First time upright build - The Time Machine

[turnergw]

It's been quite some time since I posted any updates on this build, so time for a bit of a catchup.  Unfortunately once I hooked everything up and started playtesting, I found a fault on the minipac I was using - one of the buttons was registering as constantly pressed, which stopped the shifted buttons working, and hence I had no admin functions.  At first I thought this was my dodgy wiring, but having tested, retested and eventually rewired the lot, I was still having problems.

Andy at Ultimarc helpfully offered to replace the unit - which he duly did, but unfortunately (again) the replacement one was worse, and only worked at all for a few minutes before dying completely.   

Then followed several months of problems with mail -Two replacement units got lost in the post, largely thanks to the enormous amount of postal strikes we've been having recently, and I was stuck without any working minipac for a couple of months.  However this did give me more time to focus on the frontend setup and other options (more on this later!)

Eventually I received the third replacement minipac - but this time it was a USB connected one instead of the old PS/2 unit I had been using.  This of course is wired completely differently, so I ended up having to completely rewire the panel to get anything !  This probably wan't a bad thing, as the old wiring was pretty ropey.  So, several long nights of stripping wires, crimping and hacking later, I eventually got back to a working state for the whole panel.  Fingers crossed it stays working now!

It's far too cold here now to be working out in the garage on this, so it's finally come into the house.  That was quite a challenge in itself, although it was designed to make sure it went through all the doorways, it was still quite a tight fit.  It fits in quite nicely in my 'study' (ie game room) but looks somewhat out of place amongst the other assorted junk and mess.  Really need to tidy this place up and sort it out one day!

I've also changed a few buttons around and applied some of Pongo's excellent button decals to remove the slightly off looking white P1 and P2 buttons on the panel, so now everything is a uniform blue.  The trackball is also backlit with blue LEDs, although this doesn't really show in the picture taken with flash.  Looks better in the flesh!

[turnergw]

Whilst I was without a working panel, I experimented with attaching an old steering wheel I had from back in the Playstation 2 days - Being USB connected, I figured there ought to be a driver for it somewhere.  Lo and behold, it works perfectly with the Logitech drivers, and now I've got a nice force feedback wheel to use with the driving games!

The main reason I wanted a wheel working was to play Sega Rally, one of my all time favourites.  Using the model 2 emulator, this plays beautifully, and has the added advantage of supporting the force feedback wheel.  This of course has set my mind on the idea of building a dedicated sit-down cab for this game, but I think my wife would probably kill me if I tried that!

Hence I've decided on a slightly less intrusive alternative.  The wheel mounts nicely on the front of the control panel, leaving the trackball just about usable, and all other controls clear.  This means the games are all fully controllable from the panel when the wheel is attached.  The wheel clamps onto the panel directly, but needs a spacer to leave the trackball clear.  Currently I've just got a book and some cardboard stuffed in there (high-tech solution!) but will be making a wedge-shaped, rubber covered spacer to mount this cleanly.

The only problem is what to do with the pedals, since I can't easily stand and use the acceleraor and brake without either getting severe leg cramp or falling over.  Since I planned the cab to be used with stools anyway, I'll be designing a matching, adjustable pedal mount for these, in black painted MDF with blue t-molding to match the cabinet itself.  Currently I'm just using an old storage box, which obviously detracts from the aesthetics a bit!

I haven't quite decided how to deal with the wires needed yet - I'll probably bore a small hole in the front of the cab to run them through, leaving them out of the way when not needed.

Of course as always, adding the wheel became the start of a hefty upgrade path, since I discovered it worked so well with PC games.  Having several driving games lying around, I started out installing the old TOCA race driver series, which worked really well with the wheel.  However this eventually ended up with me installing Race Driver: GRID which I have on my main PC.  This of course needs some serious grunt, and hence I ended up moving from an old athlon processor to a spanking new core 2 duo, which of course also meant a new motherboard and graphics card.  So much for using up all the old remnants I had lying about!

[turnergw]

I've also been playing with various frontends, and making sure all the emulators and games work cleanly.  This has turned out to be a huge job, but I've got it to a state I'm happy with at last.   I started out using Maximus Arcade as the front end, which I really want to like, but it's just too frustrating to set up cleanly, and seems to have quite a few nasty bugs and side effects.  It's a shame that the support seems to have dried up as well, as it's a great front end otherwise.  There seem to be big problems with cleanly exiting games, and for some reason it consistently crashes on resume from hibernate, which is a big issue for me as my power switch simply hibernates the PC rather than making it boot up from scratch when turned on.  (This makes the startup really quick and clean)

Eventually I gave up with Maximus, tried a few other frontends briefly, but couldn't find one that did everything I wanted in the way I wanted.  Eventually I tried Hyperspin, and currently this is ticking all the right boxes for me.  It starts and exits all my emulators cleanly, comes back from hibernate with no issues, and is nicely configurable and skinnable.  Also the development and support seem incredibly active, so I'm happy with this for now.

To that end, I've started putting together a skin and theme that matches the cab - Although I love the 'themes' idea for games in hyperspin, it's all far too busy and graphical for my taste, so I've pared it back to the wheel, video and a static background.  I think it keeps the selection of games nice and clean.  Looking forward to the genre-based selection in the next version, so I can classify the driving / shooting / fighting etc games separately regardless of emulator, which will make it much easier for guests to find a game they're looking for!

The screens here were just taken with a camera, which obviously doesn't show up a CRT screen desperately well.  I'll try and get some decent screenshots once everything is done.

[wp34]

That PS2 wheel look real nice on your cab.  I like that the blue's match.  What model is it?

[turnergw]

It's one of the many variants of the Logitech wheel - I think it's called a 'GT Force' although I doubt the same model is still available - I got this when Gran Turismo 3 was released back in 2001, and it's sat in a cupboard since then!

[saurian333]

Without going too crazy with the money, I think the Logitech wheels are about the best you can do for an arcade cabinet.  I have a MOMO that I got a ridiculous deal on, and it's amazing.  When I build an upright, I'm going to try coming up with a way to integrate that wheel into it, since I don't actually use it much on the PC.  I'll be interested to see what you come up with for yours.

By the way, great-looking cab overall.  You picked a nice color scheme, and your CP looks sick.  Awesome job!