BitKit awesomeness... my 1st vertical cab build!

[bobbyb13]

So now that I understand enough that I ACTUALLY should have been allowed to start trying to build something-

The (frustration associated with the) complexity of my other projects has led me to wanting to build a few cabinets that I can just walk up to, flick the power switch and then play.

Round 2 of that paradigm has become...

BitKit!

I will say first that if you have a vertical JAMMA cab and don't own one of Aaron's boards then you are probably doing yourself a huge disservice.
Really inexpensive for how cool and easy it is, and there are so many good games on it already that for an old schooler like me there are certainly many hours of squandered time built in 

And so, finally now I am refining cabinet builds to bare bones necessity (thanks to a lot of failed trial and then wisdom offered by other byoac crew) and it all makes putting something together happen relatively quickly now- when I have time that is (but that would be another thread...)

Anyway, to me, a solid base is a 25"x31" piece of 3/4" cabinet plywood with a frame of 2x4 above and casters below.
NOT hard to do (as long as you have a flat/level section of floor- which I don't sadly.)



Choose your side panel profile.
I spent a lot of time with graph paper, pencil and a protractor to defile a Rock-Ola cabinet design to come up with this outline that better fits in the ArcadeLoft above the workshop.
The knee-wall and limited space are a challenge anyway and it was hard to find anything other than off angle pictures to work with to try to recreate a Rock-Ola feel.
Apologies to purists of course, but I am dealing with a dire situation out here and I'm no Billy Idol, but-  I want my MTV!!!!



I ALWAYS agonize about control panel layout and this is no exception of course.
Just when I thought I had it sorted out with a separate dedicated 8 way and 4 way stick with this button layout for ambidexterity...
Then the Ms. Pac-Man Twin thing happened.

So NOW I am at a Mag Stik Plus left and a dedicated 4 way leaf right.
Still with ambidextrous Button 1 and 2 layout with dedicated Vanguard  4 button layout on right side.
Works great this way actually.



To make sure it all works I HAD to mock up a panel and see, right?!
This may not be the final layout but I can sort out if everything works at least.



Proper 19" arcade monitors do not exist in my world.
If I had an un-spendable pile of $$ and could just buy something from the mainland and not care that it cost $1000 to ship to me it would be ok, but other than that I may as well live on Mars.
Best I can do currently is scrounge as many consumer tubes as I can (ironically, sadly most out here are Trinitrons and huge-) and hope for yokes that match whatever I can buy for chassis while I figure the rest of this crap out.
Who knew what a rabbit hole the CRT thing would come to be?!

Desperate times, desperate measures.

Universal Chinese arcade chassis (while I sort our something more authentic and robust I hope?!)

Tuned with Aaron's other brilliant work, TPG 2.
If you want to play with CRTs (and why wouldn't you?!) you need to own one of these.



After I had sorted out that I could actually build a functional screen it was time to cram it into the box.
A few bits of 2x4 and my funky frame plates-



And it actually fits.
Mounting depth measured to make sure I can get a proper bezel and some plexi over it eventually.



I'm stoked it plays already!

[wp34]

Very nice Bobby.  Looking forward to seeing how the CP turns out.  I have a 4-way BitKit cabinet and have been kicking around building an 8-way. 

You CRT solution is very interesting.  I didn't realize you could use a generic chassis with a TV.

[wp34]

Here is the BitKit Facebook group if you are interested in such things.  Aaron posts updates on new games there.  They also occasionally have high score contests.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bitkit

[lomoverde]

Universal Chinese arcade chassis (while I sort our something more authentic and robust I hope?!)

Tuned with Aaron's other brilliant work, TPG 2.
If you want to play with CRTs (and why wouldn't you?!) you need to own one of these.

Hey bobby,looks like yet another nice build on the conveyor belt. 

Can i just ask what pairing a tv with the chassis does.Ive seen them chinese ones on Ebay. Would it improve a TVs performance ? or is it just for connectivities sake ?

Like you,on my island its not easy getting hold of stuff others take for granted.

[bobbyb13]

Here is the BitKit Facebook group if you are interested in such things.  Aaron posts updates on new games there.  They also occasionally have high score contests.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bitkit

Thank you for the link!
 

From what I can tell, except for Sony Trinitrons (which are too fancy for our tube/chassis swapping purposes) a tube is a tube really.
I have a number of tubes to try to match necks and yoke values with so it's worth a shot at franken-monitors in my neighborhood.

