I had planned to build a Mortal Kombat cabinet this year for the board set I purchased last year, but have decided against it. I also cancelled my plans for creating a Taito cabinet for an Arkanoid board set I purchased around the same time.
Instead the parts have been sold off and the funds will be used to purchase another pinball machine to service and restore. So sadly no MK cabinet posts 🙁
The control panels were next to be done. As with my previous projects, I decided to put a layer of acrylic over the artwork to help keep it clean and extend its lifespan. Plus I think it gives a nice finish to the control panels. As you can see with the P1 and P2 start buttons, I went with different buttons to ensure everything fit and was not overcrowded on the right.
I also extended to the top of the control panel to allow for a strip of t moulding to sit at the end (as I did with my Donkey Kong cocktail) which should give it a nice finish. Note: I still need to add the t moulding to the control panel front and sides – just waiting on it arriving. I’ve ordered both light blue and light green (Galaxian) and will see which one looks best.
Almost 6 months ago, I put a 90% complete fight stick project aside to continue work on a Donkey Kong cocktail cabinet with the intention of finishing it off a few weeks later. Today, I finally put the final touches into the fight stick and can now consider the project complete 🙂
A few nights back I decided to get the project finished. First up was making sure the fight stick itself could be recognised by a PC and PS3. This failed to work. The closest I could get was a windows error saying the USB device failed to load. After some testing and investigation, it looked like the USB connector on the Dual Strike PCB was to blame. A closer look at the USB (Type B) port showed one of the internal pins had been squashed back, ensuring a bad connection. Looks like at some point the port had something lean against it, and cause the pin to come lose. I got out the soldering iron and took it off the board. It probably isn’t clear in the image below, but the top right pin (inside the port) has been lifted up and is completely loose.
A replacement part was found at Jaycar for only $3. I added it to the board, connected up the PCB to the PC and success.
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It’s been a good few weeks on the cocktail cab project. As always, managing an hour here, 30 minutes there to keep moving it all along. I have spent time painting the monitor frame and table top panel over the last few weeks – a slow process when you can only get 1 coat in per day.
Firstly, there was a set back with the monitor. Originally I wanted to use a CRT PC monitor, but sizing issues and reliability issues meant I decided to switch to a 15″ LCD monitor. It also lightens the cab by a few KG’s which will be good when it comes time to ship it off 🙂
The first thing that went on since the last update was the coin door, along with it the coin mech, coin catcher and coin counter. Just to the left of the door (inside) sits the service and test switches. These have all been wired up and tested.
The power board and switcher were also installed.
The speaker went in and was wired up, along with the game board and JAMMA harness. I spent time also tiding up the cabling.
The player 1 control panel has also been installed and wired up.
A little while ago, I was inspired by some work done by a fellow Aussie Arcade member on a series of fight sticks (Link).
After some planning and design, I thought I would try my hand at creating my own fight stick also.
First up was to decide on a button layout and size. I knew I wanted to have 8 player buttons, along with select, start and guide buttons since this is to work on a PS3 and Xbox360 console. I have gone with a top face size of 300 x 200mm. With the side panels added, this increases out slightly. With that decided on, and a button layout, I went about cutting the top panel to size, and cutting out the main player buttons and joystick hole.
