Recently I have been delving into home arcades, modifications and related diy projects. One that excited me the most was reliving the experience of arcade light gun games like Time Crisis, House of the Dead, Terminator 2 and Aliens 3. The feeling of holding a pistol, revolver or machine gun that recoiled so hard your little wrists would almost snap but you kept on smiling through the pain because blowing the heads off zombies and terrorists was so darn satisfying!

You'd likely know already that Mame is a project for preserving and enjoying original arcade games via PC and in some cases Raspberry Pi. Users can choose to use gamepads, keyboard&mouse or anything they really desire as long as it can be mapped within the UI. (I'm a big fan of GoldenTee with a trackball).
But what about the old lightgun games? it's not like modern LCD's are compatible with a NES zapper!?

In walks Gun4ir, a project spearheaded by Jean-Baptiste Bongrand. a DIY (or prebuilt) lightgun using widely available parts with a simple to use UI for a one time setup&Calibration. When I say "one time" I mean it, You won't be plagued by screen overlays, constant fiddling or background apps like other lightgun options! Users simply donate a small amount to the developer and you will receive your license, Jean actively participates and supports the development of this project via Discord and it's well worth the $20 Canadian to support.

Link to Jeans forum page

My chosen form factor for my project was this Arcade1up 3/4 size cabinet with 5:4 BOE screen, I installed new joysticks, switches, real coin door (no free play!) a Dell 7060 i5 and a gutted Logitech z623 sound system for authentic ground shaking, wife irritating bass. You can easily use any screen though, your living room tv could be fun for everyone!


To begin, let's look at the required parts for our lightgun build:

IR Emitters:

• 12 pieces - 940nm Infrared Emitter
• 4 pieces - 27 Ohm Resistors
• perf board to build the circuit
• USB cables for powering 5v (You don't need to use USB here, I just did for ease of plugging in to a hub.
• Emitter Housing 3D print (I chose to print some housings to keep things tidy, again this is a personal choice)

This is the general idea for the emitters, 5v into your circuit with an inline resistor, then two more emitters in series to loop back to ground.
if you're lazy it may look like mine below...



Turning on your phone camera and pointing directly at the emitters under power is the easiest way to tell if they are working correctly.



When all 4 housings are complete you can then mount them to your chosen display, below I have used "alien tape" to secure them closely to the screen bezel. These particular housings are designed for the edges of computer monitors and televisions though.



Emitters, great... but what about the guns? When do we get our guns?!?

Gun: For this I chose an old Playstation GunCon controller but you may choose something else entirely, even a nerf gun.

• Nerf Kronos Pistol with blowback
• 5v 16mhz Atmega32u4 ProMicro (the brains of our firearm)
• DF Robot IR Camera
• Microswitch for trigger *pew pew*
• Wide angle lens (for closer setups like this or at computer desk)

Below are the pinouts for the ProMicro and basic circuit for our camera.
The trigger is pin "A2", our ground can be any one labeled as such.



Below is a mockup of the GunCon, the DFRobot camera fits perfectly without any modifications and the microswitch is adapted to the trigger using these handy 3d printed parts: Trigger and other supports



The IR camera is wired as below to VCC, GND, pins 2 and 3



The above is the barebones of what you will need, I suggest proceeding to load the Gun4ir UI and testing out the camera, emitters and trigger before proceeding to add Rumble, Solenoid, extra buttons etc.

Loading the app will automatically detect your Gun and assign it a controller id, next simply click "Start Calibration" and Gun4ir will detect your screen size/distance via shooting on screen reticles. Voila, you're done!



At this point you can go ahead and load Mame, configure your inputs for "Lightgun". Map your trigger and X,Y axis.
Experiment with your setup and play some games, if you want to expand on your gun further read ahead...

Solenoid: If you want some major kickback when pulling the trigger go for this 24v Big Chungus Solenoid.
otherwise you can use a smaller 5v solenoid and power it straight from the promicro.

applicable parts for this circuit:

• TMP36GT9Z Mosfet
• 1N4001 Shottky Diode
• 100K resistor
• 1K resistor
• 24V Power Supply (only If you're using gigant-a-saur-olenoid)

Wiring as follows:


Rumble effect: To further the ridiculousness you can add a rumble motor, the haptics will respond separately from the solenoid at times for reloading, full-auto machine gun fire etc.

parts:

• Rumble motor
• PN2222 Transistor
• 1N4001 Shottky Diode (same as above so buy 2)
• .1uf capacitor
• 1k resistor (same as above so buy 2)

Wiring as follows:



The last feature I added to my gun was a temperature sensor to cut off if things got too over worked, I'm not about to play for hours on end so it's not likely to happen but you never know!

parts:

• Temperature sensor
• .1uf capacitor (same as above so buy 2)

The wiring as follows:


Depending on your choice of gun body, you may have a tight fit like myself, I also neglected to realize that my solenoid I ordered wouldn't fit
inside the Guncon. I then had to design a 3d printed housing that would mount under the barrel. After a couple revisions in Fusion360 I ended up with something I was happy with. It was comfortable and I could reach the two extra buttons.



3d print file here: my thingiverse .STL Satanic Mac Club initials included!

I know a project went well if my wife has to tell me to stop shooting, lucky for her the barrel jack can be disconnected/connected on the fly to cut power to and from the solenoid when needed.

I had A LOT of fun with this project and I am still discovering different games to play, I will be making a few more so my brother and I can both have a pair for co-op arcade shooters.

Please enjoy the following .gif in silence and imagine what my neighbors must think...

Awesome!

So, how much is it to deposit to play a game? :)

That's awesome! I've thought about adding lightguns to my MAME cabinet before, but this might make me actually do it...

>> retr01 said:

Awesome! So, how much is it to deposit to play a game? Click to expand...

25 cents! or if you're my 2 year old daughter? like $10 because the game IS putting quarters in :ROFLMAO:

>> Drake said:

25 cents! or if you're my 2 year old daughter? like $10 because the game IS putting quarters in Click to expand...

That's funny...maybe give her some nickels so they fall through and you can keep using the same ones :ROFLMAO:

I have the coin mechs connected on mine too, so inserting quarters still works, but I didn't want to *have* to insert quarters. I also didn't want to clutter the control panel with dedicated "insert coin" buttons. So I wired a microswitch in parallel with each coin mech that's activated by pushing the coin eject button. So pushing the eject button is the same as dropping a quarter into that coin mech:

Consider inserting coins as a nifty retro piggy bank or spare change jar. Just don't leave the key in there. ;)

>> KennyPowers said:

That's funny...maybe give her some nickels so they fall through and you can keep using the same ones I have the coin mechs connected on mine too, so inserting quarters still works, but I didn't want to *have* to insert quarters. I also didn't want to clutter the control panel with dedicated "insert coin" buttons. So I wired a microswitch in parallel with each coin mech that's activated by pushing the coin eject button. So pushing the eject button is the same as dropping a quarter into that coin mech: Click to expand...

Smart, I should do this too!

aaaaaaaand I did it. Free money!

In the early 1970s, Steve Wozniak's BlueBox mimicked the same 2600 Hz "switching" tone used by telephone operators to connect people, tricking automated systems. Now, there is the DrakePlay to play any arcade machine in the world for free that tricks the machine's money-hungry systems! :D