Day 3 and lots done

Day three of the recent "spurt" saw lots accomplished.

My plan today was to cut, prep and paint as much as possible early on in the day, so I can get some more of the final thing assembled.  The more this starts to look like the finished job, the more motivation I have to finish it.

The monitor I have is 17" and is that standard "computer monitor grey" colour, so I'm going to need to paint the bezel black so that grey bits aren't showing through the front of the machine.  Try as I might, I can't dismantle it to remove the bezel and paint it, so I've had to carefully mask out the screen and paint the whole thing - only need to do the front as it's the only part to be seen.

Took one of the off-cuts and will build the speaker panel from it.  Offered it up on the top of the monitor panel, marked it out, drew a speaker mesh pattern and drilled it, and also trimmed up another off-cut for the final "roof" of the whole machine.  This is a picture of the monitor and 2 speaker panels with the first coat of MDF primer on the woodwork:



With all these panels painted and dry, I turn my attention to fitting the monitor into the monitor panel.  I'm a fan of the cable-tie-mounts I've used in the past, so will be using these again - search the blog for details of the mounts if interested.

A couple at each corner, eight in total, like this:



Heavy duty cable ties, all trimmed up nicely and it should look something like this:



You'll notice I've put a couple of braces across the back of this section, just to strengthen it.  Pop it back on the control & case sections:



My 80's nostalgia gland is starting to twitch!

Last job of the day is to smash carefully dismantle an old pair of speakers ready for fitting their guts into the speaker panel - I'm using the cheapest set I have, as my memories of sound quality in arcade machines are pretty horrendous, and we do have to try and keep this thing authentic, right??

The Monitor Section

This morning, the case and the monitor section.

Just to finish off the case section, drilled some "intake" holes for the ventilation near the bottom of the front panel of the case, then a quick coat of MDF primer (I know it's chipboard, but it does a great job of lifting the loose fibres, so a quick sand, then paint, and you do get a really good finish on a really rough piece of wood) and 2 coats of black spray paint, and thus:

On to the monitor.

Another trip to the B&Q and another effort to find a "saw-dodger" (see previous post for the definition of a saw-dodger) and a 6'x2' sheet is cut into 2 x 30"x2' and a 12"x2' off-cut, thus:



Found the centre of one of the big panels by marking corner-to-corner, then accurately measured the visible area on the front of the monitor (the screen of the monitor if you will) and carefully measured and marked it onto the panel, thus:



WARNING - DON'T COPY THE NEXT PART - you'll see why in a bit.

Drilled the four corners to get the jigsaw in, thus:



Turned the jigsaw blade to 45 degrees, to give a better viewing angle on the screen, and a better finish on the panel, and tested with a small cut, thus:



Spot the problem? I want to bevel the sides, but I've drilled straight down.  Bugger.  The four edges will look good, but the corners are just wrong - no other word for it.  If I was dedicated and doing this for someone else, I'd start this panel again, but as I've said earlier, some sacrifices are being made, and I want this finished.  I want to say that this gives the thing character, these little problems, but I'm just in a bit more of a relaxed mood about these things nowadays.  So it looks like this:



I've trimmed the bottom edge at around 15 degrees so that the monitor panel "leans back" into the machine, so that taller users should get a better viewing experience.

TIP FOR THE FUTURE: I haven't leaned it back enough, that, or I haven't built it tall enough because I am having minor viewing issues with the finished box.

2 coats of MDF primer and 2 coats of black spray paint.

Propped the monitor panel on the top of the case and control panel and this is what I've got:



Is it just me, or is this starting to look like an arcade machine??? :-)

Sides for the monitor panel next.  Using one of the off-cuts, offered up the piece to the side of the monitor and marked out the size and shape of the sides for the monitor.  Cut them, and offered them up to check the fit:



Lay the monitor panel on the floor and glued and screwed to put it together:



That'll do for today - pick it up again in the morning when it's time to get the screen in, I reckon.

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!

A lot of Java, and a little woodwork...

Today I spent about 5/6 hours working on the software available at gMame@Sourceforge - although I haven't uploaded my changes as they are part way through.  I'm trying to add a lot more error handling so that the new user is not put off by odd error messages just trying to get the thing started.

I'm trying to get to grips with CVS (the version control stuff) so that I can keep my up to date working copy at sourceforge instead of a number of memory stick.

Tonight, when I got it, I had half an hour to install the marquee and the speaker panel, then offered the monitor panel back in.  As pointed out in a previous post, I've finished the monitor panel too early - I need to unpick it all and pass it back over the table saw to get the right angles top and bottom.

Next time I get some time on the project (hopefully Thursday morning) I'll either do the electronics work, or get the monitor panel angled and installed, or hopefully both.

A picture of everything in place (monitor just positioned not installed) to get your appetites wet...

Monitor panel - Part 3 - Installing the Monitor

So Saturday came with little to do and little cash to do it with (the last payday seems soooo long ago), so "she-who-must-be-obeyed" signed my permission slip for a couple of hours work on this project.

The Process:

1. I flipped the monitor panel face down and put a couple of layers of black insulation tape in the bezel-ed bit of the panel, so that the rough chipboard wouldn't scratch the monitor (it needs to be worth something on eBay one day!) -


2. Dropped the panel in to check that the insulation tape hadn't upset the fit and ready for fixing -


3. I have a bag of these "self adhesive black base 25mm cable tie mounts" (aka the mounts) from Screwfix which are sticky-backed and have the bonus of a countersunk screw hole in the middle - - so that not only can you rely on the very sticky backs holding them in place, a 1/2" (~13mm) screw through each one - - and I'm fairly confident a few of these will more than hold the monitor securely, without the screw points bursting through the other side.


