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Author Topic: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter  (Read 100885 times)

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Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #280 on: August 27, 2019, 02:53:11 am »
I haven't had a lot of time to work on this lately, but I've been grabbing a half hour here or there where I can.

I got the majority of three coats of grey paint on, sanded, and finished to a level I'm pretty happy with.  Here's the look with black T-mold on both sides:



The temporary wire hanging down is a run across my whole shop to plug in the various lights, just because I wanted to see it lit up:



Bperkins01 was saying something about a 6" paint job...  here's a bit of a closeup.  This also shows how the inletting around the shifter looks with the front face grey and the edges black:



I do still need to get the black T-mold trimmed and installed around the angled gear shifter panel up top, though.


The top deck needs a lot of work.  Fresh after painting, it is very much not a 6" finish.



I've had a lot of practice at this point sanding the stuff.  I've settled on a 320 grit on a sanding block as about right, for me, to carve down to the bottom of the orange peel.

At the halfway point, it looks like this:

The grey part is the matte sanded paint.  The black and white dots are all the bottoms of the pits - they're still high gloss, so they catch the light like tiny puddles of water would.

Try to work the whole panel evenly, rather than making any part complete.  Just work wherever the pits are still largest.

When I get down to something like this:



then I know it's time to stop, because I'll blow through somewhere if I keep going.  The polish will take care of the residual dots. 


I'm not ready to polish it yet, though.  I've got an elaborate tritone scheme to do first. 

I made a paper template of half the curve I wanted, traced it, flipped it over, and traced it again.  That put a pencil line on the paint that I could carefully freehand red paint up to with a brush.

Here's the first coat of red in the rear arc:



It looks a little like photoshop, but I swear that's an unretouched picture.  My red paint is very, very red.  So red that I was suffering a little snowblind dazzle trying to focus on painting up to a fine line - in a well lit shop this red was giving me an afterimage.


I have an idea that I like regarding this arc.  I want to splice the black T-molding that runs along the front, and stop it right at that color change.  Then do the rest of the side, and the back, in red T-molding.  Something like this:



The red T-molding is a close enough match to the paint that I think that works nicely.  It won't show a lot, as that line is also roughly where the panel is flush to the front and rear cabinets, but it will show a little I think.

Arroyo

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #281 on: August 27, 2019, 04:52:27 pm »
Lookin good Laythe.  That shifter area is tits, definitely the black t-molding is the way to go.  And plus one for the red molding lining up with the red paint, that's a great idea. :applaud:

gingecko

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #282 on: August 29, 2019, 10:19:29 pm »
That’s looking badass. The 320 grit sanding pic helps explain a lot, of how you get it there. Love the red/black t-molding run. Looks sharp and exact.

Mike A

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #283 on: August 29, 2019, 10:25:04 pm »
That's looking really good. :cheers:

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #284 on: September 01, 2019, 12:40:38 am »
Thanks everybody.

I got the holes drilled for mounting the stick and throttle.  Also drilled holes IN the stick and throttle, as they've got very heavy metal cases. 

The Thrustmaster Cougar flightstick turns out to have a giant PCB in the front half right at the bottom, so I'm quite limited in where I can drill holes in it to bolt it down.

I can get to about the halfway line fore-aft, and the back edge.  I think that four 1/4-20 screws tight through the plywood should still keep it pinned down solidly, though.

The steering wheel clamps are plenty solid, so I'm just going to use those for attaching it.  There's a thin doubler underneath to thicken the panel out a little over the minimum the clamps will grab.

I'm on coat 4 of red paint on the back edge, building it up and sanding it down.  Here's coat 1 of the grey on the front of the control panel.



Taken by itself, it's too bright, but there's going to be three big black objects covering most of it so I think it'll settle down a bit in the end, when it's
mostly covered by a throttle, a steering wheel, and a flightstick. 

Many more coats to come.

Ond

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #285 on: September 01, 2019, 03:10:57 am »
Despite the complexity of surfaces and controls, you are managing to maintain a really authentic arcade machine aesthetic.  Small touches of red here and there look great.  I had to learn that rule the hard way  :laugh:

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #286 on: September 02, 2019, 07:21:00 pm »
Aw thanks, Ond! 

