Smash TV --> Golden Tee --> Smash TV MAME Cabinet

[IDDQD]

So now it's my turn.

Every other intro that has ever been written applies to me too: grew up playing games (late 90s games, as I'm 20 now), wanted one of my own, cost prohibitive, dad doesn't want this big thing in his basement but it's too late now, &c.

Humble Beginnings

I picked up an empty Golden Tee cabinet for $40 two days ago from Randy at Gameroomdeals in Manassass, VA -- if you are in the area, and want to buy a cabinet, he is your man. He's helpful, knowledgeable and cool, so if you want his number, PM me.

Brought the cabinet down to my (parents') basement, and snapped a couple of shots:



Now wait a second... what's that?

could it be... the Smash TV side art? Covered over by some jerk with a paint roller? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!

This got me thinking. I always loved Smash TV, so why not convert it back into a MAMEd Smash TV cabinet? I know I can get the marquee from mamemarquees, but I don't know about the side art... Hmm...

I read in another post that old cabs were sometimes recycled into new ones; does anyone recognize that piece?

After some intense cleaning, things are starting to look better.



 got the coin door locks installed, woo!

How I Got Lucky (buying a TV on Craigslist)

Now that things were starting to shape up, I scoured Craigslist for an appropriately sized TV (something in the 22-25" range, as the second generation Smash TV cabs originally had a 25" monitor in them. By a stroke of luck, I found a 24" Sony Wega TV listed with a phone number, so I called the guy up and offered him $70, though he had been asking $100. He said $70 was fine, so a friend and I drove to the next city over and picked up the TV from a nice Turkish gentleman who sounded like Niko Bellic, which was awesome. On the way out, he had some helpful advice: "lift it carefully. It's not the TV you need to worry about, it's the hernia!"

Upon arrival at home, we quickly realized that the TV case was going to be too wide because the Wega speakers are mounted vertically alongside the TV. Boo. Not willing to be foiled, though, we decased the Wega and discharged the capacitors. Because everything I had ever read about discharging said to be extra careful, we took ridiculous precautions, which would have made for a hilarious picture had I not been scared out of my mind.

Wow, this TV is heavy </foreshadowing>

In any case, there were no problems with discharging it, so we got creative in the decasing process.



The decasing procedure complete, we had to figure out how to mount the monitor in the cab, as the original monitor holes would not fit the Wega because the cab had been cut for a bigger monitor. Luckily, my friend who was helping is an engineering major at Johns Hopkins, so he knows his stuff. He suggested we cut triangles to fit the mount points on the TV, as there isn't a whole lot of space between the mounting holes and the TV itself.

We had to build a little extra support for the mounting triangles, so we sanded down the cabinet to use wood glue and drilled in the extra support:



This done on both sides, we cut four triangles that ended up being 5.5" x 7" and drilled in the top triangles (using wood glue as well for extra strength), planning to measure the height of the TV from where the holes were going to be in the top triangles and move the bottom triangles to match. Here's a picture of the top triangles done, and my buddy licking a screwdriver (not recommended):



And the final setup:



"I really hope whatever I just heard snap wasn't important"

By now, another of my friends had arrived, thankfully, because as I mentioned earlier, this sucker is heavy! We opted for the frontal TV insertion, as it would be really awkward to have to lift it up from underneath. The problem we encountered was the TV's motherboard -- the cords connecting it to the TV weren't very long, meaning it needed to follow closely with the TV, and be dropped into the cabinet first. We planned that friend 1 would sit in the cabinet and receive the motherboard first, set it on the aforementioned stool which we had moved into the cab, and then help friend 2 and me lower the TV into place.

Everything was going well, we had set the motherboard onto the stool, and were placing the TV in the cabinet when we heard a loud snap, and friend 1 made an announcement that broke my heart: "I think the neckbeard neckboard just broke."

