check out some electric keyboard stands . that may help i know a few ways to design very sturdy legs but they add a lot of weight or cost to the project . if ou get a keyboard stand or use the same dsign as some of the better ones you can probly make a nce removeable version. i know i saw one byyamaha a while back . ill go look for it and see if i can dig up the design here is one but it isnt the design i was thinking but maybe some variation that had extra bars also for locking . http://www.music123.com/Item/?itemno=16099
Nice....thats the sliding kind right? they seem to have plenty of side-sie stability, but I doubt its stable front-back...specially on carpet in front of the TV...I may just put some rubber feets on the bottom...maybe casters...not sure yet. I've been cadding the control panel layout...hopefully will start drilling that this weekend. wish me luck.
Thanx, I'll need it...I just got a Serial ATA 120 GB Hard Drive for my primary machine, which frees up a 30 gig from my wifes machine after the cascade from upgrading...now I'll have 30 gigs in the arcade box yay!
Been out for a while...but alas, I'm resurrecting this project again Last time I posted I had gotten the box built and that was it...well, I've since drilled all the holes for the controls on the top and routed out the trackball space...I sanded down my now rusty trackball mounting plate and primed it and am going to spray on a coat of black hammered texture paint tonight as well as get some wood putty to fix some of my little errors from drilling (chips) updated pics soon...I should be finishing this project within weeks.
I love it. Been wanting to do something like this for a long time. Looking forward to seeing how it finishes up
Update...here's the trackball mounting plate all painted up with the hammered black metal textured paint...lookin sexeh...and yes this is the same piece of steel I cut out by hand earlier in the project log...
Sweet project mate, don't know how i missed it! (note to self - must hang out in project logs more!) You can save your misc buttons for in game use if you're interested. Get MAMEwah, it allows selection of different emulators and games via arcade controller, no need for 'tab' buttons etc. iirc its configurable to run automatically on startup through dos, the problem i'm having atm is finding megadrive/snes emulators that'll run via command line. (if i get hold of some mamewah will definately be my frontend) Perfect for dedicated emulator machines as you dont even see the underlying os, adds to the effect Also, have you thought about including jukebox functionality? Juust an idea i'm playing with Nice job so far
Well I'm not going for authentic emulator only interfaces or anything like that...I'm probably going to go Win2k with a flash based interface using active desktop with icons turned off...that way I can have a cool ass flash interface for getting from emulator to emulator... And jukebox capability will be an afterthought if I get enough hard drive space...my roms currently take up about 10 gigs for arcade, and then another 16-20 gigs for the console stuff...not to mention the N64 collection I'm goign to be getting soon which is huge... my mp3 collection is currently 35 gigs...so space is an issue since I can't just buy hard drives because I'm on a low budget.
That's fair enough i'd be interested to see your progress on the flash interface btw, that is one area i'm completely useless at! I assume you'd be using the trackball to navigate?
Yeah, my trackball has a PS/2 converter from Happ...its an older model, but it works and I've tested it...so my trackball will be my primary form of navigation...I'll also have a keyboard plug on the front so I can key in things
Got the holes drilled for my new top...since the old one was warped I went today and bought a new piece of wod, marked it up, cut it out and drilled it on my neighbors drill press... even with this clamped down between two pieces of wood the drill press still chipped off some of the pieces of cheap plywood around the button holes...so you can see my second helping of putty application there...sloppy huh? thats ok...that nice orbital sander ro the left there will take care of all that when I'm done...then I sand the edges/corners and stuff to make it nice liek the box and start cutting/routing the trackball hole...
Two things, the first is a as this is REALLY cool. The second is that you said that it will run any console game other than the N64. I assume that it will run Top Gear 3000 for the SNES, right? I have a cartridge for TG3000, but my SNES is broken, do you know where can I get a copy?
My SNES DVD is one of the bad ones I have to get replaced...I'd recommend checking usenet for the tosec groups...just search your usenet groups for tosec.
Ok...I'm currently at a semi-standstill because I've bought some plexi for the surface, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to drill all the holes that I need in it without cracking or destroying it...I've got a thread in Modding about that and hope to get a good resolution on it... I managed to get some cat-5 cable which is what I'm going to wire the control panel up with since I can separate it into groups of 8. I'm also going to route out a groove along the sides and rear of the top and place an EL wire in it and then hot-glue fill the groove for a frosted even appearance of the groove...this will look cool I'm sure... Gotta also start planning for the holes I'm going to be cutting in the box itself for the computer parts access...places to plug things in basically as well as fan holes. I'm also still debating on whether or not to put in some arcade buttons on the side like pinball. Also if anyone wants to attempt a circuit design for my audio wiring explained here: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=371871&postcount=97 I'd be much appreciative...Pflumingo was going to whip one up for me btu he went AWOL on me. Thanx all.
this looks like its gonna rock when its done. just a thought about headphone jacks, you said you wanted either of the heaphone jacks to cut the feed to the speakers. why? would it be safe to assume that if you're using headphones both player one and two would use them? if that were the case then only the jack for player one would need to be switched like that, the second jack wouldn't need to be anything fancy. just might want to consider that if you get stuck on the wiring for it. my $0.02