Apart from just not being able to buy a real arcade monitor to begin with, I'm using this generic chassis here for a few reasons that make my BitKit build really easy.

It is new and I know it will work (for a little while at least!)
JAMMA harness connection to the chassis only requires splicing the wires for Red Green Blue Ground and Sync to the plug that the chassis came with.
The chassis can work with the signal the BitKit puts out- no converter or signal booster necessary.
The monitor automatically fires up when I power up the cabinet- no separate hard to reach power switch or remote for the TV turned arcade monitor.

I imagine that there is little/no improvement over the original one in terms of picture.
Chances really are that this new one is not as well built as the original.

It IS however a much simpler design so maybe that will help with longevity and it has an array of adjustment pots that makes it easy to tune.

I won't be running it 18 hrs a day so we'll see how long it lives.

Only part I didn't like is there is no automatic degaussing circuit on the board, but that's nothing a decent size speaker magnet can't fix.
 

[Zebidee]

Bobby, good work.

I've used some generic chinese chassis with generic TV CRTs, but always had issues. Excessive "blooming" and "jailbars" among them. Done lots to try and improve things, but only minor success. Might come down to tube/yoke vs chassis issues. Anyway, these experiences led me to look closer at doing component modding TVs instead and using GreenAntz transcoders. The quality I get with GreenAntz + component CRT TV is better than the Chinese RGB chassis + extracted CRT TV tube.

I like the way you've mounted the CRT, top and bottom pieces slide together to fit. You can cut the pieces a bit wider and the ~45 degree parts a little longer to accommodate a wider range of tube, and/or both vertical and horizontal orientations! Do you have T-nuts at the corner pegs?

[lomoverde]

Thanks for the explanation bud 

[bobbyb13]

Bobby, good work.

I've used some generic chinese chassis with generic TV CRTs, but always had issues. Excessive "blooming" and "jailbars" among them. Done lots to try and improve things, but only minor success. Might come down to tube/yoke vs chassis issues. Anyway, these experiences led me to look closer at doing component modding TVs instead and using GreenAntz transcoders. The quality I get with GreenAntz + component CRT TV is better than the Chinese RGB chassis + extracted CRT TV tube.

I like the way you've mounted the CRT, top and bottom pieces slide together to fit. You can cut the pieces a bit wider and the ~45 degree parts a little longer to accommodate a wider range of tube, and/or both vertical and horizontal orientations! Do you have T-nuts at the corner pegs?

Thanks Andrew.

What sucks is that I keep stumbling onto old TVs and they ALL are either composite or RF input chassis.
Even half the Sonys oddly.

I've been so busy with the distractions of being an adult that I have had practically no time for fun stuff.
Wanting to play more than I am building has been a desire recently so just trying to get a few boxes working quickly has been the goal.

When work settles down a bit I have a few years worth of fun projects stacked up that I look forward to getting back to.
One of the projects will wind uP being learning to rgb mod these TVs with no component inputs!

That tube is just screwed into those wood plates with #14 coarse thread stainless for the moment to get the thing square in the box.
I planned on going one screw at a time to pilot for the t-nuts but this seems strong enough actually so not sure.

And no problem lomoverde.  The display part of this hobby is proving to be the most challenging so far but is getting to actually be fun instead of just frustrating!

What island are YOU on?
I got to spend time in Mallorca once and I loved it there.

[lomoverde]

Yes Im in Mallorca mate,originally from Liverpool,but last 27 years here.

So busy just now as its the summer season,but am reading up here as i can.New things keep piquing my interest.Was interested by the tube swap thing,but think its not relevant to my ideas.

wherabouts in Mallorca were you ?

[Zebidee]

Thanks Andrew.

What sucks is that I keep stumbling onto old TVs and they ALL are either composite or RF input chassis.
Even half the Sonys oddly.

I've been so busy with the distractions of being an adult that I have had practically no time for fun stuff.
Wanting to play more than I am building has been a desire recently so just trying to get a few boxes working quickly has been the goal.

When work settles down a bit I have a few years worth of fun projects stacked up that I look forward to getting back to.
One of the projects will wind uP being learning to rgb mod these TVs with no component inputs!

That tube is just screwed into those wood plates with #14 coarse thread stainless for the moment to get the thing square in the box.
I planned on going one screw at a time to pilot for the t-nuts but this seems strong enough actually so not sure.

RGB mod TVs if you can, but don't forget that modding component inputs is often easier    Find out what jungle chip each TV uses then google up some datasheets and schematics.

Your corner screws are probably strong enough until the next earthquake or whatever, but T-nuts will be stronger and spread the load better, so less chance of wood splitting.

Yes Im in Mallorca mate,originally from Liverpool,but last 27 years here.

So busy just now as its the summer season,but am reading up here as i can.New things keep piquing my interest.Was interested by the tube swap thing,but think its not relevant to my ideas.

wherabouts in Mallorca were you ?

lomoverde, welcome to the club of BYOACers living in remote/exotic locations!

[bobbyb13]

Yes Im in Mallorca mate,originally from Liverpool,but last 27 years here.

So busy just now as its the summer season,but am reading up here as i can.New things keep piquing my interest.Was interested by the tube swap thing,but think its not relevant to my ideas.

wherabouts in Mallorca were you ?

Only place I've been in the Mediterranean (I recall that your average Mallorquian isn't happy being called "Spanish") and you live there..?!
One more thing to add to the list of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- I don't have to make up. 

I was at a little farm upland from Deia- easily 15 years ago- can't remember the name of the farm.
Visiting my girlfriend's mom's long time friend who had a few acres of olives and goat pasture there.

Can't remember her name but she was German and apparently a famous chef who had her own cooking show.

Beautiful peaceful place, really great food... I had problems adjusting to the time schedule of life there though!

And Andrew, I would MUCH prefer getting a GreenAntz for every one of my component tubes rather than risk blowing them up with a botched rgb mod. 
I need to get/make time to build my groovy kits and hone my soldering skills.
This month...

I piloted screw holes for that tube, but you are right about overall strength.
I really should T nut the thing.
It has a dynaflat tube currently though so I am stalling.
That may get swapped out if that generic chassis can properly drive one of the latest two regular old convex 19" tubes I just found this past week.

There is geometry weirdness I can't quite tune out of the dynaflats that is beginning to irritate me.

And lomoverde, if you can find old school tubes there anywhere you are stoked because they will be scart !

[Mike A]

You are doing a good job of being productive.

Nice work.

[lomoverde]

Only place I've been in the Mediterranean (I recall that your average Mallorquian isn't happy being called "Spanish") and you live there..?!
One more thing to add to the list of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- I don't have to make up. 

I was at a little farm upland from Deia- easily 15 years ago- can't remember the name of the farm.
Visiting my girlfriend's mom's long time friend who had a few acres of olives and goat pasture there.

Can't remember her name but she was German and apparently a famous chef who had her own cooking show.

Beautiful peaceful place, really great food... I had problems adjusting to the time schedule of life there though!


And lomoverde, if you can find old school tubes there anywhere you are stoked because they will be scart !

That is indeed a beautiful part of the island.My son has an away football (soccer) fixture in Soller which prob near where you stayed,we do enjoy that day out.

The mallorquians are deffo a breed apart,I think of all the slow clocks in spain,the mallorcan clock runs slowest. 

The CRT TV situation is actually great as you say.I can pick up a 14" for about 20 euro. Bit smaller than is ideal but not bad for the Tullys i have planned.Whats the thinking on flat screen CRTs in cabinets? Is it a no-no ?

[lomoverde]

lomoverde, welcome to the club of BYOACers living in remote/exotic locations!

Without wanting to clutter up Bobbys thread,can i ask where you are ?

[bobbyb13]

lomoverde, welcome to the club of BYOACers living in remote/exotic locations!

Without wanting to clutter up Bobbys thread,can i ask where you are ?

Please don't anyone ever be concerned about 'cluttering up' any thread that I have started!
Tangents can lead to great things in my book.

My life itself (enjoyable in spite of the occassional bit of chaos) has been nothing but a seies of diversions as it is.

And thanks Mike A.
Learning this hobby has been another life lesson in achieving balance.
I'm still kinda blowing it. 

And lomoverde, there are others here with much more experience with these things, but I can say from mine that if you are using the original chassis with a flat crt the look isn't absolute arcade perfection to a purist- but it is certainly far better than an LCD !!
If you are trying to use an arcade chassis (which apart from some of the later larger monitors were all built for the geometry of a convex domed tube) with a flat tube then I'm not sure anyone but an engineer swapping out some parts on the pcb will ever get the picture tuned in perfectly.
The corners will always have some foldover and/or twist it appears and betting perfect focused convergence overall appears impossible.

But still, FAR better look than an LCD from my seat.

[Zebidee]

lomoverde, welcome to the club of BYOACers living in remote/exotic locations!

Without wanting to clutter up Bobbys thread,can i ask where you are ?

I'm hiding in the sleepy green hills of rural Thailand 

[lomoverde]

lomoverde, welcome to the club of BYOACers living in remote/exotic locations!

Without wanting to clutter up Bobbys thread,can i ask where you are ?

I'm hiding in the sleepy green hills of rural Thailand 

Wow!! That I would never have guessed.

[Zebidee]

I piloted screw holes for that tube, but you are right about overall strength.
I really should T nut the thing.
It has a dynaflat tube currently though so I am stalling.
That may get swapped out if that generic chassis can properly drive one of the latest two regular old convex 19" tubes I just found this past week.

There is geometry weirdness I can't quite tune out of the dynaflats that is beginning to irritate me.

Just been re-reading stuff I probably missed before when I had a few whiskeys in me 

Geometry/convergence for flatscreen tubes is always difficult, and one reason gamers often avoid them. They are fine unless you are a perfectionist, and still worlds better than an LCD! Ironically I'm using a 21" Sony flatscreen component TV for testing my Mister +  GreenAntz right now (looks completely awesome, geometry is fine).

I also see that you're using a TPG 2 test image generator. I should probably grab one too.

[bobbyb13]

After using it, the TPG2 seems like a must have for hoping to get this stuff right (certainly for me anyway.)
Especially since I hope to be getting into monitors a bit deeper soon!

To Aaron's credit, one of the (many) cool things about the BitKit is there is a small group of test patterns built into the board.
Not as thorough as the TPG2, but certainly makes dialing in your monitor easy.

All my other machines will need the TPG2.

NO idea what I will be doing in regard to the vector monitor I hope to build sometime.

[Zebidee]

Normally I just plug in a CRT_EMU enabled PC to test, but a TPG2 would be very portable and convenient

[bobbyb13]

Normally I just plug in a CRT_EMU enabled PC to test, but a TPG2 would be very portable and convenient

Oh... there is still so much I don't know-

At least that would account for the PC builds Andrew (once I get them fully sorted out that is-)

I really love my TPG2-
Though mastery of it will take time I see.

All poetic asides aside, HOWEVER...

Although quite bland for many, I made some more progress on the BitKit cabinet- which I haven't had time to post- which now again reminds me of the distraction thread 
Anyway-

I stumbled onto another few 19" tubes that are NOT Dynaflats- and figured I would have a shot at getting them functional with the generic Guangdong chassis and dialed in.

It appears that the flat vs. convex thing is meaningless as regards this chassis- although I have NO idea what the hell I am doing to begin with, and to make it more fun, I have no schematic and can't read hanzi either- so who knows what in the name of all that is righteous that I am fiddling with.

I can only guess based on what the picture does when I screw with the pots (and hoping I don't blow anything up.)
When I get it as close as I can to perfect I appear to still have trouble with a bit of folder at the top (right side?!) of the screen and a bit of horizontal (vertical?!) shift.
This IS a vertical cabinet of course- and I have no idea if the nomenclature addresses the monitor orientation or not.
Yeesh-

Here she is at least, and it is fun to play even if it isn't perfect (yet- or probably ever really I suppose)



Anyone know what the hell this chassis is and where I can find a schematic for when I destroy it?



Mostly because I have NO clue what the labels for these pots read- and it appears to be important because I let the magic smoke out of (at least) a diode on the 2nd one of these chassis I got that I was testing out on the OTHER convex tube I got- to try to swap into the Multi-Williams...



At least I got THIS one built.



And functional !



Takes a little adjustment to get the board happy with the display, but Aaron's setup walk through is pretty thorough- so no biggie.

And at least a few people here will appreciate that I got a real coin door in it.
My son moaned a little bit when I told him that he would need to show up with quarters to play it.   

I may not ever tell him about the player 2 double tap credit cheat.



I also need to re-orient the Vanguard button group as Mike A was kind enough to take time and shoot me pics of his original CP with a scale so I can get that arrangement faithful to original.
Thanks again Mike 

I'll hammer in a bit of T-molding and then up to the ArcadeLoft she goes to wait for some artwork.

