Stealth cocktail style cabinet - A Noobs first build

[DisFanJen]

Ok, I thought I'd document my ongoing plans to build an arcade cabinet, if for no other reason than to allow people to learn from my mistakes!   

So, here's the brief:

Make a cocktail style cabinet that can be played from either end in classic cocktail style or played with both players on the same end along a long edge (so the screen is in landscape not portrait mode) for games like street fighter.

EDIT: Also the current plan is that the whole lid can be tilted up to both allow access to the PC and to sit the screen at an angle for better play of games in landscape mode.  The current thought is a good old fashioned piano hinge (Yes, I realise this is ambitious for a first build).

Oh, and add to that to make it look as much like a normal coffee table as possible so it can sit in the living room all the time. We don't have a dedicated 'Man Cave' (though in this case 'Woman Cave' would be more appropriate )  so this needs to look like it belongs in the living room.

Good game, good game...

The current plan is this:

To buy two LACK coffee tables from IKEA and convert them into a single table with a solid section for all the arcade parts, with the hope that when it's not running it simply looks like a coffee table with a TV mounted in the top.

For those who don't know the LACK table, here's a link to the website:

LACK Table

Here's a basic 3D rendering I threw together in Tinkercad with 3 of the sides left off of the upper section as I don't know the final design yet:



The blue box in the photo is the footprint of the PC in it's case, but this will probably be stripped out of the case to make more room.
(Oh, tinkerbox is a pain to use for doing the 3d rendering, it's not made for items this big.  If anyone knows of a good package that is easy, free, and can handle designing something large, please point me at it. )


Hardware:

I've an Intel Desktop board with an i3, 8gb of RAM and a 1TB HDD for the brains of the outfit (might be a bit overkill but I'm hoping to run some PC games on it too), i need to get it a dedicated Video Card though, something with 2Gb and DDR3.

I've bought a two joystick, 8 button setup as well as 2 start buttons and 2 add credit buttons ready for install.  These will run off of a USB controller.  I also have 2 extra buttons for player one to go on the side to use as pinball paddles as the player one controls can handle 2 more buttons than player two for some reason.

I've taken a punt and bought a PS/2 based trackball that is arcade mountable.  I doubt it's as good as one of the higher end HAPP units but at £16 I thought I'd give it a try.  If it doesn't work well I can make a decision on whether to buy a more expensive unit or to skip it.

I've a 24" widescreen monitor to use.  Not my first choice and I'm trying to get a 4:3 one, but I already own it and free is always good.

And I'll pull apart some good old fashioned PC speakers for the sound (of which I have about 8 spare sets ).

Software:

The Frontend will be Steam Big Picture.  This makes it easy to run Steam\PC games as well as the older stuff and ICE handles multiple emulators and adds them to Steam as links, see below:


(For anyone interested I've written a little batch file that shuts down steam, runs ice, shuts down ice and restarts steam.  Makes it a little more convenient to use.)


I currently have MAME 1.66 installed and speculator 8.0 (though only the trial version, waiting to find out if I need two licences to run it on 2 PCs or if it's a per-person licence), both on the PC to be used with the rig and on my laptop so I can download and test things on my PC first.

Done so far:

Software testing, buying parts, generating 3D mockups.

Things to work out:

How to strengthen the top of the LACK when the monitor is installed as inside they are just corrugated cardboard!
How to mount the controls in such a way that they are hidden when not in use.
How to make the controls movable from the ends to the long edge, or if that's not possible, how to wire the system with 4 sets of controls but as two sets of player 1 & 2, not players 1 - 4.

So that's where we are.  Early days but I'm excited to get moving on the project.  I'll post updates as and when things happen.

[DisFanJen]

Oh, in addition, I've patched the PC being used for the rig so that the bios image, windows loading image and the welcome\lock screens are all Steam logos so as to minimize the lose of immersion caused by seeing Windows boot up.

For those interested I used the Intel Integrator's Toolkit to change the bios screen, Windows 7 Boot Updater to change the loading logo, and Windows 7 Logon Background Changer to change the lock screen (as the regedit method did not work).

I won't post a link to the Intel Integrator's Toolkit because I think it's different versions for different mainboards.

if anyone is interested I can video the startup sequence and post a link.

[Peabo]

Interesting build, following along to see how this turns out. 

[vwalbridge]

runs ice, shits down ice and restarts steam. Makes it a little more convenient to use.)

