Tomorrowland Arcade *finished* updated w/ pics

[Zathras]

Well since I've actually got a picture of something more than a stack of wood now I guess I will share.  



The Tomorrowland Arcade.

(ignore the messy garage please and the cp is just sitting on the cabinet - it isn't mounted yet.)

Pretty much a straightforward LuSID cabinet with a couple of minor alterations.  I'm using clip cabinet hinges to do swappable control panels with a static strip of admin buttons at the top.  I spent most of last night trying to get the baseplates mounted exactly the same on three CP tops - took a LOT longer than I was expecting but it finally worked out.

The 3 cps will be:
1) 2 Player 2  T-Stick plus w/ 6 buttons per and a tornado spinner in the middle
2) classic layout - centered balltop T-Stick plus  with a variety of buttons arrangements
3) tron/trackball - hacked joystick, oscar spinner and ultimarc trackball

I will also have a USB hub in the CP box for hooking up player 3/4 joysticks and usb/ps2 converters for my homebuilt metal DDR pads

I'm really flabberghasted in how long it is taking to build this thing - Here I was thinking oh it would be a few solid days.  Well I'm to the week point and that is with working late into the night.

My main concern at the moment is that Toshiba didn't lie about their dimensions  

[pcdoctor]

Looks promising!

[Zathras]

Was working on it solidly for about 12 hrs today.

I've gotten the coin door mounted (using hidden hinges) top on, speaker holes t-nutted, everything sanded, laminate trimmed  etc

The sides, control panels and control panel boxes are going to be black laminate.  The coin door - speaker panel, top and back will be Happs adhesive vinyl.  I decided to just try painting the inside lip flat black to see how that would work out - if it looks bad I'll redo it but It looks fine so far.

I actually took the cabinet inside this evening to get it all warmed up for the laminate (it is supposed to be cold tonight and the contact cement says it has to be above 65 for 24 hrs before applying).

The only package I'm waiting on at this point is ultimarc for the encoders (Ipac4, optipac, trackball, and joysticks) so that is kinda an important one (they say the holdup is the balltop joystick plating) but I'm hoping next week...  at least it will give me a chance to find a place to put this thing... going to have to do some major rearranging.

[BobbyG66]

Looks good so far, be patient, you'll get there.

[Zathras]

Ok busy day



I had to move it inside for warmth so it cures properly hence the non-messy-garage picture, coin door panel covered in vinyl and coin door installed, light installed.


Whew - my first laminating ever  - didn't turn out too bad if I do say so myself...  Had one "incident" where I don't know exactly what happened but the laminate bit started digging into the wood (maybe the bearing hit the t-molding groove?) and gouged a bit but I hit it with a sander and evened things out.  I moved the bit up a little and that took care of the problem for the rest of the day.


Still need to do t-molding, finish vinyling the back and installing the marquee retainer (looking at some different alternatives - I'll tell you what they are if they work...).

Well I'll be able to hit the electronics side of things pretty soon.

[Stingray]

Looks really great! Nice work so far.

-S

[Zathras]

Thanks for all the comments.

Didn't get a chance to upload the latest pic but last night I got the marquee plastic retainers in - I ended up using these adhesive business card magnets cut in half and installed all the way along the strip.  I didn't want screws showing (couldn't find black woodscrews) and also wanted something that would be easily removable (but not as thick as velcro).

I also got the side art on and it is in the room it is going to live in (that was quite a task in itself - I had to take the door off the hinges.  I still have to rearrange a bit to see if I can get it to shrink a bit

[Stingray]

Moving mine through the house into my "hobby room" (also known as a big pile of crap with four walls around it) turned into quite the little project all by it's self. Hopefully it will stay in that room until I die, so someone else can move it out.  

-S

[Zathras]

The room I've got it in is TINY and it doesn't help that I've got a full sized Space Invaders, big computer desk and 32" TV in there....  I am going to play around with positioning before I put the TV in the cabinet.  

Finally all those years of Tetris playing is paying off.

I just got word that my Ultimarc order has finally shipped so in a few days I'll actually be able to get this thing working (I'm sure it will never be "done").

