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My new cabinet project


No1Stoney
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Hi everyone,

For those that are interested in these cabs, I am starting work on my 2nd build. This time I am converting a real fruit machine cabinet (Barcrest genesis cab) and turning it into a multi-fruit machine.

Seeing everyone's builds recently gave me the itch again to get stuck into another project and as I have a good friend who wants my old cab, I am selling him my old one and creating a new one for myself. These will be linked via the internet to share RAM states, so we never know what state a machine will be in. Seeing it's just between 2 friends, this will be done via a basic OneDrive account which will host the RAMs.

I have not long started the project, but I thought I'd share my progress as I go along with you. 

This was my original cabinet (now sold)

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And now onto my new one.... (Please not machine was pretty beat up before this project and was not working before anyone moans about me breaking a cash beast)

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So onto removing the glass. I was totally winging it here as I had NO IDEA how to remove the glass and I knew that once I'd committed to stripping stuff out, there wasn't really any going back.

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Both glasses removed. Not too bad after all once you know how to remove the braces.

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So I want to use 2 screens in this machine, one on the top glass (portrait) showing the actual machine, and a bottom smaller screen in landscape showing info about the machine
and also will be used to choose a machine to play.

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Then I tested that the panel I made would actually fit into the machine and also that it remained secure. Essentially it is 6mm hardboard supported by brackets all round, but it does have to support a fair bit of weight. I was pleasantly surprised that it felt very secure. 

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This is what it would look like when closed, obviously buttons and painting needed to make this panel complete. Not to mention pacdrives and all the wiring.

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Top panel created in a similar way, this time housing a bigger monitor and also a touch screen mini monitor in the corner.. I'm hoping to be able to use this as some kind of touch screen music player of some type. Maybe linked to my spotify account. Original coin mech will remain but repainted black. The whole cab is getting resprayed black too.

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Top panel all drilled out. The bottom holes are for 2 speakers that sit either side of the monitor.

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Bottom panel all painted and buttons inserted. The pic makes the buttons look 'wonky' but they are in fact straight when secured properly. The break in the wood at the bottom is because of an obstruction in the cab. This is completely hidden when in place.

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Top panel pained along with several other bits from the cab. This is now ready to be filled with buttons and wiring.

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And that's where I am at the minute. I'll keep everyone updated, but I am fully respraying the cab in a few days, then putting the panels and cab all back together before wiring the whole thing up.

It will take coins with the original coin mech and slot, and payout into the existing payout tray. I have to design a base for the hoppers to sit on and put some tubes in to direct coins to the new hoppers. 

I'm still yet to decide on the exact software for my front end. I did create my own for my original cab and I'm unsure yet whether I'll adapt that and use that again or use another like Fruitbar.

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited by No1Stoney
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utterly awesome idea, project and donor machine cab too.. really liking the idea of shared ram states that really is the way forward for multiplayer mfme.. is there any way that process could be upscaled to be useable for this site or at the least other pairs of users? I'm completely baffled how it would work but blimey it would be awesome not to know the ram state of a machine making the authenticity much higher for me at least

thanks for the details and pat yourself on the back!!

living the dream

 

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Will be watching this thread with interest @No1Stoney

When i first saw the 2 screen setup i thought you was going to cut a layout in half so the reels part go on the bottom monitor and the top board going on the top screen... tho upon reading i see the bottom screen is for info only...

having built a MFME Keyboard i am semi tempted to make a cab, but one thing stands in my way... the cash to finance it!

I need a better job, damn it!

Can't wait to see your progress with this... good luck matey!

Cheers.

Gary

🍒🍒🍒

 

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On 20/03/2022 at 21:50, woodsy said:

utterly awesome idea, project and donor machine cab too.. really liking the idea of shared ram states that really is the way forward for multiplayer mfme.. is there any way that process could be upscaled to be useable for this site or at the least other pairs of users? I'm completely baffled how it would work but blimey it would be awesome not to know the ram state of a machine making the authenticity much higher for me at least

thanks for the details and pat yourself on the back!!

