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

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!

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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
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.

[plasma2002]

Heres the painted top.



That latex paint from Krylon is probably the coolest paint Ive ever used, haha. It will paint over things that most other paints wont. I was able to paint onto styrofoam, whereas most other paints would just eat the styrofoam away. I used it on the melamine surface for the console, and am way glad I did.

I put 3 coats on it, since this part will be getting handled the most by people's hands and whatnot. I first encountered this stuff on the console of an arcade game cabinet. I was trying to strip it off... was impressed at how thick it was and hard to scratch off, so I decided to research and find out what it was,

[plasma2002]

Heres what the console looks like after being painted and stained (Still have to put on polyurethane and the T-Molding)



All that was left to do now was attach it to the booth. To do so, I used some long bolts and screwed them into the bolt block things I made earlier. This left me with 2 bolts sticking out of the console.


I then drilled 2 holes in the front of the booth, below the monitor. The bolts of the console go through them to the inside.




The bolts come into the bottom inside of the cabinet. They pass through a 2x4 on the way in. At first i was a little skeptical about using the 2x4 as support, but I later decided that it will help the leverage of the console from the inside.


I put some oversized washers and some wingnuts onto the bolts and started tightening it down from the inside...


While i was tightening it down, i started hearing that dreadfull sound of wood splitting. I immediately loosened the nuts and went around to check out what was going on with the console. Apparently, it seems that the bolt blocks weren't attached to the box very well. I was able to easily pull it off, which revealed that the screws had barely gone through the wood to the box.


Easy to fix, but that could have caused some serious problems later if I hadnt discovered it.
After I had driven the screws in deeper, I tightened the bolts again, and everything seemed to be good. I think im going to have to add a small piece of wood to the outside-bottom of the console, because right now it tends to slide around a little, even when tightened (as I expected it would).


Heres the current state of the entire photo booth.


Ok, I'm now caught up on back posts... Ill be updating as the build progresses from this point on

[Tumerboy]

wow 

[krazyxkarl]

well done!

[javeryh]

This is why I love the internet.  People are crazy.  Awesome job so far!   

[crashwg]

If I were you I'd glue those blocks to the inside of your control panel.  Glues these days are stronger than the wood they hold together so if you manage to tighten it down enough to pop them off once glued you're definitely going overboard.  As for the issue of it sliding around, one idea would be for you to put a screw partway in about each corner of the box and cut the heads off then get it all aligned just right and tighten it down enough to make dimples in the wood, take it off, drill appropriately sized holes then remount.  You could even go one step further and remove the screws (with vice grips or something) and glue in some dowels.

[plasma2002]

[...]and glue in some dowels.

hmmm... damn fine idea... not sure why i didnt think of that. haha, thanks

[ghettodish]

Nice work on a unique project. I'll be watching this the rest of this build

[matsadona]

I have never heard about a photo booth at a wedding, but I still love the fact that somebody is building one

I'm curious about the equipment (software?) behind all that wood. More details please.

[BadMouth]

Looking at your upholstery work, I'm suspicious that you had something to do with this 

[AlienInferno]

I just skimmed threw this real quick but how does the picture taking aspect of this work?

[ghettodish]

Are you gonna use the Sparkbooth software? If not, what do you have in mind?

[PsychoMikey]

I'm also wondering what software your going to use. I like Sparkbooth a lot and am thinking about building something like this for an upcomming party in 3 months.  Maybe a slim design witch can be wall mounted or something like that.

[Generic Eric]

This looks cool, but how does the person get their photos?  I am curious about the software too.

[ghettodish]

This looks cool, but how does the person get their photos?  I am curious about the software too.

I've been playing with the Sparkbooth software since I found this thread. It's simple to set up and use.

You sit in front of the camera, press a button (spacebar), and it gives you a countdown before snapping your photos. It then uploads the pictures to a website of your choice (flickr, facebook, twitter, etc) and prints out a hardcopy. Digital photos are also stored on the hard drive. Then it resets for the next person.

I'm about 75% sure that I'm gonna make my own photo booth to use as a rental for parties, weddings, etc. I thought about making it coin operated, but the few rental booths I've seen are rented by the hour in 2 hour blocks.

