my progress so far.. now with xbox 360 goodness..and more crappy pics!

[Donkbaca]

well here it is so far...

[ubermick]

Dude! Is holding my hand and answering my asinine questions keeping you from working on this?!? 

[numbnutz48]

I officially hate everyone with a bigger garage than me! 

[Donkbaca]

That's only half of my garage.  It's coming around slowly because my skills aren't that great, and is going to be stained so no visible screws on the outside. Plus working 55 hours a week + 21 month old daughter + pregnant wife = maybe about 3 hours a week I have to work on it.

What do you guys think of the shape?

[ubermick]

It's coming around slowly because my skills aren't that great, and is going to be stained so no visible screws on the outside. Plus working 55 hours a week + 21 month old daughter + pregnant wife = maybe about 3 hours a week I have to work on it.

Ooop, that'll do it. Bitten by the Knievel bug too, eh? 

What do you guys think of the shape?

It might be the angle, but the monitor area looks HUGE - what are you planning on putting in there? Other than that, I think it looks great. Doesn't have the curves that some of the others I've seen do, but if your skills aren't that great (still probably better than mine) it's a good move.

[Donkbaca]

I like the angular, more modern look. 

The monitor area looks big, but its about 24 inches, my monitor is about 14 inches tall and 18 inches or so wide , and I am going to put a 4 inch admin panel just above the CP to access the xbox 360, so it'll be about 21 inches or so I need to cover up, that's about 3-4 inches on the top and bottom.  There will be a 3.5 inch gap from the side of the cab to the screen.   

Its based on the woody, is roughly the same size, except I changed the bottom section, and gave the monitor area a little bit more of an angle, and my monitor is a 21.3" whereas knievel used a 19inch. My interior width is 24 inches and his was 23 1/2 so my monitor will take up more space in the area than his did

The whole in the front of the cab is for my coin door, the angled area above that is actually a door with hidden hinges that swings down to reveal a cubby where I will keep my light guns and wireless controllers for my console emus

[Donkbaca]

Two weeks later, still no progress on the cab, been doing work on the electrical end.  A buddy of mine gave me his old RROD xbox.  Fired it up and after about 10 minutes it had a 2 light ROD, which is good because that is just a standard overheat instead of a hardware failure. Took it apart, removed the x-clamps and cleaned and re-pasted the CPU/GPU.  Looked to me like it was just bad/not enough thermal paste. Its a HDMI, xbox with the added GPU heatsink and thermal pipe.  Fired it up after the fix and ran it for about 45 minutes, the fans never sped up and it ran as cool as Jack Nicholson, (really can't get much cooler than that).  I plan on running this with the dvd drive mounted outside of the case.  The DVD sits right on top of the GPU, so removing it frees up a lot of airflow in the case.  I extended the DVD power cables, had to solder to the eject switch on the motherboard,and got a longer SATA cable.  Now I have about 2 feet to play with.  I need to figure out where I am going to place the dvd player. I am thinking about two possibilities:

1)Putting it on the shelf below the CP, where the controllers and light guns are going to be kept. This would allow for easy swaps of the discs,but I would need to build/buy some sort of enclosure for the drive, because in its current state, its pretty fugly.  Also, letting guests swap out the discs is something I am nervous about with guests losing/scratching discs.

2) Mounting it behind the coin door.  This means that it will be behind a lock, so I don't have to worry about guests losing discs, it also means that I don't have to enclose the drive.  But, it means that changing games will be a PITA.

What do you guys think?  If I go with option 1, what kind of an enclosure do you guys think I should do?

To connect my xbox to my CP, I was originally going to cannibalize my Hori ex sticks, but then I decided that I would keep them in case I wanted to play fighters on my big screen instead of my cab.  So I found some SFIV mad catz pads for 26 bucks a piece at VP games.  The nice thing about these controllers is that they are all digital, so I don't have to worry about converting analog to digital trigger buttons.  The PCB is nice and big and the solder points are pretty straight forward, with the possible exception of the guide button.

