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Author Topic: The Grid....  (Read 182581 times)

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Vigo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #680 on: January 21, 2021, 03:28:17 pm »
 :cheers: Short but awesome update!

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #681 on: January 23, 2021, 11:15:18 am »
Cheers fellas.  Yeah the marquee is etched in the back of a 1/8” piece of acrylic.  The graphic will be lined up and adhered to the front, and then sandwiched between another 3/16” piece of acrylic.  As with the other etchings they will be side lit to control the lighting on the graphics.

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #682 on: January 27, 2021, 06:37:34 pm »
Been so long since I did I write up I had to think about it  :whap.

Got the etchings back and threw them up on the machine:





You can really see the etching when there is a black background behind it.

Next I had a print of the graphics done to scale and aligned the etched panel to the wood with the print as well.



This actually took a little fiddling as the laser etched panel was actually cut slightly smaller than the wood to accommodate for the side firing LED’s:



Here you can see the LED’s ligned up:



With all the alignment out of the way moved on to cutting holes.  Built a template for the router so that I wouldn’t make mistakes on the actual piece.  This was the same scrap I used to cut the large diameter curves on the panel exterior.. Also made use of the space buy cutting a U-Trak template when I get to installing that:



Drilled the middle with Forster bit using the same technique I did on the lock for the back door:



Then flipped the piece over and used a bottom bearing flush trim bit too follow the template:



Here’s where I’m at:





Side art and front art are supposed to arrive Monday.  I believe I have everything I need now to get this thing finished.  I am determined to get this done (well playable) in the next two months for some guests I have arriving in early April.  ;)

bperkins01

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #683 on: January 27, 2021, 08:13:15 pm »
Nice work Arroyo - It will be an epic build when done.. in early April.
:)
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....
« Reply #684 on: January 27, 2021, 08:32:58 pm »
I’ll save the first quarter for you.

Zebidee

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #685 on: January 27, 2021, 09:42:52 pm »
Lookin' goooooood
Check out my completed projects!


bobbyb13

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #686 on: January 28, 2021, 03:12:28 am »
Proving once again that happiness is...
A good jig!

Looks really nice.
Always loved the idea of lights this fashion.
Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix it.

javeryh

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #687 on: January 28, 2021, 07:05:24 am »
Looks great - such clean lines everywhere.  I really can’t wait to see it all lit up.  April seems like a reasonable deadline too

vertexguy

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #688 on: January 28, 2021, 12:35:25 pm »
Those etchings look fantastic on the CP.  That's gonna look amazing lit up.  I really can't wait to see how the marquee comes out.  I'm anticipating somewhat of a 3d effect given the etching is offset by plexi on top of the artwork that's lit up behind it.  Hope you light that bad boy up sooner than later and give us all a taste.  Keep going!  :cheers:

wp34

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #689 on: January 28, 2021, 02:37:27 pm »



You can really see the etching when there is a black background behind it.


Nice!  You will really like that it looks awesome even when turned off.   :cheers:

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #690 on: January 28, 2021, 07:35:35 pm »
Gonna try to get the marquee up soon but right now wanna make headway on the panel.  Weekend unexpectedly cleared for work on the project so fingers crossed a lot gets done.


Nice!  You will really like that it looks awesome even when turned off.   :cheers:

Yeah hopefully the graphics that go on top of the etching will look good without light as well, I’m happy with the way it turned out in the small CP test project that I did.  Wish me luck the next stuff is very detailed and hopefully I don’t screw it up.

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #691 on: January 29, 2021, 02:09:05 pm »
.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:48:46 am by ChanceKJ »

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #692 on: February 01, 2021, 02:11:13 pm »
I recently dug into the addressable LED's. I'd say they would be a STRONG candidate for the side firing strips on the panel.

Yeah I actually have 6 addressable LED strips already being driven by an Arduino (see post 647 for a video).  And as you’ll see below I am planning on using more.  The ones I used for the Control Panel are very small:

They also give off a specific cool white color only as I wanted that to be the look to get the Tron effect going.  It was necessary to get this size so it would fit under the T-Molding.  Here is a pic for comparison:



Standard 5050 LED, (5mm) next the strip I am using.



Kept at it this weekend.  Got the idea awhile back to make the disc surrounding the track ball light up dynamically so I got to work:



The circle Jig makes this feasible with the router and straight bit.  The deeper cuts house the addressable LED ring (ws2812b protocol), while the lip on the outside ring, and lip on the inside ring hold up the plastic to diffuse the light.







