plastic fantastic

what a difference a little plastic makes. Maybe the whole should be covered in plastic. make it pretty and people go 'wow'. It really is a shiny pretty world if you don't look too hard. All that plastic is so good at hiding all the flows that lurk below the thin façade.

Made it over to Tap plastics this morning. After I drove half way across town to where they used to be. Of course when I got there I remembered that they're only about a mile away from me now. DOH!
Looked at some sample pieces and talked to a nice kid who seemed to know a bit about how things handled. The polycarbonate (lexan) only comes in clear and smoky clear .. no good for my purposes. I took a sample piece to check out though. Finally settled on some 1/8" black ABS. Its easy to work, no cracking problems, and it's got this cool texture that actually matches the trackball mounting plate.

Heres what I ended up doing. I bought a piece a bit larger than the cp .. in this case 18x36 (about $13). I clamped it over the cp board, drilled holes in 4 corners, put in some screws -- cause I still haven't been able to find cool carriage bolts any smaller than 1/4"... then, once it was held in place, I flipped it over, drilled some pilot holes right through the middle of all the control holes -- including all the screw holes.
Flipped it back over -- so now there's a piece of plastic with a bunch of small holes in it ... and drilled all the 1-1/8" holes with a 5/8" spade bit. For some reason, the 5/8 I had really did a nice job of cutting clean holes in the abs. (Yes, I did spend some time playing with the scrap, drilling holes and figuring out at least 3 ways NOT to do this :D )

Finally .. clamp it all down again, put a 1/2" straight laminate edge trim bit in the router, drop the router into the 5/8 holes, and buzz out all the big holes, including the trackball mount.
Nice.

Finish up by running the trim bit around the edges. ... Which is where I screwed it up. I kept having to move the clamps and screws so the router could do the various corners .. and the last time ... I forgot to put one of the screws back in, the plastic slipped, and it got trimmed in about 1/4" too far. Luckily it was on the back side of the cp, so I can just take that much off the wood, too and nobody will know the difference but me.

And so it goes .. that's the way it always is... screws up just before you're done ... or maybe I get too excited about getting done and screw up by not thinking towards the end. whatever. It's coming along.

cool

making progress ... i just had to see ...

making progress

ok .. the vista problem over .. but looking back on it, i think it might have been a really stupid thing to do.

oh well, too late now.

played with the router, got that working. I routed the happs into the back of the cp, and they look great when they stick up another 3/8".

Time to do the front now. Picked up a plastic electrical cover at home depot. I can trim it down and use it over the 4-way. It's a cool color blue and I think it'll work just great. I went back to what I originally planned -- cut about a 2" dia hole for the 4-way stick, and I'll route the top so it sits down in there. That should make it good and solid, and I don't have to get a cover plate for it.

Realized I don't need a cover plate when I reallized I was going to have to cover the whole thing with lexan or somethign. I'll go down to Tap next weekend and see what they have in stock. Lowe's and HD only have giant size sheets of the Lexan, and it's pretty spendy. They're also all clear. I'm hoping I can pick up something in a solid color blue, maybe black.. and just cover the top of the cp with it.

If not, then formica, but the only formica I've seen has been in giant size sheets also, and they all have the crappy counter-top designs. Haven't seen any cool solid black or orange yet.

vista crash

Spent all fri nite and sat. morning getting soooo frustrated with Vista. Vista would crash every time i did anything. it even has an old style bsod. open browser-crash, open folder-crash... took me about 4 hours to get it to connect to the dsl. called in to verizon and everything else, they walked me through the settings, and then started saying things like my dsl modem was just too old. Maybe because Vista is running IPv6? Anyway, after I got off the phone with them and it still wasn't working, so I tried a few more things. Like turning off the IP6. The connection finally tarted working after I ran it through the wireless router. It was running straight from the modem to the pc when i was talking with Verizon so they couldn't say it wasn't their problem.

By about 2 pm Saturday i couldn't take it anymore. I bought a copy of XP, formatted the drive and installed it. Trashed everything. I did that on the assumption that I'll wait about a year, vista will have a few updates, I'll have a decent video card, and then work out something with dell about getting an install disc.

XP cost me about 5 hours of loading drivers and whatnot, but its not crashing anymore.

My brother was here Friday nite, too, then off again about noon saturday for a ski trip. So in the meantime I havent gotten much done on the cab. Spent too much time playing with the PC.

I'll hopefully make a bit of progress today. I did get the 5th button marked in and marked the joystick templates up enough to accommodate it. Time for some more drilling today.

arrgh

Have to re-draw cut lines for the joysticks ... and I decided I wanted to add the 4th button on the bottom row. that means the joysticks have to move up centered with the top row.

so... they'll be 3/4" farther away from the player.. no big deal. I can live with that. It's either that or start all over again.

Had another good email conversation with Bob Roberts today too. I asked if I could send the joystick back. Not. ... He pointed out what I needed was a mounting plate, and don't rout the board, just cut the hole for the stick. If I use a formica top, then, I don't need a plate, I can just mount it to that. should be strong enough.

Thinking I'll head over to Lowe's again. Need to look for formica laminate for the top. Maybe pick up that router, too and start playing with it.

road trip!

more drilling

finished (maybe, for now) drilling the button holes. then started to look at the trackball and the trackball template.
Cant figure out why the trackball template says to cut out the huge diagonal hole, when it doesnt look like the trackball needs any more than about a 3.25" square.

Hmmm. Looking for more information on that one before I dive in.

Started trying to figure out Mamewah tonite too. Ended up picking a game at random that requires a 4-button setup. So I'm going to have to go back and add that 4th neogeo button down by the corner of the joysticks.
Lots going on with the Mamewah front end. Trying to figure it out so I can set it up to run the C64, Atari and other emulators off the CP.

tick tock tick tock ... more controls on the way soon I hope, and hopefully a new PC before the weekend.

the screw up

Ok.. its only fair that I document the screw-ups as well as the successes.
This is a photo of the cp top ... you can see the partially drilled hole .. I drilled that after the top row. that was exactly as far as I got before realizing I'd messed up the measurements.

I was so mad yesterday, couldnt even think. Went to the Home Depot and Lowe's ... started perusing MDF and what not. I just quit work on the cab cause I wasn't sure what to do. Just walked around the stores, trying to think of something but my brain wasnt working. Bought a pizza on the way home after I realized I hadn't eaten all day.

Told a friend at work this morning about it, he said just cover it in formica. Why didn't I think of that? Actually... I did kind of think of that, but I was considering colored plex or lexan. I like the formica idea better.

The only redeeming part is that I marked a centerline, which became the new drill mark for the 2nd row. So now the centerline of the joystick is aligned with the bottom row of buttons instead of the top ... or I can move the joystick up a bit. not sure what i'm going to do yet. doesnt really bother me to just leave it inline with the bottom row.

I also decided to pick up a router. I did a bit of research and found a Hitachi with decent reviews. They have it at Lowe's ... but my closest store only has the display model, none in stock at the moment. I'll have to get on the phone and check out some other places. Price seems to be the same everywhere, about $179.

Hate to bother Robert to do some of this routing, because it's going to be very time consuming making jigs and what not. He's got a good business going and shows every weekend so he has his hands full already without me taking up time in his woodshop.

Time to go watch a movie now. Started drilling again and the battery is near dead. I'll finish up the last few button holes after the netflix.