Update: July 2, 2006I thought I'd give this whole "update" thing another stab only this time I'll remember the size limitations of posting images...hopefully.
No construction news to report as of yet although I did bring the wood home from
Home Depot that the cabinet will be made of (pic below). Thanks to advice I acquired in
another post of mine, I wanted to wait until I had gotten ahold of the actual arcade monitor I'll be using as well as some idea as to the speaker setup I intend to use before cutting the first sheet. More on that later...
I've been quite busy making posts in other areas of BYOAC looking for guidance on a couple of other topics. I felt that *this* thread should be dedicated to the
actual progress of my cabinet, hence the outside posts. However, they *are* related so here are the links.
Questions about "bending" wood given the curved front face of my proposed control panel.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55243.0Frustration with the constantly changing (and improving) face of available joysticks, here's a post about what latest and greatest joysticks I should consider. I received a lot of VERY good information here that helped form my control selection.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55242.0Questions about the "finishing" of the cabinet including some technical info on application of side art on a stained surface. (You gotta love Drew!)
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55240.0I've already placed the order for my monitor and was curious about the use of the "Arcade VGA" card given the wide range of refresh rates of the monitor I selected.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=55241.0The control selection I've ended up with follows below. I realize there are a ton of other little things I'll need which I can pick-up when I cross those bridges. These are the major parts that should help me confirm that the control panel dimensions I'm using will be enough. I have an assortment of 15 buttons and an IPac 4 from my first control panel (first set of pics in this thread) that I intend on using for the upright.
Happ... (Rollie Electronics?)
42 - Horizontal Pushbutton Leaf Switch w/Bracket (as reviewed on retroblast, April '06)
24 - Pushbutton (black) - 58-9166L
1 - 2 player start (white) - 58-9111-L2PLY
1 - 3 player start (white) - 58-9111-L3PLY
1 - 4 player start (white) - 58-9111-L4PLY
1 - Pushbutton Wrench - 53-8002-00
1 - 3-inch "High-Ball" trackball w/ harness - 56-0110-10
1 - 3-inch "High-Ball" mounting kit - 55-1103-00
1 - PS/2 & USB Trackball Interface Kit for 2-1/4'' and 3'' - 56-0113-00K
1 - 4-Entry Multi-Player Coin Door - 40-0946-00
1 - Cashbox - 42-0769-00
1 - 4 Entry Enclosure for Coin Door 42-7328-00
1 - Various
Radio Shack parts to implement Oscar's "
Optical Coin Sensor Circuit" (No, I probably don't need it. But... I like it and it's cool.)
1 - SlikStik Tornado Spinner Assembly - 95-2657-00
1 - Black skirted knob for spinner - 50-0465-16A
Ultimarc....
1 - Arcade VGA
2 - Ultra Stik 360 Balltop (Player positions 1 and 2)
4 - Mag Stik Plus Balltop (maybe...) (Player positions 3, 4, and two for the single player section in the middle of the CP)
I have a couple of questions that still remain on my control selection -- specifically the spinner and trackball setup and additional encoders needed. If you have some guidance you'd like to offer, I'd appreciate your comments.
I'd like to get all the joy-sticks from Ultimarc but I have posted a question to Andy that I need to have clarified about pricing for ball-tops on the Mag Stik Plus before I can order. $40 bucks for a 4/8 top-switchable seems like a bit much for infrequently used player positions. May have to go with another solution. Plus, I don't even know if any games actually use dedicated 4-ways in the 3 and 4 player positions. Maybe someone out there can say for sure.
Another little tidbit I wanted to throw in is my intended use of retractable casters. A number of people have used caster on their machines and some have used levelers only. I'd like to use a combination of both with leveling casters. After some research I may end up with
these from Mapp Caster (model: Q932001NYL). Here's an animated gif example of how they'll work
As for the monitor and speaker setup before slicing my first sheet of wood, I had a bit of a Eureka moment a couple of days ago. I wasn't sure what I was going to use for speakers and the thought of using a computer speaker doesn't really appeal to me. I was looking through other posts for speaker suggestions when it dawned on me that I have a perfectly good set of bookshelf speakers that are very high quality and have been collecting dust since I got rid of my home entertainment system (money was *really* tight a couple of years ago). Having had these previously hooked into a high-powered receiver and having heard the volume and distortion free sound they are capable of putting out, I've opted to use them. They are JBL "studio series" monitors model: S38. Again, since I've heard what these speakers sound like from a real setup, I have absolutely no reservations about using them in the cabinet. They sound BRILLIANT at nearly every single sound range. Of course, I'm aware that much of this accoustic bliss is the result of some finely tuned design in the enclosure. I may not achieve the same kind of trouble-free sound out of them once they get into a cabinet, but I'm not opposed to building baffling and additional stuff to get them to sound good for gaming (possibly heaping double-duty on my cab as a juke-box as so many have done).
Here's a write-up for them at stereophile.com where the reviewer apparently can't stop raving about the sound. I'll cut the speaker boxes up, yank out the speakers, and split the woofer from the titatium tweeter and mid-range. The woofers will go to the bottom of the cab while the other two will go somewhere near the monitor. I've also
given some thought to sheilding which I will probably have to build myself as the shielding in the unmodified speaker enclosures may be attached to the enclosure itself.
Pics are at flickr: