Category: Uncategorized

Virtual Pinball Machine

Original Project Thread: /https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/34190-minipin/

I’ve probably been working on this on and off for about 8 months but haven’t touched it in at least 4 months or so. I needed to do this on a tiny budget and essentially use what already had with minimal further outlay.

I’m determined to finish this bugger off over the next 4-8weeks though and what better incentive than to post about it on here thereby guilting me into a result LOL!

Playfield is a 22″ widescreen monitor. Backglass is a 19″ 4:3. I have left enough room for a 3rd for a DMD but funds won’t allow this so I’ll do without for now.

The overall design is a mix between a woodrail and a Williams but leaning towards more of a woodrail look.

The PC has been built for about 12 months with about 50pins divided between Visual Pinball and Future Pinball all running via Hyperpin frontend. It works fantastically and will come up a real treat in the cab.

I’m using donated legs rather than wood and will clean them up and possibly paint them. The cab will a look of an older machine.

I cut out the coin door insert and installed along with lock and coin mech.

Also installed a slide/rail system for the PC and door on the rear. Still need to acquire 2 fans to install in the back but that can wait. Been building the PC system over the last few weeks. I forgot how much of a pain in the arse it is =/

Just prepping to paint the cab over the next 2 days. Also constructing the lockdown bar out of timber =)

I have been working on this, just damn slowly AND waiting for time combined with decent weather for painting. In that time I’ve been building/configuring the PC and Hyperpin as well as custom lockdown bar and apron.

Here are a few pictures:

The apron is attached with a couple of brackets. The lockdown bar attaches to that with two bolts that slot into the apron just like on an old woodrail. It was made with two pieces of timber sandwiching in the bolts. When inserted into the apron there is a recessed slot left over for the glass to slide into. Overall I’m very happy with it except for the final clearcoat. The timber looked freaking awesome being really shiny and smooth but I just HAD to put an extra coat on for peace of mind and the last coat speckled =( I’ll need to use some 1200 or 1500 grit and then recoat again.

I currently have 3 coats of undercoat on the cab and plan on a white main colour with red and blue details to go on after.

After the undercoating and a week of letting it set it was time to add some colour.

Finished painting the backbox and have attached to the carcass. Installed all buttons and test fitted timber trim and monitors. The playfield monitor is go0ing to be raised a little higher and then will have a bezel and glass top. Won’t need much of a bezel as it was constructed for the size of the monitor. I still need to make the framing from the back monitor and speaker surrounds. Need to install some fans at the back and then the PC which is already built. I also installed a std arcade button underneath in the same spot that a pinball power switch is usually placed for powering the system up and down.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the outcome. A few small spots of paint to touch up where there was marginal bleed and I’ll be happy. I meant to drop into jaycar and pickup some parts but forgot and they’re not open today. I just want the fans, some PCB feet and a power outlet to wire a powerboard into. I’ll have to wait until next week now but it’s just as well as I have too damn much gardening and shit to do.

Finished adding timber trim, installed the electrical components and the machine is now playable!

The machine now has just over 500 Pinball Machines installed on it and is a lot of fun!

Arcade Machine Electronics Mame Restoration Uncategorized

Rampage Arcade Cabinet

Original Project Thread: /https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/30859-latest-mame-cab-project/

At the time I’d had this machine sitting neglected in my garage for almost 2 years. Had the parts just not the inclination but over Christmas the bug got hold of me and I started working on it.

The cab is an old LAI Rampage cab:

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9261

There was no board, jamma harness, control panel, coin mech’s or artwork included. What was included was the original 19″ arcade monitor, power supply, fluro light and dodgy mame marquee.

I started by creating a new control panel. The original was a 3 player setup but I’ve built this with 2 players in mind and a centre spinner. As my art skills are non-existant, in the short term I built the panel out of ply and stained and varnished it. Sure not original or normal but it came up okay with the result below:

As you can see the player 2 joystick is a top fire as I wanted to be able to play Tron, Battlezone and Two Tigers easily. I’m sure there are other games with possibly doubling the top fire button as a push pull option for games like Discs Of Tron and Frontline.

The Top Fire is a normal 8way stick with a modified shaft and top button. I have to say that the joystick itself is a little sloppy on movements and the shaft feels is too short due to the flange at the top. For normal games it’s not so bad but I think I need to adjust it and put stronger springs in it.

The left joystick is a baton type which I’ve never used before. I’m a huge fan of MCA’s but I had no black ones left so used this out of a Mame pack I’d bought ages ago. I’m actually quite surprised at how good it is and would definitely use them again if I had to.

The panel has 6 player buttons each, Player 1 start, Player 2 start and Select & Escape buttons. The Select and Escape buttons are temporary until I grab some clear ones so I can print labels for them. Coin Inserts are supplied for P1 & P2 by using a custom made label and 12 volt LED rectangular buttons I had laying around.

The spinner is a Turbotwist 2 that I got for christmas 2 years ago 😕 It is a fantastic piece of kit. USB interface, engineered to fit into a standard 28mm arcade button hole and has a range of options for knobs and wheels. I stuck with a reasonable std blue anodised knob with room for an insert. Many have mounted BYOAC tokens of which I have 100. I’d like to use an Aussie Arcade one 😉 I also added the energy storage cylinder which is effectively a steel piece that fits to the base and lets inertia keep spin going for a LONG time. It works REALLY well. You can check them out here:

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=86&products_id=268

The spinner really comes into it’s own for the games I’ve tried it on so far. Tempest and Arkanoid are simply awesome. Cameltry is now an extremely enjoyable game. Star Trek which I only ever play in Sydney’s George st arcades in the 80’s brings a tear to my eye 😉 Sure it’s not in the original environmental cab but I can now play it properly. Other games I’ve played so far are Blasteroids, Cosmic Chasm, a few other racers and finally Tron. If the Top Fire joystick was restricted to 4 way (it does come with a restrictor) Tron would play much better. Spinner wise though it’s perfect. What I need to do is wire in one of David’s digital restrictors…..a project for another day.

Bare Spinner

Blue Anodised Knob

6″ Steering wheel

The steering wheel is well made and works great but is limited without pedals. Works really well on 360deg driving games such as Pole Position, Sprint, Super Sprint etc but gear changes etc are an issue. What I’ve done is use the top fire as a gear stick and the top fire button as the accelerator until I get my Pole Position cab rebuilt. I mainly bought the wheel for unknown future uses and due to the fact that shipping separately at a later date was going to cost a bundle.

Here’s a shot of the bare bones PC components. Using a old GeForce 4 video card and Soft 15khz. Works great on this dodgy old arcade monitor.

You can probably see the mini amp up the back. That’s a $9.00 Ebay special and interfaces to an old set of car audio speakers.

Currently trying out Maximus Arcade as the FE but having a few issues with it. It works but seems to have a few niggles with extra buttons and long delays on exiting games :unsure I’ll see if I can tweak it some more and if not ditch it for good old Mamewah or Mala.

Still to be done on this cab, tidy the wiring up, new artwork/marquee and I need to purchase decent bolts for the control panel and joysticks. The ones I have used are rat-shit.

Oh and one last thing. Just a note to any boofheads like myself. If your using a laser mouse to setup your Mame Cab, stay away from using red cocktail stools as a platform. It took me about 5 mins to dawn on me why it didn’t work…….the damn mouse laser is also red and obviously the red laser was being absorbed by the red stool. I didn’t realise the spectrum was so wide.

This is a very old build thread and in fact the control have been changed. The horrible bat top joystick has been replaced with an excellent Mag Stick Plus and the Top Fire on the right has been replaced with a flight-stick version. The flight-stick has both a trigger and thumb button but is also an 8 way joystick.

I’ll get around to updating this post some day 😉

Arcade Machine Electronics Music Uncategorized

Multi-Cab

Original Project Thread: /https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/42256-lastest-project-multi-cab/

Not really sure where this project belongs. It’s not an arcade cab but is a multi-purpose device.

Built out of an old poker machine shell that I acquired from David_AVD about 3 years ago. Probably the best use of a poker machine ever imo. David had gutted the machine for parts and was going to dump the shell. I “rescued” it and it’s sat in my garage for the last 3 years collecting dust as a “project” 😉

Essentially it has a 19″ touchscreen in it running Simple Touch FE. The system runs a plethora of games including Poker Machines, All those Trivia/Shooter type games that were popular in UK pubs and also as a jukebox, karaoke and music video machine. It can also of course browse the net and show movies etc.

It’s started out looking like this.

I also stripped all the extra parts out of it. It was quite a lot actually and added a LOT of weight.

I sanded it down and gave it a layer of undercoat (note to self. ALWAYS do two coats of undercoat) I only did one and paid for it =(

I then applied 2-3 layers of Cherry Red Gloss Enamel. All using spray cans and it’s come up damn nice imo

I then cleaned up the existing hing fittings with a little soap free steel wool. You can see the comparison here and I’m pretty happy with it.

Before on the left and after on the right.

I had to manufacture both the bezel and front door as all was missing. I made the bezel out of 3mm masonite and the front door from 9mm MDF which matched the rest of the cab.

Test fitting the door.

