2008 January

Archive for January, 2008

Deal on Decals!

9 Jan, 2008

(Ooooh, two posts in one day!)

You may have noticed the graphics on my control panel diagram in my previous post. I ran across a forum entry by someone who made custom-cut vinyl decals for arcade cabinets. His name is Troy Robinson, and he does EXCELLENT work at very reasonable rates! I had him make some joystick and button graphics, and some custom MAME logos in red and blue to match my control panel plan.

The colors are a close match, and I must admit that the nicer outline/3-D version of the MAME logo was Troy’s idea.

My plan is to have brushed-aluminum "vinyl" covering the control panel face, and use these decals as accents.

I haven’t asked permission to post Troy’s e-mail yet, so if you’d like to contact him about some custom vinyl decals of your own, just send me an e-mail at Doc@[This domain without "blog."] (no link to avoid spam-bots).

EDIT: Troy says you can e-mail him directly: Storm Wind (at) Yahoo (dot) com (connect that all together to e-mail him) -Doc

: MAME

What do Centipede, Marble Madness, and Missile Command have in Common?

0

9 Jan, 2008

They all need a trackball to play! Guess what I found on eBay?

Authentic arcade trackballs usually go for around US$40-80 (plus shipping) on eBay, but I waited and watched enough auctions to find TWO 3″ Imperial trackballs for US$25 shipped! They even came with a free “Golden Tee 3D Golf” marquee. One had a couple of cracks in the housing, but Super Glue fixed them very nicely.

These are going to work very well with my Hydrogen controller. I found a compatible connector at Radio Shack, so I won’t have to solder the trackball directly to the controller.

Since I plan to use 3/4″ Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) to build my cabinet, including the control panel, the thickness becomes a problem. I found this post where the author solves this same problem with the exact same trackball (about half-way down). His whole project is very innovative!.

Here’s the plan for my control panel: