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My 1st Cocktail Finished! (100%... finally)
system01:
Control Panels & Buttons
This was all your basic stuff. In the start of the CP planning stage. I went to MAWS and and did some searching and found that theres not much need for more than 3 buttons for vertical games.
Since I work at a manufacturing company, I called in a favor to build some metal panels. These match pretty closely with the OE PacMan stuff, but I widened them a bit and tweaked the bends a little to match our dies. Everything was cut on the turret punch and folded in the press break. Beautiful. I found a metric bit and drilled 4 holes that matched the holes in the joysticks. What I did was got a pack of M5 PEM self-clinching studs and pressed them in. This gave me a relatively flat top and non-rotating fasteners. This also allowed me to make a spacer to fit underneath – between the joystick and the CP – to move the dust washer underneath. I made the same hole pattern and cut a large hole in the middle that was slightly larger than the dust washer, and a bit thicker. I wish I took photos of these, but I didn’t, so deal with the models. I was going to have them powder coated black, but the way I had to install the studs it didn’t work out logistically for me. I ended up using some Rustoleum Appliance Black Epoxy spray. Looks nice and its holding up really well.
The buttons are regular Happ Competition buttons. I put MicroLeafs from Groovy Game Gear under the action buttons, admin buttons stayed with the Cherrys. The “coin” and “start” buttons went on the top-left, but I had a problem with where to place “exit” and “pause”. I was going to put them under “start” and “coin” but I figured Id hit them accidentally in a heated game of Mr. Do. I decided to move them to the right side in the wood. I think it turned out decent, but if I were to do it again I would move them up a bit as they’re kindof hard to see (obscured by the CP).
Everything was wired up in normal fashion to the iPac2, and U360s connected to the USBs.
A piece of “Sign-White” polycarb was cut, drilled, and mounted behind the panels. I used some z-brackets from mikesarcade.com (CTZBRCKT). At the time there was these, and there were these thinner, ~1” wide brackets. I went with the wider ones thinking that they would be more secure. What I didn’t realize is that the lights inside cast a silhouette and there’s these dark rectangles in the corners. Seeing how stable everything is now, I could’ve prolly gone with the thinner ones. I may still take mine out and grind them a bit. But then again, no one seems to notice but me.
For the lighting I used the NovaMatrix from GGG. They happen to perfectly span the CP opening in the back, and they’re thin enough to clear the shelf brackets when closing the lid. I thought they might show white dots in a dark room since they’re only ½”-3/4” from the polycarb, but it turned out a nice even glow.
I now had a mechanically complete, enclosed box. What a milestone!
Bender:
Nice work!
and great documentation too! :cheers:
system01:
Thx Bender!
I just hope it helps out future-noobs who need a little guidance when trying to get parts to play nice.
system01:
Software
This is not necessarily the best software for you, but this is everything I used and have had wonderful help and am very impressed with the results. It works for me, and looks and plays damn good.
Mala (http://malafe.net/)
Ever since I was a wee lad I knew I’d be using MaLa. Its not the flashiest or the quickest, but its customization is what won me over. Plus, its free so there’s no nag screens as you’re messing with your first layout for a decade.
I wanted themes to categorize my gamelist browsing. So I created a layout (using MaLaLayout) that had different “pages” for fighters, shooters, maze, etc. You can see my results here: http://malafe.net/index.php?page=layouts&subpage=generic_cocktail and a youtube here: The video was made to show a lag in list changing, but has now been fixed.
MaLa U360 plugin (http://malafe.net/index.php?page=plugins#ultrastik)
This MaLa plugin allows your u360s to be programmed on the fly inside MaLa. The plugin sees the game started, compares it to a list of u360 maps, and instantly sets you up.
Mame Compiler 64 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71845.0)
headkaze created this little beauty to ease your compiling woes. In a few clicks you can disable nags, add hiscore, change CPU optimization, whatever you need.
Romlister (http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/)
This little app will sort almost any roms you need. It lets you pick monitor orientation, genre, # of buttons, etc, and create a batch file you can use to pick certain roms from your bloated .127 romset and move them to the location of your choice. It even makes gamelists for MaLa, Hyperspin, Maximus, etc.
CPWizard (http://members.iinet.net.au/~freeaxs/cpwizard/)
Another nice program from headkaze. I cant get into all the details of this thing as it does so much. The way I set it up is it starts on the startup of MaLa. When I hit “pause” it pauses the game and brings up a CP image (see attach) with which buttons are used and what directions the joystick uses, all with labels if available. Hit pause again and the CP window disappears but the game stays paused. This allows me to change dip switches and other admin stuff with the game paused. Really slick and very powerful.