 

As we were lowing the TV in, the neckboard was set on the motherboard that had been placed inside already, causing the board to snap. This was an oversight on my part; the monitor would have fit inside with the stool in there, but not with the stool and the motherboard on top of it.

Needless to say, I was very upset at this point. I hate it when electronics manage to better me, and I was almost positive that I was out the $70 I had paid for the TV. Fearing the worst, I plugged in the computer, turned on the TV, and crossed my fingers.

The moment of truth

When I started up MAME, this is what I saw:



Somehow, the damage to the neckboard avoided the most important parts; the electron gun still appeared to be working, although the picture didn't fill up the entire screen, there was that white line on the screen, and the picture seemed to be tilted to the right a little bit.

Although it was 2:30 AM and my friends had (understandably) left after putting the TV in, I searched Google for anything that might be helpful. I discovered Anthony Haukap's site, which I thought might help because one can adjust pincushion, vertical height and vertical position in the service menu of the TV. After figuring out how to access the service menu and adjusting a number of settings, the picture looked much better:



By some ridiculous stroke of luck (or what I think may have been an ingenious design by Sony), it turns out that the crack somehow didn't sever any connections, but simply cracked the neckboard at the weakest point.



I'm not sure why Sony would have intentionally designed the neckboard with a weak point, as they certainly don't want consumers mucking around in the TV, but be it a stroke of luck or an engineer's foresight, the damage wasn't too bad, and the TV was saved! Had the neckboard damage been fatal, I don't know if I would have continued with this project (immediately, at least) as I find things like that to be very discouraging. So I'm really glad that it wasn't!

Here is the TV motherboard as it stands now, one of my projects for today is going to be to figure out how to make the mounting permanent, as my dad probably doesn't want me to use his stool.



All the work described above took place in one day, over many hours; I started cleaning the cabinet at 3 PM or so and didn't make it to bed until 4 AM this morning. Here is the expense list so far, I'm going to try to keep this updated so people that (hopefully) read this can get an idea of what the associated costs are.

Expense list:

$40 for empty Golden Tee cabinet and two locks for coin doors
$140 for P4 2ghz computer with 768 MB RAM and Radeon 9700
$5 for CMOS battery for computer
$70 for 24" Sony WEGA TV
$13 for 6' S-Video cable (though it could have been had much cheaper at monoprice
$9 for marquee light
$12 for quick release clips for microswitches
$5 for 90' of cable
$285 for
                14x red pushbuttons
                1x 1p start button
                1x 2p start button
                1x U-TRAK trackball (with USB)
                2x UltraStik 360
                2x UltraStik 360 button/encoder harness
-----------------------
$579 total expenditure

Bonus pictures:



Questions (this will be updated as people answer, I hope):

1.) Is there any way to remove the top layer of paint over the Smash TV side art without taking off the original paint?

2.) What is the best way to mount the TV motherboard to the cab? One of my friends suggested creating an H frame with double crossbars and mounting it in there, but I'd need to use spacers between the board and whatever I mount it to? Are there any other, better options?

3.) I'm working on designing a control panel layout now, but I'm thinking of two joysticks with seven buttons each, a spinner and a trackball -- this is just a placeholder for when I design the panel.

4.) As of now, there is about 1.5" between the front of the monitor and the glass overlay. I'm going to paint the visible parts of the mounting triangles black, and then expand the blacking on the glass to cover more of the area, but is there anything else I can do about this?

Thanks for your help; this site, Saint's book and a friend who had made one is really what inspired me to take this project on. Also, to any friends that may be reading this, I really appreciate your help.

[IDDQD]

Some updates!

I went to Radioshack and Home Depot today and bought a self-contained light for the marquee, an S-Video cable of my own (I had been borrowing a friend's), some wiring and a toggle switch. The plan now is to take out the switch on the power strip and wire it to the toggle switch instead, as I've seen some other people do. Will post updates as I go along.

[leapinlew]

Looks good - take plenty of pics.

