My Asteroids-Themed DIY Upright Cabinet

[retroprogrammer]

mind blown o'okay

[Lurker]

@clyde said in My Asteroids-Themed DIY Upright Cabinet:

Mag-Stik Plus joysticks can be switched between 4 and 8 way restriction just by pulling the sticks up and turning them (anti-)clockwise.

How do you like those? I was looking at them for a long time and wasn't sure how well they worked or how well they switched between 4 and 8 way. Never got up the nerve to buy them.

Nice build. I like the car foil idea. I had never heard of that before.

[Clyde]

@lurker Did you happen to stumble upon my review of the Mag-Stik Plus in my Open Joystick Talk? If not, be sure to also check the test results of me and a friend's comparison of the Mag-Stik and the Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT-SK in the same thread.

In short, I like them very much for their sturdyness and their stiffness. Others might prefer smoother sticks. Also, they're very exact to the point that they demand a high accuracy in the players' hand movement. Some might find that too demanding.

The switching takes a little patience and practise, but then it's done very easily. That said, you can read about some problems another user had with it here.

Thanks for the feedback. I also never heard of car foil until I read about it on the website of the printing service. It isn't cheap compared to normal vinyl foil – the brand I used for the unicolored planes ranged from 25-35 €/m² depending on the amount acquired – but I think that it's definitely worth it. Look for videos about its application on cars and be amazed. ;) Like everything, it takes care and (some) practise to master, but for me, it was way more workable as painting would've been.

[jwshuler]

Nice job on your machine @Clyde!

[DubiousEngineer]

@clyde brilliant Clyde! ... great work! ... looks fantastic!

[retroprogrammer]

What does the player one and player 2 buttons do?

[Clyde]

@retroprogrammer They're player 1+2 start buttons.

[retroprogrammer]

@Clyde are they selected as 'start' in the config menu

[Clyde]

@retroprogrammer Yes.

[retroprogrammer]

okay

[Smeffron]

Hello mate.
Firstly, you've done a great job on it. Looks fantastic. I've already built myself an IKEA hack table arcade but want to convert it to one like yours. Can you just give me a few details about where you got the flatpack kit and t-moldings? Would really appreciate it.

[Clyde]

@smeffron Thanks for the compliment. 😊 The kit I used is linked in my opening post right after the first two pictures. It's this kit from the German vendor Arcade4You. I used no t-moldings, as this kit doesn't have pre-milled notches for them. I just bent the car foil around the edges as it is shown here:

The small round corners of my cabinet gave me some trouble, though, as you can see on my pictures in high magnification. They have some small wrinkles, but I can live with this little imperfection of my own work. 😌

You can also look at ArcadeWorldUK for more Flatpack kits. They have increased their product range significantly since last year.

[Clyde]

Update: Nearly two years after completion of "v1.0" of the cabinet, and mostly thanks to a good friend with a semi-professional workshop in his cellar, I finally got around to add two SpinTrak spinners that I bought over a year ago!

Finally, I can play my childhood heroes Arkanoid, Tempest, and TRON (with a little finger acrobatics). 😆

[wstanek]

Looks good! I like the colors. I actually have a red and a blue mag sticks if you want them (trade shafts??).

Someone made this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:430794
I was interested in it for two games: Battlezone and Assault which I play on my two stick machines. As long as it was temporary...

You can do Heavy Barrel, Ikari Warriors etc but you'd have to have a good trigger.

Trying to think what other games you could play with two spinners: Warlords, a few steering wheel games like Super Sprint, Off Road, Demolition Derby...

You like Major Havoc?

ws

[Clyde]

@wstanek Thank you. Although your offer is nice and tempting, I chose the black version of the MagStik at the time of purchase to match my mostly black cabinet and the black parts of the control panel's design.

I plan to try Warlords, Major Havoc and other games that I don't know yet, after I finished setting up my beloved favourites. Arkanoid I + II and Tempest were finished yesterday, more will follow.

Alas, contrary to some guides on the net who state that the SpinTrak has 1200 counts per turn, the calculated analog settings don't fit my spinners (e.g. 6% for Tempest to move 5 spaces with one full turn, or 40-41% in Arkanoid to move from edge to edge with a 120-130° turn). Thus, I have to get the correct values by time-consuming trial-and-error.

[wstanek]

Clyde I'm sure you know but there is something about the "mousepoll" that affects things. I seem to remember having to adjust that. The radius of your knob will affect things too. For Arkanoid, I adjusted it to the point where I could go all the way from left to right without having to release the knob (well close) but I'm not sure if thats how the original control was. I just adjusted Tempest to where it felt right.

I'll send you a list of games that I have running on my Tempest reproduction (which just has the spinner). Some games that I was not expecting to play on it that work really well, like APB and some other driving games. You could do two player Super Sprint which would be really fun!

enjoy
ws

[Clyde]

@wstanek Thanks, I would like to see that list. In the meantime I found out that Ultimarc's product page actually says that the SpinTrak has "1200 pulses per revolution". But if that's so, then I don't understand why the formula from my link above doesn't get the proper results. No big problem, just more work to find the right values by hand.

My current approach is to try to find and setup the original rotation/movement ratio (e.g. those mentioned above for Arkanoid and Tempest), and then adjust them to my liking.

APB is a good idea. At the moment, I'm collecting the games listed on my link above in two custom collections: driving games and any other spinner/paddle games. Affter that, I'll go through all of them to adjust their analogue settings and test their playability.

[RetroGamer99]

Hi @Clyde
This weekend or next will try setting up my arcade cabinet (mostly down to you motivating me). You have a nice neat cabinet there for someone who claims he isn't a handyman haha ;)
Quick question mate, how did you link your Lepy Amplifier to your Pi, as I see you didn't use the USB slot. Assuming maybe with the audio jack?

Thanks

[Clyde]

@RetroGamer99 said in My Asteroids-Themed DIY Upright Cabinet:

This weekend or next will try setting up my arcade cabinet (mostly down to you motivating me).

I'm flattered. 😳

Assuming maybe with the audio jack?

Correct. 😀 With an adapter cable for the RCA jacks of the amplifier.

Have fun with your project!

[powwow]

I see were both asteroids fans, nice work on your cab brother!