GeeCab: Upright Galaga 26" Widescreen (Vertical) built from scratch [COMPLETED]

[geecab]

Hi!

Took 8 months to finish, thought I upload some pics to this great forum.

Features:
- 26" Widescreen LCD screen mounted vertically (Vertical  games running with a 3:4 ratio you get about 22" corner to corner)
- Mala frontend, play music from a playlist during game selection.
- Currently plays Mame and Amiga Games.
- 40 watt component Speakers mounted behind marquee.
- Coin and Menu buttons located where the coin slot would be (I wanted to feel like I was inserted a coin, without having to mess about with coins).

Enjoy!

[geecab]

Initial cardboard designs and control panel...

[geecab]

control panel..

[geecab]

wood working...

[geecab]

t-molding and painting..

[geecab]

Screen and speakers...

[geecab]

Screen bezel and mala layout designs...

[geecab]

All done...

[madmatt]

Looks smashing!!!  I am think that may be my next project; Vert. only MAME cab.  Great build. 

For the CP you used only 2 buttons..... I'm guessing that's all you need for most vert. games??? 
Or would 3 or 4 be better for a large range of games??

Thanks


MM

out

[mgb]

Very nice. 
It's great to see another vertical cab.
I prefer a coin door myself but I like what you did with the front panel buttons.
Great job

[wp34]

Very nice.  I like your CP layout.   

How wide is your cabinet?

[geecab]

Happy you like my control panel, was definitely the part I spent those most time on.

@madmatt - Each player has 3 buttons (2 red, 1 blue). 3 buttons is plenty for all vertical only games I think? I was going to add more buttons, but thought things might get cluttered / look less authentic. BTW In retrospect, I wish I had put 2 coin buttons (one for player1, one for player2) on the coin door area because for some 2player games (like Super Sprint for example) player 2 can't get credits by entering money using player1's coin slot (hope that makes sense). I got around this for those specific games by using the blue buttons on the CP for player1 & player2 coins instead.

@mgp - Agreed, I like a real coin door and I'd to fit one at some point. At the time I thought I'd just give this idea ago and see what it looked like.

@wp34 - H x W x D = 172cm x 58cm x 61cm

Thanks for looking! 

[Vulgar Soul]

Very interesting take on a classic design!

Where'd you get the speakers? And what pushbuttons are those? I never saw those before. The glossy, translucent lookin buttons are a unique touch.

[randjamal]

BTW In retrospect, I wish I had put 2 coin buttons (one for player1, one for player2) on the coin door area because for some 2player games (like Super Sprint for example) player 2 can't get credits by entering money using player1's coin slot (hope that makes sense). I got around this for those specific games by using the blue buttons on the CP for player1 & player2 coins instead.

For those games you can assign coin1 and coin2 to the same button.

Awesome job! I especially appreciate tackling the keyboard hack.

I'm currently planning a widescreen vert bartop, so I may bug you with some questions. Here's the first: Did you paint your bezel? Any reason you didn't do pinball buttons? It seems natural with that vert widescreen.

[monkey puzzle]

Very nice cabinet, I like it a lot! Well designed cp and overall look is very nice. Well done for taking lots of pictures, I'm going to build a vertical cabinet next and I think I might get some inspiration from this. Whats it like playing Amiga games on a vertical monitor btw, is the screen size reduced much?

[geecab]

Where'd you get the speakers? And what pushbuttons are those? I never saw those before. The glossy, translucent lookin buttons are a unique touch.

My mate gave me the speakers, they were in his loft. Those buttons are a pretty common sight on ebay, I got 2 'zippy' joysticks + 16 buttons different color buttons + and a 1-up and 2-up button all for I think £30 on ebay. I wasn't really sure what to get when I started making the cabinet so I just thought I get this set as they looked pretty good (and where the cheapest!). Glad you like the design!

For those games you can assign coin1 and coin2 to the same button.

Awesome job! I especially appreciate tackling the keyboard hack.

I'm currently planning a widescreen vert bartop, so I may bug you with some questions. Here's the first: Did you paint your bezel? Any reason you didn't do pinball buttons? It seems natural with that vert widescreen.

Cool, I didn't know that about the coin1 & coin2 same button thing! Thanks for the advice! Yes indeed, I just felt I had to give the keyboard hack a go, very rewarding working out the "the matrix" finding the best key combinations that don't block... I think need to get out more !
The bezel is made out of a 5mm thick clear plastic sheet (the same sheet I used to cover the CP and marquee), I spray painted the back of it with black gloss car paint, you get a really nice finish when you look at it from the other (front) side.
Regarding pinball buttons, I just didn't want to put too many buttons on it to be honest. I thought if I kept the buttons to a minimum, it wouldn't look immediately like a mame Cabinet.

Whats it like playing Amiga games on a vertical monitor btw, is the screen size reduced much?

Some amiga games look great, and other not so, winUAE has an auto screen size option that makes some game look great. For the ones that don't look so good you can manually tweak the ratios to stretch a better picture (Like I had to do with mame horizontal games), without it looking too distorted. I'll upload some better pictures of different amiga games running so you can see what I mean. Good luck with your vertical build!!!

[randjamal]

For the ones that don't look so good you can manually tweak the ratios to stretch a better picture (Like I had to do with mame horizontal games), without it looking too distorted.

I'm not familiar with how do this in mame. Do you insert something in the game's ini file? What options did you use for Bubble Bobble? It looks great.

[geecab]

I'm not familiar with how do this in mame. Do you insert something in the game's ini file? What options did you use for Bubble Bobble? It looks great.

For horizontal games I used:

-ror -aspect 5:4


For Vertical games I used

-ror -aspect 18:11