Bartop project from Emdkay's bartop kit.

[Stobe]

Back in March, I had just found my way back to this fine website after a period of absence (life got in the way - won't let that happen again!).  And along with my "catching up" on all the great projects going on, I happened to re-visit Emdkay's website.  I like to check his outlet section every now and then just in case he has another pack of misprint marquees.  I've always wanted to snag a big pack of them and hang them around the basement.  But on this occasion, I noticed a bartop kit in the outlet section of his store.  The description of the bartop said it was cut 2" taller than the usual size.  I PM'd Emdkay about the kit, and he was quick to reply.  I asked about the height difference, whether it was in the base, at the top, or just spread all about.  He sent me this nice photo to explain:



After Emdkay quickly answered a couple more questions, I made the purchase.

This thread will document my build of the bartop.  And I also plan to post a review of the product/vendor in the review sections when time permits.  But for those who cannot wait for said review, I can sum it up easily by saying:  "I am very happy with the product, and would order another one".

[Stobe]

After ordering and supplying the artwork I wanted Brent to print for the marquee and CPO (very basic artwork I threw together from the "Pacmaze" design), I came home one night to find a big box on the front porch.  Wonder what that could be...

I brought it inside, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to start it right away.  Sidenote: before I even received the box, Brent emailed me to let me know he forgot to include the screws.  He sent them in a separate envelope and they arrived a few days later.

Fast forward a few months to when I actually got around to starting the project (July 22nd, to be exact).  I opened the box to inspect my new project:







After laying out all the panels, I was very happily surprised by the pocket holes and biscuit joints pre-done.  I remember reading that the kit would be "Easy to assemble with just s screwdriver" and I read that with a grain of salt (I've assembled enough furniture to know the truth!).  But honestly, I'm sure this kit would assemble very nicely and securely with just the included screws.  It didn't stop me from using glue and other braces, but that's just because I'm used to doing that with other projects.

Also, I knew the CP was going to be pre-drilled, but having the joystick area routed underneath was another nice surprise.

One of the panels had a chip in it.  This didn't upset me too much, since it was an outlet item, and Brent offered me a very fair price for everything.  The chip didn't look like it was a shipping issue, since everything was packed very nicely.  I might just blot it with a sharpie and see if thats good enough.

[Stobe]

It took me about 2 minutes (literally) to dry fit everything and start to visualize how it was going to look.





Then I put my monitor in to see how well it was going to fit.  (A 17" Dell LCD I picked up on Craigslist).



The stand on the LCD was not the perfect height, and it would not "recline" to the angle I wanted.  But that wasn't a big deal, since I had figured I was going to be mounting the LCD using the VESA holes on the back, anyhow.

There were no written instructions included on the box, but after asking Brent about it, he gave me a link to his Picassa site, which had a pictorial explanation of how to assemble everything.  (Not that it was hard to figure out, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something in the design).

[Stobe]

I started mounting the panels to one side.  I knew that I would have to plan out the order which I did this carefully, so I could be able to mount everything I needed to inside and still be able to reach.

One thing I noticed with my kit (and it could be my mistake, or the fact that this was different size panel than what is usually used for the kit), was that the control panel was missing biscuits, and by using the pre-drilled pocket holes, the biscuit wouldn't have fit if it were there.  Again, not a big problem, and it was easily remedied (as noted later in this writeup).



I then continued to glue and screw some more side panels (not the CP - it was set in place for fitting, but not glued down.  Still have to wire it up!).  I was again impressed by the accuracy of the pocket holes.  Where there was a critical fit involved (where the sides were routed for the plexi, the marqee, and the back "door") the pocket holes always alighted the joint perfectly.  This made it easy to run a bead of glue, start the screws into the pockets, and use the points of the screws to line up the joint. 



Next Step:  Control Panel...

[Stobe]

I've wired up enough control panels to know what I'm doing.  But this time when I was compiling my parts, I decided to do things a little differently.  Instead of using hookup wire (which I was running low on, and would have had to pay the overpriced Radio Shack price for), and instead of using the standard daisy chain for the ground loop, I decided to pick up a spool of speaker wire at RS instead.  By using 2 lead speaker wire, I decided to run a wire to each switch, and I combined all the grounds together afterwards.  While I was at RS, I also picked up some screw terminals to hook up everything.  I used a GPWiz Eco "Solderless" encoder I had in my box of parts.  It uses an IDE cable for the inputs.  I always hate hooking the IDE leads right to the controls, so I used these screw terminals as a breakout point.  (Sorry for the blurry pictures)









I soldered the needed wires from the IDE cable to the perf-board, and soldered down the screw terminals to a common solder pad.  (Note: I did not use the IC boards from the first picture above, I had to use a bigger one that would fit all the needed screw terminals.)

