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Arcade1UP with Raspberry PI and custom controls

Published by Silveira on 8 March, 2020

Previously I showed the Mortal Kombat Arcade Cabinet from Arcade1UP clean out of the box. Now I’m showing how to modify it with a Raspberry PI so it can play a full set of arcade games. I’m also replacing the original buttons and joysticks.

I would like to thank and recommend the ETA PRIME’s ‪Arcade1UP Raspberry Pi Install Tutorial – RetroPie in an Arcade1UP video. I’m following almost the same steps and parts but adapting a few things to use equipment I already had or to suit my personal preferences.

What I’m showing here was done with an Arcade1UP Mortal Kombat but should work for other models with little changes. One of the reasons I choose the Mortal Kombat cabinet was because the number of buttons and their layout.

Parts used

It’s worth noticing that you don’t necessarily need all these parts or these parts in specific. These were the ones I used and most of them were not bought specifically for this project and I could use them because I had around.

Replacing the joysticks and buttons

The original buttons on my MK Arcade1Up were a bit ugly and quiet. I want something more flashy and more clickly. I went with this kit on eBay that comes with 20 buttons, joysticks and encoders. The buttons have a LED inside and a round plastic chrome ring around them. They also come with everything necessary to replace the original buttons and they fit in the same 1 ⅛ ” (2.8575 cm) hole.

Step 1. Remove the control deck from the cabinet.

Step 2. Remove the protective black plastic case exposing the wires and circuit boards from the control deck.

Control deck with protection case removed

Step 3. Remove all the wires.

Step 4. Remove the buttons. They are a single piece. You just have to press them in their opposite bulges and they will fit to leave the hole in the front panel.

Step 5. Remove the controller board. Just unscrew it and remove it.

Step 6. Remove the old joysticks. First unscrew the bat top of both joysticks. Remove the screws that connect the metal plate to the board. The metal place is also glued to the board. You need to melt the glue a little so you can pry out these panels out. Here you can use a heat gun or a hair drier.

Blow some hot air directly in the metal panel. The smell of the carcinogenic fumes you are breathing means the glue is now melting.

I would recommend this step in a well ventilated area.

Use a knife or a screwdriver to pry out the metal plate. You can heat a little and pry a little until the whole plate is out.

For now I’m not removing the speaker and switches.

Control deck after I removed the buttons and joysticks.

Everything I removed from the control deck so far.

Step 7. Install the new buttons. These buttons are a little bit different from the original ones. They have two pieces, the mechanical part and the connectors and LED. You can separate them by twisting. They also have a plastic nut that help fix them to the board.

At this step you have the option to choose the color schema for your buttons. I choose something symmetrical. The button assignment is done later in software.

Step 8: Install the joysticks. Remove the bat top from the joystick. Insert it into the panel. Put the screws.

Step 9. Mount the USB control boards. I used Scotch Permanent Mounting Tape for this. Little screws would also do the job. When choosing where to mount them keep in mind the distance between the board and the buttons and also the USB wires.

Step 10. Assemble the other end of the buttons. Just twist them in place.

Step 11. Install the wires. Each button will expose four connectors. Check your manual for the proper color schema for the wires. They are different depending on the kit you choose and the kit you get.

The order that you put the connectors in the board is not really important because the configuration will be done later in software.

Step 12. Screw the joystick handle back. You can use the new joystick handle but can reuse the old one as well. The new joystick came with a balltop handle (left) and the original joystick had a battop handle. The handle is fixed screwing. You can easily change it latter without need of any tools.

Blue balltop handle (left) in the new joystick and the original joystick with a red battop handle.

Step 13. Testing everything. I this point I would recommend putting the protective plastic case back but secured by only a few screws because you will very likely reopen it soon to fix some buttons.

Plug the two USB cables from the encoding boards to a computer.

The first test is to check if the lights. If a light is not on it is probably because the wires are not correctly connected. If it is not that, then the LED could be failing. My kit came with some extra LEDs and components (but it was not necessary so far).

You can also test the whole control deck as two completely functional controls with the PC. Windows should auto-detect the boards as two USB joysticks.

Control deck playing Ultra Street Fighter IV on a PC

Installing the controller board

The original monitor from an Arcade1UP cannot be directly used with a video cable like HDMI. I’m using this kit for this. Make sure the code in the back of the Arcade1UP monitor matches the one in the description of the product.