Perhaps change to a different hosting? Host the pictures here?

[IDDQD]

Perhaps change to a different hosting? Host the pictures here?

Are you having problems seeing these? I didn't realize we could host pictures here... I wanted to have them integrated with the text, so I just hosted them elsewhere. Is that possible if I host them here?

Also, I'm going ahead with the H brace idea for the TV motherboard, we'll see what happens!

[IDDQD]

Okay, I've loaded up my cart at Ultimarc, and this is what I have:

14x red pushbuttons
1x 1p start button
1x 2p start button
1x U-TRAK trackball
2x UltraStik 360
2x UltraStik 360 button/ encoder harness

Is this stuff all going to play nice with each other? From what I've read, it sounds like I will, but I want to make sure before I pull the trigger.

[weasel-like_animal]

Good luck with the cab. Let me know if you need help. I might have a few extra HAPP buttons with microswitches if you need more then the initial set. This is Zack btw. 

Oh yeah, here is my marquee:

[IDDQD]

Day 2 and 3 Update!

Instead of trying to use paint remover, I decided to try medium-grit sandpaper (alternating between 150 and 180) to take off the top layer of black, but leave the original artwork. I've done more work since this picture was taken, but here's how it's starting to look:



Not bad, but I just have to be careful not to take too much paint off. I also was able (with the help of my dad, as it was a two-person job) to mount the TV motherboard in a permanent place, close enough to the TV that the cords reach. I went ahead with the H frame idea, first mounting supports the length of the motherboard, and then cutting beams to go across, that the board would be set on.

 

Unfortunately, the board only had three screw holes, as it clearly wasn't meant to be doing what I'm doing with it, so I had to forgo the idea of Bic pen spacers (although I really liked it!) because the board wouldn't be evenly supported, so it's just sitting on the wood directly. Probably not good for it, but it hasn't broken yet, at least.

I also was able to mount the light I bought from Home Depot in the marquee area, and put the marquee back in, so the top of the cabinet is reaching completion, at least.



I definitely want to get a new marquee, most likely Smash TV, but I can't find a good quality CPO for Smash TV, and I don't really want to have side art and a marquee for a game that the CP doesn't match

The last thing I did was to mount the speakers, but first I had to create a mount for the left speaker, as it was originally mounted to the cab itself, and I'm just going to be using computer speakers, so I cut a piece of wood and screwed it in where the speaker will sit:



Unfortunately, because I didn't think to paint the speakers black before I glued them down with epoxy, the right speaker showed through the speaker hole, because it's a much bigger hole than the one on the left, so I had to put felt in front of it, and ended up just doing it for both speakers for the sake of equality. Sound quality is unaffected, though, so I'm not bothered.



I'm pretty pleased with the final look:

Finally, I was able to fit the woofer and the PC in the base of the cabinet, and although their location hasn't been finalized, it's at least good to know that they will fit.



This project is finally coming together; I'm just waiting on the controls from Ultimarc now -- I ordered them on Monday and haven't received a shipping confirmation yet, should I email them or wait some more? Also, what did you guys use to build your own control panel? The one I have has a steel overlay, so I won't be drilling through that... I was thinking plywood, but maybe something else would work better?

[grbgemen]

the cabinet im working on now is a MKII and ive been using 3M Safest stripper.  The results are fantastic.

i have also used a heat gun to remove a thick layer of paint on a cabinet.  that worked good too.  that cabinets artwork was painted directly onto the wood.

but it depends on how the smash tv artwork is applied.  for example, the MKII side art is a vinyl sticker if you will.  if i used the heatgun on that, it would lift both the paint and the artwork up from the wood.

[wp34]

I'm anxious to see how you do on the side art.  Smash TV is one of my favorites and I have not found the side art anywhere.   I really hope you are able to salvage it.  Should make for a great cab!

