the smash pad @smashpad - Tumblr Blog

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installing the plexiglass backing (1), and the marquee overtop (2). the finished product (3). a bit of a shadow cast on the marquee along the top where the plexiglass lies butted up on the edge of the roof piece, but overall i'm happy with it.

the cabinet is almost 100% complete. still to do, black-out the area at the bottom and top of the glass where mdf is bare. i'm thinking of either priming and painting it, or even just cutting a ribbon of black crepe paper and gluing that in just to black it out enough that it won't be noticeable. i can't go with something too thick as it would protrude the glass out to an unmanageable point. still tossing around thoughts in my head. also, the marquee still requires a cut piece of plexi behind it to give it the rigidity it needs to not cave in on itself as of this pic.

picked up another 27" television from my good bud lucas (1, 2, 3), this one has a crystal clear picture and no distortion on the screen, sweet!

decased it the day i got it home (4). hmm... the cable running from the tube to the motherboard is shorter than the other television. not pictured: the television mounted in the cab. for some reason the clips on this television didn't all line up properly, only got two of them screwed in, one on the top left and one on the bottom right. the good news is it's secure, and not going anywhere. thanks to my friends chris and lisey for helping get the new television in the cab.

also, because the cable didn't have as much slack going from the tube to the board, i had to mount it on a piece of wood with pcb feet, then place the wood on a stack of books that reside on the pcb shelving i had put into the cab during construction. i made sure to test that no amount of jostling would move it, it's pretty secure where it is, and it would take a lot to really move this cab substantially enough that things inside would shift around anyway.

so a lot has happened since the last time i posted about the cab, and pictures of the progress are spotty at best, so i'll try to fill in the blanks where i can.

(1) the cab, stripped down to just the television (which hasn't been replaced yet). we took the television out to transport it, and my good friend was able to lend a hand with his truck. hauled it up and out of the garage, and into the walkway (2) as the front entrance to the garage was blocked by an old truck body that we couldn't move. loaded it onto the truck bed and drove it to my place (3). not pictured: hauling it in the house (nothing to see there, went without a hitch except that the door to my room is a bit shorter vertically than the front door of the house, so we had to tilt the cab back to get it in properly.)

i took a piece of ribbon and measured the radius of the circle i was to cut by taking the radius of the top of the stool and adding 4 inches to it to give enough slack for stapling and cutting excess off later (1). pinned it to the vinyl and traced using a marker (2), then cut the circle out (3). placed the foam on the vinyl (4) and sandwiched it with the stool body, then pulled up the vinyl tightly, stapling liberally as i went around (5). repeated the process for stool #2, and voila (6), the finished products. couldn't be happier with how they turned out.

first i took the staples out of the bottom of the stool using a flathead screwdriver to loosen them (1), and some pliers to yank them out (2). the result (3). then i took the stool and traced the outline of the seatback onto some foam (4) and cut out a circle about 1/3" thicker than the outline (5).

the stools as they were traded to me

current state of the smash pad

just wanted to give some updates on the project since the last post:

the television has been taken out of the cab; this is due to the fact that the television has been malfunctioning on an irregular basis. sometimes the television will work for hours, other times it will run for about 20 minutes and then blink off for 7-10 seconds, only to come back on, or in some cases come on dark, or in other cases, not come back on at all and need to be shut down for what i can only assume is a cooldown.

a friend has offered not one, but two 27" televisions for free; i pick them up thursday this week for testing/measuring

the smash pad is still at my father's place, ready to move to my place. in order to get it out of his place we have some work to do.

there is an exit from the basement into the garage which leads out to the driveway in front of the house

the garage is currently full of stuff that needs to be organized before we can get the arcade unit through it

the front driveway is playing host to an old truck body that has rusted out and needs to be towed to the dump before we can start cleaning out the garage

this would have been done last week but a cat took roost in the truck body and gave birth to kittens the week before; as of last night my dad says the proud mama has moved on with her younglings and the truck is once again ready to be moved. he expects to have it done by the end of this week

i have also reupholstered some old stools i got last year in a trade for use with the arcade; pics to come soon of those.

glued up an extra piece of mirror runner spraypainted black to the head of the control panel (1), and test-fitted it as a stop-gap between the bottom bar and the control panel (2, 3), as well as a makeshift quarter-holder. looks very nice indeed.

demonstration of the power-on screen and mala menu with video previews of all ~3000 games.

information on the system:

-os is windows xp

-frontend is mala, found at http://www.malafe.net

-majority of game preview videos obtained from http://www.emumovies.com

-emulators used for arcade lists: mame 0.137 and zinc

-emulator used for nes lists: nestopia

-emulator used for gameboy advance lists: visual boy advance

-emulator used for genesis lists: kega fusion

-emulator used for super nintendo lists: zsnes

first play between my father and i on the smash pad.

the completed control panel (1). brought it and the pc to my dad's place for assembly. installed the monitor glass (2, 3) using flat mirror holders. the first power-on (4) and thankfully the television works.

i tried running power to the smart strip through the iec320 power outlet but everytime i would power the cab on, the 250v fuse installed in the outlet would blow and power would be lost. i realized the fuse was not needed as the smart strip would handle the power without it so i rigged up some twisted 16 wire to put in place of the fuse, worked like a charm.

the television did not come on right away. this television has power memory, which is to say that it remembers if it was in an on or off state when it loses power, and returns to that state when power is restored, which is exactly what i wanted it to do for the cab's purposes. however, being that it was unplugged for almost a year, the stored charge had all but dissipated and the television needed some coaxing to function initially. i left it plugged directly into a power source for about 30 minutes in the off position, and then powered it on, and it came up without an issue after that.

wired up the coindoor successfully to player 1 button 8, need to follow through in the mame software and map coin1 button to that button now that there's a way to send that signal. also, the marquee needs to be printed, i need to construct a bezel for behind the glass (as you can see in picture 4, you can still see around the edges), and i need to wire the light for the coin return button. there are still issues with the frontend software that will need addressing. when i took it for a spin for the first time (after losing to dad in street fighter 2 championship edition) i selected a pc game and joytokey did not run as expected, disabling my ability to exit the game via macroed button. i had to power down the whole cab as a result.

still more work to be done, but it feels good to be at the home stretch.

teaser pic #3 of the completed control panel

teaser pic for the completed control panel

attached 4xcellar bolts to the back door to make it fully removable if needed (1), switched out the coindoor button from a yellow one to the classic red (2). also took all of the buttons/sticks/trackball out of the control panel for artwork to be applied (3, 4). a shot of my artwork sandwiched under the template piece i cut back in the summertime (5).

i don't want to reveal the finished product just yet but needless to say it looks amazing.

installed angle clips on the inside of the cab (1), brought the television in and secured with nuts, bolts, and washers (2, 3). once the television was in, the tabs on the top would not sit flat with the angle clips (4), despite my measurements. so as a solution, we drilled some holes in wood (5) and made "cue chalk" spacers. threw them in between the tab and the angle clips on both sides (6, 7). some detail of the bottom clips which are supporting the weight of the cab (8, 9). more to follow as progress is made (which should ramp up come warmer weather time).

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