Galaxbox Arcade- An Xbox Live Ready Stand-up Cabinet

[opt2not]

Current State:


_______________________________________
It's been over 6 years since my last arcade project, my first being a scratch-built mame machine. It turned out decent for it's time, it was a no-frills cab, based off a  Street Fighter: CE design, and CP layout.  It featured a full 21"  consumer tube TV, keyboard drawer, and shelving cupboards at the foot-base of the unit (for my PC and additional consoles). I ended up selling it to a coworker of mine, because it was just too bulky for my space needs as well as it weighed a ton! My plan was to remake another cab that was a bit smaller, and somewhat classier in design as well as being sturdy to handle playing, but ultimately life got in the way and I couldn't find the time to start another project. Till now.

I made the decision to buy an already existing cabinet (since I no longer have the workspace to build one from scratch), gut it and replace the innards with newer-lighter components. I also want to make this machine xbox live capable, so that I can play some of the newer remakes with proper arcade controls.

I found this Galaxian cloned cabinet on Craigslist ($250 CAD), and figured with a little elbow effort I could convert it to a GalaXbox arcade machine! Galaxian was a perfect choice, since the artwork is awesome, and the colour scheme of Green and White work well with an Xbox 360 theme.


The cabinet itself is in pretty decent condition. There is very little damage, a few scuffs here and there, some chipping, but overall it's in good-condition. The monitor plexi has a bunch of scratches in it, as well as some water warping perhaps from some drink being spilled on it, which I'll have to replace. I ripped out the black t-molding that was on it, and will be replacing it with light green. It was obvious that this wasn't an original Galaxian cab (or perhaps converted earlier on), since it featured a game called Red UFO which as a blatant clone of Galaxian back in the day.  Other indicators are the thickness of the wood, being at 5/8" instead of the standard 3/4" for original Galaxian cabs, as well as the artwork on the side and at the foot base being a little off-centered or in the wrong position.

After ascertaining that this was clone, I didn't mind converting it to my blasphemous stand-up

The few features I'm planning are:
1. Xbox 360 capable (via hacked up 360 controllers)
2. PC-able, for Mame run games
3. Rotatable LCD monitor
4. 4-way/8-way controls via Mag-stik plus joysticks
5. For PC interfacing, no keyboard needed, CP buttons only
6. For Xbox Live "dual-stick" shooters able
7. Clean, simple CP controls:  6 buttons each side, 1 joystick per player, and a few smaller sized buttons for P1/P2 Start, Exit Game, and Xbox buttons.

I got HamuraN to hack up a couple wired 360 controllers, and am planning on having a USB K-switch to bounce from PC to XBOX on-the-fly.
One of my must-have features is being able to have player-2's joystick control the input presses of player-1's A-B-X-Y buttons  (Robotron, Mutant Storm, Geometry Wars). I figured I'd come up with some sort of switch-mechanism to enable/disable the P2 joystick that I can access on the CP. Any suggestions on this would be great, since I'm not too familiar with wiring, etc.


I'm also planning on having my LCD rotatable for good-ol' vertical games; I haven't decided if I want to use a 4:3 LCD, or go with widescreen 16:9. I've got a few ideas of making this possible, one including using some old bike wheel and chain parts to get the rotation happening.  I've read a bunch of the posts on this board, and figured i'd try my hand at solving this problem in my own way. It seems to be a popular feature that most of you guys want, but I'm not convinced the solutions here are the most efficient. Famous last words I guess, we'll see.

I'll keep you guys posted on my progress, and would love any feedback or tips you have to offer.

Thanks for reading!

[opt2not]

Not a huge update, but it's progress!

I replaced the old wheels under the cabinet with pivoting ones, for easier mobility.


As well, I got some feltpads for the front studs, since this cabinet is in my apartment which has laminate floors.

[opt2not]

Another small update:
- Stripped out original CP
- Cleaned out the dust in cabinet
- Mounted LCD (non-rotational for now)
- New CP wood cuts

Got around to a few quick updates.

I spend some time cleaning out the cabinet, getting it ready for the new components.  I removed the original CP, and cut myself a solid peice of Pine for the new replacement. I love Pine, its so easy to cut, and since I'm putting some Plexi on top of the wood, I don't have to worry too much about it being softer of the materials I could have chosen from.

