The FPTG! (Four Players To go). A mobile, full-size Panel and Dock.

[griffindodd]

FTPG: 4-Players To go.

This will probably be my last full scratch build.

Goals:

- Compact 4-player CP with spinners and trackball.
- Removable CP with all hardware built in and fold-up telescopic legs.
- Low profile base cabinet with 34" true 4:3 screen area
- Dynamic Marquee
- Display shelves for memorabilia and knick-knacks
- CoinOPs FE - Forgotten Worlds Atarashii 2 Max

Hardware:

- Main Screen - 55" Hisense U6 4K LED TV
- Marquee screen - 29" LG Ultrawide 21:9 Monitor
- Computer - Mini PC Ryzen 7 5700U(8C/16T, up to 4.3GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM 512GB M.2 2280 NVME SSD
- P1 and P2 - Ultimarc Ultrastiks + button harness
- P3 and P4 - Sanwa 8-way
- 4x TurboTwist Sci-Winder Aluminum Arcade Spinner Controls
- 3" Illuminated Trackball
- Spectra Eclipse Illuminated Bezel Pushbuttons
- Pacto 4 X-Input board

[griffindodd]

First step, laying out the screens and the basic dock. The dock itself is only 14" deep keeping the footprint as minimal as possible.

Main screen has a custom 4:3 resolution, rotated 90 degrees in Windows. This allows true 4:3 and a 34" play area without the cabinet being overly wide.

[griffindodd]

Up on it's feet, testing the basic layout of the docking cabinet. CoinOPs looks great and takes away a lot of pain when it comes to setting up a new cab like this, as long as you are happy with their curation of games.

[griffindodd]

A quick video of attract mode.

[griffindodd]

As this cab will be the last one I add to my bar, I wanted to make sure it fits in with the general Movie and Gaming vibe of the room. Instead of doing the traditional cabinet face, I decided to use the space to display goodies that make the whole thing a little more fun.

Black paint on and mahogany stain for the shelving area.

[griffindodd]

I used a carbon-fiber style car body wrap for the sides of the cabinet, just something clean and generic as I didn't want to have any specific art style.

I added LED strips under the shelves to light them up and show off various movie-themed collectibles.

[griffindodd]

Tiling out the CP on my home printer, layouts done in Illustrator. For a 4-Player build this is very small, I had limited space for this machine and 99% of the time it will just be 1-2 people playing on it so I opted for a slightly 'tight' layout when it comes to P3 and P4.

[griffindodd]

Routing sucks. But it's my preferred method to mount the sticks, and of course you have to do it for the trackball.

[griffindodd]

Cutting the acrylic to match the base - more mess and nasty routing noise.

[griffindodd]

All the controls mounted along with my artwork and acrylic top. I did the art in photoshop and got it printed at a local Staples on their large-format printer. I'm pretty happy with the look, but oh my is glossy black ever a fingerprint magnet.

[griffindodd]

Ughhhh wires and control boards. I de-cased the Mini PC and mounted it on the underside of the CP as I want everything to be self-contained.

[griffindodd]

Starting on the CP base, I want to keep this as low-profile as possible to reduce weight and make it a little easier to move around.

[griffindodd]

Sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding.

[griffindodd]

Matching carbon fiber wrap on the base, looks pretty clean. Piano hinges on the back and supports, starting to look like something decent now.

[griffindodd]

I have a mixture of bulb ratings for illumination, both 5v and 12v, so I used a splitter off the external power supply then buck converters to bring the 19v feed down to 5v and 12v for the button lights

[griffindodd]

Waiting on some more pieces to arrive before I move forward, mainly the folding and telescopic legs. These will allow the CP to stand on it's own fully independent of the main screen dock/display.

Three advantages,
1 - You can pull it out to make more room for 4 players when needed.
2 - When you take the CP to another room/friend's house it is freestanding.
3 - The vibrations from over-excited gameplay won't knock over all the models on the display shelves below.

[javeryh]

Awesome. I really like the minimalist artwork on this. Construction looks really nice too. It's amazing what a nice vinyl wrap will do to finish off a project.

Are your joysticks mounted a little low or is it just the pic? It looks like there would be a sizable gap between the top of the plate and the artwork/acrylic and the art might sag or wrinkle over time or am I crazy?

How easy is it to set up the main monitor with the square playfield and pinpoint it where you want it to appear? Is there a step-by-step tutorial out there on this? I want to do something like this eventually but I have no idea where to begin.

Great job and it's nice to see a new project! 

[griffindodd]

Are your joysticks mounted a little low or is it just the pic? It looks like there would be a sizable gap between the top of the plate and the artwork/acrylic and the art might sag or wrinkle over time or am I crazy?

How easy is it to set up the main monitor with the square playfield and pinpoint it where you want it to appear? Is there a step-by-step tutorial out there on this? I want to do something like this eventually but I have no idea where to begin.

Hi,

There are large dust washers that sit between the joysticks and the artwork so they level out pretty well, doubt there will be any sagging.

I used the AMD graphics software to make a custom resolution of 1440x1080 rotated 90 degrees. The image just appears in the center of the screen, you can't move it with software so you need to physically mount the screen just right to have the picture in the correct place. Not sure if there are any tutorials, I originally came up with this technique back in 2016 or so, I don't know if many other people also tried it after that.

[emphatic]

How many 4 player spinner games are there to play on a panel like this?

[griffindodd]

How many 4 player spinner games are there to play on a panel like this?

Lol almost none, but I am a HUGE fan of 4-player Warlords as I used to own the original cocktail machine. When I play it with friends, everyone has to throw down a dollar at the beginning of each game and last man standing takes the pot - it gets really LOUD really quick and is a blast at parties. Certainly extravagant considering those spinners are about $85 a pop but that's just my silly little preference.

[PL1]

How many 4 player spinner games are there to play on a panel like this?

The first one that springs to mind is Warlords, plus Car Polo and Tournament Table.

If you want to include a 4P racing game, there's Sprint 4.

There are also 3-player games like Off The Wall and driving games like Super Sprint, Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road, Hot Rod, and Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat.

To really go over the top if he has 2 pairs of Atari 2600 paddles with USB PC adapters, maybe he can play an 8-player game of Sprint 8.      

https://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/Multi-Player_Games


Scott

[griffindodd]

Aye, I guess you could include some of the isometric/top-down drivers but I gave Super Sprint a try and it was very difficult with the spinner, maybe if I dial down the sensitivity for that game it will be better.

[griffindodd]

Added these color matched dust washers and shaft covers, they add a nice bit of polish to the look.

[TapeWormInYourGut]

I'm not sure how mobile that is over any other cabinet, but it looks good. I don't understand the 4-player question though. Some of my favorite games are 3 and 4-players; Gauntlet, Ninja Turtles, Simpsons, NBA Jam, and Rampage.

[griffindodd]

Mounted the CP to the sliding brackets so when it's docked it looks like a pretty regular cab. This way it can be close to the screen for 1/2-player games and it can be pulled further out to make more room for 4-player games.

[griffindodd]

I modified the artwork that comes with CoinOps Deluxe as it is designed to fit a 16:9 screen. I wrote a script that went through all 800+ layout and image files for the bezels and cropped+resized them to fit my dimensions of my 1440x1080 screen.

[emphatic]

That control panel mod is genius.