Sorry about this folks. My last post started with "I'm getting quick at this" yet I've made no progress (and no blog entries) for 11 days. I went to the hardware store today to get another big panel of MDF and have them cut it to width (and to fit in the car) and the saw was out of order.
Downer.
The next chance I'll get to put any work in will be Friday for a couple of hours in the morning, then hopefully next Monday will be a big push.
We'll see what the week brings.
Monday 18 February 2008
Thursday 7 February 2008
Illuminate.
I'm getting quite quick at this.
Today I only had an hour spare and I entirely built (not painted) the "above marquee" panel, from an odd shape piece of 9mm MDF that I had left over. This had sat underneath the panels I had painted, so is a bit messy on one side as you'll see in the pictures.
With only 1 face that was cut at the factory, I ran the piece through the table saw 3 times to get 4 square sides, then trimmed to 2' (60cm) width. Using the router, I rounded over the outer face, front edge (as per the under marquee panel) offered it up to the cab, marked it for length, and cut to length.
At this point, time to install the last of the electronics (bar the PC) the marquee light. I have an old 20" (~50cm) strip light in my spares box in the garage, so I've decided the best way to install this is on the reverse side of this above marquee panel (this has the most available space and close enough to the top panel.) I've used some 1/4" (~6mm) thick hard rubber strip to separate the housing of the strip light from the wood (I'm thinking heat insulation but I could be mad) PVA'ed into place, and screwed the strip light, through the rubber into the MDF. The rubber layer adds some additional thickness so that the 1/2" (12mm) screws don't burst through the other side of the 9mm MDF. At this stage, I've also wired the light with a standard plug on the other end. I meant to put a switch part way through the length of the cable, but I forgot. I can always revisit this if I decide I want to have the option of lights on or off.
The following photograph shows the underside of the finished (bar painting) above marquee panel.
and with it installed
Lights!
OK - I suspected this might be a problem, as I'd read similar marquee issues on other cab building sites.
The light is bleeding through the black sections of my artwork terribly - washing them out in a hazy grey colour. Not good. Solutions I have read about include printing the artwork twice then cutting out the non-black parts to leave a black template to stick under the finished logo, in essence making the black sections twice as thick. I don't really have that option without begging my brother for another print run (and my favour account is in the red) so at some later point, I'll whip out the marquee, and paint black on the non-visible side to control the light bleed. As there's no back yet constructed, you can see the light pouring out the back - I'll have to think about some form of reflector pushing all the light forward if too much bleeds out of the cracks. That's an unknown until we're nearly complete.
My enthusiasm is re-stoked, but I'm now out of MDF. I'll need a trip to my timber yard again before I can carry on. Hopefully the weekend if not before.
Here's the cabinet as at now!
Next panel in the plan - the angled vent panel!
Today I only had an hour spare and I entirely built (not painted) the "above marquee" panel, from an odd shape piece of 9mm MDF that I had left over. This had sat underneath the panels I had painted, so is a bit messy on one side as you'll see in the pictures.
With only 1 face that was cut at the factory, I ran the piece through the table saw 3 times to get 4 square sides, then trimmed to 2' (60cm) width. Using the router, I rounded over the outer face, front edge (as per the under marquee panel) offered it up to the cab, marked it for length, and cut to length.
At this point, time to install the last of the electronics (bar the PC) the marquee light. I have an old 20" (~50cm) strip light in my spares box in the garage, so I've decided the best way to install this is on the reverse side of this above marquee panel (this has the most available space and close enough to the top panel.) I've used some 1/4" (~6mm) thick hard rubber strip to separate the housing of the strip light from the wood (I'm thinking heat insulation but I could be mad) PVA'ed into place, and screwed the strip light, through the rubber into the MDF. The rubber layer adds some additional thickness so that the 1/2" (12mm) screws don't burst through the other side of the 9mm MDF. At this stage, I've also wired the light with a standard plug on the other end. I meant to put a switch part way through the length of the cable, but I forgot. I can always revisit this if I decide I want to have the option of lights on or off.
The following photograph shows the underside of the finished (bar painting) above marquee panel.
and with it installed
Lights!
OK - I suspected this might be a problem, as I'd read similar marquee issues on other cab building sites.
