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Building 2x bartop cabinets (Second cabinet complete!!!)
Zeosstud:
How about a 2 joystick panel for some Robotron? Cabinets look amazing.
Zeosstud
dmworking247:
Well, another weekend has gone by working on these bartops, and although I've done a lot there's not much to show for it. Here's where I'm at:
My major order of control panel components arrived from OzStick ( http://www.ozstick.com.au/ ) this week. Many thanks to Chris who endured several order amendments and was very helpful as usual. here's the package:
Box o' microswitches
Here you can see the comparison of blue T-molding I got from GameDude (upper left), and OzStick (lower right). The OzStick colour was more suited to the bartop I'm making. As I suspected, the blue buttons don't really match either T-mold, which is why I'm going to use black buttons.
Green T-mold from GameDude, with green buttons and coin-credit buttons from OzStick. Again the green doesnt match the T-mold so I'm going to use black buttons.
Lots of black buttons, and some player start buttons.
This is a trackball I bought from OzStick for less than half the price of a Happ trackball. This trackball is excellent from what I can see. It has wires for up to three microswitches (buttons), and a PS2 connector (which you can plug into a a USB converter). It sits on 4 ball bearings and (with a bit of WD-40) it spins like a commercial Golden Tee trackball. Its a 2 1/4" trackball so it should be easy enough to replace with a billiard ball (I'm going to drop an 8-ball into it). I highly recommend it for people considering a trackball and can't justify the price of a Happ. It should be noted though that you'll need to mount this to a metal control panel or a mounting plate made of plexi or metal, as the encoder wheels sit too high for mounting directly under MDF.
The downside (bad news) is however, that the rollers are on 45' angles, which means the 'box' itself needs to be mounted on a 45' angle aswell. This shouldnt concern most people with a 'normal' control panel, but I realised that it was going to be very tough to fit into my bartop control panel that is only 150mm (6") from front to back. Whilst I could grind off 10mm from the top & bottom of the housing to make it fit (I've measured this), the control panel surface wont give me enough room for travel in a game like golden tee, so I just can't do this trackball justice. After much thought, I'm going to put this into ( my upright cabinet ) instead. For my bartop, I'm going to use this A$20 Apple I-Ball, which has a smaller ball, a small flat PCB with low-mounted components and will be much easier to mount in my little MDF control panel. I feel this 'cheaper' trackball is more suited to the bartop for classic trackball games and not 'golden tee/bowling' style games.
Other progress....
Control panels cut out (4 of the 5 I've cut shown here)
One of the control panels for "Bartop B" (the fixed screen one), with pinball buttons (there will be a launch/tilt button on the front depending on the game... I'm not doing side tilts for the bartop).
It occured to me that I hadn't cut a hole for the power cord (d'oh), so here I've chopped the lower 100mm from the bottom of the 'back panel', and I'm jigsawing out a plug hole for the type of plug on the back of a PC power supply, to which I'll wire a 4-outlet power board on the inside of the cab.
Securing and filling the pieces:
dmworking247:
Alright guys, I've reached a crossroads on my project.
As you've been able to see in this thread, the two bartops have been making good progress so far. For the past 3 weeks however I haven't had much time on the weekend so I've been doing the time consuming bits that aren't very interesting like routing the underside of control panels, designing artwork concepts and tinkering with the PCs/software.
Last weekend, the 20gb HDD in the T41 laptop I was using for my bartop (the one with the rotating screen) crashed ('clunk clunk'), which forces me to reconsider my options for my bartop.
A quick refresher:
I'm building two bartops, both with interchangeable control panels. The one for my friend has a fixed horizontal 17" LCD using bare PC bits inside the cabinet, whereas my bartop was going to have a motorised rotating screen using the LCD of a laptop. The other thing bothering me (aside from this dead hdd) is that my bartop requires a larger cabinet despite smaller screen than my friends bartop in order for it to rotate, which means a significant compromise on screen size. It's also not upgradeable because its a laptop.
So here's my decision I have to make before I go any further on my bartop (the one for my friend is fine and on track):
Keep the laptop:
- I have to get another 2.5" hdd
- Its not upgradeable
- Its only a 14"(?) LCD
+ However it'd be motorised with automatic cutoff switches (I intended on using a cordless screwdriver motor to rotate the disc with 'normally closed' microswitches that cut out the motor once the screen reached position). I've got all the wheels, routed disc and motor already for this...
or
Make it more like my friends bartop using PC gear, but with a 19" (yes 19") LCD on a removable bezel that can be pulled out with two thumb holes, rotated 90' then put back into place (I would hook up a sliding switch to automatically sense the rotation and switch orientation automatically).
+ The PC is upgradeable
+ The LCD would be a full 5" larger
+ I've got faster PC bits than the laptop was going to be
- The disadvantage is that I'd have to buy an LCD ($) for the project, and I reckon it loses some of the 'coolness factor' of the motorised-auto-shutoff rotating mechanism that inspired me to build this in the first place!!!
So lets hear it... what do you think of those options. For that matter, which one would you buy/prefer to have yourself?
PS: Yes I'll have some progress shots soon, once I've progressed pass this decision :D
leapinlew:
sounds to me like you could convert it later easier enough.
If you go with the bigger monitor and if you have expect lots of people playing your arcade, I would make as much of the process automated as possible. Otherwise you'll have people yelling at you from the other room "CAN YOU ROTATE THE MONITOR FOR ME?" I've had some kids play my arcade for hours on end. In that time, they don't just play 1 game, they play 5 dozen. Thats a lot of manual rotating. The idea of pulling the LCD and rotating it scares me. I can see someone dropping it on the floor.
Aesthetically speaking, the manual solution is best. The 14" may look out of place on a large bartop.
If it were me... I'd buy the larger LCD and affix it in one orientation and start planning out my next bartop with the monitor in the other orientation.
dmworking247:
I take your point about people saying 'rotate the monitor please' however I'm hesitant to stick to a fixed orientation (I have that in my upright) when I set out in this project to do something truely versatile.
If I go with a 19" screen, remember that I don't HAVE to rotate to vertical to play a vertical game... no more than they HAVE to remove the 8-way/6-button joystick and install the 4-way/3-button panel. I'd reserve changing it around for when you want to have a 'serious' game of pacman/frogger/1942 etc, and leave the 'kids' with whatever setup its on at the time.
I've had suggestions that 19" might be overkill for a bartop and consider a 17" instead. I do have a 15" lying around but thats back to the 'too small' argument of the laptop. Here's some visual clues to think about:
This is my friends bartop... this is a 17" LCD, and the width of the cabinet is 380mm (15").
This is my bartop, remember that it was larger to accomodate a rotating screen (its 420mm (16.5") wide and also taller). So a 19" would look 'proportionately' the same as the one above... a 17" would have a larger bezel area.
This is with the bezel fitted that would host the 14.x" rotating LCD. Imagine a normal ratio rectangle LCD within that square. IMO it looks like a LOT of wasted bezel/cabinet space.
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