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I'm a 42 year old guy who grew up in arcades in the 80's and 90's. I love arcade games and pinball, and video games in general. I've also been an electronics technician for 20 years. (15 as a civvie, 5 in the military)
This WAS my mancave a while ago. It housed my custom simpit that I made for racing and flight sim games. It had three 42 inch TVs for surround view, as well as 12 transducers combined with SimVibe software to give vibrational feeback from telemetry data from the racing games I played. The console on the right rotates around to switch between a shifter and flightstick. The dash has two tablets that act as tachometer / speedometer, and a button box / control panel. I love it!
That being said, I always thought the 3 screens (that spanned almost 10 feet!) were a bit much. So when I got myself a 55 inch UHD 4K curved TV, for my normal PC gaming, I found I loved playing my racing games on it much better. I would get 2/3 of the same visible screen field of view that I had with 3 screens using a custom 21:9 resolution of 3840x1640, with much nicer colour and resolution. Also, with VR headsets coming out, I wouldn't be using those screens as much when I (someday) get one.
So I decided to ditch the 3 screens setup and use them to make a combination Pinball and Arcade cabinet that would also play PC games! (I can move the simpit in front of my UHD TV's new location easily when I want to use it).
Commence the start of the creation of PinKadia!
After reading ALOT of posts of other projects, here is where my priorities were, and what I wanted:
-I wanted something that would play Future Pinball, Pinball FX2, The Pinball Arcade, Visual Pinball, MAME Arcade games, and PC games (ie fighting and action games)
-I wanted two player controls with actual (PC / Xbox 360 / One) hardware for maximum compatibility and ease for all games
-it had to be made using many of the components I already had (I already had most of the electronics needed)
-it had to be made as cheaply as possible to keep me from becoming single (my wife is not a big gamer)
Things that will come later on down the line and were not a priority:
-DOF, LED controlled lighting, feedback, etc
-printed artwork
- or otherwords... anything really costly that I didn't already have.
So I came up with this mock-up to tide me over and help me figure exactly what I wanted.
What a beauty.... boy my wife just "LOVED" seeing this in my mancave for weeks on end.... but it really helped me tinker with different ideas instead of rushing into things. What I found was that I wanted to have a 3 screen setup, and I wanted to make use of the ENTIRE 3rd screen. Not just for the DMD like everyone else, but also to extend the backglass (only possible with Future Pinball) to make use of the excellent movie clips / colour DMDs / gadgets and other things you could see in Future Pinball. I HATE trying to "squish" a square backglass into a wide rectangular screen. This would allow me to make use of that space in a good way!
Both Pinball FX2 and The Pinball Arcade can now support DMD / displays on the third screen (TPA uses a mod, PBFX2 has native support now). So with the extra space left over on the 3rd screen, I can put nice animated logos or whatever I want there using Pinball X as a frontend, as well as having animated videos for the backglass.
By having arcade controls on the cabinet this would also allow me to play MAME vertical games on the playfield, and MAME horizontal games on the backglass or playfield. I could also play almost any PC action game on the backglass as well (since they are 16x9 games).
I also wanted to make use of my 5.1 speakers in the cabinet.
So on with the build... I began with de-bezeling one of my 42 inch TVs, only to find that the main support for the framing of the TV came for the plastic housing itself. (This is because this TV is not an edge-lit LED TV, its a back-lit LED TV) So I had to keep the TV housing fastened together.
I cut off the plastic for the IR / Power LED, and control PCB. I just taped the PCB on the bottom of the TV where it won't be seen.
For the size of the cabinet itself, I used the standard Williams Widebody plans that you can find all over the Internet. I then adjusted to sizes to work with my 3 screens. 42 inch TV for playfield, 27 inch monitor for backglass, 19 inch 4:3 monitor for DMD / extended backglass. I had found a place here in Canada that had Pinball legs and bolts for a decent price. The Canadian dollar is horrible right now, so getting anything from the States can be expensive.
I was able to get the following built in a day.
This was a mock up for the arcade controls...I tried a couple of different layouts to see how I would like it.
Three buttons on the side. Main flipper, 2nd flipper / special, and nudge. I personally can do without a "real" nudge control for now. A plunger was also not a priority either. That may come later. So I just have a normal button for now until i get a big dome type Launch button. The coin door is not for functionality, but just for looks and simple access. Maybe i'll get it working later on.
Now comes the sucky part.... taking it apart for mudding. All open cut parts of the MDF were sealed with dry wall compound. Other areas were covered with wood filler.
