LeapinLew: Arcade1up to Gorf - 100% Complete!

[leapinlew]

Good news,  - I'm going to use the Pi. I tested with Mame 2000, and Mame 2003 and those experienced some serious slow downs. My last attempt was Mame 2010 and it works fantastic. The basic steps to get the Pi to work for this is something like:

1. Download the latest Retropie build and write to SD card
2. Install Retroepie as normal
3. Setup Wifi Locality
4. Logon to Wifi
5. Enable SSH
6. Download optional package Mame 2010 to run Gorf at Arcade speeds
7. Download a vertical ES theme
6. Putty into Pi and setup the monitor to a vertical configuration "sudo nano /boot/config.txt" and add in one of the following: display_rotate=0, display_rotate=1, display_rotate=2 or display_rotate=3 (0 is the normal configuration. 1 is 90 degrees. 2 is 180 degress. 3 is 270 degrees.)
7. I'm using HDMI, so I modified the sound settings to force it out the Pi instead of HDMI sound "sudo amixer cset numid=3 1"
8. Setup the controls

Some of these steps may not have been useful as I may make it boot into a single game.

[wp34]

Are you going to go with a trigger joystick?

[leapinlew]

Are you going to go with a trigger joystick?

Yeah, one of those mini-trigger joystick deals. It's a little more clicky than I like, but it seems ok for this job.

[leapinlew]

I'm pretty much waiting for artwork now. The Pi is setup.

This is where I left things tonight.

You can see I installed the coin door. I got the X-Gaming coin door because it was sized appropriate for this cabinet. Got it here: https://shop.xgaming.com/products/arcade-coin-door-with-coin-mech-ships. I had to touch up the gray base paint once complete.

Since I'm going to tilt the monitor back and paint the inside with the Gorf blue, I painted the monitor insets and put in the top under marquee panel. You can see more clearly how it's going to look in this pic:


The Pacman bezel is sitting in there not secured. It's just there to demonstrate the angle of the tile. Some of the black space in the monitor area will be painted blue, speckled, and will be trimmed out. The t-molding is coming in, and so is the artwork. Probably got 2-3 hours of actual work left. I'm happy how it's looking. Should be a nice compromise between a full size Gorf cabinet and a cabaret.

[PL1]

It's a little more clicky than I like, but it seems ok for this job.

Next time you order from Paradise Arcade Shop, get four of these 20G switches to replace the clicky 125G switches.
(Pretty sure it's the same switch that they used in their old LS-32/Zippyy quiet switch kit.)

https://paradisearcadeshop.com/home/electrical/components/microswitches/zippy/747_lever-arm-zippy-microswitch-20g

You might want to "tune" them by bending the the green zone on the arm a few degrees so it's closer to the actuator ==> less wiggle room.



Green zone = OK to bend
Red zone = Avoid bending


Scott

[leapinlew]

Thanks for that. I’ll take a look at my inventory. I may have some of those or something else! 

[leapinlew]

Artwork is in! I managed to put the bezel on last night (applied artwork to existing Pac-man bezel), but haven't had a chance to apply the CP artwork, or the lower marquee. I did order some side art, but I'm not happy with it. I'm going to leave the sides blue and go sans-side art.

Running low on motivation on this project. The Raspberry Pi is doing a fine job playing the game. The last tweak I want to do is to boot straight into Gorf. I found a way to do it, but when I do it I'm losing my controls. I haven't done much research yet, and I'm hoping for an easy fix, but worse case I'll use a menu to navigate to Gorf first. My to-do list is getting smaller:

• Paint blue inserts and trim out
• Modify the Pi to boot into Gorf
• Control panel: apply artwork and mount controls
• Mount innards: mount monitor, speakers, lower marquee light
• Clean up: clean, tidy wires, set volume level, etc

[leapinlew]

So who is everyone using for Artwork nowadays? Souldraw has been good to work with, but I can't get past their $35 shipping. I can't order small stuff, I wait till I have several things to order. I would like an inexpensive supplier of art located in the states.

[leapinlew]

Finished the Raspberry Pi today. Getting it to boot into a single rom isn't too difficult. I logged into the system and modified the autostart.sh file

sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh

And added this to the top of the file

/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ mame-libretro ~/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gorf.zip

Good to go! The only struggle for me is deciding if I want it to be free play or not. I want free play to avoid putting credits on, but I like the attract mode of Gorf.

[pbj]

No attract mode = GTFO.  That's 95% of the ambiance.