[weasel-like_animal]

Think about using 3/4" plywood, or even MDF for the control panel. Many people use MDF because it can give a really nice finish. Also if you are super anal, you can get a thin lexan/plexi sheet to lay over the CP when its done. I chose to make a 1/4" plexi CP without wood and its sorta cool, but not traditional.

[IDDQD]

the cabinet im working on now is a MKII and ive been using 3M Safest stripper.  The results are fantastic.

i have also used a heat gun to remove a thick layer of paint on a cabinet.  that worked good too.  that cabinets artwork was painted directly onto the wood.

but it depends on how the smash tv artwork is applied.  for example, the MKII side art is a vinyl sticker if you will.  if i used the heatgun on that, it would lift both the paint and the artwork up from the wood.

I think what I'm working with has been painted directly on to the cab, because I can see the relief of it underneath the black paint -- it's a little raised where it has been painted. Does that make sense? Also, if this is the case, would you recommend a heat gun? What exactly did you do to take the paint off with the heat gun? Would a hair dryer work?

Think about using 3/4" plywood, or even MDF for the control panel. Many people use MDF because it can give a really nice finish. Also if you are super anal, you can get a thin lexan/plexi sheet to lay over the CP when its done. I chose to make a 1/4" plexi CP without wood and its sorta cool, but not traditional.

This was actually going to be my next question. I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow to buy something for the CP, but I'm not sure what... do most people use 3/4" plywood or MDF, or what? I'm planning on using this at parties, so I don't think the plexiglass is a bad idea, but it depends on how nice my CPO is, I guess.

Another related question, how do you guys make the cut necessary for t-molding on your CP?

[weasel-like_animal]

I think a lot of people use 3/4" MDF, with 1/8" plexi (if they use it, and its totally optional). That way the buttons and joysticks aren't too deep and will work.

To get T-molding in there, you'll need a router with a t-molding bit. You might be able to do it with a Dremel, but it will take lots and lots of patience and a VERY steady hand. Router is the way to go. There are threads about it on the Woodworking section.

[grbgemen]

basically the paint was on so thick that i just put the heat gun on a spot for a little bit.  the paint would start to bubble up and then i would move to another spot and repeat.  after i had a little area done i stopped and peeled the paint away. 

a few spots i left the heat gun on for to long.  after i was all done, the paint had tiny pinholes all over.  not sure if it was from the heat gun or if it was like that from before.  but the entire side art was intact and could be restored easily.

i have read about others who have used a hair dryer before and it worked.  my heat gun was only $20 from a local hardware store. 

not sure if i would really recommend it but if you do try it, do not leave the heat gun on for to long.  maybe wait and see what others say. 

[Barry Barcrest]

That artwork looks like it is a sticker, that is why it appears to be raised up.

[shardian]

The original artwork is a screen printed vinyl sticker and it will appear raised under the black paint. You can get 3m safest stripper at Ace Hardware. That is the only place I know of that stocks it on the shelf. It works GREAT for screened vinyl cabinets.

[IDDQD]

The original artwork is a screen printed vinyl sticker and it will appear raised under the black paint. You can get 3m safest stripper at Ace Hardware. That is the only place I know of that stocks it on the shelf. It works GREAT for screened vinyl cabinets.

Sounds like this is the plan... except that it costs $40 a jug! Is there anything else that will work? Maybe I'll try some of my dad's paint stripper in an unimportant place, and see what happens...

In other news, the controls should be here today from Ultimarc, just one day after they shipped. Awesome!

[IDDQD]

AWESOME!

The parts came in today... overnight shipping, sweet!

One question, though, I got the U-Trak trackball, and I don't know what the best way to cut the hole would be... any thoughts?

[shardian]

I think I paid $25 for a gallon at Ace. Where did you get your price from?

Trust me, this stuff is worth it for vinyl. To make it even better, you don't need gloves or a mask. There is pretty much no odor to the stuff.