Being that this is a fairly small CP, button layout would be difficult for all the things I'd like to support. But for the most part, i came up with a decent plan.

 I wanted to make sure I have the XBOX 360 guide button accessible from the CP, as well as support for MAME with an Exit button. For the controls, I ordered a couple Mag Stik Plus' from Divemaster, and had Andy at Ultimarc ship me a couple replacement shafts with detached Balltops for it. I also ordered (from Lizard Lick) for a couple Sanwa 35mm WHITE balltops to go with the dozen WHITE Pushbuttons I got coming from DM.  I love the White controls, it sort feels more classy to me.  Hopefully they'll all arrive before the holiday!

For the LCD mount, I used a couple Corner Braces to secure the wood to the cabinet. Then screwed in some Vesa Standard M4 screws to attach the LCD to the Wood Mount.  I'm going with a non-rotational solution right now, since I want to get the machine functional asap, especially with the holidays coming, it's got to be playable.

I'm using an 19" Samsung Syncmaster 930 as the monitor, which has a 4:3 aspect ratio.
   

For Mame, the 3:4 is great for most games.  But while playing the 360 on it, some games don't have non-widescreen support, so some games come in as  scaled down Widescreen display. Eventually I'll be replacing this LCD with a widescreen one, but for now I like the proper ratio for Mame games over 360 ones.

Next up on the list is to complete the CP once the controls arrive, then I'll be installing the Monitor Bezel/Glass, and Plexi CP cover.
Stay tuned!

[opt2not]

Some more updates!

1. Received controls from Divemaster, got here right before x-mas, yay!!  Thanks DM!

Got 2 Mag Stik Plus', 12 White Happs Competition buttons, 2 player start buttons (p1, p2) and a single red transparent button for Exit.

2. Andy at Ultimarc was able to send me two ball top replacement shafts without the balltop glued to the shaft itself.
3. Ordered and received 2 White Sanwa 35mm balltops from LizardLick, which I'll be affixing onto the Mag Stik Plus shafts.
4. Haruman was nice enough to send me a couple xbox guide buttons to attach to my control panel. I'm going to attach them to a couple momentary switch buttons  which I'll be installing on my CP.

5. Bought a cheap pair of Logitech 2.1 computer speakers off craigslist for $10.  The owner said that only one speaker and the subwoofer worked, so i was able to talk her down to $10 from $20.  I got them home and found out (after having to rip off the backing of the speaker) that the RCA cord that attached to the speaker must have been broken inside along the wire.  Since I had a crap load of PS2 A/V Cables in spades, I donated one to the speakers. Just a simple strip and solder job.


The speakers sound great!  I put the sub at the base of the cabinet, which helps the bass bounce around down there, making it very full sounding.  I attached the speakers together with a small piece of wood, so that I could mount it to the cabinet.



6. After a bit of thought, and laying the controls out on paper with the proper dimensions, I redesigned the P1, P2 and Exit button positions:


I like the separation of the two player sides with the empty space in the middle.  It also gives later opportunity to add a spinner if I so choose.  This layout is a lot more clean looking, instead of having a clutter of buttons between the 2 players.


Today I'll be drilling the holes in the CP plexi and wood, and proceed with the daunting wiring task. Not my favourite part of the project, but I'm sure it'll be fine. There's tons of resources on this forum, and the intertubes for me to refer to.

One thing I need to figure out is the ability to have a switch control the P1 buttons from the P2 joystick (for xbox 360 dual-stick shooters), but be able to turn it onto the P1 A,B,X,Y buttons...then back off to the P2 joystick control.  All from a slide-switch!  I'm not the most savvy when it comes to wiring, so I'll have to do some reading on a clever way of wiring these up. Any suggestions from you electronical-engineering-wise-men would be much appreciated!

I hope to have this thing functional in the next couple days,
Happy Holidays folks!

[opt2not]

Drilled the CP and installed the controls.
I like the layout! Though I still have to wire 'em up tomorrow.

[opt2not]

Alright, on to the wiring.