Then all the sanding which made a lovely dusty mess in the mancave.
This WAS my mancave a while ago. It housed my custom simpit that I made for racing and flight sim games. It had three 42 inch TVs for surround view, as well as 12 transducers combined with SimVibe software to give vibrational feeback from telemetry data from the racing games I played. The console on the right rotates around to switch between a shifter and flightstick. The dash has two tablets that act as tachometer / speedometer, and a button box / control panel. I love it!
That being said, I always thought the 3 screens (that spanned almost 10 feet!) were a bit much. So when I got myself a 55 inch UHD 4K curved TV, for my normal PC gaming, I found I loved playing my racing games on it much better. I would get 2/3 of the same visible screen field of view that I had with 3 screens using a custom 21:9 resolution of 3840x1640, with much nicer colour and resolution. Also, with VR headsets coming out, I wouldn't be using those screens as much when I (someday) get one.
So I decided to ditch the 3 screens setup and use them to make a combination Pinball and Arcade cabinet that would also play PC games! (I can move the simpit in front of my UHD TV's new location easily when I want to use it).
Commence the start of the creation of PinKadia!
After reading ALOT of posts of other projects, here is where my priorities were, and what I wanted:
-I wanted something that would play Future Pinball, Pinball FX2, The Pinball Arcade, Visual Pinball, MAME Arcade games, and PC games (ie fighting and action games)
-I wanted two player controls with actual (PC / Xbox 360 / One) hardware for maximum compatibility and ease for all games
-it had to be made using many of the components I already had (I already had most of the electronics needed)
-it had to be made as cheaply as possible to keep me from becoming single (my wife is not a big gamer)
Things that will come later on down the line and were not a priority:
-DOF, LED controlled lighting, feedback, etc
-printed artwork
- or otherwords... anything really costly that I didn't already have.
So I came up with this mock-up to tide me over and help me figure exactly what I wanted.
What a beauty.... boy my wife just "LOVED" seeing this in my mancave for weeks on end.... but it really helped me tinker with different ideas instead of rushing into things. What I found was that I wanted to have a 3 screen setup, and I wanted to make use of the ENTIRE 3rd screen. Not just for the DMD like everyone else, but also to extend the backglass (only possible with Future Pinball) to make use of the excellent movie clips / colour DMDs / gadgets and other things you could see in Future Pinball. I HATE trying to "squish" a square backglass into a wide rectangular screen. This would allow me to make use of that space in a good way!
Both Pinball FX2 and The Pinball Arcade can now support DMD / displays on the third screen (TPA uses a mod, PBFX2 has native support now). So with the extra space left over on the 3rd screen, I can put nice animated logos or whatever I want there using Pinball X as a frontend, as well as having animated videos for the backglass.
By having arcade controls on the cabinet this would also allow me to play MAME vertical games on the playfield, and MAME horizontal games on the backglass or playfield. I could also play almost any PC action game on the backglass as well (since they are 16x9 games).
I also wanted to make use of my 5.1 speakers in the cabinet.
So on with the build... I began with de-bezeling one of my 42 inch TVs, only to find that the main support for the framing of the TV came for the plastic housing itself. (This is because this TV is not an edge-lit LED TV, its a back-lit LED TV) So I had to keep the TV housing fastened together.
I cut off the plastic for the IR / Power LED, and control PCB. I just taped the PCB on the bottom of the TV where it won't be seen.
For the size of the cabinet itself, I used the standard Williams Widebody plans that you can find all over the Internet. I then adjusted to sizes to work with my 3 screens. 42 inch TV for playfield, 27 inch monitor for backglass, 19 inch 4:3 monitor for DMD / extended backglass. I had found a place here in Canada that had Pinball legs and bolts for a decent price. The Canadian dollar is horrible right now, so getting anything from the States can be expensive.
I was able to get the following built in a day.
This was a mock up for the arcade controls...I tried a couple of different layouts to see how I would like it.
Three buttons on the side. Main flipper, 2nd flipper / special, and nudge. I personally can do without a "real" nudge control for now. A plunger was also not a priority either. That may come later. So I just have a normal button for now until i get a big dome type Launch button. The coin door is not for functionality, but just for looks and simple access. Maybe i'll get it working later on.
Now comes the sucky part.... taking it apart for mudding. All open cut parts of the MDF were sealed with dry wall compound. Other areas were covered with wood filler.
Then all the sanding which made a lovely dusty mess in the mancave.
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