Dynamo vertical shooter <Sky Soldiers>

[TOK]

Just got these over the weekend. The Tekken 3 is missing the boards and power supply, but has a complete Jamma harness and a 25" Betson monitor. Think the cab is a Dynamo. Haven't messed around with it too much yet. Going to clean this one up, turn the monitor and use it for vertical games.
Cabinet is huge, and will JUST fit in my gameroom door if I pull the door molding off (also had to do this for my current horizontal cab.




The second machine is a dirty, but totally working Twin Eagle. Think it's in a Zaxxon cab, but the conversion is complete. Has slightly faded bezel, but the CPO is nice under beat up plexi and the marquee is perfect. Has Wico leaf sticks. Coin mechanisms and everything are perfect. Has slight purple blotch in the upper right. Might have been magnetized where it was sitting, but it seems to be fading as the game is played. Buddy and I had a lot of fun with this one. It still smells like a bar. 
I'm not keeping this one, it's going to a friend.

[TOK]

Pulled the nasty looking strips of plywood off the front to discover they hid holes from a lock bar or something being ripped out.


Sliding setup on this machine is cool. You pivot the control panel down, and a huge board slides out carried by tracks. Two levers underneath lock both the slide and the control panel at the same time.


Old machines always seem to have some quarters stashed inside. This one has a boxed in area with a small hole punched in it, which created a mostly closed off area that yielded my best haul yet... $3.50 and a heart sticker that says "I'm Yours".


Coin counter shows 1 play, leaving a couple possible scenario's...
1) The coin counter isn't working
2) The game cost $3.50 to play, and it was a long and very hard play.

[TOK]

Haven't had a lot of time to work on the machine. I finished stripping it tonight. One of the decisions I made was to ditch the 25" monitor and use a 27" TV. I'm not sure if the monitor works, and I don't have any way to test it. Since the machine was partially gutted, I'm afraid the monitor is bad.
Since I decided to go that route, I just pulled the JAMMA harness out completely.


Thinking about using Suzu Inductives. I've had these for a while, and they feel nice (though I think they look heinous). Since this will primarily be a vertical shooter cab, I think they will work nicely.


Maybe someone can help me with these... Is it easy to pull the shaft on them? They are going to bottom mount to a metal panel and the balltops don't come off or fit through the hole in the CP.
Looks like you can remove the circuit board then remove an e-clip to take the stick out. Is this difficult? I didn't see anything holding the board in and I didn't want to force it. I ran out of time tonight before I had a chance to take a really good look at it.

[nullb0y]

dynamo cabs allways have those awesome sliding cps i know ive had 2

[TOK]

Null, its definitely a cool setup for mounting a PC. its the first time I had seen the inside of one.

[TOK]

Patched the nasty lockbar holes with body filler and sanded flat:


First coat of paint. Looks better. I'm thinking this cab is going to wear some of its other scars proudly. 

[ChriX]

Coin counter shows 1 play, leaving a couple possible scenario's...
1) The coin counter isn't working
2) The game cost $3.50 to play, and it was a long and very hard play.

or 3) It's had 1,000,001 plays.

Very nice repair job on the front panel!

[TOK]

Thank you. The front now looks better than the rest of the cabinet. I had planned not to worry about it. Since I was into arcades in the heyday, and I have a room that I don't have to worry about the wife complaining about the decor, I have this weird mental thing where I actually like machines that are a little raggedy with scratches and cigarette burns.

I just wanted to make this machine a functional beater, but now I'm not sure.

[TOK]

The Twin Eagle is gone. Briefly thought about returning it to a Zaxxon, but it already had a complete Jamma harness in it. The new owner loves it.

It was interesting to compare the dedicated Twin Eagle to the emulated version. One of the things I wondered about was slowdown. Was actually surprised how much slow down the dedicated version experienced. MAME was pretty close to this on my 2ghz P4. Just a touch more slowdown in later levels than dedicated. Sounds were right on.

[TOK]

The TV I had in mind for this machine is a 27" Toshiba flat screen. First, I planned to completely decase it and mount to a piece of 3/4 inch ply like the original 25".


After pulling the back and seeing how short the leads were to the chassis, and also seeing how long and fragile the neck tube looked compared to the arcade monitor that originally came out, I took some measurements of the TV in the case. I was pretty surprised to find this large TV fits nicely in the Dynamo cabinet, even the back door of the cab clears the back of the TV. I have to raise it about 3" to get the screen right where I want it, but looks like I'm going to go the cased route. Hoping I can put the back door on and possibly cut some holes for venting. I could leave the back completely off, but I'm concerned with light leakage. Any comments on that would be appreciated.
Here is the TV sitting in there to size it up. I haven't painted the control panel frame yet and just used the original scratched up plexi. Going to go with tinted plexi when I replace it.

[clanggedin]

I decased a 27" TV and installed it into a Dynamo. I installed my horizontally though. It was a very tight fit. I had to cut some of the plywood that was used to support the 25" monitor that was in it before I got the cab.

Can't wait to see your cab finished.

[TOK]

Thanks clanggedin. I'm still torn about the decision not to decase. It just seems cheesy to have it in there like that. I'm going to think it over for a day or so while I do other stuff.
I did get a chance to do an image quality test of the TV in vertical mode, figured I'd post the pic if anyone wants to see it. This is using S-Video since that's what my laptop has. Final project is going to use component in with one of those DVI to component converters from Newegg.

Picture quality was good in-game. Text is a bit tought to read, but I plan on booting right into a front end with large text.

Twin Eagle (thought this was a nice reference because I have pics of the Twin Eagle on the arcade monitor).


Here is Ms Pac Man. I took these without the flash, so any movement at all on the screen blurred a bit. Overall, it doesn't look too bad. If component looks better than S-Video, I think the pic will look pretty sweet behind tinted plexi.

[TOK]

Cleaned up and painted the CP top and base. The top is made to have a stick-on overlay under plexi, but I painted it anyhow. Not sure what I'm going to do for CP and marquee art yet, but it's going to be something straightforward. Perhaps just art of a dedicated vertical shooter.

Tekken overlay had the Glue From Hell holding it on. I peeled, used solvent, then sanded.
How about that high tech paint booth? 




Here is the base. There are a couple of reflections in there. It came out decent despite having a few "character" dents. Who hasn't physically tried a karate move on a fighting game?

[markrvp]

As long as you can adequately cover up the tv case, there is no reason I can think of to de-case it.  Since this is going vertical, anything you build to support the chassis and input connectors will probably not be as sturdy as the case.  You would also need to cut loose the tuner.  There are just too many parts to a TV to try and support.

My $.02.

[ericball]

Since this is going vertical, anything you build to support the chassis and input connectors will probably not be as sturdy as the case. 

You see those "ears" at each corner of the tube?  That's all that is holding the tube inside the case.  Attach those "ears" directly to the cabinet and you will have a stronger mount than trying to mount the case inside the cabinet.

[markrvp]

Since this is going vertical, anything you build to support the chassis and input connectors will probably not be as sturdy as the case.

You see those "ears" at each corner of the tube?  That's all that is holding the tube inside the case.  Attach those "ears" directly to the cabinet and you will have a stronger mount than trying to mount the case inside the cabinet.

I don't disagree with that, but what about everything else that needs to be supported?  The wires running from the chassis to the tube are probably not long enough to be put on a shelf below the tube.  He would have to rig something up.

[TOK]

Thats exactly it. The tube mounts aren't even an issue, they would be a breeze. I could even use the wood frame from the 25" arcade monitor for that (you rotate that part on a Dynamo to convert from horizontal to vertical).
 
With the wiring in the TV, it looks like I could get the chassis a max of 4" or so from its current location. That would mean having to fabricate a mount that attaches from either the Dynamo sliding shelf or the side of the cab. I'm still torn on the idea, particularly because of the long fragile neck on the tube. The picture doesn't show the length or how spindly that thing actually is. I think a light tap to that huge circuit board at the end of the neck would break the neck. The original arcade monitor is much shorter and more sturdy in comparison.

