Thursday, November 24, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Project Arcade 4 of .........................
Short post tonight because its late.
I got my RGB buttons in today all 7 of them so i set up a quick test for them to test the lighting and the button color matching.
See short vid
More later on. must sleep.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Project Arcade Part 3 of ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
/me wonders if any one is reading this place LOL
6. Mesure twice cut once and dont.........slice...your umm digits off......../sigh off to the hospital.
What to make it out of that is the BIG question??????????????????????????
This is a very very hard question for me because i dont know how i want to do this. because i dont want it to heavy where it takes 20 people to move or so light it will just fall over and squish ya.
number 7 will be later on but on a side note im having to redesign part of my cabinet to many hard anges to manage and i like to keep it simple even though the angles make it look cool but its for the best i say, I got all my plans for the panel plotted out so maybe after the break i can cut stuff out and get out of the way and let the nephews that are coming over to stay with us try it out for me cause i know if they think its cool i will be good to go that is if i dont drive my dad up the wall with the little project lol.
Tomorrow my LED RGB buttons come in wooohoooo now i can finish testing and make sure what i want will work before spend the money on it but then after testing i have to give them to the wife so she can wrap them because it is my xmas prez. i know where odd lol.
6. Mesure twice cut once and dont.........slice...your umm digits off......../sigh off to the hospital.
What to make it out of that is the BIG question??????????????????????????
This is a very very hard question for me because i dont know how i want to do this. because i dont want it to heavy where it takes 20 people to move or so light it will just fall over and squish ya.
number 7 will be later on but on a side note im having to redesign part of my cabinet to many hard anges to manage and i like to keep it simple even though the angles make it look cool but its for the best i say, I got all my plans for the panel plotted out so maybe after the break i can cut stuff out and get out of the way and let the nephews that are coming over to stay with us try it out for me cause i know if they think its cool i will be good to go that is if i dont drive my dad up the wall with the little project lol.
Tomorrow my LED RGB buttons come in wooohoooo now i can finish testing and make sure what i want will work before spend the money on it but then after testing i have to give them to the wife so she can wrap them because it is my xmas prez. i know where odd lol.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Project Arcade Part 2 of ???????????????????????
Well my arcade project is getting put in to a holding pattern until i get my plans straiten out and save up some cash who knew this was going to add up so fast :| but on the good side thanks to my wife she let me order 7 of my RGB LED Buttons for just player 1, Why just player one WELLLLLLLL at $45 for 7 and there is 4 total players and it adds up so i just want to test one side before i spend a lot and it not works or looks bad then im just out $45 then close to $200 and be left with buttons that i cant use well i can use them but not in the way i want to any who i digress what they will do for me is i can set the buttons to light up in any color so for like neogeo games it will only light up the buttons for that game and the color of the button for that game hard to explain so once they come in i will take pix of them better then me trying to explain lol.
On to the other parts. Now i have had the parts for a while now but with my blog i can explain my progress of my project :D
1. The Heart of Project Arcade.
This is a "IPac4 (4 player version)" why do i need this well let me tell you why, MAME uses key board commands for the button presses unlike a real arcade system where its electrical so left ctrl is player 1 button 1, left alt player 1 button 2 and so on.
So with the IPac it takes the electrical commands from the buttons and converts it to the keyboard commands and yes i can program it to be any command for any button, some people do keyboard hacks where they take apart a keyboard and pull the controller out and hot wire it. Yes that's a good cheep way to do it if cash is tight but to me i rather go the easy way and buy the IPac.
2. Buttons Buttons Buttons oh and some joy sticks.
The fun part ordering your buttons and joy sticks and this is where you can get creative now some people stick to 1 color or 2 colors but me HA i want COLOR MAHAHAAHA but for phase 1 i ordered Red, Green , Blue, and Yellow and later on ill get other colors but want to get the basic stuff out of the way.
6 of each except for Red but there is a reason behind that and that involves the RGB buttons.
3. To Mouse or Not To Mouse that is the Question
To mouse is the question some i have seen some that have a track ball and read some that say don't bother well i went all out and got one and not just a normal one but an RGB one yes i love the lights.