[plasma2002]

Ok, let's talk about the insides... specifically how we will get the printed image to the user. What seems to be the industry standard in photo booth building is to spend a lot of money on a super nice printer.... well I can tell you right now that that's way out of my league, so I could only splurge a little on the printer itself.

I went out and bought a Kodak 5250, which is apparently really good at photos for a sub $100 printer.

Now that I had the printer, I had some basic dimensions to start building a mount for it.

I decided to hang it, since that would give the most freedom for the printed pics to fall into the paper holder (on the booth).


Using my drill press, I created some simple rails with mounting holes out of stock aluminum angle.




I then put in some long bolts, and a flat platform. Using this configuration lets me adjust the platform, the base, and the angle of pretty much everything about the printer mount - that way if this flimsy printer craps out on me, I wont have too much trouble putting in a new one







This got me as far as hanging the printer itself... I still had to figure out a way to let the actual printout make it's way to the outlet. This was a little trickier than I had thought. Mainly because I was having a hard time finding the right material to get the curve and be slick enough to keep the photos from getting caught on it.

Ill keep from boring you about all the different ideas I had on this part (one idea even included using a trash bag - oi)... and just skip to what I decided on using. Basically I had to build my own ramp.
I first used a bent piece of wood to get a generic curve drawn onto some plywood, which I then used a jigsaw to cut out. This gave me one rough cut piece




After sanding and smoothing that rough-cut, I then used it as a template, as well as a few other quick techniques to get more curved pieces as well as hollow them out








After getting 3 good pieces to use, I then just took some 2x2's and put them all together


Then I measured to make sure the ramp was the right shape and size... which it was


Thats when I put on the thin board that was both pliable and slick. I really dont know what it was called, as I didnt even read the label when I picked it up at the Depot... I just saw it and figured it would work


After finishing the ramp, i thought i did a good job on it and let it be. Then something hit me like a sack of bricks... when I measured the ramp for its fit, I forgot about the monitor! So I went and got the little monitor that I was going to use, I put it in place, then I put the ramp in place.

Sure enough, the ramp didn't fit any more. Guh. I knew I forgot something.



Ok, so for about 20 minutes I went over my options on what I could do... they ranged from rebuilding the ramp, to actually giving in a getting an LCD, to dismantling the CRT.
Then I just decided to do it the more archaic way...






Sure, it's lazy and messy, but hey... it works!

After I made sure it all fit once again, I had to make one more simple back board guide for the photo path, and then I was done. Photos were falling right where I wanted them to

[The Habbler]

Good thing you had 3 legs for your ramp. I think chopping off the one and then fitting your monitor around it was genius.

[Encryptor]

Any updates on this project?

[plasma2002]

Sorry for the lack of an update as of late. Since my last update, there has been a death in the family, and it really threw a lot of things off course, this included.

But lets see if I can bring things back up to speed now... lets start with how I (re) mounted the button console.

CONSOLE:
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What I did was use some cheap aluminum angle and cut pieces about 2 inches each, then mount them alternatingly right where the bottom of the console goes.

What this does is basically grips the box, holding it there and keeping it from sliding around, like it did before I had the supports.


You can see the metal tabs from underneath the console, which I didnt really want showing at all, but in most cases, nobody is going to bend down and inspect it anyways... and those who do will see just that; 2 metal tabs. They dont look bad at all.


As for the console itself, my t-molding finally came in the mail, and I put it on. My makeshift rubber mallet worked pretty awesomely





After pretty much deciding that the console was finished, I then wired up the 4 wires needed for the button - 2 for 12v, and 2 for the button switch itself. I ran the 12v wires to an old wall-wart transformer I had lying around, and I ran the switch to the space-bar input of a spare iPac controller I had lying around in my arcade cabinet parts drawer. The iPac is basically a keyboard controller that breaks out the keys to terminals for you to wire to anything. It is way overkill in my case, since Im only using one button, but hey, it works and I wasnt using it for anything else

EDIT: I just realized that I dont need to explain what an iPac is to people here, haha... I have this exact same thread on 3 different forums, so I try to post with general stuff that can be read across each of them... but most everyone here already knows about the arcade-oriented things




FLOOR:
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As for the floor, my special ordered coin-mat had finally arrived, so I set out to finish the flooring.