Thanks! Yes sharing .RAM states in theory should be very simple to do on a larger scale. I did attempt such a program a while ago but I couldn't get the downloading and uploading on files to be stable enough to ever release openly. For this project it will be using a Onedrive account as that seems to work great in testing. For anyone else who has friends who enjoy playing MFME you could set up a personal account and all login to it on their pcs. Then have the mfme roms all on there. Granted there's a 5gb limit for a free account but thats still plenty of layouts to enjoy. 

 

@MPU_FIVE I did toy with that concept of bottom reels on bottom screen, but I decided it would be too much work to chop all the layouts around to make them stretch over the screens perfectly intersecting the top and bottom glasses. However its something I might look into again one day. The beauty of creating a cab of your own is you can customise it just how you want. i am looking to use the bottom screen for displaying the 'topbox' on multilayer games. But I first need to see if I can get a 2nd mfme screen to default to the 2nd screen and also whether it actually looks any good doing that. And yes cost does start adding up quickly but luckily for me over time I have a spare set of hoppers, buttons, coin mech, wiring and pc hardware to make a dent in that. 

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2 hours ago, No1Stoney said:

Thanks! Yes sharing .RAM states in theory should be very simple to do on a larger scale. I did attempt such a program a while ago but I couldn't get the downloading and uploading on files to be stable enough to ever release openly. For this project it will be using a Onedrive account as that seems to work great in testing. For anyone else who has friends who enjoy playing MFME you could set up a personal account and all login to it on their pcs. Then have the mfme roms all on there. Granted there's a 5gb limit for a free account but thats still plenty of layouts to enjoy. 

 

firstly WOW, secondly with all due respect and complete understanding, I ask are you minded to facilitate a open invite .ram archive via onedrive? totally uninformed about how such things are possible/impossible/manageable or where to begin besides google etc. I ask though as it just makes mfme so much more attractive again, would you consider a tutorial for myself and others who will be keen to make a shared .ram archive etc? I really would like to know, and if at all possible join yours, or make my own and build up awareness and so on, lastly, could it ever be facilitated as a group/forum option, or is that more like a organization and need supervision?

please let me know your thoughts, i will begin gathering a select few for the beta attempt if i manage to learn your instructions on this..

living the dream

 

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The idea is simple enough. Those who want to participate would all log into the same onedrive account on their pcs. Then simply load the roms from the ondrive folder as normal in MFME.

 

The problem with this is that you can only log into 2 onedrive accounts if only 1 is a free personal account. Any more, and you have to pay. 

As my pcs are logged into my main account I can't add a throwaway account for mfme without paying. 

The reason why its good for mfme is that onedrive acts just the same as local storage on your pc so mfme finds and loads the files just like when on your pc. 

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7 minutes ago, No1Stoney said:

The idea is simple enough. Those who want to participate would all log into the same onedrive account on their pcs. Then simply load the roms from the ondrive folder as normal in MFME.

 

The problem with this is that you can only log into 2 onedrive accounts if only 1 is a free personal account. Any more, and you have to pay. 

As my pcs are logged into my main account I can't add a throwaway account for mfme without paying. 

The reason why its good for mfme is that onedrive acts just the same as local storage on your pc so mfme finds and loads the files just like when on your pc. 

thanks for the detailed info.

the latter point is indeed perfect for mfme

so if i'm following this correctly, you'll for example make your second account the rom holder and anyone with the login can use it to load the roms etc.

what if you made your one, i copied the entire files within, created my own second one and duplicated the login details with a minor difference of course and would that enable more options/accounts? i'm confusing myself haha

hope you get my meaning.

but the main point is; your second account will hold the mfme ram states, i/we/any can login and it will save the exit states?

living the dream

 

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By all means, create a Dropbox account for yourself as its really easy to do. I can't at the moment because I already have an account and can only use 1 at a time when they are free personal accounts. Then pop your roms in there. Any pc logged into that Dropbox will have access and as a result, will share the same rams 

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Quick update. Painted the cab outside today and then put the panels back inside. A quick wire up of the pc and monitors just to see it working. And this is the result. 

