MAME Cabinet - Delays, delays!

The parts for the MAME cabinet were supposed to come in today, but the severe weather in many parts of the country seem to have caused considerable delay.  Hopefully the package with the microswitches, buttons and joysticks will arrive tomorrow, but at this point I'm at the mercy of the weather and FedEx. 

Work on the coin separator has begun, however.  I have created my first prototype, a slide-style separator, but will probably move to a roll-style separator instead just for greater accuracy (where the coin rolls down a plastic ramp, and anything below the height of a quarter will fall off the ramp into the REJECT slot.  Any quarter that makes it to the end will hit an electrical switch, signaling a successful coin addition).

The coin mechanism has an anti-theft device installed as well (also of my own design).  This should stop individuals who try the "quarter on a string" trick to get free plays out of the machine.  The overall design won't be perfect, and won't look as good as a real coin input, but it is a good proof-of-concept project and a good substitute until such a time that I can get an actual arcade door.

Testing on the Cantenna happened yesterday, and I will upload pictures soon.  After borrowing a parabolic dish from a classmate (and old Dish Network satellite dish), and calibrating the device, the Cantenna was able to pick up around 30 separate wireless signals in a 50 degree range (the small place I was able to point it out the window where there were not enormous buildings in the way).  This is a dramatic increase from the 2 access points I was able to see with no antenna at all.

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