Here's some pics of the tritone panel polished, populated (temporarily) and in situ.

The red stripe on the back hides pretty well when it's retracted in pinball mode - especially given there's still going to be a red skirt running along the sides of the playfield monitor housing the flipper buttons.



So, I think that works - it's not fighting with the red "look at me I'm a pinball machine" parts that try to trick the eye into seeing a pinball machine over the pile of weirdness this cabinet really is.



When extended, the red touches the legs, and it looks like this:



The grey gives a little visual separation between the throttle, wheel and flightstick. 


From above, the curves go like this:



And in the driver's position the whole thing looks about like so.



I think that's a winner.  Which is a good thing, because that was a lot of painting and sanding and polishing and I wasn't totally sure if I was on the right track until I got it in the machine to see it.


Next up is finishing the conversion of the flightstick and throttle to pick up the mounting bolt holes, and then a bunch of wiring to make the proper routing and harnesses.

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #287 on: September 18, 2019, 03:52:12 am »
Update:

The proper wiring harness for the cockpit control panel is built and installed.

The HOTAS sticks are both drilled out, with nuts epoxied inside behind the holes, and bolted down to the deck - they are going nowhere.

I got all the T-molding installed - black on the front, red on the backs of the sides and back, holding the wires into the slots.




So, what's next in the mid-near term...
  • Make the back wall
  • Make the midshelf
  • Diagnose the source of a bit of rub on the last inches of travel of the drawer, fix that
  • Finalize the design on the playfield monitor counterweight frame, and fabricate it
  • Tear the playfield TV out, do the remaining work on the TV axle tray
  • Design the under-TV structure that carries the side skirts
  • Make the side skirts
  • Attach the playfield and drawer actuators to the back wall, test motorized motion
  • Try to figure out why x360ce stopped being able to send flightstick inputs to Redout

Longer term:
  • Design the chair actuation mechanism
  • Design the floor
  • Build the floor and the chair slide

Good thing I'm not working to a deadline. 

Arroyo

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #288 on: September 18, 2019, 12:45:02 pm »
Coming together nicely Laythe.  Keep it up, we'll cheer you to the finish line.

bperkins01

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #289 on: September 18, 2019, 05:51:46 pm »
Nice work again..  Just so you know we are listening and watching.   :applaud:
My Arcade Cabinet Build and other projects here:
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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #290 on: September 18, 2019, 09:37:44 pm »
Pretty frickin cool. Will the seat also fit under the pinball top?

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #291 on: September 19, 2019, 12:37:52 am »
Thanks, guys.   :)  It helps. 

Gingecko:  Yep, the seat is going to slide in, on a base that wraps over and around the pedals, until it almost touches the steering wheel - which will get it almost entirely under the table - it'll stick out less than the gear shifter handle does.  My measure of "stowed" here is that a normal person in the pinball player position can't see it while playing pinball.  It's a low back seat so that it fits under the still-to-be-made side skirts that go along the playfield monitor.

I'd say it was overengineered, except it's actually a little underengineered... I just discovered a contention between the keyboard shelf I made and the ideal stowed position of the seat.  I need to modify the keyboard shelf to be a bit narrower and supported via an aluminum C channel instead of the wooden support it has now.  The way it is, would work, but would require the seat to be offset from directly centered on the screen and wheel and that would drive me insane.   That's what I get for improvising outside of the CAD model.  It's fixable.

Buick455

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #292 on: September 19, 2019, 07:17:44 am »
Your ability to take an idea from design to reality is awesome. Most of my grand plans never leave design software or the napkin I sketched them on and if they do I stall out, lol.. I cant seem to find the time to finish fixing up one cab and you are building a pin and race sim at the same time.

Question about the floor and the chair slide. Is that floor section that sticks out always going to be out? If yes, could you use telescopic steel tube and rollers under the seat? Then when folded up its in the Pinball footprint only. This will also add to your engineering fun :D

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #293 on: September 19, 2019, 11:02:21 am »
Thanks!

Regarding stalling out:  Yeah.  As Pink Floyd said - "Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines" - I can sympathize.  You guys don't get to see most of that pile, but I have one too.  I'm too far on this project to let it do that, unless I run into something just completely unsolveable.

Regarding the floor - that's still to be decided.  It might be a permanent deck that sticks out at all times sitting on the floor, that you can walk over, with rails under slots for the chair to run in.  That would be relatively easy and I'm sure it would work, but it would also be a trip hazard and less appealing than getting it all to stow.  My dad suggests an X linkage like a boxing glove toy to push or pull the chair instead of rails.  I am slightly tempted to cut a hole in the wall of my house behind the machine - there's a concrete slab and a crawlspace on the other side of the wall this is going to live near, and I could stick 4' of railroad sized rails there on the backside of the wall, cantilever the whole chair off of that, make it float over the carpet and you'd never see the mechanism because it's in the next "room" over...  that's a bad idea, but I am tempted anyway.


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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #294 on: September 19, 2019, 11:16:04 am »
I am slightly tempted to cut a hole in the wall of my house behind the machine - there's a concrete slab and a crawlspace on the other side of the wall this is going to live near, and I could stick 4' of railroad sized rails there on the backside of the wall, cantilever the whole chair off of that, make it float over the carpet and you'd never see the mechanism because it's in the next "room" over...  that's a bad idea, but I am tempted anyway.

My brain just melted. I guess when you have crazy ideas and the skills to back them up, things like this become possible. Pretty awesome.

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #295 on: September 23, 2019, 02:33:25 am »
It is time for a side journey into a bit of software work.

Mimic has a fully illuminated control panel - if a control is active in a game, it's lit up while you are in the game, and that has proven very useful for keeping people from being totally lost. 

Aside from the VR buttons, Shapeshifter can't do that.  (And I wasn't about to try.) 

I have something like 57 buttons here on the cockpit panel, if you count the hats as 4s.  I might have lost count, but it's more than 50.  I want some way to store and communicate the control mapping of games in my custom front-end. 

So, I've decided the yellow VR button blinks during cockpit-mode game selection.  If you hit it, you get an information screen for the game you are looking at in the menu on the main display.

The information screen starts with a wireframe diagram like this:






I write a text file per game that says something like this:
Afterburner
LightStick
LightThrottle
ExitButton=Exit Game
CoinButton=Insert Coin
StickTrigger=Fire Guns
StickThumbButton=Fire Missiles
StartButton=Start Game


and my frontend generates this, as the info page for Afterburner:



Afterburner is a fairly simple case, not a lot going on.

(These diagrams are all 1920x1080 as they go fullscreen on the playfield/main display.  Legibility suffers a bit if you only look at the rescaled forum images.)

Sega Scud Race aka Super GT is a little more complex, looks like this:



Arcade games tend to be pretty simple and straightforward. 

At the more complex end, PC sims are not at all afraid to use buttons.

BeamNG Drive supports a lot of controls, and serves as a good example of why I wanted instruction cards - and why I want those instruction cards procedurally generated off of simple text files since this could will likely change as I get things dialled in.




The colors of the text boxes correspond to the physical colors of the controls.

I'll be adding the game title at top and some descriptive text regarding it and why it's featured in my collection in the remaining unused areas of the layout.


Work-in-progress - but I'm thinking it's got potential to help make the machine a little bit more usable.  Thoughts?

bperkins01

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #296 on: September 23, 2019, 07:38:42 am »
I think its great.  No idea how you are doing it. Making it easy to use is key.

I have trouble getting people to understand a simple Mame cabinet that has voice commands..  People still don't get if you don't add a coin (real or button) the game doesn't work.  Just like the real one.. 

If you are creating an .ini file that your visualization uses - it will certainly make it maintainable for you..
and oh yea.. WOW!   :applaud:
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Arroyo

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #297 on: September 23, 2019, 11:37:35 am »
Is there a program that you are using to do this?  I assume from your description that you aren't loading images, but rather the script is dynamically highlighting the controls in the wire diagram?  This is interesting and I am scratching my head thinking what you would be using to do this.  Very curious to learn more about that.

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #298 on: September 24, 2019, 11:09:41 am »
Arroyo:

There is a program that I am using to do this... but it's one I wrote.  It's a part of my frontend now.

I started by drawing one master image that has all 50-odd button indicators present on it, and then I cut that image apart into one mostly transparent image per button or stick or control or indicator.

The frontend is loading the base wireframe and then some off the onionskin type images and stacking them, then it writes text onto the boxes.


So, it's not an image per game that it loads and displays - it's an image per button, and it assembles that layered collage according to a recipe specified in a simple text file per cockpit game.

Arroyo

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #299 on: September 24, 2019, 11:19:12 am »
Damn.  Knew I should have stuck with Computer Science. :lol  Incredible.  This, and the the whole automaton thing, and I'm gonna say you are required to do a video walkthrough when this thing is done.

Mike A

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #300 on: September 24, 2019, 11:25:04 am »
All I know is it better make the transformer noise when it changes back and forth.

bperkins01

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #301 on: September 24, 2019, 11:26:24 am »
All I know is it better make the transformer noise when it changes back and forth.

With wireframe animation..While you are at it..  :applaud:
My Arcade Cabinet Build and other projects here:
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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #302 on: November 13, 2019, 01:54:51 am »
Sorry for the delay, my day job got frantic.  I've been working hard just not to fall any further behind there.

I got a little done on Shapeshifter over the three day weekend, though.  I've been tinkering with the instruction generating software, because it wasn't cool enough.

This machine is basically a shrine to the 80s anyway, so why not take it all the way.  I decided to go full 80s Blackbird shirt style, here.  The instruction screen for Outrun now looks like this:



And a complex game like Everspace gets this.



I've also set things up such that the backbox screen, while in cockpit mode, becomes a marquee when you pick a game.  A full-screen version of the game logo goes up on the unused backbox.  Sure, it's kind of partially oblique to the player - but it looks cool for anybody else in the room.  Looks better than just leaving it black.

I like messing with the software and playing with it, because while it's this far assembled and living and breathing, it feels like it's mostly done.  For more progress to happen, though, I gotta move backward in order to move forward. 

For now, it's protected from the sawdust I'm making.  Sad, and forlorn.


The next main parts to be made are the cross shelf and the back wall.  These will provide the frame much more rigidity, and let me remove the last pieces of temporary scaffolding I have clamped to the legs, and when they are finished I get to start playing with the control panel actuator to see if it can move.  When I finish the cross shelf, back wall and counterweight arm, then I get to play with the playfield actuator as well.

Back wall first.

The layout of the back wall includes a strange 3' tilted window for clearance for the actuator that rotates the playfield.  This has to be perpendicular to the axle, and as you may recall from prior posts, the axle is inclined 3'.



Also shown, the oldschool 4:3 screen Thinkpad T60p I do all my CAD work on.  It's still my primary computer, and it still runs XP.  I figure that on the day I can't keep an XP machine viable, I have to stop the clock to measure how long after "end of life" I'll be able to expect to keep 7 in service.  I'm annoyed that I even have to have that battle, but win10 is malware so 7 is the end of the road.  Clock is at 8 years and still counting.

I got the back wall roughed out.



(Yep.  It's official - I suck at making T-shirts.)

The angled slot will get a somewhat complex adjustable sliding mount built to fit inside it, because it's going to drive me nuts if the rotating pinball playfield isn't dead-on level when the thing is in pinball mode.  I figure if I can precisely adjust the tail of the actuator, I can tune that after it's complete.  It won't bother me if it isn't dead-on vertical in driving mode, a little tilt there if my math is off isn't going to look hideously wrong.

I've also done some work on the other end of that actuator.  The ram end will attach to the long 1/4" operating rod you've seen in the axle assembly, but the hole in the actuator is a really bizarre size, so I made a brass bushing to adapt it.



The actuator, bushing and rod fit together like so:



The bushing is a tight tap-it-lightly-in-with-a-mallet squeeze into the ram, and the bearing shaft slips nicely through the center bore without much drag, so I think the rod should spin in the bushing and the bushing shouldn't walk out of the ram - there shouldn't be any side load on any of this.  If it does try to walk out over time, I intentionally left the head of the bushing very large so I can tap a small screw into the meat of the ram to hold it.

Next up is probably building the adjustable clamp-crosspin device that goes into the angled slot to hold the other end of this actuator... whenever time permits. 

Arroyo

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #303 on: November 13, 2019, 10:53:58 am »
Glad to see you are back at it Laythe.  I was gonna bump this thread this week if you didn't, so thanks for saving me the trouble ;)  I wanna see this thing finished!

Mike A

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #304 on: November 13, 2019, 10:59:45 am »
Arroyo only has until December 14th to live.

I don't think it will be done by then.

Laythe

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #305 on: November 13, 2019, 10:00:32 pm »
No chance.

(Sorry, Arroyo.)

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #306 on: November 14, 2019, 10:26:02 am »
I have been trying for an hour to get my OLD iPac 2 (PS/2 version) to talk to my Raspberry Pi and figure out how to wire my control panel and then I casually open this thread and now want to jump out a window.  Very nice progress Laythe - I love the instruction cards for each game.  Anything to cut down on questions from guests is a great idea.

This is the coolest project probably ever - so many skills on display here.  It's awesome.   :notworthy:

Mike A

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #307 on: November 14, 2019, 11:26:39 am »
Quote
This is the coolest project probably ever - so many skills on display here.  It's awesome.   :notworthy:

Come on now. What about that cab made out of scrap wood and roofing nails?

gingecko

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #308 on: November 15, 2019, 10:06:45 am »
Looking nice. I'm guessing the apps you're running probably won't run in Linux, but that's one way to escape Windows.

javeryh

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #309 on: November 15, 2019, 11:05:07 am »
Quote
This is the coolest project probably ever - so many skills on display here.  It's awesome.   :notworthy:

Come on now. What about that cab made out of scrap wood and roofing nails?

 :laugh2: 

That one was awesome too... but for slightly different reasons.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #310 on: November 30, 2019, 02:50:43 pm »
As you all by this point know, the core of this design is the notion that the pinball table screen is mechanically actuated to rotate through 90' to be the windshield for cockpit type games.

I've got the axle and the TV mount built, and I'm now working down the long long road of having this actuation work. 

The playfield rotation is done by a high speed electric linear actuator pushing or pulling on a long 1/4" spring rod on the TV mount, which accounts for the upper moving ram end of the actuator.  The lower end of the actuator needs to be anchored into what is the left-hand wall of the pinball cabinet / the back wall of the cockpit.   This needs to be on an axle, since it rotates on an arc, which is parallel with the 3'-by-3' skewed TV axle.  Additionally, I know already that it will drive my OCD crazy if the pinball table isn't level, left-to-right, so I want this lower mounting axle to be micro-adjustable vertically to get that position perfect.

The goal is a sliding clamp that bears that mounting axle.

I found a chunk of aluminum in my metal stock that was 0.750" thick, which is a bit thicker than the 0.720" I measure off plywood.  It had a few threaded holes in it, which you can ignore - none of them are important to this.

I sawed a bit off it, twice as long as my finished clamp is to be high.  Here it is fresh off the bandsaw, clamped in the mill.



Then I used the mill to cut down until I got rid of all the saw marks, because these faces will be sliding against plywood and should therefore be smooth.



Next, I milled both sides of this block, to give it a little bit of a T shape, leaving flanges on both sides.  The flanges stay 0.750, aka "thicker than plywood" - and the sides come down to about .710, aka "thinner than plywood". 



Lastly, I cut this profiled bar in half, because I need two cores, one for each side of the slot.



Since they were machined together, I know they have the same profile as one another. 

Next, I started making the side plates.

I used one big chunk of 1/4" aluminum plate to start, and milled two channels into it.



This produces a piece like so:



This big sheet contains all four of my side plates - I cut this plate into quarters on the bandsaw to liberate them from one another.



(Step right up!  Pick a sideplate, any sideplate!)