And so then... anyone interested in a bug-gut green Rock-ola style artwork commission for this?
I would like a marquee, screen bezel, and control panel suitable for this machine and I'm happy to adequately compensate anyone with time/skill/desire.

It REALLY is fun to play.
Especially because you need to drop a quarter into it.
 

[Zebidee]

Looks awesome Bobby

Only real concern i had with those generic Chinese monitor chassis was the blooming - picture size changes when brightness fluctuates rapidly. Cause is poor high-voltage regulation, but there isn't much you can do about it. Also found "jailbars" with one tube (faint vertical shadows at left side), again not much that could be done about it.

Component-modded TVs give better results

My Chinese chassis was a Wei-ya schematic (1820H, 19") clone, identical schematic but the physical layout had changed. I had to actually look through lots of schematics and compare to the board to work that out! Yours looks different again, not sure.

[pbj]

Took some clear, level photos of the writing and run it through google lens.

[Mike A]

Coin door in a full sized cab or GTFO.
Nice.
After hosting many parties with 2 dozen machines I have found myself offering a compromise on coins. Kids find ways to even jam up the anycoin mechs that I use. So I bought a thing called easycoinup. It is a membrane switch that looks like a quarter. You mount it next to the coin slot and people push the button for a credit or they can still use coins.
I will post a writeup when I get some time.
Nice work fiddling with those generic chassis. I hope they hold up for you.

[pbj]

This may help some

[Mike A]

I first did that years ago at a WWII days reenactment.

The German camp had all of their signs in German.

My dad was amazed when my phone translated the signs live.

My mom practically thought it was witchcraft.

[javeryh]

This cabinet is shaping up very nice.  Looks like a very well-made cabinet with crisp lines and everything.  You absolutely nailed the classic look and the vertical monitor just makes me happy. I wish I had your motivation! 

[bobbyb13]

As always thank you everyone.

pbj, never even crossed my mind that could be done.
Good get- helps immensely!

The alternative coinup sounds like a good plan really so look forward to seeing that Mike A.

And yeah, I realize these chassis are the bastard children of the crt kingdom but I figured if they even work for a little while they are a relatively cheap and guilt free way for me to figure out this part of the machines.

It has taken me a few years here to learn this was the machine I should have built first!

[CraftyMech]

I don't drop by BYOAC that often, so sorry I missed your BitKit build until now!

Real nice cabinet work, looking forward to seeing the rest come together.

Awesome you were able to roll-your-own arcade monitor so to speak, I've always wondered how well the Universal chassis work. Sounds like the picture is pretty good and you were able to get the image centered between the monitors own controls and the BitKit Options->Video menu?

Just let me know if you have any BitKit / TPG questions!

[bobbyb13]

I don't drop by BYOAC that often, so sorry I missed your BitKit build until now!

Real nice cabinet work, looking forward to seeing the rest come together.

Awesome you were able to roll-your-own arcade monitor so to speak, I've always wondered how well the Universal chassis work. Sounds like the picture is pretty good and you were able to get the image centered between the monitors own controls and the BitKit Options->Video menu?

Just let me know if you have any BitKit / TPG questions!

Thanks Aaron!
It looks ok from afar, but the floor in my shop is so crappy that it is racked pretty bad (by standards for my day job at least.)
But it still plays awesome even if the corner joints suck!

Having a lot of fun playing it while finishing it.
Just got around to putting in some T mold and constructing the marquee zone in anticipation of some artwork someday.



And the monitor alignment was not so bad really.
With this chassis at least I had to go back and forth between Nibbler and Vanguard working the horizontal hold and centering location a few times to get it good but not hard (even for me.)
Everything else I have played since that has been located nicely on the screen.

You had obviously seen the differences in centering with enough monitors to build all that function into the board- very cool feature.

And DigDug now too?!

Just updated my board a few nights ago so looking forward to playing that old favorite again.
It's cool to see how so many games can be reconstructed on a single board with the right chips and HDL.

Amazing actually.

I am sure to have questions at some point so I will be asking for sure.

Mahalo nui loa!

[wp34]

Looks great Bobby.  Really cool that you are going with the Vanguard buttons pattern.      

I need to build something similar so I can play 8-way games on my BitKit.