LCD Topgun & YOUR Cab - Saga's end

[darthbane2k]

anyone living happily ever after with their gun/cab setup?

Please share what version of mame and what gun drivers you are using , Whether you are using recoil and how many guns you have attached?

Any problems at all?


What holster solution did you use? I used the most unlikely one - a bicycle flask metalic holder, which screwed onto the side of the cab, fits the gun perfectly! I'll up some pics later



PLEASE POST YOUR PICS HERE!

I'll post mine later when I get home from work!

[Fozzy The Bear]

anyone living happily ever after with their gun/cab setup?

Yes.

Please share what version of mame and what gun drivers you are using , Whether you are using recoil and how many guns you have attached?

104u6
EMS 3.1
Yes Recoil from USB Port
1 Gun

Any problems at all?

None worth mentioning

What holster solution did you use?

None yet.... But I do have the LED Stands connected to a separate 5V from the PC Power Supply and not from the gun lead. I think that's what makes the USB with the recoil work without trouble.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[MKChamp]

Yes.

104u7
Smog
Recoil from external power
2 gun

None yet (just starting with 104u7 last night)

Used the holdsters I had from the actlabs(they were from a guy on these boards...the holsters are actually sort of hooks)

[SurferMatti]

I haven't kept up on the TopGun lately, but where has everyone been mounting them?  Are they still going somewhere on the outside of the cab, or has a better solution been found?

Thanks

[PhoneLine]

I have two guns set up using smogs driver and AdvMame 104.  All works great.  Started to play around with 104u7 tonight and was very pleased to see that 2 player tracking worked in standard mame when I tested Term2.

Also was playing HOTD, and tried the demo of HOTD 3 which worked flawlessly, so went to ebay and grabbed hotd2 and 3, so should get those soon.

Not using any recoil.  May try it, but I think I while a nice feature, personally I'd get tired of it.  Also going to start looking in to some holster options.

[darthbane2k]

I haven't kept up on the TopGun lately, but where has everyone been mounting them?  Are they still going somewhere on the outside of the cab, or has a better solution been found?

Thanks

I mount mine on the outside. theres no room inside behind the glass. plus I have a black printed bezel.

It looks fine outside,. like two thin speakers (well that what my mates asked if they were) as the cab is black

[darthbane2k]

i'll get pics of my actual cab tonight when its darker, but heres my holster option. This is actually a cyclists drinks flask holder which came from a

[Level42]

Wow what a snug fit, great solution.


(HONEST => Man this sucks big time) 


No it looks great really ! Nice find. Question: Isn't the heaviest part of the gun now outside the holster, I mean, I'd expect a holster to be a bit deeper to work without the gun getting out of it too easily ?

 I'd like to see more pics of other solutions !

[darthbane2k]

Wow what a snug fit, great solution.


(HONEST => Man this sucks big time) 


No it looks great really ! Nice find. Question: Isn't the heaviest part of the gun now outside the holster, I mean, I'd expect a holster to be a bit deeper to work without the gun getting out of it too easily ?

 I'd like to see more pics of other solutions !

see youre point, however the cab has since taken many a bashing and shaking and the gun has not shifted out of the 'holster' at all.

I would love to use a better solution, if available, and so am curious to see other people's pics.

[Virgil Tracy]

The holster looks good, it will solve my age old problem with my Guncon guns.

[mccoy178]

Great thread!  So you need to stand five feet away?  That's not a problem?  Are any of you guys using angled tv's in your cabinets?  I wondered what kind of influence that had on accuracy.

[escher]

Great thread!  So you need to stand five feet away?  That's not a problem?  Are any of you guys using angled tv's in your cabinets?  I wondered what kind of influence that had on accuracy.

The 5' away thing is what caught me offguard about these guns.  They suggest being 3x as far away from the setup as the LCD's are apart.  So, with a 27" TV, you're talking more than six feet away.  That seems a bit much to me.

[Santoro]

I am thinking this thread should be locked before it turns into another 38+ page monstrosity

[Lilwolf]

As for the angle..  I haven't tried with the leds on the sides... just top / bottom

seems to work just fine.  Its a bit squished since the screen is at an angle, but after calibration its seems to work fine.

note... I don't have it on my cab yet, and only did basic tests... its attached to my development computers until I get the drivers working better.

[PhoneLine]

I was looking around in some extra stuff I had and had an idea how to mount them.  I took two L brackets I had and painted them black and mounted one side to the cab.  Then bent one side up so its at an angle and just slid the gun on.

For me, its perfect.  There when needed and out of the way when not.  Have one on each side of the cab.

[Level42]

Great thread!  So you need to stand five feet away?  That's not a problem?  Are any of you guys using angled tv's in your cabinets?  I wondered what kind of influence that had on accuracy.

The 5' away thing is what caught me offguard about these guns.  They suggest being 3x as far away from the setup as the LCD's are apart.  So, with a 27" TV, you're talking more than six feet away.  That seems a bit much to me.

As far as I can understand the weirdo American measuring system, 12" = 1 foot. So I take it you calculate like this: 27" x 3 = 81"/12"= 6.75 feet.