Step 1. Remove the metal box case with the original board from the monitor. This case holds the mother board of the original Arcade1UP. Remove the cables and remove it from the cabinet.

Step 2. Install the new board. I put some tape in the back metal panel of the monitor and used double face tape to fix the new controller board.

The power supply is the same from the original board. This board now receives a video input (HDMI, VGA, VGI) and displays it in the monitor. The smaller board with 6 buttons are like buttons in a TV where you can change volume, brightness, etc.

Step 3. Test you can display external video in this monitor. Just grab an HDMI cable from your PC and plug into the controller board. It should just display it like an external monitor.

Installing the Raspberry Pi

A Raspberry Pi is pretty much a tiny Linux computer. It has everything on a single package (memory, CPU, motherboard, etc). I’m using RetroPie as a distribution. Retropie comes with everything you need but the actual game ROMs.

When I was building this I noticed that the Raspberry Pi 3 had the best compatibility and was working well with most of emulators and games. This is likely changing in the future so if I was building another machine now I would check this again. I already had a RPi 3B with a case (Kintaro Super Kuma) from another project.

For now I’m not going to put here fine grained details on the RPi installation and configuration. In short, you need to download RetroPie, make a bootable SD card with it, stick it into the RPi and boot it. There are many ways to add games but the most practical one I found was via network using SMB (Samba). Making sure the files are in the correct folders for each emulator. For example rooms for Game Boy should be at “/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/gb/” and for Neo Geo at “/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/neogeo/”.

To make the whole process easier I highly recommend using a wireless keyboard like the Logitech K400 Plus that already comes with a touchpad. It’s small, takes only a USB slot and is great keyboard to have around for projects like this. You can press Ctrl + Alt + F2 to access the Raspberry pi terminal (F3 to F6 for TTY3 to TTY6 respectively). Retropie default user is pi and default password is raspberry.

I done my first test with the Game Boy emulator and Kid Dracula. After that worked I moved to test more games.

When I moved to games with a little bit heavier emulation I started to get this error.

under-voltage detected

The documentation for this said “The undervoltage icon is displayed when the voltage the Pi is receiving drops below 4.65V. “. Indeed, I was using a common USB charger. I then moved to a dedicated charger designed for a RPi that could provide enough current and voltage to power the RPi.

Sound system

I had some Cyber Acoustics CA-3602FFP 2.1 Speaker Sound System with Subwoofer around that I used here. They are definitively an overkill for this project but I had them around and this could save me the trouble of dealing with amplifiers.

Light Up Marquee

In the original light up marquee was powered by the output of the main board. The original power supply now powers the monitor controller board. I used this splitter cable to send one cable to the controller board and the other the the light up marquee. It’s always worth checking the polarity and voltage of these things.

Because the splitter outputs two jack cables (male) and the lightup marquee cable is also a jack I had to do this workaround to connect the two cables. Cutting and reconnecting the cables would also work but I did not want to do that to the marquee cable. Later I will fix this.

“Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution”, old Russian proverb.

Alexa integration

In front of all this I’m using an Amazon Smart Plug so I can say “Alexa, turn the arcade on” and everything is powered with all the lights and sounds. Other people have reused the on/off switch from the original control deck for this.

Conclusion

At this point this arcade cabinet is fully functional and can play hundreds of games. I’m still doing further modifications and improvements but they will come in future posts.

Coronavirus COVID-19 bookmarks

Published by Silveira on 7 March, 2020

In 205 patients with proven COVID-19 bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was positive in 14/15 (93%), sputum 75/104 (72%), nasal swabs 5/8 (63%), brush biopsy 6/13 (46%), pharyngeal swabs 126/398 (32%), feces 44/153 (29%), blood 3/307 (1%), and urine 0/72 (0%).
https://www.jwatch.org/na51116/2020/03/17/pharyngeal-and-nasal-swabs-may-not-have-adequate

Masks tutorials

Opinions and guidelines about masks

Mobile Suit Gundam Gashapon Warrior Forte 2.5 F054

Mobile Suit Gundam Gashapon Warrior Forte 2.5 F054

Published by Silveira on 31 January, 2020

Esse é o Mobile Suit Gundam Gashapon Warrior Forte 2.5 F054 GNT-0000. Eu comprei esse em Tóquio por ¥300 em uma Gashpon. Gashpon é uma máquina de vendas automática onde você coloca umas moedas e ela te dá uma bolinha de plástico. Dentro dessa bolinha tem um brinde do tema daquela máquina. Geralmente a máquina vai ter uns 5 modelos diferentes daquela coleção e você não tem como escolher qual vai vir. Uma bolinha vai comumente custar entre ¥100 e ¥500.