I’ve tried many different plastics to see which would be the best at diffusing the light:



The “Smooth Matte” so far has worked the best although I am looking for more options online.  The biggest problem is cutting around where the trackball will be held.  Can’t go too deep as there needs to be enough material for it to be attached to.  The LED diffusion however works best the further the lights are from the plastic.  So there’s a bit of trade off going on.  I’m down to 3/16” of material and won’t go any further so we’ll see where this goes.



Most holes are cut, now onto the mounting plates, which I have cut the template for, so should go relatively quick.

wp34

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #693 on: February 01, 2021, 02:30:18 pm »

javeryh

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #694 on: February 01, 2021, 02:43:48 pm »
This is so awesome.  So you can get the rings to light whatever color you want off of whatever trigger event you want?  And also have the lights go around in circles too?  I'm just sitting here laughing at my monitor as I think about the skills required for this and I can't even wire a coin door.

 :notworthy:

vertexguy

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #695 on: February 01, 2021, 03:59:38 pm »
That's looking amazing as usual!  Nothing but top notch from you it seems. :)  One thing I'm not clear on is if you are linking the Arduino to Led Blinky or similar apps so the system can control everything, or if it's just a looped animation it always runs?  Hoping it's the former because that's what I'm after.... in which case then I need to start learning Arduino and will probably hit you up for some insights.

One other consideration for you on the track ball.  I'm the type that plans on hardware failing.  I don't know what these strips life spans are rated for but I wouldn't be surprised if they have issues in 10 years or less.  Then the question becomes, how is all this amazing stuff serviceable without destroying your CP?  Have you considered an undermounted approach so the thickness of your insets doesn't matter as much?   What you're doing on the trackball is pretty much what I'm trying to do on all my joysticks as well.  You might also play with window glass diffusers.  I recently picked up some RabbitGoo window film that is suppose to be good at diffusing light when applied to windows / glass.  I haven't gotten to the place I need to be to really test it yet.  Perhaps something like that in addition to the plastics you're playing with will help get a nice even light spread?

I would imagine the color choices on the LED effect things too.  From the pic it looks like the green is real easy to see the individual LEDs while the pink is looking really nice.

Anyway keep up the amazing work man.  Always fun to see your progress!


wp34

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #696 on: February 01, 2021, 07:54:19 pm »
My apologies if this has already been covered but how in the heck did you cut those plastic circles so precisely.  That is impressive.

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #697 on: February 02, 2021, 08:26:28 am »
So you can get the rings to light whatever color you want off of whatever trigger event you want?  And also have the lights go around in circles too?

Yeah there is a lot of flexibility on what you can do (color, movement, brightness).  The intent is to probably keep this white to match the rest of the look, but introduce movement and assure even lighting as it’s the most distant spot from the CP LED etched lighting.  This way I can “move” the lights on the disc on the outside to give it the same spinning effect as in the movie.

@vertexguy : the intention is to have the Arduino trigger off an output from the iPac from an LED output.  So rather than the iPac powering an LED it will be used as an input on the Arduino that will then run a scripta that will make the lights do whatever I want.  In the event this fails I can run a static script for all the peripheral lighting.  As for failure, while these lights are supposed to have run times of tens of thousands of hours, they could be replaced by taking apart the panel (while a pain, is very doable and won’t damage anything).  I’m not too worried about it.  It would be work but not damaging.

My apologies if this has already been covered but how in the heck did you cut those plastic circles so precisely.  That is impressive.

I hadn’t, but it’s the same process as the wood circle cutting with one exception.  The smaller circles required me to  double stick tape to keep them from moving.  So the process was:

1.) cut outer diameter circle. (This didn’t require tape I could pin it down with my hand.  If it were small enough I suppose this would be a challenge)
2.) cut the inner diameter.  For this I used some double sided tape that was occupying the space of what would remain of the disc.  I also taped together on the outside the 3 pieces of plastic that I cut at the same time so the top pieces wouldn’t move around also.  Picture to more easily see:


wp34

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #698 on: February 02, 2021, 12:00:45 pm »
I'm curious how you got the ends of the plastic to match up so well with the wood (see picture).  The router bit automatically leaves you with a nice rounded end on the wood but getting the same profile when routing on the outside of the plastic piece seems tricky---unless I'm missing something.


javeryh

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #699 on: February 02, 2021, 12:09:41 pm »
I'm curious how you got the ends of the plastic to match up so well with the wood (see picture).  The router bit automatically leaves you with a nice rounded end on the wood but getting the same profile when routing on the outside of the plastic piece seems tricky---unless I'm missing something.

No magic.  It's because Arroyo is a "swole Chad" as my teenaged son would say.

