Capcom Mini-er Cute-r Countercade!

[mikejkelley]

So far, so good!









I hope to have the paint job done Friday or Saturday!

[mikejkelley]

[Ond]

So you've done a model in ZBrush and then... can you provide some details around how you cut/fabricated the forms. Clean work BTW, looks good.

[mikejkelley]

Thanks! I actually modeled it in 3ds Max; I import parts of it to perform Boolean operations and then export everything back into Max. Max is very bad at Booleans.

I like to 3D print all my prototypes in ABS because it's so easy to chop things up and glue them back together with an ABS/Acetone slurry. A thinner viscosity works well for surface finishing too. One of the neater fabrication techniques I worked with this time around was reinforcing portions of the case with aluminum bars using a JB Weld formulation. Lots of heat nut inserts throughout for things like the hinges, speakers, and latch posts. Other than that it's about two weeks, on and off, worth of sanding, priming and painting. As I change stuff I update the files, always working towards a V2.

I have a video on the Vewlix countercades I built that details a lot of the same processes I used for this case:


It's starved for views so please check it out!

[mikejkelley]

Custom CP and header art installed, plexiglass (finally) successfully formed and installed, and work on V2 is coming along nicely!

[mikejkelley]

I spent a lot of time creating these tiny reproduction stickers. In order to get them this small and still have them be legible, I had to recreate the designs as vector graphics. Recreating the text in a resolution independent format wouldn't have been possible except for the fact that ChatGPT was able to both translate and transcribe the Japanese characters! Its efforts allowed me to copy and paste the text at w/e font size was appropriate. In some cases, ChatGPT was even able to determine which font the Kanjii used!

Because none of these stickers were full-bleed, it was quick and cheap to have them printed at Redbubble. The turnaround was less than a week and 13 stickers wound up being only about a buck a piece after shipping!

[mikejkelley]

Player 2:

[firedance]

Great work so far, can't wait to see it finished

[mikejkelley]

Thanks! I should have all 3 finished by the middle of next month if the weather holds out for painting just a little while longer!

[mikejkelley]

Just needs the electronics now! And a new joystick; this one is just for show. A mounting plate screw stripped immediately and when I used an extraction bit the head sheared off, leaving the threaded portion imbedded in the receptacle. So, it's being returned.

Re: the Capcom sticker, at the other end of the helpfulness spectrum, ChatGPT straight up lied about having access to the official Capcom syle guide and misinformed me as to the correct CYMK values. Luckily my mantra of "never trust but verify" led me to the correct values and the custom print came out great!

One of the most underrated uses of 3D printing is creating jigs and guides which is what I did to ensure proper placement of the stickers.

[mikejkelley]

I finally solved my plexi forming problems by sandwiching the aforementioned between layers of silicone mats before setting it into the 3D printed forms! Pics to follow. Also, I spent a few hours today learning how to, and then creating, schems for a PCB that re-routes the rear USB to the front using a bottom hat that interfaces w/ the test pads on a pi5!

[mikejkelley]

The PCBs arrived and look great but need some revisions and so Vs 1.1 are being manufactured as we speak. While I wait I thought I'd post the wiring diagram:



Fun fact, the previous countercade I built includes an unnecessary relay. AI had assumed I was using a CRT monitor and had suggest the relay to protect against in-rush. After realizing our mistake I was able to eliminate it in this build.

[mikejkelley]

The USB breakout board works! The Vewlix Countercades I built and the Capcom Mini-Cute Countercades I'm building require Pi ports accessible from the back and a USB port accessible from the front for controls. Previously I had soldered USB wires straight to the USB test pads on the bottom of the board. That way of doing things, however, ran the risk of ruining the Pi 5 board (which have just jumped an extra $50 overnight). Additionally, for w/e reason, the ground would never take and needed to be wired to the bottom of the GPIO pins in every instance. Also also, mini-soldering isn't for everyone. So, I created this USB breakout board that bolts to the bottom of the board! The first few iterations failed because the pogo pins were off by literally two tenths of a millimeter. This one however works well! I'm actually surprised it works given how crazy the tolerances need to be. Unfortunately the screen printing is upside down because I'm very, very dumb. It will be fixed in the next iteration. An especial thanks to PCBWay for sponsoring this project and the upcoming video on the Cyberspacemanmike channel!




I'm just waiting on a micro-to-mini HDMI cable and I should be good to go!

[firedance]

Nice work as always

Have you thought about using a Dell or Hp thin client instead of the Pi, obviously larger in size but might still fit inside your case.

Built this a few years for a sense of scale

https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,165536.0.html

[mikejkelley]

Yes! The yellow one will interface with the prototype for two player action, acting as a separate controller/duplicated display plugged into the blue one's Pi. But the for the pink version I hope to add in a PC and run fightcade 2 and maybe add a verification script. That way people who build these can choose to play against other Capcom Micro-Cute owners the way God intended; with 6 buttons, no macros.