[Zathras]

Ok the Ultimarc shipment is on my doorstep now - so it will be a busy night

Last night I did some tweaking - after some listening I decided that the Happ built in grill speakers are about worthless - they sound worse than cheap headphones. I first thought it was just the bass lacking so I went into tweak it a bit in Windows but apparently the onboard audio doesn't support it.  Fortunately I had a Soundblaster card in an old computer I wasn't using so I moved it over.  No real change (well other than hearing them bottom out when I turned the bass up a tiny bit).  So I replaced them with a some other 4" speakers I had leftover from a XM boombox hack.  It made all the difference in the world - much much better.

I installed my admin/pinball buttons in the CP box - I didn't calculate in enough space for the nut in the admin panel so they all aren't screwed in completely (but they definately aren't going anywhere...) I may do some tweaking there later.

I also played around with resolution settings and trying to tweak the TVs geometry to get it to work well in 640x480 mode but 640x432 just works so much better I decided to go with that (at 640x480 the top and bottom are slightly cut off).

Tonight will be control panels and lots and lots of wiring

[Stingray]

Tonight will be control panels and lots and lots of wiring

That's the best part!

-S

[Zathras]

Ok took too long deciding on where to put stuff in 2 of the 3 cps (and still debating on adding a q-bert stick to the classic one)  so I didn't get lots of wiring done - but I did get 1/2 of the I-pac wired to the base (actually all I will be using at the moment as its an I-Pac4).   I had an old belkin db25 switch box that I opened up and am using that as my "base station"  Still have a litle tweaking to do as far as being able to mount it well but it looks like it will work well.  I will hook up the two lower db25s to the Ipac and then the top one to the optipac.

After I got the half wired I cut into a cable and started continutity testing through to the IPac - when I would hit one I tied it down to the terminal strip in order.  Now it would be easy to make the other CP modules by matching up the colors but that doesn't work too well when you are colorblind Oh well long night of beeping ahead....

[Zathras]

Alrighty after a few busy days of wiring I am getting there -
Here are some quick pics... I'll take some better ones later and put up a page...


I wanted the Ipac pretty modular so I put it on a piece of pegboard and added the db25 switcher front onto it:




Almost there (I can't shake him)....



Oh the dongle coming out of the side of the CP (there is a cable channel on either side)is a usb/ps2 keyboard converter as my wireless keyboard gave up the ghost.

The marquee was done by byoacs own Pixelhugger (who I annoyed to no end with minor tweaks I am sure ) over on the Artwork forum.  I had it printed by Classic Arcade Graphics and the sideart is from Mame Marquees.

I did have auto tinting on the plexi but I decided it was way too dark a shade so I removed that.

I also bought balltop handles for the 2 player panel but I'm going to try both and see which I like better.  I am using a balltop on the "classic panel" which I don't have a pic of yet but below is the tron/trackball panel which I finished wiring tonight (I saved the most complicated for last - all the buttons and the hat switch do work on the joystick).


I wanted to leave a lot of room for trackball craziness and excuse the fingerprints

I have a lot of fit and finish stuff left, routing wires to the PC a bit better,  t-molding the CPs,  etc etc.  Then I can get into tweaking the software side of things.


Anyway thanks for everyones posts all over the board as everything helps

[Pixelhugger]

The marquee was done by byoacs own Pixelhugger (who I annoyed to no end with minor tweaks I am sure ) over on the Artwork forum.  I had it printed by Classic Arcade Graphics and the sideart is from Mame Marquees.

No annoyance at all. It was fun, and kicked off a round of creative productivity for me. With the amount of work you put into your cab, minor tweaks at the finishing stages are to be absoluetly expected to get it right.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but I'm DYING to see some super close ups of the print quality on the marquee. Especially of the text and the mouse planet. I'm anxious to see classicarcadegrafix's output first hand, and this is the closest thing for me!

Did the lines stay sharp? How did the stars turn out, are they visible? How well did the glows and shadows come out? Looks like the blues held up and didn't go all funky magenta/purple! Does it illuminate well? Close-up! Close-up! Close-up!

BTW - fantastic job on the cab!

[Stingray]

Your Pixelhugger marquee looks great! I'd like to see some close up pics too, I just ordered my marquee and CPO from classic arcade graphics yesterday. How long did it take them to ship a custom order?

