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Windows Mobile/Coleco Tabletop Cabinet Mod

Thanks to everyone that took the time to give me their feedback! Rather than responding to questions I've received via email, I decided to post on BYOAC so the answers can benefit others.  Thread is located here.

This all started ~25 years ago with a Coleco Donkey Kong Tabletop game I received as a gift.  I loved this game, but as I started growing older, we started drifting apart until we lost touch entirely.  Fast forward 15 years, we were reunited when I was cleaning out my parents basement.  Unfortunately it didn't survive my 5 younger brother/sisters unscathed.  The board & display were both cracked.  Never the less, I took it home with me and placed it with my Tempest upright cab.  After staring at it off & on for 10 years, contemplating a way to return it to glory, I finally decided to do something with it.

First thing I did was remove the decaying stickers from the plastic casing (thanks Goo Gone!), then I disassembled the device.  The next step was to remove everything but the Joystick inputs from the board.  I did a lot of (de)soldering in a very confined area, so it's safe to say a *lot* of brain cells were sacrificed this day...

I then drilled holes through the Control Panel & System Board so the buttons I purchased from Radio Shack could be mounted & would have room in the case.  The screen for the HX2750 was shorter & wider than the original Donkey Kong screen, so I had to cut ~1/4" off of both sides of the bezel & glue them on the bottom to fill up space.  After that I printed some decals to cover up the sloppy drilling & cutting, mounted the buttons, and soldered the ground wires.

After that, I decided to work on the base of the unit.  I removed the speaker & cut out the plastic to which the original  speaker was mounted.  The plan was to mount a USB charged, Li-Ion battery-powered speaker in the spot of the old speaker, because I didn't think an un-amplified speaker would be loud enough, and initial testing confirmed that at the time.  Unfortunately, when the amplified, battery powered speaker finally arrived it did not cooperate with the PDA at all.  The sound was awful, and there were lots of noise coming from them when both the speakers & the HX2750 were charging.  I needed to find an alternative to the amplified speakers.

It just so happened that I purchased some speakers on eBay, but prior to shipping them the seller noticed the cable was cut.  The seller sent those as well as replacement set, so I had a defective speaker set I intended to repair.  I decided to test the defective speakers with the PDA, just for shiggles.  I didn't have room in the Tabletop to use the HX2750 speaker jack, so the plan was to simply remove the PDA's speaker & wire an 1/8" jack that I mounted to the Board.  I wired up a single speaker (since the HX2750 doesn't have stereo speakers) to the PDA, and it sounded great!  I was pleasantly surprised to say the least, but there was one problem...

The speaker was larger than the amplified speaker, and would require additional modification to the base of the unit.  I drilled a hole in the speaker area so the speaker protrudes into what was the battery compartment of the Tabletop.  I placed the speaker through & sealed with silicone.  I also added some rubber tubing to the battery cover to hold the stylus.

Next I decided to prepare the board to mount the PDA.  This involved disassembling the HX2750 & removing parts of it's case to glue to the board so I could still mount the PDA with screws.  I also glued some plastic around the battery area so it wouldn't move around.  Next came the fun part, soldering the inputs.  My hands aren't as steady as they used to be, so soldering the wires to the device was probably the hardest thing for me to do.  I managed to solder wires to every button/D-Pad input with minimal burns, and I only fused a few of the button contacts together.  I take it back, de-soldering the fused buttons was probably the hardest part.  I then mounted the PDA to the board and ran the cables through it.

The difficult part was over.  I then soldered the cables to the board and buttons.  As you can see by the image below, the original plan included a 4-port USB hub.  This was so I could charge both the PDA & the amplified USB speaker.  Although I was no longer using the amplified speaker, I decided to keep the 4-port USB hub.  This way if I needed to open the Tabletop, I can simply unplug the PDA from the hub to give me a little more room to work.  I soldered a female USB mini jack on the end of the 4-port USB hub and mounted it to the base of the unit.

Another shot of the innards.  Both USB Cables wrap around the speaker compartment.

Here's a shot of the female USB mini jack.  If you look really close, you can see the small, recessed red & black buttons I mounted for Soft Reset & Display On/Off.  I have since sealed the speaker with silicone.  I use the battery compartment to store the USB cable & the stylus.

Finally, I assembled the Tabletop & fired it up.  Success!  The Tabletop now has a 4GB SDHC Card as well as a 16GB Compact Flash Card.  As of right now, I'm mostly playing SmartGear (Highly recommended for any Windows Mobile owner), although I'm very much looking forward to the next release of PocketCultMAME.

Another shot, how about some Donkey Kong!

Here's the cost totals:

OK, I know what you're thinking, that's not a Coleco Donkey Kong Tabletop.  Correct!  I bought a broken Coleco Galaxian Tabletop for parts, but when my kids saw it they insisted that I was making 2 of these.  Here they are!

Eventually I may add artwork, but not until the kids are older.