I have a logo for my project

Finally, the table has been brought home late at night.

The next morning I heard the tiny feet of my older daughter (5 years old) going to the living room, and then a 5 seconds pause, immediately after that she came to our room running saying that the game table is here.

My younger son, well, he gazed at the table didn't know what this new peace of furniture is until I opened the joystick panel, he simply came running pressing all buttons moving the joystick and looking all around.

That day my older daughter went to kindergarten and came back with a drawing of the table. She was so excited (so was I) that she gave it to me with a kiss as a thank you for the table.

I returned the favor and placed her picture as the boot screen LOGO of the table.

What is written above the drawing of the table is her name "Karen" in Arabic letters.

My wife gave her input on the table and indicated that it is a little bit dangerous and not tidy enough inside. Our son could try to touch something from the inside and will probably not end well.

I heeded her warning and acted accordingly.

I bought a long wire which is actually a spring covered with white plastic, a net used for keeping pests outside the house, used for windows and doors and hooks for use with the spring.

I used these material in the middle of the table to create a cage like fence for the dangerous parts and a brier for the rest so that the table will be tidy and nice.

Well, if I'm already starting to work on the table again from the inside to make it nicer, why not use the cover-up paper I bought to cover the table from the inside to make it look nice. I did just that. You can notice the cover-up paper just behind my hand in the above picture.

Final results:

Just a reminder on how it used to look before:

The table is a success. We play with it every day, my wife and daughter love it. My yonder child (the 2 year old) loves to play with the key (each control panel door has a lock), he keeps opening the control panel, turning the table on, watching the intro movie and then he keeps going into a game and leaving a game. He's still young, but he can keep doing this for hours. At leas now I know the machine is robust :).

So what's next in my posts:

• I hope to compile a video showing off the table
• A few words on the Solid State hard-drive I used
• A comprehensive post of software configuration and resources you probably should know if you ever build your own Arcade Machine.

Working on the WOW effect

I have finished installing Mame Plus! and Mala and also placed a few ROM images to test with.

I would like to show some of the tweaks I did for the table. These tweaks were done earlier before even starting the painting process of the table.

USB ports
The Arcade table is a computer as you all know, and I will probably want to change the games that it provides, for example remove games that we don't play and add new ones. To do this, I will need to transfer the games to the hard-drive. The USB ports are the most elegant way to transfer data, but opening the table and connecting one from the inside is not that comfortable.

I bought from eBay 5 USB ports that can be placed in a cabinet. They are connectors that have a round body with a square face and have a female USB A socket on one end and a female USB B socket on the other.

You may find this on the net by searching for the keyword NAUSB.

I placed two USB ports in the table and connected them to the mother board.

Power plug
To make the table much more comfortable and give it more WAFE, I took a power socket filter from an old network switch and used it in the table. This way I can unplug the cable, and the table won't have any noticeable sockets and cables.

Following is the bottom of the table:

On the left you can see the two USB sockets and of the right, the power filter socket.

Following is a top opened view of the table:

Notice that I connected a 25-pin female plug to the I-PAC on each side for each joystick panel. This allowed me to build the table and connect the parts easily, and also will probably come in handy when something breaks and require fixing.

I'm planning on finishing the software part this week. My wife is exited about the table, and to make her even happier I will probably install the classic PAC-MAN for her. She loves PAC-MAN. She used to be very good at it.

What I still need to complete:

1. Configure the I-PAC (or software) for the EXIT game button to function
2. Make the MALA interface look nice and pretty ;)
3. Tweak the windows to load without any noticeable messages to make the table look authentic.

Almost there!

I'm almost done! I can't believe it myself, but I finally finished the joysticks along with the wiring, placed them in the table and secured everything. I event did a minor test, and everything seems to function. Here is a picture of the 1st Player control panel:

The 1st Player control panel comes also with two side buttons for powering on the machine (located on the left side of the panel - illuminated in green) and the exit game button (located on the right side - illuminated red)

The 2nd Player control panel was colored red with a blue joystick.

This is how the joysticks were placed in the table:

To secure the Joystick control panels, I had to use something that will allow me to later disconnect the panel for repairs or if I find out in the last minute that I did a mistake.

For securing the control panels I used a window latch that I found at a hardware shop. I used two on each inside side of each panel. A picture is worth a thousand words:

When the table is closed, everything is snagged in nicely and comfortably. First I made sure that the control panels doors can be closed and that the spacing that I did was correct.

Then I placed the monitor and connected all the wires/connectors. I took a picture from the point of view of the 1st Player control panel:

I did another test before turning on the machine if everything is sitting properly and the panels can be closed and opened:

And the final test is to check if the buttons work and I didn't miss anything. I did a basic test and then my wife called back home to help her with the kids. The only thing I did test was the power on button that function correctly and all the lights in the table work just fine. I did a small test with the joystick going up and down, but not much. I'll do the thorough test later this week.

The next day I went into the workshop and just looked at the table and took a deep breath. It's amazing how I see the end of the project arriving.

I asked my wife to take a peek. She looked at it and she gave me a kiss. She was very impressed with the results, when she knew with what I started. She even asked questions later on how will two players play if the screen orientation can be adjusted to only one player. It seems that my wife is interested to see it in the house, and I think I'm raising the WAF scale here!

More to come soon, I should be receiving the glass top anytime this week.

Target: Before Christmas

I have completed the painting of the table and have the joystick panels ready and almost completely painted

A few mistakes that I made that I will have to live with. Glue must be sanded properly or the paint color won't get deep into the wood and will show on the final table. It also depends on which coloring material you use, and I chose to use the staining kind.

You can notice on the right side of the table just when the side wood is joined with the table's leg that the coloring there is poor.

I did the final gloss finishing on the table and it gave it a nice glassy like finish.

I'm happy with the result and the WAF scale did not pass the fail marker yet. My wife's comment and I quote: "It's not so bad, actually it looks ok, I guess".
I think that there is a good chance we will be enjoying this table on Christmas :).

I colored the control panels, and they didn't turn out the way I imagined, but still, I'm pleased with the results.

Coloring is messy, I'm glad I'm almost done with it. I only need to paint the other joystick panel with one more color coat and I'm done.

What's next?

1. Put on the second door lock (I did one for the first door)
2. Attach the panels to the table
3. Get a glass topping
4. Final finishing touches
5. And the last and easy part: Software :)

I hope to be able to work on it this weekend.

Final adjustments to the design

After having many doubts on the coloring of the table and how it will look nice with the final finishing touches, I have my final design Sketchup here.

Following is a picture of the final table (for now :))

I colored the controls panel with contrasting colors of the other side joystick. The joystick colors I chose for the final design are Red and Green.

I took the advice of a friend of mine's spouse and will color the table in brown or dark brown and hope it will earn extra points in the WAF scale.

Those who do not know what is a WAF scale, read the following WIKI page.

As you may notice, the glass is not on top of the table but rather aligned with top of the tables legs and side frame. This is friends idea that will make the table much more appealing and easy to accomplish. The other options I had were nice but were either hard to make or not strong enough in certain situations and/or mostly not child proofed.

I haven't painted anything for now, I just sanded the whole table and closed some cracks and holes. I did some staging on a peace of wood to make sure I know how to paint this table and not ruin it.

If I won't succeed in making this table look good using paint, I'll always have the option of covering it with cover-up paper wallpaper or something similar.

If I manage to find the best way to color the table, it will probably take me two days to finish the coloring.

The next step is to get a glass topping for the table, but that I will leave it to the very end. I need to get accurate measuring so that the glass will fit in perfectly.

Let there be light

Time for the whole box to get some electron flow going through its vanes.

I didn't like the fact that the LCD monitor had an external power supply. Looking at the external power supply, you will notice that the power output of the LCD power supply, provides 12V output with 4.16A.

So I though, let's try using the computer power supply. This way, the monitor and whole box will turn off the second the motherboard shuts off the power supply.

I cut off one of the connectors and just to be sure the wires will hold 4.16A I decide to be safe than sorry and use two yellow lines with two black lines.

OK, enough, I need to turn this whole machine on and see how it looks. For this I called my first born Karen to demonstrate.

Now comes the hardest part - Coloring the table. I need to chose colors and also do a very good job in coloring it.

Controls Panel

Time to build the controls panel. I started with a paper template of the joystick and buttons layout that I got from http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/layout.html. From there I downloaded the panel I wanted and printed it.

I placed the printout on the controls panel wood plaque and secured it with a staples using a staple gun. After that I started drilling into the wood.

I also added two buttons on left upper corner and right upper corner of the panel for Player 1 Start and Credits button respectively.

I also added two buttons on the sides of the panel, one of the left and one on the right for Power On and Exit Game illuminated buttons. The Power On button color is green and the Exit Game button color is red. I then wired the buttons with the ground wire and power for the illumination.

For the power socket, I used an extender power cable which I cut of one of the sides and connected the Red wire (5V) and black (Ground) to the LED connectors of the illuminated buttons.

I had to test the illumination of the buttons before continuing so, here are the results

 All looks good.
Now for the rest of the wiring of the controls panel. I used CAT-5 cables colored red and green. I used two different colors so I will be able to connect them to the other end easily and find which wire goes to which connector on the I-PAC board.

You can also notice that I added two neon lights on the back of the LCD monitor. I'm sure I will keep them, I managed to find a rather neat led strip in HomeCenter that should do a fine job. I haven't decide what to do with it yet, but I'm sure it will handy later on in the project.

Next, I need to connect everything and fire up the machine and see how it looks.

Do not underestimate the power of the glue

I have decided in the last few weeks to stablize the table by using wood glue. I wasn't sure if the glue is strong, but as it turns out the glue was amazingly strong. The table is now steady as a rock. I also added corner supports to make it more stronger and steadier.

On the sides I added small wood sticks to hold a 20cm width plaque of wood. This plaque of wood will hold the LCD screen. At first I wanted to hold the LCD screen only, later it almost has everything on it. The LCD screens come with a back is ready for wall mounting with four screws for securing it. So I went to a screw shop, showed him the screws I had and asked for longer ones, and mounted the LCD on the plaque of wood. The tricky part was measuring the screws locations on the plaque of wood, after all, they are not located in the center of the screen.
I added on the back of the plaque of wood the motherboard and the I-PAC board and connected everything together while keeping everything tidy and nice. The bunch of cables on the left side of the plaque is the VGA cable. It was too long, so  I wrapped it around the wood.

The hard drive that I used was a Compact Flash memory card with a SATA adapter. I placed it on the other side of the plaque on top of the LCD screen.

Here is how it looks from inside the cabinet. Plenty of space left and I have all the equipment mounted.

Next step is mounting the power supply of the screen.

Woodworking for the first time

Wood, tools and peace of paper with the table breakout. This is what I needed to start working on the arcade coffee table.

To start, I need to start marking the wood legs and the wood pieces that need to be joined with dowels.

After the markings I used a tool that was bought from Joint Genie called the JOBBER for creating dowel joints. It did a fine work as you can see in the following picture. You can also notice the tool.
The result of the joining of the wood was prefect and flushed.

After a little more than 2 hours of work, I managed to finish the outer frame of the table and I took a picture of it with my daughter standing inside it. The first thing my daughter said when she saw the table, that the table needs to be colored and if she can do it. I'll probably have to let her color something, but I know how it will turn out :).

I still don't have another picture, but I also have the bottom of the table screwed and secured.

Parents

Parents have a very important role in our lives. You all know this, but most importantly, you can ask them to use their large place (since all the kids left it, so plenty of empty rooms :)) for creating the project.

My mother agreed to this venture and I even got all the stuff there today.

Today was also a very productive day. I needed to get the wood for the table, so I went to an old (yes, very old) carpenter, which we hired once for a small job at the house, and I asked him for the wood parts. He turned me down. After all, it's not worth his time, or he didn't want to work on it. Still, it was worth the drive, he gave me a name of a wood supplier in Haifa that he might be able to help me. So I got into the car and drove there.

Indeed, he was a wood supplier, but most importantly, he provides even small amount of custom wood cuts. I came prepared with my measurements and asked him for the wood cuts.

Now I have all the wood cuts I need for creating the table, well, except for minor ones that require final measurements.

The cost? No more than 95$ for the whole table. Keep in mind I will need paint and a glass top so I'm not done yet spending money :).

I took the parts to my parents house and strait to the basement. There I had a very old table I once designed that was my work bench.

I'm now almost ready, and I hope tomorrow I will have some free time to go over to my parents house and start building the table. I estimate the building of the table in no more than 3 hours.

Oh, and by the way, the wood parts alone are rather heavy, so I agree with my wife, it will be a problem to use the table as a replacement table for the coffee table we already have in the TV section of the house.

Do we have an agreement?

I wanted to share my thoughts with my wife regarding the table and the colors I will be using, after all, I agreed with my wife that the table will part of the furniture right? Wrong!

My wife is having second thoughts about the table and she even mentioned that I may want to take it to my work place and place it there where I can show-off my project to my friends at work. This is her way of saying: "I've changed my mind, I'm not sure I want it".

I understand her, after all the only problem with the table is that it will be heavy and we need a table that can be moved around several times a day.

We'll see what happens, I'm still going to build it and bring it home, from there we will see where it lands.

For now, I want to share the latest design of the table. I colored each side of the table with a color of the joysticks I bought (red, green, yellow and blue).

You can see that the color of the whole panel for player one is red. You should be able to notice the second player panel which is yellow.

I also placed the design for it in the download page, but you can also click here.






The second player panel has been colored yellow in respect to the typical second player joystick color which is yellow.

I also have created a decomposition of the table and measured the parts to have them prepared by a carpenter.

I decided to take no favors (at the end I will require some :) ) and go with the measures to Home-Center (it's an Israeli version of the Home-Depot) and talk to the carpenter there.
I was out of luck, the carpenter has just resigned, so no help there until they hire a new carpenter.

Luckily, my brother in law (which I truly think is a very talented person - but alas won't have the time to share my project) has a relative whose hobby is carpentry. He gave me his phone number, and I will give him a call soon and let him on the project to understand if I'm missing anything.

It seems that I will not have much time this week to meet him, we are preparing for my second child's birthday (he will be two years old) and won't have any spare time to meet the guy, so I guess it's off for next week.

Wood work is fun

To create this table I will require some basic wood working experience, which I don't have. I started by checking the Internet and it seems that ask.com has most of the answers. I finally decided to buy some basic tools for wood working. For joining wood, I'm going to use the dowel joints.

The table requires some minor touches, but it is good for construction phase.

I still require wood for this, and also some cutting tools which I didn't buy. They are too expensive and I will only use them this time, well, until the next project :).

The wood will be bought from a carpenter and I will ask him to cut all the parts I need and then I will connect them and hopefully I will do a good job ;).

The top of the table is made out of pure glass with a lower black cover-up. The cover-up will be done by a good friend, that will do it for free. I will leave an opening for the LCD screen.

As you can see the idea is that the table is in fact a coffee table with no visual joysticks at all.

When the table is used for games, the front cover will be opened and the control panel will be pulled out as a drawer. on the right side you should notice a red button. This button will be illuminated. There is also another green button on the left side.

The green button is for the power-on and the red is for exiting the game.

There should also be neon lighting, but unfortunately the neon light I bought came smashed and I'm checking how to get a replacement.

It should be a good sight to see the table light up when turned on.

Missing something?

This is what I have collected and bought so far:

1. 4 Joysticks
2. 4 player start button
3. 24 push-buttons in 6 different colors
4. I-PAC4
5. Used 17" 4:3 LCD screen
6. ATX Power-supply
7. SATA to Compact Flash adapter
8. 8GB Compact Flash card
9. Motherboard with Intel Atom
10. 1GB DDR2 Ram
11. Crimps
12. Crimp tool
13. Wires

Seems allot? I missed something, I'll tell you about it later in the post.

The 4 joysticks I bought were colored Blue, Red, Yellow and green. I wanted to build an arcade cabinet for 4 players. Yes I talked to my wife but I didn't tell her how big the machine will be - fatal mistake, this was after I bought the 4 joysticks. Oh well, at least I got enough push-buttons and joysticks for another table ;).

The push-buttons are in 6 colors, White, Green, Yellow, Red, Orange and Blue. I wanted to have a 6 button configuration for each player.

I also bought an I-PAC4.

The push-buttons and I-PAC were bought from Ultimarc. The Joysticks were bought from SUZO-HAPP.

God bless the wide screen age. Looking for a used 17" LCD 4:3 screen was easy enough, and I even found one who's seller is an Electronics guy who fixes Electronic devices for a living, so he gave me the LCD screen for less than 53$ with 3 month warranty.

The power supply is a simple ATX power supply, nothing special here.

Notice that the LCD screen came with an external power supply.

For a hard drive for the machine, I decide to go with a Solid State device. Solid State devices are rather pricey, so I decided to go with a Compact Flash card with a SATA adapter. The Compact Flash is a fast Card is comparison to other forms of flash memory. The SATA adapter was bought from DealExtreme for 9.22$ and the Compact Flash card was bought here in Israel in a local shop for less than 40$.

The motherboard was also bought from a local store. I chose to go with something that will run the Arcade games and not cost too much. I chose to go with a dual core Intel Atom with no special requirement for the graphic card. The graphic card does not provide any added benefit for games running under MAME. The motherboard I chose was ASUS AT5NM10-I. One of the benefits of ASUS motherboards is the "MyLogo" feature which allows the user to customize the bios boot screen. This will come in handy for making and authentic Arcade machine.

Finally, I need wires, crimps etc... to connect all these components somehow together.

These were bought from a local store.

A word on the Software I will be using: After searching the web for many hours, I decide to go with MicroXP. This is a stripped down Windows XP with many features gone from it. I did my initial testing for this OS on a Virtual Machine and it proved itself well.

I later tested it on the hardware I bough and it worked just great. It's fast light and FREE!

Remember I told you I missed something? :) well, I missed a few push-buttons.

I need the following:

1. Adding Credits push-button
2. Power-On push-button (Illuminated would be nice)
3. Exit game push-button

I will probably order them from Ultimarc, but the cost of shipping is rather high. If I don't come up with a good idea, I'll have to settle with the fee :(.