Test fitting door and bezel before coating with textured adhesive vinyl.

I don’t have a separate picture but what DID come with the shell was the bezel retainers which consisted of polished aluminium rails and curved pieces. They had been polished and then clear-coated but the clear-coat had yellowed something terrible. I stripped the clear-coat and used the steel wool to created a brushed aluminium look. It looks fantastic but damn does it love fingerprints. I’m thinking I need to seal it with some clear-coat?

As stated I created a bezel from 3mm masonite. I measured about 5 times before cutting as my carpentry skills are pretty bad. I then used an orbital sander to bevel the edges so that once covered in vinyl it would still slide through the aluminium retainers.

For the door I made sure the measure up and pre-drill hinge bolt holes, door lock whole and speakers holes. Once done I then coated in black textured adhesive vinyl.

You can now see the final result with screen, bezel and door fitted. Note the reflection of my wife studiously ignoring my awesome craftsmenship.

I still need to fit, paint and mount a kick plate. I’m thinking about and placing some aluminium curve across the joint with some LED’s mounted under it. That way they will be concealed, understated lighting. Possibly install a beat monitor as well 😉

Once this is done it’s just a matter of installing the speakers and computer. Hoping to have this complete by next weekend but will update thread as I go.

I’m considering installing a modular monitor extension for the top of the unit. This will be ideal for Music Video’s and karaoke. I originally thought that a set of pinball headbox brackets would work a treat but I don’t want to mar the sides for when it’s not being used. Still undecided there.

I put a rebuilt PC inside this and then installed a lot of different gaming options. The monitor has a touchscreen overlay installed in it so you don’t need a keyboard and mouse.

All of the games I ran using a software front-end called SimpleTouchFE.

I ended up selling this unit a year or so later as it was taking up space in my garage and never used. I seem to get more enjoyment in the restoration/creation process.

Arcade Machine Electronics Mame Uncategorized

Hard Waste Rescue Arcade Cab

Original Project Thread: https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/56317-generic-aussie-cab-restore/

I picked this cab up from a Tip Shop a few weeks ago now when I was dumping a load of waste. I couldn’t believe it was there and it seemed no one else wanted it. I was hoping it was working but they would not let me test it so I bargained them down to $70.00 citing the potential cost of repairing monitors etc. So I it home anyway to rescue it!

I am told by ex operators that this type was typically a card machine frequently seen in pubs but someone in the past had converted it.

The locks had no keys so I had to drill them out.

Once I got it open I sadly discovered that the 19″ tube had been broken at the back and was not salvageable.

The upside was the discovery of a 1942 PCB. I have no way to test it but still a nice find.

I’m not sure I’m keeping this cab as I simply do not have the room so I might re-sell it after I’ve reconditioned it as much as I can with spare parts.

First was stripping it down. I took all the metal parts out such as the hinged monitor door, control panel, bolts, rear handles, hinge and any outward facing bolts.

A quick wipe down and vacuum got rid of all the old dust, debris and cobwebs from a long storaged machine.

I threw the old monitor, yoke and chassis away as effectively useless for me.

Stripped monitor door and control panel.

A light sand of all steel components with fine grit sandpaper and then 3 coats of satin black spraypaint to bring the components back to new. I also sprayed all of the bolts so that they blend into the black timber panelling.

The monitor plexi was held onto the door with double-sided tape which I had to carefully separate so that I did no damage or scratches.

Once separated I then had to remove the tape from both parts. The rainbow colour on the plexi has been sprayed on from the back so I had to ensure that I removed the residue without lifting the paint which was successful. I’ll put it back together using new double-sided tape once it’s all done.

The control panel was fitted with a single player setup. A black MCA joystick, 2 player buttons, Player 1 Start, Player 2 Start buttons and a small single button to the right. I suspect that this had been rigged as a credit insert button as it looks to me it had been sitting in someones home for years and there was no coin mech installed anywhere.

The MCA was rat shit, so I’ve replaced it with a spare (I have about 14 of them). Unfortunately I don’t have any black ones so I’m using a single yellow I had that matches the yellow in the panel.

All of the buttons I’ll reuse as they are all fine including the micro-switches. The credit button however will need to be replaced as the top has snapped off. I’ll need to try and source one as I’ve never seen one of these before and I don’t want to drill a bigger hole.

You can see the restored top unit below.

I spent some time wiring up a new power supply, jamma harness and 60-1 board. I decided to use the 60-1 as this cab was a vertical cab and the bezel and monitor shroud were being re-used.

I’m a real weenie when it comes to electricity so was concerned about wiring mains 240 power to the arcade power supply but 2 You Tube video instructions later and I re-wired a std power plug into the arcade power supply within 5 mins. Hooked up the Jamma harness to 5volt, 12volt and ground points on it and test-fired the arrangement. The power supply, board and monitor all turned on, the board initialised and after the 60 second startup (why so damn long?) I had the iCade menu displaying and running.

I tidied up all the wiring and used cable ties to neaten it all up. It always surprised me how much room there is in an arcade cab. Really the monitor takes up most of the room.

I’ve gone with an LCD as it’s the easiest for me to mount although I do have several spare 19″ crt PC monitors hanging around if I feel the need to change it to a CRT look.

I ended up modifying the monitor frame to accommodate the LCD. I also created a new internal bezel to suit using 3 ply and sprayed it black to blend it.

Once bolted together the monitor sits nice and flush to the front door.

I’m creating an instruction card to suit the unpainted space left in the exterior bezel that will fit flush. Unfortunately my colour printer is almost dead so I need to wait till after eater to print it at work before I can remount the exterior bezel. I’ll update this thread once done.

Thanks to www.aussiearcade.com members Homepin and DavidAVD knowledge and part I’ve also mounted a volume control onto the rear of the cab. This is wired in between the Jamma harness speaker output and the speaker inside the cab. I’ve re-used the single speaker that was already in the cab and mounted the control knob into a std button hole that a previous owner had drilled into the back. It’s come up pretty nice and fits really well.

The back of the cab also had a large square cut-out that gave access to the old monitor yoke but there was no cover. I bought a grill piece, sprayed it black and mounted it. It looks pretty good.

Front View minus exterior Bezel

Now with bezel, instruction card I created and running Time Pilot!

Not long after I completed this restore I ended up swapping it for a really nice 7 drive Thecus NAS which I still have as a backup to my XPenology headless server that I’m running.

Jukebox Mp3 Music Uncategorized

Full Size Touchscreen Jukebox

Original Project Thread: https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/80458-fast-and-dirty-kiosk-conversion/

kiwimex nicely organised to both purchase and transport a number of kiosks up from Newcastle. These came out of a Centrelink Office refurbishment.

I immediately put my hand up for 2 as two mates of mine keep seeing mine and wanting one. Only one available for me as they were popular and cheap so I let them “fight” it out 😉

Not going to go into a lot of detail as it’s all pretty basic. I forgot to take pictures before I tore it down so here’s one from the original ad.

First thing is I took the phone handset off from the side and threw it away. The mounting bracket is still there as taking the fascia off to unscrew it is a pain the arse and I’m leaving that to my mate when he gets it.

Took the front cover off to see what was inside. I wasn’t actually expecting a PC but one was in there. Though let’s see if it works. There’s a power board near the top and an IEC PC power socket so plugged it in and fired her up. Screen works and PC fires up.

Only issue is that the PC is an old dog and far too slow for the software we were going to run on it so out it goes.

In case this is the same as everyone else’s the two plugs I pulled out are for:

A dialup modem which I pulled out and binned
The REALLY noisy case fan

You can see the IEC socket wired into the powerboard. There is a space behind the base near the foot where the external power lead can be run. Also note the power supply which was for the modem and also binned. FYI the power supply you can see zip tied is for the sounds amp so leave that in but move if you like.

Inside with PC gone.

That metal tray has a small keyboard attached and as you can see like the Mouse have PS2 connections despite having USB ports on the PC LOL

The PC below is a Lenovo SFF PC that’s been installed into a custom case. I ended up rebuilding it and using it in a Mame Project that didn’t need the grunt.

Unfortunately, the HDD in it which is a laptop one is dead but looking at the bios, it was running Windows XP and was new at least 12 years ago. 256mb ram and a Celeron CPU. Now I have spare drives I could use and for some software this would work no problem eg:

SKJukebox: http://wiki.aussiearcade.com.au/index.php?title=Jukebox_Software

But I want this to run E-Touch so needs something a little beefier. I have a spare Core 2 Duo sitting around and I’ll put a 1TB drive in that my mate bought for it. Install Windows 7, E-Touch and fill with music 😉 The screen itself works fine, so I’ll grab drivers when ready.

My only real concern in the speakers. Normally you’d want at least a 2:1 PC setup for this. The unit includes two speakers mounted just under the screen. You can see the grills from the front. Now I’d suggest these are really shitty but I couldn’t test with the PC dead. I should hook up a laptop to see and will let you know. Interesting is what appears to be an amp with volume control on it though.

Eventually my mate is going to paint this unit. Personally I wouldn’t as the silver and black looks fine imo.

