Thinking about the final design (again)

Admittedly this blog has gone a bit quite but I’m still tinkering with ideas for the Vec-Cab. The practical build is soon coming to an end; there have been some delays because I have had some parts produced by CNC. Soon these parts will be completed and I can then integrate all together and take some photos. I will then be able to play the Vectrex in its new cabinet.

But I don't want to stop there. I'm going to do some hardware and software development so that it will be  a proper arcade cabinet. E.g. you need to put coins in to play a game. In addition I want to add an external amplifier and connect to the sound signal from the Vectrex PCB. Plus I want to integrate the VecVox and my Autofire dongle electronics. The diagram below shows the initial concept I have in mind. 

To change the game cartridge  it will not be pratical to do it at the slot on the right of the Vectrex due to lack of space when the Vectrex is in the arcade cabinet. What I am going to do is run some ribbon cable from the slot to a slot connector mounted in a  box underneath the Vectrex. This box will be accessible when opening the arcade cabinet coin door and therefore allow  for more convenient changing of the games cartrdige. In addition this box will house the VecVox and AutoFire electronics. All cables from the Vectrex and peripherals such as the coin detector and the control panel will mate with connectors mounted on the box. This should allow a tidy implementation and easy change of parts. As I said this is just a concept but future diagrams will be more complete and will show the exact wiring details.

Some nice t-mold ordered

The existing plastic  t-molding on the cabinet looks very abused and indicates the cabinet must have had a hard working life when it was earning a living from the public. There are quite a few cracked areas, cigarrette burns and  the t-mold is coming away from the grove underneath at some areas. The t-mold is unusual in that it has a two curved grove pattern in it and that makes it look more expensive.

Unfortunately after a long search I still haven't managed to find an identical replacement for it. I did already purchase on Ebay a bag of five small sample t-mold offcuts to see what they could look like on the cabinet.

The modern  t-mold you can buy these days looks quite cheap and they don't come with the grove pattern. The colours also look quite matt. The best modern t-mold seems to be the chrome version, however I quite liked the brass/gold colour of the original t-mold on the cabinet as it went well with the wood colour.

Yesterday for the first time I spotted on Ebay a good candidate t-mold for the cabinet. I had never seen it on an arcade cabinet before. Looks like something that would be seen on the side of a casino table! Its a gold edged t-mold with a blue pattern on the surface. I think this will work, as the blue will also go with the blue theme I have adopted for the screen bezel. Also blue is the colour that seems to have been unofficially adopted by MB for their European Vectrex promotion - and my goal is to make the finished arcade cabinet look like a real cabinet that could have been produced by MB. Anyway I have just ordered 25m of the stuff!

The cabinet control panel

When I first got the arcade cabinet it was accompanied with a control panel.  The control panel provided controls for two players (each player had a joystick and three buttons and there were two additional buttons to select a one or two player game).

When I originally arranged for the cabinet width to be reduced I knew there wouldn’t be enough room to include controls for two players. The finish of the control panel also didn’t look that good. As a temporary measure the area for the joystick on the left hand side of the control panel was simply cut off. As you can see from the photo the remaining joystick is slightly off centre and there are a number of holes and possibilities for a total of 8 buttons. The original Vectrex controller only had four buttons and for me the positioning of the buttons on the arcade control panel is less than ideal. I also am not very much in favour of having the joystick securing screws visible on the top surface of the control panel. Therefore, I will investigate the ideal joystick and button layout and with the intention of making a completely new control panel – I’ll cover this subject  in a future post (very soon).