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Franco's Custom Cocktail (UPDATE: Wood cutting commences!! =) )

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Franco:
Hey y'all.

I've been a bit quite round these parts of late, especially in the arcade side of things but I have been bitten by the cab building bud again!

I built a cab a couple of years ago for a college project (theres a couple of pics below) but I had to move to a place where I cannot fit my full size cab and I had it in storage collecting dust for ages. Ive decided to build a cocktail cab as I have room for one and so decided to part out my cab and sold some of the parts on ebay and I am going to recycle some of the parts. My once beautiful cab is now just a shell of happy memories  :'(

I have a few ideas so far but as of now im thinking of building a cab with two player head to head vertical controls (Joy and three buttons each probably) and also having two  players side by side on one of the horizontal sides (Joy and six buttons each).

I wanted to hinge the monitor/top near the horizontal side by side controls which would allow be to elevate the screen which would be a nice feature both for horizontal arcade gaming and also If I have any consoles or emulated consoles inside for which I could use the screen as a 'standard' screen. I think I am going to have to forget about tis tho as realistialy I would have to use an LCD for this and I dont think im going to be able to get a large (22"+) 4:3 LCD in my price range. I think viewing angles would also be a problem when looking down onto the cocktail top. I havent looked into LCD's for a while now though so I dont know how if the viewing angels are any better than they used to be.

I think i am going to have to go down the CRT monitor route, I already have a 22" CRT that I had in my cab so I will probably use that.

As for colour schemes I think im going to keep it simple and go for black melamine with chrome t-moulding and then alluminium joys, stainless feet and a other few stainless accents here and there. Im a CNC machinist by trade so I will be making alot of custom parts myself, just as I did my other cab. I have some clear FX buttons that I bought and never used so I think I am going to use those with some multicoloured LEDS. Last time i looked into it Buddabing was building a LED driver board but I dont know if this ever got produced? I think that there are some other products on the market for lighting LEDs, are there any that could light/control all 18 buttons? If I use three colour LEDs obviously that will greatly increase the amount of outputs required on the board.

What is the state of play as regards to controling the LEDs nowadays? Is it possible to have attract modes and also somehow light up the designated controls for the game being played (heres hoping!)

Im going to take plenty of photos this time. I didnt actuall realise this forum existed (doh) until I had completed 95% of my 1st cab, the only forum I knew of at the time was the mame.net hardware one.

Im just going to get cracking now and get some ideas down onto paper and CAD. Im sure ill be back with more info and will be asking for much more help too soon!

If anyone could answer my LED driver/conrtol questions then that would be great. Thanks for listening and heres a couple of pics of by old upright (R.I.P)  :'(

polaris:
look at randyt's stuff at groovygamegear, the ledwiz is what your'e looking for i believe.

WCBoudreaux:
Ahhh Cool! Definately post many pics, as I too will be building a cocktail soon... I'm not really sure how soon I'll get started on mine, but trust me, it will be done...

It would be nice to have this thread to look back on when I start mine...

Good Luck!  :cheers:

rockin_rick:

--- Quote from: Franco on October 10, 2007, 02:23:31 pm ---What is the state of play as regards to controling the LEDs nowadays? Is it possible to have attract modes and also somehow light up the designated controls for the game being played (heres hoping!)

--- End quote ---

This is now possible.  Most common (and what I'd recommend) method is using a LEDwiz along with Mala front end.  Together you can light your buttons up so that only the used ones light up, and that they light up in the colour that the game originally had the button coloured.  It can also speak the button's label (function) on game start.  I believe that other front ends may also support this, but Mala also has very good cocktail features.

Rick

Franco:
Thanks for your help guys! Yeah it sounds like the LED WIZ is just what im after, its a shame the GGG site seems to be down at the moment but I managed to read the retroblast review. Are they still $45? Sounds like a bargain to me!

I was thinking about having RBG LEDs but I think im just going to stick with 'plain' blue other wise the amount of outputs im going to need is going to get silly.

What im thinking is having a LED in each control button (2x6 + 2x3 = 18 outputs). I would also like to have a ring of 8 LEDs around each joystick to show which joystick directions are used on each game (2 way, 4 way, 8way etc). Is this possible with Mala? If so that would be another 16 outputs for two joysticks (I would connect the 'vertical' and 'horizontal' 8 LED rings together to save on dedicated outputs.

This would give a total of 18 + 16 =34 outputs which is obviously more than the 32 that the LED WIZ supports. I think I will probably connect the three buttons of each player on the 'vertical' mini CPs to the first three buttons of each player on the 'horizontal' CPs. This would reduce the amount of dedicated LED WIZ outputs by 6 which would bring the total outputs required under 32 and also give me four spare (maybe for start buttons?? hmm)

I hope that lot makes sense and is possible!

I will be definitely be taking lots of photos on the way and will be documenting the build as much as possible. Its something I didnt do the first time around and im really looking forward to getting some advice and imput along the way  :)

Im not looking at rushing into builing this cab (even though I cant wait to get cracking!) as I wasnt to make sure its perfect (as possible) before I start. Im also going to take my time building it as I want to produce a cocktail that looks like it was 'shop bought'.

Right, im off to get sketching to start getting some ideas down on paper. Thanks for the help so far!

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