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Author Topic: The Grid....  (Read 182431 times)

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opt2not

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #120 on: June 08, 2018, 01:20:52 pm »
Too close to the crazies in San Francisco/Silicon Valley.  People are dropping their souls and every stock option they have to buy a house, it’s insane.  I’ve seen almost $2,000/ft in some areas.
This is one of the reasons I left SF aside from the brutal commute, and the cut-throaty ladder-climbing people. The cost of living is just out-of-control, and I was working at Apple at the time, so the money I was making was really good. But unfortunately the price to live there negated any chance of saving for a home.

Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.  :lol  The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #121 on: June 08, 2018, 01:25:42 pm »
Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.  :lol  The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!

No Robotron lessons then?  Should’ve called you sooner, that’s a bummer.

opt2not

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #122 on: June 08, 2018, 01:49:06 pm »
Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.  :lol  The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!

No Robotron lessons then?  Should’ve called you sooner, that’s a bummer.
Yeah, sorry bro :(
We had to get out of there. I was miserable at work, my commute was 3 hours a day, and with no prospect of being able to get ahead financially it just didn't make sense to stay in that area.  Plus SF is not very family friendly, it's more of a city for yuppies or DINK (Dual income no kids) couples.  Quality of life is definitely better for us down here.

If you're ever down in Orange County, I'd be happy to give you some Robotron lessons :)

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #123 on: June 08, 2018, 02:08:24 pm »
If you're ever down in Orange County, I'd be happy to give you some Robotron lessons :)

I’ll make it happen, be on the lookout.  If not before, then maybe at Zapcon 2019

javeryh

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #124 on: June 08, 2018, 03:33:40 pm »
Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.  :lol  The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!

No Robotron lessons then?  Should’ve called you sooner, that’s a bummer.
Yeah, sorry bro :(
We had to get out of there. I was miserable at work, my commute was 3 hours a day, and with no prospect of being able to get ahead financially it just didn't make sense to stay in that area.  Plus SF is not very family friendly, it's more of a city for yuppies or DINK (Dual income no kids) couples.  Quality of life is definitely better for us down here.

If you're ever down in Orange County, I'd be happy to give you some Robotron lessons :)

Sounds like the bay area is a lot like NYC.  I took a 40% cut a few years ago to get out of the long commute and hyper competitive environment I was in and have never been happier.

opt2not

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #125 on: June 08, 2018, 04:44:08 pm »
Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.  :lol  The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!

No Robotron lessons then?  Should’ve called you sooner, that’s a bummer.
Yeah, sorry bro :(
We had to get out of there. I was miserable at work, my commute was 3 hours a day, and with no prospect of being able to get ahead financially it just didn't make sense to stay in that area.  Plus SF is not very family friendly, it's more of a city for yuppies or DINK (Dual income no kids) couples.  Quality of life is definitely better for us down here.

If you're ever down in Orange County, I'd be happy to give you some Robotron lessons :)

Sounds like the bay area is a lot like NYC.  I took a 40% cut a few years ago to get out of the long commute and hyper competitive environment I was in and have never been happier.
Yeah, it's actually not that different from what I heard. Our neighbours in SF were from NYC, and they love living in the Bay Area. But they're a rich Jewish couple, Capital Investment type folks, so for them it's no burden to live there.

Glad to see another person choosing Quality of Life over commutes and high paying salaries. Life's too short to waste time on commuting back and forth between home and a high-stress job.  Now I use that 3 hours I gained back (since I live 5 mins away from my work now) to work on projects, art, and spend time with family.   Next will be -- buy a house, eventually, get some workshop space, then finish my Alpha One project.

Sorry to derail your thread, Arroyo.

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #126 on: June 08, 2018, 04:55:33 pm »
Sorry to derail your thread, Arroyo.

I brought it up, and it’s a huge topic of interest at my house.  Glad to see others are figuring out that quality of life trumps all, just wish we could have kept you in the Bay.  You are the only one I knew in the area on these boards.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #127 on: June 08, 2018, 06:18:07 pm »
Too close to the crazies in San Francisco/Silicon Valley.  People are dropping their souls and every stock option they have to buy a house, it’s insane.  I’ve seen almost $2,000/ft in some areas.
This is one of the reasons I left SF aside from the brutal commute, and the cut-throaty ladder-climbing people. The cost of living is just out-of-control, and I was working at Apple at the time, so the money I was making was really good. But unfortunately the price to live there negated any chance of saving for a home.

Now I live in Southern Cali, took a 40% paycut and now am actually able to save money each month.    The Bay Area sucks!

Glad to see some updates, Arroyo!
Home prices are one of the reasons I turned down a lucrative offer to move to SF.  I live just outside of Raleigh,NC; bought 1.5 acres and built a 2,300sq ft home for  $200,000 a few years back.

Glad this build is still active.  I'm really looking forward to how it turns out.

Sent from my SM-J320R4 using Tapatalk

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #128 on: July 04, 2018, 10:45:05 pm »
In contract to purchase a home, this project should get back on track in August.  Looking forward to having my own shop.

JudgeRob

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #129 on: July 06, 2018, 05:08:55 pm »
I'm in the valley and we are getting a ton of Bay Area transplants.  It's starting to make our home prices rise as well.

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #130 on: July 06, 2018, 07:17:28 pm »
I'm in the valley and we are getting a ton of Bay Area transplants.  It's starting to make our home prices rise as well.

Central or San Fernando?

JudgeRob

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #131 on: July 07, 2018, 11:51:48 pm »
North Valley, near Sacramento.  A lot of money coming in from the bay.

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #132 on: July 08, 2018, 12:19:07 am »
North Valley, near Sacramento.  A lot of money coming in from the bay.

Get out, I’m a Davis kid.  Good to know there’s another Northern CA poster on these boards.  Love the tokenization on your build by the way.

JudgeRob

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #133 on: July 08, 2018, 01:38:29 pm »
Thanks!  Davis?  I went to undergrad there!  Lived there about 5 years.  Not much to do, but I had some fun times.  The valley kind of sucks, but it's a good launch pad to go everywhere else.  Cheap cost of living and then we go somewhere else every weekend.   :laugh:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #134 on: July 08, 2018, 07:00:12 pm »
Thanks!  Davis?  I went to undergrad there!  Lived there about 5 years.  Not much to do, but I had some fun times.  The valley kind of sucks, but it's a good launch pad to go everywhere else.  Cheap cost of living and then we go somewhere else every weekend.   :laugh:

I think about that every time we try to schlep the kids to Tahoe.   :angry:

Valley is awesome, good quality of life, if there were more jobs I’d probably have gone back.

If you ever haul that machine to a local place let me know I’d love to check it out.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #135 on: July 10, 2018, 11:55:11 am »
I went back through the first pages of your project.  Kudos, you've got some ambitious electronics in this one!  I'm glad someone is keeping the rotating monitor alive.  I wanted to try one but simply did not have the room for it.  Your servo bracket looks really sharp.  That's a nice looking servo there; I like the Pololu servo controllers too, great company with great customer support.  Can't wait to see it in action.

For the discs, if they're single color, you might just hard wire or to a simple switch since LEDBlinky would only be blinking them off and on.  Save a little complexity?  :dunno

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #136 on: July 10, 2018, 04:49:09 pm »
For the discs, if they're single color, you might just hard wire or to a simple switch since LEDBlinky would only be blinking them off and on.  Save a little complexity?  :dunno

Yup, good catch.  I did the part about the transistor without realizing that the iPac Ultimate can handle a 12V supply (duh!).  So now the plan is to use that for both the discs and the Tron stick UV lighting to ride the 12V rail as the LED strips I could find for UV lighting and for the correct color of white we’re all 12V.  This of course assumes the draw on the strips won’t exceed the 1amp makes on the I/O board.....

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #137 on: July 11, 2018, 01:55:01 am »
Are you talking about those two auxiliary-like ports it has?

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #138 on: July 11, 2018, 08:21:14 am »
Are you talking about those two auxiliary-like ports it has?

The upper right hand corner:
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 03:51:18 pm by Arroyo »

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #139 on: July 11, 2018, 04:45:24 pm »
OK, yeah, that's what I thought you were referring to.  My recollection could be off, but that port might be a little bit "experimental".  If you haven't already, look into it.  I'll try to find if I had older posts about it (vs email exchanges).  I know I had a weird issue of color blending on some of the other regular ports and it was solved by disabling the high current output...

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #140 on: July 11, 2018, 06:04:08 pm »
OK, yeah, that's what I thought you were referring to.  My recollection could be off, but that port might be a little bit "experimental".  If you haven't already, look into it.  I'll try to find if I had older posts about it (vs email exchanges).  I know I had a weird issue of color blending on some of the other regular ports and it was solved by disabling the high current output...


