Announcing my 1st yet-to-be-named project.

[severdhed]

Well, i have been coming here for a while for assistance with my project, i didnt notice the Project Announcement section till I was well into the build process...so I figured I'd wait until I made some progress to post my announcement.  I am not done with it yet, but I am at one of those periods where I am testing my current configuration to see if i need to change anything.

I made a web site with pics of the process, but I'll post some here because i hate when people just post a link and expect people to go look at it.

http://www.severdhed.com/arcade.html

So..the story begins.

I have been a gamer for many years, ever since my brother and I got our NES.  There were never really any good arcades around here, there was a place called Crocadile Alley in the mall, but the mall burnt down.  Then Alladins Castle opened, it was good...but we never had alot of money to go to the arcade.  (There was also a showbiz pizza which later became chuck e cheese, and is the only arcade that exists in this town today)

well, anyway, i have wanted my own arcade cabinet for a long time.  I remember being about 16, in my bedroom, i had a 20" tv that sat on top of my clothes dresser.  I would pull the top drawer out, put a board across it, and set two SNES joysticks on it and stand there and play Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for hours.  Around that time i started drawing plans to build a cabinet to put my TV and SNES into and make it like an arcade cabinet....well, since i was 16, had very little money, no power tools, and not really any room to put this in my bedroom, it never happened....time went by. 

 About 8 years later  (2004) i saw a review of the x-arcade 2 player stick on ign.com. and decided I had to have one.  So i shelled out the money for the 2player unit, usb adaptor, and all 4 console adaptors.  I figured if I have all of the consoles, i should get the adaptors for them.  So i go on using this for a while, mainly with Soul Calibur (DC) and Soul Calibur 2 (xbox).  It is fun, but too crowded for two adults to use comfortably at the same time.  Well, once again Time goes by, I move, and my x-arcade gets packed in its box and put in the attic for a while. 

Then one day, I saw a show on G4 about arcades and it got me thinking about wanting a cabinet again.  I hunt up the x-arcade unit, throw together a crappy PC from leftover parts (i beleive it was a pentium2 400 at that point) set up a small stand for the controller and put the monitor on the bar in my basement.  I got mame running, using easymame as my frontend and it all went downhill from there.



Not being satisfied, i knew it was time to build a real cabinet.  I had very few power tools and even less experience, so first I looked in the phone book for amusements to see if anyone local had any for sale.  I found a guy a few blocks from my house who rents/sells/services arcades, pinball, pool tables, and vending equipment.  I asked if he had any empty cabinets he would be willing to get rid of...he said he just picked one up that he would let me have for $20...so I went over right away.  It was a generic Midway cabinet that someone converted to Golden Tee Golf II.  the monitor was burnt badly, and the guy stripped out the gameboard before giving it to me.  He did however leave the everything else.  I called my friend who brought his jeep cherokee over and we hauled it back to my basement.



The coin door/coin mechs were still there, as well as 3 buttons, the marquee and light, speaker, dead monitor.  I thought the trackball was missing, but i found it in the bottom of the cabinet.  Part of the plastic trackball casing was broken, a piece that held one of the rollers in place had snapped off, causing the roller to sit at a funny angle.  I managed to fix this and just kinda tucked the trackball away for a while.

So i wiped the cabinet down, cleaned out the junk from inside it. Used the metal monitor bracket to make a shelf for my 17" CRT PC monitor.  I wanted the monitor to be more vertical than it was before.  I was still able to use the original glass/bezel.  I made a cheap marquee out of posterboard. I drew the mame logo on it, then cut it out with an xacto knife.  then i cut up and taped a translucent blue file folder behind it, that way when i turned the light on, the mame logo would glow.  I took the pc out of its case, mounted the motherboard to the inside of the cabinet and ran a cable through the trackball hole to the x-arcade, which sat on a bar stool.

