Author Topic: A Mame machine in an antique buffet - USB probs solved (I think!) (Read 204455 times)

Epyx · « **Reply #240 on:** October 29, 2009, 01:07:23 am »

Quote

I just need about 2 weeks of vacation days

I hear you

I haven't had a vacation in 18 months...took Fridays off in August and won't get my remaining 2 weeks until after my current work project is complete. /sigh

Now if we could only win a lottery and spend lazy days building our cabs...ah to dream!

Ryglore · « **Reply #241 on:** October 29, 2009, 11:08:06 am »

Quote from: drventure on October 29, 2009, 12:45:17 am

Good guess. I've been watching that Defender cab thread pretty closely. Awesome design, that.

But this is what +might+ turn into my version of a rotating monitor setup.

I've got a bead on some brass pulleys, grandfather clock wire, old motorcycle transmission gears, and, possibly, the worlds cheapest pseudo linear actuator.

With any luck, I'll end up with a wonderfully Rube Goldberg-ian contraption!

Oh, nice. That was my next guess, that would be amazing if you get it working!

drventure · « **Reply #242 on:** October 29, 2009, 11:20:21 am »

I was hoping to make a copper iris for the monitor, but alas, I just can't fit the requisite parts in. No clearance.

I have put together a copper frame for the monitor though. Once I hone my soldering skills a little more, I should have that put together and mounted. That should go a long way toward "vintagifying" things. Having the DELL logo and a plastic-framed monitor sticking there is just harshing the vibe

Ryglore · « **Reply #243 on:** October 29, 2009, 01:17:49 pm »

Quote from: drventure on October 29, 2009, 11:20:21 am

Having the DELL logo and a plastic-framed monitor sticking there is just harshing the vibe

Yup! Does the Dell logo pop up when you turn on the monitor? I have a Dell LCD Tv and when you turn that on it takes 10 seconds to get to video, cause they insist on the Dell logo popping up first. It's rather annoying, but I'm used to it now. Then again I have a LCD monitor I got through Dell and it just turns on and goes right to video without a splash screen....

drventure · « **Reply #244 on:** October 29, 2009, 01:33:18 pm »

Oh, the splash screen doesn't bother me so much, I'm talking about the logo at the bottom of the monitor frame itself.

Now, if it said "Woolworth and Sons, patent 1865", that'd be ok

Ryglore · « **Reply #245 on:** October 29, 2009, 01:41:05 pm »

Quote from: drventure on October 29, 2009, 01:33:18 pm

Oh, the splash screen doesn't bother me so much, I'm talking about the logo at the bottom of the monitor frame itself.

Now, if it said "Woolworth and Sons, patent 1865", that'd be ok

Time to find out about hacking monitor firmware.

drventure · « **Reply #246 on:** October 29, 2009, 02:11:30 pm »

Wouldn't that be a trip!

Ryglore · « **Reply #247 on:** October 30, 2009, 05:10:46 pm »

Have you put any thought into modding the joysticks to some kinda of brass handled sticks? Rather than the plain ol' black ones?

ccmathome · « **Reply #248 on:** October 30, 2009, 05:43:22 pm »

Really nice build all you need now is a fog machine and some epic music playing like the first bit of song #9 in this video

oh and a really bright light shining from the bottom have it all automated on start up

drventure · « **Reply #249 on:** October 30, 2009, 07:56:06 pm »

@Ryglore

Actually, already thinking that. I mentioned it way back on page one of the thread

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88515.msg929425#msg929425

It's a little farther down on the scale though. Plus, I'll have to do some experiments to see how much they effect game play. I still want to be able to play the thing

But, yes, definitely something I'm considering.

@ccmathome
Cool tracks. Interesting that transformers was listed. The movie wasn't all that great but that theme music rocks!
And yeah, I could see doing something with that 300 music. I might have to pick up the soundtrack and give it a listen.

Can mala play sound files when it transitions from one group to another? That could be really cool, play the transformers theme when moving to the shmups group, and play the 300 theme when moving to the fighting games group, etc.

Ryglore · « **Reply #250 on:** October 30, 2009, 08:04:18 pm »

Ah, I looked through the thread before I posted, but must have missed it. And it's true, you don't want to sacrifice playability just for a theme.

drventure · « **Reply #251 on:** October 30, 2009, 08:21:44 pm »

Just found out the EMUWAVE plugin for mala can play specific or random wav files as you switch emus or game lists....

Very cool!

Ryglore · « **Reply #252 on:** October 30, 2009, 08:43:52 pm »

I was thinking you could maybe get some brass balls that look like they came off of this:

Some regular (non stainless) steel shafts, plain ol' metal, no shine. And then tried your little corrosion trick on them to give them a weathered look...

n88n · « **Reply #253 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:41:35 pm »

maybe when you get this thing buttoned up your machine will make a list of the coolest steampunk hacks.

http://weburbanist.com/2009/11/04/mods-26-sexy-steampunk-hi-tech-hacks/

drventure · « **Reply #254 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:53:55 pm »

Got a shipment in today.

Some good ol' tractor parts

Honest to god John Deer gears and engine cover plates.

A little cleanup and they'll look quite nice covering up all those messy internal steamworkings/goings on in my buffet.

And they gears JUST MIGHT be useful for turning my monitor.

I'm just not sure how I'd mount them to bearings?

drventure · « **Reply #255 on:** November 05, 2009, 08:24:15 am »

Found a sweet little book a few days ago. Especially nice for any steampunk gearheads, but it's an interesting flipthrough for those mechanically inclined

It's called 507 Mechanical Movements by Henry Brown

There's a downloadable version here

http://builders.reprap.org/2008/09/507-mechanical-movements.html

though it's in a weird djvu format, so you'll have to get the viewer as well (it's a freeware alternative to Acrobat).

Anyway, pages and pages of pictures and descriptions of just about every kind of mechanical motion transfer device you can think of.

translation: lots of cogs and gears and pulleys and wheels!

Good stuff

Ryglore · « **Reply #256 on:** November 05, 2009, 08:35:17 am »

Oh wow! That should totally help in figuring out the Monitor rotating. And maybe automating the un-folding of the CP

Benevolance · « **Reply #257 on:** November 05, 2009, 07:58:05 pm »

Or building a giant steam-powered mechanical spider that is really good at Donkey Kong and seizes the high score title from those inferior moist fleshbags. Bwa ha! Ha ha ha! HAHA!!

drventure · « **Reply #258 on:** November 07, 2009, 11:22:33 pm »

I think I just found my pulley system

It's called a "Butler's Blanking Bell Pulley" from back in the days when, if you wanted to summon your butler, you'd pull a string, which was routed about via pulleys to a Bell mounted in the butlers quarters.

Looks like they're nice and solid brass, and appear to be a little heftier than the grandfather clock pulleys I'd been looking at.

One more step toward a rotating monitor....

Ryglore · « **Reply #259 on:** November 07, 2009, 11:25:23 pm »

Nice find! Now all you have to do is attach those to the John Deere gears...

drventure · « **Reply #260 on:** November 08, 2009, 10:37:29 am »

Working on it

I found some bearings at Tru Value that just might work. Gotta get the sizes down...

Ond · « **Reply #261 on:** November 08, 2009, 05:52:14 pm »

Loved the 507 Mechanical Movements download, great fodder for some drawing ideas for your stuff. How ya gonna use those bits to rotate your monitor you mad inventor you???

drventure · « **Reply #262 on:** November 08, 2009, 09:42:55 pm »

I'll speak in terms of the 507 Mechanical Movements

Combination of plate 18 (twice), plus some brass swivels and a few victorian doorstops, something like this

or this

Plus, I think some brass grandfather clock pendulum cabling.

And possibly some of plate 113 (using the motor out of a back massage chair pad I picked up off CL for 10$ )

I've also got some old gears from a John Deer tractor that I can hopefully factor into the mix (I found some bearing at HomeDepot that I +think+ will fit them).

And on top of all that, I'm on the lookout for some methylene chloride to use in another part of the cabinet now

drventure · « **Reply #263 on:** November 08, 2009, 09:43:26 pm »

Just another day at the mad scientist's lab

drventure · « **Reply #264 on:** November 18, 2009, 01:01:32 pm »

It's been kinda slow progress. The machine is down right now because I had to take the monitor off to build up a sheet copper and brass frame for it.

I got about half way through that project when I got sidetracked on building a couple of panel lamps out of doorstops! I got the idea from a post about a guy building a steampunk tardis and they just looked so cool, I had to give it a try.

Anyway, here's my attempt.

First, I needed to address the wiring. All my wiring and piping is exposed, so it had to look period. I found some old fashioned clothe covered lamp cord online, but 25' didn't go very far.

