The Summer of Chuff 2015

[yotsuya]

Today is the last day of the 2014-2015 school year, and marks the beginning of summer for me, so, in keeping with tradition, here's the 2015 Summer of Chuff thread.

What are your arcade-related summer projects? Other summer project plans? Vacations? Post them here! Love to see what you guys plans, and if they come to fruition by the end of summer.

My main summer project is going to be a finishing the restoration of that free Nintendo cab I got from The Wolfman a while back. I'm going complete resurfacing the sides, then install the thin brownboard to finish them off. Then I'll paint, add the components, and hopefully be done fairly quickly.

Side project, I want to build a new shed/workspace. That one is iffy. 

[wp34]

Light restore of a Total Carnage cabinet which is well under way.  The main arcade-related project is to finish the Fix-it-Felix for my daughter.  I do believe that was on my list for last summer...

We are also going to tear off and replace our deck.  That should be interesting.

[JimmyU]

Paint and setup my bartop.

[BorgDog]

Today is the last day of the 2014-2015 school year,

We are not out until June 18th! 

But, full line up after that.  Finish the former laundry room to master bath conversion, take a couple week motorcycle trip through Banff and the Canadian Rockies, maybe start on my Pi powered vertical bartop, get some more ink, relax at the cabin, read books, and most importantly spend time playing with the grandkids 

[dkersten]

I want to redo all the windows in my house, as well as add 2 full egress windows for rooms in the basement and make them fully legal bedrooms.  I also want to build an entertainment cabinet for my theater room, and I want to rebuild my CP on my mame cab and possibly build a second cabinet.  However, with a "broken wing" I can't do any of it until mid-July, and even then I am not sure I will be able to lift anything properly for a couple more months, so a lot of my plans are on hold indefinitely.

What I CAN do is go in for a series of back injections, physical therapy for my back, my shoulder, and my wrist, so that is likely going to be the extent of my summer. 

Well, that and trying to finish my second novel.  Gotta wait until I can type again... I had to stop and rest 3 times typing this little message, lol.

[BadMouth]

As mentioned elsewhere, I bought a fixer upper house that hasn't been properly maintained in a very long time.

Already done (all in the past month ChuffMay? with only two days taken off work ):

Jacked up the main beam of the house a little at a time to slowly level the floor. 
Still waiting on the structural engineer's official recommendation, but it will most likely just be reinforcing the beam by adding 2x10's to one side.
Removed all exterior windows from their frames, scrubbed mildew off all sides, repaired various hardware.  They are vinyl, so it wasn't that bad.  Still took all day.
Re-caulked between the frames and flashing to fix water leaking into walls in a couple places (redid them all just to be safe).
Did drywall work in 3 bedrooms consisting of removing popping nails, screwing it down (everywhere) and redoing the seams, including ceilings.
Added ceiling lights to two rooms and a ceiling fan w/o light to the master bedroom.  Also added an outlet and bulk cable pass-through behind the tv in the master bedroom.
Painted walls and ceilings.  Installed new interior window trim.  Replaced all the outlets and outlet covers because the old ones look..old and a couple didn't have ground.
The living room and hallway need the same treatment before having all the hardwood floors redone.
Tore down the ceiling tile and furring strips from the living room, hall, & bathroom ceilings, but have been reluctant to start up with the drywall mess again.

To most people who never really paid attention to how crappy the house was, it looks like I haven't done anything but repaint the bedrooms. 

Been lazy this week.  Just wanted to enjoy a clean dust free house for a week.
I did manage to mount a small tv antenna on the roof which didn't need to be done this soon, but it's what I felt like working on.

To do:

I need to hit the living room and hallway drywall (including ceiling) hard this holiday weekend, measure for replacement interior doors, and put up some blinds on a few windows.
The bathroom fan also died this morning (again), so I either have to repair it or install the new one that wasn't going to be installed until gutting the bathroom...which will involve cutting a hole in the roof and running new ductwork.  The bathroom is getting rearranged, so I need to write up plans to get the permit before doing too much in there.  I'd like to just hire someone to redo the bathroom, but in reality I'm not going to be able to afford what I want unless I do a lot of it myself.


There are a million other things to do, but this post is enough of a wall of text already.

I've resolved to just not have a life this year for the sake of the renovations not draggin on indefinitely.

Hopefully I don't run  out of chuff. 

[Slippyblade]

Oh, lemme see.

Finish up my SNES retro console (R-Pi based in an SNES case)
Finish up older kid's bartop
Redo failed Vigolix for younger kid's room.  (used cast off lumber and it warped out badly)
Build 4 player MAME pedestal for use in my office/cave
Thinking of doing an HTPC for the back room as well

[harveybirdman]

If the monsoon season will ever stop in OK I'd like to at least Finish the entire exterior of BulletReign.

Looking for a horizontal Jamma project to start as well but the wife support factor is low and the CL prices are sky high.

[pbj]

If the monsoon season will ever stop in OK I'd like to at least Finish the entire exterior of BulletReign

Man, you aren't kidding.  We went from year five of a "20 year drought" to constant rain in Houston.  Raining so much the roofer won't seal my chimney so the living room has been wet a month.

 

<Silly comment removed - Let's keep it family friendly.    >

 

[Howard_Casto]

Half of that sounds like a plan.  I'll leave it up to everyone's imagination which half. 

Our weather had been bonkers bananas as well.  Yesterday it was 50.... the week before memorial day it was 50, yeah and it's going to get up to 90 again real soon.  We are having 20+ degree jumps over the course of a single day. 

I need to clean out my work area... I'm tackling that tomorrow hopefully... maybe I'll actually get to do some arcade related stuff this summer.   

[lcmgadgets]

Numerous plans. But arcade related--I want to finish my sketchup drawings of Legacy, & get back to real work on it. I have a couple of new prospects workshop wise and assistance wise, & I really like to think I'll have things moving in a real way by the fall.

Lots of roller skating. Master a 1 foot spin (any kind), and get some real full revolution jumps down. Get my weight down more, & drive some of this arthritis back.

Find some investors/loaners/donaters to help us get a real roller rink here in London up & running by the fall (we're running out of time if we want to open by November, which is the present plan).

[RetroGreg]

I don't want to commit to anything because I always become a total wimp once the heat really starts, but I'm working on a vertical mame cab, a multi Williams cab, and I have a barstick I need to set up. I'd also like to do a raspberry pi console emulator project when I get a chance. Looking forward to it all 

[pbj]

Plan to spend as much time here as possible....



Yesterday was nice.....

 

[Le Chuck]

Non arcade related:

• Coming out of Company Command in July so that's a job change and a potential move.  Lots of details to iron out with that one in the next 45 days.  Could be sticking around, could be having to sell the house and move cross country/overseas.  Always an adventure.
• Third baby, first girl, due June 19thish.  Still need to paint the room and sand/prime/paint all her furniture
• Family coming in town for birth of the above, always a trainwreck of an event lol
• Gotta remulch the play area in the back yard and do some needed weed control in the deadfall area
• Few sign jobs that need doing for the wife
• A metric asstonne of pictures that need framing

Arcade related:

• Figure out what I'm doing with the Daytonas - don't really like how they look in the lineup
• Spacebase stuff - pending IDS right now but I have lots to do on my end
• Kids need/want/whatever a 4p pedestal - may not get to that this summer
• I need/want/whatever a lowboy just for shumping - really hope I get to that this summer
• Maybe finish the Idle Hands STUN Runner retheme - just need art...my hands are decidedly unidle lately tho

[ark_ader]

Finish my Stargate
Lose the wires in my PC lab
Build a new desk/ ED cockpit.
Start a butterfly collection.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looking to re-vamp my Total Carnage/Smash TV conversion.  I'm finally giving it some love by changing out the control panel with a properly lined up joystick setup.  I may or may not upgrade the sticks to Dominux sticks.  I have 2 Dominux sticks in my possession and I will test fit them to see if they work as I want them to.





My second project would be to get my newly acquired Nintendo cabinet in shape.  But it may or may not happen this summer as I'll be moving into my new home and will be busy painting, repairing and settling in.

DeLuSioNaL29

[yotsuya]

Looking to re-vamp my Total Carnage/Smash TV conversion.  I'm finally giving it some love by changing out the control panel with a properly lined up joystick setup.
DeLuSioNaL29

Ugh..... you should be beaten with that old panel. Repeatedly. 

I do like the look of the new panel. Redemption. 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looking to re-vamp my Total Carnage/Smash TV conversion.  I'm finally giving it some love by changing out the control panel with a properly lined up joystick setup.
DeLuSioNaL29

Ugh..... you should be beaten with that old panel. Repeatedly. 

I do like the look of the new panel. Redemption. 

Yeah, wasn't my choice.  I bought it that way.  If it was up to me I would not have converted a Gauntlet to Total Carnage.  Yikes!  The only plus to it was that the joysticks were not mounted angled...  Heh!

D

[Ond]

Ahh The Summer Winter of Chuff 2015  I really thought I'd be done with all the work on my house by now but no, still not.  That's OK though, I'm real close.  I'd be staring out at a sea of clay and mud instead of clean paving this winter without all the effort I've put in.  House interior is all painted, new carpet is all in, bathrooms refurbished and clean, landscaping, retaining walls, decking built blah blah blah 

Anyway, I still have final stuff to do on our home cinema, some exterior timber clean up, repair and paint and I'm done.  I have a date of September 1st for our home to go on the market regardless of anything left to do.
We've lived in this home for over 10 years and for most of that time we left it incomplete from when it was built.  I was happy to spend my time in blissful ignorance in my garage working on my hobbies.  I sympathize with those giving up their time to work on their own homes. With perseverance it's not endless and there are rewards.  For me that will be a year or so of relative freedom to get back to creative endeavors and some travel to interesting places 

[pbj]

Yeah, so, I spent the day here while roofers replaced the flashing around my chimney.  Perhaps my living room will stop floating in a pool of endless rain.



/renter4life

[Ond]

Yeah, so, I spent the day here while roofers replaced the flashing around my chimney.  Perhaps my living room will stop floating in a pool of endless rain.



/renter4life

Heh, I never thought I'd say it, but I can't wait to be renting (for at least a year or so).

[pbj]

Well, so much for the efforts of that roofer.



 

[yotsuya]

That sucks, James. I had a leaky roof, but changing the AC unit on it fixed that right up.

Hella chuffed this morning - at the beginning of summer, I get myself a gift. Two years ago, it was the table saw. Last year, my solder/desoldering kit. This year, I got myself an EEPROM burner and UV Eraser.  Looking forward to using it!

[harveybirdman]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

[pbj]

That sucks, James. I had a leaky roof, but changing the AC unit on it fixed that right up.

Well, wife's coworker on the other side of the bayou had two feet of water in his house this morning so I'll try to quit bitching about skim boarding in the living room this morning.  And the tornado that struck half a mile away.

At least the new job is going okay.  More money, less people yelling at me, but adios big corner office.

 

[wp34]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Dude you are so right.  I didn't wait long enough to sand and ruined a long-weekend's worth of painting.   

[yotsuya]

As the Summer of Chuff begins, I've started a minor project, but one I really want to see to fruition. I bought a non-working NHL Open Ice board running on a Midway Wolf Unit board. Open Ice is a pretty hard to find board, and I got a good deal on it, but once I got it, I could see what the issue probably was - corroded sockets. The blue-green corrosion could be cleaned off of chips, but the sockets were a different story. I removed the EPROMS to do a rom swap with a UMK3 board that I had for testing purposes, and it was clear that the sockets were so badly corroded that they caused some of the legs on the EPROMS to break off. I loaded the roms on my UMK3 board and saw that there were issues, but at least they booted. The NHL board just went to a black screen and did nothing.

