PiMame AdvMame bartop Arcade Cabinet

[Martin3232]

I've been working on an arcade cabinet for a number of weeks now, please view my photos at







I've tried to keep costs to a minimum, using MDF sprayed black for the main cabinet decorated with some self printed stickers. Theres a 7inch 12V reversing LCD screen for the display running via composite. It can be rotated to allow for horizonal and vertical game play. I've used an arcade joystick and buttons wired via a usb controller. I've included a small amp to boost the sound which is coming from the analog sound output on the pi. Its all powered from a 12V adaptor with a DC/DC converter to step down to 5V to power the pi.

Software is AdvMame PiMame from Shea Silverman's (visit his blog at http://blog.sheasilverman.com

[PhillyNJ]

Awesome! I am currently doing a full upright version. I have a couple of questions. What amp are you using to boost the sound and what are you using as the USB controller?

[Martin3232]

The usb controller is from ultracabs via eBay http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewit ... 4582161641

I've had the amp a while picked it up from maplins for around £10 its a 3.5w module and has 'germany #M031' written on it. I've found at maplins but unfortunately its no longer available http://mobile.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=37734

here is a photo of the setup before mounting in the cabinet

[PhillyNJ]

Cool - thx

[squish]

Great work Sir. I'd love to set one up and I was wondering if you could share on how you go about doing it. Do you have a blog or documentation of some sort with details on how to set the whole thing up?

[Martin3232]

Squish,

I took a few photos as I put it all together but didn't write anything down, something I really should do. I'm willing to answer any questions you have.

[squish]

Thanks Martin3232 for your response. Sorry if my questions are noob and sounds annoying but can I know the followings:

1. the model of LCD that you got.
2. the type of joystick and buttons that you got
3. what interface controller did you use to control the joystick and buttons to the raspberry pi. If possible if you could let me know the model
4. drawings and dimensions of the cabinet
5. type of power supply to power up the arcade. any schematics?
6. did you have to solder anything?

hope to hear from you. many thanks!

[Martin3232]

1. Purchased from Ebay, it’s a low res screen but works well for older games (not so good with Xwindows), same as the one in this link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-7-TF ... 1c28778237. I wanted to do it all on a budget so finding a small screen for a low price was a priority. It only has composite in, so not the luxury of HDMI and took a bit of fiddling with over scan settings to get the image to fill the screen. I also increase the size of the text when the Pi boots which helps reading the text in the console. The screen was hidden behind a sheet of dark perspex/acrylic sheet I also mounted it on a rotatable panel so games could be played either vertically or horizontally.

2. Joystick and buttons were purchased again from Ebay, from Arcade World UK http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370734170480? ... 26_rdc%3D1

3. The interface was from ulracabs, again from ebay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1045221038 This comes with all the wiring that can be push fitted to each of the buttons. The inerface simply plugs into the usb on the pi and is detected as a joystick. I only use one side of the interface (player 1) but does support 2 players.

4. I dont have any drawings but I'll try and produce some over the next few weeks. I can tell you its as wide as an A4 sheet of paper. Its decorated with stickers I've printed on an inkjet printer.

5. I power it all from a 12v regulated supply, which feeds the LCD screen directly but also powers a DC/DC converter to reduce the power to 5V so the Pi can be powered. The converter was purchased from ebay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0873115373

6. Yep I did have to solder the DC/DC convertor and the amp wires to the speakers. Again no schematics I'll try and draw some up soon.

Thanks Martin3232 for your response. Sorry if my questions are noob and sounds annoying but can I know the followings:

1. the model of LCD that you got.
2. the type of joystick and buttons that you got
3. what interface controller did you use to control the joystick and buttons to the raspberry pi. If possible if you could let me know the model
4. drawings and dimensions of the cabinet
5. type of power supply to power up the arcade. any schematics?
6. did you have to solder anything?

hope to hear from you. many thanks!

[squish]

Many thanks Martin. That surely helped a lot! Same here, I hope to get something up on a budget. You have a great Easter.

[SSilver2k2]

That's beautiful man. Great Job!

[pixelpunk]

Hi Martin
Beautiful work on your bartop arcade, congratulations!! I have built my own mini cocktail table which turned out nicely. However, I can't figure out how to completely control PiMame via the Joystick/Buttons without having to have a keyboard plugged in. Did you find a solution for that problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am a complete Linux newb. THANK YOU!!!

[Martin3232]

Hi Pixelpunk,

you asked:

I can't figure out how to completely control PiMame via the Joystick/Buttons without having to have a keyboard plugged in. Did you find a solution for that problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am a complete Linux newb. THANK YOU!!!

I boot straight into AdvMenu and didn't have to remap anything here it just worked out the box, to allow me to select a rom and run/select it. One of the buttons allows the menu to be displayed, so I can operate all the options via the menu.

When I run AdvMame I used a config file from V0.5 before the xArcade tankstick was implemented, the only reconfiguration I had to do was to configure the ESC key which i configured to action when I press 'Player 1' and 'Player 2' buttons at the same time. I dont have a way to get the menu without the keyboard plugged in, but this doesn't cause any issues unless I want to specifically configure a rom.

I'm using a USB Controller card which all my buttons connect to, are you using the same usb cntroller card?