I've got piles of phone cord lying around though, so I was in the craft store and found some brown cotton Macrame cord that looked very much inline what what I was thinking.

First strip the cotton guts out of the cord. This was a REAL pain in the ass

Then I needed wire, so some old phone line cord I had seemed to fit the bill.
Just had to strip off the covering

I tried getting all 4 wires into a single cord, but it was just too tight a fit. I could have done it, but it would have taken REALLY forever. This process only seemed to take forever

So I ran 2 wires through 1 cord, 2 through a different length, and then twisted them together

I cut base plates out of some stock I had around, routed the edges, then drilled out clearance and some access holes on the sides (so I could run the wires in, and also for screwing in set screws to be able to mount the lamps to the cabinet top (remember, my cab back is actually the underside of the TOP of the buffet, so I can't screw anything "through".

I picked up a small breadboard at radio shack, cut it up into half circles and soldered 3 high power RGB LEDs to each of them, with resistors.

I used brass doorknob back plates, and two brass doorstops (one, a wall mount type and one a floor mount type) for each lamp.
Then took 2 ping pong balls, cut them in half, ground things down flat on my sander and epoxied them in place under the stops.

Then used some brass eyelets, and screws and washers for some decorative (and functional) effects.

Polished everything, then coated it all with a couple coats of Future (to keep all that brass nice and shiny!)

the end results look like this...

All I have to do now is drill holes in the back panel, set some threaded inserts in, thread in some threaded rods, clamp the lamps down and run the wired to my LEDWIZ.

the 3 LED's each are wired in parallel, so they all light as if they were one LED. They can get quite bright! Esp in full red mode (Red Alert! Red Alert!)

So now that I'm done with em, I find myself asking "Why the heck did I do that?"

Gotta come up with some interesting ideas of how to use them, either in the menus or during game play.

I was thinking if there was a way to monitor the "volume" of sounds coming from the game, and flash them when high volume spikes are detected could be cool.

But, the build was fun, so why not!

and the
Lots of jiggering, tweaking, etc later

Ryglore · « **Reply #265 on:** November 18, 2009, 07:48:17 pm »

Oh damn! Those look amazing! Nice work DV.

ratzz · « **Reply #266 on:** November 19, 2009, 03:30:28 pm »

Quote from: drventure on September 24, 2009, 12:09:02 am

BTW, have you seen this guys PC case mod?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steampunkfrankenstein/

The thing's almost 8 FEET tall!

Unbelievable detail, and he says he got virtually everything off ebay.

It's a tad TOO "steampunky" for what I'm doing but wow. Lots of ideas for small elements I hope to incorporate.

Love it!

I love the look of these, and I'm a big fan of your project too man ...

drventure · « **Reply #267 on:** November 19, 2009, 03:43:44 pm »

Thanks Ratzz.

I keep getting sidetracked on little projects like this that, well, frankly don't have a whole heck of a lot to do with arcades in particular but are quite fun anyway.

I just saw turnerarcade's use of a locomo Neon equalizer style lightbar... now, I gotta figure a way to fit one of those in (in a classy, neo victorian way, of course!).

What happened to your project. I went to check it out and see it kinda faded off.

Ryglore · « **Reply #268 on:** November 19, 2009, 05:29:07 pm »

I guess your cab is the perfect example of "feature creep". But really, all the little touches are what's really going to make it amazing.... now if you could only talk the wife into decorating the rest of the room to look period...

drventure · « **Reply #269 on:** November 19, 2009, 05:39:05 pm »

Working on that

We've had a ball and claw dining table for forever, with ball and claw chairs. I picked up a small side table in the same style. Need to find some beaded brass floor lamps and a brocade settee or two

I'm not much of a decorator though.

Ryglore · « **Reply #270 on:** November 19, 2009, 11:05:54 pm »

Plaster walls and ceiling.

drventure · « **Reply #271 on:** November 30, 2009, 01:38:08 pm »

Had a great long holiday, but got more eating done that Cabinet work.

I did get my monitor "control pod" more or less done. Note to self; led's don't really like a propane blowtorch in close proximity

The monitor frame is +almost+ complete. I'll have pics when it's done and nicely polished up, but dang. I've already polished most of it and wow. Looks really good on the monitor. My daughter was out in the garage with me working on it. She was playing with a scrap piece of copper tube (i'd drilled a bunch of holes in it only to realize too late that my alignment was off, so I had to scrap that piece).

