Soldering Vent Part 2

Now that I'm back from college, I finally got time to finish my soldering vent. I started where I left off, which was wiring the whole thing up. I also had to glue the front on, so once I had everything going to the switch box, I glued, clamped, and while that dried, I finished wiring it up. It was all fairly simple, I just had to follow the directions. Once everything was wired up, I fastened the switch and box in place. I may have just done something wrong, but the holes for the switch didn't line with the holes in the switch box, so I just decided to use a 3/4" screw. It isn't the best I could have done, but it worked.

After that, I decided it was time to test it. I wasn't completely confident of my wiring job, so I put it in the middle of my driveway just to make sure. Well, nothing bad happened, and it worked, so I finished it up. This didn't require a whole lot, all I had to do was put the cover plate for the switch and vent on. For kicks, I also decided to add a handle to the top. This was one we just had laying around, but if I was to make this again, I would probably have taken the time to go to a hardware store, and tried to find something that I could have wrapped the power cord around.

 The finished product. I think it turned out quite well.

And now for something completely different:

All Monty Python references aside, I thought I would take a break from talking about the MAME cabinet and instead show a different thing I have been working on.
As I am sure you already know, and have for some time now, I am at college staying in a dorm. I have had different arrangements of my desk, and my current arrangement leaves my desk directly under the smoke detector. I plan to be soldering at my desk, and that produces smoke. Now I don't know if it would be enough to set it off or not, but I would just as soon not find out. With that in mind, I set out to make a solder filter. I had remembered seeing this instructable a long time ago. I went on the Home Depot website and started pricing out different fans, hoping for one with a square case. After a while, I found this bathroom vent, and decided to go with it. Once I got it home, I realized that it didn't have an AC plug, so I had to do some more work. I went back to Home Depot, and got a replacement power tool cable, along with a light switch, switch plate, and switch box. It was only after I got all that stuff that I realized that I would need a housing to put everything in. I started sketching out a design on paper, and once I had a satisfactory design, I put it into Sketchup.

My finished design

An idea of what it will look like finished

With it completely designed, it was off to my house to work on it over Thanksgiving break.
For this project, I decided to use plywood; I figured it would look good enough without doing anything to it. I bought some 3/4" plywood at the local Lowe's, but I couldn't find any satisfactory 1/2" plywood there. I decided to use my Baltic birch plywood that I had bought for a different project, but I can just buy more when I get back to that project. First I glued the two top pieces together; while those were drying, I cut the exhaust port holes in the side piece, and glued those together as well. Once everything was dry, I glued the frame together. Before I applied the glue, I realized it would be impossible to get the fan in there if I had the middle piece, so that's why you don't see it in the picture of the glueup.

I checked all the corners for squareness once everything was clamped and they still managed to get out of square. Ah well, you do what you can.
The back is inset in the frame, but when I didn't put the middle piece in, it made it impossibly difficult to position the back piece correctly. The quick fix for this is to glue a couple of support pieces to the inside, so the back won't fall in.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get much more done, and I didn't take any pictures, but not much more was done. Next time I go down there, I will probably be able to finish it, and I will take more pictures.

Slight Revamp to the Site

Nothing major going on, but I thought I might direct your attention to the new bar to your immediate up. If I have a major project going on that would take up more than a few posts, I will create a page so you can see all of them at once. My first example is obviously the MAME cabinet. Once I start doing other projects, if you want to read only about the MAME cabinet, you can just click on that button and only read about the MAME cabinet. Of course all those posts will still show up on the front page, they will just be with all of the others. Also up there is the obligatory "About Me" page.

What I Did Friday

So last Friday, after I was done with classes for the day, I drove back home to (finally!) work on the cabinet some more. On the way home, I stopped at Home Depot to buy a scraper.

Wrong tool for the job!