Here is a few pix of it
The track ball "ball" is 3" in diameter and the model i got has RGB LEDs in the bottom to allow me to change the color to any color i want and with the software LED Blinky i can configure the ball to be different colors when X game is loaded or off when the game doesn't use the trackball.
4. LET THERE BE LIGHT. RGB LEDs I say :P
Now how am i doing all this color mixing well easy.... all by hand yep and i use a flux compositor and some duct tape and bailing wire to.................. just kidding i use a PacLED64 controler.
What this baby does is allows me to turn on and off certin channles thus turning on\off the led that is on that channle, iv also pongered if i can use it to control a relay to to have say a fan turn on but ill stick to leds lol.
Up to 64 leds can be connected to it at the same time and all can be on with no issues or 20 RGB leds due to needing 3 channles per led but in my current plan i will need 2 controlers but that will be way later on.
5. Yes Mom i had to take it apart to see how it works. ( The Screen)
As a kid i allways took stuff apart and wasent allowed to have screwdriver in my hand but that didnt stop me though :P on that note i been trying to descide on what kind of screen i needed, many people go the old school way and put in a CRT screen (the old big glass screens) but im going to do LCD for a few reasions.
1st - Size a CRT is so big i need to have enough room in the back.
2nd - Weight some CRTs can get really heavy and the bigger you go the heavyer they get.
3rd - Heat a CRT produses a lot of heat thus i will need to have more fans to vent the heat out.
4th - Death a CRT can be very dangerious and if you not carefull it can kill you in a heart beat.
So yeah i think ill stick to an LCD screen.
This was a View Sonic monitor i had laying around nice little 19" so i think it will do fine for now till i find a bigger one later on.
Well i think thats it for today sick of typing lol
On to the other parts. Now i have had the parts for a while now but with my blog i can explain my progress of my project :D
1. The Heart of Project Arcade.
This is a "IPac4 (4 player version)" why do i need this well let me tell you why, MAME uses key board commands for the button presses unlike a real arcade system where its electrical so left ctrl is player 1 button 1, left alt player 1 button 2 and so on.
So with the IPac it takes the electrical commands from the buttons and converts it to the keyboard commands and yes i can program it to be any command for any button, some people do keyboard hacks where they take apart a keyboard and pull the controller out and hot wire it. Yes that's a good cheep way to do it if cash is tight but to me i rather go the easy way and buy the IPac.
2. Buttons Buttons Buttons oh and some joy sticks.
The fun part ordering your buttons and joy sticks and this is where you can get creative now some people stick to 1 color or 2 colors but me HA i want COLOR MAHAHAAHA but for phase 1 i ordered Red, Green , Blue, and Yellow and later on ill get other colors but want to get the basic stuff out of the way.
3. To Mouse or Not To Mouse that is the Question
To mouse is the question some i have seen some that have a track ball and read some that say don't bother well i went all out and got one and not just a normal one but an RGB one yes i love the lights.
Here is a few pix of it
This is the best track ball i have ever found.
The track ball "ball" is 3" in diameter and the model i got has RGB LEDs in the bottom to allow me to change the color to any color i want and with the software LED Blinky i can configure the ball to be different colors when X game is loaded or off when the game doesn't use the trackball.
4. LET THERE BE LIGHT. RGB LEDs I say :P
Now how am i doing all this color mixing well easy.... all by hand yep and i use a flux compositor and some duct tape and bailing wire to.................. just kidding i use a PacLED64 controler.
Up to 64 leds can be connected to it at the same time and all can be on with no issues or 20 RGB leds due to needing 3 channles per led but in my current plan i will need 2 controlers but that will be way later on.
5. Yes Mom i had to take it apart to see how it works. ( The Screen)
As a kid i allways took stuff apart and wasent allowed to have screwdriver in my hand but that didnt stop me though :P on that note i been trying to descide on what kind of screen i needed, many people go the old school way and put in a CRT screen (the old big glass screens) but im going to do LCD for a few reasions.
