The first pic represents the sum of man hours Ive got in this sofar
Plenty more to come Im sure.
The pics show how I angled my CP its kind of hard to explain without pics.
The frame fits around the base. I found the height I needed in the back of the CP and pinned the base there with a couple screws.
The front then is allowed to pivot, found my depth I wanted (ended up being an inch shorter than the back and pinned it there after adding glue to the sides while the base was pivoted up.
Then I went around the perimeter lining everything up and getting rid of the bow in the base... glued and screwed.
You can see in one of the pics how all my excess framing was left on the underside of the CP. I marked it all around where it needed cutoff using my combo square as a depth gauge.
Zipped of the excess with the skillsaw, then used my grinder/ resin sanding pad to smooth/flush the bit that was left.
An angle grinder with these resin sanding pads are awesome for removing large amounts of material quickly.... yet you can use it to shape, sand,and smooth a lot of detail with a light hand.
Used wood filler and its drying now. Test fit it and realized I needed to angle the small control panel back shoulder area on the cabs sides since the back of the CP was not 90° angle.... the grinder took care of that too, and just in time as the motor is almost burnt out.
Tomorrow I will finish sand the CP and need to get a piano hinge....are these available at places like menards,lowes,etc?
going to grab some aluminum angle for the marquee area and work on that.
Im scared to dive into the speaker panel area until I got my screen in so I know how deep it needs to go etc.... but im going to have to wait till the next paycheck to get the 32" tv.
Im worried about the sticks,buttons,trackball fitting under the hood now. The CP only has like 1 1/2" under the the panel in the front... 2 1/2" in the rear. I might have to do some serious routing out on both pieces....might even have to cut some windows out of the CP base
EDIT......................................................................
..... I think I will be going with the u-track pearl trackball. Seems the base under the CP is 2" so I will probably need to remove a small area of material underneath for the edge closest to the front of the CP.
Ultimarks site states.... "Optional Full-Speed USB interface, or connect directly to our Mini-PAC or Opti-PAC interfaces"....
Whats any differences or pros or cons going with the usb interface vs something like the opti-pac?
Should I have dedicated buttons for the trackball? Should I be setting up the trackball as a mouse?
I planned on getting modded led sanwa jlf sticks and sanwa led buttons from paradise due to reading they were great for fighting games which I will be playing alot of, but looks like I might have to cheap out and get paradises $2 LED buttons and there noname LED sticks that are $25. I grew up with happ sticks and buttons but never liked how stiff they were and the long stiff throw on the happ buttons.
Wanting cheap, good,sensitive controls (are these 3 possible) also LED illuminated..... Is there any other alternatives I should consider?
The zippy sticks seem to be decent as they are based off the Seimitsu LS-32 sticks and the price is right but then I wouldnt have LED's...just wondered how those paradise noname led sticks compared.
Ive never bought or used any controls other than the classic old happ stuff so any suggesstions here are appreciated.
So..... getting the u-track with usb or opti-pac (dont know the difference)
An I-PAC 4
still need to decide on sticks and buttons
Im assuming i need a crapton of wire in the 20/22 gage size, disconnects,shrinkwrap........ anything else I am forgetting for the CP besides the start/coin/admin buttons?
I would like to get my TV this week and the controls but maybe only able to choose one or the other.