I like the idea of it in there "naked", but I think for now I'm leaning toward Marks suggestion to leave it cased.
Maybe a project for later to create the mounts for the chassis and decase. If you look at the picture of the TV, I even considered cutting it around the tube to leave the plastic where the chassis sits. That, of course would mean there would be no chance of it ever being used as a TV again! 

[nullb0y]

mounting a screen without a case vertically on its side is not a good idea. alot of stress on the neck if its not mounted right asnd you would end up with a good for nothing tube

[TOK]

It's been a while since my last update. Warm weather brings lots of other stuff to do.
Took advantage of an extra day off to get the TV mounted in the Dynamo. Also test fit the control panel. It's amazing how "in-your-face" this thing feels.

Working with the cased TV is a bear! It's incredibly awkward, just fits in the cabinet, and will only go in from the front due to the way back door is made. First thing I did was make a template of the TV case and screen so I could see what I had to do to center it. This was just kind of a goofy idea I figured I'd try, but it ended up being quite helpful. Figured out how to center and the front mount height and angle without much effort. Just used some scrap wood to figure out the height before making permanent attachments to sides. Wanted to preserve the sliding drawer for the PC.


The mounts are just pieces of 2x4 covered with cloth and mounted through the sides of the cab. It's too cumbersome to move with the monitor in it anyway, so the TV just kind of sits in a cradle formed by the angled mounts. Here it is sitting on the front mount. Have to get a black mask for around the TV screen and a tinted bezel. I have the clear bezel, but it's kind of beat up. Since it's geared toward vertical shooters, there isn't a lot of fluff. I just want it to look very black and maybe a bit intimidating when it's done. 


Since I was working alone and the TV was doing it's best to slide out the back when I was working in the front  , I put in two temporary eye bolts and a tie down to hold everything in place. You can see it's propped up by sections of wood in the pic, but you can also just barely see the final mount behind where the tie down drops straight down. The area where I had it propped up is the sliding shelf, which has to remain clear. You can see that the back door is going to have to get hacked. When I had the TV decased, you could see that the neck went clear out to the back of the case on this. No space to be saved in back by removing the case.


Here's the slide with the final monitor mount. I love this setup. When the CP is attached, it tilts forward and the whole thing slides out. If you mount PC and wiring on the huge shelf you have access to pretty much the entire machine without even bending down.


Could use some help finding a marquee. I'm just going with a single dedicated shooter marquee, perhaps Mars Matrix or Dimahoo. Since they aren't well known, nobody is really reproducting them. Open to suggestions on other marquee's. No cutsie characters or Mega Multi MameAcade type stuff, please! 

 

[theCoder]

Make sure the monitor is pinned down well.  Apparently it is very common to transport arcade cabs on their back in a pick-up.  I was more than a little nervous moving my last cab this way, making me second guess how many screws I put in and where the forces were going to be.  It got there O.K., but I was sweating every bump in the road.

[TOK]

I usually move a full cab upright. I couldn't in this case due to the huge size of the Dynamo, and something you couldn't see in the sideview pic I posted...


My poor Dynamo was actually up on the fenderwell with a cinder block under it. It was stable and everything was tied down. I'm always hauling motorcycles and other stuff in the back, cabs make stuff you really worry about seem easy. 
Made about a 45 minute trip at freeway speeds no problem.

[TOK]

Sanded and painted today, with mixed results. Whats funny is that I originally wanted this thing to just be a beater, then second guessed myself because the room that its going in will make it a hassle to get back out if I changed my mind. Peeled off the NAMCO logos, sanded and painted with a foam roller and Rustoleum Satin enamel.

The first coat looked pretty good, where I screwed up was putting the second coat on too soon. The foam roller made texture marks and lines in the first coat. Initially I thought the were going to just fade away, which is kind of how the first coat goes on... It looks uneven then evens out as it dries. That never happened.
Guess next weekend I'll do a light sanding and paint again. Perhaps with a wider foam roller too. This is my first roller job, so any tips on roller width and type would be appreciated.
Sanded:

Painted: Final result looks worse than this! 

[theCoder]

I'm no expert on this topic, and I'm very interested to hear what other more experienced people have to say.  What I do know is:
1)  Sand with coarse then medium then fine grit paper before ever getting paint anywhere near your project (lesson recently learned)
2)  Wet sand with 320 grit paper between coats.
3)  Make sure each coat is very dry before sanding
4)  More lighter coats are better than fewer thicker ones.

