JAMMA test rig box (Part 2)

I decided to package up my JAMMA test rig so that I could demo Crazy Otto at Rochester BarCamp for today.  My design was basically a box that would house the entire thing, with a nice control panel for player 1.  As you can see in the above image, I have the A/V cable going to an external monitor.  Broken out on the box are player 1 and 2 start, coin 1, and player 1 controls - joystick and 3 buttons.  On the right side of the box are the three "coin box" controls -- Test, Tilt, and Service, for testing those functions of the board.  Also on that side is a nice handle to help it be portable.

This is a continuation of part 1, where I updated the AV connections of the rig.

This is about the extent of blueprints I have for this.  I knew I needed 14" depth for the monitor, and that it needed about a 2" rise from the back to the front to put it at a good angle.  I wanted it to be 18" wide, and 24" deep.  That would give enough room for a game board inside of it, as well as for a decent sized control panel.

I started by cutting a sheet of plywood I've had in our garage for a while.  I also built the control panel using spare parts I had.

Some standard microswitch buttons, and a nice ball-top leaf-switch joystick.

The basic construction is that I glued some cleats on the inside of each side. Then the back, bottom, front and control panel will be screwed to it.  After that, it looked like this:

I also cut and drilled a small metal bracket to hold the power supply in place, which you can see in the above.  The coin 1 button on the front has a 12v light in it.  The old P2 controller is still attached to the JAMMA rig, in case I want to test/play 2 player games.  You can also see the 1 1/4" fine thread drywall screws holding it together here.  From here, the only change is that I painted it, stinking up our garage in the process. heh.  The top lid hooks under the control panel, and has a cleat in the back to keep it from sliding off the back.  There's a single screw to hold it in place, and to let it be carried withot the contents falling out.

The great thing about this thing is that it's easy to tote this thing around to play/demo games and such.  It takes two trips since the monitor is cumbersome, and the box itself is pretty heavy, but it's SIGNIFICANTLY easier than toting around a full arcade cabinet.

For reference, here's the JAMMA pinout standard:  (Most games since the late 1980s use this or a variant of it -- for example, Neo Geo adds additional buttons on unused pins, Rampart uses a trackball on the joystick pins, and Mortal Kombat has additional buttons on another interface harness.)

The power and ground at the top portion are wired directly to the old PC power supply.  Coin counters and lockout coils are not wired to anything.  The speaker wires are broken out to a RCA plug, and the Video (RGB,Sync) are out to a DIN connector, as seen in the previous post.  Service, Tilt, and Test are wired to the three switches on the side of the box.  Coin switch 1, and the two start buttons are on the control panel, as are all of the 1P controls (on the right).

Jasper's Play Table

For Xmas, Jasper got a Plan Toys "Eco Town" (along with their parking garage and cars and such.)  We had it on the floor for him, but he was constantly walking over it, causing the play mat to fold up on itself, the town to fall apart, and so on.  We wanted to get a table for him to play with it on instead of it being on the floor.  Looking around, we found that the Plan Toys table was about $150 and didn't really have enough room for the parking garage, and such.  I knew I could make one less expensive, although not as "pretty".

The design is based on just simple 2x4 construction, held together with drywall screws (aka the duct tape of screws.)  I wanted to make it larger than the Eco Town, which was roughly 4' by 2'6".  I measured what the town + parking garage would take up, which was approximately 3' by 5'.   I was in a toy store recently and vaguely measured the height of a toy train table at the bottom of my knee, which is about 18" up from the floor.

Here's the basic sketch I made late on Friday night.  It shows a basic 2x4 frame that is 3' deep by 5' wide, with four 18" tall legs.  I decided not to put in any additional cross bracing as it is so short that they wouldn't really do much.  If i were wrong, i could always add them later.  Also, the way this is constructed, I can easily replace the legs with longer ones later, making it a standard table/work surface height.  One of the things that we wanted was to have a lip around the outer edge, so that cars wouldn't roll off to the floor.

I bought all of the wood the next morning, and even had them cut it in the store, so that I would only have to drill and screw it all together later that day.  Here's the full parts list:

- two 2x4, cut to pieces:  5', 2'9" (2'9" + two thicknesses of 2x4s = 3'), leftover
- one 2x4, cut to pieces: 18", 18", 18", 18", 18", leftover (one extra leg, because why not.)
- one 1x3, cut to pieces: 3', 3', leftover (for the lip)
- two 1x3, cut to pieces: 5' 1 1/2", leftover (for the lip, with added width for the side lip)
- one piece of 1/2" 4x8 plywood, cut to 5' by 3'
- One box of 2 1/2" drywall screws for connecting 2x4s into 2x4s
- One box of 1 5/8" drywall screws for connecting 1x3s into 2x4s
- finish nails (i had some leftover from before)

Total cost of materials was $54.  Quite a bit less than they sell the single-purpose table I could buy.

Construction was straightforward.

First, I attached the 5' 2x4s to the 2'9" 2x4s, using the plywood top to help line them up, since I'm an idiot and don't own a framing square.  Each one was connected at the corners using two 2 1/2" drywall screws, with the wood pre-drilled with a countersink so that none of the wood splits.

Once the top frame was completed, I put the plywood on top of it and starting in one corner, countersink-drilled holes and used the 1 5/8" screws to hold it on.  Once I finished one corner, I lined up the frame with the top for the next corner, and worked my way around it to get the frame to line up, square, with the plywood.

Next, with the table upside-down ("top" of the table on the floor), I drilled and screwed in the 18" long 2x4s in each corner, to act as legs.  I kept the top of the 2x4 against the plywood, and attached two screws into the 5' long front rail, and one screw through the 2' 9" long side rail.  This serves to hold the leg without it wobbling, and to additionally hold the frame together.  In the future, It's 3 screws to remove the legs, to replace them with longer legs.

Next, I added the 1x3 side rail lip.  I started by lining up the 3' sides. I used a piece of scrap 1x3 to get the proper height. It sticks up 3/4" above the table top.  After I got the 3' side on, I moved to the 5' 1 1/2" length and got that attached, lining it up with the first side... all the way around.  Once I nailed this on, It was basically complete!  A few more nails in the future, or perhaps using screws to hold on the lip might be necessary.

Just a detail showing the corner construction.

Jasper seems to like it a lot, and I think it will last for many years to come.  I may need to build a rolly-box to slide underneath it to store toys, but that's a project for another day.