Ok, wiring takes way too long, especially if you're doing it from scratch.

take it from me, if you choose to go the hacked controller route, especially for the XBOX 360 controllers...try to get your hands on third party controllers instead of the original Microsoft issued ones to hack. For instance the Madcatz type. The common ground on Madcatz controllers are so much easier to deal with for daisy chain connections than the original first party controllers. EACH BUTTON ON THE ORIGINAL CONTROLLER HAS IT'S OWN GROUND. This sucks for people who like keeping their wiring clean, and organized to make some sense.


Like is said in an earlier post, I had HamuraN hack up a couple controllers for me, one original controller and one madcatz arcade gamestick controller, which he did in SUPERB fashion! 
But seeing what i'd have to deal with side-by-side while wiring, I would have opt'd to go with 2 third party controllers just for some saved wiring time, and headache.
I'm not the most wiring experienced, (having only built one other Mame cabinet with an IPAC) but I can read well, and there are a lot of tutorials/write-ups on the internet that I can pull from, to understand that most people would probably appreciate the cleaner simpler ground wiring of third party peripherals. Microsoft, you guys are jerks.


 I plan on mounting the hacked controller PCB's on the front side of the plexiglass, since I didn't want the CP fixin's attached to the cabinet. For easy extraction, i.e. Maintenance, Upgrades, as well as I don't really have much space to deal with inside the area of the CP within the cabinet. It keeps everything together I guess.


Every workshop should have a laptop and ipod connected to your installed arcade cabinet 2.1 speaker system to work by.

[opt2not]

Big progress today!  Got the controls functional, finally!

1. I mounted the xbox guide buttons:

I hollowed out the button so that I could superglue them to the button tops of a couple momentary switchbuttons.


2. Then I drilled a couple holes for them to stick up through the CP top.


3. Finished up the rest of the wiring, and mounting of the hacked controller PCB's onto the plexiglass covering my shoddy wiring work


4. After a small amount of wiring adjustments I was happy enough with them to throw into the cabinet for some playtesting!


I got to say, I love playing Pacman:CE with a real 4-way joystick. The frustration of playing that game with the crappy controller d-pad helped motivate me to get this cabinet operational as quickly as possible.


SF2:HD looks amazing as well!


One thing I've noticed is the view angle of my SyncMaster monitor from below isn't that great, so I'll have to tweak around with angle I've mounted it inside the cabinet. It's not a big deal, because I'm just using a couple corner braces that I can unscrew and re-mount. I'll probably handle that tomorrow, as well as the installing the wiring switch for the P2 joystick to act as P1's button inputs.

[bgspot]

Great cab so far! I always liked the classic look of that cab. I too am replacing a previous bulky cab for something smaller & lighter and will be xbox live capable. Keep us posted with your progress.

[HaRuMaN]

Looks awesome!   Glad to see my hacks in use! 

[patchboston]

What a sick clone!
Looks like a Euro Galaxian?

[opt2not]

What a sick clone!
Looks like a Euro Galaxian?

Yeah, I was assuming that by the colours of the side-art as well. The greens are a bit darker than the Galaxian cabinets I'm used to seeing around here.

Great cab so far! I always liked the classic look of that cab. I too am replacing a previous bulky cab for something smaller & lighter and will be xbox live capable. Keep us posted with your progress.

Thanks! I got to say, playing Super Street Fighter 2: HD online with this stand-up cabinet brings me back to the days when Street Fighter 2 just came out, king in the court action, putting up your quarter to get in the challenger queue, analyzing other player's strategies... ah the good ol' days of arcades. RIP

[opt2not]

I just had to post this:


It's awesome having these sticks hooked up for the dual-joystick shooters!  I was having a blast this holiday playing Karate Champ and Robotron on real joysticks. My scores have increase by almost 3 times!! (i'm used to getting about 1 million in Robotron on average)

Though, in retrospect I should have just bought one Mag-stik plus for the P1 side, since I have yet to use the P2 side's 4-way ability for any of the old arcade games. Those games back then only used P1's joystick/buttons, and alternated players on it. Well it's never too late to swap out my P2 joystick for a non-mag stik one, I may need to do some research on what's a good stick to get that's 8-way happy.

The next update should be a good one, I've got some tempered, tinted glass for the monitor on order, and I still need to install the plexi over the CP. After that, it's artwork time for the CP, Bezel, and Marquee....stay tuned!

[opt2not]

Update:

- After a little while of playtesting, I've decided to change the layout as well as re-mount my mag-stik pluses onto the CP. This required me to redo the CP woodwork, but it's worth it.