Sounds like more of a problem than a feature.

[DisFanJen]

runs ice, shits down ice and restarts steam. Makes it a little more convenient to use.)

Sounds like more of a problem than a feature.

Lol!  Typo for the win!

[DisFanJen]

Ok, so I've mocked up the controls in a bit of ply I had lying around...







It's a little tighter than I'd like but that's the maximum space I have.

Plans are to add an exit, pause and screen rotate button to the top, an add credit and plunger (going to try and emulate a real pinball plunger, but may go with a launch ball button) to the front, and paddle buttons to the side.

As yet I'm not sure how to handle 'nudge' buttons.

[GSXRMovistar]

Those buttons look fairly far apart, unless you have huge hands it may become very uncomfortable.

[DisFanJen]

Those buttons look fairly far apart, unless you have huge hands it may become very uncomfortable.

Yeah, on this version they were placed based on the way it looked rather playability.  The dangers of eyeballing it I guess.

I'm getting help fleshing out the final design in the main forum and that was one of the first things pointed out.  They'll be closer in mk2. 

[PL1]

(going to try and emulate a real pinball plunger, but may go with a launch ball button) to the front, and paddle buttons to the side.

As yet I'm not sure how to handle 'nudge' buttons.

1.) Minor correction on the terminology, they're called flipper buttons, not paddle buttons.

I recommend using Ultimarc Goldleafs (or GGG Class-X with True-Leaf Pro) instead of microswitch buttons for the flippers -- for the reason why, search my old posts for keyword "hysteresis".

2.) Visual Pinball is more difficult to set up and more picky than MAME.

If you do your main planning around VP, it is easy to add MAME as an afterthought.

3.) For the plungers and nudge, there are two common choices:

"VirtuaPin Digital Plunger Kit" for analog (variable) nudging and an actual plunger handle
  -- far more expensive, nudging can be tricky to configure/align (related threads here and here)

Pushbuttons for digital (fixed value) nudging and plunger/ball launch
  -- far less expensive, easier to configure

4.) The VP scripts allow you to use a regular pushbutton as a plunger -- the longer you hold the button, the farther you "pull" the plunger.

5.) For tips on which default VP keys overlap with MAME and how to use "backward" wiring, search on my old posts containing keyword "MagnaSave".


Scott

[BadMouth]

Check out Future Pinball and see if it has enough tables to keep you happy.
It's much easier to set up and incorporate into a front-end.
I didn't add pinball to my latest build, but was happy with just Future Pinball on the last one.

Also since you're using Steam as the front-end, you can have all the Pinball FX tables without too much hassle.

[DisFanJen]

(going to try and emulate a real pinball plunger, but may go with a launch ball button) to the front, and paddle buttons to the side.

As yet I'm not sure how to handle 'nudge' buttons.

1.) Minor correction on the terminology, they're called flipper buttons, not paddle buttons.

Noted.

I recommend using Ultimarc Goldleafs (or GGG Class-X with True-Leaf Pro) instead of microswitch buttons for the flippers -- for the reason why, search my old posts for keyword "hysteresis".

I'll probably stick to micro switches to start with mainly as I'm building on a budget and I'm not sure how much I'll end up playing pinball games.  I sort of came across Visual Pinball by accident and added it as a 'that'd be cool' option.

2.) Visual Pinball is more difficult to set up and more picky than MAME.

If you do your main planning around VP, it is easy to add MAME as an afterthought.

Already have it working on my test rig (otherwise known as my laptop ) and actually found it pretty easy to get going.  However I am a IT tech (Well, IT Professional, Software developer, IT Manager, etc. you get the idea) so the software side isn't usually a problem for me.

Only thing that took me a while was working out how to take a table made in the standard cabinet design (so screen in landscape but the table is displayed fullscreen and on it's side) and re-do it assuming the screen is already in portrait mode, and that only took a few hours on Googling and playing with the rotation and X\Y scale & positioning.

3.) For the plungers and nudge, there are two common choices:

"VirtuaPin Digital Plunger Kit" for analog (variable) nudging and an actual plunger handle
  -- far more expensive, nudging can be tricky to configure/align (related threads here and here)

Pushbuttons for digital (fixed value) nudging and plunger/ball launch
  -- far less expensive, easier to configure

I'm on a bit of budget so I think at least to start with so I think  it'll be either the 'fake plunger' idea for looks or just a big button with 'LAUNCH' on it. (I've access to a vinyl cutter so adding a labels to buttons is easy).