[IDDQD]

I think I paid $25 for a gallon at Ace. Where did you get your price from?

Trust me, this stuff is worth it for vinyl. To make it even better, you don't need gloves or a mask. There is pretty much no odor to the stuff.

That's awesome. The prices I was talking about were from Ace online, I think. Maybe I'll just drive out to one of the stores and see what they have.

I got the U360s today, and they're pretty awesome, but I think I need to get the long shafts, circular restrictor and the tougher spring, as everyone has said. Lame.

Two questions:

1.) I installed my U360 portrait style, and when I plug it in, the directions are off 90 degrees. I read in the review that I can just take off the bottom part and rotate it to solve this problem -- is this true?

2.) The buttons don't seem to be numbered as they should (I'm using the wiring harness). Does anyone have a list of what button is what color wire (ie red = 1, brown = 2 or whatever)? I thought that red was 1 and purple was 8, but I think the problem is that I wired them top down instead of across horizontally... is that what I did? I don't have the harness with me, but is it set up to be

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8

I wired it as

1 3 5 7
2 4 6 8

for some reason, and I think I did that wrong Can anyone confirm?

[dgame]

I think I paid $25 for a gallon at Ace. Where did you get your price from?

Trust me, this stuff is worth it for vinyl. To make it even better, you don't need gloves or a mask. There is pretty much no odor to the stuff.

That's awesome. The prices I was talking about were from Ace online, I think. Maybe I'll just drive out to one of the stores and see what they have.

I got the U360s today, and they're pretty awesome, but I think I need to get the long shafts, circular restrictor and the tougher spring, as everyone has said. Lame.

Two questions:

1.) I installed my U360 portrait style, and when I plug it in, the directions are off 90 degrees. I read in the review that I can just take off the bottom part and rotate it to solve this problem -- is this true?

2.) The buttons don't seem to be numbered as they should (I'm using the wiring harness). Does anyone have a list of what button is what color wire (ie red = 1, brown = 2 or whatever)? [Snip]

1) Remove and turn the PCB so that the USB and Harness connectors straddle the Down position of the stick.


2) http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_inst.html

The connections for the 10-pin header are as below:

Wire    Input Mode    Output Mode
Black    COM Connect to COM terminals on all buttons    GND. Connect to I-PAC if required
Brown    Button 1 NO    not used
Blue    Button 2 NO    Down Digital. Connect to I-PAC if required
Orange    Button 3 NO    Right Digital. Connect to I-PAC if required
Yellow    Button 4 NO    Left Digital. Connect to I-PAC if required
Green    Button 5 NO    Up Digital. Connect to I-PAC if required
Red    Button 6 NO    5 Volt supply. Not required if USB is connected
Grey    Button 7 NO    Raw analog. Not used at present
Violet    Button 8 NO    Raw analog. Not used at present

[IDDQD]

Thanks a ton for that, dgame. I've been to that site so many times by now, I can't believe I missed that information. Thanks again!

[IDDQD]

Another (similar) question: for the U-Trak trackball, does it have to mounted with the casing horizontal, or can it be mounted with the casing vertically to save space? My thinking is that if it's mounted vertically, if I spin it up, it will think it's moving left, so is there any way to change that? I really hope so!

E: I just read in the directions to "fit the trackball with the arrow on the top of the housing pointing to the rear of the panel." I assume this means that the trackball must be mounted this way, right?

E2: To anyone who reads this and has the same question as I do, the arrow on the U-Trak points to the direction to roll to make the mouse go up.

E3: Question: After playing for a couple of hours tonight, I realized that I'd like to have one or two more buttons for administrative functions, but I'm out of places to plug them in to (I already have 8 on both my U360s). I've read about a mouse hack, would doing this hack (or any other hack) give me two more buttons into the computer? I'm trying to avoid buying an Ipac or something like that for just two more buttons.

[IDDQD]

Update!