[severdhed]

not happy with that, i then made a new marquee, this time using black poster board.  I also cut some posterboard to make a bezel.  I removed the original control panel, and attached two boards to teh insides of the cabinet, they fit perfectly so that the x-arcade could sit on them.  I also installed a slide out keyboard tray underneath that.  I also mounted the volume control on the coin door.



I found a hole in the top of the cabinet where there was a strange little switch mounted, I'm assuming it was teh power switch for the original cabinet.  I ripped that out and mounted an arcade pushbutton in there, wired up to the powerswitch header on the motherboard.


I added a dreamcast to my cabinet as well, so i could play Soul Calibur and Ikaruga...I wanted it to be easy to get to, so i built a small shelf inside the coin door.  I also modified the coin mechs to accept tokens and other similar objects (like the steel washers i bought at lowes)

[severdhed]

At this piont, i was ready to make some bigger changes.  First to go was the 17" CRT, in favor of a 19" LCD monitor. The original arcade monitor was 20"..so i couldnt go with anything too large.  The LCD is nice because it doesnt take up nearly any room.  I mounted it deep into the cabinet, still using the original glass(it had a black bezel painted on the back of it).  I then started with the controls.  The x-arcade worked well, but I didnt just want it sitting there like that.  I ended up using a 9pin serial data switch box to switch the controls between the pc and dreamcast, so i didnt have to swap cables.  I used a kvm switch to switch the monitor.  I cut an extension cord and wired in a toggle switch as well, that way i could leave the dreamcast powered on, and just flick the toggle switch to kill power to the unit.  I need a place to mount all of these controls, as well as my volume knob.  SO i gutted the x-arcade and made a rough template from a piece of particle board or something.


I dont know what i was thinking, it was a horrible layout, and with the spacing between sticks not changing from the x-arcade layout, and now with the sides of the cabinet in the way, it was way too tight for 2 people to use. SO i went to chuck e cheese for inspiration.  I came to realize that the only option at this point was to cut out part of the cabinet sides and build  a wider control panel box.  I was nervouse about this because i had little experience with woodworking, and very few tools.  I used some masking tape to mark the side where i planned on cutting.  I kept it this way for about a week before i got enough guts to cut it.


well, i got brave one day, i borrowd a jigsaw from my mom and went to town.  This made a big mess in my basement but I didnt really feel like taking the whole cabinet up the stairs.  I taped some cardboard to the cabinet with hopes of keeping the sawdust out of the inside, since the pc was still mounted inside it.  I removed the t-molding and cut away at the side, to my suprise, it turned otu better than i thought it would.

[severdhed]

It sat like that for a while until i had the money to go buy the wood and misc stuff i would need.  So while i was waiting, i built a better pc for in it.  It is an athlon 2500+ with 512mb of ram.  a 20gb hd, geforce 4 mx4000 64mb video.  Here is a pic of the motherboard mounted to the cabinet, it was really messy.


using existing holes in the monitor mounting bracket, i mounted the drives for the pc, these are right at the back edge of the cabinet.



as you can see, it was a wiring nightmare in there.

[severdhed]

So i eventually got to work building my control panel box.  I used 4" pine boards for the sides, and particle board for the top and bottom.(cause it was cheap).  i basically just built a box.


the box was 29" wide and 11" deep.  I made the top panel 30" by 12" so i would have a 1/2" overhang on each side, and a 1" overhang on the front.  I had to buy a cheap drill at walmart because my 6v battery drill couldnt cut it for all the button holes.


main buttons were all 1.5" apart on center, 3" away from the center of the joystick holes.  there are 4 admin buttons above player 1, two start buttons in the middle, and the x-arcade program button above player 2.  I mounted the mode switch on the right side of the panel, right under the overhang so it is easy to get to, but out of the way.

