D & Z's Arcade - WIP

[DougHillman]

Here are some pics of a cabinet I've built for a friend and his son.    I was asked last Monday if I could have it ready by Saturday for Zach's birthday party.   I worked pretty feverishly over the course of the week (outside my normal daily routine) and while it's still not complete, it was up and running and playable in time for the party.  No marquee, CP overlay, monitor bezel, T-molding, etc., but at least it was completely playable.  It was a big hit at the party, of course.

The requirements for this build were fairly involved.  He had DL'd some pics of cabinets that he liked offa the net and I worked up something original with a slightly organic/curvy look while still keeping an old-school sorta feel.  Some of Dennis' favorite games (which was the purpose of this being built, essentially) are ones with non-standard controls.  2-player Marble Madness, Ikari Warriors / Heavy Barrel, Gauntlet & Simpsons  being specific games that this had to be designed aorund.  So a 4-player panel with 2 trackballs, 2 rotary  sticks, and a spinner.  P1 & 2 are Ultimarc T-Stik Plus' while 3 & 4 are vanilla T-Stik's.   Trackballs are also from Ultimarc (I thought he'd ordered red balls, but it seems not), the spinner is an Oscar Model 3, and the mechanical rotaries are from Happs.

I feel that I got everything laid out in a nicely ergonomical package that's not too huge.  The size of the CP fits the size of the cabinet nicely (unlike some other 4-play panels that I've seen which are like twice as wide as the cabinet.  The proportions just look bad, IMO.)  Total cabinet width is 29.5", height is 6'6", depth of the main body is ~25".  


To keep the cost and weight down, we went with 3/4" particle board with a 2x2" frame on the bottom to support the weight of the TV and 2x2 stringers.  The coin door area (no coin slots necessary for this build) as well as the 2 back pieces and the diagonal top/rear piece are all 1/4" hardboard.  This is a HUGE weight savings.    



Here's a shot of the rear with the particle board frame that ties the lower frame and upper stringers together as well as frames up the 1/4" hardboard.





Coupla shots with the CP box in place to give a idea of the size & proportions



CP top in the process of being drilled.  Template created in Adobe Illustrator.  



CP top drilled and some controls mounted.  The player control buttons are all going to be blue.  Credit and the 3 system control buttons (Enter, Esc, Pause) are all black.



Happs rotary sticks go here.

Be thankful that there are no shots of the rats nest wiring job I did.

Sorry, no shots of it in its current "installed but not quite completed" stage.  Hopefully soon.  My friend designed a beautiful CP overlay, marquee & side art which I'll add pics of as soon as she sends me the files.  

Left to finish:  Install CP overlay, marquee & light, side art, mount speakers (just sitting in the cab loose at the moment), T-molding (blue), roller wheels on the bottom.

It's currently painted a bit sloppily with a black "hammered metal" finish.  I had planned to cover it with black vinyl, but I think Dennis is happy enough with it as it is and we'll leave it at that.  I am going to vinyl the CP box though.

It's currently running Mame32 v.80 in Win98 on an old Dell 700 Mhz through a Radeon AIW to a 27" Sylvania TV.  Controls are interfaced through an Ultimarc I-Pac4 and an Opti-Pac with the rotary sticks going through one of Druin's encoders.  

The plan is to have it running MAMEWAH with some console emulators as well.  When the marquee & side art are done, I'm gonna spend a day or two over there finishing up things and getting it running completely the way we want it.  Quick and dirty got it playing games in about 15 - 20 total hours of work.  Needs about another 10 to sort everything out.

   

[DougHillman]

Here's the CP overlay.




and  a pic of my GF working on the panel.   Apparently attaching the buttons with nails it seems.   When all you've got is a hammer, everything gets nailed I guess.  (Actually, she's punching the center points so that when she drills the holes, they're perfectly centered.  Bright girl, as well as cute.)




Edit by moderator: just resized the image a bit.

[ras2a]

Cool looking cab mate!  What's the width as it looks rather wide ? Unless your missus is very petite!  Very nice overlay for the CP too

Edit: Doh im a fool...you've already given it...just ignore me  It's not actually as wide as it looks

I like, I like it a lot!!

[Witchboard]

I like the general shape.  The CPO is pretty cool too.  Looks a little rough in some spots.  You used a jigsaw the whole time didn't you?    Post up a complete pic when you get a chance.  You probably won't notice it once the t-molding gets on.  If the guys you built it for love it and have a blast playing it, that's all that really matters.

[Ghoward]

I like the shape it's really nice, look forward to seeing more pics...

Gary

[DougHillman]

ras2a: yeah, she's tiny.    So using her as a reference makes the cab look alot larger.  The owner is about 5' 11" and 200 pounds.  Fits him a little better.      It's just big enough to fit a 27" TV with room for a little bezel on the side while still fitting through 30" interior doors.