This completes the rough "build a clamp anchor" kit - 2 cores, 4 sideplates, and 4 1/4-20 clamping screws long enough to reach through the stack with nuts.



From this point, it's a lot of layout and drilling. 

I want two screws per clamp, high and low, but the axle should ride lower than the bottom screw.  I want the screws to provide the best leverage possible as clamps, so they go right along the outside edges of the cores.  The holes in the cores should be snug, but the holes in the plates should be a little oversized to let them tilt freely.

I drilled all my holes, screwed each clamp assembly tightly together over a plywood scrap as a spacer, and then grabbed it in the mill vice tilted at the 3' face angle I want...



Then milled the sideplates and the core together, to make sure they are flush and precisely crooked in the way most everything surrounding the playfield must be. 

For everyone puzzled thus far, this shot should explain how the clamps work - this is the final profile:



The [ shaped sideplates each bridge the T-flange on their side of the core across to the plywood on the far side, as the screw clamps the center together.  The idea is that I can loosen the clamps, slide the whole assembly up and down to -precisely- level the pinball playfield, and then tighten the four screws and grab the heck out of the plywood to nail the actuator's axle in place anywhere along the slot in the back wall that I need it to fall for the geometry to work.

The faces of the clamps are crooked, because the axle that joins them needs to match the 3' offset of the TV axle above so nothing binds.  Also, the actuator body itself needs to fit between these faces, and I didn't leave any more width here than I needed to.

Here's the clamps face to face, in the orientation they'll eventually live in:



I drilled and tapped the angled faces crooked, tapped one side hole, threaded one end of a stainless axle, and assembled it with the actuator so that you can see the goal of all this:



This is the lowest position the actuator could be in, it almost hits the bottom of the plywood slot.  You can slide this clamp up from here and bolt it down anywhere along the slot.  The actuator body just fits between the clamps.  The axle is crooked 3', closer to us on the left, further from us on the right, but level in the slot.  The slot itself is crooked 3' in the plywood, counterclockwise from what would be "true" in this view.  Those two angles form the same compound 3' x 3' that the TV axle is on, so the actuator should run nicely perpendicular between parallel axles - this one on the back wall, and the other being that rod you've seen on the TV tray mount.

I slipped a spare piece of the 1/4" upper op rod through the actuator, to help illustrate.



There's the actuator with all my custom hardware on both ends.

From here I still need to mount the back wall (removably) into the machine, and build the counterweight arm for the playfield TV, but after those two big projects are done, it'll be time to test motorized transformation and that will hopefully be fun.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #311 on: December 01, 2019, 02:28:45 am »
And "Then" it will be fun? (Jennifer laughs)... That is some ugly physics, and you almost lost me, But after the dust settled , Omg for delicious  :applaud:.. I sold my Miller awhile back and really miss it and get a little jealous. (Wink).

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #312 on: December 01, 2019, 07:29:36 am »
Thanks for all the pics - I know how much work it is to put a post together like that.
Once its all done - will you screw the clamps through the plywood?  I would think the plywood would compress over time and they may become loose.
and once again.. drool..  I would love to add machine tools to my shop.. but I'd need a bigger shop :)
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/

Mike A

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #313 on: December 01, 2019, 08:08:30 am »
Glad to see more progress. Nice work. :applaud:

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #314 on: December 01, 2019, 09:18:43 am »
Your garage would be my playground.  Wife would have to rip me out of it for dinner. 

That’s some cool stuff Laythe. I  want a running count of how many custom metal parts you’ve made for this project!

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #315 on: December 01, 2019, 11:34:10 am »
Looking good Laythe!  All that metal work is really cool.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #316 on: December 01, 2019, 03:23:57 pm »
Once its all done - will you screw the clamps through the plywood?  I would think the plywood would compress over time and they may become loose.

Hah, yes.  Good thinking, there's room in the flanges for that.  I think they have more tightening throw than plywood has available compression - but one screw per side would nail them in place once I've got them tuned in to exactly the right place.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #317 on: December 02, 2019, 01:05:41 pm »
I-m-p-r-e-s-s-i-v-e! Pretty fascinating to watch the work you're putting into this.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #318 on: March 09, 2020, 12:16:19 am »
I found a little time to make a little progress.