I found a good diagram of them here:
http://shoryuken.com/f177/soldering-madcatz-sfiv-fightpad-179270/index2.html

I am connecting seven of the buttons to my CP, and the start, back and guide buttons will be on my admin panel above my cp.  I also tapped the 5v on the controllers so that I can light up my guide buttons when I turn the xbox on.

For my xbox admin buttons, I am using 18mm sanwa buttons for back, guide and start.  I am modding the guide buttons so that they light up, but I haven't gotten to this yet.  To switch between the cab and the xbox 360, I am using a 24mm green seimitsu button to activate my kvm switch.

To connect the xbox to my cab, I am using this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F8J0TE

This KVM is good for 3 reasons: 1 its relatively cheap, 2 it lets you share a monitor and sound, and 3 it has a wired remote.  I took the remote apart, and as I guessed, its a momentary contact that switches the sources.  I soldered up a couple of wires, and now I have a seimitsu 24 mm button that switches everything.  I had to get a xbox vga cable, and a female to female vga adapter to connect it to the xbox, and I had to get adapters to turn the male rca jacks from the xbox into a female headphone port so that I could share the sound, but it all works!

I have the vga cable, the sound and a usb cable plugged in to my computer, on my xbox I have the sound and vga cable plugged in.  My keyboard encoder plugs into the KVM, and the xbox xontroller will plug straight in to the xbox.  So the way it works is that when the KVM is switched to the computer, the encoder, the monitor and the sound is hooked up.  When I switch to the xbox, the encoder gets disconnected, and the video and sound switch the xbox 360.   I turn the 360 on by pressing the guide buttons on the admin panel.

So, that's what I have been up to.

To do:

Mount marquee, speaker panel, moniitor panel and admin panel.  The trickiest part will be the marquee, which is laser etched plexi that will be edge lit.

mod 18 mm sanwa buttons

Paint/ finish

seeing as how I only get about 4 hours or so a week to work on this, I am hoping to get it done before Mortal Kombat comes out so I can play it on my cab!



So, now when I start up my rig, it boots to my FE. 

[eds1275]

Sounds pretty sweet. I dunno who you have playing that thing where discs would get scratched up or missing - but if you are really worried about it then I'd stick the drive behind the coin door. For the most part you can just keep the keys in the lock, unless say you have a hell storm of other people's children booking it through/around your house.

If you put it on the shelf, I would recommend finding an xbox hd-dvd drive from somewhere, and swapping the guts. You'd probably have to cut out the back side of the drive to make room for the wires but it'd look nice at least.

[Donkbaca]

Behind the coin door is probably the best thing to do, the less access you give to people the better, but I am probably going to use this cab for playing fighters on XBL, when others aren't around, So I am thinking maybe the shelf would be more convenient with me.. 

I have seen mods of the hd dvd drive, not sure if I like the way it looks though.  I think I may just build one out of wood to match the cab.

I was planning on getting a lot done this weekend, but didn't get a chance to touch anything on account of spending time on the backyard.  Hopefully I can get some work done this week, and be done next weekend... hopefully....

[eds1275]

Ooooh, the backyard. I have one of those. I'm scared to go back there right now  This year it's going to get better. I'm pouring a concrete patio, building a raised garden bed and after 2 years of "debate" to put it lightly... a single hole, modular mini golf. And of course hope to get rid of the moss and get my grass back to being lush.

Do you have any more of the woodworking done?

