Cowboy Arcade - Updated 6/25/2017

[warjunkie]

Hey t3design, loving your arcade, I can't believe this thread has been around for so long and I have never seen it.

Fantastic attention to detail. Any updates in the last 6 months?

[t3design]

Well, life is what happens while you're waiting to accomplish your plans. This has been a very difficult year and tons of things have happened and gotten done, but none of them had anything to do with the Arcade Project.



However, like a zombie, this thing has risen from the dead and is walking around again.



We pulled out all the stored parts and opened up the cabinet and started working on the permanent wiring. All the wiring will be held in wiring trays to keep the wires tidy and to separate power wiring (on one side of cabinet) from signal wiring (other side of cabinet). Today we cut the wiring tray material to length and got it installed:





Next up is to mount the DC power supply and finish the power wiring for all the lights. BFG has an IT guy trying to fix the computer configuration issues and we need to finish wiring in the coin door switches.

GOAL: fully playable before Christmas!

[t3design]

A little more progress! BFG came over to watch the OSU vs. Savannah State game (actually, he brought the wife and kids too). Since the game outcome was fairly obvious from about 4 minutes into the first quarter (84 - 0 final) we decided to try to fix some of the computer problems with the Cowboy Arcade.

He fired up the box and called a tech guy of his and after several alterations of files and startup stuff we were able to get the computer to boot up in the proper resolution and load MAME as default. Then we selected games and started messing around:



Playing Dig Dug using the keyboard.

That's right, keyboard. We still can't get MAME to recognize the inputs from the LEDWiz. The computer sees them in the configuration screens for a game controller, but they aren't making it into MAME....

That's the problem we will try to solve next.

Also got a little farther on wiring, installed power supply, and am working on wiring up the coin door stuff.

[t3design]

A little more progress! Got the overlay applied to the control panel this afternoon. Just to refresh your memory (since it's been over a year since the last time we talked about this) Scott Prior at Mame Marquees (www.gameongrafix.com) printed the CP Overlay for me (they are now Game On Grafix). I am very happy with the product, his service, and the way it held up rolled up in a tube for over a year before I applied it.

The trick was how to line up the artwork with the holes in the CP. We took a couple of extra buttons and cut the fingers that hold the micro switch off the bottom. Then we carefully indicated the center of the bottom of the button and drilled a hole with about the smallest drill in our drill set (and one we had two of).



Using a button housing nut to set the depth we inserted these into two button holes in the CP, one in the Player 1 group and one in the Player 2 group. We drilled the same hole in the CP overlay at the crosshairs for the same holes (we were smart enough to put crosshairs in the centers of ALL hole in the overlay art before having it printed). Then it was fairly easy to locate the holes in the button bases in the CP with a drill sticking through the holes in the overlay (a small finish nail would work too). Once everything was located properly we peeled back some of the backing on one side and adhered it (we had wiped everything down with alcohol first to make sure it was clean, oil free and dry) and then did the standard "pull the backing off while rubbing it down" move to adhere the rest. A wallpaper roller helped to make sure every inch was well stuck.

Using a click blade knife with a fresh (read sharp) tip we trimmed the edges even with the edges of the CP and carefully cut along the line between the CP and the T-molding on the front edge. Then it was just the effort to remount the controls and:



It looks fantastic in person too!

[mgb]

Man, this is coming out fantastic.
Definitely one of my favorites.

[t3design]

Thanks mgb! This has taken WAYYY longer than I ever imagined. However, it has been a lot of fun from start till now. There are days when I'm ot sure I really want to be done....

[t3design]

Every great arcade needs a great sound system to really belt out those 80's sounds. We bought a set of Logitech Z2300 computer speakers for this very thing.



We selected this particular speaker set for a single reason: the controller. The controller is remote from the speakers and has volume control, bass adjust and a headphone jack that turns off the speakers.



If you dismantle this you find a small circuit board:



The idea was to remove the control pots and the earphone jack from the board and use wire and connectors to remotely locate them in the cab. A guy at work offered to do the mod for me:



It looks a little clunky, which we could live with, if it worked. Unfortunately it doesn't. Not sure what went wrong, but when we plug it in nothing happens. The other controller works fine (the one we haven't butchered yet), so we know it isn't the speakers.