-S

[Zathras]

Thanks for the comments - I don't think I've ever worked so hard on anything in my life


I will take some extreme closeups after work so check back about 6 or 7 but everything is very sharp!  Oh and the glows come out quite nicely when illuminated.  When illuminated and looking at it close you can see some of the "print lines" for lack of a better term, but that is nit picking at best and I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

[Zathras]

Ok I took a bunch of pics under every condition possible and picked the best.  

Really big pics are located at:

http://home.hiwaay.net/~millercv/tarc/marq/

and click the file names...


The first is a full shot in a dark room with no flash.  The pic looks more washed out than it does in real life but it gives you some idea of the glow.

The "print lines" are more pronounced in the pictures than in real life - you can see them when you get close when it is back lit but not in typical use.  

Also this has really shown me that i need to clean my plexiglass bad - when you get a 5 MP closeup of a few inch area it looks pretty extreme so if you see any flecks/etc that don't look like they belong it is definately not on the marquee    The colors are completely solid


I would say the non flash half of
http://home.hiwaay.net/~millercv/tarc/marq/IMG_0757.JPG
is the one that most looks like it does in real life.  

I still need to trim the top marquee retainer like I did with the bottom.  Since it was tough to get a perfectly straight edge when trimming it I covered it with the Happ self adhesive vinyl so it would match the rest of the cab.

After dinner I will post some finished cab pics.

[Witchboard]

I will take some extreme closeups...

I can hear Wayne and Garth, "Whoooooooooah!"

Those shots look really good to me.  You can really see the detail in the starfield.

[Zathras]

Ok so I am finally somewhat done - just a few minor tweaks here and there (that will go on forever I'm sure)

So here are the results...


First I have to have a pic of what started this whole thing - a couple of months ago I happened upon a great deal on one of these:



and it was lonely so I had to build it a friend

The Tomorrowland Arcade


Thats the Tron/Trackball CP (Oscar Model 3 spinner w/ Dot handle, Ultimarc TB, Mac I-stick joystick hacked to a wico base) you can just barely see the volume knob on the side/back of the control panel.

The admin panel at the top is Pause(blue), coin 1, start 1, start 2, coin2 and Escape (orange).

I wanted all the CPs to have a clean look without screws/bolts showing on top.  I used the t-nut method and had to route out a good bit for the t-stick plus' even with the longer shafts so I was a little concerned about strength but it feels pretty solid.

The TV is a Toshiba 27" (27a33 i think off the top of my head) hooked up via component to a Radeon 9800xt.



Pinball buttons on side



Classic CP - kinda hard to see but there is a top button in the diamond button arrangement on the right and to the right of that is a 45 degree mounted q-bert joystick (I'm already very glad I added it)



Generic 2 player w/ tornado spinner


Inside the CP (that wiring layout looks a tad messy because thats the Tron joystick so the wires have to be loose for movement - yeah that's the ticket). On the right is a 4 port hub, Ipac4, optipac and the amp.

I put a 2x2 across the top below the admin button portion to add extra support - I will probably be adding a  cabinet door pinch thingamabob to hold it in a bit more if someone leans on the extreme front of the CP.



Storage for the CPs inside...

The PC I had intended to use I just couldn't ressurect so I ended up buying a barebones system from mwave (athalon 2600+, msi motherboard, 512 MB and case) as I had a few extra HDs, cd drives, etc lying around

As far as software side of things I'm using MAMEWAH as the front end and currently running:
Mame
Daphne
gensfe(Genesis)
fceu (NES)
Mekaw (SMS)
zsnesw (SNES)
VBAmame(Gameboy)
Vpinmame(pinball)
Virtual Music Jukebox

When I get a moment I'm going to add UAE and the Atari emulators.

In the construction I would have to give the most versatile tool award to my trusty Dremel.   It came in handy in just about every step of the project.


Kudos to:
LuSID - for the plan that launched a thousand cabinets
Pixelhugger - again for the marquee
My Wife - for putting up with the long hours in the garage and saying to go ahead and build the thing (not knowing what she was getting into of course )

and of course
all the developers (Minwahs FE, Howard's wrappers, etc, etc)
and
everyone at BYOAC

Whew... like I said in a post above building a cabinet is a LOT of hard work (and a lot of $$$$$$$) but well worth it.