Still lots to do, wiring the buttons up properly , coin mech and hoppers to wire up.

But I'm quite happy with the results so far.

 

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29 minutes ago, No1Stoney said:

Quick update. Painted the cab outside today and then put the panels back inside. A quick wire up of the pc and monitors just to see it working. And this is the result. 

Still lots to do, wiring the buttons up properly , coin mech and hoppers to wire up.

But I'm quite happy with the results so far.

 

 

 

 

mate thanks once more for the detailed info, i will begin trying to get my head around it shortly.

HOWEVER i must ask you to please help me first one last time... PLEASE swap the cancel and collect buttons around hahaha

living the dream

 

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35 minutes ago, No1Stoney said:

By all means, create a Dropbox account for yourself as its really easy to do. I can't at the moment because I already have an account and can only use 1 at a time when they are free personal accounts. Then pop your roms in there. Any pc logged into that Dropbox will have access and as a result, will share the same rams 

just to clarify as i take a little extra time with learning sometimes, and i hope you understand..

example.

i create a dropbox account, save my game there, have a open login and password to the account? that way anyone can access. think i got that bit.

my query here is. do i put the whole game folder in? roms,gam,ram,fml? or just the gam and ram like people do for happy rams in the forum?

sorry to be so pedantic, once i learn it i get it and then i'll teach others to pay it back of course.

last thing in the event all that is up and running, would a user have to download the folder from dropbox and copy it into their own library or is there a way for mfme to autofind it like it does on our own pc's (you mentioned something like that and hoped it was a option for ease)??

i know you have enough on your hands with your project sorry, but i really see the future of this branch of the tree being very worthwhile getting going.

thanks once again

living the dream

 

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10 hours ago, Reg said:

This is going to be a very unique machine, I have to ask and sorry if I missed, the top panel on the left hand side are you doing something like I did with prize ?

Well I'm still not 100% sure on its implementation yet. Its a touch screen so originally I was thinking something like a controller for music, maybe linked to Spotify or something where I can choose a playlist tap for next/previous etc. If that doesn't work out or can't find a suitable add-on that works well then it will be another screen that shows some kind of info for the current machine such as jackpot amount like you mentioned. One issue I came across but didn't think about originally is tapping that screen takes focus away from MFME so I need to figure a way around that 🤔.

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10 hours ago, woodsy said:

mate thanks once more for the detailed info, i will begin trying to get my head around it shortly.

HOWEVER i must ask you to please help me first one last time... PLEASE swap the cancel and collect buttons around hahaha

Haha yes noted and actioned. 😆 that was because I was so eager to get the machine back together and wanted to see how it looked after painting, I forgot the original order of buttons. The button decals will be changed anyway at some point 

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7 minutes ago, No1Stoney said:

Well I'm still not 100% sure on its implementation yet. Its a touch screen so originally I was thinking something like a controller for music, maybe linked to Spotify or something where I can choose a playlist tap for next/previous etc. If that doesn't work out or can't find a suitable add-on that works well then it will be another screen that shows some kind of info for the current machine such as jackpot amount like you mentioned. One issue I came across but didn't think about originally is tapping that screen takes focus away from MFME so I need to figure a way around that 🤔.

In play - that screen goes black for me - it's actually how I would want it to avoid distraction - but it's because MFME on Full Screen max takes over everything.

Just saw that there and thought how cool it looked.

This is going to be an epic cab when you have it done.

Would you be able to post pics of your original to this thread please as well ( if you don't mind ). :)
 

 

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On 25/03/2022 at 07:47, Reg said:

Would you be able to post pics of your original to this thread please as well ( if you don't mind ). :)

I've put some pics up now @Reg.

 

Wired up all my buttons and lamps today so that's all working great.

