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pboland

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Blog Entries posted by pboland

  1. pboland
    Keep in mind, though the cost is fairly low for the parts, much of my time and energy went into research for the most efficient (i.e. cost effective) way to connect and power everything. I really didn’t want a bunch of different power supplies for all the different piece of the build.

    The monitor is the key to the whole system. The main reason I decided on the Dell monitor was because of the built in USB powered hub and the 12 volt DC supply output (designed by Dell to power your speaker system).

    The 12 volt DC supply powers the audio amplifier and the lights on the coin mech. The USB hub is used to not only connect the data paths between the PI, Audio card, and Joystick interface, but it is also used to power the PI itself.

    Both the 12 volts and the power to the USB hub are switched on/off by the power switch on the monitor.

    It is this set-up that I will use for all of the arcade games that I build.

    To better illustrate this I’ve made this diagram:








    More to come soon...
  2. pboland
    I know this may seem like a really small detail that shouldn’t matter, but I’ve decide to see what I can do about the Robotron player select buttons.

    For those that don’t know, the proper player select buttons on Robotron are translucent blue and they light up. The problem is, no one makes true replacement arcade buttons like these today. (Here's an example of an original Robotron control panel showing the blue buttons):





    So my task was to recreate these buttons with a “reasonable” look and feel at low cost.

    Let me first address “feel” of an arcade button. This is very dependent on the time frame from which you most likely spent time at the arcade. Many of the younger guys remember arcade buttons being “clicky”. These clicky type of buttons are actually more prevalent on 90’s fighter games. Earlier games tend to use a leaf switch type button that doesn’t click when pressed. The issue with using genuine leaf switch type buttons is they are costly. I’m trying to keep my cost down as much as possible.

    After looking at a couple different types of arcade style buttons I decided to purchase these:





    The blue translucent look is close to the original (which I can enhance) and the kicker is that these type of buttons actually feel closer to early 80’s leaf switch style arcade buttons.


    Okay, buttons obtained. Now how to make them look more original:

    These new buttons are not as dark (on the button surface itself) as the original Robotron buttons and they don't have the casting marks that can be seen on the originals either. Here's what I've got after a little modification (the stock button on the left and my modified button on the right):




    This wasn't all the hard to modify. First I took the the button apart to have a look at it:











    The white plunger (which goes directly under the button cap) is what makes the button look too light in color. I decide I just need to darken it a bit. At the same time I want to add the cast marks that the original 1980's Robotron had. So I made up a blueish sticker that was the same size as the top of the white plunger (this is also how I added in the cast marks) and I needed a blue sharpie marker. Here they are all printed and cut:











    I colored the sides of the white plunger with the blue sharpie and then added the sticker:











    Now I just need to reassemble the switch:














    And this is the finished button:














    Here's a shot of it lit up:














    These buttons run on 5 volts, so I will be powering these with one of the open USB ports I have on my monitor inside the Robotron machine. They will be constantly on when the machine is powered up. This is good because that is exactly like the original arcade machine.







    Next step...



  3. pboland
    Okay, Here's a pic showing the t-molding, side art, coin door and control panel installed. I've also started wiring up the cabinet.

    I still have to finish the marquee, install the Pi-zero, program the controls, and test. Then once that's finished, it's time to connect Robotron to Bosconian. That will be my next post. I plan on doing a video walk around of the whole project at that point. All most done with this segment of the project.




  4. pboland
    I started building the cabinet and control panel at the same time. I don't have any images of the cabinet being built, but I do have a few images after I painted the Robotron cabinet (and installed the marquee light and speaker). I used latex paint (gasp). It was cheap and it is easy to apply with a foam roller. It's hard to tell from the pics but the sides are actually a light grey color and the front is black. I mixed the grey myself using white and black paint that I already had from my Bosconian build. My next pics will show the side art, T-molding, and the screen bezel.



