Wall-e

[jlfreund]

First some background.  My last build in 2011 was a complete refurb of my first UA2 cabinet from way back in 2006.  The first cab had a bunch of HW problems, so for the second cab, I gutted and replaced everything with nice stuff (including a new Makvision 32" CRT".  That worked well for a year until I brought it in to work when I had to move out of my house during a remodel.  Some people at work loved the game, but at some point a lot of items got trashed: the keyboard tray, CP mounting, arcade guns, and computer software were all completely broken beyond repair.  Also, when I moved back into the house, and later re-finished the garage with nice stuff, I decided I did want a nice arcade game, but not the footprint of the big UA2 from 2006.

I started thinking about this project a year ago after finishing some other home projects.  The concept I had in mind was to build a more compact wall mounted cabinet ("wall-e").  I used a hacksaw to cut about 8" off one of my garage door rails, took some wall-mounted garage cabinets down and shifted everything on that wall 8" to the right to make room for wall-e.  Since I planned to put an arcade at that spot when the garage was going up during the remodel, I had coax, ethernet, and power in the wall, but had to open it up to move all the outlets to the right place.

One of my goals for this project was to double the arcade as an entertainment center for the garage.  To that effect, it will have a 32" TV so we can watch TV while on the treadmill facing that wall.  It will also have a Roku, Tivo mini (networked to the main Tivo), HDMI switch, speakers, amplifier, headphone jack, and bluetooth transmitter to round out the entertainment features.

All those parts will be new, as well as the trackball, and some buttons. However, I was able to salvage and plan to re-use many parts from the old machine that are still mint, including: Marquees, backlight, and marquee clips, SmartHome master power bar, 2 Happ rotaries and interface board, push/pull spinner and interface board, Happ 4way, and hopefully the arcade guns and ultimarc minipac (not sure if those will work yet). 

[jlfreund]

Some part info:

I got this TV for free at BestBuy from a promotion when I bought my family room TV a couple years ago. 
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/UN29F4000AFXZA

Topping TP21 Amplifier $80. I was able to find a shaft extender (no jokes, please) so I can mount the knob outside the cabinet.  But more on that when we get to that part of the story.
Topping-TP21-Digital-Amplifier-Headphone

I also plan to get this Bt transmitter so we can watch TV and listen to music without disturbing others
Miccus-Home-RTX-Bluetooth-Transmitter

Not sure what to use for the HDMI switch yet.  I bought this one, but it's pretty flakey in that the auto-sensing is easily confused.  I read that this is a common problem with HDMI switches.  Ideally, I'd like to get one with NO auto-sensing so that you have to use the remote control to switch inputs.   But I'm still looking for that part.
Etekcity HDMI 4 Port Switch with Wireless Remote

Read good things about these, so got em:
Poly-Planar Gray 3-Inch Round Flush Mount Speakers

[jlfreund]

Also, just wanted to give a shout to 2084 for his Out of Wall Space projects which were the inspiration for this one.  BTW Robotron is my favorite game.  I printed out his panorama wall picture for my project folder and refer to that for motivation

-Jason

[jlfreund]

My CP Top will be a sandwich with unfinished MDF on the bottom, a layer of printed artwork, then a 1/8" sheet of acrylic.  I'm using the same artwork and CP layout as my last cabinet, except this one is about 8" narrower.  This weekend, I traced a paper template of the CP top and delivered it to Tap Plastics for cutting.  I think last time (5 years ago), the same job cost about half as much (current price $150) but it's probably worth it since I've had so much trouble trying to drill holes in 1/8" acrylic by hand.

I also bought a sheet of 3/16" acrylic for the bezel today and it fits perfectly.  I used a jig to route a little groove all the way up the sides of the cabinet to slide in the bezel.  To remove the bezel, the top panel of the cabinet just pops off (it's resting on little dowel rods) so you can slide the acrylic sheet up and out.  The TV's VESA mount will be bolted onto a 10" high MDF board spanning the cabinet and holding the TV flush up against the bezel.

The CP itself also is just designed to slide in and rest on the cabinet.  I reserved 3/4" space around the inside edge on the bottom to attach a little wooden guide underneath to help hold the panel in place so it shouldn't jiggle around  while playing.  You can kind of see a pencil trace on the CP photo where those wooden guides will be glued on under the CP top.  But I'm still a little concerned that the whole panel might jump up while playing.  My friend made a bartop with the same drop-in CP top design, and it's solid most of the time, but when I get excited playing Robotron on his machine (it's an exciting game), I've had the CP top jump up a few times.  I do want the CP top to be very easy to install and remove (and the cabling will be designed for easy disconnect), but if anyone can think of a scheme to lock it down (without sacrificing the easy installation or look of the cabinet), please let me know.

As you can see the woodwork is complete (including the nice keyboard tray), and I hope to finish filling holes, sanding and prepping for paint next weekend.

Jason

[TheDude]

Like it so far !Good job

[jlfreund]

Thanks, dude!  Time for an update...  I've been working pretty steadily, maybe a couple hours per week for the past couple months.

I struggled a bit with how to mount the cabinet to the wall, and the monitor to the cabinet in such a way that it would be easy to service, and came up with a compromise.  The cabinet would be screwed into the wall so it's tight and secure.  But the monitor would be easily removed so I could get back there without messing with anything.   This is where I think I came up with the best innovation for the project: using dowel rods as hangers.  The monitor easily drops onto a set of 4 pegs on the side of the sides of the cabinet.

Another thing that worked out well was mounting the control panel top onto the cabinet in such a way that it could easily be removed.   The top-most panel is also resting on dowel rods so that it can pop off revealing troughs routed out in the sides where the bezel (which rests on the CP top) can easily be slid up and out.  With that out of the way, you can just lift the CP top off the base.  It has 2 guides on the left and right edges to allow for a really snug fit, which I think should survive years of my poor sportsmanship playing robotron.

You can't see from the photos very clearly, but I've mounted the volume control knob, headset jack, master power switch, and 2 USB ports (for the Aimtraks) on the sides of the cabinet. 

The part that didn't come together as well as I hoped was the painting.  I've always been nervous about the finish, and originally thought I could bypass this step by using commercial grade laminated particle board (the stuff they use to make modern furniture) but I chickened out, and instead opted to try spray painting laminate.  Even though I used bondo, filler, sanding, and 2 coats of primer rolled on, the spray painted finish was a mixed bag.  If you stand next to it and examine the sides, you can really see every imperfection of the wood that didn't quite get sanded away perfectly.  Maybe one day I'll cover the sides with nice side art (or plain black laminate) -- then I think it could still come out looking perfect.

Next steps: wiring the underside of the CP top, adding the compy, tivo, roku, smart power strip, speakers, marquee..  To be continued...

[Locke141]

This looks nice so far.

[mgb]

Oh I get it, "WALL"-E

looks good so far

[jlfreund]

Merry Christmas to me!

Just as I predicted, I finished just in time for Christmas (yay!).  Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result, and I'm looking forward to the long tail of tuning all the games and game lists, etc.  Here's the retrospective:

PRO's :

• Love the built-in Tivo Mini which gives me all the live TV, recordings, and streaming apps while on the treadmill.  I bought and configured the cabinet to use an HDMI switch with remote control (for Roku/PC/Tivo) but ended up not needing the Roku because the TV has all the streaming I need
• External volume control knob works really well, though just for the PC output.  Tivo still routes through TV's volume (by choice)
• Form factor and color palette came together pretty well.
• Like having the powered USB hub built into the CP.  It allows for only 2 wires from CP to cabinet.
• Love the accessibility of the design.  The top panel of the cabinet and the marquee slide up and out, the monitor rests easy and pops off it's mounting pins and the control panel rests snugly on the cabinet.
  

CON's:

• The Bt trasmitter (see above) didn't work out of the box (couldn't pair any Bt headset).  So it's not in the cabinet now, and I will probably need to monkey around with it later
• The old gen Tivo Mini seems to have an older, fussy remote that doesn't work well through the cabinet.  I think they make a USB dongle and Bt remote, so I'll look into that.
• After extending the headset jack from the mini amp to the cabinet, it cuts out normal audio (even though no headphones are plugged into the extended jack).  So I had to unplug the extension even though the cabinet still has the audio jack on the side.  Not sure if there's a way to fix that?
• So far, not able to get my Turbo Twist Push/Pull buttons to work in MAME.  By default, they map to Left/Right mouse button which don't seem to be recognized in the mame config menus.
• I'm still haunted by MiniPac problems.  I'm on my 3rd Minipac and all of them have had a lot of problems. My most recent one barely works for my machine in that a lot of wires just don't work, so I had to pair up a lot of controls and just barely had enough wires.
  
• After adding a chrome ball and stick to my Happ pacman 4way, the joystick sticks in every direction.  So the 4way is currently useless.  Not sure if I will have to take apart the whole CP sandwich to get inside the joystick and see what's wrong (or replace it).  That would be a huge bummer as I spent a long time wiring that thing up.
• Somehow after measuring about 3 times, I still managed to hang the cabinet too low (for me; it's perfect for the kids, but I built it for moi; kids these days don't appreciate quality video games).

I guess you're never really *done* with a MAME project -- I'm sure I'll discover many more problems as I break in the machine

Jason

[jlfreund]

Note, built an "alternate" starwars control panel for this one here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,164511.msg1732909.html#msg1732909