Verticade(s) 2015

[davidgilmour]

So, after wanting a cabinet for quite some years finally decided to build one.
And since I love Arkanoid it is gonna be a vertical one, the verticade.

So I started with the plans from Koenigs.dk.

Bought the first stuff couple of weeks ago and had to wait for some stuff coming in.

I started with this



Three plates of MDF ( 2 were sufficient , but just to be sure should things go wrong ).

Then I ordered these two ( well, 2 extra too just in case should things go wrong )



Found somebody who could cnc the mdf and acryl for me , he had this:



And within one hour I ended up with this



and this:

[Superfrog]

you made a very good start.
My first Verticade I did everything with a jigsaw  and a lot of sandpaper 

Happy building time 

[davidgilmour]

you made a very good start.
My first Verticade I did everything with a jigsaw  and a lot of sandpaper 

Happy building time 

Thanks, I've been inspired by the original Verticade build and your builds as well. Yours is fully mdf and I will do the mix of mdf cabinet with acryl panel. Will try to build the original one with only slight change of the back and internals will differ as well a bit.

Not sure about the colour, yellow is an eye-catcher but I might go for the greyer safer colours.

[reptileink]

A mix of grey and red would be slick...

[davidgilmour]

So I had time to pick up my project. Went out to buy some wood for the mouldings. The specs were 22mm x 22mm but my store only had 22x30 or 18x18. Found the 22x30 too big so I bought the 18x18. I'll take the risk.
Specs said 350 cm, my stick was 270cm. Should be sufficient.
So I ended up with this



And all was left over was this:



That was a good start 

There are 2 mouldings missing on the first picture but they were there. This is a small test how everything should look (approximately):



Then when I tried to attach the mouldings I had my first problem. The mouldings split when I was putting a screw in them. Search the net and read a tip about putting soap on the screws, tried that but they still broke.
I had black screws, are they ok for wood? 25mm screw through a 18mm moulding. Hmm. What should I do.
I said, well "  that" , I will just glue them 

So I glued them and even managed to glue the bottom, after the first lift it looked like this:



Everything is glued,except for the back door, that one is loose, just for stabilization.

And after glueing some more mouldings and plates this is how far we got so far:

[firedance]

You needed to pilot drill the mouldings first, then screw in the screws

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/q-a-why-predrill-screw-holes-2

[davidgilmour]

You needed to pilot drill the mouldings first, then screw in the screws

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/q-a-why-predrill-screw-holes-2

Yes, beginners mistakes  but still, everything worked out fine. I can lift the cabinet with one hand on the top layer, so it seems to be very steady with just the glue. I will use screws for the monitor mouldings that I still need to attach, i have some 22x30 mouldings that I will glue/screw. The monitor is 5 kilograms, tha needs a good moulding 

[davidgilmour]

Had some time to (almost) complete the control panel

First glue the two acryl plates together with this:







Then fill the gap between two mdf plates with polyester putty





And some primer paint, first layer



Need to fix a little bit at the back with some more putty polyester, will do this week:

[davidgilmour]

Second layer of primer



Then it was time to decide for the colour, chose warm yellow, just like the original verticade.

The one on the left



Unfortunately there must have been a production error at my paint store, because it was a few colors off



I found it too cold and bright, Ferrari yellow or Pacman yellow.



So I went back to the store where they don't return colors but they also found it way off so I got 50% discount on the new paint normally 17 euros for 0,5 liter, got it for 5 euros (30% extra discount for every customer)

And took another color, a bit warmer then the one I originally wanted, just to be safe (door panel is old wrong pacman color, cabinet is new warm color)



I think yellow is quite a difficult color to recreate, here is the mamecade from superfrog compared to the original verticade:

compared to the original:

[davidgilmour]

Current state:

[davidgilmour]

I've been working on a side project this week because I need to wait on my power supply unit for my pc, will be here in two weeks.

When I brought my mdf plates and the verticade plans to my cnc cutter he was so impressed by the outcome that he made a 9mm mdf verticade as well. Just the mdf but one that had 'lasered' mouldings, i.e. Cut in the mdf itself (except for the cp and marquee). He gave it to me for free so I could use it as an example for my 12mm verticade.

But the build quality was so good that I thought: i will use it for a hirizontal monitor. So I put it together and got this:



Only problem is that I had to glue all together, so also the back door. I will put a horizontal monitor in it and will try to keep the costs as low as possible for this one. Will use a monitor I already have and of course i have a lot of stuff left over (glue, paint, etc) from my main project.

So I grounded it twice and want this to have another colour, so I bought some cheap 5 euro paint and this was the result:







So it is light grey. But I have a big challenge with it. I can't open the backdoor, so I will need a workaround to be able to remove the monitor should I ever need to in the future. So I came up with this.
Attached the mouldings and put some velcro on it. So I will be able to remove the monitor.



Question is: will it hold? Well, just test it 

And yes, it worked 


So all I have to do for this panel is : attach a pc with psu, a control panel, marquee en plexi cover glass.

I already bougt the PC: a intel quad core inside this Windows 8.1 PC: the Pipo X7.

[davidgilmour]

So I have all the stuff for my original Verticade now, so I picked that one up again.

Installed motherboard, pico psu, ssd drive, speakers and all alectricity including leds.



The LEDs:




Electricity:


The speakers:



And this is the back door:



All I have to do is marquee, attach monitor and cp with front and install software. A few weeks and it is finished.

[davidgilmour]

Went on holiday and almost finished. Just need the marquee.







Monitor installed. And mame installed but need to fine tune the software as well. But my main goal was to play Arkanoid and that plays perfectly with the spinner. A minor scratch is visible, wil put some paint on it when I have the marquee.

[Superfrog]

Great result David 

Reminds me of my first build, but you DID use the spinner.
I was a cheap bastard and skipped the spinner back then, that was a  decision 

[davidgilmour]

And the marquee is done. This one is now finished.

[stigzler]

Clean. Simple. Like it.

[davidgilmour]

So I was bored with the yellow colour and updated mine.

I also installed HyperV 1.8.
mame only.

[Drnick]

Nice, simple machine  What did ya do with the horizontal one?

[davidgilmour]

Nice, simple machine  What did ya do with the horizontal one?

Still need to finish that one. I have an intel nuc pc inside it. Will take a few months but I will be able to show it before jan 1, 2019 

[Drnick]

 

Still need to finish that one. I have an intel nuc pc inside it. Will take a few months but I will be able to show it before jan 1, 2019 

That's probably before I cut any wood on my next project. I do love me my NUC, and am looking forward to the day I replace it from under my TV with something else so I can put it in my Bartop (which should take about 10kg off the weight of the thing).