4. The cable ties I will use are heavy duty, thick, strong, etc. not your bargain basement stuff. I'll need three per span - two un-abused, and the "lock bit" from the end of the third -


5. First cable tie - thread one through one mount, join with a second, thread the second through the opposite mount, and "lock" with the end piece of a third tie - - get as much tension as you're happy with on the ties - the mounts should hold firmly as they're screwed down, but I don't want to stress them more than I have to, and trim the ends.


6. Repeat 5 times - - overkill? maybe, and I'm not 100% on the positioning - the ties that do not cross the center are too close to the edges for my liking, but they will reinforce the others in this "mesh" format.


7. Offer the panel into the cabinet and top with perspex for a photo-call - - nice!


8. This particular monitor has a habit of occasionally powering up in "standby" rather than "on" - as such I've drilled a 1.5mm (small) hole in line with the standby button - - so I can access this with a straightened paperclip if needs be - I could have done this for all the monitor controls, but I think that's overkill for me - I'll have to remember to carefully drill a hole through the perspex in exactly the right place to line up with the hole in the wood, after the panel is installed.

DO THIS DIFFERENTLY - it's only when I come to look at the next panel (the speaker panel) that I realise the monitor panel and perspex will need to go back to the workshop and passed over the table saw to get and angle on the edge which meets the monitor panel. As such, I'll need to re-wrap the perspex for protection, remove the monitor, and protect my nicely painted monitor panel - a pain and a waste of cable ties. So, if you're at this stage DO NOT PAINT THE PANEL, DO NOT MOUNT THE MONITOR, and DO NOT REMOVE THE PERSPEX PLASTIC until you're happy with the fit of this panel in respect of the two panels it neighbours.

The Monitor Panel - after lunch?

The more observant of you looking at the date of this posting are either thinking "man, this guy has long lunches" or that I haven't posted for a couple of days.

After lunch, I gave the monitor panel a quick sand, and 2 coats of matt black, pulled the protective plastic from the perspex, and dropped the panel+perspex in the cabinet - looks like this -

This thing is starting to look like an arcade machine, albeit with "vertically challenged" issues!

The Monitor Panel - Before Lunch!

For those of you who have been following the story, I started this blog retrospectively (as in, I wrote about stuff I'd already done) and now we've caught up - we're in real-time, baby, yeah!

This morning I started work on the monitor panel. I want this panel to be thicker than the rest (all the other panels are 9mm) so I want at least 12mm, as I will rout a recess in the rear of the panel so that the monitor will fit snug. Also, as it's near the end of January, and the last payday was a long time ago, I have purchased some Chipboard (£4 for a board of 1200mm (4') x 600mm (2')) as opposed to MDF (£8 for the same size) - the finished panel will be painted and under perspex, so it's unlikely anyone will notice the difference, plus it's similar to work with, although rougher in finish - some careful sanding with fine paper should make all of this viable.

The Process:

1. Make a template of the monitor - my template is in thick foam (it's just what was closest at hand at the time - nothing particularly special about the foam - could easily have been stiff card) - crucially cut out a small hole at the center of the template, and mark on the bezel dimensions of the monitor.
   


2. Cut the 4'x2' Chipboard panel to 2'x2' -


3. Draw lines from corner to opposite corner - - the position where these lines cross is the center of the panel


4. Lay the template on top of the panel and line up the hole in the center of the template with the position where the two diagonal lines cross (apologies for the blue rubber gloves - very messy in the garage now) - - ensure the template is square in the center, by measuring the distance from each corner to the nearest diagonal line - this process ensures the monitor will be in exactly the center of the panel - YOU MAY NOT WANT THIS - you might like your monitor a little higher or lower in the panel - this is your choice.


5. Draw around the template and using the dimensions for the bezel jotted on each edge of the template, mark out the position of the - actual screen area in the monitor - - The inner square will be cut away to show the screen, and a recess will be made using a router in the area marked as the outer square - once finished, the monitor will be recessed a few millimeters into the panel so that it doesn't move around - this recess will not be deep enough to hold the monitor in the panel, just for positioning -


6. Cut out the inner square with a jigsaw - a steady hand helps, as you need nice straight edges to mirror the nice straight edges on the screen of your monitor -


7. Take your trusty router (mine is more senile than trusty due to it's age) set the depth to approximately half the thickness of board, and rout the outer square from the panel - you don't need to be too careful as freehand router-ing is a similar process to trying to bath a cat - a "close enough" approach will do here - you can always pad the routed area with tape if needed when installing the monitor - I intend to regardless of the fit so that the monitor isn't damaged by contact with the wood and should still be worth something on eBay one day -


8. I applied some masking tape to the "bezel" (routed area) and took it upstairs for a quick trial with the monitor - fits first time and like a snug glove - very, very happy! -


9. Back to the garage, and drop the panel (minus the monitor) into the cabinet for a glimpse of the future -


10. A quick sand, a coat of MDF Primer (I have no Chipboard primer, and don't know if such a thing exists) and fingers crossed that the MDF primer does what I want it to do (seal and prime) on Chipboard.

By popping the perspex on the top of the panel - - and going close up with a rule - - I can show you the process I tried to describe in earlier postings, that I am making the "bridging" panels (monitor, control, etc.) slightly recessed in respect of the side walls (the closeup shows ~5mm) so that a final stage will be to use a flush-trimming bit in the router and bring the sides in to fit the panels, rather than make the panels fit the sides - should work.

Anyhoo, like I said at the start of this posting, we're in real-time now, I'm hungry and the primer needs 2 hours before I can sand and paint, so time for some Super Noodles and I'll catch the lunchtime news.