Polycarbonate For the Control Panel

The thing I had alluded to in the last post was making a polycarbonate (Lexan) overlay for the control panel. This was worthwhile, if not necessary, for a number of reasons: First off, people are going to be touching the nice pretty white control panel with their grimy hands all the time, so you want to be able to clean it. If you only had paint, between the grimy hands and the cleaning because of the grimy hands, it would eventually wear through the paint. The other reason is similar: using an overlay allows you to put fewer coats of paint on, and I believe I have mentioned before as to how much I despise painting.
Now for the process of making the panel:

Cut and ready to mark.

I started out by tracing out the shape of the panel, and cut it with plenty of room to spare. I then marked out where I was going to put holes for screws on both the panel and the overlay. When marking the screws, I put painters tape over approximately where I knew I would be drilling holes, then marked 1/2" in from each edge with my special 0.3mm mechanical pencil (everyone who knows me is disturbed by my love for them). The reason for the painters tape in case you were wondering is that it helps to keep marks off of the board, and also helps to avoid marring the surface from a misbehaving drill bit. After drilling the holes and countersinking, I peeled off the bottom plastic sheet, and fastened it to the board. After that, I used a flush trim bit and routed out each hole with my router table, using the hole in the panel as a guide. At this point, I was basically done; all I had to do was peel off the top sheet and I was good to go!

What I Would Do Differently

If I could, I would definitely mark the screws differently; once mounted, the panel bowed up between two screws, due to a mismeasurement. I would also like to do something different when fastening and routing the overlay. I got shavings of Lexan underneath the overlay and was afraid to do anything with them, because I didn't want to scratch anything with them. Next time, I would probably leave the bottom sheet on, fasten it, rout it, take it off, clear all the shavings, peel off the bottom sheet, then very carefully refasten it using the same holes. I would also not use it in a router table configuration; the router was full of pieces of Lexan, which was hard to get out. I would use a different bit, and use it in handheld configuration to let gravity take care of the stuff for the most part at least.

And the painting is done (again)!

I really hope so anyways! I put the last coat on the cabinet the other day, so now I just need the paint to cure. I also painted the control panel; I only had to put one more coat of paint on the top, because I decided to put a piece of polycarbonate (Lexan) on the top to protect it. I came to this decision because I wasn't sure how I wanted to not only make it easy to clean since it is white after all, but also make it durable enough to withstand the constant rubbing/touching that might make the paint wear through to the MDF. The problem I have been running into is that the only size big enough for the control panel is 36" x 48"! I can probably use the extra for the bezel for the TV, but it's pretty flexible, so I'm not sure how well that will work.

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.

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.

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.

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.