So now what? A little research on the world wide webs found that other people have experienced problems with this controller (without trying to mod it) and came up with a DIY controller. You can order the PCB from BatchPCB and the component list from Mouser Electronics:







So we ordered the components (about $32 including S&H) and we will try to build the new controller using cable to connect the devices to the PCB. This should be fun!

[t3design]

The plan for admin functions and other necessary items has changed several times over the last couple years. However, once the cabinet was cut and assembled it became much harder to make any real changes. The admin panel behind the main CP has three holes on each side (originally all for admin), the front of the CP box has three holes on the left (for sound controls) and one on the right (for pin plunger). There are also 2 button holes on each side of the cabinet for pin flippers and nudge. Between cutting those holes and now we found really cool USB connectors and added those to the "needed extras" list. The "needed" admin button list seems to be an ever changing thing, for now it is: Pause, Escape, Return and Tab. So the two extra holes in the admin panel become the USB ports. The plunger interfered with both the CP buttons and the flipper/nudge buttons so it got moved to a lower postion and the hole filled with a button that does nothing right now....



Another option is to add a hole to the right of the three left hole in the front of the box, shift the sound controls over to the right and put a USB in the farthest left hole and the other usb in the single right hole (old plunger location). This would free up the other two holes on the admin panel for two more admin buttons.

The admin buttons are orange (of course) and will have vinyl cutouts (from Troy Robinson) applied for the functions. We are still deciding whether to go positive or negative:



Currently we are planning on wiring the Coin Returns to switches for Player 1 and Player 2 coin buttons. If we move the USB ports down we could use the two extra Admin spaces for those.....decisions, decisions.

If we go with moving the USB ports down the admin panel would look like this:



We would have to drill another hole in the front of the box for the second USB port. The question is whether to put it next to the extra hole (old plunger location) or next to the sound controls. We are leaning toward the old plunger location....

[Nephasth]

Those buttons look sharp!

[t3design]

I do. six of them in fact. Got the vinyl icons for the admin buttons from Troy Robinson, and they look fantastic.

When I designed and drilled the admin panel I hadn't picked out the buttons I was going to use. When I found the orange lit buttons I liked they were not "arcade" buttons:



and needed a different hole size. I already had the 1.125" holes and needed smaller opening so I made aluminum bushings that had an OD of 1.125" and an ID that matched the buttons.



Once the vinyl was applied to the colored disc and the button reassembled and mounted in the panel, they look like this:





Some temporary wiring and 12V DC and voila!





I'm lovin' it.

[t3design]

Side art is such a critical part of the arcade look. Simple or complex, classic or modern, each game's graphics are a part of the total experience. When we were spending hours (and hours) in arcades in the early eighties we were mesmerized by Tempest. The game itself was (and still is) fantastic. Unlike many games of that time there is a variability to each and every level that keeps the player on alert. The game was also housed in a unique cabinet design and had outstanding graphics.

If you have been following this blog at all, you already know this. Our obsession with Tempest led to this entire project and heavily influenced the design. Tonight the project took a huge step forward (not really that big, but per the previous paragraph an exceedingly important one).

We applied the side art!





It looks even better in person than in the pictures! In the closer shot you can see the flipper and nudge buttons and the installed cup holder.



We are really pleased. Really. Really. Pleased.

[ViriiGuy]

Wow! That is slick looking!! Very nice job!

[jimdeprado]

Very Nice!  Your artwork ties the entire project together. 

Jim

[t3design]

Thanks guys! I am really happy with it.

