NEO GEO Evolution (EVS-1) - Experimenting with DIY trackball

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BadMouth:
was gonna wait until this part was done before posting, but I have other obligations and it will probably be a few weeks, so......

I had planned to use a $25 set of 2.1 computer speakers that I already had, but the more I listened to them, the more dissatisfied I was.
The highs just weren't there and the subwoofer sounded decent in a corner, but not pointed directly at me. :(

I had some spare car components and bookshelf speakers, but nothing really felt like it was going to work right.
Then I saw these in a newegg sale email:

50w RMS. 3-way (middle speaker is a sealed back mid, bottom is a woofer), very good reviews.
They are bigger than they look.
4" drivers and 15" tall. More like bookshelf speakers than PC speakers.

hmmm.....the space I have to work with is about the size of them laid end to end.

No room to just shove them in there in their current enclosures though:

Had to go around the area the monitor needs to rotate. It was very tight with speaker placement that I wanted.

(they will be divided chambers, the divider is in the cab)

Just a little less tolerance than I was comfortable with, but the monitor will clear :o

Reused ports from original enclosure. The amount of air space is slightly less than the original enclosure.
Before tearing the speakers down, I put blocks of MDF inside the original enclosures to reduce the air space to what the arcade cab will have.
I was still satisfied with the sound.

The speakers put out pretty good bass. Not as good as a subwoofer in a corner, but the notes are there and aren't as boomy.
The ports firing into the corner between the wall and ceiling should add a little extra bass boost.

What's with the square blocks that the speakers are mounted in. ???

Those are the blocks from the original enclosures, so the original fronts will fit on them. :D
The plan is to bridge them together with fiberglass, bondo it, and fiddle with it until I get an Ond Quality Finish ®
(even if it takes two weeks, which I'm pretty sure it will)
The tweeters mount in the front panel.

The volume and other controls will be moved down around the cp area. Havent' figured out where yet.

The panel isn't glued into place yet. I'm having trouble figuring out what to do about ventilation at the top.
I'd planned to have a vented panel just below the speaker section.
But when I went to do it, I realized that it was going to let light leak in.
I'm relying on the inside of the cab to be dark so nothing can be seen around the monitor.

I fiddled around with some louvered vents, but since they are going on the angled panel and not the back,
I think they will let too much light in. Nothing can be put on the very back of the cab because it's being designed to sit flat against a wall.
Some kind of offset will probably have to be used, but there is zero room inside the cab because the monitor comes so close to the back when it rotates.
Something will present itself as the solution, it always does. ;D

It will probably be a couple weeks before I get much else done.

BadMouth:
I've been making progress, but not to the point of getting any one thing all the way done.

I did a little bit on the speaker shroud every couple days.
(lay down some glass, mow the yard, lay down some glass, go to bed, etc)

To begin, I placed the original speaker fronts in position over the speakers, taped a bridge accross them and made a mold, hoping it would save me time later.

Prepped for joining (I didn't sand the rest of them because I didn't want resin sticking anywhere else if accidentally dripped)

Then made sure the covers were properly aligned over the speakers and screwed the mold in place.

Laid down a few layers on the backside, trying to push it into the mold.

Meh, not as good as I'd hoped, but not bad for the first round. The white lines are areas that I didn't get soaked well enough with resin. The holes (besides the screw holes) are places where air bubbles were. They must be cut wide open and filled.

After a few more rounds, it looks more like it should.

A coat of primer, so I can tell what is and isn't still visible. (I did sand the entire piece first. ;) )

It's pretty good, but I plan to paint it gloss black so I'm not going to rush it. The place where it's joined together and where the knobs were isn't visible except a little bit on the side. The contours on the center section look a little asymetric when held at an angle to the light. I might have to hit it with a skim coat of bondo down the center.

I plan to put some kind of decal in the center.

Nephasth:
That speaker panel is ---smurfing--- tits! Keep up the great work! :applaud:

BadMouth:
Then there was the problem of the vent.

Because I'm relying on a tinted bezel to hide everything around the screen, light inside the cab must be limited as much as possible.
I'd planned on just using an air return vent from Lowes, but the louvers let in more light than expected. The vent being mounted at a 45 degree angle was going to make it even worse. I came up with all kinds of crazy ideas for offset channels and fans, but none of them seemed right.

So I searched the internet for "light proof vent". Nearly all results involved growing marijuana indoors. At first I skimmed and ignored them, but after not coming up with any better ideas myself, I read through the posts again. One idea was just perfect.

Start out with around $25 worth of aluminum angle, cut into long louvers and stacks of short spacers:

Paint them flat black (except for the areas that will be joined together):

Stack them up with spacers doubled up between the long pieces. JB weld spread between each part.

Frame it in:

Throw on a couple more coats of flat black and toss in in the cab:

And there you have an expensive, over engineered air vent. :lol
(that doesn't let in any light)

I could have polished the outside edge if I'd done a better job cutting the pieces out, but I had to fill in some gaps where the corners join with JB weld. :-\ It's crazy how well this thing blocks light. None gets through. Originally I thought that convection wouldn't allow heat to escape because it would get trapped in the peaks, but since the louvers are at a 45 degree angle and the back of the cab is at a 45 degrees, the louvers are actually parallel to the ground. I still plan to make sure that I have positive pressure inside the cab to keep air flowing.

emphatic:
Nice vent!

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