1st - Size a CRT is so big i need to have enough room in the back.
2nd - Weight some CRTs can get really heavy and the bigger you go the heavyer they get.
3rd - Heat a CRT produses a lot of heat thus i will need to have more fans to vent the heat out.
4th - Death a CRT can be very dangerious and if you not carefull it can kill you in a heart beat.
So yeah i think ill stick to an LCD screen.
Well i think thats it for today sick of typing lol
Monday, November 7, 2011
Project Arcade Part 1 of ?
Well im finally making headway on my Arcade project, for thoes who dont know im designing and building a arcade cabnet that runs MAME with GameEX frontend in a nut shell thats 4k+ arcade games.
The other night my dad help me figure out the LED controller so i can do testing befor i spend alot on RGB buttons and it not work so yeah i rather spend $10 than $100+ but so far i have the control panel layout done and printed out so just need to glue down the plans and start cutting it out so i can get sizing right and play errrr test it out. lol
The cabnet design is coming along quite well keep getting stuck on the little details and picky about this and that, just want it to be perfect but i know perfect is imposble.
The other night my dad help me figure out the LED controller so i can do testing befor i spend alot on RGB buttons and it not work so yeah i rather spend $10 than $100+ but so far i have the control panel layout done and printed out so just need to glue down the plans and start cutting it out so i can get sizing right and play errrr test it out. lol
The cabnet design is coming along quite well keep getting stuck on the little details and picky about this and that, just want it to be perfect but i know perfect is imposble.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
ZZZzzz...
Dont you hate it when you have a full belly and its getting nice and cold out side makes me wanna curl up and pass out......
I love this time of the year it getting nice and cold no more waking up in the middle of the night swetting to death you get that perfect warm spot and can just sleep allllllllllllllll day.
Today is one of them slow days of blah.
I love this time of the year it getting nice and cold no more waking up in the middle of the night swetting to death you get that perfect warm spot and can just sleep allllllllllllllll day.
Today is one of them slow days of blah.
What a night
Well yesterday was a fun day :/
I was talking to my wife and she told me theres a beeping in the house, well i had her check the water heater because we have an alarm in the pan so if it leaks we know well that wasnt it she told me its coming from the office ok no big deal one on my ups's must be dead.
Well got home both servers are down no problem i just reset the ups and they started to boot......5min later still no net ok maybe its taking a bit to fire up.......10min later..... what the heck so dug around got a keyboard hook up and the monitor fired up and (geek time) its giving a warning about a disk fail...... CRAP............ i hate disk failers exp when i lost all my 3D art work but another story anywho i try to get it to ingnore it and boot and it took a good 8min to finally come up and omg its bad slow went a head and shut her down and found what drive was bad......CRAP its my data drive (not this again) *cry* after some digging i remember i set it up as a raid 5 OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (this means i can have 1 drive die and no data lost) so now is the fun part hunting for a drive and for my server the cheepest i have found is 148 ouch. ugh why do i have to be a computer geek our addiction isnt a cheap one.
oh well thus is life.
I was talking to my wife and she told me theres a beeping in the house, well i had her check the water heater because we have an alarm in the pan so if it leaks we know well that wasnt it she told me its coming from the office ok no big deal one on my ups's must be dead.
Well got home both servers are down no problem i just reset the ups and they started to boot......5min later still no net ok maybe its taking a bit to fire up.......10min later..... what the heck so dug around got a keyboard hook up and the monitor fired up and (geek time) its giving a warning about a disk fail...... CRAP............ i hate disk failers exp when i lost all my 3D art work but another story anywho i try to get it to ingnore it and boot and it took a good 8min to finally come up and omg its bad slow went a head and shut her down and found what drive was bad......CRAP its my data drive (not this again) *cry* after some digging i remember i set it up as a raid 5 OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (this means i can have 1 drive die and no data lost) so now is the fun part hunting for a drive and for my server the cheepest i have found is 148 ouch. ugh why do i have to be a computer geek our addiction isnt a cheap one.
oh well thus is life.
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