[t3design]

Game On Graphics (was MameMarquees when I ordered this) printed the art for us. The file had plenty of extra black around it to overlap the sides. Once the cabinet was layed on its side we measured the actual width and height (as opposed to trusting the drawings) and also measured the distance top to bottom and side to side of the outside of the neon on the graphic. A little math later we knew that the black edge needed to be 15/16" on the vertical sides and 1 3/16" on the top and bottom. Then we carefully measured and cut a notch on two places on the back side and one place on the top:





We then aligned those edges with the outside edge of the cabinet to align the graphic and taped them in place:



Once the graphic was positioned and secure we removed the backing along the bottom edge and carefully applied it to the cabinet. (we had wiped everything down with alcohol and a lint free cloth first of course)



It is hard to see in the pic, but the light line slightly up from the bottom is where the backing was removed. Then it was simply a matter of one person holding up the graphic while another removed the backing and a third pressed the vinyl into place. We used lint free cloths to rub the vinyl into place and had very little trouble with bubbles.

Once the entire graphic was adhered and rubbed down the excess needed to be trimmed. We inserted a very sharp blade into the crack between the laminate covered cabinet side and the rubber T-molding and carefully sliced the vinyl all the way around the cabinet side:



This cut the graphic vinyl inside the edge of the rubber T-molding producing a really neat edge. We then cut out the holes for the flipper/nudge buttons and the studs for the cup holders:



We tilted the cabinet back upright and reinstalled the buttons and cup holders.

On a side note. we got this reply to our post about the LED Wiz/GP inputs not working in MAME:

Did you enable joystick input in mame.ini?
joystick=1 or something like that.

So a little file edit later and we were playing Tempest (and DK and Defender and DigDug) using the real arcade controls!

[brewerdude]

Brother, that is one badass cab.  Keep up the great work!

I just noticed you put Panduit wire management on the inside.  Impressive!

[rockyrocket]

Very nice - well done!.
Really jealous of all your toys you boys play with in the shop.

[t3design]

We decided to decase the MAME computer.



The tower case is bulky and there is not a good way to afix it to the arcade cabinet so that it won't move or fall over if we move the cabinet. A little www research led us to a bench test computer "case" that is basically a flat panel made of plexiglass with all the necessary mounts for the ATX mother board, power supply and drives.



So, while waiting for parts to show up it occurred to us that with the various components just out in the open, it would behoove us to tidy up the computer a bit. First thing was the industrial grey PSU (that's computer speak for Power Supply Unit). We decased the PSU and decided to paint it Gloss Orange and Hammered Finish Black.

The bare case, ready to paint:



Painted and in oven to hard set the finish (170° for about 2 hours):



The finished case waiting to be reassembled:



We are also going to replace the fans (PSU, CPU and case) with these:



We have (2) 80mm (PSU and CPU) and (2) 120mm (case and cabinet). These have 4 LEDs in them so the fans glow orange when they are running!

[t3design]

Continuing the modding of the Cowboy Arcade computer...

Decided to paint the optical drive orange too:



The new fans came in...



So I got them mounted:



and then plugged things in to see how it would look:





This is what it will look like in the cabinet:



Next is sleeving all the wiring and extending the wires from the PSU to the drives...

[t3design]

We started working on the mounts to hold the monitor glass as well as the admin panel and the speaker grill. There are slots cut into the sides to hold mounting blocks:



The blocks have to fit into the slots, provide a surface for the admin panel (on the bottom) and the speaker grill (on the top) to mount to, and hold the glass. We selected standard mirror holders to hold the glass and came up with a design for the block...



...fitted into the slot in the cabinet side:





We will mount the admin panel with velcro since the only force it will experience is pressure towards the mounting blocks and the mirror mounts will hold the glass.



With the admin panel mounted there is a gap between the panel and the mounting block at the top for the glass to fit into:



Now we have to make similar mounting blocks for the top.

[t3design]

Finally finished the computer decasing and modding project. Just to remind everyone...

decided to decase the computer and mount on an open plane case. Then decided that the power supply and ODD needed to be orange and the fans needed to light up. Then decided that the wires all needed to be sleeved in orange...

Here is the sleeving job about midway:


This was straight forward but far from easy. Getting each molex pin of of it's connector was a bugger. Even with the right tool it was still very touchy and required just the right angle and pressure. One of the wires came out of it's pin during this process and it was very hard getting the pin out without a wire attached and putting everything back together.