Add a credit button.

[javeryh]

This thing is coming out great!  Really neat conversion and the coin door finishes it off.

Glad you could get the pi working.  After setting one up for a bartop, I’m not a fan - I am not smart enough to get it to behave exactly like I want and I hate that the config menus are always there so someone can mess with it.  For one game only though it is perfect.

[leapinlew]

No attract mode = GTFO.  That's 95% of the ambiance.

Add a credit button.

I guess that's my thought too. Just makes more sense when someone else says it. Thanks!

Momentary contact push button ordered.

[yotsuya]

I have those pushbuttons that look like coin reject buttons. I should sell them, I ain’t gon’ use them.

[leapinlew]

Painting today. Trying to use painters tape. I have mixed results with painters tape and getting clean lines. I've tried frog tape and different methods of securing the tape. I'm really hoping this creates clean lines because my plan to fix any bleeding is to trim it out with some 1/4" black trim.



Finish line in sight! All I have to do now is speckle the blue with some other colors and mount the internals.

[leapinlew]

I tried pulling it while it was wet and there was bleeding and it pulled up the paint in a few spots. I clean the material, I use higher end painters tape, I press securely and rub the tape in multiple directions - I just don't have a good method.

This is a pic of the bleed through. The different colored blue paint is from where I touched it up.



Looks like I'll be trimming this out to hide the imperfections. No worries. It'll look better trimmed out anyhow (I just wasn't looking forward to doing it).

[yamatetsu]

The next time I use frogtape I'll try this.

Another quick industry tip. If using frog tape, (and this goes for any application) the way it seals the edges to provide a clean line is technology used in diapers. It is an absorbent powder lined on the edge of the tape that expands when wet. So to get the crispest lines possible on frog tape, do the following...

Lay the tape down on whatever surface like you would any painters tape.

Take a sponge or a paper towel and wet it until damp.

Then run the wet sponge across the edge you want sealed.

This  will activate the powder and give it time to really seal the surface it is stuck to. Then Paint as usual. You will find it leaves a better sharper line. And to avoid any razor blades I remove the tape when the paint is still wet.

[leapinlew]

Didn't want to do it today, but I found some time to trim out the blue. It's not perfect, but it looks pretty good to the naked eye. The paint was just re-touched up when I took these photos so there are some wet spots. I took some artistic freedoms when I trimmed it out. I wasn't trying to replicate it exactly.





I knew trimming it out would be better than just painted on, so I'm glad it's done, but I really didn't want to do it. Now on to control panel and final assembly. Should be done soon.

[leapinlew]

All done!

I was able to make a couple changes, and most I've been happy with. For the player 1 and player 2 start buttons, I went with black instead of white. Black makes more sense to me since the joystick and so many accents are black. See for yourself!



The viewing angle is great. When standing the view is unobstructed by the joystick or the marquee:


Happy with the lower marquee:


Here are some other images to show where it's at in the game room. Pretty sure Defender is next. I'm going to make it a stand alone like Gorf.








All in all, the artwork turned out well. I skipped on lighting the ranking because the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. I skipped the side art all together. Even blank it's better than the original side art. I think an opportunity was missed there, but I had to finish this instead of stuck on some side art that never existed.

Glad I have a Gorf now. I've been talking about it since 2006 when I first joined. Gorf was a good game that I could get a lot of value for a quarter back in the day.

[leapinlew]

Quick lessons learned:

• Gorf has an awesome freeplay mode. It still does all it's attract sounds and gameplay.
• Setting up the raspberry pi for this function seemed good. I'd do it again. (Love the scanline filters built in)
• The Arcade1up's are made with 1/2" MDF. Not my favorite size for MDF and it proved problematic when cutting the slot for the T-molding. Since the Arcade1up's use pockets to insert the panels, the material gets very thin.

I'd recommend converting an Arcade1up for some folks who are scared to go whole hog with a full cabinet build. It was nice to carry this cabinet from the workshop side of the basement to the game room by myself without any strain.

[tokko_tomcat]

Hey LeapinLew! Great job on this Gorf Arcade1up conversion!

I'm sorry for replying to this post...but I was really curious about that riser design you came up with.

I tried to mock something up using the pictures you took and even made a small model out of foam and I wanted to compare it with what you created for this conversion.

Did you manage to save any more pictures of the riser from this project?

I think it'd be an awesome design for taller Arcade1up gamers out or people who just want a more traditional looking cabinet...and, like you said, not forced to wear a boot.