Introducing Project 42! Miniaturization in Motion - Final(?) design

[Dreamwriter]

You may remember Games of Yore, my project that ended up with a nice stack-of-boxes prototype:


And you're probably wondering what's been up with it.  Well, I've been busy perfecting the design, and I've made a new cardboard prototype, check it out:


OK, so I totally threw out the old design and started over.  No longer the fullsize standup, we're now smaller than a bartop;  I'd call it the perfect desktop arcade machine.  Nice and portable, can take it anywhere and still have full-size real arcade controls.  Any smaller and the controls would have to shrink, any larger and might as well just make it full size.  Here's a pic with other objects to bettre show its relative size:


Here's the official site:
http://www.meeds.net/Project42.html

[Dreamwriter]

So why would I do this?  Why shrink it down?  Maybe because I love small things.  Maybe because it's much more portable and I can take it in to work and to friends' houses and stuff.....


Or maybe I just have a problem with scale:


One thing I'm considering doing is ditching two of the buttons and putting a spinner on the right side.  What do y'all think?  Oh, and that white sheet of paper represents a 10" screen.  Unfortunately, that was out of my budget, so I have an 8 inch screen on order.  Hope that's not too small...  The guts are showing up tomorrow hopefully, so it'll be fully functional (minus screen) assuming I can cram it all in there..

[syph007]

I assume you'll be using something like a nano ITX board ?  I've been thinking about doing a project using one but they seemed a bit pricey.  Good luck on building to your prototype size.. that looks very small.. but I can for sure see the appeal...

cheers

[theCoder]

When you go small, you bring on a lot of interesting problems.  Placement / Interference for one.  I found myself thinking and rethinking the placement of most things in the PartyBox project.  Get the big stuff figured out first, then shoe horn in the smaller stuff.   

The other problem you have to contend with is heat and airflow.  With heat generating components in a small space and cables/speakers/support structures filling in the gaps, heat may be an issue.  You will definitely need to think long and hard about getting the hot air out of the box.

Beware on the money as well.  Just because it is smaller, doesn't mean you will be saving hundreds of dollars.  You've avoided $50 to $100 by not putting in a track ball.  Even so, you're still looking at somewhere between $500 - $1,000 for the thing by the time all is said and done.

Good luck.

[Dreamwriter]

Yeah, well I already have a trackball and spinner I already bought when my project was the size of a standup, so that money's already spent.  One thing I'm thinking of is making the computer guts modular, so i can have different cabs for different control panels.  That's one of the reasons I need a cheap LCD monitor - if I build 5 of these things (aside from the computer), I definitely want the parts to be cheap.

[IG-88]

Where did you get your monitor from?

[Dreamwriter]

I don't remember, I was searching all over for the best deal - even 8" monitors like I switched to are pricey, when you need a VGA port.  It wasn't a mainstream site like NewEgg, that's for sure, it was a place where you pay using PayPal.  Still sucks that I couldn't find a good deal on 10" LCD monitors, as that's the perfect size for this thing.

[Dreamwriter]

After all this time...an update!  Project 42's prototype is functional!  Check it out:



It's a fun problem stuffing all that stuff in such a small case, but it's coming along nicely.  All that's left to cram in there is the hard drive, all those wires on the left, and some sort of speaker (there's room for speakers, but maybe not the amplifier...)

[shardian]

You could try some laptop speakers, or an equivalent to deal with size constraints.

[Dreamwriter]

The problem is the amplifier.  Since the sound chip only has line-out, the speakers need to have a built-in amplifier.  That's actually why I chose the screen I did, it was actually a little 8" LCD TV with speakers.  Unfortunately, the speakers are only active in TV and A/V modes, not VGA mode (and they are only truly stereo in TV mode).  Maybe some powered Gameboy or iPod speakers or something, just get power from the power supply rather than batteries...

[shardian]

You can build your own amp.
Google: altoids amp

[Dreamwriter]

Found a sound solution - a pair of $20 speakers from Fred Meyer that had their own little amp in them.  They are 6 volt DC, I hooked em up to the 5 volt from the PC power supply and they work great.  So Project 42 is now a self-contained unit, not dependant on anything else but electricity.  Woot!


The amplifier is the little board on top there, and you can see the speakers poking out to the sides. 

[MYX]

Needs a bezel 

This is great. What kind of motherboard are you using? You could use a laptop HD instead of the full sized version and Save some space.

A couple of thoughts that came to mind...
Also when you go to wood, you will loose some space. (Unless you will make a metal case)

What will you do about heat?

[shardian]

What will you do about heat?

Use a processor fan. You can get them for like 99 cents on surplus sites.

[javeryh]

This is a great little project!  How much was that tiny monitor? 

[Dreamwriter]

Thanks, the monitor was $80 - it's actually an 8" LCD TV that happens to have a VGA-in, that I took out of the case.  For motherboard, it's just a plain old Micro-ATX crammed in there (like you generally find in Shuttle cases).  As for heat, that's covered, it's got a normal chipfan and power supply fan in there, venting out of the case in the back.  Doesn't come close to overheating, even though it's got an Athlon 64 3200+ in there.

It is a very fun project trying to find the perfect layout for everything in such a small case.  I'm close to being able to call it good and start converting it to wood.

[psychotech]

Jumalaare, asiaa!

That's Finnish ..and can't be interpreted as such ..but I meant something like WHOA! YEAH! That looks awesome! I've been checking out your thread for a few weeks just to see how it turns in to a wood or metal case.. Take the jump

[Lutus]

You could save some more space by taking the speakers out of the casing they are in and mounting them to the inside walls facing outward through what I am assuming are speaker holes of some kind.

[danny_galaga]

One thing I'm considering doing is ditching two of the buttons and putting a spinner on the right side.  What do y'all think? 

my thoughts are that at that size, you are better off having fewer games with quality controls rather than trying to be all things to all people and having a spinner. great project though whatever you decide (",)

[Dreamwriter]

I don't get it.  How would having 6 buttons be more "quality" controls than 4 buttons and a spinner?  It's not like I'm trying to cram in a spinner AND 6 buttons.  I'd basically be swapping 6-button fighting games for all the driving and paddle games.  I'd still have the main 4 buttons for most games in the exact same layout they are now, and the spinner on the side, not getting in the way of the 4 buttons, and still easy to use.

[Xiaou2]

 If you expanded the control section a little on each side,
and places the buttons closer together, youd have room
for both without any issues.

 Or, you could also make a custom spinner with low
depth requirements..  and place it vertically
on the front of the machine where the 1up buttons
are located.  (could use mini button up near the
monitor area for start/coin..etc..  or place them
on each side?  double as pinball flippers? )

 I believe they also make some pretty cool mini-trackballs.
You could use one to play the games.. or just to navigate
the mouse.

 Cool project

[TehJefe]

Have you thought about making it battery powered? Would that be possible? I dunno... Id much rather have this on a long plane ride than any kinda game boy or PSP or whathaveyou. Very rad.

[TehJefe]

Oooh and on a similar note (portability).. though I suppose it may be too late for this, a headphone jack takes up less space than speakers.

[danny_galaga]

I don't get it.  How would having 6 buttons be more "quality" controls than 4 buttons and a spinner?  It's not like I'm trying to cram in a spinner AND 6 buttons.  I'd basically be swapping 6-button fighting games for all the driving and paddle games.  I'd still have the main 4 buttons for most games in the exact same layout they are now, and the spinner on the side, not getting in the way of the 4 buttons, and still easy to use.

well, you did ask for our thoughts! i think the internal 'footprint' of the spinner will be greater than the two buttons you are removing thus making the panel just a little more cramped when you shift the remaining four buttons over a little...

[Dreamwriter]

Yeah, and I do want your thoughts, just didn't see how that could make the unit worse.  I see what you are saying, but the thing is, I already planned on moving the buttons closer together in the final unit, even with 6 buttons - the problem with cardboard mockups is the cardboard is too weak for the buttons to be too close together.  The distance right now makes it kind-of uncomfortable to use more than one button at a time.  So there'll already be more space for the spinner there (and internally, the spinner's not bad at all, nothing like a trackball, just like 2x2").

As for battery powered, it's using a 330 watt power supply - so would probably require a car battery   Remember it's a full computer in there, an Athlon 64 3200+.

[Dreamwriter]

Sneak Peak at Prototype 2!


Wires wires everywhere!

[Dreamwriter]

Been a while - I've actually been "done" with this for a while (and these pictures are even kinda old), but life's been busy and I been slacking.  So here ya go, Project 42 Prototype 2!





Note the new control scheme and the fact that everything is in one unit now (but the screen and speakers - don't worry, when i get the new screen there's room for it and speakers in the top/bezel area).  No wires sticking out the left side, no hard drive sitting outside the case.  It's taller than the final unit will be, hopefully I can get it back down to the size of the last prototype once I replace all the X-Arcade stuff.  This week I'm getting the harness for the Ultra-360 so I can hook the buttons up to that instead of the X-Arcade adapter, and I'm also getting some Electric Ice lit buttons (for the three player buttons).  I'm not totally set on my color scheme yet, so I got the three-color LED's for the buttons so I can choose whatever colors I want (well, from red, green, blue, yellow, purple, cyan, white).

