The Technodrome Arcade Project

[superbeckmann]

G'day all you arcade enthusiasts.

I stated "The Technodrome Project" about a year ago now.

Basically its a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles themed cab.

Nothing like the original TMNT cabs, That would be awesome!

I really should have documented the progress a little better then what I have.

This is my first attempt at building an arcade and I've had a heap of fun along the way.

First the tech inside;

Asus N53S Notebook

• Intel Core™ i7 2630QM Processor
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• 500GB HDD
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M with 1GB DDR3 VRAM
  

External 1TB HDD (Hyperspin, Games ect).

Logitech X-530s sound system (Over kill).

LG 32" LCD TV.

7 port USB hub.

Combat King Joystick (2 Player USB).

Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver

2 Xbox 360 controllers.

Blutooth USB dongle.

Xbox 360 (JTAG)

Wii (CFG Loader)

PS2 PHAT (Open PS2 Loader)

10 port power-board.

I made this tech map to get my head around the setup.

Now to the cab.

White base coat to seal the wood.

Black gloss paint. . .1st mistake, but it's my first cab so it's all a learning experience.

Painting the cab gloss made it very difficult to paint the art work straight on.

As you can see I originally put a light up in the marquee area. . . 2nd mistake. It has now been moved.

I installed a shelf so you could easily access the various consoles and notebook.

Super Meat-Boy up and running

Plenty more to upload.

To be continued shortly.

[KlopjerO]

I totally dig your Visio map..

[superbeckmann]

Cheers mate,

It helped with the cabling solution.

[Jaketyler]

Where do you house the platforms? In the case? Just curious why not use emulators for the platforms, so you don't have to use disks. I am asking as a newcomer to learn, not shoot holes in your build. I am planning a build myself and like to understand why people do what they do.

[superbeckmann]

I jumped the gun a bit and got stuck into the graphics.

Trolling the net I came across this guy Lucaclaretti

I loved his work. in particular his Bebop & Rocksteady renditions.

I projected the images with a projector onto the side of the cab

and used Posca paint pen's to draw/paint the images straight on.

It took a few coats to get the colour to pop.

You probably have see these Combat King controllers on Ebay before.

Far cheaper then the X-Arcade controllers. Easy to setup and and easy to take apart.

So I replaced the buttons and sticks to match the rest of the cab.

Update soon. . .

[superbeckmann]

I tried to emulate the the PS2. It was buggy as hell. The Wii does have a good emulator called Dolphin Emulator but you need a high end PC to run the thing smoothly. You cant emulate the Xbox 360. . . yet. I'll post some pics of the shelve and console's soon.

[superbeckmann]

Here's a look at the matching Xbox controllers.

I have a few old controller laying around so I re-shelled them to match the Combat King.

Here's a look at the shelf that the consoles sit on.

Cabling will be cleaned up closer to the finish.

To be continued . . .

[tkropp17]

will you be doing game selection for the consoles within HyperSpin?

[superbeckmann]

Nope, the consoles run separately to Hyperspin.

There's no way for Hyperspin to control the consoles. . . At least I don't think there is.

[urk]

Was research the Posca paint pens. They're water-based. Did you put a clear coat or other protective coating once the artwork was done?

[superbeckmann]

That's the idea. I haven't tested a clear coat on it yet. One more coat with the posca then ill seal it.