We fabricated the 5-pin power cables for the drives as the new mounts have them too far away for the original cables to reach. The 4-pin and 24-pin power cables were dismantled and the reassembled using black plugs and applying the sleeving material.

Finally, everything was crammed back into the PSU and plugged in. There was a moment waiting for the power up that seemed like an eternity, but then it sprang to life and all was well:



We were very concerned that we could have mucked something up during the modding. So many wires removed and replaced and so much stuff moved around. It wouldn't have taken much to make a mistake.

We had made a template for the mounting holes:



so after carefully selecting the location we drilled pilot holes into the cab sides being careful not to go to deep, then the hole size needed for the threaded inserts, then a slightly larger size for just a bit to help get the threads started. Then the case panel just drops into place:



By some stroke of karma the updated LED Wiz/GP's came back in the mail today, so we can re-hook the controls and be back playing. Tomorrow we go get glass.

[Nephasth]

Bump!

[t3design]

It's been over 4 years since this build last was updated here. Unfortunately, RL got very hectic and very little got done. When last seen, the build was about 90% physically done and about 50% software/emulator done. We could play games with the keyboard if dad got everything clipped together and working, but it was a pain and it didn't happen very often.

Then my youngest kids got not-so-young and they want the arcade to work! My 5th made me promise that we would get the arcade completely finished (he didn't yet understand that you are never really "done".) So we started working on the list:

"New" computer to resolve simple hardware issues that were impossible to overcome. DONE. We found a lightly used HP Pentium H8-1010 running a Core i7 at around 3.8 GHz, plenty of memory and plenty of HD space.

“Newer” version of Mame and get MaLa installed and working. DONE. We installed Mame 161 and Mala 174. We did struggle to get everything configured but after a lot of reading and messing around it all works.

“Hide” Windows stuff to make the startup more “Arcade like”. DONE. We followed the instructions in (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=113896.0) to the letter and then not so much to the letter and got our own animation and splash screen while getting rid of all Windows stuff. Haven’t hacked the bios to clear the HP power-up screen yet as we are a little afraid of that.

Get CPWizard installed and be able to pause game to see controls mapped on our CP. PARTIAL. We got CPWizard up and running and were able to map our control panel, but haven’t been able to enter the Spinner or the Trackball (HELP?) We also can’t get ShowCP to run in order to have the CP maps available in Mame.

Installer LED Blinky (or alternate) to have button, joy and trackball LED's light with games to show controls. DONE. finished wiring the LED's for the joysticks and the admin buttons. Cot everything mapped into LEDBlinky and even created some of our own animations. looks great!

Be able to plug in Playstation3 controllers for Player 3 and Player 4 and two Aimtrack lightguns for shooters. NOT DONE. This is a controller numbering stability issue that we are researching to no avail. The info is confusing to us.

Power up with external switch and power down on MaLa exit. NOT DONE. We have the stuff, just haven’t moved the switch outside the cabinet.

Mount new LED monitor and “bezel” the back of glass to hide cab guts. DONE. We had a Nieman Displays Tri-Mode CRT, but wanted better graphics for newer games so switched. CRT Monitor is for sale… Got the mount finished and installed.

Wire in Admin switches, DONE. Wired buttons to LEDWiz+GP #3 and lights to external 12V. MAME recognizes the buttons, MaLa does not. Sad Face....

Install, wire and hookup LED's for the Joystick Handles. DONE

Wire Coin Door into cab. NOT DONE. Have an original Atari double coin door with harness intact. I have the plug too. Will take considerable wiring work to get all that done.

Final touches on 5V and 12V wiring and tidy up cabinet internals. NOT DONE.

Get sound system controls wired, mounted and running. DONE. It took some serious work on the electronics board I built. In the end, I had swapped some wires. Swapped correctly everything worked. We mounted the volume and bass adjust knobs and the headphone jack. Looks and sounds awesome.

We will post as we make progress. We couldn’t have gotten this far without this community and we won’t finish without some more help. Thank you.

[t3design]

http://cowboyarcadeproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cowboy-Arcade.jpg

[rtkiii]

Man I dig the style of the cabinet!  Nice work!