Feel free to ask any questions!

-Zathras

[paigeoliver]

Looks very nice, and I like the plain black control panel. That is what I do when i can't get ahold of a REAL overlay to use. Of course that is because I don't like plexiglass. Of course one of my newest games (Do! Run Run) has factory plexi, which I haven't decided if I am keeping on there yet.

[Yander]

That looks amazing. I love the swapable CPs and it just like how I hope mine comes out. Superb job.

[Santoro]

I love the way you wired your CPs.  I will likely be stealing that on my next cab.  

Congrats on a super-clean looking cab.  Enjoy

[Pixelhugger]

Thanks for posting those close-ups!! - I'm glad the printer was able to reproduce the blues. They go nicely with the Return of the Jedi poster in the background! Cabinet looks great!!  

[crashwg]

Zathras, I'd like to know how those cabinet hinges worked out for you on your front door.  Particularly how the door gets past the non-hinged side of the cab.  Are there any gaps?  I would think that the back corner of the door would hit the side of your cab before the door is fully shut, unless you put an angle on the edge of the door or there is a gap.

I threw this together in paint just incase I'm not explaining as well as I need to.

[Zathras]

First off thanks for all the comments!


crashwg-

 It is a little tight at that point since I didn't want a visible gap but it does rub a tiny bit - not enough to marr the paint though (yet at least).  I tried to take some pics but it doesn't really come across well.  I guess when the door edge gets to that point the "angle of attack" is shallow enough that it makes it.  Also the hinges allow for a lot of adjustment tweaking so you can play with it till it is just right.

The only gap visible is a bit at the bottom where apparently my straight edge wasn't as straight as assumed    but fortunately you can't see it unless you get really close.

I didn't think about cutting the edge at a slight angle but next time I have the door off (or some extra time) I will probably hit it with a sander to do just that.  Thanks for the idea!

The hardest thing about the hinges was getting the control panel "clip on" portion in the same exact place on the 3 control panels.   That took much longer than I thought it would.

[Brax]

Is is just me or does the Luke in that ROTJ poster look like Jack White from the White Stripes!?

Great cab, very clean. I like it alot.

[Zathras]

Well the Act Labs tv gun came yesterday and I hooked it up.  Since I'm connecting primarily via component I had to switch to svideo to use it.  It took much fiddling to get it to work (and to be able to switch the radeon back and forth with keycommands).  It worked "ok"  It took a while to get used to the calibration etc.  It might be more hassle than what it is worth to keep it hooked up (as if you have something plugged into the svideo port it defaults there upon booting etc etc).  So it might be a "when I get a hankerin" type gun or future trade fodder.  Actually I was impressed with the feel of it - I was expecting it to feel a little cheaper than it does i guess.


The next thing I'm doing is adding an analog stick for star wars etc.  I picked up a Logitech Attack 3 joystick over lunch and it is already disassembled on my desk - looks like it will be pretty easy to add to a cabinet - now the main question is to add it to an existing panel or make a new one.  Oh well it will give me something to think about this weekend

[Zathras]

Well had a firend over tonight and had the longest multiplayer session on it yet - Worked well (though I forgot player1 and player2 when pressed simultaneously is escape - I quickly fixed that )

After he left I plugged in the Attack 3 and I am heartily impressed  Worked great right off the bat (after setting joystick to true)  - tried it in Star Wars, Space Harrier, Discs of Tron and Tron.  It worked well in all of them - though Tron really needs a 4 way for the light cycle portion.


I dismanted it a good bit at work and it appears that it will be EXTREMELY easy to mount to a panel...

i'm thinking through my options - replacing the 4 way Tron hacked joy, a new mostly blank panel w it off to the side for a future steering wheel to clamp to, or a panel w/ it in the center and 4 other joysticks for Smash TV etc

[crashwg]

I thought tron and DOT were just 8-way trigger sticks... why did you use the analog stick on those?

[Zathras]

I tried it on a bunch of games on the possibility of replacing the existing hacked trigger stick w/ this one - it does have a more solid feel as far as the handle is concerned.

I'm still debating