Here I am test fitting the rubber feet, which also holds the removable (false) bottom.
This panel has to be removable to allow the plexi to be inserted or removed. On the first photo booth I cut the bottom in half, the rear part was glue din while the front part was removable to allow plexi access.
I like the false bottom better I think.
I put a hole right in the center to allow tripod mounting. This box is too heavy for most tripods, but it could still be used to fasten the box to a table or platform. I used a 1/4 X 20 T nut on the inside of the false bottom.
I inserted plexi glass, laid the box on its front, with a spacer between plexi and table to keep plexi from bowing outwards. Then I laid the monitor inside the box, with plate and L brackets installed.
This gave me exactly where I needed to mount the L brackets. Marked the 2 holes in each bracket onto the inside wood sides, and removed everything.
I then drilled and inserted 4 threaded inserts. I think they were 10/32.
I didnt think I was going to have enough room for the arcade power supply I was going to use, so I decided to mount the fan at the top.
I made a box out of fiber board and mounted the fan to that. I had to glue some posts for the box to mount to.
I inserted and glued wood dowels into these also. (As I also did on the camera mount block, you can see those here.)
I like the wooden dowels as fasteners. I first used them on A Little Rage, it works our good and I think is much stronger than screws. Just have to be very careful when drilling the depth for them.
And here is the fan box mounted. fan mounted to box and box spray painted black.
I was now ready to stain the box. I stained inside first, to test how it looks. It looked pretty good, except glued that was smeared did not take the stain. It looked like crap on a cracker. Bird crap on a graham cracker.
I checked the outside and didnt see any glue spots, I even lightly sanded the outside just to be sure.
Applied the stain and look what showed up. yep, glue splotches. Very visible on the corners, where I used most of the glue.
I tried sanding and even applying more stain, nothing worked. I found out online that the glue absorbs into the wood pores. They only way to fix it would be to sand the wood surface down past the soaked in glue. I dont have a belt sander so i didnt see that happening. When I glue something, i wipe the glue that oozes out with a rag before it dries. I found out (although too late for this project), that never wipe the glue, that just smears it over a larger area. Let the glue dry then use a putty knife or wood chisel to scrap the glue off. Also dont be so generous with the glue, use only what you need to minimize oozing when clamping. I must remember that next time. On my first photobooth I didnt stain it, i used clear poly urethane and it did not show the glue smears. At this point I was wishing I had used the poly on this one.
After a few days of wringing my hands and allowing the stain to fully dry, I decided to paint the outside of the box. I lightly sanded it, then applied 3 coats of spray can primer, then 3 coats of spray can black enamel. Lightly sanding between each coat. It turned out pretty good. I bought some wood glue that is supposed to be stain-able, so i wouldnt do this again in the future. I tested it on a piece of scrap and they lie. it aint stain-able, at least not with the stain i was using.
Now I was ready to install guts. I mounted the microphone gain pot on a block and a piece of lexan. I wanted the gain pot to not be easily accessible, so I mounted it so the pot shaft is pretty well flush with the outside of the back panel. You need a small screwdriver to adjust the gain.
You can see a bracket I made for the speaker amp to keep it tight. i made that out of a blank PC case expansion slot cover.
I also shimmed up the mic gain pot to get the edge of the shaft slightly below the surface of the panel. (white plastic between lexan and wood block).
The 1 uf capacitor goes between the pot and the microphone output, to block DC. I tied the two inputs going to the USB sound card together, cause this aint stereo with only one microphone, but I did want sound on both of the stereo channels.
I also mounted a small switch to the right of the speaker amp. This switch is so I can re-boot the Rpi, if it hangs up or something. I have a small hole drilled through the panel. To re-boot, inset a straightened paper clip into the hole and press the switch. (I had this on the first photo booth too, plus another one to stop the program if I need to. I didnt include the stop button on this one, i can insert a keyboard and press ESC to stop the program. I figured you need a keyboard anyway after stopping the program and exiting to the GUI.)
Heres the guts all crammed in. I used an arcade power supply because I needed 5 volts for the RPi and USB hub, and also 12 volts for the speaker amp and fan. This power supply has plenty of both kinds of juice.
You can see there is not a lot of space. I also have a 12 volt relay hidden in there. The relay kills power to everything else when the RPi shuts down.
You can see the USB hub, power inlet, power switch, air inlet filter, mic gain pot, and speaker controls. i have a wifi module plugged into the USB hub. I later moved it to the top inside the fan box to get better reception. I had to use a long camera ribbon cable to reach the RPi. Its not plugged into the RPi yet. I also used a plug cut from a IDE cable to plug into the GPIO header. This gives me connection points for the mausberry switch and the 12 volt relay. More on that later. You can also see the HDMI to VGA converter laying on top of power supply. The vga cable between this and the monitor is not plugged in yet.
On the RPi usb, I have the USB sound card, touch screen control, and USB hub plugged in. The USB sound card is so fat that i cant plug anything else into the socket beside it, so I had to plug the wifi adapter into the usb hub. Probably better to get its power from the hub instead of the Rpi anyway. Side note: i left the admin and air vent panels stained, cause they looked pretty good.