[Donkbaca]

nope, what you see is what stands in my garage.  I need to wait for a couple of forstner bits to come in before I finish my admin panel, then I have to mount my monitor, do a speaker shelf, do the marquee and I'll be done

Of course, if I have to build a enclosure for my dvd drive, that will take a little longer.  I am thinking if I do that, it'll just be a simple mitred box.  Going to replace the faceplate with a wood one, and mount the eject switch in the back, then it will look like a simple rectangular box

None of this should be too hard, except for my marquee.  I laser etched 2 sheets of plexi and am going to edge light them, so for the longest times I was thinking about how to mount the marquee and LEDs.  I think I have a solution now.  I think there is probably a few hours of woodworking to be done before it can be stained and taken inside for wiring.

[Nephasth]

You could make a deeper recess/groove for the edges of the marquee and install these.

[Donkbaca]

I already have the LEDS, and an idea of what I want to do.  I am going to take a piece of 3/4 inch ply and then cut out an opening that is slightly smaller then my marquee, then I will route out the back to put the marquee in and have room for the leds, the leds are small, they don't need much, then I am going to back it all with black foam board.  To finish it off, I'll use my t-molding on the edges.

I am thinking about putting some tint on the front of it too, that way when its off it'll be black, but when its lit it will look like the light is floating in the middle of the marquee.

I think I know what to do, I just haven't had the time to get it done....

[megrog2]

If your xbox can be jtagged, that is an option so you don't have to deal with discs.

[Donkbaca]

nope, not jtaggable, this one was a RROD throw away that a buddy of mine had.  I convinced him to give it to me for free 

So, no JTAG, now that I have one, I am not sure if I want to spend the money to get one either.  Also, I kind of like the idea of using the cabinet to play people on XBL.

I think I will upload some of my electronic pics tonight, since my woodworking is at a stand still at the moment....

[BurgerKingDiamond]

something you can do is decase the 360 and put the MOBO somewhere out of the way inside the cab and mount the DVD drive somewhere convenient near the coin door. It's just connected with a SATA cable and a proprietary power connection. You can buy a longer SATA cable, but you'll probably have to lengthen the power cable yourself. Thats what I did on my candy, before I got rid my old 360 for a Jtag (the jtag doesn't require disc's so I didn't bother remounting the DVD drive). You can open and close the DVD drive with the X button. So it makes it really convenient to swap discs.

[Donkbaca]

Yup, I have decased the 360 and am moving the drive. This does two things: 1) it let's you put the drive wherever you want and 2) makes the 360 run cooler because normally the DVD drive sits right on top of the GPU heat sink.

I soldered a couple of wires to the mobo so I could extend the eject switch. Noe I just need to figure out where to mount it. I am leaning more towards mounting it in my cubby where my light guns are. Need to figure out a cool enclosure though

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Yup, I have decased the 360 and am moving the drive. This does two things: 1) it let's you put the drive wherever you want and 2) makes the 360 run cooler because normally the DVD drive sits right on top of the GPU heat sink.

I soldered a couple of wires to the mobo so I could extend the eject switch. Noe I just need to figure out where to mount it. I am leaning more towards mounting it in my cubby where my light guns are. Need to figure out a cool enclosure though

why mount an extra eject button when you can just use the X button when you're in the dashboard?

[Donkbaca]

okay as promised, pics

Aimtraks, used the tutorial I found on this website, they are the generic yobo guncons.  I think they look decent, plus they vibrate when you pull the trigger.  The finish on then, however, is horrible.  I was going to resand and paint, but I got to the point where I was just sick of dealing with them, so they will have to do in the current state


Next is the first mod I did, connected my power button to a microswitch, drilled a hole through the middle of the button and ran my pc's power LED into it.  I hit the button to turn the pc on, hit it to turn it off, and the led glows green while its on.  This is gonna be mounted on the top of the cab


This next pic is my xb360 as it is right now.  Its a bit of a messy picture, but I will explain a couple of things.  This XB was RROD, so I had to remove the heatsinks and repaste the processors.  It runs super cool now.  One of the reasons XBs overheat is that the dvd drive sits right on top of the GPU heat sink, if you look, you can see 3 heat sinks, the tall one on the bottom is for the CPU, the one on top of it with the thermal pipe leading to another heat sink is the one for the gpu and is about half as tall.  The dvd drive normally sits right on top of this, restriciting airflow and trapping heat.  I got a longer SATA cable, and extended the power cables for the DVD drive, so now I can mount it away from the XB.  One annoying thing about the xb360 is that the dvd eject button is connected to the mobo.  So, what i did is solder a couple of wires to the mobo to extend this switch, you can see them at the front of the case.