If it were me, I'd make the ring, cut it and then slowly file it down until I got a perfect fit.  Arroyo probably has a better method...

Arroyo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #700 on: February 02, 2021, 12:24:20 pm »
I'm curious how you got the ends of the plastic to match up so well with the wood (see picture).  The router bit automatically leaves you with a nice rounded end on the wood but getting the same profile when routing on the outside of the plastic piece seems tricky---unless I'm missing something.

Ah I see, that was taken before the inner circle and inlay was done.  What you are looking at there is just the etching on the interior.  Here is the current state of things:



The inner plastic is just a disc, the etching will absorb the light from the diffusion below.  The area that I don't want light I will need to mask off, and that is where matching that "C" ring might get interesting.  I can control the lights from showing up in that area, and with the masking AND the blacked out graphic going on top I am pretty sure I can control it to be lit where I want.

If it were me, I'd make the ring, cut it and then slowly file it down until I got a perfect fit.  Arroyo probably has a better method...

Nah that sounds like a good way to go about it.  It's too small of a diameter to cut with power tools.

On another note, the graphics arrived yesterday. 



No excuses now to not get this done.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2021, 12:39:55 pm by Arroyo »

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #701 on: February 02, 2021, 04:57:47 pm »
.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:48:05 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #702 on: February 02, 2021, 06:36:56 pm »
Nice work, brother Arroyo.  :cheers:

This is shaping up to be an edge-of-your seat finish! Love the look of the CP, it's going to come out so dope! Glad you went with Szabos, his prints are quality and incredibly accurate.

Hopefully you've got a Vinyl Squeegee, makes the job really simple.


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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #703 on: February 02, 2021, 09:13:31 pm »
Hopefully you've got a Vinyl Squeegee, makes the job really simple.

This is the way.  I finally replaced the side art on my DK today after 7 years (it peeled off while in a storage container during a renovation in 2013) and it took me less than 10 minutes per side with that thing.  Went on super easy.

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #704 on: February 26, 2021, 11:27:05 am »
I thought I replied to these.  Cheers for the suggestions fellas.

Going to do a write up, but figured I’d throw out the progress:


Zebidee

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #705 on: February 26, 2021, 05:10:41 pm »
Looking awesome as always :D
Check out my completed projects!


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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #706 on: February 26, 2021, 08:18:23 pm »
That marquee is great.  You gotta be chuffed to get that thing onto the cabinet.

Home stretch, man!   :cheers:

Vigo

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #707 on: February 26, 2021, 10:40:35 pm »
Crisp!

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #708 on: February 27, 2021, 01:15:59 am »
Always cool to see the level of work that the crew here is creating.
That looks really nice
Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix it.

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #709 on: March 01, 2021, 05:31:28 pm »
man... this just keeps me coming back for more.. and more.. and more.  Great job!!

Mike A

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #710 on: March 01, 2021, 05:46:49 pm »
He has a deadline. I will be out there in early April. If I can't play games on it...well let's not even think of what I am capable of doing.
Oh. And it's looking good Arroyo.

Tick tock...

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #711 on: March 01, 2021, 06:24:19 pm »
Looking awesome as always :D

That looks amazing...  LOVE IT!!!
Click below to see my Metal Gear/Splinter Cell Machine... http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108360.0

Click below to see my PinCab - PinWARS
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,164660.0.html

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #712 on: March 02, 2021, 04:15:13 pm »
Arroyo does good work.  Apart from the clean build and attention to detail, the beauty of this project is in it's strong consistent theme, celebrating everything that is Tron like.

I'd like to see Mike A getting a grip on it's controls  >:D 

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #713 on: March 02, 2021, 07:16:47 pm »
Looking awesome as always :D

Cheers buddy.

That marquee is great.  You gotta be chuffed to get that thing onto the cabinet.
Home stretch, man!   :cheers:

I think we are down to a race to the finish eh?  Looking forward to some Shapeshifter updates.  And yes I was pretty chuffed this came out how I had in my head.

Crisp!
Thanks brotha!

Always cool to see the level of work that the crew here is creating.
That looks really nice
Thanks Bobby, ditto.

man... this just keeps me coming back for more.. and more.. and more.  Great job!!

Now I'm blushing.  Thanks Scotty_C.

Tick tock...



That looks amazing...  LOVE IT!!!

Cheers, appreciate it!

Arroyo does good work.

Whoa, an OND sighting.  Good to hear from you bud, you are missed around here.



Man I am overdue for a write up. 