A real good clean and you’re done. If I did anything, I’d be creating a speaker grille in the door and covering it with speaker fabric from Jaycar so that audio is unimpeded and it sounds nice.

So job done. It was a bit of a pain in the arse to be honest and I’ll be glad to see the back of it lol. Taking that screen off was shitty as the bolts at the bottom are in a VERY awkward spot, especially since I broke my finger a few weeks ago.

Incidentally, the touchscreen drivers can be gotten from here:

The cooling fan above the audio amp is noisy as hell. You could replace it with a quiet one. Its just a PC part but I elected to snip the power wires to it. Despite the board having a modular plug, the wires had been soldered onto the pins. I suck at soldering so off they went and I just taped them up.

PC strapped up and wiring zip tied.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64(bit)

E-Touch up and running with the Metal Skin

Arcade Machine Electronics Mame Uncategorized

Space Invaders Bartop Arcade Machine

Original Project Thread: /https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/84069-space-invaders-bartop/

Another instance of checking an unfinished project off my list. I still have the pinball to go but this one is easy and that one is hard 😉 This one should be real quick.

I bought this ArcadeWorx cab off www.aussiearcade.com member namastepat back in February 2018. It’s surprisingly large, taking up a lot of space on my garage floor so time to get it working and sitting somewhere else.

Cabs is a little banged up with a few nicks but over all pretty good.

All black and I love the Space Invaders cut-outs in the marquee area.

So I thought I’d continue with the Space Invaders theme and keep the cab Black and Red. It didn’t hurt that I had a pack of both red and black buttons 😉 I’d also bought a power supply and jamma harness to match the Pandora 4S I bought back in April.

I installed the buttons and joysticks. Will need to check the controls for the Pandora to see if I need the other 3 holes. I’ll use what I need and try to find some of those caps to cover any not used. Also the top row holes are smaller than the player button holes 😞

The P1 and P2 buttons I used (STD size) will never come out again LOL!

Installed speakers inside the audio cut-outs.

The IEC socket I have is not round like the hole that had been cut out 😞

Traced around and then did a little free-styling with my jigsaw. The flange on the socket hides the shoddiness 😄

Wired mains socket, power supply and jamma harness power. I then fired it up to see if smoke would come out. Success!

Damn I love how fast these Pandora’s boot up unlike those shitty 60-1 jobs.

It was getting late so I’ll finish wiring in the joysticks and buttons next weekend. One last thing was to mount the fan cover into the top. The Alien one I had suits the theme.

Now an idea I’d had was to install an LED chaser light coloured red behind the cut-outs in the marquee area so they’d light up and travel across just like in the game. My circuitry skills are not even close to being capable but another www.aussiearcade.com member VERY generously stepped up, designed it, built it AND personally delivered it to me! thanks Kaizen!

The circuit design

Whats even better is that Kaizen modified it so that I could adjust the speed!

Whilst I awaited the completion of that component I went ahead and finished off the rest.

Finished connecting up the jamma harness to all of the player controls. I then mounted the monitor. I created a bottom rail and attached a piece of angle the hold the monitor in place. I then used some metal strapping to hold the top in place. Easily removed with a screw in each corner.

I then fixed the PSU and Pandora into the base, tidied the harness with cable ties and used brackets to attach to side. Actually took this photo before tidying and mounting harness

Here is is all fired up. The Pandora has a couple of annoyances though. The games list are not sorted alphabetically and you have sequels pages before original etc. Also they included Ms Pacman but it scaled to the widescreen and plays super fast. No doubt there are others so I disabled that game. A bit of reading and it seems it may be an SD card running xmame so I might take it apart, image it and see if I can tweak it somewhat. Others games that I’ve looked at run really well.

I definitely would not put a 60-1 or one of these in a full cab. PC all the way imo. They’re just handy for small spaces.

Attached the back door, barrel lock to come.

Kaizen dropped his circuit off to me at least a month ago along with a strip of opaque red perspex. Thanks again mate, truly appreciated!

As the perspex was see through I needed to block it out so that the lights and wires were not visible when lit up. I looked at a few things and ended testing AND going with some heavy duty tracing paper/plastic. An off-cut from a large sheet another member Illawarra Steelers sent me for my EM restore. I affixed it and did a little test and it worked perfectly!

I then lengthened a few of the wires in the circuit and screwed each of the 4 light arrays onto a piece of 3 ply. So the perspex is hard up against the space invaders cut-outs and the light mounted ply is horizontal behind it. I have angled it up somewhat using a scrap piece of timber so that the lights are brighter without individual LEDs strobing though the perspex. I think it looks excellent! I will need to trim some of the tape I used to fix the paper as it’s slightly encroaching on the bottom.