The Rats Nest

[gazz292]

way back in 2001 i discovered mame, and since then i've wanted to build a cab,

many things got in the way, i'd decided i wanted to convert an existing cab, and decided on a golden tee style cab for the large control panel area.

In 2008 i moved into a 3 bedroomed house, the main bedroom is downstairs (its a converted bungalow) and as i have no kids, the 2 upstairs bedrooms were unused,

i soon filled the biggest room with some fruit machines, pachislo machine, a pinball machine, i made a token dispenser as i converted all my machines to run on pachislo tokens,

and i was on the lookout for a suitable cab to convert, i'd tried a few times to get one on ebay, but htey always went for more than i was prepared to pay,

Then about this time last year, my GF dumped me, so to take my mind off it, i put in a silly bid on a golden tee 99 machine for sale localy, it was faulty, turns off after a while,

as luck would have it, i won it for about £20, about 6 times less than i was prepared to pay,

I went and collected it from a 1600's thatched roofed pub with beams so low the machine had to be tilted right over to get it out,
the landlord had bought it recently and it ran for a while, then went dead, so he'd had enough.

i somehow managed to get it out of the pub and down the narrow cobbled path to the trailer, just as i began to strap it on it began to rain, luckily i had brought a tarp,

back home i put it in the garage, turned it an, and ran it for 2 hours before it shut off.... game still played, it was the monitor shutting down 

the monitor was one of the bits i wanted, but when it was running it was fine, a bit of screen burn, but not too bad.

over the course of the next week, i took the cab appart, split it down into individual panels, and took them upstairs into the games room, no  other way to do it as i have a very narrow staircase and a 90 degree turn up another step at the top.

I re-assembled the cab, then began to search fo the fault, it seems to be a dry solder joint, as when it's shut down, if i unplug the monitor power lead from the power distribution box in the cab, and plug it back in, the monitor comes back on, and will run again fo a while.


Thats the machine as i bought it, i basicaly kept it as is for almost 6 months, i had other machines to fix up, and by the time they were done, it was spring, and i was out and about with my new GF in the motorhome,

Fast forward to october, and the weahter is horrible again, so i decided now was the time to do the conversion,

I pulled everything out of the cab, pulled the monitors chassis out, re-flowed a few suspect looking joints near the flyback, then i started making a mock up of the CP, i'd already had a play about with some slagcoin layouts and cardboard, and found a layout i liked,


this is the mock up CP, the trackball tis the one that came with the cab, joysticks are mag stick plus's, happ buttons, the 4 small buttons at the top centre of the CP are for admin functions, and are the origional admin buttons from the cab,
there will be a spinner put on the panel somehwere sometime,


That's the whole cab, what i like about these cabs is the double height marquee area, it origionaly had a led dmd in the top half, but it can only work with the ITS game board, so i took the whole lot out, and am looking for as wide a lcd screen as i can find to fill that area,
i've just proped a 21 inch lcd in there, but i want a larger one, decased, and i'll modify the top of the cab panel a little, but not so the screen will stick out the top.

that's all for now, oh, the name, well it's not the one i'll use for the cab, havent thought of that yet, but i call the games room 'the rats ar5e arcade' so went with the rat theme...reason for the rat theme....

That's lionheart, he 'helped' me fix a lot of my machines, so i felt it only fair to let him have a game of golden tee before i stripped the cab out.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Are you left handed? Do you expect anyone else that you play with to be left handed too?

[gazz292]

Forgot to mention about the joystick layout, both me and my GF find it most comfortable holding the stick in our right hands,

we both had 'joy boards' for our amiga's when we were kids, and they have the joystick on the right, so that may be where we got into the habit.

i did think about the 'others will find it weird' but we figured it's our machine, we are building it for us, friends may use it 1 or 2% of the time, the rest of the time it'll be us using the machine.

[JustMichael]

both me and my GF find it most comfortable holding the stick in our right hands,

Too....  Many...   Jokes...   Possible...

[severdhed]

other than the joysticks being on the wrong side, that looks like a nice layout

[gazz292]

tar, i wanted to keep it simple, plenty of room for resting palms etc, i have arthritis in my hands amoungst other joints, so i need to be able to rest my whole hand on the panel or i cant last more than 2 minutes.

gonna put a spinner to the left of the trackball, about where lionhearts bum is in the last pic,

the trackball is going to be mounted the same way it origionaly was, the square plate goes on the bottom... to spread the load on the bottom of the case, and the trackball is mounted directly on the plexi, counter sunk holes for the 4 bolts around the ball hold it on, it works for golden tee, so should hold up to any other game,

Gotta go shopping for some bits, need a relay to make up my own auto power strip thingy, the power distribution box on these and most euro cabs is a big metal box with a filter in it, it also holds the main switch, kettle lead input, backdoor switch, and 5 outlets that run the monitor, psu, marquee light etc,

theres a 6 way socket and plug on it that is just a pair of jumper wires, takes power from one side to the other to feed the outlets, if that plug is removed, no power gets out, so i'll put a relay between the 2 sets of pins on that plug, powered by the computer psu's 12 volt line,
 
the computer psu will be connected before the relay... so it gets power all the time the cab is plugged in, this makes the 5 volt line live, so when the computers power button is pressed, it starts the computer and the full voltages come up on the psu... so when 12 volts comes up, it'll switch on the other outlets, and thus power on the monitors and so on.

likewise, when the computer shuts down, it'll power down everything else

[Rick]

Are you left handed? Do you expect anyone else that you play with to be left handed too?

Are you blind?  Those are easily right handed layouts.  (What?  I'm the only guy who likes his joystick in his right hand?)

Err...

 

[gazz292]

lol,

my story for the joysticks, i'm in england, we drive on the left, hence sit on the right hand side of the car, so my cab is right hand drive 

[gazz292]

just been and got the wood for the CP, tried B&Q... which is a diy store over here, stands for Been and Queued as the busier the store gets, the fewer tills are open 
they had a sheet of 18mm mdf, about 1200mm x 650mm, so a 3rd of a sheet i guess, they wanted £16.50 for it!!!!! no saw at this b&q so i couldent get it home anyways (i drive a smart car, i might have just got it in by folding the passenger seat, but had my GF with me, so she wouldent have been pleased)

So i tried a few more diy stores, all prices ranged from 14 to 18 quid for a 1/3 sheet.

i was going to try the builders merchants next when i remembered a little wood place just up the road from me, so called in, they had an off cut already, but would have cut a whole sheet and only charged me for the bit i needed,

So i got it cut to the size i needed... 800 x 600mm, and the price.....


....


...


£2!!!, i couldent believe it , i forgot to ask how much for a full sheet, but it just proves you should try these little places before the big diy chain stores.

i'm still messing about with the computer for he cab, setting mame and mala up, havin a problem with mala atm, and i'm getting rid of things i dont need in windows,

i'll make the vga to arcade monitor cable up next, i have a vga cable one of my rats chewed at one end, taking out the sync wire, i remembered about it when i was in maplins to get one but baulked at the price, a tenner for a bog standard one, and 20 quid for a gold plated one,

i also wanted a couple of long ide cables to wire the mini-pac up with, but again, at 5 quid each for a 70cm one they can get stuffed, and that was for the flat ones that i didnt want to use, i want to use the round ones with individual wires,

Maybe the name of this cab should be 'tight arse' or something, as that's what i'm like at the moment 

[gazz292]

Not sure if anyone is actually interested in this project, i'm not doing anything groundbreaking or new, except maybe leting my pet rats play with the machine 

Even the 2nd monitor as a marquee has been done before, tho i do hope this thread can help others converting golden tee machines on the electrocoin zeon cabinet, as when i searched for ideas, i found very few people use this cab.

Anyway, i think i will deffo have to name the cab along the lines of money saving/budget build/penny pinching/beng a tight arse  as this really is a budget build due to my extreme lack of funds.

The cab cost me around 20 quid, i got about 90 quids worth of ultimarc stuff for my last birthday (joysticks, buttons, avga card and mini-pac)
The computer was given to me by my parents when they got a new one.

2 quids worth of mdf for the CP, luckily all the tools i already own (table saw, router, drills, jigsaw, 6lb lump hammer etc)

So yesterday i went shopping for the perspex to cover the CP, my GF is going to design the CP artwork, i went to B&Q again, why i keep going there i don't know, they keep putting signs out saying 'at B&Q prices you can do it for less' i am soooo tempted to remove the 'it for' words, as 'at B&Q prices, you can do less' is much more accurate 

I need a 1 meter square sheet of 5mm perspex, this is to give me the 800 by 600mm bit for the CP, and the 300 by 650 or so mm for the active marquee piece.
B&Q dont do 5mm perspex, 4mm is the thickets, so i considered that, untill i saw the price, 65 quid, bloomin eck, it's a bit of clear plastic, not a stained glass panel from the cistene chapel.

Tried the other places, similar prices, that local wood place dosent do perspex, so now i'm searching for a decently priced piece of 5mm perspex 1 meter square.

found some on ebay, cheapest is 23 quid, plus a tenner postage, a lot more for around 30 quid, going right upto 80 quid at some places, these are all shops selling on ebay, so may be a little cheaper going direct, as i know ebays fees are silly nowadays.

unfortunately none of the places selling it cheap are no where near nottingham, so it'd cost me about half the postage cost in fuel to collect, plus the hassle of driving 80 miles each way, just for a bit of plastic sheet.

