Rotating Monitor Cab Project

[YellowBirdAZ]

This is the low-rent implementation. When I say rotating monitor, I mean you reach up and turn it -- it's not motorized. The trick though is tilt switches sense the orientation of the monitor and switch between horizontal and TATE mode.

But it looks like it will work... I am close to completion on this new cab and of course I'm using Attract Mode. It is also going to be a very slim form factor, and it hangs on the wall by French cleats.

Anyhow, this isn't the cabinet, this is just a proof of concept video I posted for the rotation gimmick...

https://youtu.be/oPnWefpJVGg

I'll update with milestones as I go.

Also, I am using Flat Blue for now. I like it and I don't want to make a new layout if I don't have to. But if anyone has suggestions for good layouts that work at 16:9 in both horizontal and vertical I will be sure to check them out.

[YellowBirdAZ]

OK still very much a WIP but I finally got to the point I could mount it in place. Gives a better picture of what I am trying to do. The slim built works for my purposes, but if you try something like this be warned the biggest issue is structural integrity. Mine is almost all MDF and would probably snap in two if I mishandled it, but it is very sturdy when mounted.

The Attract Mode piece of this is that those stray green and yellow wires are going to attach to mercury/tilt switches attached to the back of the monitor. As the monitor is rotated, those switches are going to register button presses that will be mapped to AM such that they toggle between two layouts. The layouts will actually be the same... just one will be displayed vertically and one horizontally, and they will use horizontal and vertical game filters. (I can't see how to switch orientation this way at the display-level.

[YellowBirdAZ]

Alright, so the cab is not completely done. Still need to do the marquee, do a custom bezel/overlay for the monitor, and I want to install backlighting (the kids playroom wall is not really ideal for that).

But the wiring is pretty much finished and the rotation effect is working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJfASoWRn5Q

Again, if anyone knows of any other layout possibilities that look nice horizontally AND vertically, I welcome suggestions. If not I'll just stick with Flat Blue.

Come to think of it, if the differences weren't too jarring, I could use two different layouts altogether -- one for each orientation.

[zpaolo11x]

Nice project, I like the idea of switching horizontal and vertical game filters! I don't know what hardware you are using, but if it's not a Raspberry Pi you could try my Arcadeflow theme, it works both horizontally and vertically and is quite customizable.

http://www.mixandmatch.it/AF

[YellowBirdAZ]

I like it, nice work.

Too late tonight, but this weekend I'll try to set that up and test it out.

[YellowBirdAZ]

So for this project I used the minimal hardware I could get away with to run MAME emulation with a decent CRT shader. It's an old Dell Optiplex 3010 with a good-enough AMD video card.

It really struggles with ArcadeFlow. If you know what options to kill to make it run better on a weak machine, let me know. Otherwise I might have to stick with Flat Blue (which I might have to re-color depending on what I do for a marquee). I'll keep toying with it though.

The layout is beautiful. I especially like that you actually have an "attract mode" that kicks in.

I installed it on my desktop. Really nice work.

[stardriver]

Hi,

i am planning to build a bartop with a manually rotating lcd. Could you tell me what exact hardware you built behind your monitor and how it is communicating with your pc? hardware and software wise?

this would be so cool, because googling "tilt sensor" yields only very expensive results so far.

Thank you!

btw: awesome setup!

[takoni]

this is my project, only works with retropie, if i can help ... i can share vertical roms cfgs , scripts... etc

https://youtu.be/rRW33KbFttY

rules:
https://youtu.be/pS2vvbNII_w

and using another raspberry to show marquees:
https://youtu.be/-BTjUmI8SLg

all project:
https://youtu.be/6UHoO6Lha08

cheers!