[TOK]

All I've painted with a roller before this is semi-gloss white walls. I'm an OK spray painter. You can see where I patched and sprayed the front of the cab and it's like a mirror. I'm thinking I should have used a wider roller (used like 6" rollers that came in a kit), but my real screw up was just not waiting long enough between coats.

Going to hit the hole thing with the orbital sander with 220 grit and give it another shot with a wider roller. I could just spray the thing, I have a compressor and siphon feed gun, but it makes a huge mess and stinks the place up compared to rolling. Since this cab isn't exactly a showpiece, rolling seemed like a good solution.

[TOK]

Check this out. This was rolled up inside the cab... New OEM sideart and a poster. The only thing the previous owner applied was the big red Namco logos (which I hated to peel off, because they were cool).
It's not going to be used for fighters at all, or I'd probably just trim it and slap in on the top half. The extra rolls the tops of their heads and plain black... Hmmm....

[TOK]

Finally got a chance to sand and repaint the cabinet. Still used the same Rustoleum satin black, but used a 9" roller and didn't mess around with it after the first coat. Looks a lot better. Also applied new black t-molding and got rid of the red. Trying to decide on some sideart now. I've concluded that I just want it to look like some sort of single dedicated vertical shooter... Going to be Raiden, Sky Soldiers art or something along those lines.
Don't want any indication that it's a MAME/multi-game cabinet.

Major things left to do are wiring the control panel (I have everything for it) and getting a bezel (tinted black, of course!    )

[mccoy178]

Everything looks like it is coming along nicely.  I would like to recommend making a monitor bracket like I did for "The Varsity Club".  It was super easy and I can tell you have enough mechanical ability to make it.  I bought all the parts at Lowe's.  I cut the tubes to length, bent the sheet metal to the angle needed, and drilled and bolted it all together.  It was a 4 out of 10 on the difficulty scale I would say.  Just a suggestion since I saw you were mulling it over.

[TOK]

I saw pics of the sheet metal monitor mounts, and that looked like a great solution for a decased TV.
The Toshiba I'm using has a really long, skinny neck on it so I decided to leave it cased. It also has very short leads to the circuit boards, which are held in place by the TV's base. Your solution with the sheet metal pan would probably be the only viable solution if I decased.

At this point, I have it fitting fine with the case on and have the rear mount completed. I painted it when I painted the cab and had it pulled out. Still might revisit decasing after everything else is done. Your project is amazing, btw.

[TOK]

Only being able to work on the cabinet one day a week for a few hours really slows progress!
Today I put the control panel together and wired the Suzo inductive stick connectors. Since these have no switches to wire, the connection is just like a little phone punchdown. I used CAT cable to wire them.
I went a little fruity and added two colored buttons. I originally wanted this thing to be completely black. Since the black 3rd button is barely visible, perhaps the color will do it good. 

Also in the process of getting the machine ready for it. Gonna be kind of messed up since I'm taking the fast machine from my original (horizontal) cab and moving it to this one, and redoing another desktop for the old one. Its only 1ghz, going to have to test Golden Tee and some of the other stuff and see if it runs acceptably. Going to use .99, since thats the version that added Golden Tee and the updated version of Robotron. Play mostly classics on the horizontal cab, so I think this setup will be OK for a while.




Edit to add... I did find dedicated artwork for the machine. Should be in the mail this week.

[theCoder]

Very nice job on the paint!

If you want to get it done, plan a party 4 weeks from now.  There is nothing like a hard stop deadline to get you motivated.

[TOK]

The theme is official. This machine will look like a Sky Soldiers. The NOS sideart is on. Still need to order a marquee for it. The majority of todays work was dragging it from the garage into the house. This entailed removing two doors, moving the kitchen table, moving the couch and kicking 600 pounds of kids toys out of the way. Oh, I did one other detail thing... Original cab had a single speaker. I cut the holes up top to make it stereo. Going to have to find some kind of grille to cover them (or better yet, that whole section).

