Discs of Tron minicab mod?

If anyone would be interested in a Discs of Tron minicab for your Tron pinball, go hit this thread and speak up:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tron-mini-arcade-cabinet-we-are-now-taking-preorders-for-the-second-run

Don't know if pinballlooking will do it, but if a few of us want it and would buy it, maybe they will. See the last page (currently, anyway) for ideas on where to put it.

--Donnie

For anyone that might still care about this, I'm bringing this thread back from the dead.

I've successfully taken one of these:

https://tinycircuits.com/collections/all/products/tinyarcade

And made it play the Discs of Tron attract mode video on loop. Next up I plan to use my laser cutter to re-cut a cabinet for it in the proper DoT upright shape (no, I'm NOT doing an EDoT) as well as do a marquee (hopefully that lights up).

Once done, I'm going to put it in my Tron LE beside my http://www.usbjig.com/tronminicab.html on the Flynn's plastic (I have a Flynn's sign mod, so the plastic is redundant anyway). Will update here as I progress.

I do not plan to sell this mod, but if it comes out like I think, I might be coerced into selling a DIY cabinet kit that will work with the electronics from the tinycircuits kit. It won't be *quite* as attractive as the usbjig minicab as they have a much more detailed control panel and use thinner and more "to scale" plastic for the construction, but I honestly think it'll be close enough that even side by side it'll look pretty good. The video is the key anyway. I can do detailed instructions on how to make that part happen. Or I might be able to be coerced into reselling the Tinycircuits kit pre-programmed, we'll see.

--Donnie

Making some progress...you can see both the original TinyArcade cabinet side *and* the scaled DoT artwork in transparent mode here along with my drawing of my laser cuts. And the control panel.

The second image if of the hardware displaying the start of the attract mode video. That's a super close up view. Looks way better with the naked eye. Video is very fluid and you can clearly make out the dude jumping from disc to disc and such when it gets to that part.

I've cut one of the sides and test fit the control panel area and monitor. From here just need to do the new front and top panels and cut everything. I've also got a plan for making some semblance of a tiny blue pistol grip joystick, but we'll see. Then the side art should cover the holes in the sides. Oh, and my plan is to just glue the cabinet together rather than use the single screw through each side like the original does. I'll also get a pic of a coin door for the front.

--Donnie

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Note that yes, I am going a tad taller than the TinyArcade, too. And even so, it'll be about a quarter inch shorter than the usbjig cabinet, but I'll just mount it a tad higher and you won't notice from the angle in the Tron LE that you look down at. I'm also not planning a back door since it's actually pretty hard to get where you could see in the back on the pinball, too.

These appear to be JST-SH connectors for the battery, so I've ordered some of those and plan to use that for power (and no battery) in the pin. Looks like it will just start up and do the right thing when power is applied if the power switch is on. So I'll make an adapter cable to go from that to the Stern aux power connection.

--Donnie

Finally took a little time to do some more work on this. Got a couple more of the pieces done. Doesn't look like I've added much, but to get this far took doing a test cut of the pieces and then some tweaks to get them right. I just need to do the ears on the cabinet top and then do a coin door piece and a bottom and it should be done.

--Donnie

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I'll get it done, but it'll be another couple months. I have a big thing dominating my time until mid-May, but should be able to finish it then. I did get some reasonable small quantity pricing on the electronics this will need. The only "engineering" problem I haven't solved is how to hold the case together.

Problem with the original is they use a nylon screw and bushing to just clamp both sides together and that sandwiches all the other parts, including the display. That's great, but the screws look dumb on the outside and I don't want them. The holes on the outside look dumb, too, but I'm planning on doing full cabinet side decals to hide those. Gluing the cabinet together instead is easy, but that will "capture" the electronics and make it non-repairable later if they die. So that sorta bugs me.

I'm also not sure how much detail to put into the control panel. Doing a flight stick is going to be super hard that looks good. I'm still thinking on whether it's worth trying to get something 3D printed. I have a printer, but the resolution just isn't good enough on what I have to do something that small. I might just paint the stick that comes with the tinycircuits setup blue and call it good. If the fact that it doesn't match my Tron minicab close enough bothers me, I could just make a Tron version of *mine* and then sell my other one, too. *shrug*

Once I get mine done, I'll come up with some kind of small group buy. All costs will be posted up front, it'll just be a nominal deposit, etc. But don't worry with "put me down for one" now. I'll do a call out when it's time and give everyone plenty of time to get in. I don't expect there will be more than ten of you. If there is, well, I'll worry about that then.

--Donnie

Okay, I finally got back on this. I have the cabinet mostly finished in the right shape as much as can be done and fit the TinyArcade guts. Now I need some input as to where to go with it.

Obviously this one is cut and still masked. My plan would be to cut the sides in blue acrylic then decal them as well as decal and backlight the marquee. I'll also paint the joystick blue (missing in these pics, but it's a generic little knob).

Now, beside the Tron it just doesn't look great. Monitor is much smaller, detail isn't quite as true. The question is do I care? I am on the fence. I feel like there are three options:

1. Forget DOT and just live with Tron.
2. Finish it as best I can and live with them being slightly different.
3. Finish it *and* make my own Tron to match it. Wouldn't be that hard, tbh.

Thoughts? The cool part here is if I did both, *both* could be had for under $150 total, whereas the other unit is more than that by itself. Well, that's assuming I could talk TinyCircuits into selling them, anyway. If not, it would be more like $200 total for *both* for someone to DIY because I could provide a "conversion kit" for a TinyArcade.

Thoughts?

--Donnie

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Gar, just noticed the camera must have caught it in a transition between screens on that first photo and thus no picture. It's not quite as bright as the Tron, either. Here's a pic out of the machine. And to be clear, I'd have full side cabinet decals just like the original.

--Donnie

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Thanks. The plan as of right now is to do decals and re-cut the pieces in some colored (black and blue) acrylic and make it look as close to original as I can. I'm worried I can't light up the marquee without an annoyingly high amount of additional work (hard to explain, but getting the marquee piece "contained" so light isn't slashing out under and around it will be tough), but we'll see. Might be able to cheat that just using some tape as a light box behind it. Or I need to look into some EL tape, maybe.

Once I get that done I'll do my comparison again and see what I think. It really won't be that hard to do a matching Tron. Then I have to figure out how to mount them sanely, too. And mine is currently still just battery powered, but I do have the proper power cables and plug for the TinyArcade CPU to feed it 5V, which I can get from the game pretty easily, so I think a PnP harness won't be that tough.

--Donnie