[pixelpunk]

Hi Martin
Thank you very much for your reply! Yes, I am using the exact same USB controller. It used to work perfectly under PiMame 0.5 but since I installed 0.6 it is no longer working properly. Which config file are you talking about and how did you go about reprogramming the ESC button? (Sorry about the newbie questions, I'm fairly new to Linux…) Thank you very much, I really appreciate your help!

[Martin3232]

Pixelpunk

You need to edit a file called advmame.rc you can do this by typing sudo nano ~/.advance/advmame.rc
This will launch the nano edit with superuser privileges. This file contains all the config for advmame including the key mapping. Look for entries like input_map if your file contains the xarcade stick config most of the settings can be removed to make advmame use default config. Ensure you make a backup first its easy to make mistakes. I configed the ESC key in the same way' I don't have my pi to hand but I'll look tomorrow evening for the exact settings.

The default settings within advmame.rc are as follows:

Code: Select all

input_map[coin5] auto
input_map[coin6] auto
input_map[coin7] auto
input_map[coin8] auto
input_map[event10] auto
input_map[event11] auto
input_map[event12] auto
input_map[event13] auto
input_map[event14] auto
input_map[event1] auto
input_map[event2] auto
input_map[event3] auto
input_map[event4] auto
input_map[event5] auto
input_map[event6] auto
input_map[event7] auto
input_map[event8] auto
input_map[event9] auto
input_map[p1_dialx] auto
input_map[p1_dialy] auto
input_map[p1_lightgunx] auto
input_map[p1_lightguny] auto
input_map[p1_mousex] auto
input_map[p1_mousey] auto
input_map[p1_paddlex] auto
input_map[p1_paddley] auto
input_map[p1_pedalbrake] auto
input_map[p1_pedalgas] auto
input_map[p1_pedalother] auto
input_map[p1_stickx] auto
input_map[p1_sticky] auto
input_map[p1_stickz] auto
input_map[p1_trackballx] auto
input_map[p1_trackbally] auto
input_map[p2_dialx] auto
input_map[p2_dialy] auto
input_map[p2_lightgunx] auto
input_map[p2_lightguny] auto
input_map[p2_mousex] auto
input_map[p2_mousey] auto
input_map[p2_paddlex] auto
input_map[p2_paddley] auto
input_map[p2_pedalbrake] auto
input_map[p2_pedalgas] auto
input_map[p2_pedalother] auto
input_map[p2_stickx] auto
input_map[p2_sticky] auto
input_map[p2_stickz] auto
input_map[p2_trackballx] auto
input_map[p2_trackbally] auto
input_map[p3_dialx] auto
input_map[p3_dialy] auto
input_map[p3_lightgunx] auto
input_map[p3_lightguny] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_a] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_b] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_bet] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_c] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_chance] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_chi] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_d] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_double_up] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_e] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_f] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_flip_flop] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_g] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_h] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_i] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_j] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_k] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_kan] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_l] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_m] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_n] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_pon] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_reach] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_ron] auto
input_map[p3_mahjong_score] auto
input_map[p3_mousex] auto
input_map[p3_mousey] auto
input_map[p3_paddlex] auto
input_map[p3_paddley] auto
input_map[p3_pedalbrake] auto
input_map[p3_pedalgas] auto
input_map[p3_pedalother] auto
input_map[p3_stickx] auto
input_map[p3_sticky] auto
input_map[p3_stickz] auto
input_map[p3_trackballx] auto
input_map[p3_trackbally] auto
input_map[p4_dialx] auto
input_map[p4_dialy] auto
input_map[p4_lightgunx] auto
input_map[p4_lightguny] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_a] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_b] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_bet] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_c] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_chance] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_chi] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_d] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_double_up] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_e] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_f] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_flip_flop] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_g] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_h] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_i] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_j] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_k] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_kan] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_l] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_m] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_n] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_pon] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_reach] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_ron] auto
input_map[p4_mahjong_score] auto
input_map[p4_mousex] auto
input_map[p4_mousey] auto
input_map[p4_paddlex] auto
input_map[p4_paddley] auto
input_map[p4_pedalbrake] auto
input_map[p4_pedalgas] auto
input_map[p4_pedalother] auto
input_map[p4_stickx] auto
input_map[p4_sticky] auto
input_map[p4_stickz] auto
input_map[p4_trackballx] auto
input_map[p4_trackbally] auto
input_map[safequit] auto
input_map[service_coin5] auto
input_map[service_coin6] auto
input_map[service_coin7] auto
input_map[service_coin8] auto
input_map[ui_toggle_ui] auto

I've also added the following, to remap the start, coin in and cancel:

Code: Select all

input_map[start1] joystick_button[0,9] or keyboard[0,1]
input_map[coin1] joystick_button[0,8] or keyboard[0,5]
input_map[ui_cancel] joystick_button[0,8] joystick_button[0,9] or keyboard[0,esc]

For full details of the advmame.rc file see http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-advmame.html

[Twitch0601]

Hi. I am looking into making a mini 2 player arcade soon and I really like the fact that you can rotate your screen. I'm curious if you happen to have and drawing of how you built your cab and also how do you have it set up to make the games rotate when you need to. I would really appreciate some input. Thanks.

[DigitalLumberjack]

Hi, Very nice project

I like the rotatiing screen, should be good for vertical shootem ups

If you want to lower a little bit more the price of the cab, you could have wire controllers directly on GPIOs. I do this on all my mods and cab, that make an at least 20$ economy

Have fun on your cab