This time I used my trusty router and straight bit, for the joysticks to be mounted from underneath.


When I ordered my mag stiks, I got a couple replacement shafts that where long in length, so mounting the joystick underneath the panel seems to feel a lot better with the longer shafts. I think it has more to do with how high my hands rest now, compared to all that space between the ball and the surface of the CP.

- Routed and drilled the plexi for my CP

- Created CPO art!


I tried to go with a similar look to the Namco Galaxian CPO, because i like the look of the Japanese cabinets more than the Midway US releases.


I think my CPO art works well for my layout, the next art challenge will be to have the monitor glass continue the theme.

Next things to do is re-wire the controllers (I really want to clean up my messy wiring this time!), print the CPO, then assemble it altogether with the plexi!  After that, it's onto the monitor glass and marquee art.

[patrickl]

What a sick clone!
Looks like a Euro Galaxian?

Yeah, I was assuming that by the colours of the side-art as well. The greens are a bit darker than the Galaxian cabinets I'm used to seeing around here.

The shape of the cab is actually more like a Galaga or Ms Pacman cab. Guess that's why the side art doesn't fit entirely.

[opt2not]

The shape of the cab is actually more like a Galaga or Ms Pacman cab. Guess that's why the side art doesn't fit entirely.

Probably! Though if I'm not mistaken, those cabinets used 3/4" thick wood, whereas this cabinet uses 5/8". Whoever built this cabinet must have used those plans to start with.  Regardless, it's a GalaXbox now!

Update:
(sorry, couldn't find my camera in the mess I've made, took these photos with my phone)

Here's a closeup of the CPO.


Since I'm putting plexi on top of it, I opted to print out my CPO on high grade semi-gloss photo paper. The outcome is great! The lines are clean, and the colours fit well!

Testing the look.


installed the new CPO art on my panel. Looks sweet!


Here's a pulled out view.


The next thing to do is clean up my wiring, and solidify the panel on the cabinet.  Stay tuned!

[wooowman93]

Lol nice marquee i like how it has nothing to do with galaxian or xbox

[opt2not]

Lol nice marquee i like how it has nothing to do with galaxian or xbox

Yeah, that's the marquee that came with the cabinet. I left it there because I haven't drawn up the artwork for the replacement one yet.
I plan on reproducing the namco version of the Galaxian marquee, shown here:


I'm probably going to get it printed out by the guys at Mamemarquees.com, since a lot of people on this board recommend them. It's not going to be cheap, but it'll definitely be worth it.

[wooowman93]

Man, Galaxian artwork is perddy compared to other cabs

[geocab]

Very nice work, and what a great idea.  I get so frustrated with Pac-Man:CE that I just stopped playing it.  I imght have to see if I can just make a special 4-way Xbox controller for mine.

[opt2not]

Very nice work, and what a great idea.  I get so frustrated with Pac-Man:CE that I just stopped playing it.  I might have to see if I can just make a special 4-way Xbox controller for mine.

You really got to try it out on a real 4-way joystick. It makes such a difference! I'm actually considering making a Pacman:CE themed bartop. I only wish Pacman:CE was released for Windows so that I wouldn't have to throw an xbox 360 in the bartop (i'd only want to have the 4-way joystick, a start button and a minimal amount of admin buttons).  It could feature more than just Pacman: CE, like a legacy cabinet with all versions of the pac! If only...

Anyways, I haven't posted a newer picture of this project for a while. I did some minor updates to get this thing to a point where I'm happy with.

I ended up getting a cheap marquee off Ebay to install for the time being. Eventually (probably not this year) I want to strip the sides, restore the wood and put my own artwork and marquee on it. I have a few ideas about using the Galaxian artwork as inspiration for my Galaxbox theme. But for now, it looks more like a galaxian cabinet.

As you can see, the marquee doesn't exactly fit since it probably came from an original Midway cab. This "clone" cabinet seems to be based off a Namco cab, which has the more narrow marquee. Oh well, it still works better than my other marquee.
You'll also notice I've installed the t-molding, as well as finished off the CP.

