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Portable with changeable control panels - Complete (More or less)
Hawkweber:
Howdy. Been "lurking" for a while trying to get as much info as possible before tackling a build for myself. As much as I would love to have a full-size cab, there is no way my wife would let me get away with setting up one in the house, unless it was in the basement - I did not want to be relegated to the basement to play games. So, had the idea to make a portable unit. Now, I know that there are a number of portables out there - some of them have frankenpanels, some are set up for only one style of game - and I wanted to have more functionality than that. So, had the idea of a unit that I could swap the panels. Also, if I do get a chance to build a fullsize cab, I could use the panels in that too. It needs to be able to plug into either a monitor or a TV (VGA and S-video out). Oh, and it had to be done inexpensively. (Hah!)
So, the basic design of the unit will house the guts of the machine (pc) and its components, drive, power, fans, as well as have dedicated admin controls, speakers, and volume control. I do not have any amazing artistic skills, so it would not have artwork, but would be classy - I'm thinking semi-gloss black with gold edging (images of the Smoky and the Bandit Trans Am colors come to mind, but without the firebird logo). I figure that should be good enough so that if it is visible in the main area of the house my wife won't complain. ;D
The current design overall dimensions have the front of the unit at 4.5" sloping up to 8.5" at the back which is 16" deep. I would have preferred to have the heights somewhat lower with less of a slope, but it had to be able to have room for the cpu fan and have good separation between the speakers and the cpu. The slope was necessary to keep the trackball from hitting the video card. The base is 25" wide and the top (admin and panels) are 27" wide. The control panels are 10" front to back and the admin panel takes up 7". The admin panel houses the speakers, volume control, admin buttons (for front-end) and coin/1 player/2 player buttons). This panel will flip up with hinges.
The original idea for the control panels was to have them attach utilizing some nifty interlocks (like the modular panels used in another design), but after playing around with ideas, I figured simple would be the way and I will be using external locking mechanisms for it. Not really clean, but cheaper and easy.
While no expert with CAD programs, I created some sketch-ups to give the basic idea:
The first is the basic top view with the 1 player panel attached. The left joystick is 8-way, then a turbo-spinner, then a 4-way joystick, then a 3" x-arcade trackball, then the 6 buttons.
The second is the side view of the unit showing the components from the side and how the PC motherboard fits is. Basic design had to allow for the trackball unit to miss hitting the video card (which supports both vga and s-video).
The third is the 2-player panel for fighting games and others that require 2 joysticks like Crazy Climber.
The fourth is the dedicated Defender/Stargate/Asteroids panel.
Next post will list components and issues encountered/resolved.
Hawkweber:
So, the basic idea was to go as inexpensively as possible:
1) Use an extra PC motherboard/cpu/ram - nothing to purchase.
- I had one with an AMD Athlon 1350+ CPU and nVidia GeForce video card with 1GB RAM.
2) Use one of my extra Harddrives - nothing to purchase.
- Started with this idea, but then figured that this is going to be a portable unit and the drive will be rattled around during transportation and also might get jostled during gameplay. Also, a constantly spinning drive uses power and generates heat (which I want to minimize). Got the idea to try:
2a) Use a thumbdrive! Tried getting XP installed by creating an nLite image and followed the directions on getting it to install to the thumbdrive found online, after spending days trying this, gave up on it and tried:
2b) Linux! There are many linux thumbdrive implementations, so I figured why not? I know some linux (by no means a guru), and tried ubuntu. Got it installed and then downloaded sdlmame and after a lot of updates and configuration, finally got Wah!cade frontend installed and working. Was configuring this all while visiting my wife's grandma (3 days spent), on the laptop that I had with me. Had some sound stuttering issues and wasn't able to resolve them and I figured I would do it when I got home. Plugged the stick into the pc being used for mame and it ran like a dog - we're talking maybe 5 frames per second. Couldn't get it to work right, so though I would try a less intensive linux version:
2b1) PuppyLinux. Several days wasted on getting this thing to work. Back to WinXP.
2c) So I used some Amazon gift certificates and picked up an 8GB Solid State IDE drive. No moving parts. Shock resistant. No heat. Superfast. But $100 added to project cost.
3) Arcade parts:
3a) Buttons and joysticks (happ super) from GroovyGameGear.
3b) Trackball - wasn't going to buy a new one originally. Thought I had a PC trackball lying around, but this wasn't the case. Looked into getting something from eBay, but the pricing on them was close to what xgaming was offering for a new 3" trackball unit so I bit the bullet and purchased one. As a bonus, it came with 4 arcade buttons (for mouse controls), but I can use them for admin controls. Added $60.
3c) Spinner - wasn't planning on this, but after trying to play arkanoid and tempest with buttons, determined that this is a must. Looked into doing a mouse hack for a spinner, but the instructions and work was so complicated that I just got one from GroovyGameGear. Added $70.
3d) Keyboard encoder - I was going to do the keyboard hack idea. I have lots of keyboards available to me. But after looking into all that is required (mostly time) I dropped the $35 for a KeyWiz unit. I am not afraid of soldering, but I had no desire to sit there and map out matrixes. Also, using a dedicated encoder will reduce the amount of wire needed to hook everything up.
As you can see, the "inexpensive" requirement is going out the window...
4) Power supply - use the one in my computer case.
5) Fans - use the ones from the computer case. Will probably have to by grills for it.
6) Speakers - use the 3" speakers from a set of pc speakers I have.
6a) Found out that the motherboard doesn't have a "speaker" port but a "line out" port. This means that I need to have power for the speakers. I don't have a set that I can cannibalize...
6b) Thank you Target! On sale, set of powered speakers, originally $15, but on sale for 5$! The actual speaker units were junk, but I just needed the power module. Also they have fabric covering which I was able to pull off of the shells and can use for the console.
7) Attaching the control panels to the unit. Had many thoughts on this, like using 25-pin d-subs and such, but after reading the build for the "modular" panels that use RJ45 jacks, that made sense (I have lots of cat 5 cables around). Will need up to 3 patch cables (for the 2player panel) and 2 for each of the others. 1 of the cables will be for the 2 joysticks, then another cable for the player buttons (with one cable housing the ground pinout). Purchased a bunch of "european" style terminal block from Radio Shack to terminate these cables on the panels. Will use 20 or 22 gauge stranded wire for the actual switch wiring. The spinner and trackball use USB so no worries there.
8) Material for the actual unit - while I wanted to go light, I decided to use MDF. I hate particleboard. I could have used plywood, but I was going to be painting this and MDF gives smoother surface. Using 1/2" MDF. I'm sure I will need carry handles on the sides of this thing...
Anyway, I cut out the panels last week. Went well except for the angled sides - had to use a jigsaw for that so have a bit of sanding to do to get them even. On vacation now so that will resume when I get back. Will have pictures. Now I'm working on front ends for Mame. Tried Mamewah, but think I might go with Mala. Designing layout to use the black/gold theme.
Hawkweber:
Finally got a chance to do some more work on this - been stuck inside as winter made its entrance and after dumping 2 feet of snow, the temps have been in the 20's with wind gusts up to 30mpg and windchills in the teens and single digits. Not about to do MDF cutting and sanding in my garage nor in weather conditions like that. But, the weather broke and with some nice days was able to get to sanding/shaping/smoothing the cut pieces and did some dry fitting of the panels. Got the sides evened up and the front upright angle (to correspond to the sloped sides) sanded - Thank you Proxxon rotary tool that I recently bought - beats the heck out of the Dremel piece of junk I used to use. Still have to sand down the back piece slope. Forecast is rain all day tomorrow, so hopefully I can get some work done on Monday as it is a holiday and I am off.
Hawkweber:
It's amazing what frigid temps will do - and about 4' of snow over 2 blizzards within a week of each other - to delay work on a project. But the snow has melted and we had some really nice days lately and I was able to get some more work done on this. Drilled out the holes for the 3 control panels and routed out the underside of the trackball area. Can I just say that MDF dust is crazy and gets everywhere!? Still have to drill the holes for the bolts to secure the trackball and the joysticks. Might route the edges of the panels to reduce the sharpness - just a thought. Also played around with the placement of the computer components in the case and think that I might be able to reduce the height and panel angle - the joystick base on the Stargate/Asteroids panel will determine if that can happen as it will come closest to the video card. Also need to figure out ventilation/fans and their placement as well as if I am going to use some type of grills or just drill holes.
slasherman:
It is exciting how smooth the changeable control panels gonna be. How easy it gonna be to switch, so I'm gonna follow this project.