This will be about the seat, and moving towards getting it mounted up rather than propped in place. 

Since Shapeshifter is a home use thing, I prefer the seat be padded and upholstered rather than the traditional driving cab hard plastic shell to withstand the general public.  I also wanted something low-backed, to let it nest lower beneath the pinball table mode. 4x4 offroad seats seemed to fit the bill, and I wound up buying an aftermarket seat for a Jeep. 

The interface for mounting it, on the underside, looks like this:



It's drilled and tapped for 8x M8 bolts, but one of them is half-covered by the upholstery - nice job guys.  :/  For my purposes seven bolts is probably enough.

At first, I was going to bolt this straight to a 3/4" sheet of plywood, but I noticed that the way the upholstery wraps around the seat, if I did that, the vinyl would actually be taking the load pinched in compression instead of the steel frame.  That seems suboptimal.

I dug around my shop and came up with a 3/4" block of UHMW polyethylene, and decided to make some spacer corner pads to fix that problem.



UHMWPE is interesting stuff, translucent like wax, almost as slippery as teflon, and tougher than nylon.  I figured it'd make a good load-bearing spacer.

I can cut it on my bandsaw...



But it does make a bit of a mess.  It tends to pack into the teeth of the saw.  It's easy to clean the blade, it brushes off, but I had to stop and clean about twice per piece.  I cleaned the rough cut pieces up on my belt sander.  It is possible to sand the stuff, though it sands away slower than high carbon steel does, and there's a balance of ideal pressure to keep it from going fuzzy on the corners. 

I wound up making four pads fitted to the shapes of the straps that are exposed by the shape of the upholstery.  Here they are sitting in place.



I made up some quick paper templates to transfer the hole locations.  UHMWPE drills great.  One of these holes is pretty close to the edge, but the stuff is so tough I'm not at all worried about that.



So, now I'm ready to start fabricating the seat box to mount up to this.  Here's 7x M8 bolts in it to prove all the holes line up so far.




I'm thinking I'm at the stage of the project where I'm going to quit further complicating it, and focus on just getting the remaining fabrication done and sorted.  Design-wise, I think I'm going to abandon the idea of powering the chair as a third actuator, because I can't come up with an elegant way to do it that doesn't involve some sort of tab on the floor or tripping hazard extended into the room or irritating thing intruding under your heels below the pedals when it's in driving mode.

My current thought on the chair box is to put it on wheels to be pushed by the control panel shelf.  If the wheels are lightly sprung, then when nobody is in the chair and it's only got the weight of the chair itself, it's on wheels and can slide on carpet, and when you sit on it, your weight overcomes the springs and it digs into the carpet on some traction devices - rubber strips, or possibly even some little toothed spikes.  When it transforms from pinball to cockpit, the control panel pushes the chair on the wheels out from under the TV while the control panel deploys, the TV swings around, and you pull the chair out to your desired leg-to-pedal comfort distance, sit down, good to go.  When it transforms back, it leaves the seat where it was, it's up to the human to push the chair back in.  That seems like a reasonable compromise to retaining the wiz-bang automated conversion, allowing adjustable seat-to-control distance, and having nothing awkwardly in the way on the floor in any mode.

Still to do:  Build the seat box that carries those wheels, build the connector between the pedal frame and the back wall, completion and integration of the back wall and mid shelf, constructing the counterweight arms.  Prime and paint the seat box, connector, back wall, midshelf.  Tear the whole machine down at least once more, to extend the axle slightly and add some spacer washers to the control panel slide to resolve a little binding there.  When I reassemble it from there, I think I'll be reassembling it in its final home, to avoid having to move it later.  At that point I can play about with actuators to confirm everything moves correctly and that automated transform works, or tinker on it reducing friction until it does.

Thousand miles to go, but it and I ain't dead.

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Re: Mimic's Sister - Shapeshifter
« Reply #319 on: March 11, 2020, 06:09:46 pm »
Glad to see you back at it Laythe.  I was worried you’d run out of steam on this thing.  Keep going, I wanna see this thing finished!