I installed my buttons and joystick, and started wiring up my "spaghetti factory".  Don't worry, I cleaned it all up with some tie wraps!





Then I mounted my GPWiz, and my breakout board to a scrap piece of wood that I could later velcro into the cabinet.  PCB standoffs?  Nope!  I small piece of the cardboard box would do the trick!



Here comes my first big mistake.  When I was putting the CP top together (mounting the sticks and buttons and mounting the included plexi overlay), I quickly drilled a couple holes though the plexi and the wood in the corners to hold the plexi down with some carriage bolts.  After hammering the carriage bolts in through the plexi (if you've done it, you know what I'm talking about!), I still didn't notice my potential mistake.  It wouldn't be until the CP was wired up, and I did another dry fit that I noticed my mistake (and sorry again for the painfully blurry picture).  The bolts that are holding the plexi down were in the way of the other mating panel!!!  DARNIT!!!



After a couple choice words at myself, (and probably a trip to the cookie jar to drown away my sorrows), I decided I had two choices.

1.  Remove the bolts, and drill new holes that would not be in the way.  (this would mean getting a new CPO and Plexi overlay, since the mistaken holes would be an eye-sore.

2.  Cut the bolts down, so they wouldn't hit the other board.  (which meant recessing the nuts also).

I went with option 2, of course!








I knew I bought that nice set of forester bits on sale for a good reason!

[Stobe]

The next speed bump I faced was the smoked plexi for the front (which Brent was nice enough to include).  I'm guessing it was cut for the 2" smaller version of this bartop, because it was not quite long enough to fit in the provided slots.  It is supposed to slide upwards to the routed slot underneath the marquee holder, and then be supported at the bottom by the monitor shelf (at least, this is my best guess.  But was was too short to be supported at the bottom.  The bottom of the plexi was below the CP, so it was long enough to fill the full monitor area, but I had to just add a small support at the bottom to keep it in place:



While I was at it, I did the same thing for underneath the control panel.  I didn't want the CP to rely on 2 pocket hold screws on either side, so I put a "cleat" support underneath it for a little extra strength:



Next:  Monitor mounting

[leapinlew]

Awesome. I've been curious how these bartops would work. Looking forward to the next installment.

[Stobe]

I used a scrap piece of plywood for the monitor support.  And I used the releasable mount on the dell monitor to mount the LCD.  Instead of just screwing through the wood into the VESA holes (which uses a strange thread size that I didn't have on hand), I mounted the dell mount onto the wood, and then used that to attach the monitor.







Don't worry, that toggle bolt is not the only thing holding the monitor bracket on.  There are another 3 wood screws coming in from the other direction that you can't see!

I used a couple micellanous items that were laying around to prop the monitor/mount up so I could play around with the height and angle of the monitor.  After I got it where I wanted, I screwed/glued the mounting strips to the sides, and was done with the monitor.  (That's usually my most hated part of these projects, but it went quite smoothly!

Next step:  Computer

[Stobe]

Awesome. I've been curious how these bartops would work. Looking forward to the next installment.

Stay tuned:  I'm going to take a lunch break and will be back with the finished product!

[Rick]

Stay tuned:  I'm going to take a lunch break and will be back with the finished product!

INSPIRING!!!  Other builders, take note: He's going to do LUNCH, then FINISH HIS CAB!  (Heh.  If my Project has this kind of turnaround, I'd be more than surprised.)

 

[Stobe]

Alright, ready to finish this badboy up!

I got a couple cheap computers from a local guy here via craigslist.  The deal was good, and upon picking them up, it was clear that this guy liked building quality computers for himself.  Both were in nice Antec cases, and both motherboards were high quality.  I've built plenty of computers over the years, and every now and then I'd opt for an ECS or Gigabyte mobo because I couldn't spend the extra on a high-end Asus.  So with that being said, I felt somewhat funny about ripping these computers apart, but that's what I bought them for, so....

Here is it mounted on another scrap of wood.  Again, no time to oder PC standoffs, so I used the Bic pen method (search if you don't know what I'm talking about).  Another method I just saw the other day on another project I'm working on was some winged twist nuts with the tops cut off.  Might have to use that next time.

