the PCB would normally be.  I figured I didn't want to be pulling the cabinet out and removing the back every time I needed to tweak for whatever reason, so I bought a cheap USB hub from eBay, de-cased and mounted it inside the coin door.  Terrible photo, but you get the idea.



Next, the now obligatory serial plate.  There's plenty written about these elsewhere, but in summary this is printed on a clear label and then mounted on thin aluminium sheet.  The aluminium is just thin enough to make it possible to cut with repeated passes from the knife coupled with a bit of bending.



Mounted it looks like this, which is plenty good enough for something that only the wall is ever going to see 



For the monitor surround I used thin paper to help template the curve of the monitor. 


Once I had a decent enough template I cut the card version.  I did the mullet at the same time, which is more more straightforward.  I tried mounting the mullet with little glue dots (like double-side tape but thicker, and in dot shape) but a few started to lose grip relatively quickly so I resorted to staples.  I was hoping to avoid the permanence of staples.





The monitor surround looks a bit bumpy in this photo but it's settled flat into place now.

The only think I don't like about this setup is that the monitor gives off a fair amount of heat and this heat now has nowhere to go.  Previously it could have escaped out of the rear handles, but now it's totally enclosed with the mullet behind and the marquee shelf above (and the bezel in front, obviously not pictured!).  Still, this is how it must have been with the originals, so hopefully it's fine.

Pretty much there now.  I few final photos and, inevitably tweaks aside, I think this is game over 

[meyer980]

Hey Unclear, check your PM's, I have something you may enjoy for your cab.

[javeryh]

This is such high quality work.  Lots and lots of details that not many people will ever see or notice but it all adds up into something special.

[lomoverde]

It looks very professional,i hope to have the skills one day.

[vertexguy]

Unclear Hermint:  Thanks for posting those pics of your serial plate.  That's one thing I was still trying to figure out and now you've given me clues on how to do it.  Did you use a laser printer or inkjet with Avery clear stickers?  Also I'm thinking maybe another layer of some clear laminate spray or thin sheet over the top of it might be needed to keep the ink from fading over time?  Look fantastic!   

[meyer980]

Unclear Hermint:  Thanks for posting those pics of your serial plate.  That's one thing I was still trying to figure out and now you've given me clues on how to do it.  Did you use a laser printer or inkjet with Avery clear stickers?  Also I'm thinking maybe another layer of some clear laminate spray or thin sheet over the top of it might be needed to keep the ink from fading over time?  Look fantastic!   

Hey Vertex, I did a write up on using this method (or very similar) on my website. https://sergiostuff.com/2018/07/22/custom-arcade-serial-plate/
I also include some design files people can use if they don't want to make their own. I used an inkjet printer and Krylon Triple-Thick (a light coat) on mine.

[meyer980]

Resurrecting this thread cause I'm super curious if this got finished up. Would love to see some beauty shots - it was looking to be one of the cleanest Nintendo style builds ever

[UnclearHermit]

Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

[EvilNuff]

Love the progress, excited to see the finished product!

[javeryh]

Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

Ahem...

[SpaceAce83]

Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

Ahem...

Unfortunately July 22, 2022, 06:32:37 pm was the last time UnclearHermit was active here. Hope all is well with him and he is enjoying his Wreck-It Ralph cabinet.