Anyone doing this? [Regarding BYO sitdown racing cab]

[speedfreek]

Has anyone built converted a sitdown racing cabinet before?
And if so whats the best way to go about doing it?

I was going to buy a sanfranscisco rush cabinet but here they go for 800-1200$ at the auctions for a decent one. Its hard to find one that is not working as that was what I was really looking for since I am just going to sell the board and just use the cabinet/controls and monitor. But I would have to buy one in good shape as people at the auctions buy these up to fix and resell.

My goal was to convert one of these cabinets to run MAME and possible some pc racing games like carmageddon and need for speed.

I decided instead of putting in a pc I'd use an xbox instead. with this option i loose the ability to play carmageddon (sniff sniff) but I think I gain alot more.
The reason for this is it has all the power I need in one design with the cost being cheaper than I can put a pc together for.
As you may or may not know there is also a pretty decent version of mame and a playstation emulator that runs on this box not to mention the nice collection of racing games available for the xbox.

Has anyone put an xbox into a racing cab?

So with the xbox notion instead of a pc....Would it be more cost effective instead of buying a prebuilt racing cabinet building my own?

If I went the built it yourself route and went and bought a steering wheel and pedals and a seat from the junkyard would the final result be cheesey and unappealing?
I dont want the output to be like a real car....I want it to look like a sitdown arcade machine.

UPDATE:
I was just looking and stumbled on the madcatz MC2 racing wheel. This may be a better option than figuring out how to make a real car steering wheel and pedal work!

Anyone have any success in using this setup in a driving cab? Xbox....MC2 steering wheel..building your own cabinet and using a 27" tv.

If so, how did it turn out? Are you pleased with it?

anyone have any dimensions for a sanfrancsisco/crusin usa cab? If not, any dimensions for a generic sitdown cabinet?


Im really excited to undertake this project. I didnt even sleep last night!

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Speedfreek

[Birdtales]

I am going to start the exact project you speak of after I finish my standup cab.

 I won the left side of an Indy 500 twin at an auction for 40.00 . I am in the process of selling the parts for 150.00 (boards are bad). I plan to put an Xbox in and hopefully use the 26" Dual Res monitor that is already in it to save "wasting" a TV. I also have the Madcatz MC2 universal. This will allow me to use a PS2 or Gamecube also.

Check this link for a guy who built his own.

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=8220

If you are anywhere near MD I have a couple of Atari seats that I would let someone have if they want them. PM/Email me if you are interested or just want to compare notes.

[unclet]

I am finishing up my sitdown cabinet for Mame (Spy Hunter steering wheel, Star Wars yoke, Pole Position steering wheel, Sega HangOn motorcycle assembly, and two sets of gas/brake pedals) and recently decided it would be nice to use all of this stuff to play XBox games as well.    Although I finally came to the conclusion that using my steering wheel assemblies for XBox would not be trivial.   I hacked my steering wheel assemblies to Microsoft Dual Strike USB gamepads, but I doubt the XBox console would recognize them if I plugged the USB cable into the console (please note, I have not purchased an XBox yet).  All of my stuff are 5K potentiometer driven and should work well in Mame, but it would be great to use them for XBox as well if you had any ideas how I could do this?

People have informed me that I should just get a steering wheel assembly made for the XBox and use that.  Might just do that, since my arcade steering wheel assemblies probably do not have the required number of buttons to be able to play all XBox driving games anyway...

I am assuming the Madcatz MC2 universal in some sort of steering wheel designed to connect directly to the XBox and not some hacked arcade steering wheel..... correct?

UncleT

[HeadRusch]

The MadCatz MC2 is a wheel, cost you about $60 bucks, that has a universal connection box on it...that means you can plug it into any system except for a PC and Dreamcast, last time I checked...it had PS2/PSOne connectors, an XBox connector, and a GameCube connector......

I'm also going to be building my own sit-down cab rather than trying to convert an existing one....1) I have a spare 27" TV that will be hard to place into an existing "old enclosed" cab....2) Id ont want one of the modern plastic cabs, i want one of the old fashioned (read DARK inside!) enclosed cabs.....for that old school vibe.

I'm still deciding how I want to do seating and controls.  I think I'll also give myself the option of having a keyboard and joystick attachment near the "arms" (Think STAR TREK sit-down cabinet) to play space simulators and stuff on the PC or whatever, with a joystick instead of a pad....but I haven't decided on tha tor not.  I haven't played any of that type of game in ages...

[arcadepcnut]

Hello again!
This is speedfreek. Im offsite and could not remember my login password for speedfreek.

Here's the plan. Its in the starting stages. I will be developing a website to document the process of this project. I dont have a name for this project and I also have a friend that has never done any woodworking to help me. He wants to just be part of the experience.

I have all the parts besides the seat. I will be purchasing the seat next week at a junkyard. So look for some killer updates to this thread in about two weeks from this saturday.

The project is a full size enclosed sit down arcade cabinet. The pieces consist of a 27" tv, a Madcatz MC2 steering wheel that will be gutted and the components built into the arcade control panel, a seat from the junkyard, some altec lansing speakers with sub from walmart, an additional modded Xbox (these can be bought at my local pawn shop for $129...so i figured I would just get another one for this project so my regular one can sit upstairs on the bigscreen). The reason for the xbox is what kind of computer can you build/buy for $129 that has usb/64meg memory/3d video card with tvout/decent sized harddisk/dvdrom drive and 5.1 surround sound?! Plus....midnight run 2 and burnout 2 will be killer fun in this rig.

The cabinet will be fully enclosed but be a hard top convertable. I have yet to see a sitdown cabinet like this. Also, I looked at the project page mentioned here for a sitdown that was made out of pressboard. The author however used one sheet per side to make the unit and provided no dimensions. According to my calculations This made the cabinet at most 48" high. Im 6'2 tall....so that would leave my neck bent at a ackward angle while in the cab and also put the seat right on the floor of the cabinet making entry and exit difficult. I am modeling my cabinet after many of the newer cab styles where the seat is 10" off the floor....so you actually climb up into it like a real car.
The hard top convertable means the cab will be completely enclosed for solo play but when friends are over the top will remove for easy viewing access. Best of both worlds!!
anyone have a good name for the project?

Man I cant wait to get back home and get started. The plans are drawn out and I'll post a webpage in about a week or two for you to visit if you are interested!

Let me know if you have any suggestions or opinions please!!

[Aceldamor]

Sounds....big!  Sounds like you have a nice idea about what you want to do, can't wait to see how it comes along.  My only question is what are you going to do with the hard top once it comes off?  Are you going to make some kind of folding hard top so you don't have to worry about storage?


Also, what army do you play in 40k?  Do you play fantasy?

[arcadepcnut]

Big as in big undertaking or big as in big physically. it wont be that huge physically. Really no bigger than an arcade sitdown racer.

I have plenty of room to set the top in garage or on the floor somewhere. It wont be a retractable top. It will just be off when alot of peeps are over. After they are gone it goes back on.

I only play 40K. Do you play?

I have :
tyranids
orks (speedfreeks)...hence my original signon
space marines
sisters of battle
tau (sold half this army)
necrons (need to sell this army)
blood angels (need to sell this one as well)
a small eldar army
and a very large imperial guard army

about 1500 points of each. I used to be heavily into playing....now not quite as much. Thanks for asking.

[Aceldamor]

Big physically...


I used to play 40k...had a huge chaos army that I sold.  I play WFB now..huge Dark Elf, High Elf, and Chaos armies...I just like the mechanics of FB better.

I also still play Epic 40k

[Captain Rotundo]

I don't know if this will be useful but you might want to check out www.bobearlracing.com they sell this racing seat, looked decent on TechTV....

[arcadepcnut]

I saw it last night and laughed and laughed.
that could be build with a steeringwheel from walmart and some pvc from home depot.
I wonder how expensive it is.

[Molloy]

I've seen some seriously expensive $250 racing set ups. It's just a pity that there's no universal standard for connecting the things to every format.

The technology in wheels is changing all the time, which is a problem. Logic 3 are working on an official Gran Tourismo 4 wheel with loads of force feedback stuff and full 900 degree turning circle. It's questionable how many people would want it after shelling out for the GT3 version.

[arcadepcnut]

If anyone is still interested here is the info as promised.

Me and 2 other friends started working from my chicken scratched blue prints and just started building Friday the 4th of july. It will probably be another week or two before it is finished.

The webpage will be redesigned to look better and more easily navagated. However right not I have about 40 more pictures to post and the machine is near half finished!!

Please post any comments or suggestions I'd like to hear them.

http://www.nnmodels.com/breaktime/index.htm