MAME Cabinet Planning Phase

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iworkinpixels
 
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:43 pm

MAME Cabinet Planning Phase

Post by iworkinpixels »

Hi everybody, Tony here. I am about to get started building the half-scale mame cab I have wanted to make for my kid for a while, and I'd like some help making some decisions, particularly about the coin acceptor.

Stuff Decided So Far:
  • It will be based on the X-MEN 6 player cab, which should leave enough room on the control panel at half scale for me to get 4 players on there so Ninja Turtles and Simpsons are options, and it should be much less top heavy.
  • Screen is a 19 inch LCD that I have laying around.
  • Brains will be an Acer Aspire R1600... plenty of grunt to get smooth video out of.
  • It will also be a piggy bank, so I will be using an Adafruit 4 coin acceptor to handle the monies. I am adding a separate mechanical quarter acceptor and some 3D printed parts below this to ensure that quarters go in one bucket (for use on laundry day) and everything else goes in another (to be taken to coin star at a later date).
  • An I-PAC 4 will handle the controls
The Acceptable version of how the coins work would be to have any coins trigger an accumulator on an Arduino, which sends the current total via serial back to the computer, where it is stored in a database so that it can be restored when the machine starts. The MAME portion would have coin buttons, and the piggy bank system would be completely separate.

The totally rad version would be to have each coin inserted (no matter the denomination) enable one button press on any of the 4 coin buttons, and after one press has occurred, the buttons are locked out until the next coin is inserted. This allows multi player games to route the credit to the appropriate player, and requires the user to feed the piggy bank to play. :)

However, I have no idea how I would accomplish the totally rad version with the arduino/I-PAC.

Does anybody have a rough idea of how I might accomplish this?

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iworkinpixels
 
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Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:43 pm

Re: MAME Cabinet Planning Phase

Post by iworkinpixels »

After talking to Ladyada, I will be ditching the I-PAC and going with an arduino leo for everything. This allows me to do all of this in software, and not have to worry about wiring at all. And apparently the piggy bank code from the blog already supports keeping the accumulator after power down, so looks like we are good to go! I still need to figure out how to get the sides cut, but wiring will be a simple job.

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