    More to come shortly...
  5. pboland
    Building the control panel was a little tricky as I never really found good cad drawings of the panel. I did find this post on KLOV:

    https://forums.arcade-museum.com/sho...19&postcount=3

    With that info in hand, I set out to make my control panel. The control panel shown here is actually my second attempt at making this panel. The first one was off just enough that I couldn’t get my paper based control panel overlay to wrap nicely around all three sides. I kept getting a buckle in the middle of the overlay. If it was vinyl it wouldn’t have been an issue as vinyl “gives” a little. Paper does not (especially vinyl coated paper).

    So with my second attempt I decided to 3D print parts (that I first had to design) of the build to help keep things a little more true.


    I printed the 3d parts over the course of a week. I used two part epoxy to adhere the 3d parts and wood (1/2" particle board) to the 3d printed frame.




    At this point I put a slightly modified CPO on the panel. This new CPO does not wrap all the way around the bottom do to the paper buckling problem. Again, remember this will not be on location and only in my home. I decided to reenforce the top and bottom edges with tacks. Those bottom tacks will only be visible if people decide to look under the control panel. I don’t have a pic of just the panel with the CPO but I do have some of the assembly of the controls. BTW, that is the wiring after a little time cleaning it up. Just a reminder that these panels use a very standard USB control board, so this controller terminates to a standard USB cable (lower left hand side of the two bottom pics).



    And finally the finished control panel:



    Yes, I know that the black joystick washers are not on top of a real Robotron panel. I did it this way to simplify the build and to keep costs down.

    More to come…

  6. pboland
    The Bosconian portion of the my first ThinCade pair is done. I still have to finish the Robotron side of the pair. There really isn't much to these. Most of the work is the cabinet itself. You can see what I mean when you see the inside of the cabinet. This was my first attempted at making an arcade video game and I learned a lot. So hopefully Robotron will turn out a little better. Here are the final pics of Bosconian:











    Robotron 2084 is up next.
  7. pboland
    Unfortunately, I really started this project long before I decided I was going to set-up a blog. Which means I don’t have pics of the entire Bosconian build. Here’s a pic from when I was about 75% done with Bosconian side of the project:





    A lot of time went into creating the marquee, control panel overlay, bezel, kick art and side art.

    - The way I made the CPO was to download a low res image of it (mainly because I couldn’t find a high res image) and I redrew it. Once I had the file done, I printed on my HP DesignJet 800 (or DJ800). Let the print dry for about 24 hours. I then laminated with a textured PVC material which looks and feels very close to arcade CPO laminate. This PVC laminate is a little lighter in weight and is not as stiff as the standard polycarbonate laminate that most use. Which means it won’t crack on the bends over time. Plus it’s also cheaper. Obviously, it will not take the same abuse as polycarbonate, but it’s going to be in my house and not on location.

    - I found a vector image of the bezel on the web. I did however “clean” it up some as it looked to be a simple auto vectorization of a scanned image. This too was printed on my DJ800. It was not laminated in anyway since it will be placed under 1/4” acrylic.

    - The kick art was a little tricky. I only had a low res image of it, but I was able to get most of the artwork from the arcade game flyer. So, basically I rebuilt the image so I could have the proper res. It is just printed on satin photo paper from my DJ800. Once I let dry a little, I laminated it will a glossy PVC material.

    - Because the side of the cabinet is not as large as an original Bosconian, I decide to make custom side art. The space station (or “base” as it is called in the game) was a MAME screen capture that I enlarged. The logo came from from the marquee. Again, this was printed on my DJ800 and glossy PVC laminated.

    - I was able to find a high res vector image of the marquee, but I did have to “clean” it up a little. Again, do to a auto vector of a scan. This was printed on special media that is designed to be back lit. Once I printed out the Marquee, I sandwiched it between two thin sheets of acrylic.

    Here is all the artwork I made for this project:








    The next entry will be the finished images of the Bosconian machine. Stay tuned...


  8. pboland
    To buy or make a coin door?

    It seems simple. The easiest choice at first seems to be “buy” the coin doors. After looking at a few, the best price I found was about $30-35.00 and that was for beat up coin doors. I would still need to restore them enough to make them look good.

    Then I thought, it sure would be nice to have the coin reject button be the actual “coin up” button. Meaning no tokens or quarter necessary. With that in mind I decided to make my coin doors.

    Right off the bat I can tell you it cost me about $20.00 (plus my time) to make each of the four coin doors I now have.

    Since I wouldn't need the internals of the coin door (since my reject button would be the "coin up") I first found a back lit arcade button that looked close to a reject button. Runs on 12 volt which I can run off of the 12 volt output of the LCD monitor. This is what I found:





    Made a sticker to fit inside the face of the button to make it look like a coin reject button, spray painted the button to match my finished door color and to block some of the button surface that doesn't need to show:








    Okay, reject buttons done. Now for the door itself. It still need it to look and feel like a real coin door. I don't need actual coin chutes, but I do need it to look as if it is on the door. Using a broken coin chute bezel, I made a cast of it to make copies. Again, to keep cost down I made the copies from hot glue:









    The door itself is made of 1/2 inch MDF and the mounting flange is made from 1/4 inch MDF (only the door is shown):








    Now, in order to make it look like a coin door I needed some raised edges. I made them with heavy card stock and computer cut them to size. Then I added the coin chute bezels:









    Paint the door and added the coin reject buttons, door lock and you get this:














    A couple things, no hinges will be used on these doors. Instead I will use clips. You can see the clips that I made in this picture of the backside of the coin door:








    Also, I decided to only make this one door style for all of the different arcades that I plan on making. Making different coin doors seem like too much work. If I need them to be more manufacturer specific I will make a custom decal of some kind. And this is exactly what I did for my Bosconian cabinet. I added a metallic Midway Game decal to "brand" the coin door:









    more to come...


  9. pboland
    This long term project is to make my own arcade machines, but I have some limitations.

    Back story: I own six arcade machines currently that I lucked into back in 2007. None of them worked. By 2010 I got all of them working. I did the work myself. The truth is I really don’t have the money or space to be in this hobby, but I still wanted more arcade machines. So I hatched a plan around 2014. So, here are the guide lines I set for myself:

    • Can’t spend more than $250.00 total on each completed machine (give or take $25.00).
    • They must be as authentic to the real deal when standing in front of it as possible.
    • Two ThinCades must be about (meaning close to) the same foot print as one and half normal arcade machines.

    Obviously there are going to be some compromises, but my goal is to makes these as authentic as I possibly can within the limitations set above. I figure I should be able to fit six ThinCades in my basement if I can put them back to back.

    To save money I’m going to be making a lot of the stuff myself. Like:

    • Arcade cabinets
    • Coin doors
    • All printed materials (Marquess, CPO’s, side art & bezels).

    I have access to wide format inkjet printers and I know AutoCad which I’ve used to design/modify the cabs. I'm also fairly proficient with Photoshop which will be used for Marquess,cpo's, side art & bezels. I have my own 3D printer so I will be able to print any custom pieces that I might need along the way.

    How to fit two arcade machines back to back and not take up as much room as a standard depth arcade machine? I decided CRT’s were out of the question and instead I will use flat panel displays. Okay, but I need them cheap. Over the course of the last two years I’ve been able to buy eight 19inch computer Dell flat panel monitors for about $10.00-$12.00 each (and yes they are the older style 4:3 ratio). Perfect, that is about the same size as the old classic arcades that I plan on making.

    The game electronics themselves. I originally wanted to use actual arcade game boards, but that would be way too costly.
    Each of these monitors uses a DVI connection. Why is this important? Well, I decided on using Raspberry Pi Zero’s for the game boards (for cost reasons) and a Pi Zero has a mini HDMI output. HDMI is pin compatible with DVI. No converter is needed. Just a simple DVI to HDMI cable.

    The picture above is my first two machines. I'm actually done with the right side of the drawing. The two machines are Robotron 2084 (left) and Bosconian (right). The Bosconian machine actually nests (partly) inside the Robotron machine. So, these two machine will actually bolt together once moved into my basement.

    For the record, I've never made a video game cabinet/machine before. Normally most of my projects are things I can build on a workbench. I'll add more as I go but this is the start.
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