CPWizard also has a batch-image-creator feature. I was having the issue of people sitting down at the cab wanting to play 2-player, but not knowing which games were alternating or even 2 player. So I used the batch utility to create images with the same name as the rom that showed joystick, buttons, player number, and simultaneous or alternating. I created a definable in the MaLa layout to show these images as you scroll through the list (see attached).
Instant Sheller (http://www.gameex.net/Community/InstantSheller/tabid/73/Default.aspx)
This little guy was written by Tom Speirs. I automatically shells to the program you want th shell to. It also hides the taskbar, hides the desktop, hides the cursor, turns off any sounds, and even changes the “Windows is now starting” logo. If you honk something up you can simply click “Undo Changes” and Windows is back in its previous glory.
Asus MyLogo (on the support CD for certain Asus boards)
All this simply does is change the BIOS full-screen logo to something Mame-ish. Its pretty self explanatory. Just make sure youre not using MyLogo 2.0 on a MyLogo 1.0 BIOS.
TinyXP (Youll have to do your own searching for this one)
I used eXPerience TinyXP rev9. TinyXP is built basically for gamers, so all of the Windows overhead is gone, but still retains the basics for media and basic networking. Very small and runs very fast. Before adding codecs, drivers, and .NET and all that, I was having startup times (power button to hour-glass gone) of 19 seconds on my old Athlon 1800+. Some people have problems with TinyXP, but if youre not doing anything too extravagant, I would suggest trying it out.
I also have the basic networking turned on and shared the C:\ drive. Most of the stuff on an arcade machine doesn’t use the registry, which makes it really easy to edit INI files, change gamelists, change images, make repairs, and add roms. You can run some of the apps from a different machine without any errors and edit things on the fly. Just recently I had family over for Thanksgiving and my brother-in-law got the gamelists messed up (shooter turned into sports, sports turned into driving, etc). I went to my regular PC and renamed them back. Next time he exited a game to the list, it was already fixed. I would recommend this if it's feasible.
system01:
The Finishing Touches
This is some of the little bits that I missed or glossed over. Some stuff I still have to get. Since I put the thing in my living room I’ve been lagging of finishing some stuff up.
Rear Vent – I planned for this earlier on, but for some reason I sort of put it out of mind until it was really late in assembly. Since I had the fan blowing in and up from the bottom, I needed a place for heat to escape. I also thought I should put it up high to try to sap some of the heat from the LCD. So I found this vent from Rockler (32064). I made a router template from scrap MDF and cut that bad boy out. The vent was a pretty snug fit, but I put a couple globs of silicone on the inside just in case. Im glad I put this in; putting my hand back there I can feel quite a bit of hot air escaping.
Glass – I actually ordered a piece of tempered ¼” glass. When I got it it was oversize and wouldn’t fit inside the glass clips. Also, I ordered it over the phone and I didn’t know the difference between a “seamed” edge and a “pencil” edge. I got the seamed. I should’ve taken it back but I got lazy and its just sitting there in a corner of my garage.
T-mold – Nothing fancy here. My plywood was just under ¾” in thickness and I was worried about the t-mold edges hanging over. After it was installed it was so minor that I left it. I also t-molded the bottoms of all the sides. This is where the plies were still “raw” and I could imagine someone sticking their shoe under and splintering the plies apart. My top surface measured ~.90” thick. I routed the center of the slot .50” from the bottom. After I glued the Formica on and pounded 1” t-mold in, I took a razor blade and trimmed the edge of the molding that was sticking up. Then the glass will sit flat on the Formica/t-mold.
Button Decals – I’ve been super lazy about getting the outside decal stuff ordered. I plan of getting some vinyl discs cut up for “coin”, “1p”, 2P”, “pause” and “exit”. I leaving the punch/shoot/jump buttons unlabeled as CPWizard can fill the player in on what they do. You can see what I want in the post above (A CPWizard screen).
Speaker Grilles – These were ordered from mikesarcade.com (SPKRCVRMID) and they are the old Midway grilles. A lot of people don’t like ‘em, but they fit over the Klipsches nicely and since they’re under the CP, nobody really sees them.
Control Panel Decals – Another thing I’m lagging on. I need to call up mamemarquees or somebody and have some vinyl printed for the CPs. In the end everything will have the same look to it: the CPs, the layout windows, CPWizard.
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