Exemplo de Gashpon. Uma máquina de gorros para gatos.

Esse é um Gundam SD. O estilo SD se refere a “super deformed” (super deformado). São formas baixinhas, entroncadas com proporções de 2 a 3 cabeças de altura em contraste com as tradicionais 6 a 8 cabeças de altura.

Essa modelo apesar de ter poucas peças comparados com um gunpla completo foi bem difícil de montar. O kit veio praticamente sem instruções exceto um pouco de instruções (em japonês) sobre as juntas em um papel minúsculo. O método então é tentativa e erro e tentar usar algumas fotos online do boneco pronto como referencia.

Tendo em mente que esse kit custou cerca de1/4 do preço de um gunpla HG é esperado que a qualidade das peças não seja tão boa. Apesar disso, existe uma variedade de plásticos entre peças transparentes, opacas, duras ou macias. Algumas peças são de um plástico bem mole, o que é bom porque como elas são muito pequenas e seria fácil de quebrar. As peças são bem detalhadas mas algumas contém resquícios do processo de injeção de plástico. A pintura deixa muito a desejar apesar de terem usado variedades de vermelho opaco e metálico. Esses são problemas que só dá pra perceber olhando de perto já que o boneco montado só tem cerca de uns 8 centímetros.

Esse modelo veio com 2 pares de mãos e uma arma adicional então é possível fazer várias combinações. Há articulações no pescoço, duas em cada braço e uma em cada perna. É um número enorme de articulações pra um boneco desse tamanho. O plástico das articulações é mais duro que os outros então a articulação não fica molenga. Ele também vem com um suporte pra suspender o robô do chão.

Como eu não fiquei muito contente com a pintura original desse modelo eu provavelmente vou tentar fazer umas modificações nele.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Cabinet from Arcade1UP

Mortal Kombat Arcade Cabinet from Arcade1UP

Published by Silveira on 31 October, 2019

This is the Mortal Kombat Arcade Cabinet from Arcade1UP. It’s a complete arcade machine with a smaller size. Out of the box (and after assembly) this machine can play 3 original Mortal Kombat games:

Mortal Kombat (1992)
Mortal Kombat II (1993)
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995)

It comes with everything you need to play the games. It has joysticks for 2 players, embedded screen and sound. It’s powered by a regular power outlet.

Dimensions: This unit (with the raiser at the bottom) weight 58.5 lbs (26.5 kg) and have height of 45.8” (116.33 cm), length of 22.75” (58.78 cm), and width 19″ (48.26 cm). It is said that Arcade1UP machines are 3/4 of the size of a regular arcade cabinet. The riser has length of 20.5″ (52.07 cm), width of 19.75″ (50.17 cm) and height of 13.25″ (33.65 cm). With the raiser, it has a perfect size for me with controls and monitors at the right height. Seating at the stool makes it even more comfortable.

This machine has the Raiden painted on it’s side just like the original MK2 machine. This is probably my favorite thing about this cabinet.

Dog for size comparison. Dog not included.

Gameplay

While this is not an original Midway arcade system board, all gameplay is executed through some form of emulation. You don’t have to deal with any artifacts of emulation or even have to think about it. The machine just works. You turn it on and you are playing Mortal Kombat in a few seconds. No coins. No charging gamepads batteries. No software updates. No DLCs. No cables. No wifi. No where is the TV remote. Just Mortal Kombat one simple power button away from you.

All games are working perfectly. I could not notice any flaws. I’m sure some arcade hard-core enthusiast will find some minor obscure detail that is different from an original coin operated vintage machine but I could not notice any difference.

The emulation is straight forward, there are no filters, no settings, no save states.

This of course uses LCD screen and not a big CRT monitor. The screen is 17″ which is a great size. As everything else, you can’t change brightness, contrasts, or anything. However, I have no problems with the default configurations it came with.

Control deck

The control deck can support up to 2 players. Each player has 7 buttons and a joystick. The start button is wired to the start input and the coin input. So by pressing start is the same as inserting a coin and pressing start. There is a power switch for the whole machine. There is a volume switch with 3 states: mute, medium and high.

The buttons are not great but usable and functional. They have a cheap feeling and don’t make a characteristic click when you press them. However, they work, they submit the input and have the proper size.

The joystick also is functional, clicky and usable but could be of better quality. I like that they use a bat top handle which I find preferable for fight games and is the same type used in the original MK machines.

This one comes with the transparent deck protector to avoid scratches in the deck paint.

It’s a okay control deck. Keep in mind that arcade controls is a whole field for hobbyists with many different brands of joysticks, buttons, and setups. All with very broad price ranges.

Stool

The Mortal Kombat custom stool is great. I would probably never buy this one by itself but I’m glad I have it now. It has a glossy finish that looks great. It feels great, it’s comfortable and while you cannot adjust the height I found it just perfect for this machine.

Marquee light

This is a great addition to this machine. It really enhances the look and feel of an arcade machine. That is something that I definitely would add to any Arcade1UP machine. It’s just a plastic piece with a light behind it. My only criticism is that the colors of the marquee are a little bit desaturated.

Pricing

I bought this bundle at Costco and it set me back US$ 350. All prices mentioned here are without taxes, fees and shipping. This bundle includes the machine and a custom stool, light up marquee, custom riser, and the arcade cabinet.

These are some current prices for everything individually.

MK custom stool: I found it at GameStop for US$ 80.
MK light up marquee: I found one at Amazon for US$ 60.
MK Arcade1up: you can find it at Walmart for US$ 299.
Deck protector: Arcade1UP sell them for around US$ 12.50.
MK custom riser: it seems to be exclusive at the moment but you can buy a standard riser at Walmart for US$ 49 and a set stickers at eBay US$ 55 (total US$ 104) or buy a bundle of arcade and riser at Walmart for US$ 379.

Therefore, right now to replicate this Costco bundle elsewhere it would cost US$ 531.50, i.e. US$ 181.50 more than Costco.

However, these prices fluctuate. These units are heavy and large (45.8”H x 22.75”L x 19”W), therefore occupying a lot of shelf space and they are expensive to ship too. So it’s been common to see the prices of them getting lower (examples) and it’s predictable that during Black Friday and holidays they will go lower again. However, in my personal experience these deals sell fast and I have made several unsuccessful trips trying to get one for a lower price.

Also, let’s keep some things in perspective here for price. First, a real Mortal Kombat II arcade machine is much more expensive, starting from around US $1000. Second, Costco is a paid membership based store. If you are comparing prices keep in mind that you can’t buy at Costco without a membership (starting at US$ 60).

Assembly

The pieces themselves are well labeled with codes. However, the boxes didn’t have any labels. After you open all the boxes and found all the pieces, the assembly can go smoothly. The process is almost the same to assemble an IKEA furniture.

These were some of the problems I faced during the assembly:

The pictures for the monitor in the manual did not match the real monitor. That’s because the manual is generic for all machines but machines are slightly different.
One package of screws was mislabeled.
There was misalignment when mounting the screen piece to the cabinet. That was the only hard part of the assembly.
The back panel was missing the screw holes to align to the screw holes inside.

Fore reference, here is the Arcade1UP complete assembly manual.

Secret Menu

You have to do this when the machine is in demo mode inside one of the games. With Player 1, hold the buttons RUN + BLOCK. With player 2, hold the buttons JUMP (UP) + LOW PUNCH + HIGH KICK + START (player 2). Hold them all for 5 seconds.

You are now in the Test Menu. Here you can run tests and change settings such difficulty and volume. This is not an Arcade1UP menu, it’s the original test menu from the arcade games. This was supposed to be used by the arcade owner (and not the arcade player) to change settings, reset high scores, see statistics and change prices.

Conclusion

This product has a limited scope and great execution. It’s a simple machine that does one thing and it does it well: retro arcade Mortal Kombat. It has a sweet point of compromise between an humongous original arcade and a convenient little console while keeping all the characteristics that it feel like an original arcade experience.

Arcade1UP has a great product but they are iterating very well. They started with older titles and are now expanding for some other franchises. They are also experimenting with different arcade types. I hope they keep improving the quality of their products.

While there are ports or emulation of MK 1-3 on pc and modern devices you just can’t emulate the feeling of playing with an arcade machine with all colors, lights, and size. This is a device for someone for is seeking this feeling.

And while I like Mortal Kombat and this machine, the main reason I bought it was to use it as base for further enhancements and modifications. I’m replacing all button, joysticks, lights, computer, and who knows what more. I will transform this machine into a multi-arcade beast with my favorite games.