Witchboard: Not a jigsaw but a RotoZip.  Similar results though.  Difficult to get a smooth increasing radius curve with a hand tool.  As you said, it'll smooth out fine when the T-molding is on there.  

Doug

[DougHillman]

Had a coupla requests for the Adobe Illustrator template I made for the CP.  

Even if you don't need a setup like mine, feel free to use the pieces to make your own layout.  

The button circles are (from largest to smallest):  Retaining nut, button surround bezel, mounting hole and pushbutton size.

The 4 main sticks are all Ultimarc T-Stiks, but I think that the regular Happ stuff has the same mounting dimensions.  The 2 rotary sticks are Happ mechanical.  Trackball mounting plates are from Ultimarc.  You'll hafta mark the hole for the actual trackball mechanism on your own.  Spinner is a Oscar Model 3 which only needs a 3/8" hole through the panel but I included the space needed for the underpanel mechanics.


Get it HERE.

D

[GGKoul]

Considering all the controls on your panel.. I have to say that its laided out.  But the only thing I see that would cause a problem is having the trackball close to the TV.

Not sure if your planning on playing any Golden Tee on your machine, but since the trackball is close to the TV screen, your hand may hit the screen on follow throughs.

Can't wait to see the finished pics.

[foomench]

Had a coupla requests for the Adobe Illustrator template I made for the CP.   ... Get it HERE.

Thanks again for sharing!
-foomench

[MiKman]

Not sure if your planning on playing any Golden Tee on your machine, but since the trackball is close to the TV screen, your hand may hit the screen on follow throughs.

I dunno why so many people say this, but I don't wing my hand at the track ball, thus it matters not how close it is to the monitor.  I find I can get a better, stronger swing with just my thumbs.  bracing your hands on either side of the trackball and use your thumbs snapping them forward on the ball moves it way faster than slapping it with your hand... just MHO so take it with a grain of salt.

[DougHillman]

Not sure if your planning on playing any Golden Tee on your machine, but since the trackball is close to the TV screen, your hand may hit the screen on follow throughs.

I dunno why so many people say this, but I don't wing my hand at the track ball, thus it matters not how close it is to the monitor.  I find I can get a better, stronger swing with just my thumbs.  bracing your hands on either side of the trackball and use your thumbs snapping them forward on the ball moves it way faster than slapping it with your hand... just MHO so take it with a grain of salt.

Yeah, this is exactly the way I play as well.  There's a physical limit to how fast these things can rotate & register.  I've always found that I can reach that limit with my thumbs.   No rediculous (and often painful or destructive) slamming necessary.

[MiKman]

not only that it's also more accurate and easier to control :-)  thank goodness soemone concurs.  Nice looking cabinet btw.  I love the curves.

[DougHillman]

You ever have one of those projects that just turns into a complete fiasco?   DZC's Arcade (the name was updated with a "C" when Dennis decided he needed to include and placate his girlfriend by adding her initial in the name  ) has become the project from hell for me.

Over a month ago, the cabinet was up and working.  Not 100%, but at least it was playable for Zach's birthday.   Since then, it's been down probably 90% of the time.  

You name it, and it's happened.  

A faulty I-Pac.
Dennis somehow getting Mame32 to lose its directory paths.
MAMEwah crashing.
Crappy left-over Win98 install causing problems.
My own setup errors when kludging the faulty I-Pac causing various emulators not to work.
Mame32 Analog+ not working correctly. (designers error)
Mame Analog+ not working correctly.  (my error)

All of this is made additionally worse since I live an hour away from Dennis and can't just zip right out there.

Dennis finally decided to have me assemble an entirely new, more powerful system.  Picked up the MB, processor, larger HD (160Gb vs. the old 20GB.), memory, etc.  Did a fresh clean install of Win98, got everything set up and running at my house.  

Took it all out there and started to set it up.  Then I realized that I didn't have an S-Video to RCA adapter for the video card I put in the thing.  (I'd set up the original system with an ATI All-In-Wonder when the nVidia GF2 I wanted to use gave a blue screen when running MAME games.  The ATI uses a proprietary dongle.  I'd gone back to the nVidia with this fresh build.)  Luckily I had the ATI card along as well, so I downloaded the drivers on Dennis' other computer, burned 'em on CD, and proceeded to install the ATI card.  And the driver install chokes.  Crashes.  Won't complete.  This things got an integral TV tuner which needs some sorta sound setup I guess.  Whatever the reason, now the sound isn't working.  I try reinstalling the motherboards on-board sound drivers.  No go.  And on top of it, every time I restart the system, the "New Hardware Found" dialog comes up, but it won't take the drivers, even when manually pointed at them.  So I'm left with a coupla "Unknown Devices" and no sound.  Wonderful.  Allright.  The easiest solution to me is to switch back to the nVidia card and send Dennis out to buy an S-Video to RCA adapter.  Bad decision.  I'm getting the same error that the ATI drivers dropped out on (though the ATI video drivers DID work, as I could get my full span of resolutions & color depth.)  Something about a stub being too short or some ridiculous crap that doesn't give me any clue whatsoever as to what the probelm really is.  Now, all I'm able to get is the video working as a generic setup.  VGA, SVGA, XGA or whatever.  Doesn't matter.  I don't need more than 640x480, but I do need hi-color.  

