Ya know after the Star Wars I kinda thought, "well I got the hard one done up front, after that is should pretty much be cake."
And on some levels that's true, but on other levels I have realized that one micro made does not a micro expert make. Each of these has its own unique challenges. I am in sight of the end for the Gauntlet so I'll be finishing that one first since I don't even have all the imagery I need for TRON yet.
I haven't been sitting on my hands just randomly changing my display name for the hell of it these past few weeks but have actually got some stuff done. I like lists. Let's do a list.
- TRON Coin Door - metal fabrication complete, painting complete, lighting complete, switch installation complete. Needs faux lock
- Gauntlet Coin Doors - ditto the above, except there are two of them so it's double the ass-ache
- Both cabs painted and drilled (coin door, power switches etc) awaiting final assembly and last top coat before art installation
- All lighting for TRON on hand including the blacklights with separate 12v battery power
- One caanoo monitor cable extended and half the needed soldering complete. Other caanoo fully operational awaiting surgery
- Tall Gauntlet sideart on hand and is bad ass - special thanks to PL1 (klov... not sure if the PL1 here is the same PL1)
I'm on my third CP for Gauntlet. Problem with the controls, from the CP up they are 1:6 scale, but below the deck they are closer to 1:4 or 1:3 and I've had serious crowding issues to contend with.
The top CP is what I've had to redesign to. Gauntlet's CP was never a paragon of CP design but I'm not calling this an improvement so much as a push.
Middle is my drill pattern, as you can see the joys take up a lot of realestate. Missing is the same large shaded area that is in the bottom picture. That delineates the cabinet walls. The original design made it difficult to get the buttons in place being half in the wall of the cab (choice of 1/4 MDF kinda whooping ---my bottom--- here) and some of the fire buttons were inside the joy housings. This third attempt should balance right and left handed players by alternating them across the board and also has taken into account all the aforementioned intersection problems which I might not have had my head wrapped around fully on the first two trials... oh, and it's symmetrical now, which I like.
If everything goes smoothly I should have the CP done and be wiring up everything by the end of the weekend. After that I can focus on TRON where I still have a few bugs left to squish.
Pics to come once I get fresh paint on Gauntlet.