I don't supose anyone knows of a reasonably priced perspex seller near nottingham (england)

So, fed up of not being able to get the perspex and do the CP, i made up a few wires, did the vga to monitor cable, nice and easy using a cheapo vga cable that used standard wires instead of those ultra thick coax ones, the wires were colour coded right too, but i checked with my multimeter,

then i made up the plug for the main power, how i mentioned it earlier, i.e. with the relay that will turn the whole cab on when the computer is started up,
and then i dug out an old pc speaker system, a creatie labs 4.1 system, i mounted the sub in the very bottom of the cab (these cabs have a pull out electronics shelf, so there was plenty of space below that for the sub to be screwed to the actuall floor of the cab)

wired the psu for the sub/amp to one of the cabs power connectors that gplug into the filter box, and hence powered with the pooter starting up, then ran the remote volume dial, it mounted nicely where most people put a pinball plunger button on cabs,

Then i made up a wiring loom to mate the sub's speaker outputs to the cabs speakers, using the cabs origional plugs and sockets, this way it looks kinda origional, nowt worse than tons of wires running all over the place getting in the way of other components in a cab i think.

doing a bit more farting about wih the computer, ran 'mydefrag' blimey what a differance, all the mame files are in one cluster, all windowz files at the begining, highly recomended, it blows the windiwz defrag utility away big time,
i tried a few games that struggled on my last system, ran stun runner at 100% zero frame skip, same with area 51, so i'm pleased with the computers performance so far.

i just need to figure out the gamelists problem i'm having with mala now, (played games get put to the top of the list after playing them, screwing the whole list structure up.,

[gazz292]

Been working on the cab a bit more, mainly wiring, but got all my controls in the cp, i have a spinner to add (not even got it yet) but not sure where to put it.



I'm thinking to the left of the trackball below the joystick, but not sure,
could put it above the trackball, next to the white button which is my coin button (for when i dont want to reach down and pop a token in the coin validator)

i like playing arkanoid type games, so need to be able to hold the spinner comfortably and press buttons of one of the joystick button clusters.
where do you rekon i should put the spinner (the front curved bit of the CP hangs over the CP box so is not space to put a control, my steering wheel clamps on that bit)



Heres the underside of my CP, mini-pac at the bottom centre, plug for the trackball by the trackball's hole (the trackball will be mounted to the plexi and the wood cut out to the size of the trackball housing to sink it in, i've just left the cp solid atm to cut the plexi)

the other bundle of wires and a plug hanging down if for the pinball buttons that will be on the side of the cp box, the coin validators input, and any other things that will need a connection to the CP.



This is the back of the cab, i've pulled he circuit board shelf out, the sub and psu's for the sub and the usb hub are under there, there's tons of room under there,




and this is the mains wiring centre, the silver box has the mains input, main switch and the back door cut out switch, which i've bypassed,
theres a filter in it, then it feeds 5 3 pin outlets to feed the monitor and switcher (or it di in the origional cab)
at the top is a 6 way connector, that had a couple of link wires, so when it's removed no power goes to the outlets,
so i re-wired that connector, the mains 'out' pins now go to the relay you can see on the right middle of the circuit board tray, through the relay's contacts and back to the plug, where it feeds the 5 mains outlets,

also connected to the mains 'out' pins on that plug is a kettle lead, which will plug into the atx psu for the computer, this way it gets mains all the time,

the relay's coil is 12 volts DC, and is connected to a Hard Drive power connector, thus will be pluged into the atx psu,

as most people know (i hope) an atx psu keeps the 5 volt rail live when it's plugged in, when you press the power button (or wake on lan or other event tells thecomputer to start up) the psu brings up the voltages on all rails, and hence when 12 volts is present, the relay is powered, and mains goes to the 5 power outlet connectors, into which are plugged the monitors, speakers psu and so on,
essentialy the same os one of those smart power strips, but this one cost me nothing as i had the relay already, and it was just wiring.

[trevski]

Nice work on the bargain cab! Always interested to read UK based projects - love the B&Q hatin' 

As for the perspex: 1m x 1m x 4mm @ £25 delivered - http://uk.ebid.net/for-sale/4mm-clear-acrylic-perspex-sheet-1000x1000mm-8966255.htm
Cheapest I could find. 5mm seems to be alot more expensive and less commonplace than the 4mm

[Jefferson]

dig that curved CP!

[gazz292]

woohoo, someone likes what i've made 

i just felt a standard square cp was a bit boring, i wanted to make the cp a little wider to allow hands to rest on it easier, especialy round the joystick on the right, but i also wanted an area to mount a steering wheel, so would need to extend the cp forwards too,

i just figured rounding the 'extensions' would make it look nicer, i think it does,

i'm re-designing the cp tho, i had a little time playing on it, and found that after about 45 minutes my left hands fingers start to lock up,
so now i'm going to have the left hand joystick mounted in the 'normal' place, to the left of the buttons, giving me a right and a left handed control set, like so...


(The dotted lines are the inner edges of the control panel box on the cab)

That way, if i'm playing by my self (note i said BY my self, now with my self lol) i'll make up a control asignment set thingy on the mini-pac, and it will swap over player 1 and 2 controls, so when my fingers start to lock up, i'll switch to the joystick in my left hand, when my right hand starts to lock up from pounding the buttons, i'll switch back)

I still have to figure out where i'll put the spinner, and i have a coin button to add, and a couple of admin buttons (escape at the very least)

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Nice. I really like look of this cab. And I think that having one player righty, and one lefty is a good choice. That way if any friends come over they'll be able to play.