The power supply is sitting on end with just 2 screws through the "lip".  Feels sturdy enough, as long as the bartop doesn't receive any excessive lateral acceleration.

I haven't permanently attached the video card yet.  The height of the mobo didn't allow the "bend and screw" method.  So I'll probably use a hot glue gun like I saw someone else around here do.  I just wanted to make sure the cheap video card that I was using held its weight under my "load testing".  So far so good.



The next 2 pictures will show a mounted button which is wired to the power button input on the mobo.  Also, you can see that I had to notch the t-molding in order to be able to remove the back "door" (which is a sheet of peg board, in case it wasn't apparent on any of the other pictures.)





I know I might have skipped a few steps in the documentation, but once I got towards the end, I got on a roll and didn't snap as many pictures.  If you have any specific questions about the build, just let me know.

And here it is.  All finished (well 99.9% at least, I smart enough to know its never done).  I'll disclaim again that I didn't put as much work into "pretty"ing this project up.  It was more of a case study to see what I could build in a short amount of time using one of these kits.









Yup, I just noticed that the pacmaze gradient is opposite between the CPO and the marquee.  Uhhh.... I meant it to be that way... ya, that's the ticket!

The floor is now open for questions/comments.

-Stobe

[Epyx]

Definitely a functional kit.  Are you going to be creating a bezel to hide the monitor and prevent the innards of the bartop from showing?  Nice assembly, otherwise.

[Stobe]

Definitely a functional kit.  Are you going to be creating a bezel to hide the monitor and prevent the innards of the bartop from showing?  Nice assembly, otherwise.

Yes, that's part of the .1% in-complete-ness. 

There's 2 things working against me that are accounting for that:

1.  The holes in the pegboard in back obviously allow light in.

2.  I didn't put a "back" panel behind the marquee light.  That accounts for most of the problem.

Without these issues, the smoked plexi does a pretty good job hiding everything.  But in any case, I just picked up some black foam core, and will cut a functional "light-blocker".  It will hide all the innards, but I'm not certain I will do anything fancier than that (artwork, instructions, etc).

-Stobe

[leapinlew]

Is the T-molding slot on the marquee area offset or is your t-molding a hair too small? Looks like I can see wood all the way across.

[Stobe]

Is the T-molding slot on the marquee area offset or is your t-molding a hair too small? Looks like I can see wood all the way across.

Can't get anything past Lew's watchful eyes!

Yes, the t-molding slot looked to be off a little bit (was included with the kit). 

BUT

I cannot swear to you that I used 3/4" t-molding.    This was an unlabeled roll that I already had.  I just checked my email confirmations from t-molding.com (from eons ago, thanks Gmail for never deleting anything!)  and I did not see any orders for 5/8" T-molding.  BUT, I didn't see any orders for black T-molding either.   

So it is possible that it was 5/8" that I acquired along the way somewhere.  I can cut a small section of some more t-molding that I know is 3/4" and verify.  (Or I could try to run a Sharpie along that edge also, lol.

[Epyx]

I can cut a small section of some more t-molding that I know is 3/4" and verify.  (Or I could try to run a Sharpie along that edge also, lol.

If it is 3/4" then the other side of the mdf will have overhang.  That would be the easiest way to tell without resorting to cutting or removing for testing. If its short on one side and it is 3/4" it will overhang on the other side.  If it is flush or near flush on that far side then it is likely 5/8".

[Stobe]

Just installed a black bezel, and a backstop for the marquee light.  Now there is no ambient light in the monitor section, and it looks great.  (sorry, no pictures yet.  I'm busy playing Hotdog Storm, a SHMUP that's I hadn't discovered yet, lol).

-Stobe

[Epyx]

I'm busy playing Hotdog Storm, a SHMUP that's I hadn't discovered yet, lol

Oooh nice find...always enjoy new shmups!   

[Ginsu Victim]

Nice job! I think it looks great.

[Stobe]

Nice job! I think it looks great.

Thanks.  All the credit of the "looks" goes to the Emdkay crew.  Their design, their woodcutting, their printing.  I did a lot of work inside, but haven't taken new pictures of all the stuff I shoved inside.

-Stobe

[BobA]

Wow that was fast.  Great kit from EMDkay but kudos on your drive and motivation too.   

[Stobe]

Wow that was fast.  Great kit from EMDkay but kudos on your drive and motivation too.   

Ya, it was about 2-3 weeks total, working a little bit here and there.  Much easier when you don't have to draw up plans for the design (and change them 100x)