It's taken me a few weeks longer than expected but I wanted to make sure I got all the details right and confirmed.
I'm open sourcing a Universal Mukti-Kit LCD selector, for which all details, code and schematics are available on GitHub: https://github.com/twistedsymphony/arcade_multi_system_lcd_selector/tree/main
Dip-Switches suck for changing games, and the community has come together in the past to make our own selectors for certain systems, but they're often custom-tailored to the specific multi. and they use OLED screens which look nice but require a lot of work to make pixel art images for.
So I decided to see what I could do to develop a standard here. I wanted this to be as easy as possible for multi-kit makers to support (at minimum it requires you add footprint for a 10-pin header to your PCB). and easy for people in the community to put this together themselves. As such it uses and off-the shelf display with integrated buttons and micro controller and the interface PCB, while it does use some SMD parts I've provided all of the schematics and production files so you can get them produced without any experience designing and building PCBs. Installing the software is as simple as copying files to a thumb-drive.
I spent a lot of time trying to make this responsive and feel good to use. here's an example of the selector menu being used:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlgGEeJghjA
The display is full color, it looks washed out in the video above but it's actually got quite rich and vibrant color.
It has a really excellent viewing angle too; It not only looks fantastic but also means that converting logos for use is much easier.
You also don't need to know any programming to make this work with other multi-kits or to customize the menu to your liking as anything that can be adjusted can be done so with modifying the configuration files.
Through the menu configuration file you can control:
This also utilizes an ESP32 which includes WiFi support. meaning that with a future software update it can support remote control from a PC or Smartphone. This isn't something I'm currently planning on developing but this is open source so it's open for anyone else to contribute this or any other improvements or features.
Support is available now for the Metro VG420 multi I've built (for the 2 people that have one lol) but I will be including full support for this in all of my future planned multi projects and would love to see this adopted by Darksoft, Apocalypse, Hammy, or others developing dip based multis. It might also be possible to build adapters for older multis to work with this as well.
There are lots more details available in the github link at the top of the post.
Let me know what you think!
I'm open sourcing a Universal Mukti-Kit LCD selector, for which all details, code and schematics are available on GitHub: https://github.com/twistedsymphony/arcade_multi_system_lcd_selector/tree/main
Dip-Switches suck for changing games, and the community has come together in the past to make our own selectors for certain systems, but they're often custom-tailored to the specific multi. and they use OLED screens which look nice but require a lot of work to make pixel art images for.
So I decided to see what I could do to develop a standard here. I wanted this to be as easy as possible for multi-kit makers to support (at minimum it requires you add footprint for a 10-pin header to your PCB). and easy for people in the community to put this together themselves. As such it uses and off-the shelf display with integrated buttons and micro controller and the interface PCB, while it does use some SMD parts I've provided all of the schematics and production files so you can get them produced without any experience designing and building PCBs. Installing the software is as simple as copying files to a thumb-drive.
I spent a lot of time trying to make this responsive and feel good to use. here's an example of the selector menu being used:
The display is full color, it looks washed out in the video above but it's actually got quite rich and vibrant color.
It has a really excellent viewing angle too; It not only looks fantastic but also means that converting logos for use is much easier.
You also don't need to know any programming to make this work with other multi-kits or to customize the menu to your liking as anything that can be adjusted can be done so with modifying the configuration files.
Through the menu configuration file you can control:
- what image is displayed with each game
- what image to display for the loading screen
- what text is to be displayed if an image isn't available
- what the dip configuration is for each selection
- what order you would like the games to appear in (you can even have the same game appear multiple times, in multiple places or with multiple names or images if you like)
- which games you would like displayed in the list or not displayed in the list
- which game you would like to load by default when you first power on
- the amount of idle time before the menu to goes back to displaying the current running game if you scrolled without selecting anything and then stopped
This also utilizes an ESP32 which includes WiFi support. meaning that with a future software update it can support remote control from a PC or Smartphone. This isn't something I'm currently planning on developing but this is open source so it's open for anyone else to contribute this or any other improvements or features.
Support is available now for the Metro VG420 multi I've built (for the 2 people that have one lol) but I will be including full support for this in all of my future planned multi projects and would love to see this adopted by Darksoft, Apocalypse, Hammy, or others developing dip based multis. It might also be possible to build adapters for older multis to work with this as well.
There are lots more details available in the github link at the top of the post.
Let me know what you think!
