The Super HyperSpin Entertainment System

[Ashek]

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Well; here it is so far, my very first build! Since first discovering HyperSpin about a year ago this moment feels like a sort of coming of age. For those of you I haven't had the opportunity to become acquainted with; I'm a 27 year old stay-at-home dad from Las Vegas. Before I met the wife I worked freelance doing Flash based web design, 'teaching' computer animated art to local schools, and restoring old pictures in Photoshop. I'm also more or less able to build a computer and set everything up. I consider myself pretty adept in these respective areas; albeit with an outdated skill set. Everything else is pretty much all new to me. I think I maybe failed myself a woodworking class in middle school, and I've replaced a few power sockets over the years, mostly without electrocuting myself. What I've accomplished here is thanks to an exorbitant degree of studying what others have made available.

Over the years I've been stockpiling old-school games like a crazy person. I only buy at pawn shops due to being on a tight budget, but I imagine I'm closing in on the 2,000 game mark. My wife is also a pretty big gamer so I've had the pleasure of keeping most of my collection on display. The thing is; I have a little four year old girl, and she is bound to have friends, and both have sticky fingers. Most these old titles were lucky to survive one generation. One day I stumbled across the ArchAngel Arcade by RidicRick and fell in love at first sight. After toying around with the free copy of HyperSpin and looking at the various builds floating around out there, I somehow managed to convince the wife to fund it. After all, building a kick ass arcade cabinet will make the kids want to play at our house where we can keep a good eye on them. . .

My setup is actually built as an extension to my collection. I'm only emulating games I have a hard copy of on the shelves next to it. I think I might be building the first ever 100% LEGAL HyperSpin cabinet. lol

So, from the beginning it was very clear that I was on a budget. The problem is I absolutely LOVE all the bells and whistles. The extra level of polish is worth a dozen other cabinets. So I took what little I had and slowly started saving. If I was going to do this I wanted to do it right. Every time we went out to eat I might hold out till we got home for something cheaper to add a dollar here and there. I even started picking up cheap games I already owned at local pawn shops just to resell on eBay. A huge step came late last year when I got to know H4CK3R. Since he too lives in Vegas I got to see my first actual HyperSpin cabinet, complete with said bells and whistles. Truth be told, up to this point I was intimidated by the sheer volume of work involved, and my inexperience. It was just dreaming that someday I might have a HyperSpin cabinet, but seeing it all in person made me take the plunge. . . we started buying the parts. I was committed now.

[Ashek]

Next came the design. It was important that our daughter and several friends could all participate so I initially toyed with a 4 player cabinet. Then one day I was randomly flipping through an old sketchbook from earlier years and saw a jumbo SNES table I doodled based on

I saw. I threw together an updated sketch incorporating arcade controls and my wife expressed a level of enthusiasm she never showed for the big bulky cabinet. Practically speaking; as renters we move pretty regularly and a 4 player cabinet is just too heavy, not to mention hard to fit in a small space. I really didn't want all my hard work to end up in a garage surrounded by boxes, so my wife loving it was of utmost importance. The coffee table idea would fit perfectly in our living room and with the addition of USB controllers, everyone could not only join in, but do so from the comfort of our couch. A few dozen sketches later and I finally felt ready to start the construction. It was going to be a while before I had access to any sort of power tools so I played around a little with some thin MDF and my dremmel; put together a cheap mock-up of the button layout so I could wire some of it up and test my understanding of it all. That and I really, REALLY wanted to play with all my new toys.

I lucked out a great deal in that I'm the second person (to my knowledge) to build a giant SNES controller. The first was done by SCAD inc. I'm using 8x scale so my project clocks in at 4 feet long, which is a bit bigger but the same principles applied. This was especially helpful since I could see how they went about things and follow suit. For starters; the whole thing is made out of MDF so it can be easily sanded to a smooth finish. It starts with a 3/4'' sheet of MDF we cut the main stencil out of, then a duplicate was made out of 1/8'' with a giant circle cut around where the D pad goes. This gives us the slight indent that's seen on the original controller. We then built up the sides mostly with 3/4'' with a few 1/2'' in there to give us the proper depth. This is all slathered with wood glue and clamped together while it sets.

The main difference between my controller and the one by SCAD is the slope I've included on the underside which stays truer to the original design. I also planned on including the line around the sides as well as several details in and around where the cord exits. I also accidentally cut square shoulder buttons. I ended up patching these up with Fix-it-All for the proper shape. When finished, the goal is for the controller to not only be usable with HyperSpin, but to look EXACTLY like the original except blown up. The only exception will be the "Super Nintendo" logo which will be replaced by my variant.

Due to the immense weight of it all we went a little overboard building the table since it needed to stand the test of time. We cut two copies of the base and connected them with 2x4 running vertically around the edges. Everything was not only secured with decking screws but with roofing brackets; this thing is beyond solid. For those wondering why there is a giant hole running the length; this will allow the hot air generated by the computer to vent out from under the controller. The resulting hole will be covered with black aluminum chain mail. The air intake will be that space underneath between the two feet.

Doing the curved siding was a little tricky. We wrapped two thin long strips of hardwood around it slowly gluing, clamping, and screwing it to the vertical 2x4s. The two pieces were also slathered together with wood glue for extra support. Apparently I calculated Pi wrong or something because the end result was like 4'' short from being able to wrap around. Fortunately we realized this BEFORE we started attaching; so we compensated by cutting the strip in half and attaching a foot wide piece to the flat back and wrapping from there.

Since I didn't own any power tools, much less space to really use them, we visited our hometown in Utah to borrow my in-laws garage for a few days. There I had access to everything I needed and was even lucky enough to have two friends come over to help out. My goal for the trip was to finish whatever I couldn't do at home. Starting from scratch I think we ended up doing pretty good but it was a hell of a week and I was so very, very tired by the end of it.

[Ashek]

Once my 5 days in Utah were done we packed everything up and headed back to Las Vegas. I originally thought I'd need to ask a family member to truck it down the next time they visited. This luckily was not the case. Due to the weight of MDF I had designed the cabinet to come apart a little bit to save my back down the road but it paid off early when it somehow managed to fit inside our tiny car WITH full legroom for the wife and I, a car seat complete with a little one, a weeks worth of luggage for three, AND blankets/pillows. Not even my years of training with Tetris should have physically allowed for it. I'm thinking it may have been a form of correspondence magic.

Anyway. . . So we get the cabinet home and unpack. In my exhaustion I swear that I'm done with construction for at least a week. Sure enough that next morning my little helper and I are excitedly sanding things down and applying the first coats of primer. We got a little ahead of ourselves to be honest but whatever, we had fun. We're finally getting to a point though where in another day or two of sanding/priming on the controller and it'll be ready for painting. I went to all the stores and got color samples, but its been tough figuring out which to use. The USB controller uses different coloring, the original suffers from yellowing plastic, and online image searches on a bright monitor are hard to compare to paper. I'm pretty close to narrowing it down. Worst case scenario who will really be able to tell the difference between a shade or two...

The original idea was to include a slide out drawer under the CP which when removed, would allow for maintenance. I had planned on rendering the entire project in Blender to help with construction but I've done 3D modeling in the past and its such a pain. So I decided to just wing it off my crappy sketch, a few general measurements and a stencil of the controllers proportions. If I had done the proper planning I would have realized the drawer idea looked like shit and wasn't really functional. Oh well. So working with what I had, I decided to build a thick black border and allow access by removing a Plexiglass window from underneath. I already planned on including a window in the front which will showcase the computer hardware, so showing off all the CP wiring seemed like a nice fit.

I was more along than I'd care to admit when I realized there was now a giant ass window right underneath all my Electric Ice RGBs. I was going to have a big colorful splotch on the floor. To be honest I just laughed. So I started playing around with a few ideas. From scrapping the window, applying some tint, to emphasizing it. I had unused ports on my LEDwiz so I decided to just install more RGBs running around the border's underside. I actually ended up loving the idea so much it warranted an additional LED controller so I could add more. So now, not only will the buttons dance around, but I can have the floor/side artwork illuminated. I also now have extra slots to include RGBs inside the front window so the computer hardware can be illuminated from a few different angles. This whole cabinet is meant to act as a centerpiece for our game room so the light show will really pull it all together.

As for construction I ended up cutting 3 thin sheets of MDF to tightly fit around the cabinet. The bottom sheet has holes cut for each of the LEDs to shine through, these were also shaved down with an x-acto knife and sanded for a smooth finish, For the middle layer I ended up cutting even bigger holes out of it to the point where it tended to break apart wherever there is a LED. These were then glued and clamped into place. I then placed a scrap sheet of plexiglass over it and traced the gap, then cut it down to size so it fits perfectly within. The top layer of MDF was then drilled with smaller holes so when its placed together, the plexiglass is permanently held into place, and the LED can be mounted from within. Obviously the inner workings will be covered up by gluing/screwing/clamping two thin strips of hardwood much like I did with the legs.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[Ashek]

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[Ashek]

----- Reserved -----

[relic]

good luck my freind youve made a great start and something diffrent for a change

[zerojay]

Uh... 23 buttons for one player is... interesting. Kind of wondering what the six in a circle off to the side is for as well.