As mentioned earlier, the 3 pieces (4 if you count the roof) slide apart for easy relocation. This made the floor relatively easy to work with as opposed to the rest of the parts.





Measuring and cutting the rubber flooring was easy enough... a regular pair of scissors got that job done...

Some industrial adhesive keeps it stuck to the wood pretty nicely


Using the same aluminum angle (a carpet-edge transition bar), I measured and cut two lengths for the sides of the floor where the user is to step into. A hacksaw takes care of aluminum perfectly.


With the supplied finishing nails, getting the bar on was easy enough... and it looked pretty good to boot






As of today, I have 46 days until my wedding, so that's pretty much when this needs to be done by. At this point, it is all cosmetic work now, as the program and electronics work.
It looks like I'm out of photos, so Ill have to find the other ones later when I get home, but in the next update or two, your going to find out that I had to take down my great looking upholstered backing due to camera problems with the black background.
Stay tuned.

[Encryptor]

Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear about your loss.

[plasma2002]

The booth is complete. I was waiting for some final pictures of it before I finished the build log, but since I still dont have any, I'm just going to post what I have, starting from the last point in the log.


I thought the black/silver/red all complemented eachother nicely. Heres after finishing the floor and putting the pieces together.



Since the full-black background wasn't going to work, I had to think of some other way to do the background. I didnt totally want to ditch the leather, but I couldnt use it as the background. So I did the next best thing - I just kept it as the back rest, and followed it on the sides.



I decided to put white as the backdrop for now. I set out to find a suitable material that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg. Luckily, I found the perfect stuff at the depot. It is a large sheet of PVC, made for showers and other places needing waterproof materials. One sheet of the stuff was perfect, but alas, I screwed up a cut and had to go buy another sheet anyways.

Before I could put the material up, I had to put in supports on the sides and back... It admitedly just adds more and more weight, something Ive been trying to avoid the entire time, but without it, the pvc sheet would simply bend in and possibly break off.



As seen aboce, pushing up 2 cut pieces would usually show the dark area between the crack, so instead of continually trying to perfect a cut bevel, I just put a bent piece of pvc between the joins.



I also had to figure out a way to attach all the padded boards to the inside... this step was a lot harder than it seems like it would be. I was looking for a way to attach the boards without having to put a hole in the leather OR put a hole in the outside of the booth.

I settled on using a medium that I'm not quite happy with, but gets the job done. A very archaic way to do it, in my opinion....


After securing the pads, and hanging the pvc, it was starting to look like a booth again



I put on some more aluminum siding to cover the pvc and the bare edges by the seat, and although I don't have a direct picture of it, it looked pretty nice.


Next I had to put doors on the back. Simple stuff here. Just had to buy the right hinges and put on some regular plywood paneling, then stain to match.



This is one of the only places (maybe the only one at all) where you can see bolts on the outside of the booth:




After that was all done, I was ready to complete the booth by building the final piece: the roof.

From the very beginning, Ive been trying to think of how I want the top to look. I wanted it to jut out a little, drop down, and give height all at the same time.

The actual building of the top was relatively easy... it was just a box, with the bottom inset a few inches.




I thought it would be best to use black as the color, to complete the accenting colors. This pic is only one coat, but you get the idea.


To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I'm totally happy with the top. Something just looks... "off" to me. I'm not really sure what I could do differently. Got any ideas?


All in all, the build was really fun, and the results were awesome. At our wedding, there was a line to get into the booth all night long. It was a total success.

(back door open)

[Well Fed Games]

Nice!   

[quintinbiker]

It really does look nice. excelent work

[dithrin]

Nice job, everything looks clean.

As for your question on the top piece, i think it is just a proportion thing that is making you think it is "off"  At least from the picture the top looks to wide for the overall height of the booth.  reducing that height by a couple of inches should get rid of the "off" issue, although it may just be the picture.

[gbeef]

This is frigeen awesome really nice job

[eds1275]

put some framed pics on the big open spaces - maybe leave the top of the frame open so you can swap the pics easily! I don't think it's the top that looks off, I think that it just needs something to add some spice.

[johnm160]

Awesome build !

Did you end up using the sparkbooth software or another solution?

[EightBySix]

Must have been a nice feeling with people queuing up to use it