Anyway, she commented that it looked like a smoke stack. Smoke....Steam....scrap piece just begging for me to do something with it.... Yikes, another side project!

I also was browsing through Tuesday Morning a few days back and came upon this.

It's a +2 pack+ of dancepads (she's just about falls over every time we go out somewhere and there's a dance pad game). For 10$ no less!

I have no idea how good they are, and they're PS2, which required me to pick up a PS2->USB adapter (I found the one in the picture at Frys, 20$, it's an HVG2 PS203).

But with the adapter, they do appear to work just fine. Unfortunately, the cabinets down right now with the screen out, but hopefully, this will allow for a few dueling matches of DDR or somesuch.

Anyone trying any dancing games in Mame with real dance pads?

Ryglore · « **Reply #272 on:** November 30, 2009, 02:16:10 pm »

... oh ok. PS2 not PS/2. I was like "They are both PS/2? What the hell? that makes no sense." Then I looked closer at the box in the picture.

drventure · « **Reply #273 on:** November 30, 2009, 02:31:28 pm »

Oh wow

I hadn't heard the term PS/2 in a LONG time. But I've still got lots of those dang MIDI style keyboard plug to PS/2 keyboard adapters...

Anyone need one of those

But yeah, I'm talking Playstation 2 here

Ryglore · « **Reply #274 on:** November 30, 2009, 02:34:34 pm »

Yeah the only reason I thought about PS/2 is because both my KeyWiz40-ST and Trackball are connected via PS/2 port. Since my mobo only has 2 USB ports I wanted to save them for a keyboard and external HDD when I need to go in and tinker with PC workings.

drventure · « **Reply #275 on:** November 30, 2009, 03:04:56 pm »

2 usb ports?

I've got 3 on the mobo backplan, probably another 4-6 as jumpers off the mobo directly (one of which I'm pulling 5v from for other purposes), AND I ended up having to add a USB card with 4 more ports because the mobo ports stay powered up even when the mobo is turned off (and I didn't want all my usb peripherals to stay powered all the time).

USB ports are the new harddrive space, the more you have, the more you use, seems like.

Ryglore · « **Reply #276 on:** November 30, 2009, 03:13:06 pm »

Ya what I need is a USB Hub, I can store inside the CP box and just run the cable for my keyboard and just stash the external HDD inside the CP box when I'm using it.

Benevolance · « **Reply #277 on:** December 02, 2009, 04:18:48 pm »

My advice is to buy a bigger hub than you think you need. I bought a 5 port and it was filled within the week; I should have followed my gut and sprung for the 7-port hub off the bat.

I haven't tried emulating playstation on my MAME cabinet, since I've got a PS2 hooked up. I've got similar pads - they work pretty well. Sometimes the sensors seem to migrate a bit in the softshell and it can get touchy about registering a step or not. Unless you are really competitive (and we're not) it isn't a super huge deal.

ratzz · « **Reply #278 on:** December 02, 2009, 04:56:55 pm »

Quote from: drventure on November 19, 2009, 03:43:44 pm

Thanks Ratzz.

I keep getting sidetracked on little projects like this that, well, frankly don't have a whole heck of a lot to do with arcades in particular but are quite fun anyway.

I just saw turnerarcade's use of a locomo Neon equalizer style lightbar... now, I gotta figure a way to fit one of those in (in a classy, neo victorian way, of course!).

What happened to your project. I went to check it out and see it kinda faded off.

Yea, mine has kind of been side tracked as well. Have done more work on it but just haven't been able to upload any pics yet.

Work has really picked up for me this past 12 months and I don't have time to do much other than work.

My half built arcade cab stares at me each day from the corner of my office, BEGGING to be finished - and one day I will!

Following this thread with a great deal of interest. Keep up the good work!

drventure · « **Reply #279 on:** December 13, 2009, 06:45:58 pm »

Well, the bad news is, the company I've been working for succumbed to the ongoing economic situation. It was sold off. Which I suppose was "good" except that the buyer is so ridiculously dev heavy, only one developer was offered a position. <sigh>

I've got a paycheck till Jan, but then, ugh.

I suppose the good news is that gives me A LOT MORE time to work on my cab and on this Mala add in I'm kicking about


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Author Topic: A Mame machine in an antique buffet - USB probs solved (I think!) (Read 204455 times)

ratzz

ratzz