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Hi there, I'm Virtvic, and you may know me from 1920s films, such as 'Who Stole All the Spoons,' 'Whose Coat is that Jacket,' and 'Gadzooks, it's a Herring!'

Oh, actually - that's my alter ego, Vincent Marmite.

I'm Victor Marland, internetly (may not be a word) known as Virtvic. I used to do a podcast, the Ten Pence Arcade podcast, for ten years with a bearded lad called Shaun. It's still going - check it out if you like arcade games from yesteryear with a healthy bucket of daftness - podcast

It's been a few months since I stepped down from my role there as slightly less silly than the other guy.  I am now going to do various things with videogames. Such subjects will include: 

• arcade machines and hardware
• retro console games
• interesting tech - probably ancient, nothing modern

I will attempt hacking, modding, repairing, reproducing and basically TINKERING.

There won't be much structure to what I do; it'll be when I have time and feel motivated to do stuffz (may not be a word). Heck, sometimes I may even just drag out an obscure console or game and review the thing, pretending that a million other people haven't already done this waaay before and probably waaay better than I could.

So - onto the first tinkering!

ALUVEX SPIN

This is a Vectrex CNC made Aluminium Spinner. 

Hang about! - what's a Vectrex, Mr. Tinkery?

Check out madame Wiki: Vectrex Wiki

In my words, it's an all in one vector game console with its own black and white screen with a controller attached and a killer game built into it. Cartridge-based, released in 1982. (I really wanted one at the age of 9, but NO WAY I was going to get one back then - they were £200!)

If you have a Vectrex or are interested in them, I highly recommend the Facebook group Vectrex Fans Unite! 

Officially, there weren't any spinner, or 'dial' games released on the Vectrex. All current games that work with a rotary controller are either home-brew or converted arcade games, hacked to work on the good ol' Vectrex. Check out some of the awesome work Thomas has done with the 'hard to get hold of' VECFEVER cart. The other, slightly more accessible way to play some of these are on the mighty fine PITREX, a Raspberry Pi computer-based Vectrex cartridge. 

Myself and some other talented peeps have made and sold 'spinner' controllers before.

HANG ON! They aren't actually spinners. A spinner is a device that uses an LED-dependent sensor with a wheel that has slits or holes in it to give the attached device information on where and how quickly the dial is being moved by the user, or 'twiddler.'  The main component in these is actually a ROTARY ENCODER (did those words need to be BOLD? You decide!).

A rotary encoder is an inexpensive electronic component that comes in different flavours. The ones I use are from RS (UK). 

SO! (2)

The Vectrex community are a good bunch of people and they LURVE new and especially faaaancy things for their beloved dark console (it's all black, by the way). 

I already do semi-regular drops of controllers (digital arcade joysticks, analog arcade joysticks, all button Asteroids type controllers, mini joysticks, rotary controllers) for the Vectrex. Every now and again, I'll go a bit mad and design and make METAL controllers of some sort. I have made similarly shaped (to the original controllers) aluminium controllers before.

Those were in short supply (they took ages to make, maaaan) and probably won't be made again (but, never say never).

I made 3 of the rotary aluminium controllers in question before.  These were all one offs and different from each other. They were made and given away to friends fo' FREE. There was a blue themed one with custom engraving for the person's Vectrex game publishing home-run company. Another red-themed one with similar personalised engraving was given to someone for their tech-based home-run company. The third and final one was for someone who was SO enamoured with the blue one, I just had to make him one, this time with green buttons, custom vector based engraving and under floor lighting 😎. Unwittingly, this made up the holy trifecta of RGB. Anyone into retro gaming will know the relevance of those initials.

After enjoying the weekend of the retro game expo 'Revival' in the Midlands, UK and having been given much feedback over Chris' blue metallic rotary controller, I realised I'd better make some more, but more of a 'production' run. I decided to make ten, but of course one more cheeky blighter asked for one after the initial orders were claimed. I found a spare lump of aluminium at work; an unloved, bullet-holed piece, which I christened Trevor.  Trevor was to be transformed from an ugly duckling alloy billet into a beautiful brushed alloy work of functional art.

As I was making ten (eleven) I thought it a bit too cheeky and a fair bit dishonest to just use left over bits from my work, so I asked to buy some pieces from our local supplier. The material wasn't as expensive as you might think, for big lumps of solid aloooominum - especially from an industrial supplier, ordered from an industrial engineering company, with an account from said supplier.

I had already started designing, or rather re-visiting, the original designs and tweaking them a bit. I use a CAD-CAM package (One CNC) at work and even have a legit (no, really) copy of an older version of my own at home. My old boss sold me the software for a knock-down price before I left to go live in Scotland.

The new tweaked production versions had some lovely Vectrex branding engraving on the front, black buttons (of course), and a stainless steel spinner knob. The stainless steel part is what gives this controller a 'weighted spinner feel' - if you've ever played Atari's arcade game Tempest before, you'll kinda know what this feels like. I drew the part out as a 3D model to give the customers an overall idea of what the final product would look like. 

In the following picture, you can see there's a thick part on the bottom. This is what the machine vice holds onto in the CNC milling machine to actually make this. Afterwards, the part is turned over and that thick holding piece is removed and finished off. The engraving and back cable hole was done during the first operation as I used a 5-axis mill, which can work on 5 sides or any angle in between. 

3d Cad Cam Model

Actual thing (engraving changed)

*If any CNC nerds are reading, the mill is a 5-axis Matsuura MX330 with a ten pallet changer.

*Just for those 3 nerds, some machining footage.

In brief, here are the operations needed to make the 3 main parts of the controller.

I used the CAD-CAM software to design and write all the numerical (NC) code myself, for the machine to perform all the relevant moves to cut the parts (this sort of thing is my real life day job).

Controller main body

Op 1 (as above, video shows the profile and inner pocket being machined) 

• Top face
• Rough & finish profile
• Gut out the internal pocket
• Drill back hole for the cable gland
• Machine top step for top plate to fit into
• Drill & threadmill M3 threaded holes for top plate
• Chamfer all round
• Engrave front

Op 2 (part is reversed in vice)

• Remove holding piece and finish top face
• Chamfer edges
• Spot face 13mm spot face holes for rubber feet

Controller top plate

Op 1 (4 fixing holes)

• Drill 3mm holes with countersinks for countersunk screws (black, of course)

Op 2 (hold plate thru holes on quickie fixture I made)

• Machine 2 button holes and 1 spinner knob hole
• Outer profile and chamfer around it

Stainless Spinner Knob (from 35mm round bar material)

Op 1 (main part)

• Top face
• Faceted outer profile
• Top shallow spot face
• Chamfer profile
• Side hole (for securing onto rotary component shaft)
• Thread side hole M3

Op 2 (back face)

• Remove holding piece and finish top face
• Drill shaft hole

Here are some parts assembled:

Here is one of the finished articles:

(Note there is engraving on the knob. Most customers didn't like that part, so only one was done like this. Yes, Trevor got the fancy engraving...)

I've jumped the gun a little with that last picture. Of course all the parts needed assembling and then the electronics needed making up inside. I don't have any pictures of the insides, but I can describe what had to be done to allow our spinny thing to, er, spin and the buttons to function with a Vectrex spinner game.

The rotary encoder has 3 pins on it and in this particular case needs the wire from the controller cable pin 1 to one of the outer pins, pin 2 to the other outer pin and pin 8 from the cable to the centre pin (ground) The buttons use pins 3 & 4 from the cable (with a linked ground from pin 8).

That's all the wiring inside requires!

The cable is a standard 9 pin 'D Plug' similar to the original Atari 2600, Megadrive, and many other old consoles and computers. It needs to be plugged into port 2 on the Vectrex, as all the games programmed for this hardware require it there.

I also wanted to make these things look and feel like a bespoke professional product, so I even went to work on some special packaging for them. I bought some nice (you guessed it) black card boxes and 3D printed out a perfect fit inlay that would hold the controller in the box with the cable coiled next to it.

 I also made a 3D printed spray paint template for the box 'art.'

That's about it for this first blog tinkering entry thang. I have a bunch more lined up and will be recording my tinkerings with pictures, explanations and videos. I may even give instructions on things to make yourself, although this one might be a bit difficult unless you have access to raw aluminium billets, industrial sized CNC machines and CAD-CAM software to actually program the machine. The wiring inside is actually very easy if you can hold a soldering iron the correct way around. Clue: one end is *REALLY* hot.

See you next time. I think you can leave comments on these blog post thingies, so please do and I'll try to answer any questions etc. 

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