Ah good to know.  I’ll have to dig into that a little deeper when the time comes.  Thanks for the heads up.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #141 on: September 19, 2018, 12:56:31 am »
Back in the Saddle.  After setting up caution tape "dads only" around the garage I've finally been able to setup shop.  Still working on the control panel as a test case for learning.  Last post I was working on the control panel top:



I thought I could cutout the layers of Acrylic, polycarbonate and plywood, AND graphics all in one go……cause yeah my egos that big.


Thought it would be pretty smart to put the actual graphics under the plastic and mark off the center and then drill all layers together:



Graphics started to peel up because the Acrylic which I had underneath the Polycarbonate started to bunch up:



Big fail all around.  What I learned was Polycarbonate cuts very similarly to wood with a forstner bit (see above).  It has a soft easy going feel.  Acrylic on the other hand being more brittle tends to clump together when drilling with a Forstner, ESPECIALLY since I had it layered between the wood and Polycarbonate.  I think the heat of friction caused the Acrylic to melt rather then cut smooth.  What happened was the edges of the holes actually fused with the cut away material, and when I tried to take it off it was stuck.  Had to kind of chip away at it which then starts to take some unintended material with it.  ALSO because I was eye balling the center with the cuts I actually got off center and caused my hole alignments to be off just a little.  MY salvation was I wasn’t cutting with 1 1/8” just 1” bit so I had some play.


Fast forward to this month and I decided to take a different approach that worked (thanks Krangbrain):



Took a print out from the Sketchup file from the control panel and cut out the centers of the holes with sharp scissors.  Taped that over my plywood to get it as well aligned as possible despite my previous errors.




Cut out a 1 1/8” hole in a piece of scrap using the drill press and forester bit for a nice perpendicular cut.




Laid the scrap with accurate hole cut over the top piece and used the black outline from the print out to align the hole (see tiny black outline above).




Attached the flush trim bit on the router using the forester cut hole in the scrap as a guide, and cut out each of the button and joystick holes:




Needed to round the edges, so I used the sides of the box as a guide and bottom mounted flush trim bit with the router:





Around this time I realized how dissatisfied I was with the quality of the plywood i had on the top, and decided to buy some sanded 1/2” Birch from Home Depot.  Used the previously cut top as a guide for the holes and recut the hinge rebates:




Much cleaner result (upper right hand two holes still suffer from my mistake when I tried to cut everything in one go and got slightly off alignment).


Next was my Joystick solution.  I’ve had a hell of a time committing to a single stick, so I figured I wouldn’t:




Figured I would mount a universal mounting plate (Paradise Arcade shop:https://paradisearcadeshop.com/home/hardware/mounting-plates/paradise-universal-plates/1279_universal-ms-pac-arcade-joystick-adapter-plate) and it was important to me that it be top mounted as I wanted the Japanese sticks to be close to the surface so that they would be at the proper height without having to buy longer shafts.




I also wanted the plate to fit snug with the wood so I built a template as a guide for the router.  Here I’m using a universal router bushing so that the bit can follow the template (bronze thing in the middle).  It is kinda wonky and other routers have better sturdier solutions.  I learned to adapt to mine but its fragile.  Before cutting I measured off the center on the pencil outline of the wood and marked the middle on all 4 sides, also did this with the template so that I knew exactly where the template should be aligned so that the center of the mounting plate wouldn’t drift.  Worked really well (see below).




After the 1/16” rebate, check to make sure it fits snug.  Then cut out the rest for the joystick housing:




Again used the router with flush trim bit and top bering.





Probably overkill, but I like that its snug enough to turn upside down without screws.


Il Eurostick:




Sanwa JLF:




Couldn’t quite fit the WICO cause of the leaf housing hitting the sides of the box:




AND finally Nintendo stick:




More to come………
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 05:50:35 pm by Arroyo »

Mike A

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #142 on: September 19, 2018, 05:51:05 am »
Good learning process. You identified a problem and fixed it instead of hacking your way through it.

It looks like you might be feeding the router too slowly or your router speed is too fast for your bit. My guess would be slow feed. It looks like there are scorch marks where your routed around the outside of the CP. Cosmetically it is not that big a deal if it will be covered anyway. But it can prematurely wear out your bit.

Also. Polycarbonate is stronger than acrylic, but it scratches much easier, and acrylic already scratches easily enough.

Where are you located? In the future I could laser cut an acrylic panel that size really easily for you. It leaves a nice polished edge.

I like the idea of using the universal joystick mount if you are not married to one particular stick.

I am just rambling now. I am waiting for a report to run so I had a few minuted to kill.

 :cheers:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #143 on: September 19, 2018, 06:52:16 am »
Nice to see you back at it!
I noticed your router bit 'looks' a bit beat up too.. wipe it with a solvent to get and glue/crud off of it at minimum and inspect the edge.
My personal favorite router bit brand is Whiteside.  They make spiral bits that cut soooooo clean.  But should only be used for that last thin clean cut.  Not heavy removal.  Ohh  and they cost a fortune.
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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #144 on: September 19, 2018, 07:06:50 am »
Good advice. That bperkins01 guy knows his stuff. He also works cleaner than I do. My workflow is too chaotic. It is funny because I am meticulous at work.

A clean router bit is a happy router bit. A few light passes over a sharpening stone after the cleaning could help too.

While I have your attention bperkins01, I clicked on your pontoon rebuild and the link is broken. My brother has a derelict pontoon boat. I was looking for inspiration. Is there another way to get at your rebuild log?


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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #145 on: September 19, 2018, 07:17:07 am »
For once its not me! 
It looks like Shutterfly is down.. it will work later..
https://pontoonrehab.shutterfly.com/
Should work..  The site is mostly a picture book..  not a detailed step by step..  but you will see

Pontoon boats are Soooooooooo Simple to redo - you only need time and $$
Its just a plywood deck on an aluminum frame.  The boat is either 8' wide or 8'6" wide  - then whatever length..   
https://www.pontoonstuff.com/  <-- these guys have pretty much everything you need.
I know WAY more about boat and Woodworking than I do about video games..  feel free to ask me anything

« Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 07:22:00 am by bperkins01 »
My Arcade Cabinet Build and other projects here:
Centipede, Joust, Joust Cocktail, Asteroids, Galaga, Ms. Pacman Cabaret, Defender, Space Invaders Cocktail
https://bperkins.wordpress.com/

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #146 on: September 19, 2018, 07:22:37 am »
Thanks I appreciate that.  My brother is "storing" the pontoon behind my barn. It is shrink wrapped, but it has been sitting for years. It is all stripped down. I want to try to motivate him to finish it or get rid of it.

I will keep further boat related requests out of Arroyo's thread.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #147 on: September 19, 2018, 07:34:21 am »
Arroyo - I think you will love those buttons btw.  Just enough color w/o being overpowering..  Its helped us quite a bit with LEDBlinky announcing the controls and setting colors on the active buttons.  You may get more bleed through the sides into your acrylic though..  Might want to test for that.  Maybe wrap the threads just under the top edge with black tape or something.  Keep at it!
My Arcade Cabinet Build and other projects here:
Centipede, Joust, Joust Cocktail, Asteroids, Galaga, Ms. Pacman Cabaret, Defender, Space Invaders Cocktail
https://bperkins.wordpress.com/

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #148 on: September 19, 2018, 10:11:53 am »
Glad to see you are back at it Arroyo.  I love this build.   :cheers:

My personal favorite router bit brand is Whiteside.  They make spiral bits that cut soooooo clean.  But should only be used for that last thin clean cut.  Not heavy removal.  Ohh  and they cost a fortune.


+1 on the Whiteside spiral bit.  It makes cutting plastic so easy and consistent.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #149 on: September 19, 2018, 01:11:36 pm »
It looks like you might be feeding the router too slowly or your router speed is too fast for your bit. My guess would be slow feed. It looks like there are scorch marks where your routed around the outside of the CP. Cosmetically it is not that big a deal if it will be covered anyway. But it can prematurely wear out your bit.
Yup, I’ve noticed that, I think it has to do with using the bit to make initial cuts, rather than reserving it for final trimming.  Could also be that I’m not moving the material fast enough…..dunno, gonna have to experiment more.
Also. Polycarbonate is stronger than acrylic, but it scratches much easier, and acrylic already scratches easily enough.
Yup, I’m actually using 3/16” scratch or “Mar” resistant Acrylic on the CP surface for its scratch resistance, and the 1/8” polycarb will be underneath.  It will probably make more sense as I go along…..knock on wood.
Where are you located? In the future I could laser cut an acrylic panel that size really easily for you. It leaves a nice polished edge.
California – Bay Area – That would be cool, machine panel might be a bit wide and long, if memory serves you have a 12” wide but infinite length bed, or maybe that was your CNC machine?

I noticed your router bit 'looks' a bit beat up too.. wipe it with a solvent to get and glue/crud off of it at minimum and inspect the edge.
My personal favorite router bit brand is Whiteside.  They make spiral bits that cut soooooo clean.  But should only be used for that last thin clean cut.  Not heavy removal.  Ohh  and they cost a fortune.
Good to know, any recommendations on solvent to use, and is it a simple hand wipe, or something that involves the bit spinning?  Good to know on the Whiteside.
Arroyo - I think you will love those buttons btw.  You may get more bleed through the sides into your acrylic though..  Might want to test for that.  Maybe wrap the threads just under the top edge with black tape or something.  Keep at it!
Yup that’s the plan, use some black vinyl wrap for the buttons near the head.   

Glad to see you are back at it Arroyo.  I love this build.   :cheers:
Always good to hear from you WP34. :cheers:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #150 on: September 19, 2018, 10:18:52 pm »
Acetone and a rag..  Certainly not spinning!
Some routers have RPM control - slower speed on acrylic may help...
One of the best ways to judge a cut is more by sound than feel - once you get it cutting right (wood or plastic) - listen to the sound..  if you are going too fast or too slow.. you can often hear it..

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Centipede, Joust, Joust Cocktail, Asteroids, Galaga, Ms. Pacman Cabaret, Defender, Space Invaders Cocktail
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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #151 on: September 21, 2018, 01:41:50 am »
Will you be able to swap the joysticks out once the art is on the CP?

Nice looking mockup BTW.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #152 on: September 21, 2018, 08:06:20 am »
Acetone and a rag..  Certainly not spinning!
Some routers have RPM control - slower speed on acrylic may help...
One of the best ways to judge a cut is more by sound than feel - once you get it cutting right (wood or plastic) - listen to the sound..  if you are going too fast or too slow.. you can often hear it..

:cheers:  thanks bud.

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #153 on: September 21, 2018, 08:08:56 am »
Will you be able to swap the joysticks out once the art is on the CP?

Nice looking mockup BTW.

Yup, that was part of this test case.  Originally was going to either epoxy or weld the screws in place, but after running these tests might not have to.  There’s one grouping of holes in the universal mounting plate that works for all sticks except the Nintendo (there’s a solution for it that I’ll explain later in the build) if you want to use the stock mounting plates for all sticks.  If you are willing to swap out the stock Japanese mounting plates for these:
https://paradisearcadeshop.com/home/hardware/mounting-plates/paradise-universal-plates/1175_universal-arcade-joystick-adapter-plate

then there’s another grouping of slots that work even better (Happ/IL).

Here’s a picture of the Sanwa JLF with the stock plate swapped out for the universal one for reference:



And the IL:




EDIT:  Found a picture that'd I'd taken that explains a little better:


That's the smaller universal mounting plate, with a Sanwa JLF behind it, with Seimitsu LS-32 behind that, and the at the bottom is an IL housing.  The red circle highlights represent the holes that will work with all of the joysticks "out of the box".  The Green square highlights represent where I think a better place to mount the screws assuming you swap the stock mounting plates on the Japanese sticks with the universal one above.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 03:54:39 pm by Arroyo »

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #154 on: October 01, 2018, 01:14:12 am »
Moving along….

Took Yotsuya’s recommendation on another build log and bought some Elmers wood filler for the pocket joint holes:




Worked well as far as I could tell.  Trick I learned was to NOT try and make it perfectly smooth and flush with the surface.  You actually want to leave a little padding and then sand down.

Next was my plan to wrap laminate around the box.  I bought Wilson Art Matte Black Vertical grade laminate (1595-60).  One of the hardest parts was figuring how to get one sheet out of the box:



Had come across Szabo’s arcades tutorial on installing:

very good walkthrough.   I took his advice and bought this guy at Lowe’s:



With a straight edge and a few passes you get nice clean cuts:



Had read numerous places that laminate does not like to bend, and is prone to cracking or snapping as its quite brittle, but had to give it a go.  Spoke with the manufacturer, and the maximum radius that it can do WHEN HEATED is 3/8”.  I was attempting to do 1/2” so I knew it was going to be tough.

Put some aluminum foil on the outside to prevent the heat gun (Home Depot) from melting the plastic exterior, but could still transfer the heat well.  I was actually surprised with how it faired:




Couldn’t quite pull it off and gave up after 3 attempts.  Two problems are overheating which separates the plastic from the paper backing like this (bubbles in the corner):



And cracking the exterior if the plastic isn’t heated up enough.  You could probably pull it off if you had A LOT of patience…..which I obviously did not.  Still managed to get a good bend going, and was surprised at how far the material will bend even without heating.  I’d venture to say that if you are in the 1.5” radius neighborhood you should be fine even without heating.  I would recommend NOT putting the contact cement down until you know you can make the curve first!

So moved on to painting instead.  Was lucky enough to have OND post his tutorial (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,158178.0.html), which I followed as close as possible (thanks OND!).  As his advice stated, I went to a local automotive paint store (Finish Masters), and showed them the pics of the cans he uses, and they knew exactly what I was looking for.  As usual though I can’t get the “real good stuff” being a California Bay Area resident with all of the crazy health laws.  Anyway here’s what I bought:




Wasn’t looking for a high gloss shine, so skipped any finishing spray.

Primed:



Tried to put some Bondo to fill gaps and smooth out grain lines.  First go went ok I think, but on the second go I didn’t put as much of the hardening agent as I thought it would help with preventing it from drying too fast.




Not enough hardening agent=sticky Bondo that never gets that hardness that you are looking for.  I tried to sand it off but it mostly just gobs up on the sand paper.  This was mistake number three, along with buying cheap plywood, and not sanding the exterior as much as I should have. 

Anyway, turned out pretty good in the end:






Couldn’t help but drill out the USB slot (forstner):



Made the mistake of not checking to make sure that drill bits could be swapped out without touching the clamps holding the piece down, and had to adjust to swap out bits.  So not a perfectly snug fit like it could have been but good enough:






Next is waiting for some parts to come in to tackle power, slot cutting, and the lighting system before putting the graphics on….should be interesting.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2019, 03:11:11 pm by Arroyo »

Ond

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #155 on: October 03, 2018, 09:03:57 am »
I'm glad to see you've found something equivalent to the high build primer I use.  It looks like you got a good result with the black finish there and the black controls look cool!  :cheers:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #156 on: October 03, 2018, 06:40:30 pm »
I'm glad to see you've found something equivalent to the high build primer I use.  It looks like you got a good result with the black finish there and the black controls look cool!  :cheers:

Great tutorial OND! :cheers:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #157 on: November 25, 2018, 12:05:52 pm »
Project is not dead, I swear  ;D.

Many a plastic piece were sacrificed in the making of this box, for the faint of heart you may want to look away.

No seriously I’ve been trying to get the look of what I wanted for quite awhile now, and finally I’ve got something worth posting.

I’ve been trying to do a lit control panel, but I’ve found the process very difficult until now.  Instead of doing what most folks do and light the panel from underneath I’m taking a different approach.  The reasons are that I’ve noticed you get a lot of shadowing from the trackball, joystick mounting plate, etc and so I really wanted a uniform look.

The approach I’m taking is to fire the light from the sides of the acrylic above the controls, hence the reason for 2 layers of plastic.  Most versions came out bad as I was sanding the entire back of the plastic which really washed out the blacks.  I also tried prints from multiple vendors before I found one that really worked (can’t say enough about how well the print came out).

Anyway enough talking:




Black and white print with polyurethane plastic on top.




Carefully cut out the black lines and large circle.




Busted out the Dremel and stayed within the guard rails of the polyurethane.





Would have loved to laser etch this, but knowing my panel will be too large for that I’m practicing  what I’ll ultimate have to do.





Test the side lighting.



Finally.




With the plastic overlay on top.



A shot of the lights off for comparison:





Still lots to do to get this all going, but major hurdle overcome.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2019, 11:22:51 am by Arroyo »

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #158 on: November 25, 2018, 01:14:53 pm »
That looks amazing Arroyo.  You really hand-routed that with a Dremel?  Most impressive.   :cheers:

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Re: The Grid....(Redesign)
« Reply #159 on: November 26, 2018, 06:42:29 am »
Very nice!!!  :applaud: