Two-Headed Beast -- Finished

[Trip]

You have to pay to get in?

Why didn't I think of that?!

LOL, you were too busy on your mini stars wars awesomeness.

[HanoiBoi]

Nephasth, this is quite a juicy thread and a juicier build! Fantastic work.

I think I read every post, so forgive me if I missed this, but I just came from your linked post on a double monitor thread and I was looking to see if you configured your 2HB to work as 2 separate MAME cabs.

Did you do this?  If so, what is your configuration?

Again, great build!  Hey, it can't hurt to keep hearing that.  ; )

[Nephasth]

Thanks for the comments guys!

I think I read every post, so forgive me if I missed this, but I just came from your linked post on a double monitor thread and I was looking to see if you configured your 2HB to work as 2 separate MAME cabs.

Did you do this?  If so, what is your configuration?

Nope. One computer, one game running at a time.


Well the boy had his 16th birthday party last night. He had about 5 or 6 of his idiot friends over. They decided it would be a good idea to wrestle in the game room... and one of the Invaders got broke off the front! 

[PL1]

Well the boy had his 16th birthday party last night. He had about 5 or 6 of his idiot friends over. They decided it would be a good idea to wrestle in the game room... and one of the Invaders got broke off the front! 

So will you be setting up a legal defense fund?

With the right lawyer, you can probably convince the jury that it was justifiable homicide.   

Seriously, though -- I hope that the injured invader makes a full recovery and quickly returns to his rightful place on your truly outstanding build.


Scott

[Le Chuck]

That sucks bro, hope it isn't too much work getting it back up to snuff.  

Oh, and happy father's day

[yotsuya]

Did they fess up right away, or did you discover it this morning?

[Nephasth]

So will you be setting up a legal defense fund?

With the right lawyer, you can probably convince the jury that it was justifiable homicide.   

Oh man, I was ---smurfing--- fuming...

Seriously, though -- I hope that the injured invader makes a full recovery and quickly returns to his rightful place on your truly outstanding build.

That sucks bro, hope it isn't too much work getting it back up to snuff.   

It's not horrible, the weld nuts that were JB Welded to the backside snapped off. The ---smurfy--- part is that it's the second invader down and to get to the backside to fix it properly I need to pull the monitor again!

Did they fess up right away, or did you discover it this morning?

Teenagers fess up to some ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---? Oh hell no, they tried to hide it. ---smurfing--- little shits.

[yotsuya]

I remember once my 7 year old nephews were playing my cabs while I was in another room. I heard a crash so i ran in there to see what was up. They had knocked over the glass jar I used to hold tokens, shattering it on the tile floor. Did they stop playing to pick them up? Hell no! 

[Nephasth]

Got my first order from Bob Roberts today.

Two cap kits and flybacks for the Beast. The flyback on the left monitor was on its last leg, and the right monitor never looked as nice as the left. Did the kit and flyback on the left monitor today... holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- what a difference! The monitor looked good before, but now it looks ---smurfing--- awesome! ...but I dinked around with the horizontal width coil and burnt it up... The width is almost good, but it's about 6 or 8 pixels too narrow... damn. I'll do the right monitor's caps and flyback soon... and I'll make sure not to use conductive tools on its width coil...

[Nephasth]

Cap kit aftermath...




Need to get a horizontal width coil for the left monitor and I have a vertical size pot coming for the right monitor. After those, they should be perfect.

[Nephasth]

Wired up the LED-Wiz to the computer and the Invaders to the LED-Wiz this morning. Also upgraded from a 2.8 ghz Pentium D to a 3.4 ghz Pentium D today. I've been tidying up the wires inside the cab so it will make adding the additional harnesses much easier. Trucking along...

[Nephasth]

Made the harnesses for the marquee earlier today. Quick vid of KI2 intro (first time running on the cab, no CHD before today):

[Malenko]

that's nothing short of AMAZING bro, kudos!

[Nephasth]

Thanks man! Now I just need to stop being lazy and wire up the joystick lighting and right coin door...

[AlienInferno]

Good job.  You've been moving right along.  Love the lighting on this thing.   

[spkywlnt73]

Man, anytime I feel like not wanting to work on my latest cab, I pull up this thread and get motivated. Thanks! Guess I know what I'm doing today. That cab is crazy awesome, and you go and add that killer lighting effect, I mean WOW dude! I honestly expect a robot to be playing this thing the next time I look at this thread. You suck by the way! Haha!

[Nephasth]

Thanks for the comments guys! spkywlnt73, glad this thread could provide a little motivation!

Got this little device in the mail today...



I'm about 95% satisfied with my current video signal setup (two hacked VGA cables and a $1 Chinese VGA splitter). The small gauge wires of those hacked VGA cables have me slightly concerned. Saw this and thought I'd give it a go, I'll be able to split the signal right at the board and run 22 gauge black wire to the video signal headers on each monitor. I'll rig up a short test harness for this, and if it works just as good or better than my current setup, I'll mount this to my interface panel just above the LED-Wiz.

ETA: An angled view of the marquee showing the almost mirror reflection of the LEDs on the painted plexi. This is something I thought would bother me before I saw it, but I think it looks pretty cool...

[Malenko]

kinda looks like a 3D pacman maze, great little "happy accident"

[Nephasth]

Finally got around to wiring up that VGA breakout board. No change. So I'll be installing that soon. Planning on knocking out the joystick lighting harnesses on Monday... The little girl has a birthday party coming up, and I'd like to have this thing done by then... July 14th.

[Nephasth]

Got some work done today. Mounted the VGA breakout board to the interface panel. Also got the left side harnesses done for the joystick lighting. Check out the Robotron layout...



It won't be long now... said the monkey when they cut off his tail.

[Nephasth]

Made the right side harnesses for joystick lighting this morning. Quick video showing all the lighting...



Still need to wire the right coin door, do some minor monitor work, and tidy up the wires.

[Woodshop Flunky]

Outstanding work! 

[Junai]

Did you notice an improvement in picture quality with the new vga splitter and heavier gauge wire?

[Nephasth]

Did you notice an improvement in picture quality with the new vga splitter and heavier gauge wire?

Finally got around to wiring up that VGA breakout board. No change.

Nope. The picture quality is the same using either the cheap splitter or breakout board, and they're both good. The cap kits did the most for the image quality. My main concern was the sync wires of my hacked VGA cables, they're something like 32 gauge wire, and they're crimped in a pin designed for 22 gauge at the smallest. Also, even though Ultimarc says WG monitors can accept a signal voltage of 1V (what the ArcadeVGA produces), I believe a video amp is necessary. When only one monitor (either) is hooked up (with either the splitter, breakout board, or hacked VGA cable alone) the image on the monitor is unstable in that it throbs/jumps slightly. But when both monitors are hooked up, the image is perfectly stable. It's strange, but I'm glad it works out with my setup. One person I made a VGA breakout cable for also complained of a similar issue when used with his 25" arcade monitor and an ArcadeVGA. However, a friend of mine that is using one of my cables along with Soft15khz doesn't have this problem...

[Well Fed Games]

That is one sexy control panel. Metal + lights = gorgeous.

[Nephasth]

That is one sexy control panel. Metal + lights = gorgeous.

Thanks!

Nothing exciting, but the CP harnesses are finally 100% complete. This pic shows how the LEDs are mounted for the joystick lighting too...



96 wires + a USB cable (perhaps 2 USB cables in the future...) for each CP.

Started on the right coin door wiring, but just couldn't stay interested enough to finish it today...

[yotsuya]

You are a BEAST, my friend! 

[Nephasth]

Got back at it after a couple beers.

Coin door wiring.


Right coin door lit up.


At this point it's ready for the little girl's birthday party on the 14th. She's excited, and I don't have to worry about little girls wrestling in the game room... I hope.

If I find myself with extra time before then, I'll do the last of the monitor work.

Quick note, way back when I made the reject button inserts, I planned on adding a microswitch behind the reject buttons for an addtional credit button (hence "push to coin up"). But now that it has been played heavily (with tokens on the left side), I've decided to have a shifted coin button for each player instead. When someone (and I'll probably only bother explaining it to my family and close friends) wants to coin up fast, they can hold start and push button 1 to coin up. Start and button 2 is pause, and start with button 7 (P1 and P2 only) is exit back to the front end. All other admin controls are handled with the wireless keyboard...

[mamefreak2]

Man, everytime I think people have done as much as can be done with these cabs somebody like this comes along and tops it. This looks absolutely amazing. Love the marquee and the space invaders looks great too. Just awesome.

[Nephasth]

Man, everytime I think people have done as much as can be done with these cabs somebody like this comes along and tops it. This looks absolutely amazing. Love the marquee and the space invaders looks great too. Just awesome.

Many thanks! I had a vision before this all started, and the scope of that vision has been realized. Totally happy with how this has turned out.

The little girl's party went off without a hitch. Yesterday I pulled the right monitor's chassis. Removed the V-Position pot and found it to bench test perfectly. Was a little perplexed. Looked the board over, found a few cold joints and reflowed those and reinstalled the original pot. Threw the chassis back in and fired her up. Monitor adjusted out perfectly! Today I pulled the left monitor's chassis. Figured I'd look her over real good while she was out, no cold joints. Removed and replaced the horizontal width coil. Threw her back in and fired her up. Came up great! No adjustment to the new horizontal width coil needed. I pulled up Primal Rage and went into the service menu and brought up the monitor test screens. Everything looked good, except the left monitor has a slight convergence problem on the lower 1/3 of the screen when viewing the violet test screen. Everything looks fine on that monitor during normal play, and I've never noticed that until I ran the test today. I'll leave it as is for now, I might fiddle with it down the road, but I might not.