I've wired a power button for the computer in the top of the cabinet, meaning to turn the cabinet on, I need to turn on the power strip and press the computer power button, as I didn't want to spend the $30 for that power strip that turns everything else on when the computer is turned on. Not a big deal.

Luckily, there was a hole already in the top, for the power button, I imagine, so I put one of the two extra buttons from the Golden Tee cabinet in there, and wired it up:



It's out of the way enough that I won't hit it accidentally, which is great! I also finalized the control panel layout; I opted for angled buttons in order to have room for the trackball, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

(action shot!)

And here is the wiring harness, connected to this, and then wired to the switches that will be the buttons:

Everything installed, unwired: Everything installed, wired:

And the end result!

Unfortunately, I can't mount the trackball, as my order was missing the mounting screws and stuff, but I emailed Andy from Ultimarc about that and he said he'd sent them out the same day (great guy, that Andy).

I wired the coin doors, and they are working now, so things are finally starting to come together!

[Crowquill]

All I can say is WOW. You've accomplished in a week what took me 6 months.

Looks like the TV worked out fine. Trinitron TVs/Monitors have a fantastic picture, but are always a pain to move. Your mounting triangles are a very similar solution to the metal brackets used in some factory cabinets. I'd say you got really lucky with the neckboard.

I'm not sure about the U-Trak, but with a standard arcade trackball you can just switch the wiring harness/boards to reverse horizontal and vertical. Hopefully you're not an aggressive trackball player with the trackball that high on the control panel. Smashing you're hand into the glass wouldn't be fun.

Personally, I prefer to skip the admin buttons altogether. You can always do it with button combinations.

As far as hacking for extra buttons, you could easily hack a mouse's buttons. If you're solely needing to just add buttons you could also hack an old digital gamepad.

Any progress on the sideart yet?

[dgame]

IDDQD,

How do the angled sticks play? There was a huge debate about this around here.

[IDDQD]

Some updates!

Got the bezel finished, a buddy came over and helped me with it (read: pretty much did it for me) so here are a few pictures of that:

and with the glass

So that's done, and it looks good enough for me, especially with the glass over it. The plans were based on Tailgunner's $2 bezel method, but was slightly adjusted to fit the Smash TV cabinet. I'm going to eventually tape out the glass that I want to be transparent, and then coat the rest in black -- is the best way to get paint to stick to glass spraypaint?

I also got the trackball mounting kit from Andy, and got the trackball mounted. I can't wait to get the CPO done, or maybe just something painted directly on, because I don't have the longer sticks for the U360s, and putting plexiglass over what I have now would make the sticks really short.



Re: Crowquill, I lucked out in that I was able to mount it in the proper direction, so I just did that (had the arrow been facing the opposite direction, I wouldn't have been able to). I also do think I'm going to skip the admin buttons, as I figured a way to have all the functionality I want (pause, options menu, exit game and coin) without using them. Also, in terms of the quick progress, I didn't have a job, so I just picked up this project and focused almost entirely on it  I do, unfortunately, have a job now, so progress is much slower.

As for the sideart, I gave it a quick paint stripping, and I'm really impressed with the results. It's not perfect, because I realized it was picking up the vinyl image as well, so I had to scrape it off really fast, but I think I'm going to do another round in smaller areas, and just be more careful watching it.



Re: dgame, I have been nothing but impressed with the angled sticks. I definitely wouldn't have had room for the trackball without it, so it gave me room for that, and it also means that two big guys can fit side by side without bumping elbows. If I wasn't using U360s, I think it would have been harder, because I've been getting a lot of use out of the changing 4-way/8-way/analog functionality, but because I have them, it's no problem at all. People don't even notice the angle if they stand evenly with the angle. Unfortunately, that means you don't look perfectly squarely at the TV, but it doesn't bother me. I love it, and would definitely do it again, just make sure to make a mockup first to get the angle right -- too severe is bad, as is too mild an angle.