I also decided I wanted a trackball, so i hacked a microsoft ps2 mouse to make a pc interface for it.  I made a smaller panel to fill the gap between the main panel and the monitor.  This panel housed the trackball, mouse buttons, serial port switchbox, kvm button, dreamcast power switch, and volume knob.  I decided to cover the control panel with this red plastic stuff i had lying around.  It is like plexiglass, but opaque and red...im not sure what it is.  I mounted the trackball and serial switch directly to it, since the wood was too thick.  I just used a scrap of plywood i found in the basement.

[severdhed]

here si the top of the panel, nothign special, but it does the job.  I cut the trackball hole with my dremmel circle cutter, it worked fairly well.


here you can see the everythign but the mouse buttons mounted in the panel, like i said, it's not pretty but it worked.



here you can see the new panels mounted on the cabinet.  You can also see that i mounted flip-down cup holders on the sides of the cabinet..i love those things.  I installed pinball buttons, one on either side of the panel, and a home-made pinball plunger control on the front, so i can play visual pinball.

[leapinlew]

Ahh what a nice trip down memory lane for me. Your discovery of Arcades and desire to build one remind me of my own trip.

Looking good - a very nice evolution for rookies to see. Often, our first attempt at an arcade isn't on a grand scale.

Your mom has a jigsaw? Does anyone else think thats hot?

[_) (V) (-)]

Good collection of photos to show your progress.
'Specially the test control panel segment.
Wish I'd had thought of that!

[severdhed]

Here i removed everythign and painted the wood black, You can also see a screenshot of my cpviewer. 



Here is a shot of the cabinet how it sat for a few months untouched.  I painted the marquee posterboard with black spraypaint, which made it look much darker.  I also wired up a 4button pc gamepad to the coindoor, so i wouldnt have to run wires from my control panel to teh coindoor.  I use joy-to key for that functionality.


recently, i decided that some changes needed to be made.  I wanted to move the monitor forward to the front of the cabinet to make it more arcade-like.  I also wanted to consolidate the controls into one panel, and remove unneeded buttons and stuff.  Since i rarely used the dreamcast, i temporarily removed it, it may go back in some day though.  I also made a spinner from an old hard drive and a mouse, so i wanted to integrate this into my cabinet as well.  I figured while i was at it, i would also get a 4-way joystick so i could play pacman the right way.  I ended up getting  a Betson space invaders stick, since it had a longer shaft that most 4way sticks i had seen.  I moved the x-arcade program button to the back of the box, since it rarely gets used.  I also removed two of the admin buttons. I want it to be functional, but not confusing for someone who is new to it.

I kept the joysticks and main buttons at the exact same place, installed the trackball in the center.  the start buttons were spread out a bit and the spinner was installed between them.  The 4way stick was installed above the player1 buttons.  I left one admin button on either side, above player 1 joystick, and above player2 button 3.  These are escape and enter.(enter for other emulators) I have mame configured to exit the game via Esc or Enter.  I changed mame also so that the pinball buttons are also pause.   I covered the panel in this plastic diamond plate stuff i found at a local bargain store.  I used 3m spray adhesive, but i need to use something stronger.

I also cut a piece of plexi for over the monitor, and made a bezel out of posterboard, which i painted black.  It is held in place by 4 magnets, which attract to the metal brackets that are behind the bezel.



You can also see my custom front end, MALA.  I made all of the artwork with Bryce 5 and photoshop.  I wanted to tie in the diamond plate theme..it may change, but for now it works.  I have a custom MAME bios splash screen, and boot screen.  the pc loads MALA as the shell, so windows dekstop isnt seen. 

I forgot to mention..but this time when mounting the trackball, i just routed out the wooden panel from below, it worked out pretty well.  I also bottom mounted my joysticks so i dont have bolts through the panel.  THe only bolts are for the trackball and i didnt see much of a way around that without buying a mounting plate...and what can i say, i'm cheap.  I also attached the top of the panel to the box with little cabinet latches, instead of screws.  that way it holds tightly, but pops off easily without any ugly screws.

[severdhed]

here is a side shot of the new panel, i added two extra buttons to the ends of the panel (one on each side).  the black ones at the rear are my mouse buttons.  I wasnt going to include them, since i dont need them for gaming, but i also use this machine to control my xbox media center to listen to music, so i needed mouse buttons.


while i was at it, i also replaced the single mono speaker with stereo speakers, i used some PC fan grills from newegg as speaker grills, they worked out well i think.


also, by moving the monitor forward, and hanging it on teh bracket instead of sitting it on a shelf, it created alot of free space.  I moved the motherboard and stuff around inside and cleaned up alot of the mess.  The subwoofer was moved from the bottom of the case, to above the monitor behind the bezel area.

[severdhed]

here is a shot of the cabinet in it's current state.  Im sure things will change, but i am fairly happy with how it turned out.  I am open to suggestions for improvements though.  Eventually i'd like to add tmolding to the places where i cut the cabinet, and around the control panel.  And I like the diamond plate surface...i just want to see how it holds up for a while.  If It wears out or i dont like it, i may redo the panel again.  I also isntalled a lock on the coin door, not that i need security, but just to fill the stupid lock hole.


and last but not least..here is a screenshot of me being destroyed in Grid Wars.  (its hard to play and take a pic at the same time).  I mainly use this for MAME, but i also have a few pc games on it, like Grid Wars and DOOM.  i also use visual pinball, but I cant seem to get it to work properly (the editor window will ofter take focus infront of the table, requireing an alt-tab on the keybaord...i guess i need to do a little research)

[postalp123]

It's rare to see an evolution of a cab like that.

All I have to say is after the first few pics I thought your were gonna scrap it and start all over, but then suddenly (Right around the time you rebuilt the CP box) it started to come together real well.

Nice recovery!

Much better than my first cab.

[severdhed]

thank you.  It was a long road, with alot of stops at stupid places.  for a while, i was afraid it wouldnt turn out well at all, but then i got brave and made some drastic changes, and it turned out better than expected.

[leapinlew]

I agree - very nice. I posted mid-thread, but I'll say it hear also - it's good for people to see that not every cab built starts off being a work of art. Some of them go through many phases, like yours. Starting as an idea and evolving slowly into a great looking machine.

[_) (V) (-)]

I wish you would tell us a little more about your CP viewer thing.

I'm pretty new to this so the whole 'front end' thing has eluded me.
I've played with mame32 for a few years and knew from the first time I saw it that the only way to play this was with a cabnet!
I've been knocking down the 'Windows Element' in my system but there is always some evidence of it around.  Sounds like Mala is the bomb for that, will have to investigate . . .

It looks like this viewer of yours has a layout of your control panel and tells you what buttons are needed for each game you load.

That is a pretty cool idea. How did you set that up?

[stephenp1983]

I really enjoyed reading through your thread so far, and watching the different phases of your cab.  I must say it was one of the more interesting post I've read in awhile here.

[severdhed]

thanks guys, i wasnt sure how people would react to this cabinet, since there have been some really really nice ones.

as for the cp viewer and frontends..i had alot of problems with this at first, documentation seems to be lacking.  I started with mame32, then i went to commandline mame and easymame...but it was still too windows like for me.  THen i found MALA.  it isnt exactly the easiest thing to set up, but it works very well.  You can customize it very much, and once you look into it a little, it isnt that bad to configure.  as for cpviewer, that is an entireley different program..many frontends support it..bascially when you launch a game, cpviewer loads.  you create an image that represents your control panel, and then move the lables next to the controls.  It then references a controls.dat file that you download that has the default controls for most games. 

I would be more than happy to help you get it up and running...you need to get your frontend working before trying to mess with cpviewer though.  there are alot of frontends and everyone seems to like something different...MALA seemed to work the best for me.

[CheffoJeffo]

Your mom has a jigsaw? Does anyone else think thats hot?

You should see my Mom's tools ... she grew up with 3 brothers and is better with power tools than any of them.

I'm not sure what is more frightening, Lew lusting after somebody's Mom or the fact that I just held mine out as an alternative ... 

A nice thread ... I like seeing the evolution of the CP.

Cheers.

[leapinlew]

Your mom has a jigsaw? Does anyone else think thats hot?

You should see my Mom's tools ...

You name the time and the place...

Anyhow! I'm very interested in the CPViewer and how you set it up with MALA. Some step by step would be nice. I'm also curious how it works - does it show the controls to use and then they hit a button for it to go away?

[stephenp1983]

I'm also curious, is there a list of frontends it will work with?  I am using gameex

[BUCKETHEAD]

Great job!

Great evolution !

Your hard work has really paid off.

Oh by the way, I believe your cabinet started off it's life as a JOURNEY

See pic below ..

[severdhed]

i dont know what all front ends it works with, i know it works with mamewah and MALA.

basically you download the cpviewer program and install it, and you also download the controls.ini file.

http://www.cpviewer.emuchrist.org/index.html

http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/controls_dat.php


then you create an image that represents your control panel. open cpviewer and you label the picture.  There will be labels for P1 button 1 - button 8 or something like that, and also for p2.  plus p1 joy up, down, left, right.

so you put the P1 Button1 label next to player 1 button 1 on your picture.  Once all of the buttons are labled you save your layout.  then you configure your frontend to launch cpviwer. (this varies from frontend to frontend)

what will happen then is when you launch a game, cpviewer will pop up your image, it then reads the controls.ini file to figure out what the lables should be.  for intance if you launch TMNT, it will look in the controls.ini file for tmnt, it will find this entry:

[tmnt]
gamename=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (World 4 Players)
numPlayers=4
alternating=0
mirrored=1
tilt=0
cocktail=0
usesService=0
miscDetails=Pressing both buttons does a special attack.
P1NumButtons=2
P1Controls=8-way Joystick+joy8way
P1_BUTTON1=Jump
P1_BUTTON2=Attack
P1_JOYSTICK_RIGHT=Right
P1_JOYSTICK_LEFT=Left
P1_JOYSTICK_DOWN=Down
P1_JOYSTICK_UP=Up

so what it does it looks for the number of buttons, and then it lables them appropriately.  so where your p1 button1 lable is at, it will now say Jump, the P1 Button2 lable will say Attack.  the other buttons will not say anything since only 2 buttons are used.  also the joystick directions will be labled Left, Right, Up, and Down.  if the mirrored option is on, it will show the same config for all players.  If it is an alternating game, only the player1 controls will show up labled.

if it doesnt find a match, all of the lables will be blank.  you then press one of the buttons to make the screen go away and continue on to the game.

what i did was for all the games it didnt find, i created my own entries...like it doesnt find any of the neogeo games.

it has been a while since i set it up, but that is basically it.  i believe there is a generic version that is created too that will work with other emulators (you'll probably have to make all the entries yourself...i havent tried that yet)

The documentation that comes with it is sufficient for getting you started, if you run into any problems, i'll be more than happy to help.

[severdhed]

Great job!

Great evolution !

Your hard work has really paid off.

Oh by the way, I believe your cabinet started off it's life as a JOURNEY

See pic below ..

my monitor was mounted much more horizontally, and i can tell by the way it was mounted that it was originally that way.  I looked at some site online a while back that had examples of cabinets, but i ended up finding like 5 or 6 that had identical cabinets, at that point i quit looking.  from what i can tell, it is a fairly generic cabinet used my many different Midway games.  the coindoor says Bally/Midway on it.  i can see where someone painted over the original artwork, but i dont know what it originally was, and i dont feel like stripping it down to find out.

[_) (V) (-)]

Yeah, that cpviewer program sound like something I want to add to my setup.
Going to investigate soon as I get a little more time.

Thanks for explaining it to us in plain English!

[severdhed]

no problem, good luck with it.  It is a pretty nice little program.