My Asteroids-Themed DIY Upright Cabinet

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!

picture of the control panel

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!

Clyde

@powwow Thanks! 😁

LandyVlad

Just searching the forum looking for arcade builds, good job !

Clyde

@landyvlad Thank you! 😊

Colstar

Wow, nice work!

GregLove

Hi @Clyde , I have built a cabinet as well and looking to have an Asteroids theme but really battling to find the vectorized artwork for the side panels (I have the control panel, top panel and logo, just not the nice big one that goes on the sides like yours... Is there any chance you could please share your artwork with me?