4.) The VP scripts allow you to use a regular pushbutton as a plunger -- the longer you hold the button, the farther you "pull" the plunger.

Hmm, that actually seems to be how VP\PinMame is working for me right now.  Maybe the default method has changed?  I'm running the latest version 9 & PinMame beta, maybe that's the reason.

5.) For tips on which default VP keys overlap with MAME and how to use "backward" wiring, search on my old posts containing keyword "MagnaSave".

I'm using joytokey with different profiles for different engines so hopefully key overlap won't be an issue and each player will have access to up to joystick 32 buttons that will be programmable.

I'll look into backward wiring.

[DisFanJen]

Check out Future Pinball and see if it has enough tables to keep you happy.
It's much easier to set up and incorporate into a front-end.
I didn't add pinball to my latest build, but was happy with just Future Pinball on the last one.

Also since you're using Steam as the front-end, you can have all the Pinball FX tables without too much hassle.

I took a quick look into Future Pinball but like I said I found Visual Pinball very easy to configure and as a programmer (in fact I used to specialize in VB\ Classic ASP until I moved to PHP) I find the idea of being able to mess with the scripts fun.

[DisFanJen]

Update:

So, after getting prototype 1 out of the way we played with a few ideas then decided to up the anti for mk2...



Did I mention that my partner works in a school with a D+T speciality?  Laser CNC machine for the win!

This is what I used for mk2.



It looks a bit thin but it's special laser quality hardwood ply and it's tough stuff.  Even so in some areas we are doubling up the thickness.



We made 2 layers for the top and sandwiched mounting bolts in it turning them into captive bolts.



You can never have too many clamps!


Then the first side went on, which will actually be three layers by the time we're finished, but more for the looks than for the strength.



Well, the glue takes a while to dry so this is as much as I have to show right now but you can probably see that the buttons are a lot closer and the admin buttons are above the gaming ones rather than in the center.  I'll post more pics when it's together enough to get a better picture.

[DisFanJen]

Well, I said part of this is so people learn from my mistakes, and here's the first one!   

Mk2 of the design is pretty much glued together, and here it is:









Looks pretty good right?

Well, till you hit this photo...



Doh!

Well, to paraphrase an old woodworking saying: measure twice, laser once...

We allowed the room for the flipper and nudge buttons on the sides, but not the front, even taking into consideration the fact that we bought lower profile buttons for the nudge and flippers (Seimitsu PS-14-GN 30mm Screw In Arcade Buttons for those interested).

Rookie mistake.  Luckily we have more laser wood, it just means another week or two to build Mk3.

[dezmond]

It looks a bit thin but it's special laser quality hardwood ply and it's tough stuff.  Even so in some areas we are doubling up the thickness.


Hmmmmm..  What is the ply?  Birch? Poplar?

[DisFanJen]

Hmmmmm..  What is the ply?  Birch? Poplar?

3mm Laser grade Birch Plywood from Hobarts, a laser material specialist.

[rablack97]

Few things...

Kudos on the lasering, i've just started CNC, so great work.

 

Buttons are spaced too far apart from the jstick, you jstick is higher than your buttons.  I would stick to the slag coin spacing.

The admin buttons are above your action buttons, watch how many times you slip up and press one of the admin buttons and screw up a game.

The PS/2 mount, what are you gonna do with that extras space around the tball? And that should of been placed to the far right.  I have some refurbed happs tballs and mounting plates, but top mouting will be difficult due to your material thickness.

I thought the plunger was always on the right side of the table?

Other wise, very cool interested to see where you take this.



 

[DisFanJen]

Few things...

Kudos on the lasering, i've just started CNC, so great work.

Yeah, it's very handy having everything mm perfect.  So much easier to assemble.

Buttons are spaced too far apart from the jstick, you jstick is higher than your buttons.  I would stick to the slag coin spacing.

That's deliberate.  See below...

The admin buttons are above your action buttons, watch how many times you slip up and press one of the admin buttons and screw up a game.

I thought that too initially, but it's the best placement as I think putting them over the tball will be more problematic and it just looks lousy over the j-stick.

