Main > Project Announcements
Plasma's Photo Booth [COMPLETE]
plasma2002:
Ok, so I decided to put a build log somewhere else on the internet, and you guys came to mind :P
Ive posted these pics already on another forum (a forum of about 10 people, ha), so Im going to post some older posts and catch up to where I'm currently at, and then I will post as I update.
Just like most everybody else, I am making my photo booth for a wedding... and just like a lot of people, it's starting off at my own wedding. I was planning on putting the booth into my game room after the wedding and using it with friends during parties and what-not... but now I'm debating whether or not I should try to rent it to other engaged couples. Apparently its the latest craze in wedding right now. But I digress... on with the build log!
---------------------
---------------------
I didnt start taking pictures until I thought about it, which was a couple days into the project, so you'll just have to use your imaginations as to how I got it to this point. Here's the bare skeleton of the booth.
Haven't been following anybody else's design or layout, but instead just going by what I like in terms of a photo booth.
I bevel-routed the holes in the face, simply because A) it looks nice, and B) it was getting too hard to source the alternative; metal bezels.
The component part is big. It's big on purpose. Why? Because that's what the older photo booths looked like. They had to have all that photo processing equipment in them. I wanted my booth to resemble what I've grown up to know as a photo booth. My design isn't the most space efficient, but I'd rather have it this way than a skinny kiosk-type booth. Dont get me wrong, those are just fine, but I want this in my house at some point, so I get the final say on the design :)
The entire booth comes in 4 pieces. The computer component side, the seat, and the roof + floor. The floor latches from the insides to the other 2 components and the roof gets bolted down with wing nuts. This is what makes the entire setup portable. Granted, it's made out of wood, and therefor pretty heavy... but it's still easily managed with a dolly.
Anyways, I decided to stain the entire booth a nice mahogany color.
Unfortunately, Ive been finding it kind of hard to get a good color scheme from it. Black kind of works, but it's a bit boring. The gray/silver doesnt work at all, but i was just testing with what paints I had in my garage at the time.
I had made a simple cardboard prototype of what I thought the button console should look like. I was absolutely positive that I wanted the button on a console, instead of just mounted on the front face of the booth. IMHO, it just looks way better than a flat button.
Also, I was considering the future of the booth as well. Later down the road, I may end up putting a keyboard and/or more buttons on it for various other features (Social network uploading, etc)... but for MY wedding, I just want it to have one single button -- easier on the grandparents that way :)
plasma2002:
The button itself will be a giaant red light-up button, ordered from Sparkfun for around $10
( http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9181 )
plasma2002:
This is the seat half of the booth. You can see blue masking tape marking where I thought was the best placement for buttons. Figured the 'dice' pattern was better than the inverse of that (top row 1 button, next row 2 buttons, next row 1, etc etc)
We started the upholstering with some carpet padding. It was WAY cheaper than upholstery stuffing/padding. Like, in the 10x magnitudes.
Once we got all 3 pieces covered, I had to put the buttons on. This involved drilling a hole, and using some really strong upholstery thread and a huge ass needle, lol. (This is the first time I've ever attempted upholstering anything btw... im just lucky I had help)
To pull the buttons tight, we first just stapled down the thread on the back of the board... but i figured there had to be a better way...
I then figured out a way to make them adjustable... just add zip-ties :)
I tied the thread to the zip ties, then stapled down the ties. I could then tighten the buttons to exactly how tight I needed them to pull from the front.
IMHO, the buttons came out pretty damn nice. I would have preferred a more "poofy" look, but you can only get so much out of carpet padding, lol.
If ya cant tell from the above pics, the seat part is actually a lid to the storage area below. I wanted a storage area to put whatever, but mainly for a box of props that Im sure will always be with the booth.
plasma2002:
As for the other half of the booth, I did some work on the light boxes. For one thing, I painted them white (to reflect as much light out as possible. I only did one coat, since it doesnt have to look pretty, only not be brown, heh
After that dried, I then started preparing the plastic panels to be put in/on the cutouts. I used my drill press (my second favorite tool in my garage, lol) with a countersink bit on it to get some nice holes for the tiny screws.
Unfortunately, the plastic wasnt really agreeing with the amount of heat any of the bits werre making :P
My regular drill bit really got mucked up
Heres the front half of the booth with the 4 plastic panels installed. Two are white diffusers (for the lights), one is completely clear (for the camera), and the other is smoked (for the monitor)
Here you can see the panels installed, as well as one of the two shop lights for the light boxes. On the other box, you can see all the light leaks that I will have to fix (using various methods)
I only have 2 of the 4 required bulbs, but you can guess what both lights will look like by seeing one of them on:
And last, but not least, heres the cutouts for what will soon be the control panel. A larger board will sit on the top of this box (the board underneath is not part of this)... on it will be one sole red button (seen in an earlier post), which will start the photo process.
Waiting on a brad nailer gun before I can continue.
plasma2002:
Ok, so Ive been working on stuff out of order, but ill order here in the log for reader ease. Ill go back to where I left off last; the console.
I decided to glue the box, instead of nail it... I built it in a way that will let me mount it to the booth while always keeping pressure on the right part of the console so it always pulls itself together... in other words, it will always be clamped. Nails or screws would be overkill here.
After the glue had dried on the box, I then started thinking of a way Im going to be able to attach the console to the booth.... I figured I could just use some straight bolts, that way I could take it off whenever I wanted.
I then created the mounts for the bolt to attach to. Hopefully these pics explain what I did here...
I put the mounts on the back of the front piece of the box, since pulling pressure on this will help keep the sides and bottom of the box tight.
As for the top of the console, I cut this out from pressed wood / melamine.
I was a little scared of making the round corners on it, since I would have to do it by hand with the router.... but after mounting the router upside down and manipulating the piece itself instead of the router, I found out it was easier to control than I was expecting, so I just finished off both rounded edges.
I put in the hole for the one single button that will be on the console. I plan on probably putting in more buttons for various things later down the road, but for now, the one button is all I need.
When I tried to mount the button in the hole...
...I noticed I had a problem.
The button mount was shorter than the wood was thick. It didnt reach. It scared me at first, but a second later, I realized I had my router right behind me, haha... so I cut a recess on the back of the panel.
That solved that problem. I was able to attach the nut on the back side now.
After the button was taken care of, I just needed to mount the top of the console to the actual box. I decided that I should do it the same way that I did the box bolt mounts, that way I can easily take it apart to be able to alter it later.
Heres the unpainted console sitting next to the early cardboard prototype I built for a reference. As you can see, the design changed completely, haha.
Heres a frontal view of the console.
As of last night, I had just finished applying the 3rd coat of black paint to the top, and the second coat of stain to the box. Also, I ordered some T-molding for it that should be here in a few days. Hopefully that should pretty it up a bit too.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version