IStoleQuarters Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Hello HyperSpin members, For starters I'd like to thank all the members of this great community. Without such passion and dedication to preserving the classics none of this would have been remotely possible! I salute you all!! Now I figured I'd share a special project a friend and I have been working on for well over a year now as we near final completion. This project, like all great and noble quests grew from a simple and humble beginning. It was pretty much discussed late one night around a table over food and drink - lots of food and drink - and sketched roughly on a paper napkin. "Wouldn't it be cool to build a full size virtual pinball table?" "Why not a MAME cab?" "How about both?" "GREAT! Let's do this! Right now!" "Errr... kind of late. How about we start tomorrow!" And thus our grand tale begins... When we started this project we had a few requirements: Must be able to play Visual Pinball Must be able to play MAME Must be able to play other emulators Must be able to support multiple players Must meet certain space and size considerations Must be able to meet cost and time restrictions Must meet the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) That last one was stressed to be very important! Now I built a dedicated MAME and game emulator cab back in 2004 so building a cab wasn't anything new but there have been a lot of changes since then so I had to educate myself quickly. Used UltraStyle on my cab and when I came across Hyperspin it was like the sky parted and a light blazed from the heavens down upon my keyboard! "Yeah... we're definitely using THIS!!" Now trying to get both a full pinball table and a MAME cab to work together in one unit was a daunting task. A typical stand-up cab just wouldn't cut it. We had to get creative and think outside the box. "Hmmm. Box. How about a cocktail table?" "Not just a plain box. How about a Star Wars themed cocktail table?!" Even better! And thus our project began in earnest. We started with the control panels first since those were simple boxes and easy to cut. Moved onto cutting the panels which were easy initially but grew to be a time consuming task when we factored in the extra details for the light slits. We also needed to reinforce the panels because of the loss in structural mass but surprisingly 3/4 MDF is very sturdy. Still we braced the interior just in case for added load support. The cabinet was coming together nicely! We wanted to support the ability to play 4 player games while still maintaining a sleek look but having the side panel out all the time definitely would cramp that look. Then inspiration came to us! How about we make a retractable side control panel? Our very own exhaust port hidden behind a magnetically held detachable panel! Not quite 2M wide of course. Started to really come together when the top was cut and the end panels were finally attached. We used a few test buttons and joysticks just to get a feel for spacing and to check side and clearance issues. Once the frame was done we moved onto the finish. We debated a lot on going with laminate or paint and opted for a slight compromise. The cab itself would be painted with a sturdy polyurethane finish and then sprayed with a hammered finished black. The control panels would use printed overlays and then covered with a matte finish clear laminate. We "enlisted" his son with the painting of course but we had to eventually fire him because he kept asking is it ready yet. A little dusty from all the work but you can really start to see the final product. We recently started mounting the control panel overlays in preparation for the application of the laminate and then will move on to the buttons and joysticks wiring to the iPAC. All the overlays are custom and different for each panel just to give that unique look. We also started mounting the display LEDs and (reactor) lights and it just oozes all sorts of cool now! Four red cold cathode tubes light the interior and we have LED light strips with switches to wash the control panels for easier viewing. To support the use of playing pinball from the left end of the panel we have the table top rigged with hinges so that it lifts up and raises the angle by about 25 degrees and is held in place by a mount. Perfect angle for playing full screen Visual Pinball! We figure we have a few more weeks of work and then the table is done so we are very excited!! Special thanks to JeepGuy81 for the cocktail table themes! Those really helped! When completely finished we will also have sound effects and audio clips from the movies and the Imperial March plays when we exit out. I'll need to grab some video of that as well to show case later. In the end I'd say we are close to everything we set out to do... minus the cost part of course. Shhhhh! This cab was a lot of work to build and as we near the end of the software configuration we can hardly contain our excitement! We'll have the ability to play cocktail table games in a perfect format as well as support 2 player side-by-side AND 4 player games. Being able to play Visual Pinball in full screen as well was just icing on the cake and helped seal the deal with the WAF! The fact that it is able to do all this through Hyperspin is a testament to the power and flexibility of this program! We salute you guys!! Also as near as we can tell no one has made anything similar so we definitely have a really unique cab on our hands. Guess it will be an family heirloom from here on out! I'll update the post as we near completion and... "May the Force be with you... Always." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizz Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 very cool :} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericleroi Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Looks like a lot of planning, hard work and love has gone into that build. It looks excellent and, as you have suggested, original (something very difficult to do). The artwork looks very clean and uncluttered which I happen to like. Great job and would like to see this in action. PS get Pinball FX2 on it if you can ... they have Star Wars Tables with more being released soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agrajag Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Utterly awesome! I am so jealous... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mameshane Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 very awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MontyQ Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 Just awesome work, one the nicest cocktails I have seen in awhile Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikekim Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 stunning work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie_jones Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Great work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richie_jones Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Anymore progress on this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IStoleQuarters Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 Hello Hyperspin fans! Well after a long hiatus I can finally say this particular project is complete at last! My partner in crime had to take a few months break since he was bogged down with work and family so we had to place everything on the back-burner until he could clear his schedule. Once he had an opening a month ago we were able to finally hammer out the last kinks and complete the cab. Special thanks to all who provided help and suggestions! We have both Hyperpin and Hyperspin running on this machine so we met our objective! His wife was very pleased! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suspendedhatch Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Super cool and very impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverback Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 A super fine cocktail table you have there......brilliant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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