Been really busy the last few days trying to keep on schedule. It included lots of paint, stenciling and wiring. It also included a bit of blood, exhaustion, stress and disappointment. But ended with a happy ending anyway, thanks to a small sacrifice.
I got all of the painting done last night and at 4 am I was able to get the last of it on there, in the form of the Blue N in the logo. I started a few days ago by making stencils out of the frisket film from Hobby Lobby. I ended up having to run out to get sharpies Wednesday night though, which proved to be a pain in the ass, thanks to Thanksgiving. Apparently Staples closes early, and I was forced to go to Meijer and deal with pre-Thanksgiving shoppers.
Once the stencils were made, which I made 2 for the Blue, 2 for the Red and 2 more for the Blue N of the logo. I went into the basement and started laying out the stencils and taping off the stripes for the rest of the graphics. After a bunch of work laying it out I finally had the blue painted on, sometime around 2 am on Thursday morning. But, some of the blue peeled off as I was removing the stencil... this was disappointment #1.
Stencil for the Red lettering
Sides taped off for the blue paint
Blue painted on, the other side looked way worse.
The next day I laid out the stencil for the red and stripes and then rolled the red on. I first mixed some of my primer with some of my red and rolled that on to help cover the blue. Once that was dry, I rolled on the red and it covered the blue no problem. Once that was dry, I used my xacto knife to slice the edges to keep them from peeling away. This time I had no problems and red looked great. After the red had dried I went back over with some tape and a paint brush and fixed all of the blue that had ripped.
Painting on the Red
Red strips and lettering on the side!
While the paint was drying I worked on mounting the sub for the speaker. This was pretty simple and I mounted it behind the coin door so he can access the volume, bass and treble easily. Thanks to a couple angle brackets and one of the holders from the window bolts I used on the CP It hangs in place nicely.
Rear view
Front view
When this was all set I went to work setting up the PC. I hooked it all up to the cab and turned it on, loaded up Mala and couldn't get any of the controls on P1 side to work. The P1 Start button, all 6 buttons and all but the right joystick weren't operational. At this point the CP was screwed into place, the sub was mounted and I had a bunch more cables in the way. But, since the CP wasn't working I needed to get to it to work on it. This was disappointment #2 and I ended up needing to undo everything I had just done to get to the CP to fix it. Turns out, it was a ground issue and I needed to redo all the grounds on the P1 side of things.
I ended up staying up until 5 am last night working on things. I sliced open my finger and bled all over the underside of the CP. The last thing I did last night was get back to work mounting the PC and... somehow... I bricked it.
This was disappointment #3 and I nearly cracked because of it. I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what I did, but just made things worse and now all that happens when I load up the PC is it beeps at me. I seriously went to bed last night defeated, with no idea what to do. But before I went to bed, I was able to stencil the the N logo on the red circle.
Fully painted and assembled.
So today after looking into it some more, I decided that the only way to keep on schedule was to do something... drastic? I ended up pulling the PC from the SHMUP, converting all the graphics to the Retrotron layout and setting it up w/ a playlist for 4 way games and deleted the trackball list. This will give me time to look into fixing the PC, while still keeping on schedule w/ the 6pm deadline that was staring me in the face. This was the sacrifice.
Around 3pm my buddy showed up and we ran to my work to get the truck. He brought his son along and I took him into the basement to look at it. And he was thinking it looked really sweet. But still seemed clueless that it was theirs, until his dad was like "Guess what? This it ours. Remember that arcade we picked up last month so Scott could work on it for his friend? This is the same one!" After that he was speechless, which rarely happens, and he was all grins and super excited. It took a little bit of man handling to get it out of my basement and in the midst of bringing it up the stairs we scratched on of the red stripes and the 8 on one side... this was disappointment #4.
We ran for the truck and loaded it up then headed to his house to bring it to his basement. On the way there I noticed a few people checking it out as we drove passed, which is always a good feeling. When I got there the youngest son was there and saw it and I think he was even more excited about it that his brother was. I hooked up the PC and slid it into place, just in time for the 1st guests for their sleep over to show up. And at this moment there is a group of 7-8 year olds calling dibs on next turns on the Retrotron. It was totally worth all the work, problems and set backs just to see their faces. It reminded me of when we were kids at an arcade grouping around the latest game in the place in awe. It was really heartwarming to see a bunch of little kids digging all the work I put into it.
My buddy's youngest son playing the Retrotron for the 1st time. Super cute.
And the Retrotron marquee lit up with the Nova Matrix Lynx, it looks really good!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some beer to drink and relaxing to do. Then, maybe in a day or so I'll get to work fixing the PC for the Retrotron. If i get it fixed and swapped I'll post some updates on it.