Once I brought it home, I started working, and I did have the foresight to use it in an inconspicuous spot. I'm glad I did, because it immediately started gouging the MDF. I tried other tools including a block plane and a card scraper. The block plane took strips of paint off the likes of which I have only seen from a finely tuned smoothing plane, but only for about five passes; after that it wouldn't do anything. The card scraper didn't do much of anything. I took the scraper back to HD, and bought the correct one, along with some CitriStrip (paint stripper made for acrylic latex paint), a plastic scraper (CitriStrip recommended it), and a set of painter's pyramids (actually tetrahedrons).
 Once I finally got back to the house, I got cracking!

I started out by trying a test spot in the inside of the cabinet, and applied it with a paper towel. After I did that, and that worked successfully, I started on the rest of the cabinet. For the first side, I used a paper towel; once I finished that side, I decided that the paper towel was too much work.

Swirls don't matter, but work does!

Once again, I went to HD and got a 4" paint brush. That worked a lot better, and sped up the process immensely.

Much better!

 I spent until midnight scraping paint off. I still wasn't done, but decided to wait until morning to finish it. I had a guitar lesson back in Denton at 1:00, so I had to finish it pretty quickly. I ended up getting up at 11:00, so I didn't have much time to finish it, but I did manage.

Mostly done. Also, the scraper.

This was a very nasty job, and I hope I never have to do it again. This is definitely a lesson that a job is worth doing correctly the first time, even if it is harder; because now, I have to do that same job that I didn't want to do, except this time after doing that same job I don't like.

Reconsidering Stripping

Although I am still at college, I still think about this project quite often. Right now, I am once again reconsidering stripping the paint, and I'll tell you why.
To start with, as soon as I put the first coat on, I wasn't very happy with it; as soon as it dried, it felt  rubbery, weak, like I could easily bring it back to the white primer by scratching it with my nails. I ignored this voice in my mind, and kept adding coats, until it was as black as it should be. It was soon after this that I had my wisdom teeth pulled. This kept me from hauling it upstairs, as I am sure you already well know. So there it has been sitting, in my shop, since then. I did put the t-molding on, and strangely enough, that seems to be the main thing holding me back from stripping the paint. I say it's strange because that has probably been the easiest part of this entire build. The other thing that has been keeping me at bay is probably the greatest asset of them all. And that is college. What I mean by that, is that if I do end up repainting, I will use an oil-based epoxy. This takes about 24 hours for each coat to cure, and I don't see why 168 hours (7*24) would be any worse. The implications of this would be that I could come home and apply one coat of paint once a week. By the time I am done with this semester of college, and am home for the winter, everything will be painted. And depending on how ambitious I am, maybe even upstairs in my room, or even totally completed; that sure would be cool!

In College

Obviously I haven't been posting lately. The reason for this is that I am now a college student, so the cabinet is a little far away to work on. There probably won't be very many updates, but if I am working on any sort of cool project I'll try to take some pictures and write something up for y'all.

Still Recovering...

Like the title says, I am still recovering from my wisdom teeth surgery, and they say no exercise, so I figure hauling a ~200 pound arcade cabinet into the house and up a flight of stairs would probably count as exercise, and not a good thing to do. I have been doing some mental work though. Besides trying to find a new HDTV for my dad, I have also been trying to figure out what is wrong with the TV I got for the cabinet, since it will turn off randomly only to be remedied by a nice bang on the side or top, which last time I checked isn't very good when playing games. I am also trying to figure out the best way to mount the trackball in the control panel. I think I am on to something, but will let you know when I make progress. Another thing which shouldn't be quite as hard is mounting the Ms. Pac-Man joystick. There is still a challenge though, as the shaft is very short. There is an arcade fairly close to my house that if I read their website correctly, has a replacement shaft for the controller, which should fit through the 3/4" material without any routing.

The T-Molding

As I said in my last post, I gave up on trying to drill the holes in the control panel. But I felt like I had to do something, so I installed the t-molding. It was a fairly straightforward process. All I used was a mallet and a box knife. The mallet is to hit the molding into place. The knife is for cutting the part that goes into the MDF, the | part of the T, if that makes sense. If it's an outside angle/radius, you have to cut some away, to basically keep it from running into itself, think about a miter, except it doesn't have to be precise. With an inside angle/radius, you have a couple of different options. The first is to just cut the molding like you did with the outside angle. The other option is to just cut slots in it, and since they are spreading out, they won't run into each other. Honestly, I went back and forth between the two. Another thing that came in handy was a piece of wood with a 45 degree angel on it. This was great for hammering the molding into corners.

After I got it in on both sides, I realized that I may have damaged the paint job slightly. It shouldn't be too bad, since my room isn't super bright, and should hide the flaws well enough.
Another thing I realized, and a lesson for you all, is that if you decide to make a MAME cabinet, make sure that the edge that the t-molding is going on is smooth. I thought I could get away with not working too hard on it, after all, I figured that the molding would cover most of the flaws. I was wrong. It's not super noticeable, but it is there: just a slight variation, almost a ripple.

Status Update

Just because I haven't been posting doesn't mean I haven't been working on it.  June 29 - July 1 I was gone at the college orientation, but I did manage to put a coat of primer on before I left. Even before that, I drilled out as much of the control panel as I could, but I'll get into that later. As soon as I got home, my friend Wesley arrived from Oklahoma, and we worked on it a lot, but we were having so much fun I didn't get a chance to blog about it. To start with, we put more coats of paint on. The primer was white, and I wanted the cabinet to be black, so we ended up putting 2 coats on. We had some paint left, so we added another coat on the side that will be seen when walking into my room.

Here it is painted. That's my elbow sticking out.

We also spent a lot of time on the software aspect. We were originally going to go with Windows 2000, but we were having so much trouble trying to get it to boot up to do a fresh install, we gave up on that computer and went with Windows XP. We are going to use MAMEWah for the frontend. A really cool thing that Wes did was modify the Windows XP splash/loading screen to have the MAME logo instead, so this way when you boot up you will see a MAME logo instead of Windows XP.
We didn't do much with the controls other than a couple of things. One thing we did was hook up the spinner. This was the easiest thing to do since it just hooks up via USB. It is recognized as a mouse, so we had to configure both the frontend and the actual emulator to accept mouse input. We also visited my neighbor to get some advice. He sometimes wires up airplane control panels, so we figured he would be a good person to ask about wiring. One thing he told us was that we should use different colors of wire for the controls, to distinguish the different buttons, and make different bundles to rout around. He showed us a connector, and when he told us we didn't have to have them all in a sheath, as his were, but when I saw that, I remembered that my dad had a big spool of Cat5e ethernet cable. It will work great, since the biggest number of buttons we will have is 6, and and Cat5e has 8 wires, so we will have 1 left over, assuming I run all the ground together, which it will be eventually anyway. We also worked on the speakers. I had a set of computer speakers in my shop, so we took them apart, and hooked them up to the 4" speakers we had. Also for convenience sake, we used hot glue and glued the amplifier onto one of the speakers, simply to make it easier when installing them.
July 7-14 I was in Florida visiting my uncle. We did some woodworking, watched the shuttle launch, went to the beach, and when I got back, the paint was dry. Finally!
I didn't do much work when I got back, because I had a gig that night, then a weekly acting camp that I nearly forgot about while laying around recovering, and then the very next day (Sunday), I was off to UNT for a jazz combo camp. Once I got home Friday, there wasn't much time, and the next day, I was off to the acting camp again, and then spent most of the rest of the day at Half-Price Books, and ended up with some good CDs. Monday I mainly recovered from jazz camp, and also went to the consultation to have my wisdom teeth pulled. Tuesday I finally dragged myself back out to the shop to try out the drill guide that I got, since my drill press isn't deep enough for all the holes in the control panel. I bought the Lee Valley guide, because I know that they usually have excellent quality, but this was terrible! There was so much play in it that it is nowhere near close to drill press accuracy, even a crummy one. I am sending it back, and after doing some research online, I am actually going with the Craftsman brand. It got the best reviews, so I figure it's more or less the lesser of x evils. Of course, this morning I had my wisdom teeth pulled, so I'm pretty much out of commission for at least a week. Luckily, thanks to the wonders of teh interwebs I can order the drill guide so it will be here and ready when I am.

Still Going Strong(ish)

It wasn't my original intention to only blog once a week, but that appears to be what is happening. Anyways, like last week, I have been working on it.

Here it is with the front, top, and diagonal attached. There really isn't a whole lot to say about this, except I did cut some angles to make it fit together better. The angle in front should help when I install the marquee and backlight.

 This is the "ventilation slot" I was talking about. If I had thought about it better, I might have cut a slot for T-molding to make it look nicer, but it is in the back after all, so it probably doesn't make a difference.

This is the template I used to route the holes, and it worked fairly well.

I did manage to get a TV finally. I had been looking on Craigslist, and maybe it's better when you want to pay for something, but people were so flaky, I probably sent out about 20 emails, and got back maybe about 3, with one being spam, and the others saying it was already taken. I eventually gave up and went to Goodwill. That's what I should have done from the beginning. I spent way too much time trying to save what turned out to be $25, and I really needed it to keep going. If anything, I actually went a little overboard with trying to find the best deal, and ended up with a 27" screen!

Sorry about the worse than usual picture quality, but anyway, this set me up for the next step.

This was to screw the TV shelf in place, but I wasn't sure where to locate the the shelf. When I got the TV, I was able to measure it, and figure that out. I decided to have it at a right angle to the slant on front, so hopefully the TV will be parallel with the bezel. Before I screwed it in, I screwed another piece of MDF to the bottom, kind of like I did the base, to help support the TV. You can kind of see it in the following picture.

 

I still didn't completely trust it, so I decided to glue cleats to the edges. At this point, I don't think it will budge at all.

I also decided to glue a cleat to the top of the shelf. This is to make sure that the TV doesn't slide back, since it will be at an angle. It should be plenty strong enough.

Around this time is when things started to fall apart a little bit. I had originally planned for the speakers to be 3" from the edges. This meant that the opposite side would be approximately 7" from the edge. That was before I took the bezel into account. I realized that if I kept the holes where they were, I would have to either cut out a place in the bezel for the speakers, or have no bezel at all. Both of these options were unacceptable of course, so I had to create new holes in the board. To do this of course, I also had to make a new routing template. Luckily, I was able to squeeze out what I needed from the same board I had used for the original measurements. The new holes were 1" from either edge.

 I got that routed, and also managed  to rout out part of my bench cookie in the act. It looks a little bit sad, but I learned my lesson, and hopefully will be able to keep from doing that again.

 Anyway, I did that, and cut the bevel, just like the last time, and screwed it in. That probably would have worked, but I have not mastered the fine art of drilling a straight hole yet apparently. I had also been using a bit that was too small, which had been working fine, although it has cracked the MDF slightly. All these combined problems caused the board to basically split. I tried to fix it by watering down some wood glue and injecting it into the hole, and that worked to make it stronger, but I couldn't clamp it good enough to more or less stuff the MDF back in. I eventually gave up and made another board.  Anyway, the picture is the only really good way to show what I am talking about with the splitting and blowout.

 You can see the more or less stain from the glue. You can also see the holes alternating sides. This is from my less than perfect drilling.
The sequence for making the second board is more or less the same, so I won't get into that too much, but I will note a few things I did differently the second time around. To start with, since the holes were already drilled in the side, I took a ruler, and marked a straight line centered on the holes, and then measured 3/8" down to put the board precisely in the middle. I also used a larger drill bit. For those keeping score, I went from a #40 to a #34. Both of these things helped keep the MDF from splitting. I also used 1 1/2" screws near the holes for the speakers, instead of 1 3/4", which is what I am using for the rest of the project.

The next thing I did was screw on the two back pieces. Also pretty straightforward. All I did was measure in 1/2" from the edge on the inside, and 7/8" from the edge on the outside. Clamp in place and drill, countersink, and screw. Done.

I also filled in the holes/countersinks with woodfiller. Both of the cans of Plastic Wood that we had were dried up, and my idea of MDF sawdust and wood glue didn't work as well as I hoped. So today I went out and bought a canister of Timbermate woodfiller, recommendation of the Wood Whisperer.

It worked very good. I had to put it on a second time, but I think that is more due to the fact that I have not yet mastered wood filler. I am almost done with the filler, I just need to finish sanding it down, and I should be ready to prime. Now I just need to turn my shop into an operating room, aka, clean it up really good, and I'll be ready to prime, then paint. Unfortunately, I only have tomorrow to work on it before I go to my college orientation, a 3-day live on campus ordeal. After that, my friend is coming in town, and I had hoped to have all the construction done and the cabinet hauled upstairs before he came, but it looks like I will have to rethink my strategy. On that note, anybody know of a non water-based primer that dries quickly?

Cool Stuff and More Work

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted! I got more supplies last Friday, but I had to leave before UPS came, or else I would have posted pictures, and the last few days, I have been blowing and going. Anyways, there were actually two different packages, but they just happened to come on the same day. The first box was from Rockler, which had the T-Molding and router bit. I took a picture of the box right when I got it, at first because I thought it was funny, but then I realized it was a good thing I did, and here's why:

This is pretty much exactly how it looked when I got it. The papers you see on top were in the box, but fell out when I picked it up to bring it inside. Like I said, at first I thought it was funny, but then I realized the router bit could have easily fallen out; luckily it didn't.

The other box I got was from Hagstrom Electronics, which contained the keyboard encoder, breakout board, and two PS/2 cables. I'll get into this more when I start wiring it up, but anyway, I got them.

Once I got the router bit, I could start on cutting the slots.

I started by making some test cuts in a scrap board to make sure it was centered. I did this by cutting a slot, it doesn't have to be very long, and then I took a piece of the T-Molding, and hammered it in, to see how centered it was. It took me quite a few tries to get it right, but I eventually did, and started on the big piece. Interestingly, when I started to cut the slot on the first side, despite the weight of all that MDF, it tried to shift on me. The solution? 50-pound weight to the rescue! It worked perfectly, and allowed me to easily rout the slot all around.

After I routed out the slot, I could get to work screwing it together. I had actually already drilled and countersunk the holes while I was waiting for the stuff to come, so it was a fairly quick assembly, except for one problem. I had planned for the base to be flush with the sides, but when I got it together, one side was further forward than the base, and the other side was too far back. After thinking about it for a while, I ended up planing/shaving/sanding the base down on the other side, so that it looked about the same on both sides.

This is the side of the base that was too far back.

And this is the side of the base that I had to plane down.

Here it is standing up. The board on the back is just clamped on to provide rigidity while I got the other pieces screwed in. It's at this point that you really start to realize how massive this thing is.

I am actually farther than I have pictures of. I have the front screwed in, as well as the top and diagonal piece.
And now, for the mistakes I made. When I was cutting the sides out, I misread the measurement on the plans and had the diagonal cut as 18" from the corner on either side, as opposed to 16", which is what it should have been. What this means is that I had to cut the top piece down to 7" from 9". This also means that the diagonal is too short, but in the spirit of engineers everywhere, it's not a flaw, it's a feature, it makes for better ventilation! I also failed to read the instructions that said to cut a slot for the T-molding in the base, but it's too late for that. I'm sure it will look fine, but I wish I had noticed that. I don't know if I would call it a mistake exactly, but I wasn't exactly consistent in whether I glued-and-screwed, or just screwed. A mistake I did make was when I was drilled the holes in the top piece. I started by drilling the front screw on either side, but I failed to clamp it the whole time. This  made the board sag in the back a little when I drilled the back holes, and in turn screwed it in. Once I noticed this, I backed the rear screws out, lined it back up, and clamped it down hard, and re-screwed it. Of course later I realized I needed to cut a bevel on the front edge of the top piece, and when I took it off, there were cracks in the sides. It may have been fine had I done nothing, but I decided to water down some wood glue, and drizzled that on the edges. I would recommend using a brush of some kind, but I couldn't find one, and this worked fine. The MDF is so porous that it soaked it right up. I'll see how it turns out tomorrow. I also made a template out of 1/4" plywood for the speaker holes, and I can make those holes tomorrow as well. All I did was mark out a circle with a compass, and once I did that, I drilled holes all the way around and used a coping saw to saw out the middle circle. After that, I put a drum sander on the drill press, and sanded to the line. There are definitely much better ways to do this, but it doesn't have to be too precise, as there will be a grill covering it up.

The Base

Well, I finished the base today. It really wasn't all that hard, although the kickplates were a little long, so I had to trim those down on the tablesaw. No big deal. The only really hard part about it was lining everything up. Here is my basic process:
1. Start with the base upside down, and do a rough layout with the kickplates and supports on the sheet.
2. Figure out the best measurement, then make sure all the pieces are centered.
3. Using the sharpest/finest pencil you can get, make some lines to mark where the boards are. I used a 0.3mm mechanical pencil.
4. Flip the base sheet over, then make a layout line 2 3/8" in from the edge on each end, because even though my plans had the kickplates as 1 1/2" in from either end, I ended up with them being 2" from each end. The same goes for the supports, and in my case, I went with the supports 8" in from the edges, so the lines were 8 3/8" in from the edges.
5. Next draw some lines to mark where the screws will go. I used my combination square, to keep the screw holes as symmetrical as possible.
6. After they are marked, use a center punch to help the drill bit. This is an optional step, but very helpful to make sure the drill bit doesn't go skating across the MDF.
7. Now here's the hard part. make sure the parts are lined up, then drill them. I started with the kickplates before I even thought about the supports. Make sure they are square; this is where the lines we drew earlier prove invaluable, because now all you have to do is make sure the edges are right up against the line. While you're doing this, don't forget to keep the edges flush. After you drill those holes, get the supports lined up and drill them. This is the most frustrating part, because you can't really see, so it takes a lot of time with a combination square, and a heaping scoop of patience.

After all that, the actual glueup was easy. What I did was get a screw on both ends started, to where the tips were just sticking through. Get the glue on the kickplate or support, and I didn't even bother spreading it around. After that, just stick it on, and drive the screws. The reason for the screws is that it helps with the alignment; just get the hole lined up with the screw tip, then drive it in. Once those two screws are in, it's a simple thing to just go down the row, driving the rest of the screws in.

Here's a picture of the base with all of the holes drilled and countersunk. You can see the layout lines, as well as the symmetry of the holes.
Behind the glue bottle is a 50 pound weight, which was extremely useful when trying to get the supports to stay in position.

This is the base with only one of the kickplates installed.

Here it is with everything fastened, now to let it dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, I'd say I had a very productive day.

Cutting... Done!

Well, more or less. The only things left are the sides of the CP box. I am really glad that this stage is over; I'm getting tired of being covered in MDF sawdust.

Later, I'll go back out there and start on the construction. According to the instructions, the base is first, so I'll start with that. LuSiD also mentioned that it's best to rout the slot for the T-Molding before screwing it together, and I should be getting the router bit for that on Friday.

More Cutting

Well, I've been cutting the rectangular pieces today. I came in for a little break, but I'll probably be at it again in while. Most of these pieces I was able to cut on the tablesaw, which is always nice. For one thing, I can stand up, instead of crawling all over the place. There are still a few pieces that I have to cut with the circular saw, since the fence on my tablesaw only goes to about 28". And I can't use the miter gauge, since it doesn't have a very good width capacity, and I haven't made a crosscut sled yet, even though I have a piece that I have set out for it, but that's a different story. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. Anyway, back to work...

The Sides

Well, I managed to finish the sides of the cabinet, for the most part. I used a circular saw and a straightedge for the long straight cuts. I had some problems keeping the cuts square, since I was using a framing square to line the cuts up, which doesn't really have any reference edges. So I had to make a trip to Home Depot to get a different square. It's more or less a drywall square, but I got one with an adjustable angle, which I guess will come in handy if I ever need to mark an angle, but I mainly got it because it can fold up when not in use.

Anyway, here the sides are partially done. I meant to take some pictures of the MDF before I started cutting it, but I guess I just got too excited. Already at this point you can see the shape of the cabinet coming through. You may notice the plethora of clamps around it. This is because I cut both sheets at the same time; this way, they would be as close to exactly the same as possible.

Here it is with the front profile cut, and setting up to cut the back diagonal. I mainly used a jigsaw for the profile. The blue foam underneath is to provide support for the material, while providing a surface that the circular saw blade can cut through. I don't recommend using the foam when using the jigsaw, because you can't control the depth of cut on the jigsaw, and you would end up pretty much destroying the foam. Also, I had a big problem with the jigsaw blade deflecting. This could possibly be the blades fault, but most likely because I was cutting through 1 1/2" of MDF.

Here it is all nice and cut. When I was first planning the cabinet out, I wasn't too crazy about the shape, but it has definitely grown on me.

I'm not sure how much I will need to clean up the edges and corners. I think definitely more than I have in this picture, but maybe not too much more since it will be covered up with T-Molding. I think I just need to make sure all the edges are smooth. I also need to decide what size molding to get. That mainly depends on whether I only paint it, or put some kind of laminate on the side. I think I will probably just paint it a solid color.

Getting Back in Gear

Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have been working on it. The main holdup was that I had to finish some step stools for my dad, along with some other stuff, but I think I'll write a dedicated post for that. I was also trying to decide how to cut the MDF. I got way more obsessed with this than I ever should be on anything. What I was worried about was the accuracy of the cut that I would get at Home Depot or Lowe's. The robotics team I have been on has a panel saw at the shop, so I was thinking about doing it myself, to "guarantee" an accurate cut. You can read my obsessing here. Anyway, I finally decided to "risk" having it done at Lowe's, and there was absolutely no problem. The guy helping me was very professional. He managed to get two sheets on the saw at the same time, and spent a lot of time making sure they were lined up perfectly before he cut them, which is just what I wanted. If you look at the cut plan, on the 3rd sheet, all the cuts are 26" except the last one. So once I told him this, he actually set up a stop block. Even better.
I spent probably a good 15 minutes loading all the pieces into my pickup, and used some cardboard to try to keep from damaging the corners. Anybody who has worked with MDF will tell you that the corners will deform if you give them a dirty look. Since my shop has a concrete floor, I decided to try to get some cardboard to cushion the floor, so maybe the corners won't dent as bad. I found a posting on Craigslist, so that night I went to where it was, and I hit the jackpot. I think I got way too much, but at least I won't have to make another trip.
Anyway, I'm going back out to the shop to work on it some more. I'll have pictures later tonight, and maybe I'll be done with the sides by the end of the day.

Spinner Knob

Well, I got the spinner knob in UPS today. I really like the way it looks, and I think I made the right choice.

One thing that you cannot see from the picture is that there are actually two set screws, one on either side shaft hole. Another thing to note is that once they are completely screwed in, they will be in about 1/8" so all you will see is two holes. Also, I find it interesting that it seems that the silver looking part is actually the part that is colored. But now that I think about it, I suspect what they did was machine the knurling, tap the holes, then dye it. And after all that, then they machined the recessed part out.

What I Have So Far

First off, I'd like to wish all you hoopy froods a happy Towel Day. Now that that's out of the way, let's get on to business.I had meant to post sooner, but I was extremely busy Saturday and Sunday, and then Monday and Tuesday I had a giant pile of cloths on my desk that needed to be folded and put away. But anyway, I received most of my stuff from Happ Controls last Tuesday (May 17), except for the spinner knob, but I'll get to that. Anyway, I finally cleared off my desk, so I could take a picture of everything I have gotten so far.

Here's everything that I got (from top left).
(x2) 4" Unshielded Speakers
It should be pretty obvious why you need these. I haven't quite figured out how I will drive them, but I expect that I will end up cannibalizing a set of computer speakers, that should make it fairly easy. 
SlikStik Tornado Spinner Assembly 
I wanted this mainly for Arkanoid, but I also definitely plan on getting TRON, along with others I'm sure.
Player 1 & 2 Buttons w/ Horizontal Microswitch
Of course I had to get these, it just wouldn't be right to not. After all, you have to have a way to start, and they also just look cool.
Replacement Ms. Pac-Man Joystick
I mainly wanted this for the ball top, again for the looks, but also because Pac-Man is one of my all time favorite arcade games. Now you may be wondering "But if all you're talking about is Pac-Man, why the Ms. Pac-Man replacement? After all, you can get the original Pac-Man replacement joystick right here?" Well, I'll tell you why. For one thing, I also like Ms. Pac-Man, possibly even better than the original. The other (main) reason is that the replacement for the original is about $50. Another thing to note, is that this joystick is 4-way, which not only is it very important for Pac-Man, but it is also important to note that other games require more than 4-way, which brings me to the:
(x2) Black Super Joystick
These are what each player gets. They are actually able to switch between 4-way and 8-way, important for any game where you have to go diagonal.
(x2)  Round Speaker Grille
Pretty self-explanatory. I thought about routing out the MDF, so I wouldn't have to buy these, but I couldn't come up with a satisfactory design.
(x2) White Button w/ Horizontal Microswitch
I think I will probably use these for left and right mouse buttons. This, in part with the Trackball (below) should let me avoid having to plug in another mouse and trying to find a place to put them.
(x6) Green Button w/ Horizontal Microswitch
These are for player 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet.
(x6) Blue Button w/ Horizontal Microswitch
Same thing, but for all of these things I will get into the control panel layout later
3" White Trackball
After running this through an encoder, it will function as a mouse. Combined with the white buttons above, I should be able to emulate anything I might need.
Miniature Round Pushbutton, Red
I was planning on linking this to the Reset button, but I might change my mind. Anyway, I'm sure I'll find some use for it.
Velleman Multimeter
Happ has a nice deal where when you buy so much stuff worth of merchandize, you get to choose from some free stuff. When you spend over $300, you have the option to get a free multimeter. Definitely not top-of-the-line, but not too bad either.

That's all for right now, I'll be posting soon.

More About the MAME Cabinet

So in case you're wondering, MAME Stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. What this means to you, is that with the right know-how, you can actually play old arcade games like Pac-Man or Galaga on your computer. Not content to just use the computer keyboard, many people (including me) decide to make an arcade cabinet, just like you might find in an arcade. I have been wanting to make this for a while, but I never had the money or the time to make it happen. So of course, I decide to build it the summer before I leave for college. Anyway, I spent innumerable hours on BYOAC (Build Your Own Arcade Controls), reading everything, from how to make your own keyboard encoder, to how to make a rotating monitor, as well as looking at probably over one hundred different cabinets, from upright to desktop to cocktail. After a lot of research, I finally decided to go basically with LuSiD's design. This is probably the most widely used design, most likely because it just works out really well. It can all be cut from 3 sheets of MDF. I might have to expand to 4, because at 6'1", a just over 3' high control panel doesn't really work, and I'm building it for me, so I can do what I want! I am basing the control panel layout on the Doughcade II (I think). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get his website to work. You have to remember that most of these websites (and a lot of the MAME stuff in general) have not been updated in about 10 years.
Anyways, I haven't figured out where I will put it, but I have some time to figure that out. Here is a panorama of my room if you want to suggest where to put it. Maybe later I will model my room in Sketchup and post it, so y'all can rearrange my room.
What I do have modeled in Sketchup however, is LuSiD's cabinet. I had to go from his 4 page PDF, and I just thought it was too confusing to try to build from, so I spent a few days trying to figure it out. All the PDF had was some tips on construction and the cut plans, so I modeled it in 3D to get a better visualization.
This is a picture of the model:

And here is a link to the model in the 3D Warehouse, so you can download it if you want, and play around with it.