Still need to wire up that VGA breakout board and run the new video signal harnesses. Just a little cleaning up on the inside after that and she's 99%. Started on a video for this, I might hold off on finishing it until I add a couple more things... AimTraks. Really been having the itch for some gun games lately. But I don't have a spare $200 laying around just yet, so it may be a little while.

[Le Chuck]

Still need to wire up that VGA breakout board and run the new video signal harnesses. Just a little cleaning up on the inside after that and she's 99%. Started on a video for this, I might hold off on finishing it until I add a couple more things... AimTraks. Really been having the itch for some gun games lately. But I don't have a spare $200 laying around just yet, so it may be a little while.

Since you're rocking CRTs why are you going with AimTracks?  Even tho they are out of production you can still come across ACT Labs CRT light guns.  They work as close to arcade as we can get right now.  I have Aimtrak, it's a good system, but I think it would be a shame to put a sensor bar on a CRT when you can go with classic flash. 

[Nephasth]

Regarding the ACT Labs guns...

The PC USB Gun will not work with LCD, plasma, HDTV, projectors, scan converters or conventional televisions. It will only work for CRT-based computer monitors. However, the PC TV USB Gun will work with CRT based TV’s providing that your Video Card has an S-Video output.

AND

The PC USB Light Gun will work with most Arcade Monitor as long as it has uses a VGA connection.

My monitors are Wells Gardner K7000 series and don't have VGA input. The signal is ran to them with essentially a hacked VGA cable, but even the signal is modified (AVGA), so I don't think those would work. But I may be wrong. And if I am, the dual screens may pose an issue. They have dual gun support, but nothing is mentioned about dual screens. I know the AimTraks will work, and it's just a few small holes in my bezels. And the AimTraks look pretty badass too...

[Le Chuck]

Well rats. 

[BadMouth]

FYI, the s-vid act labs guns will work simulatneously on 2 TVs using a basic splitter.
I ran my my driving cab off my main emulator setup before I built a separate PC for it and couldn't help but tinker with things like that since they were right next to each other.

They were even different size TVs.  The resolution and refresh rate was the same, therefore the same pixel is being drawn on both screens at the same time.  That's what the light guns are picking up....which part of the white screen is being drawn the instant you pull the trigger.
I don't think the dual screens would be anything to worry about.  Not sure about the signal.
Processing like line doubling and interlacing definitely screw them up.  

EDIT: Not that I think you would ever ditch real arcade monitors for an s-vid input to an old tv, but thought I'd mention it for the benefit of anyone else building a two headed beast.

[Nephasth]

Thanks for the info, and it's good to hear someone messes around with stuff like that. I wouldn't mind trying them out, just don't want to drop the cash on 'em to find out they don't work… 

[Le Chuck]

I'm just holding my breath for a guy to make a board that can let me use my Happ optical guns with MAME.

Have been since about '03 but still holding. 

[BadMouth]

I'm just holding my breath for a guy to make a board that can let me use my Happ optical guns with MAME.

Have been since about '03 but still holding. 

http://parts.globalvr.com/
search for
"usb2gun I/O PCB"

I can't remember whether you're supposed to buy the one for the conversion or dedicated cab. 

One person on this board bought it, but couldn't get it working.
The gun shows up as a joystick.
I think someone with a better understanding of the sensetivity and deadzone settings in MAME might have been able to get it working.
They sold it to another member here, who hasn't been heard from in a while.

[Nephasth]

I can't remember whether you're supposed to buy the one for the conversion or dedicated cab. 

Depends if your cab has a JAMMA harness. Looks like if it doesn't, you should pick up the dedicated version... But even if it does, and you're running a J-PAC... may be an issue...

I've got a line on a couple ACT Labs guns, if they can be had for a reasonable sum I'll give 'em a shot.

[BadMouth]

I'm just holding my breath for a guy to make a board that can let me use my Happ optical guns with MAME.

Have been since about '03 but still holding. 

http://parts.globalvr.com/
search for
"usb2gun I/O PCB"

I can't remember whether you're supposed to buy the one for the conversion or dedicated cab. 

One person on this board bought it, but couldn't get it working.
The gun shows up as a joystick.
I think someone with a better understanding of the sensetivity and deadzone settings in MAME might have been able to get it working.
They sold it to another member here, who hasn't been heard from in a while.

Wrote that in a hurry as I was leaving work....

Here is the relevant thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=114406.0

[Le Chuck]

Yeah, I remember that thread from my lurker phase.  I don't know if I'm ready to pull the trigger on 300 dollars worth of "I sure hope this works"