This is one of the xb 360 I soldered for my controls.  I used the madcatz SFIV pads, these are sweet for 2 reasons: 1) no analog triggers to convert to digital!  2) there is a switch that lets you toggle the dpad to be either the dpad, the left stick, or the right stick.  Kind of neat in case you want to play a game where you can't use the dpad and have to use the analog stick


Next up are the admin buttons for the 360.  These will be in my admin panel mounted right above my CP.  The green button will be lit, its a seimitsu 24mm button that will operate the KVM.  The other buttons are sanwa 18mm buttons.  I plan on putting the kvm button in the middle, and having 2 clusters of sanwa buttons, one to the left and one to the right.  The left button is back, the right button is start and the middle button is the xbox guide button, and will be lit up.  In keeping with my cardinal and gold theme, the 1p guid will light red, 2p will light yellow.


Here is a close up of the sanwa buttons.  I custom made the guide button using parts from the madcatz controllers.


Now the KVM switch. I got a belkin kvm with audio that has a wired remote!  First step, hack the wired remote so I could connect it to my 24mm seimitsu button


The way its going to run is that I am going to have my cp buttons wired to both the hacked 360 pads and my x-arcade encoder.  The encoder is plugged into the kvm, the xb controllers are plugged into the Xbox.  The xbox has the video and audio connected to the switch, the pc has video, audio and usb connected to the switch.  When the kvm is connected to the pc, the encoder is connected, and the xbox 360 is off.  If I want to play the 360, I press the seimitsu button, that switches the audio and video and disconnects the x-arcade, to turn on and off the xbox, I use my xbox guid buttons on the cp. Here is the switch:


Last pic for now.  I am using a xbox vga cable.  The cable has a male connection, and the audio is 2 male rca jacks.  The kvm also has a male vga, and a male 3.5mm stereo jack.  In order to get it all to work, I had to get some adapters:


So that's it for now.  Hopefully I can get to woodworking soon.  If anyone has any comments, or wants info or better pics, let me know.

[Nephasth]

Not seeing any pics...

[emphatic]

Not seeing any pics...

+1

[Donkbaca]

me neither!  dang it, I thought I had figured out how to put pics in my message!  Any of you know how to do that?

I can add them as attachments I guesss....

[Donkbaca]

delete

[Nephasth]

me neither!  dang it, I thought I had figured out how to put pics in my message!  Any of you know how to do that?

I can add them as attachments I guesss....

Best thing to do is to attach your pics in a post in this thread. Then right click on the link of your desired attached pic, click on 'copy shortcut'. Then in the post you want the pic to be in, where you want the pic to be type {img}paste copied shortcut here{/img}. Replace { with [ and } with ]. And there you go.

[Donkbaca]

thanks for the advice!

[VanillaGorilla]

Weird, when I click on your pics, I get this error:

An Error Has Occurred!
You are not allowed to access this section


But if I go directly to the 'not a project' thread, I can see them just fine?!? Am I not worthy?

I usually just add them as attachments to my own messages, then I open them, right click and 'copy image address', then I paste that address back into my message inside an [img] tag...

[Nephasth]

That is weird. I don't get that error, I can't even click on the pics. Usually posting pics like that will bring them up "full size" in the post. Those are still small in your post...

Did you copy the shortcut from the link under the attached pic? Or did you copy the image itself?

[Donkbaca]

better now?

[emphatic]

better now?

Yep, all good! 

That KVM switch, won't it introduce lag?

[Donkbaca]

You mean on the inputs or the video?  I tried it with the 360, no noticeable lag at all.  I haven't fullyexplored it all in MAME yet, but I don't think it will be much of an issue.  I'll test it tonight and let you know.


The only negatives I have read about the KVM switch is that while the audio and video switching happen almost instantly, there is a slight delay in waking up the keyboard and mouse.  No reports about ghosting, or lag or anything like that, but I don't think the people using it were doing so for gaming applications.  I don't expect this to be an issue.

[shateredsoul]

nope, not jtaggable, this one was a RROD throw away that a buddy of mine had.  I convinced him to give it to me for free 

So, no JTAG, now that I have one, I am not sure if I want to spend the money to get one either.  Also, I kind of like the idea of using the cabinet to play people on XBL.

I think I will upload some of my electronic pics tonight, since my woodworking is at a stand still at the moment....

Just got my jtag, you're misssing out, ;P

What about all the import shmups? Well I guess most of the shmups will be working on the next release of demul, so you could play those through your pc.

[Donkbaca]

Yeah, and I am not a huge SHMUP fan. 

More work this weekend.  Still need to get a few things ironed out, still need to do my marquee and speaker panel, then i need to figure out a few gaps and such, and then its stain and finish, which takes FOREVER.

In the final stretch though.

Man, modding those sanwa buttons to light up as xbox guid buttons was a HUGE PITA...

[Donkbaca]

Quick update, pictures tonight...

Admin panel and monitor bezel done. I think its starting to look pretty good.  Got my stain on my CP, ready to wire it after I seal it with a couple of coats of Poly.

Issues - advice needed
I have modified the sanwa 18mm buttons, they will light up, trying to wire them so that they are only lit when the xbox is on, as of now they are connected to the 5v from the control pad, but this is a constant 5 volts.  i am guessin that I am going to have to solder to the SMD indicator lights around the guid button,  not sure it I want to deal with that though, and might just have constantly glowing guide buttons.

Expiremented with a couple of ways to light up my 24mm seimitsu button that the kvm is attached to.  Can't find a solution I like.  As of now it will just not be lit.  If anyone has advice, I would welcome it.


To do:
What is holding me up is the damn marquee!  I laser etched 2 sheets of plexi.  I like the edge lit, floating neon look of edge lit plexi.  This has made mounting the marquee quite the pain though.  I think Ihave figured out that what I am going to do is route out a border for it, and then glue the plexi to the inside and then attach it with velcro.  That is my goal.

Speaker panel.  This should be pretty easy, hard part will be getting the front angle cut right so I can velcro on the marquee.

The back panel is not cut well at all.  I am guessing there will be a gap between the top panel and the back of the panel.  Not sure if I care though, because it won't be visible.  I rushed this cut, and don't think I am going to redo it.

Toying with the idea of making a wooden enclosure for my xbox 360 dvd drive, as I can'f find one I like.

Stain, poly, affix monitor and wire.  

Anyhow.  Its been fun so far, finding time is a ---smurfette--- and a half though.  Hopefully when I am done it will be something different, but familiar and I'll be able to pass my experience on...

Thanks everyone!

[javeryh]

Looks good - do you have any details on how you made the CP box?  Is the entire thing mitred including the bottom panel?

[Donkbaca]

Yeah, that was the first thing I built.  Totally not happy with it.  It is all completely mitered.  Thing is though, having zero wood working experience, I used glue and l brackets to hold it together.  I was sloppy with the glue and there are spots on it that didn't stain as well as I wanted.  Its acceptable enough though. 

Its all built out of 1/2 inch ply.  The controls are top mounted with 1/8 inch ply and 1/8 inch plexi on top.  I'll post pictures tonight.