The PS/2 mount, what are you gonna do with that extras space around the tball? And that should of been placed to the far right.  I have some refurbed happs tballs and mounting plates, but top mounting will be difficult due to your material thickness.

And here's why it's in that configuration.  I'm left handed and the only one interested in t-ball games.  The t-ball to the right would be useless to me and after some experimentation and talking to people on the main forum this is pretty much the best configuration for me.

As I see it I'll be using the j-stick or the tball, not both simultaneously, and I'd like to operate both with the same hand so I'm always working the buttons with my right hand.

Though if I went the whole hog I'd reverse everything and put the buttons on the left so my dominant hand was doing the button pushing (as I'm faster with that hand), but that'd be unfair on other people who come and play on it.  So the only concession to my left handedness is the t-ball placement.

I thought the plunger was always on the right side of the table?

The plunger is going to be on the right.  See the small hole?  That's for a fake plunger system.  With any luck I'll actually be able to pull & release.

The button on the left is an 'add credit' button.  I put it on the front for nostalga sake I suppose.  I cant have a front facing coin draw but at least the button can be there.

Other wise, very cool interested to see where you take this.

Thanks.

I admit it's getting a little daunting with adding the pinball functionality, having the orientation change (which it looks like none of the current crop of front-ends handle well, so I'm now writing my own), etc.  But So far I'm happy with the progress.

[rablack97]

I guess my thinking is you have maybe 5-10 classis t-ball games that you will play, and the rest will utilize jstik and buttons.

I'm a lefty as well but yet as you see the actual Centipede T-ball is on the right.



So regardless if you were left or right handed, you were going to learn to fire with you left hand and control with right.

This is my setup on a mini.





The buttons don't look bad above the stick, and because your grabbing the controls your not gonna slip and press the buttons above.

Also, what are the 4 admin buttons, start credit and pause is all you need, Exit, mame dont need to go directly on the CP.  None of the other 3 will screw up your game while playing, and i thought you could set the rotate function by game in mame config files, so why would you need a button for that?

However it is preference, so if your comfortable playing with your buttons that far from the jstick, then by all means.

 

[DisFanJen]

I guess my thinking is you have maybe 5-10 classis t-ball games that you will play, and the rest will utilize jstik and buttons.

I'm a lefty as well but yet as you see the actual Centipede T-ball is on the right.



So regardless if you were left or right handed, you were going to learn to fire with you left hand and control with right.

This is my setup on a mini.

I tried working the tball with my right hand and I honestly hated it.  It's much more natural in my left hand.

The buttons don't look bad above the stick, and because your grabbing the controls your not gonna slip and press the buttons above.

Again, I tried mocking it up and hated the way that looked, and putting them over the tball as I orginally planned got a much bigger "don't do that" vibe from people.

Also, what are the 4 admin buttons, start credit and pause is all you need, Exit, mame dont need to go directly on the CP.  None of the other 3 will screw up your game while playing, and i thought you could set the rotate function by game in mame config files, so why would you need a button for that?

Ok, I have:

Add credit (on the front)
Player 1 Start
Pause
Exit
Screen Rotate

As I'm using multiple emulators a dedicated exit that joytokey can remap to what is needed for the specific emulator running seems the best.

I understand that some people say that I should just rotate mame and not the whole screen but like I said I'm intending to use multiple emulators and I want the front end to display in the correct orientation for the games I'm playing and only offer the games that work in that orientation.  I'm sorting out the software as we speak and the easiest way to handle the transition is to use the video cards inbuilt rotation system.

However it is preference, so if your comfortable playing with your buttons that far from the jstick, then by all means.

 

So far it seems to work for me, but if it turns out to be a problem I can just re-build the control box.

[rablack97]

Ok coolio man thanks for the explanations, looks like you got it all worked out....will be checking back

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

[DisFanJen]

After a bit of break due to having to do actual paying work for people, I'm back to the project.

Here's the top of the Mk3 version of the control unit:



We've made some more room at the bottom of the buttons and the t-ball (still a bit of a compromise but the best we could do) and as we are keeping the main part of the unit just looking like a coffee table we decided to leave the control unit in wood, so used the laser to etch some artwork onto it.

Some of the designs aren't prefect due to converting a raster image to a vector one for the laser but I actually like some of the imperfections, don't know why, I just do.

With any luck, unless we hit an major problems with this build up  this is going to be the last iteration of the design for the control unit.  I'll post more photos once it is together.