USB-DVG Daughter Boards
One of the most requested projects lately has been a solution to allow the USB-DVG (and Raspberry Pi driving the USB-DVG) to be plugged into an existing cabinet and just work.
Note: These will work with all current versions of the USB-DVG (Run 1 & 2), AND with the new Rev 3.
I am happy to announce that I will be releasing those soon. No price is set, but targeting the $125-$150 range. If you bought a harness or mounting plate from me, I will figure out a discount if you buy one (or more) of these (like a bit of a discount or free shipping or chocolate ;-) ).
What does it do?
The board allows you to mount the USB-DVG and Raspberry Pi directly on it, connect some cables (which will be included), and connect it to your cabinet. It is mostly designed to allow you to play the the one game (or a few games) in the cabinet it was designed for.
What does it not do?
This board is not designed for connecting to a MultiVector control panel (like the one I am producing). It will only map to the number of buttons, joysticks, etc that exist on the standard cabinet (IE Space Duel it's the 5 control buttons and 2 start buttons, for Black Widow it's the 2 joysticks and 2 start buttons).
The current plan is to offer a solution for the following Cabinets:
- Space Duel
- Gravitar
- Black Widow
- Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back
- Tempest
The Space Duel/Gravitar/Black Widow is the same physical board, but the controls encoder is programmed differently. I am hoping to at least make Space Duel/Gravitar work on a single board.
The first Space Duel prototype (oh so many things were wrong here!):
Space Duel Prototype 2 running in a Space Duel cabinet (no audio yet):
Near Final Space Duel/Gravitar/BW board (with audio):
I have ordered what is the near final Space Duel/Gravitar/Black Widow boards (should have them end of next week). While I tested the Audio by hacking the second prototype, I need to fully test it on this board. Once I test them, publish the price, and figure out how many I need to order, I will get going with those boards first. Still need to tweak the software, but its probably 95% of the way done.
Tempest and Star Wars prototype boards have also been ordered. A majority of the board is the same, however, they will have some extra circuits to allow for the spinner (tempest) and analog controller (Star Wars). So they will be available at a future date. I am expecting Tempest will run Tempest and Major Havoc at least (others may be possible) and obviously Star Wars will also run Empire Strikes Back. The software for those will need to be completed (its probably about 40% done).
I also plan on offering pre-configured Raspberry images for each of the options. The images will be configured to automatically boot into the game of choice (IE Space Duel board will automatically boot into Space Duel, Tempest into Tempest, etc). All the controls will be automatically mapped in the ADVMame configuration. All you will need to do is flash the Raspi SD card, copy over the ROMs, and go! Note that you can modify the controls in ADVMame to map any game to the board, so there is no reason that other games (say Asteroids) can't be mapped.
Features:
- Plug and Play into the cabinet using existing controls
- Fused +5v with voltage protection
- LEDs to ensure +5v, +10.3v, +/- 22v are present
- Raspberry Pi will be powered from the cabinet (and in turn will power on the USB-DVG)
- Audio Amplifier circuit (with Volume control)
- Remote "escape" button to return to the VMMenu
- Spinner circuit (on Tempest board)
- Analog control circuit (on Star Wars)
- Atari cone button LEDs flash as expected
What is included:
- Main PCB
- Short USB-C cable (Power for Raspi)
- Short micro USB (Controls controller)
- Short Audio cable
- Short VGA cable
- Mounting posts for the USB-DVG
- Planned: Mounting posts for the Raspberry Pi (if I can find them for less than like $1 each!)
- Pushbutton for the Esc button (access to the VMMenu). On leads long enough to reach the coin door.
What's not included:
- Raspberry Pi
- USB-DVG
- Cabinet (obviously)