During the course of looking and and reseating all the chips back on to the NHL board, I noticed the graphics chip was in there the wrong way. The chip has a cut corner, yet it was loaded incorrectly. I popped it out, reloaded it into the socket the correct way, booted the board - and instead of a black screen, I got the same graphics that I got on the UMK3 board with the NHL EPROMS! So the board DID work, but the issue was clearly with the EPROMS.

I put in an order for some clean pulls of the EPROMS on ebay (to replace the ones with the bad legs). I also got my EPROM burner in today, so I'll use that to test and replace the bad chips. But the sockets was still going to be an issue. I didn't want to put clean new chips in those dirty, corroded sockets, so tonight I whipped out my trusty Hakko desoldering gun and I removed all the bad sockets that I would be needing to use and ordered replacements off eBay. After an hour and a half, I was here:



You can see the empty spaces on the board where the sockets were, and said bad sockets off to the left.

The goal is to take my time replacing all the sockets, then burn the EPROMs and finally have a working NHL Open Ice board, which I will then throw into my NBA Jam cab using a switcher, or I will sell it to Malenko for an obscene amount of cash. Either way, it's a pretty good learning experience.

[Slippyblade]

That is cool, I need better tools.  Good luck on this one!  Think you'll have it done by the 6th?

[yotsuya]

That is cool, I need better tools.  Good luck on this one!  Think you'll have it done by the 6th?

Thanks. It all depends on when all the parts come in. The sockets are coming from Thailand, and the chips are coming from China. So who knows when I'll get everything together. All I know is I'm going to take my time on this, because I really want to be one of those guys that says, "Yeah I can fix my own stuff."

The ROM burner has been fun to play with. It was kind of neat verifying the ones that were working on it, and seeing how many bad chips I really have.

[wp34]

That's a really cool project yotsuya.  You will have a shingle out to fix boards in no time.   

[Howard_Casto]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

[wp34]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

Have you ever tried running dehumidifier where you paint?  I'm going to try that this weekend.

[harveybirdman]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

Have you ever tried running dehumidifier where you paint?  I'm going to try that this weekend.

Let smelly know how it works. Also anyone that has any smart masking tips let a brother know.

[Howard_Casto]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

Have you ever tried running dehumidifier where you paint?  I'm going to try that this weekend.

I hear good things but then again be careful.... too dry a room can cause an entirely different set of problems.

[wp34]

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

Have you ever tried running dehumidifier where you paint?  I'm going to try that this weekend.

I hear good things but then again be careful.... too dry a room can cause an entirely different set of problems.

Good point.

[wp34]

I spray painted a couple of metal brackets in the garage last night along with just the top section of my cabinet. The cabinet was painted with latex and we had thunderstorms all night.  The dehumidifier ran all night and in the morning the paint was all completely dry.  This is a small sample size but compared to my results last week I'd say the dehumidifier made a difference.   

I will be repainting the front of the cabinet today and that will be a better test.

---smurfing--- rain!

Humidity is the devil when you want paint to dry.  The only thing keeping me going is the payoff of posting the final results here.

Tell me about it.  I've got some fenders on the car to finish, but the paint just orange peels on me in this crazy weather, so I'm going to wait.

Have you ever tried running dehumidifier where you paint?  I'm going to try that this weekend.

Let smelly know how it works. Also anyone that has any smart masking tips let a brother know.

[Howard_Casto]

You know I almost forgat... obligatory:



(note:  replace "tuff" with "chuff")

[Howard_Casto]

You know I almost forgot... obligatory:



(note:  replace "tuff" with "chuff")

[pbj]

Here's the mold farm that used to be my carpet:



Here's my neighbors house.  One of many.



It's raining again, so here I went...

[Slippyblade]

Oh my...  Is home owner's gonna cover that - do you have home owner's?