[Donkbaca]

Okay first off, to give you guys a better idea of the profile:  Its obviously woody inspired, but I changed the bottom to be straight, instead of flaring up, and the monitor area is a little more angled than in the woody, which is very straight:


Here is a new shot of the front.  The plexi and bezel are test fit.  The plexi is not clear because it still has the plastic film on it.  I am going to tint the plexi to hide it all a little bit.  I think it looks ok.  The bezel is a PITA to make.  The monitor I am using is a 21.5" NEC multisync.  You can also see my admin panel. As you know I am a bit of a minimalist, but for this type of design, I think you need a panel there to cover up some bezel real estate.  This is where my xbox 360 and KVM switch will go.  The set of three holes at the left and the right will have sanwa 18mm buttons glued in.  They will be the Back - Guide - Start Buttons for P1 and P2.  The middle hole is for a 24mm seimitsu that will activate the KVM.  Finally, the slanted area right below the CP is going to swing down to give me access to aimtraks, additional controllers, a track ball and the xbox dvd drive.  When its in its closed position, it is pretty hidden


Someone had asked about my CP.  This was the very first thing I started building a few months ago, and I was way more sloppy then I should have been.  The bottom box is mitred on all sides, held together by L brackets and glue.  I was not as careful as I should have been with the glue and got some on my wood, not thinking it was a big deal since the glue is "stainable".  Well, stainable glue stains, but not the same as wood, so its a little blotchy.  I am tempted to do it over again, but for now its in the "good enough category. 

Here is a side pic:


Here is the front, that show how sloppy I was:


As you can kind of see from the pictures above, I am top mounting my controls.  The wood is 1/2 inch plywood, at first I was worried about this being too thin, but when the controls are in they feel really solid, plus this is for home use.  If worst comes to worst and it breaks, I will just do a thicker one next time, for now though I think its fine.  I think people really underestimate the strength of plywood.  Anyhow this is what is going on top [excuse the recycling pile next to it]


As you can see, pretty simple 7 buttons per.  The buttons on top will be P1 -Select - Exit - P2.  IN retrospect I don't need a select button, but it balances things out okay, I may use it for pause too.  I was contemplating a trackball to take up some of the real estate in the middle, but decided against it since i really don't enjoy trackball games.  I do, however, have an x-arcade trackball controller, so if anyone really wanted to play trackball games, they can open the door under the CP and pull it out of the cubby. 

That's it for now.  Its not revolutionary or ground breaking, I think its decent though, for a dude that had never soldered or woodworked before this, and I think the x-box capability will be neat.

Thanks guys

[Malenko]

...........pregnant wife ...............

What do you guys think of the shape?

She's prolly fat? 

One of the reasons XBs overheat is that the dvd drive sits right on top of the GPU heat sink

Thats so not true. In fact if you do the "card trick" the 360 runs cooler then removing the DVD drive. Its all about air flow.

Build looks good though. Gonna be a dark finish?

[Donkbaca]

She's prolly fat? 

Actually she is not.  she looks the same, only now she has a bowling ball sized gut.  Anywhow, lets keep wives/significant others out of the conversation, unless we are talking about mikezilla's bed wetting girlfriend.

Thats so not true. In fact if you do the "card trick" the 360 runs cooler then removing the DVD drive. Its all about air flow

What is this "card trick"?  Are you talking about adding cardboard to direct airflow away from the heatsinks to the fans?  I didn't say the DVD was the ONLY reason it overheats.  I agree its about airflow, and I think the DVD sitting on top of the GPU traps heat between it and the heatsink.  I don't really care though.  I am removing the dvd because it will take up a smaller foot print in my storage area than the entire xbox would.  I think I will leave the xbox decased to improve airflow, plus I like seeing the guts. 

I think it looks alright    Its going to have a mahogany finish is a darkish brown...

[Malenko]

I think it looks alright    Its going to have a mahogany finish is a darkish brown...

Many leather bound books around?

[Donkbaca]

going to put it right next to my autographed X2 BB filled shaolin toe stab bag