The Builders' Shed - The Bear and Badger

Escape

I've got the Magnum up there. I probably would've gone for silver if not for my choice of stick, which is unavoidably ugly. So with that in mind, it seemed best to keep it plain.

(The stick's base could've been hidden at the expense of height, but that'd have made it too short for me.)

Diluted Dante

We're looking at building an arcade machine at work, some nice inspiration in this thread. Would we be better going a PC route, or Rasberry Pi? Not sure how recent games a Pi 3 would support, but seems to me it would be significantly cheaper?

n0face

Go pc, you wouldn't need anything special.

Brooks

@Escape how easy d'you reckon it'd be to turn the pads from these into a fightbox?

http://cdn.korg.com/uk/products/upload/cc214ae500c828839b5dd93d23786f39_pc.jpg

In terms of hacking the thing piece, rearranging the pads and their PCB touchpoints the wiring up to the controller PCB of choice? See also things here I guess.

Am thinking it might be fun to make a zero-travel controller.

Escape

That has rubber contacts, I take it? So you'd have to reroute its traces and bundle a group of wires through exterior trunking to a piggybacked PCB. The schematics are beyond me, but for someone who's up on circuits it's piss.

I can't say anything helpful because I've never messed with anything like that.

Escape

http://www.robotshop.com/uk/colorful-square-tactile-buttons-15pk.html

That's about the least amount of travel you'll get from a usable button. Some of those micro buttons are surprisingly firm and not suited to gaming, but these tactiles are all the same kind of minimal-press click. They are pretty tiny, though:

The JB-20s are a great size if you bunch them together, but they've too much travel unless you want a keyboard action.

cockbeard

Does the nanopad require a certain amount of velocity though, wonder if it might make game playing pretty tiring, or at least risk plenty of missed inputs

Escape

Yeah, there is a somewhat rubbery resistance to overcome to engage them. It's nothing for their intended use, but I'd rather have clicky tactiles for speedwork. Those are just on/off with an audible click. Microswitched face buttons.

A microswitched d-pad using those tactiles would be seriously cool. The Neo Geo pad had a design fault with its switches, and I don't know of any other switched pad. That also had an analogue-style action, rather than the Saturn's lovely cap.

An almost zero-travel stick's my dream, but the entire thing'd have to be custom. I think the main problem is that all sticks pivot, whereas I'd like one that moves in a fixed position via a sliding frame. Bit like transmission rails.

Time_on_my_hands

Just posting this here after posting in the retro thread..

Hardware question re arcade stick and buttons - I've just got a xin-mo encoder that comes with an earth wire daisy chain. I can't seem to find this answer online and probably a dumb question, but does it generally matter which microswitch terminal is used for the earth? I can't find any info online and my zero delay board had a different wiring setup. Would rather not wire up trial and error style!

Using these switches for buttons https://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/Chen-Xiao-Button-Microswitch.html

Cheers.

Escape

COM for common ground, so those. Signal wires go on each closest terminal, normally open, so that when you push in the tab you bridge their connection and the switch activates.

Actual switches have various spring mechanisms to push the tab back out, but that's what they're doing.

Time_on_my_hands

Thank you!

Time_on_my_hands

It's built! A combo of anniversary gift and early birthday gift. The colour scheme needed to match the rest of the home office (it's not quite a man cave), but I don't mind not having the usual black cabinet.

Bought all the kit from Arcade World UK - I could have cut out the bits for the cabinet myself, I guess, but it wouldn't have been nearly as good and I'd have needed a router for the T Moulding slots. Also the base unit is also a cupboard which is now holding my PS2 and 3 collection.

IL sticks with one Xin Mo and one Zero delay encoder (partly because amiberry doesn't allow custom key to button mapping for individual games on keyboard encoders). Running off a Pi 3. Monitor is an old 19" 4:3 office surplus rescued from the skip.

My daughter is enjoying being able to boast that she now has an arcade machine with the games that they'd play in Stranger Things - about the only modern game she plays is Fall Guys... Kids these days.

I can't believe how much I've missed proper arcade controls.

davyK

Nice - has a Sega feel to it.

My Asteroids Dx is lovely but it's a brute and of course it houses only one game. I do fancy a nice neat little multi-cab.

g.man

That’s awesome!

Time_on_my_hands

davyK wrote:

Nice - has a Sega feel to it.

My Asteroids Dx is lovely but it's a brute and of course it houses only one game. I do fancy a nice neat little multi-cab.

A full size cab would have been too big to access the cupboard next to it. The 3/4 size cab was too small to be comfortable with two players, so this was a nice compromise.
It's actually a bartop but with a base specifically for it.

Scotswahey

What logos you putting on it at the top?

Blue Swirl

Time_on_my_hands wrote:

It's built!

That's proper mint, nicely done.

davyK wrote:

Nice - has a Sega feel to it.

It's a very SEGA blue, but with the yellow, it gives me Capcom vibes.

davyK

Is that a bit of Ezquerra art on the wall?

Time_on_my_hands

davyK wrote:

Is that a bit of Ezquerra art on the wall?

Yep - he was at Dreddcon years ago and was doing Dredd and Johnny Alpha sketches for people. So glad I got to meet him - top bloke.

Time_on_my_hands

Scotswahey wrote:

What logos you putting on it at the top?

Not sure - something geeky. Family like the idea of the Palace Arcade logo from Stranger Things. Or possibly the Flynn's Arcade logo. Also considering a Lego diorama of an arcade.

n0face

Lego diorama wins

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