My pc has been setup with Mala, equipped with custom FE art! I've got a list of mame games going on it, and a few other windows-based games (mutant storm, geometry wars). The xbox 360 is also set up in there, but I haven't put a switch in it yet to go back and forth between windows and the 360.  That's on the list!

I'm still using the old Monitor bezel, that'll be replaced soon with smoked glass.

Here's a pic of the FE art.  I've got the game list on the left, and the marquee, snap and CP picture on the right side of the game you  currently have selected. I also tried to make it look more like the bezel art, with the stars and planets...I think it's cool.


Here's a shot of it running Street Fighter 4 off my xbox 360. You may ask, why don't you just run it off the PC and not bother with the 360 setup?  Well the answer is, I wanted to make sure I can still play online games against people. Competing in the Leaderboards is one thing that I miss about the old days of arcade gaming. The competition for high scores, or "king-of-the-court" status is something I've always loved about gaming.


I also put Sanwa JLW's in replace for the Magstiks. I was really disappointed in the Magstiks, the switching was great, but the feel was just too stiff with such small throw. I tweaked with it as much as I can, but I couldn't get the feel I was looking for. Eventually I got fed up and just swapped them out with the sexy sanwa's. The only downside is that I lose out on the 4-way/8-way switching, but my coin door gives me access to the bottom of the CP, so I can manually rotate the restrictors. I'm considering setting up a way of quick switching the restrictors on the Sanwas...it's got to be some sort of "pull and turn" mechanism. Again, more thought needed here...

Things left to do:
- Replace old plexi with smoked glass
- connect a USB-DVI switch to go back and forth between PC and the 360
- get a new P2 Start button (the decal on my old one rubbed off!!  )
- figure out a 4-way/8-way switching mod for my Sanwa's
- setup an admin-button panel accessible from the coin door
- future: strip this thing, put on custom art

[Gatsu]

looks really good man.

[Epyx]

That does look good.  I love the Galaxian green T Molding and just bought some.

I was really disappointed in the Magstiks, the switching was great, but the feel was just too stiff with such small throw.

I too was so disappointed with my Magstick (player 1 control) that I ended up remapping all single player games to the player 2 Competition stick.  Question...how do you like the JLW's so far? I ordered those myself for a new project.  Oh and can you describe your 4/8 way switching mod?

[opt2not]

Thanks guys! I think once the new glass gets on there it'll look even better!

I was really disappointed in the Magstiks, the switching was great, but the feel was just too stiff with such small throw.

I too was so disappointed with my Magstick (player 1 control) that I ended up remapping all single player games to the player 2 Competition stick.  Question...how do you like the JLW's so far? I ordered those myself for a new project.  Oh and can you describe your 4/8 way switching mod?

I love the JLW's, but I had to stiffin' the spring just a tad. I find that the JLW's and JLF's are just a bit too sloppy for throw, so I took the spring out and increased the tension a bit by stretching the coil a bit.  It took a bit of trial and error, but it feels a lot better now.
I haven't thought up what to do with the 4-way/8-way switching just yet, but it'll definitely be an "under CP" control, rather than what the Magstiks achieve above the CP. I know that the current JLW's I bought from Ultimarc has springs under the 4 screws keeping the restrictor plate down, if I can loosen those screws enough, there is a slight "give" to the restrictor, enough to be able to pull down and turn. Now all I need to do is attach a "crank" or "dial" of some sort to it.
 I'll draw up a few ideas and try to figure it out.

[emphatic]

Users of the JLF's might wanna have a look at this:

[opt2not]

Sorry to bump my old thread, but I haven't closed this one off and figured I should.
Here are a few pictures of the completed cabinet with a new smoked plexi bezel, and mounted internals.


Here's a shot of the view area. It's just a single smoked plexi, no bezel artwork. Gives a very nice "floating image" feeling:


With flash to see the bezel better:


...and the mounted internals:


All in all, this is a great cabinet project. Switching between the 360 and PC is done by using a KVM switch, and is pretty easy.
For closure's sake, this baby is 100% complete!

[emphatic]

Great work!

[VanillaGorilla]

I always loved this project. Great job of keeping the 'spirit' of the cab intact, especially your cpo art. 

[rmwilson]

Can you clarify which KVM swi6tch you used???

[opt2not]

Nope??? It's been a few years since I sold this cab??? It's just cheap kvm switch??? Nothing fancy???