Sorta off topic

[wescotte]

I've in the process of building a mame cab and thought it might be cool to attempt to create a bar style dartboard. Simply using custom software that I'd write along with an ipac device for the actual input in a cabinet I create. Anyways.. I was wondering if anyone had any experience doing this or knows anything about electronic dart board parts. I'd assume you have a board with a pushbutton type device behind each section of the board which I could hookup to an ipac device for input into my pc? Anyone have more info? Am I completely wrong? Or know of any good resouces for such a project?

Thanks
Eric

[rampy]

I assume you mean soft tip dartboards...

It seems like quite the undertaking, especially charting virgin territory... although I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying ( If someone woulda said that they were making a rotating controlpanel and it would look nice, I wouldn't have believed it.... )

I've seen dartboard parts sporadically on ebay (just recently saw some parts... (sorry no link) and thought about building for a second... then thought that someday I would buy a full one for my future arcade (way future... ubercade stands alone in my living room now... someday... someday.....)

If the key part is the software and the casing... maybe you could take a cheapo 29.99 walmart electronic dart board, and instead of a cheapo cheezy led display rig up something more interactive with a lcd or monitor...
kinda like capcom bowling, but with real darts, and tons of games like cricket, 301, 501 and some other lesser known ones...

is that kinda what you were looking to do, take an existing soft tip board and electronics and interface it to a PC?

good luck
rampy

[wescotte]

Well the key parts would be the case and the software true. I have a lot of ideas for creating custom player status and sounds and whatnot but I'd prefer to stay away from a cheapo board which is why I'm considering this undertaking in the first place. I have friends with $50-100 electronic boards that seem to be full of little problems. The board is either a hard plastic piece of crap or it doesn't detect hits correctly. I'm sorta a novice at darts but I enjoy playing. I'm assuming I want a soft bristle board like (at least I think) you use on the coin-op vers at bars. Maybe I'm taking on a much larger project than I think but the concept doesn't seem THAT overwelming to me (at this point) btw does anybody know any manufactor names of the major coin-op dartboard cabinets?
(a google search brings up tons of home hang on the wall boards that don't seem to be exactly what i want)

Eric

[ITrek]

Wow, this would be an ambitious project.  I have a Valley Cougar soft-tip dart board in my game room and I've ordered replacement parts from Happs.  Check here http://www.happcontrols.com/index.html?http://www.happcontrols.com/amusement/darts_foos/2231006.htm!

Soft-tip popularity is falling off and new dart machines models are replacing old ones so the price of a used bar style electronic dart board is pretty good right now.  I picked mine up for $300 and it only needed a couple pieces of plastic replaced.  Otherwise it was in great shape.  I doubt you could build one for anywhere near that cost but it might be fun to try.

Let me know if you need any pictures to determine how things work in the real thing.

[Chris]

It shouldn't be any harder to hack a Wal-Mart dartboard than to hack a keyboard or mouse... I don't know how the input works, though.  You have 82 inputs making up the scoring grid, so it may very well use a keyboard-style matrix.  If it does, and you can find a keyboard controller chip with a similar matrix, you could be in business... but if you end up needing an IPac or something, you'd probably be better off just buying a real one...

For the display, you could probably pick up a 14" monitor for next to nothing.... better yet might be an old IBM PS/2 monitor, which is 12 inches....

Would you be planning to run real dartboard ROMs, or writing custom dart game code?

[hyiu]

see..... I'm thinking something more crazy.....

I've played those soft tip darts.... they're just no where close to the real darts.... (especially when you're off and it just stuck at the wall....    )

and I am thinking.... can we use a real dart board ??.....
have a digi-cam.... webcam sort of thing.... pointing to it ??...
(since the dart board does NOT move...)

all you need is to write a pgrm to scan the image....
maybe your dart have some bright color.... and where the tip points to... in what region... will be what score....

that way, you can have like a REAL dart game....
or everytime, when you're done... you hit a button, an image is taken and then scan for score....
(of course.... its never that easy.... cos the darts can cover each other up.....) so.... it might take some calculating before you can get this done....

ok.... maybe I'm completely out of my mind....
     

[Chris]

You could build a dartboard similar to a soft-tip one, just replacing the soft-tip grid with sections of regular dartboard material...
The problem would be with regular sharp darts hitting your monitor, your control panel, your marquee... your machine would get pretty chewed up pretty quickly!

--chris

[wescotte]

No I wouldn't be using dart board roms.. Didn't even think you could find those or anybody emulating them I'd do custome software, I mean it's not very difficult programming work to create the various game modes. The fun stuff would be adding little features like player names, stats and sound fxs. Maybe taunt sounds or something fun like that. I do have an extra 14" monitor that I could use for it. Also I've really only played with soft tips so that'd be what I'd use. Oh and yes after counting up the needed hit zones I'd probly do a keyboard hack since I don't really have to worry about matrix related problems.

[wescotte]

Wow, this would be an ambitious project.  I have a Valley Cougar soft-tip dart board in my game room and I've ordered replacement parts from Happs.  Check here http://www.happcontrols.com/index.html?http://www.happcontrols.com/amusement/darts_foos/2231006.htm!

Looking at the happs items i'm assuming the the Matrix Switch Assy is the actual component behind the colored/numbered parts of the board where the actual hit zones are detected? They appear pretty expensive for a replacement piece. Have you removed parts of the board to discover how it works? I'd prefer to use higher quality parts without spending TOO much money. If it costs significantly more to build I think I'd rather just buy a complete working machine and if I ever get bored in the future try to hack it

Eric

[RacerX]

see..... I'm thinking something more crazy.....

I've played those soft tip darts.... they're just no where close to the real darts.... (especially when you're off and it just stuck at the wall....    )

and I am thinking.... can we use a real dart board ??.....
have a digi-cam.... webcam sort of thing.... pointing to it ??...
(since the dart board does NOT move...)
...snip...
ok.... maybe I'm completely out of my mind....
     

I just recently saw an electronic dartboard (maybe in Popular Science... I can't remember) that was supposedly the first REAL electronic dart board (i.e., it was for metal tip darts and not soft tip).  It's supposed to be available soon if not already available.

[nipsmg]

I thought I remember seeing an extreme example of electronic dartboard hacking..

And i found it..

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/

--NipsMG

[RacerX]

I thought I remember seeing an extreme example of electronic dartboard hacking..

And i found it..

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/

--NipsMG

Wow.  Now those are some smart kids with too much time on their hands.  

[wescotte]

I thought I remember seeing an extreme example of electronic dartboard hacking..

And i found it..

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/

--NipsMG

Wow.  Now those are some smart kids with too much time on their hands.  

Hehe, VERY impressive. I didn't really think about futzing with a quickcam OR a projection uni t but it does look very impressive. The projection idea does make things slightly easier since you don't have to worry about throwing darts at a LCD or monitor Thanks for the info that is exactly what I was looking for in order to get started.

Eric

[SirPoonga]

I was thinking of doing such a project for my electronic dartboard that I have with the left over mdf from my arcade cabinet.  Pretty much like the arachnid style cabinet, with flourescent light.  Just a neat cabinet to hang my board.

BTW, there are home dartboard kits that hook up to TVs to show the score.  You could get a smal b&w tv off ebay and make a cool dartboard.

[SirPoonga]

see..... I'm thinking something more crazy.....

I've played those soft tip darts.... they're just no where close to the real darts.... (especially when you're off and it just stuck at the wall....    )

and I am thinking.... can we use a real dart board ??.....
have a digi-cam.... webcam sort of thing.... pointing to it ??...
(since the dart board does NOT move...)

all you need is to write a pgrm to scan the image....
maybe your dart have some bright color.... and where the tip points to... in what region... will be what score....

that way, you can have like a REAL dart game....
or everytime, when you're done... you hit a button, an image is taken and then scan for score....
(of course.... its never that easy.... cos the darts can cover each other up.....) so.... it might take some calculating before you can get this done....

ok.... maybe I'm completely out of my mind....
     

A better technique would be to use something like those digitizers for whiteboards.  They use IR beams to record what someone writes on a whiteboard to a PC.

[SirPoonga]

I thought I remember seeing an extreme example of electronic dartboard hacking..

And i found it..

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sander/dip/

--NipsMG

I like how it hightlights, because of the projector, what you hit.  hehe.  Think about adding a projected cricket display to that.

[SirPoonga]

not sure if this will apply to all targets, probably not, but the target I work at has alot of electronic dartboards on sale for $10:)

[rampy]

I found something sorta related... or atleast a simliar concepts for ideas (and equally, cool, no?)... again via slashdot

http://stage.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~dc788/fall2002/physcomp/foosball/  foosball table "hacking/moding" project...

rampy

PS if it's slow, its still on the /. home page so, you know...be patient.