Admittedly not a big day accomplishment-wise, but it's getting there.

[TOK]

Very nice job on the paint!

If you want to get it done, plan a party 4 weeks from now.  There is nothing like a hard stop deadline to get you motivated.

Interesting idea, but I'd be afraid of turning it into a chore. This is to unwind and have fun on the one day per week that I have to myself. I also have the cop-out that if it didn't get done for the party, I already have a complete horizontal cab in there. Most of my buddies just want to play Golden Tee anyhow. 

[TOK]

I should have listened to Coder! 

Project got sidetracked the whole last part of the summer. I've been working on the cab again over the last couple nights. Set up PC for it (3ghz AMD with Radeon 9550). I have it connected via S-video now and it looks OK, but the TV has component in and I'm going to order the ATI DVI to component converter.

Need to get a bezel, marquee, and speaker grilles and the hardware is pretty much done.
Have the default vertical layout in MaLa, which will also get changed once I have all the games I want in there.

The Suzo inductives are sweet sticks for shooters! I was amazed at how smooth and perfectly sprung they feel. They are totally silent in play, which is an odd contrast to the buttons clicking since they sound so loud on a metal panel. The CP on my horizontal cab is 3/4 MDF, which really damps a lot of the clicking. If you can get your hands on any of the leftover Suzo's floating around, I recommend snagging them.

Here are a couple of shots with the lights off. Had to get non-action shots to minimize blurring. Shooters are an absolute blast with the 27" vertical monitor. Took the Ms. Pac pic for my brother in law, since he has a dedicated machine.

[Aurich]

Nice.

I'm building a dedicated vertical cab myself right now, there's nothing like being able to play vert games properly on a large monitor. I'm debating between a 25" and 27" monitor now, it sounds like you're happy with being able to see everything on a 27" that close though.

[theCoder]

If you want to get it done, plan a party 4 weeks from now.  There is nothing like a hard stop deadline to get you motivated.

I should have listened to Coder! 

So, why not invite some friends over for Thanksgiving?

[TOK]

I do have family coming for Thanksgiving, which was one of the reasons I started working on it again! The relative that is going to be here built a MAME cab after playing my first one. 

[TOK]

Nice.

I'm building a dedicated vertical cab myself right now, there's nothing like being able to play vert games properly on a large monitor. I'm debating between a 25" and 27" monitor now, it sounds like you're happy with being able to see everything on a 27" that close though.

Thanks. Either 25 or 27 would be OK for vertical. I think a 27 would be a bit too much for a horizontal layout. The Dynamo I used was originally designed for a 25" monitor, and the design sets the monitor back far enough to make it comfortable.

If it helps, I just measured based on your comments... Standing at the cab with my hands on the controls, my eyes are 28" from the center of the monitor. At about 23" from the screen, I begin to feel uncomfortable, needing too much eye movement to focus on different areas of the screen. It's compounded by vertical shooters since there is so much going on. I'm sure this is different for everyone depending on peripheral vision, but thought that might be of some help in making your decision.

[Aurich]

Thanks.

The cab I'm building is a Galaga style though, so my monitor will be set back at a much steeper angle compared to your more upright one. I've already solved the viewing problems that you can see on the 25th Anniversary Pac/Galga machine with a 25", and I'm confident that a 27" will work, it just might be overkill. So I'm leaning towards just a 25", even though they're a lot harder to find these days.

Then I see these vertical shooter candy cabs with 27/29" monitors and think, hey, why not?

This will be a classics/shmups cab, so your comment about eye movement and shooters was exactly one of the things I had on my mind.

[TOK]

Bought a sheet of tinted plexi and cut the bezel today. Turned the brightness up on the TV a bit to make up for it. Gives a great sensation of the image "floating" in the cab. Have it turned toward a window to access the back, which created a lot of glare.


Next will be the marquee and speaker grill area. I'd like to do a single mesh piece, preferably metal across the whole speaker area. Anyone know a source for something like this? Machine only had one speaker in the middle originally, so the one that came on it won't work.

[Aurich]

Home Depot should sell perforated metal that looks a bit like the front of a G5 Mac, that might work as your 'mesh'.