[Ashek]

Uh... 23 buttons for one player is... interesting. Kind of wondering what the six in a circle off to the side is for as well.

I knew that was going to be one of the first questions... lol

The sets of three in the back left/right are for Load/Save States 1-3. The 6 in the circle are for Exit, Start, Favorites, and Genre. I added the two extra in preparation for HyperSpin 2.0 which will introduce Operator Menu, Search, and Random Game. I'll prolly use the first two. Until then it just gives me more buttons to play around with in LEDblinky.

[richie_jones]

I allways enjoy a new take on a build..good luck, subscribed

[ebarlow99]

cool!!!! I see something like this when I get my CNC!!! real nice!

[araposaeasuvas]

my congratulations, beautiful project, I will be following this topic, I'm from Brazil.

[jq_quint]

I love system themed builds and as the snes was one of my fav systems I love the idea behind this.

Interesting you say you'll only be using roms of games you own (of course as we all do.. ), so is this just a snes collection OR just nintendo? What ya got, tell tell...

[trailervert]

Freaking Sweet!

Rockin Idea it looks like a fun project.

[Ashek]

I love system themed builds and as the snes was one of my fav systems I love the idea behind this.

Interesting you say you'll only be using roms of games you own (of course as we all do.. ), so is this just a snes collection OR just nintendo? What ya got, tell tell...

I'm including Atari 2600, Intellivision, CD-i, NES, SNES, N64, GCN, Wii, PS1, PS2, PSP, Master System, Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast, and PC Games. Also the Nintendo/Sega handhelds. There will also be MAME games courtesy of the dozen plus arcade compilations I have , these will feature the arcade controls. We're also converting the original controllers over to USB so all you do is say grab the 64 controllers off the shelf from next to the system/cartridges, and plug n play. But every single game on the cabinet will be found somewhere in the collection.

SNES just happens to be the first console that my wife and I both had as kids.

[Ashek]

I stumbled across an old picture of some of my collection. This photo is actually closing in on a year old now and even then I had another full shelf of games next to the TV that's not displayed here. I've also added a bunch while visiting the local thrift shops. When everything is said and done on this build I'll see about doing a walk through or something when the game room is more show worthy... if people care for one that is.

I also updated the third post with more pictures/status updates.

[mameshane]

this is awesome! I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing finished!

by converting your controllers over to USB do u mean with adapters? if not. instead of cutting into your original controllers I have see a few adapters online for almost all the old controllers that can be used to plug in via USB

here's a link to some examples.

http://www.retrousb.com/index.php?cPath=21

[RidicRick]

I am honored that seeing my arcade made you become a Hyperspin madman! This project is flippin awesome!!!!!! I will be watching this thread very closely!

[THK]

Man, this is outrageous! I would be sooo cool if the buttons on the 'big snes controller' would work and were wack-a-mole smash proof!

[djordman]

It looks fantastic and I've never ever seen anything like it! Looking forward to following this project!

[Ashek]

Man, this is outrageous! I would be sooo cool if the buttons on the 'big snes controller' would work and were wack-a-mole smash proof!

I fully intend to make the big controller usable. I mean what would be the point if it wasn't. lol

The plan is to create molds for the various buttons and then make them with fiberglass and resin for durability and a uniform appearance. Hopefully the switch itself can be made equally durable while still having that click sound when you push it... Haven't looked too much into how I'll do that yet.

[THK]

Saweet!

[PARTAAA]

Just wanna say this project is one of the coolest toys ever. I'm also following this closely coz it gives me joy to see the progress hehe

Good on ya man and just keep doing what you're doing!

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Tapatalk 2

[emb]

I love your respect for console gaming. Looks great!

Sent from my Galaxy Tab 2 using Tapatalk HD

[tkropp17]

Holy Jebus!

[Ashek]

I got my SD card back from Utah so I updated the 2nd post with more construction photos.

I also found another older picture of the game room (when its not doubling as a workshop) to give an idea of where this will be played. The shelves with all the games/consoles would be just out of view to the sides, wraping around you as the room will permit. I would also love to add LED lighting underneath each shelf to illuminate its contents; maybe put this on a dimmer... but that'll be a project for sometime after this is all done.