The light is bleeding through the black sections of my artwork terribly - washing them out in a hazy grey colour. Not good. Solutions I have read about include printing the artwork twice then cutting out the non-black parts to leave a black template to stick under the finished logo, in essence making the black sections twice as thick. I don't really have that option without begging my brother for another print run (and my favour account is in the red) so at some later point, I'll whip out the marquee, and paint black on the non-visible side to control the light bleed. As there's no back yet constructed, you can see the light pouring out the back - I'll have to think about some form of reflector pushing all the light forward if too much bleeds out of the cracks. That's an unknown until we're nearly complete.
My enthusiasm is re-stoked, but I'm now out of MDF. I'll need a trip to my timber yard again before I can carry on. Hopefully the weekend if not before.
Here's the cabinet as at now!
Next panel in the plan - the angled vent panel!
Tuesday 5 February 2008
Get up, you lazy monkey!
To start the day off, a quick trip to Screwfix to pickup some magnetic catches.
I've had a "light-bulb moment" over the easy access to controls by making the vent panel held in place by the kinds of magnetic catches that hold AV unit doors closed. a few of these in the right place, and the panel will hold firm, but will simply lift off with a bit of leverage to allow for quick easy access to the inside top controls - more on this in the post where I build that panel.
After an unproductive weekend (where the cab is concerned) I picked myself up and put a couple of hours in this morning - I built the panel that sits underneath the marquee between marquee and speaker panel. This took longer than anticipated for a couple of reasons. My table saw didn't come with a bench to raise it to a workable level, so I built one. Unfortunately, I accidentally built my bench with a support brace across the front, thus rendering the "tilt" mechanism (setting an angle on the cutting blade) unusable. So this morning's first task was to modify the table saw to reactivate the angle facility.
Once I'd fixed the saw, I tilted the blade to 45 degrees, cut one side of a panel at 45 to meet the 45 tilt on the speaker panel, then offered up to the cabinet, and marked the length. Back to the saw, swing the blade back up to 90 degrees and cut the panel to length. I used the router to round over the lower edge under the marquee so that, when finished, all four sides of the marquee will have their outer edges rounded - a nice effect I think.
Currently it's held in place with some clamps:
I need to be careful now as most of the remaining panels will need to be painted all together - I'm wasting far too many paint accessories painting one panel at a time. So for now, it'll stay with the clamps and for the next stage, I'll move onto the "above the marquee" panel.
I've had a "light-bulb moment" over the easy access to controls by making the vent panel held in place by the kinds of magnetic catches that hold AV unit doors closed. a few of these in the right place, and the panel will hold firm, but will simply lift off with a bit of leverage to allow for quick easy access to the inside top controls - more on this in the post where I build that panel.
After an unproductive weekend (where the cab is concerned) I picked myself up and put a couple of hours in this morning - I built the panel that sits underneath the marquee between marquee and speaker panel. This took longer than anticipated for a couple of reasons. My table saw didn't come with a bench to raise it to a workable level, so I built one. Unfortunately, I accidentally built my bench with a support brace across the front, thus rendering the "tilt" mechanism (setting an angle on the cutting blade) unusable. So this morning's first task was to modify the table saw to reactivate the angle facility.
Once I'd fixed the saw, I tilted the blade to 45 degrees, cut one side of a panel at 45 to meet the 45 tilt on the speaker panel, then offered up to the cabinet, and marked the length. Back to the saw, swing the blade back up to 90 degrees and cut the panel to length. I used the router to round over the lower edge under the marquee so that, when finished, all four sides of the marquee will have their outer edges rounded - a nice effect I think.
Currently it's held in place with some clamps:
I need to be careful now as most of the remaining panels will need to be painted all together - I'm wasting far too many paint accessories painting one panel at a time. So for now, it'll stay with the clamps and for the next stage, I'll move onto the "above the marquee" panel.
And the weekend brought rain...
The weekend came and with it came the rain - it has rained for days now, and the rain is dampening my enthusiasm to work on the cab.
I set about breaking apart the PC I have into the components I want to install in the cab and those that are superfluous. However, the PC I have is a branded one, not a home brew, and as such, the connections and positions of everything in the PC case are very specific to that PC. After much head scratching, I decided to put it all back together again and install the whole "PC in it's case" in the cab - this raises a few new challenges, such as "will it all now fit?" as this cab has been very specifically designed to take up the minimum of room in my house.
A wasted day? Perhaps, but I did spend a couple of hours playing on what I have so far with the kids, hooked up to the "out of cab PC" and they love it. Plus I've learned a lot about how/where I will do the later PC installation. So, no. Not wasted. Just not as planned.
I set about breaking apart the PC I have into the components I want to install in the cab and those that are superfluous. However, the PC I have is a branded one, not a home brew, and as such, the connections and positions of everything in the PC case are very specific to that PC. After much head scratching, I decided to put it all back together again and install the whole "PC in it's case" in the cab - this raises a few new challenges, such as "will it all now fit?" as this cab has been very specifically designed to take up the minimum of room in my house.
A wasted day? Perhaps, but I did spend a couple of hours playing on what I have so far with the kids, hooked up to the "out of cab PC" and they love it. Plus I've learned a lot about how/where I will do the later PC installation. So, no. Not wasted. Just not as planned.
Friday 1 February 2008
Speaker Panel - Electronics
After lunch yesterday I set about the speaker electronics.
I have a bunch of speaker "guts" that I ripped (carefully of course) from a cheap (fiver ($10)) set of speakers I got from eBay.
On the inside of the speaker panel, I mounted the odd shaped speakers as close to centre of the "speaker holes" I cut in the panel, with a few 1/2" (12mm) screws - I almost burst through the facing surface with one screw tip so I was very careful with the rest.
I've had a real debate with myself about the speaker controls - there are going to be times when I want to adjust, as a minimum, the volume if not the bass/treble, so how can I get at the controls without compromising the semi-authentic look I am going for?
I could cut a little hole in the speaker panel and adjust the volume with a small screwdriver, I could mount the speaker controls on the top or back, etc.
I've decided that I'll mount the controls on the back of the speaker panel, and access them through the "vent panel" (to be constructed) and somehow make the vent panel "quick release" - by doing this, I can also put the controls for the marquee backlight here and access those too - maybe even the USB ports I intend to install, although I still think I want those more accessible - a decision for another day.
So the controls and the AC/DC transformer are mounted in the centre of the inside of the speaker panel. One concern I have is the heat generated by the transformer - these do get warm and I've mounted it in direct contact with wood - not inspiring. I'll keep an eye on this and run the speakers for several hours - if I'm concerned enough I'll drop a little metal panel between the transformer and the wood. I sense this is more likely than less, as I'm not keen an explaining to the wife why and how the house burnt down.
You'll see that I had to cut plenty of wires to get the "guts" out of the speakers, as such, there is now plenty of soldering and repairing of cut wires, and a tidy up job on the wiring using my handy cable tie mounts.
Hook it up to my iPod for a quick test - works first time, no crackling or interference. An unexpected but not unpleasant effect is that the sound is a little muffled at a distance and at angles if the listener is not directly under the angled speaker cutouts, but perfectly clear and sparkly directly undernearth - this seems very reminiscent of my childhood memories of arcade machine sounds so I'm not unhappy at all.
THE REAL TEST!
Now that I have the speakers, monitor, and controls all working, time for a "REAL" test - I hook up the cables to my "as yet unmodified (as in, still in it's pale cream case)" PC and run the latest version of my gMame interface software available at sourceforge (for those joining us late, I'm writing my own interface software in Java as well as constructing the cabinet) - it's all working beautifully, and using the arcade controls with my software is working really well.
I'm a very happy bunny at this stage. The only panels left are non-electronic ones, except for the panel that will house the reconstructed PC, and I hope to make a start on them the weekend.
I have a bunch of speaker "guts" that I ripped (carefully of course) from a cheap (fiver ($10)) set of speakers I got from eBay.
On the inside of the speaker panel, I mounted the odd shaped speakers as close to centre of the "speaker holes" I cut in the panel, with a few 1/2" (12mm) screws - I almost burst through the facing surface with one screw tip so I was very careful with the rest.
I've had a real debate with myself about the speaker controls - there are going to be times when I want to adjust, as a minimum, the volume if not the bass/treble, so how can I get at the controls without compromising the semi-authentic look I am going for?
I could cut a little hole in the speaker panel and adjust the volume with a small screwdriver, I could mount the speaker controls on the top or back, etc.
I've decided that I'll mount the controls on the back of the speaker panel, and access them through the "vent panel" (to be constructed) and somehow make the vent panel "quick release" - by doing this, I can also put the controls for the marquee backlight here and access those too - maybe even the USB ports I intend to install, although I still think I want those more accessible - a decision for another day.
So the controls and the AC/DC transformer are mounted in the centre of the inside of the speaker panel. One concern I have is the heat generated by the transformer - these do get warm and I've mounted it in direct contact with wood - not inspiring. I'll keep an eye on this and run the speakers for several hours - if I'm concerned enough I'll drop a little metal panel between the transformer and the wood. I sense this is more likely than less, as I'm not keen an explaining to the wife why and how the house burnt down.
You'll see that I had to cut plenty of wires to get the "guts" out of the speakers, as such, there is now plenty of soldering and repairing of cut wires, and a tidy up job on the wiring using my handy cable tie mounts.
Hook it up to my iPod for a quick test - works first time, no crackling or interference. An unexpected but not unpleasant effect is that the sound is a little muffled at a distance and at angles if the listener is not directly under the angled speaker cutouts, but perfectly clear and sparkly directly undernearth - this seems very reminiscent of my childhood memories of arcade machine sounds so I'm not unhappy at all.
THE REAL TEST!
Now that I have the speakers, monitor, and controls all working, time for a "REAL" test - I hook up the cables to my "as yet unmodified (as in, still in it's pale cream case)" PC and run the latest version of my gMame interface software available at sourceforge (for those joining us late, I'm writing my own interface software in Java as well as constructing the cabinet) - it's all working beautifully, and using the arcade controls with my software is working really well.
I'm a very happy bunny at this stage. The only panels left are non-electronic ones, except for the panel that will house the reconstructed PC, and I hope to make a start on them the weekend.
Final Monitor Panel Installation
I found myself with a spare hour and a half yesterday morning, so I wanted to finish two jobs in progress. Firstly, all the pictures so far don't clearly show that the monitor panel isn't installed yet - it's still just in position but not yet fixed. Secondly, I have a lovely retro-looking speaker panel with no speakers, and some speaker "guts" to install.
The monitor panel:
Now that I've installed the speaker panel, the monitor panel doesn't quite fix properly, it's a little too long and needs to be beveled top and bottom to form a nice flush joint with the control panel and the speaker panel - 30 degrees on the bottom edge where the 10 degree control panel meets the 70 degree monitor panel (think the maths is right) and 55 degrees on the top edge. I do this with the table saw titled over at the correct angles and running the panel through, but as I've mentioned before I should not have finished the monitor panel to this extent, as I now have to wrap it up carefully as not to damage it in the workshop - let alone blocking all the vents on the monitor to save cutting it free and reinstalling it - a right game!
That done, repeat for the perspex that will be slightly longer but with the same angles, as it sits on top of the monitor panel.
Loads of sweeping, hovering, cleaning later and I'm ready to drill and install it.
First drill hole - loads of plastic spewed in between the perspex and wood - ARRGGGHHHH - I have to clean this monkey all over again - I'm getting bored of this cleaning, but I'll likely never get between these two panels again and the screen again. So I drill all the holes, seperate it all, clean it all (again!) and screw into place.
Finally.
It looks really nice installed -
- the pictures don't do it justice - you might just see a few screw heads near the left and right edges of the perspex panel.
I thought this'd be a 5 minute job and it took ages to get the angles, length and cleaning just right - No such thing as a 5 minute job, as my dad would say - too true!
The monitor panel:
Now that I've installed the speaker panel, the monitor panel doesn't quite fix properly, it's a little too long and needs to be beveled top and bottom to form a nice flush joint with the control panel and the speaker panel - 30 degrees on the bottom edge where the 10 degree control panel meets the 70 degree monitor panel (think the maths is right) and 55 degrees on the top edge. I do this with the table saw titled over at the correct angles and running the panel through, but as I've mentioned before I should not have finished the monitor panel to this extent, as I now have to wrap it up carefully as not to damage it in the workshop - let alone blocking all the vents on the monitor to save cutting it free and reinstalling it - a right game!
That done, repeat for the perspex that will be slightly longer but with the same angles, as it sits on top of the monitor panel.
Loads of sweeping, hovering, cleaning later and I'm ready to drill and install it.
First drill hole - loads of plastic spewed in between the perspex and wood - ARRGGGHHHH - I have to clean this monkey all over again - I'm getting bored of this cleaning, but I'll likely never get between these two panels again and the screen again. So I drill all the holes, seperate it all, clean it all (again!) and screw into place.
Finally.
It looks really nice installed -
- the pictures don't do it justice - you might just see a few screw heads near the left and right edges of the perspex panel.I thought this'd be a 5 minute job and it took ages to get the angles, length and cleaning just right - No such thing as a 5 minute job, as my dad would say - too true!
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