Tomorrow I'll work on the mech, then the next job will be to get hoppers working, which is going to be very tricky due to limited space and other constraints. There's a small chance I'll have to make it a 1 hopper cab (£1s only) but we will see. Then once its all together, I'll get the software side of things up and running properly.

 

 

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Do you plan to edit layouts to make use of the bottom screen? My one from years ago was an attempt at that, but made alot of editing :(

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The plan is to use the bottom screen as a sort of information screen for the machine being played which will include money in/out & percentage for the current session. And a graphic showing what the buttons do in relation to each machine. 

Also something I did think about, but not convinced it will look right, is use the bottom screen as the topbox for some 3 player machines. 

This is very much still developing as I go so I am not exactly sure how it will all look in the end. 

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Your cab looks amazing No1 !! Really impressed with it! Plus, I love the idea of sharing RAM files with your mate for that real-life experience 🙂

On the subject of your 'smaller' screen - have you considered running it on a Raspberry Pi or something along those lines to keep it separate from the main PC if all it's doing is a music controller? Or a cheap small form factor PC?

Alternatively (and I've no idea if this would work) I know there are programs that let you have more control over multiple monitors - if memory serves there was one called multimon? I'm not sure if this would help with the 'losing focus' issue or not - I've never gone that in-depth with them but just ideas I had as I read your thread.

Keep up the brilliant build mate 🙂

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On 28/03/2022 at 10:27, uptown47 said:

Your cab looks amazing No1 !! Really impressed with it! Plus, I love the idea of sharing RAM files with your mate for that real-life experience 🙂

On the subject of your 'smaller' screen - have you considered running it on a Raspberry Pi or something along those lines to keep it separate from the main PC if all it's doing is a music controller? Or a cheap small form factor PC?

Alternatively (and I've no idea if this would work) I know there are programs that let you have more control over multiple monitors - if memory serves there was one called multimon? I'm not sure if this would help with the 'losing focus' issue or not - I've never gone that in-depth with them but just ideas I had as I read your thread.

Keep up the brilliant build mate 🙂

Hi mate long time no speak. Thanks for the feedback. Updates will be slow for now as I'm on holiday for 2 weeks from this weekend and haven't got time to work on it even though I'm itching to. I'm still unsure of the exact implementation of the small top screen. I've got a few idea in mind. As for the focus issue I'm hoping I code a quick app that will return focus to the main front end or mfme after say 500ms of no touch on that screen. If that fails I'll look into a downloadable app for it. Thanks for your suggestion. 

@Road Hog Mad you would think there's loads of space but in reality not so much as I want to use the original payout tray and coin mech entry which restricts things to the far right of the cab. the other constraint is the bottom monitor as its recessed into the cab and that takes away another 2 inches or so of space at the front. I have a few suggestions on how to route my coins but if all else fails I'll reduce to 1 hopper instead of 2 to increase the space I have to play with. 

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2 hours ago, No1Stoney said:

As for the focus issue I'm hoping I code a quick app that will return focus to the main front end or mfme after say 500ms of no touch on that screen.

I wonder if AutoHotKey could do something like that???

Enjoy your holiday and look forward to further progress when you get back to it.

Cheers 🙂

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If I had the room I would make one like that @No1Stoney, it really does look brill!!

The hopper I use for 10p's still keeps paying out too much, I asked the seller (e-service) to send me a new sensor as a bit of investigation turned out it was faulty, they did, it improved it but it's not perfect (It was one they had lying around apparently). Anyway bit the bullet and ordered a new one off eBay for a couple of quid but will have to heat shrink it to the existing wires/terminals.

Anyone else had problems with 10p payouts?

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Looks awesome 

 

just imagine if u created one of these and could lock it down somehow, and site in a pub with the bottom screen a menu for different games which you could select as a player you would be catering for all types of player, I reckon this would take more over a week than any modern machine. 
 

If It caught on I imagine the lawyers would come knocking for the reproduction fines etc etc etc but I’m sure if the manufacturers knocked up something of their back catalogue of machines in an all in one sort of thing that would become an instant winner for everyone. 

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