sunday

I finished painting the control panel box ... gave it a few light coats of black spray paint.

I also started looking around for a monitor to put in. Went out to measure the interior width and realized it was time for more deconstruction. When I originally ran the jig saw and power saw through the speaker board, there was still about an inch or more it left running down both sides. I had to use the chisel to get the leftover pieces out. There were tongue'n'grooved into the side of the cab.

After pulling that scrap out, the max width inside the cabinet for the monitor is 22-1/4" ... tight. The original game held a 19" vertical mounted monitor. I'm hoping I can fit a 21" in there, but I know the case will have to come off.

There were three for sale on craigslist, $50-$75. A sony, a dell, and an HP. Waiting to hear back from the emails now. I'll probably take the first one that replies, so long as it works and looks good.

I'll take the tape measure when I go look .. hopefully I can guesstimate the interior dimension.

If it's too tight, there are a couple more shims on the inside of the cab that could be removed, but they're skinny and that's only going to free up an extra 1/2".

the cp

mounted but not wired.

and now looking at this picture .. .i think the orange and yellow buttons are supposed to be the other way around.

put in the pinball holes and put a first coat of black paint on the box.

another oops

oops! ... i mounted all the buttons in, then dropped in the trackball plate ... the mounting screws for the tball plate aren't long enough now that it's sitting on the additional 1/8" abs.

so... cheap and dirty fix ... I took the 5/8" spade and just made a bigger hole about 1/4" down ... that's large enough to just put the nuts on with a small socket.

live and learn ... hopefully, I'm not going to have to take this whole thing apart anytime soon now. I think I've got all the prep work done.

I thought that the other day, too.

safety third

after all that agonizing over router bits I realized last night maybe I should have spent a bit more time thinking about how to keep from slicing through my femoral arteries...

no, I didn't slice anything, but that was just a miracle.

I put the fixed base on the router, and mounted the slot cutter there cause I was just gonna fly around the top edge of the cp and slot about a foot on the cabinet where it had been cut back.

so I'm buzzing around the cp, and the router starts taking off on its own out of control... screwed up a bit of the slot, but its in the middle of the back so it doesn't matter... then i did the same thing to the cabinet, except i just left the cabinet standing upright and i'm holding the router there on it at 90 degrees .. yea, real smart. all of that was real smart.

when i get done, i look down at the router and I've got this self-powered razor-sharp ninja krull blade on there spinning around at 24000 rpms and there and i'm just holding it up, free handed ... looking at this thing ... and say holy shit .. what the f*** am I thinking?????

now this morning I can start mounting all the parts and have that ready to go. whoo hoo!

anyway... that whole job took a total of about 30 seconds ... and the human body can die of blood loss in about the same amount of time.

cheap slots

now that i've got t-molding .. i need a place to put it ... so i buzzed by harbor freight at lunchtime and found a set of slot cutters for the router.

I know its cheap junk .. but i'm only going to use it this once. I get 6 for the price of one anywhere else... ($24.99) so maybe if sometime i need to cut another slot, I'll have a little variety to choose from.

so ... too much plastic t-molding and too many slot cutters cheap. I suppose i should consider that a good thing. .. maybe I'll just rip out most of the existing molding and replace it. what the heck.

beer n buttons

Met Justin last night for a beer at the lucky lab.
He has a monster arcade machine, too. It was good to have a beer and talk about the arcades and front ends and such. He knows a lot, it was good to get some ideas.

Ordered the t-molding .. it cost as much to ship as it does for the plastic. oh well.

I'll stop by woodcrafter's tomorrow after work and pick up a slot cutter. I can start working on that, and then just put the molding on when it gets here.

Finally as a last resort I sent the trouble ticket off to dell and got an email answer back. they want me to tear the machine all the way down, rip out all the cards and memory and what not. quite an involved process, but I'll get to work on it tomorrow when i get home. don't feel like tearing down the pc before i go to bed.

cheers.

you want what

Trimmed back the top of the cp to fix the screw up and finished routing the abs.
Looks pretty nice. i love that textured surface.

Then I think I'm ready to put the controls in ... and realize its got the crappy looking front edge. I go over to Woodcraft to see if they might have some t-molding.. no good, but they're an awesome store. Within walking distance. I probably don't hang out there enough, but their prices seem a little steep sometimes. On the other hand, I'll head back there for router bits next time I need one. Which I will, soon. They've got lots of them and reasonably priced. For the record ... the selection of router bits at home depot sucks. At least Lowe's has a little variety.

So I head off to HD to see if I can find it. Nobody there has any idea what i'm talking about. Ditto for lowe's. I hate this... if I'm going to use the t-molding I need to rout the slot for it, but I need to know the size and depth in order to do that.
I also don't want to wait a week for it to get here. Didn't have any luck locating anything locally on the web either. I'll call around tomorrow and see what I can find.
Worst case, I have to bite it and send off a web order-- with a minimum order of 20' from what I've seen. Which is about twice as much as I need.

Looks good doesn't it? ... Just bolt the abs onto the plywood, the 4-way is sandwiched in there as a test .. no plate needed.



ps .. check out the new link over there. Paper arcade. cool.