However, the 27" represents the diagonal size of the CRT. Since the ratio of an arcade CRT is 4:3 AND considering the fact you can set-up the LED- bars on the smallest sides of the screen (on a horizontal CRT that would mean mounting them on top and on the bottom of the CRT) you can do some good old-fashioned pythagoras calculating and you will know that they should be ABOUT 16.15" (well a little more actualy, they take up some space and need to be along the side, not on top of it) so, let's say 16.5" apart. That would be 16,5 x 3 = 49.5" / 12 = 4.12 feet. A lot less then more than 6 feet.

For everyone in the rest of the world that uses the metric system that would mean about 1, 25 meters. I've got a 25" (64 cm.) so that would mean even less distance. I think that is very workable.

I'd also think that the nearer you are to the screen, the further (more) you would need to move the gun to point in the direction you want to shoot. Since most games require you to change shooting positions very rapidly (that's the whole point right ?), that would mean moving your arm a lot. When you're further away, you only need to move the gun (camera!) a little to reach all the area of the screen, so just need to move your wrist. Of course there's a reasonable limit to this as well....

Anyway all theory, in eager awaiting of the real thing arriving at my home and trying it myself   Maybe some owners can confirm/deny my theories ?

[Fozzy The Bear]

As far as I can understand the weirdo American measuring system, 12" = 1 foot.

It happens to be an "English" Measuring system NOT an American one  ....  Inches are part of the Imperial Measurement scale.  America just borrowed it.

Let me guess... You're somewhere in Europe... 

Here in England, Most people still prefer the English Imperial measurements, and you can take your crummy mm and CM that they try to force us to use, and stick them up your whizway. 
 

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[PhoneLine]

There seems to be about a foot in either direction of the reccomended distance I have seen.  If your closer, won't work, and if your further, it won't work.  You can test it right on the windows desktop and see how well your mouse cursor tracks.

I'm on a 27 inch set and it works between 4 1/2 and 7 feet away. The cord has about another foot and a half, but if I go back more, it won't track as well and gets jumpy.  Eveyone's setup is going to be a little different, but between the 25 and 30 inch I guess your most likely to see in cabs, 5-7 feet is probably going to be the distance.

[markrvp]

As far as I can understand the weirdo American measuring system, 12" = 1 foot.

It happens to be an "English" Measuring system NOT an American one  ....  Inches are part of the Imperial Measurement scale.  America just borrowed it.

Let me guess... You're somewhere in Europe... 

Here in England, Most people still prefer the English Imperial measurements, and you can take your crummy mm and CM that they try to force us to use, and stick them up your whizway. 
 

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

What is the best unit of measure to use when measureing a whizway? 

[Fozzy The Bear]

What is the best unit of measure to use when measureing a whizway? 

The same one you use to measure the intelectual capacity of the politicians who tried to force Metric mm on us....  Apparently they talk out of their Whizways most of the time, or so I'm told.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Level42]

Ahhh, Fozzy the nationalist, just what we need on an international message board 

First: However much you may dislike it but Britain IS a part of Europe. Why do you Brits always talk about Europe as if it was something you're not part of ?

However, yes I'm "somewhere" in Europe, and as you may remember my tiny little country voted against the European constitution last year, effectively canceling it all together and I agreed on that. Economic cooperation is fine, but I don't like centralised mega-governments forcing all kind of insane laws upon us. A very "british" way of thinking I guess....

But for what it's worth: about 100 million (rough estimate) still use your measuring system (and all it's variants), the rest of the world is metric. That's about 6 billion people....so who's behind here ?

 

 

Let's get back to the subject and my point: you do not need to stand THAT far from your screen using the LCD guns.

P.S. I love the UK, it's my most visited foreign country 

[mccoy178]

But for what it's worth: about 100 million (rough estimate) still use your measuring system (and all it's variants), the rest of the world is metric. That's about 6 billion people....so who's behind here ?

I could care less about this discussion, but just for the record, you might want to add the 300+ million here in the US to that list. 

Does anyone have any feedback on using it with a tilted monitor?

[Level42]

But for what it's worth: about 100 million (rough estimate) still use your measuring system (and all it's variants), the rest of the world is metric. That's about 6 billion people....so who's behind here ?

I could care less about this discussion, but just for the record, you might want to add the 300+ million here in the US to that list. 

Does anyone have any feedback on using it with a tilted monitor?

Still a minority  You're right though, back to subject: How much tilted do you mean ? My CRT is tilted in my cab, but only a little. I guess you need to angle the LED bars a bit so they are as horizontal as possible ?

[Smog]

Uhm I guess that if you give a different tilt angle to the bars and monitor you'll probably end up having a non linear acceleration on the vertical axis ....

[mccoy178]

This much:



I don't plan on my next one having that much of an angle, but I think this is a good example to go with for the sake of discussion.   I have it like that for Golden Tee's sake.

[Fozzy The Bear]

First: However much you may dislike it but Britain IS a part of Europe. Why do you Brits always talk about Europe as if it was something you're not part of ?

      Oh! you crack me up, you really do....
 
We have this little thing called the English Chanel which makes the UK an Island... Which means that it's not part of Continental Europe at all... ROFL...    Only politically is it part of Europe... So that Brussels can try to force through daft time wasting laws about having to sell "Straight Bananas" and wanting us to call Chocolate "Vegelate"   How's the Euro doing as a currency by the way???    Still falling against the Pound and the Dollar last time I looked.

And you got your figures for how many people work in Imperial (UK / US)measurements  WAY OFF.... Try: Over 4 Billion  You forgot the population of the USA, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Most Of Africa (except the bits that the French stole in the 19th Century) South Africa, Large parts of China, Burma,.... etc etc etc.....

Anyway.... End of Political Rant!! Because this is getting a bit  LOL ROFL

Back on topic... Yes, you're absolutely right. Between about 4.5 and 6 feet works fine on mine. But anyone with a severely tilted monitor will have tracking issues.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

P.S. I actually love Europe. It has some of the most staggeringly beautiful scenery in the world.... And we even have Smog (in Italy??) Making great gun drivers.... and most of the other people are not too bad either LOL   

[Fozzy The Bear]

I don't plan on my next one having that much of an angle, but I think this is a good example to go with for the sake of discussion.   I have it like that for Golden Tee's sake.

It just goes to show that there is no perfect cab for absolutely everything. We struggle to cram as much stuff as we can in and to get as many games working as we can, only to find that there have to be compromises somewhere.

Nice Golden Tee Cab by the way

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[mccoy178]

Golden Tee gets dibs on the priority list in my next cabinet, but I didn't need that much of an angle.  So, just to be straight, I can mount those LED bars on the top and the bottom of my monitor(that would leave them from 17-18"'s apart)?  I'm trying to get this nailed down as I'm starting to work on my bezel artwork and obviously need to plan on these being on there.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Golden Tee gets dibs on the priority list in my next cabinet, but I didn't need that much of an angle.  So, just to be straight, I can mount those LED bars on the top and the bottom of my monitor(that would leave them from 17-18"'s apart)?  I'm trying to get this nailed down as I'm starting to work on my bezel artwork and obviously need to plan on these being on there.

Yeah! 17" should work fine.... It'd give you a range starting at about 4.5 Feet and I'd guess reliably from 5 Feet. 

The thing I have noticed though is that the guns EMS are producing do seem to a bit variable on the minimum range they will work at. It seems that the assembly tollerance is not all it could be.  The two sets I have seem to vary by as much as a foot, in where they will reliably opperate from.

I only use one set at a time, and one of them is going into another gun shell... So I'm trying to work out which is the worst set before I finally rip one of them apart.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Smog]

And we even have Smog (in Italy??)

Yep .. Napoli, south of Italy (proud of) ...
I undestand you Fozzy, think that Italy is the only european nation where no referendum was made for the european constitution approval. Our government choosed for us. But let's stop this OT ....

[Fozzy The Bear]

And we even have Smog (in Italy??)

Yep .. Napoli, south of Italy (proud of) ...

Some of the best food in Italy... Great Restaurants in your home town.. It's making me hungry just thinking about it.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[darthbane2k]

I was looking around in some extra stuff I had and had an idea how to mount them.  I took two L brackets I had and painted them black and mounted one side to the cab.  Then bent one side up so its at an angle and just slid the gun on.

For me, its perfect.  There when needed and out of the way when not.  Have one on each side of the cab.

I see you have mounted your LED stands outside of the cab  - I thought I was the only one!

Judging by your pics, it seems you are using velcro and the velcro strips are visable.
How about,

1) replacing the strips with BLACK velcro

2) Using black electrical tape like I have to conceal the velcro'd area - it looks neat when cut and applied properly.

[tibbs68]

Have just had a friend help me produce the following. It's not painted yet but you get the drift......

[PCtech]

As far as I can understand the weirdo American measuring system, 12" = 1 foot.

It happens to be an "English" Measuring system NOT an American one  ....  Inches are part of the Imperial Measurement scale.  America just borrowed it.

Let me guess... You're somewhere in Europe... 

Here in England, Most people still prefer the English Imperial measurements, and you can take your crummy mm and CM that they try to force us to use, and stick them up your whizway. 
 

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

What he said 

[big daddy]

I'd like to have a retractable cord that I can pull out when I want to play, give it a yank, and it retracts back in afterwards.  I was thinking of 2 examples
1) vacuum cleaner cords and how they automatically retract
2) the lights in garages where you can pull the bulb to you, then when you're done it retracts back into the casing.

Anybody have any ideas on where you can get cheap mechanical parts to do that which would work with these cords?  Or ideas how to make it work?

[Harry Potter]

And you got your figures for how many people work in Imperial (UK / US)measurements  WAY OFF.... Try: Over 4 Billion  You forgot the population of the USA, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Most Of Africa (except the bits that the French stole in the 19th Century) South Africa, Large parts of China, Burma,.... etc etc etc.....

Had to drag this one out cause it's so  .

I fixed a few of them names for ya. 

Keep moving, nothing to see here.

[darthbane2k]

Can we bump this?