hey whats up everybody?
ive recently started fiddlin' with the idea of building a MICRO bartop arcade cabinet.(ive had the idea a few years ago but ive never did anything with that cause i didnt have any free time at my disposal)
ive been around the arcade scene since the early 90s,ive built a full sized cab,a standard bartop,restored some old neo geos,helped a friend bring some NAOMI hardware back to life etc...but this latest project is making me dip my toe into uncharted waters with hardwear,monitors and logistics that im not familiar with,so im looking for some input,ideas and possible solutions/workarounds from the community.
so,the idea is to build a fully functioning MICRO arcade cabinet...thin MDF,headrest car monitor for the display,a PLAYSTATION PORTABLE running cps2 and neo geo emus as hardware,24mm pushbuttons and a standard jlf joystick rigged to a multiconsole cthulhu i have lying around connected to the psp via ps2 male connector.
i attached some very very crude mock-ups ive made with the first few pieces of cardboard i could find(the screens represented by a ps3 game,the buttons are 30s(cause i dont have six 24s just lying around))but it does give you a basic idea of what im trying to do


altho' the final product will "look" like a novelty item,its gonna be a fully functioning arcade cabinet....ive been playing 2d fighting games for 20 years and im very serious about them...so whenever i go somewhere for a few days,i need to pack a ps2,a fightstick,games(sometimes even a tv)...i wish i could just grab a psp and play on that,but a joystick and pushbuttons is all ive ever known(so any other control scheme feels alien and unacceptable to me).
with this micro cabinet,i'll be able to bring the arcade experience everywhere i go in one compact,tiny,easily portable package.
altho' i have considered a couple of other things as hardware(early samsung galaxy phones,neo geo x) ive come to the conclusion that the psp would be the best solution...the emulation is superb,it doesnt heat up(altho' i might put a tiny vent in the micro cab),it has av out trough a special psp-av cable and most of all its very thin and small so it will fit(the size of the cab is not something i will compromise on...it has to be micro,cause thats the whole point).now,for the controls,ive found this:
http://xcm.cc/products/psp2tv-for-psp-1000-series-pal-versionit has some sort of custom flexible pcb that replaces the one in the psp and routes the inputs from a ps2 controller into the psp or something or other(altho' i'd gladly find an alternative because it costs a pretty penny)...i know theres hacks outther to use a ps2 joystick on the psp(i modded plenty of fightsticks so gettin down and dirty into the psps guts isnt a problem)...but if anyone has done it before i'd appreciate some pointers
for the screen,i'd like to find a 4:3 sd headrest monitor(8 or 9 inches) but ive had no luck so far...they all seem to be 16:9
so yeah,i still have some things to iron out...
my biggest problem is...ive never seen a headrest monitor in my entire life...and i have no way of testing what kind of image would the psp feed to it...is it gonna stretch to fill the whole screen?is it gonna get letterboxed?over zoomed?the psp has its own formats and resolutions(and information on these two particular things working together seems to be scarce).so PSPs and headrest monitors is something i know very little about...if anybody had any experiences with this combo or has a headrest monitor,psp and psp-av cable to test it out,that'd be fantastic...altho' i think its a long shot.
also,these headrest monitors usually come in pairs.one being the main unit with some sort of dvd player attached to it and the other is a slave unit(passively transmitting the immage from the main unit)...now i wonder how would the slave unit function as a stand alone screen...does it have its own separate power supply?can you feed it any AV signal?or are they designed to only work in tandem?if anyone could shed some light on this that'd be great!
the last thing i wanted to do was to make a mdf cover so the whole thing could close up like a box(to protect the screen stick and buttons during travel)
i could use those things that come on guitar cases only smaller(you know,the little clicky snap things that keep the case from opening...im sorry,i really have no clue how they call those):


alright,well thats it for now...i hope i can get some imput from you guys(if you have any experiences with PSPs and or headrest monitors).
i think the project is very do-able but if you see any flaw in it feel free to point it out...sometimes the reason why something couldnt work is right in front of you but you dont see it till some fresh eyes point it out!
i'll be posting pics and i'll do a step-by-step video turorial too probably