A re-install of Windows over the top (which I really didn't want to do anyways) didn't fix it.  So, it's a disassembly and a return trip with me back to my house where it's easier to do stuff like this.  Of course, all of this last mess is after I've spent about 3 hours doing final in-cabinet setup stuff.  (The s-video out problem didn't rear it's head at first since I was connected to a spare monitor at dennis' so I could do the tuning in a higher resolution.)  

So, here we are a coupla days later.  Copied stuff off of the Arcade system onto my network storage (I've pared down his MAME roms folder quite a bit, as well as other stuff like that which I didn't want to have to redo.)  Format and reinstall Windows.  Drivers.  Update.  nVidia card working fine.  Sound working fine.  Copy everything back.  MAMEwah working fine (well, relatively.  Still can't get custom filtered lists to work.)  All emulators working fine.  Find an S-video to RCA adapter in my parts box (Dennis has already bought one, but I'll have him return it.)  Pack everything up and head out to Dennis' for what's hopefully the final surge.

I was under the impression that today's hard drives were rated for upwards of 300 G's impact, especially when not powered up.  Guess I was wrong.

The box containing the hard drive & CD-Rom slipped off of the box conataining the MB and other crap.  Fell about 4 feet onto asphalt.   Didn't actually look like it landed too hard, 'specially since it was inside a cardboard box.

Not thinking much about it at the moment, I start to set up the system again.  Now I notice that the nVidia card TV-out seems to be some sorta proprietary port as well.  ---fudgesicle---!  I thought it was just a standard S-Video out.  It's not.  I don't know if I even have the cable needed for this thing anywhere.  Didn't see one in my parts box.  Hell, it's like 3 years old so I don't even rememeber if I ever had one.

Oh well.  I figure I'll at least get the thing up and running on the computer monitor and see if I can dig up the cable when I get home later.  I can always make another attempt at installing the ATI card right?

And that's when I realize that the HD is trashed.  

It's just becoming a tragic comedy of errors.

Luckily we're still within the 14-day exhange limit for the HD at Comp-USA.  I'll go exchange this one tomorrow.  (Probably leaving out the part that I dropped it on pavement.  )  Unfortunately, I'm gonna hafta completely weed out all the clones & crap that I don't want again (WHEN IS SOMEONE WITH SOME SKILL GONNA WRITE US A PROGRAM THAT'LL LET US SORT WITH CATVER.INI AND BATCH SELECT ROMS TO MOVE?  WITH A NICE NESTED DISPLAY OF ORIGINALS AND CLONES LIKE MAME32 DOES?  DAMMIT, IF I HAD THE PROGRAMMING KNOWLEDGE I'DA DONE THIS YEARS AGO!).  I'm gonna hafta completely set up all the special control configs again (Rotary sticks, etc.)  I'm gonna hafta set up MAMEwah and 12+ emus again.

If this project wasn't so far past due date and wasn't soaking up so much of my time and effort, it'd almost be humerous.  At this point though, I'm even more frustrated than Dennis surely is.  I pride myself on getting stuff done in a professional, timely manner and this project is completly crapping all over that.  

Ugh.  Ok, I feel a little better after venting now.  Wish me luck.

[RetroJames]

Brother I know your pain.  I just went through many of the same issues on the Moon Patrol I did for a friend.  Cab took 1.5 months, the pc/advmame/arcadeos setup took almost another 1.5 months.  Of course, doing it while I have a 2-5 month old daughter (2 mo when I started) was not bright....

Stay the course, you get it done.

[BobbyG66]

Geez, I thought I ws having a bad day...

...hang in there bro, it will get better.

[GGKoul]

Not sure if your planning on playing any Golden Tee on your machine, but since the trackball is close to the TV screen, your hand may hit the screen on follow throughs.

I dunno why so many people say this, but I don't wing my hand at the track ball, thus it matters not how close it is to the monitor.  I find I can get a better, stronger swing with just my thumbs.  bracing your hands on either side of the trackball and use your thumbs snapping them forward on the ball moves it way faster than slapping it with your hand... just MHO so take it with a grain of salt.

I shoot GT like that... but others do the full swing... but they'll learn to stop that once they wack their hand on the monitor.