So I left off with the CP needing a lot of work.
1st step was getting the Ms. Pac-Man universal mounting plates installed.  I did this on my little CP and liked it a lot.  This allows me to swap joysticks by embedding these plates into the wood:



Rout out the exact dimensions with a template and make it snug in the wood (details posted previously):



Then mount wood:



And repeat



These will get some #6 screws epoxied to the countersunk holes and allow swapping sticks to be easy.  I didn’t take a lot of pics of the flight stick routing out, but same idea different dimensions although I went a little deeper to allow a dust washer to sit under the Acrylic layers.  I also cut a hole for the TurboTwist High/Low spinner which requires an odd shape.  I just did a circle and then cut out a lip for the microswitches that stick out so they would fit.


Next was the graphics for the marquee.  I hadn’t been totally happy with the little CP I built.  The problem was that because the graphic wasn’t adhered to the acrylic above it there were tiny particles that could get in-between the graphic layer and the acrylic on top.  In addition there was occasional rainbow effect from the light bouncing off the surface of the graphic print and hitting the acrylic:



To solve this I learned about “Facemounting” (there’s a joke in there somewhere), which is a technique I tried on the dust washer of the little CP but hadn’t tried on a large scale.  Basically it is a double sided adhesive applied to an ultra thin layer of plastic.  It’s called “Optically Clear Adhesive” and it’s made by Dry-Tac.  This permanently adheres the graphic directly to the acrylic and looks the same as if the graphic was printed directly to the acrylic.

Getting it on though isn’t so easy.  Here is the recommended way to do it in a series of videos:



There’s actually a ton of good information in that including ways to cut acrylic and their properties.  I would watch all 6 videos if you are interested in the technique.

It does recommend some heavy duty equipment, and I didn’t have any of that, but a guy online did it by hand () so I figured why not:

First applied to the acrylic going VERY slowly and making sure no bubbles.  I was really concerned about dust, but bubbles ended being a bigger deal.  One guy suggested online steaming a bathroom, then wait a few minutes then boom, clean room. 



Doesn’t look like much but that’s the clear adhesive being applied by the hand technique to the acrylic which has a blue mask on the other side.

Once that went on was onto the graphics.  Same technique but graphic facing down:



I should mention that I used J rollers and laminate rollers to press as hard as I could after it was applied to get any remaining bubbles out.  When I took it off there will still some.  I worked on it for awhile and got most out but still some remained:



What’s really weird is that I left it there for a couple of days and those somehow magically disappeared:



Cut the acrylic to match the laser etched piece (with tracksaw).



Then it was routing out the grooves where the two pieces of acrylic would sit:



Took careful measuring to make sure all 4 sides lined up perfect.

Then fit it in:



I was ready to do the same to the CP graphics but knew I needed a machine so I ordered the cheapest laminator Dry-Tac has…..didn’t go well, or at least shipping didn’t:





Hopefully they will send me a new one quickly.

In the mean time I figured I would get the lighting for the Marquee finished up while I am waiting.  Same as before, the little cool white 5mm LED strips taped to the etched Acrylic:



And lit:



And I am chuffed:



That’s all for now.  I’m on a deadline.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2021, 08:14:46 pm by Arroyo »

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  • ...but this one goes to 11.
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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #714 on: March 02, 2021, 08:32:54 pm »
Dude!  That marquee came out amazing!  Curious if there's any depth effect based on the viewing angle since it's layered? (ie does it feel more dimensional or still feel flat?)  Your work continues to inspire.... I better get back to it!   :cheers:


Mike A

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #715 on: March 02, 2021, 09:39:53 pm »
That marquee...

---fudgesicle--- yeah!

bperkins01

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #716 on: March 02, 2021, 10:49:18 pm »
Great Update - really coming along nice.
tick tock.. 
 :applaud:
My Arcade Cabinet Build and other projects here:
Centipede, Joust, Joust Cocktail, Asteroids, Galaga, Ms. Pacman Cabaret, Defender, Space Invaders Cocktail
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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #717 on: March 05, 2021, 08:08:26 am »
Curious if there's any depth effect based on the viewing angle since it's layered? (ie does it feel more dimensional or still feel flat?)

Do you mean like the lenticular marquee found on Discs of Tron?  If so then no, but for a 2D image it does have a 3D feel just by its design.  The lighting helps by keeping the contrast between the blacks and lighting high.

@MikeA & bperkins:  hopefully you feel the same way in person

UnclearHermit

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #718 on: March 05, 2021, 11:54:25 am »
Wow, that's stunning!

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Re: The Grid....
« Reply #719 on: March 05, 2021, 01:30:45 pm »