BTW, there are two more buttons - one you can't see on the left side, is what you use to choose games from the front-end and back out to the front end, and on the right side (which I've added since the pics were taken) is a button to act as the Mame menu key (Tab by default).

[bvicarious]

Hi dreamwriter, I'm in the planning stages of making a tiny arcade (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=57266.0) and noticed you hacked a nice screen out of something. Can you give some details on it, like the dimensions, what you got it from, how games look on it?

Are you doing a final build on this project, or is it just a prototype for something else?

[Dreamwriter]

Well, it wasn't a nice screen at all.  The picture did look really nice, sure (although at that small size I definitely want screen rotation for vertical games), but the VGA cable when hooked up would get hot quickly, and when it was plugged in other things would go wrong on the system (like not powering up, mouse not working, keyboard not working, etc)  It was like something was shorting out, but nothing apparent was doing it.

I got it from a little 8" 640x480 LCD TV, which happened to have a VGA-In.  Here's where I got mine (they are now out of stock but you could search elsewhere for one and hope it works better than mine):
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.454/.f?sc=8&category=101

I've got a new screen on order from an eBay auction (straight from HongKong), this time with 800x600 resolution.

Yeah, I'm gonna do a final build on this project eventually   By the end of this week I should have everything needed except the wood.  The trick is stealing some time from my woodworking friend to do it.  The project does, however, have much higher long-term goals and plans than I've revealed - for example, I eventually plan on trying to make it modular, where you can take a new control panel (say my original 6-button fighter setup) and screen and just snap it to the base with the computer.  Imagine that, not just a swappable control panel, but an entire swappable case

[bvicarious]

Interesting about the cable. Was it a normal D-sub15 connector, or some specialized thing? Does the new LCD have VGA-in too? If not, I'm wondering if you could use the same hack that can be used on PSone screens (http://tidder.rudyatek.com/tidder/lcd/) for getting VGA input on an NTSC/PAL screen. I'm looking into some of those portable DVD players with built in LCDs, I think that might be my ticket. I'm not too concerned with resolution or quality, so even a composite input might be fine enough.

[Dreamwriter]

Yeah, it was a normal VGA connector.  This new screen (arrived today) is weird, it's got a proprietary connector on it that's small and round, and comes packed with a VGA to XXX cable.  But it doesn't have the problems the old screen did, and is 800x600 (good for vector games), so it's all good.

This screen is a "SUPER", BTW.

[vrf]

Great work so far!

Bookmarking thread now...

[Dreamwriter]

I promise, this is the last "prototype" update, but...

The final prototype is complete!  The internals have been massively revamped, it's laid out a lot nicer inside, plenty of open space, easy to work with.  The action buttons now light up (currently set at blue but I can choose from 7 colors). The button internals (the actual switches) are now a slightly higher quality (Cherry switches), and of course, the screen is now attached, and speakers inside.  The only thing coming out of the case is a single power cable; it's a nice, desktop self-contained unit.

So the next step is to woodify it all!

[jan25th]

Congratulations, you have just built a Commodore PET computer.

[MameMaster!]

Congratulations, you have just built a Commodore PET computer.

 

that's too funny!....but it's still a neat little machine! 

[Xiaou2]

 Not bad.

   Why not just add one inch so you can fit 6 buttons on there
as well?

  Also,  you may wish to consider making the monitor sit back a little
with the cabinet sides extending a bit past it..  as that will help to
shield outside light from causing glare on the screen.  Much like
most arcades are built..  or even those antique mini arcade machines.

  What would be cool is someone to sell 3/4 scale parts for
mini machines,  and for people wanting to take up a
little less space on thier CP's..  for ability to use more
controls on it

 

[soslo]

any word on this old thread?

[TOK]

any word on this old thread?

Must've run out of cardboard boxes.

[mccoy178]

Nullboy, this guy needs your help.

[Dreamwriter]

I'm baaack!  Yeah, I'm a procrastinator, and I've had problems, but Project 42 is back on track.  Unfortunately, it's had to go through a redesign which makes it almost as big as a bartop.  The problem is its screen (10" LCD TV) died, and that in itself was hard to find one that would work well (and there was still a problem with it anyways, its sound would default to off when powered on).  And I decided I loved my old 19" LCD monitor I had purchased for when this was a fullsize arcade cabinet, and that would give it a lot of extra room on the control panel, which I could use for a 6 button setup...and a TT2 with steering wheel for the racing games.

Anyways, here's the new design, almost ready for manufacturing: