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Author Topic: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph  (Read 69154 times)

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UnclearHermit

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Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« on: June 09, 2019, 04:41:09 pm »
Okay, here we go.  I've been planning to build a Nintendo cabinet for a while now, having been considering building an arcade cabinet on and off for far more years than I care to remember.  I'm going for a Nintendo cabinet simply because I like the look of them and not out of any particular nostalgia for Nintendo cabinets.  I don't even think I ever saw an original one growing up in the UK.

I'm doing this partly because of the hoped end result of some kind of working arcade cabinet, but just as much because I like the challenge of doing this.  I've not built anything like it before and so there are lots of new skills to be picked up along the way.

Theme-wise I'm not sure what this is yet.  So I don't know if it'll be a DK or a Popeye or something custom, so even the colour choice is yet to be made.  I've got to think through all of the questions around horizonal/vertical games, 4-way/8-way joysticks, repro joysticks or something else so I can switch 4 to 8-way etc.  But I've already spent an absolute eternity reading and re-reading all the wonderful posts on here, and capturing notes and photos as I go of all of the little parts of the cabinet to help me as I go.  My thanks to all of those people who have invested their time to provide such great posts for others like me to follow.  I'll try to post as I go to try and give something back for others in the future, including all of the mistakes I'm likely to make along the way.

I'm using the Gaetan plans and already have a 1-1 print and have started some panel cuts, but I'm finding inconsistencies between the 1:1 print, the measurements on the plans/dxf files etc.  For instance, my printed 1:1 control panel is a couple of mm different in size to what the plans say it should be, and similarly the dimensions shown on the pdf seem to be a couple of mm different to what I find if I take measurements off the dxf files.  So I'm having to be careful to make sure that I don't end up with panels in different widths across the cabinet.

And so to my first question.  The interior horizontal panel which forms the bottom panel for the marquee, and which support the vertical panel holding the marquee light, is shown on Gaetan's plans as 10mm deep.  But I see photos (I think from Chance when he and Gaetan were taking measurements for those plans) that show it as 8mm deep.  I'm build this thing out of 15mm MDF, and will live with the pros and cons of that decision, but either way I'm probably going to struggle to find some that's either 8mm or 10mm.  The depth of the panel is presumably going to impact either the space for the bezel or the space for the marque, so I'll probably end up buying some 1/2" MDF and then routing off a few mm at the front.  But is it supposed to be 8mm or is it supposed to be 10mm?

Photos of some initial "work" to follow, once I figure out how to upload to the photos thread and link here...

thanks

Mike
« Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 06:15:22 pm by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2019, 06:49:03 pm »
Let's try a couple of pictures.  This has always seemed convoluted but I'm sure there's a good reason.  Hopefully these will show up..

I ordered a 1:1 print of the Gaetan plans a little while ago from planprint-it.co.uk, which cost about £18 once delivery was factored in.  They have a minimum order of £10 before VAT, so I added in the other non-1:1 diagrams just to bring the cost up to the minimum.



I then went around the large print with a craft knife and a metal ruler and carefully cut it out.  This wasn't actually too bad to do.  It's just a question of taking the time rather than rushing the cuts.


I don't have the confidence/experience with the wood to go straight onto the final MDF for these, but I didn't want to use a full-size template either just to keep costs down (some hope).  So I used an old piece of smaller 1/4" MDF and transferred onto it the corners and angles from the full size cabinet side.  I figured that I didn't really need a template for the straight lines!

This was all a while ago now.  I've found that I have not a lot of free time to progress this, and when I do progress it I seem to be very slow :)  So I've got a bunch of pictures that I can post when time permits to bring things up to where I am now.  At least it'll feel like progress in the thread, even if I'm not making much in reality!

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2019, 10:43:33 am »
You can see here the small piece of 6mm MDF that I used the template the corners/curves.



I traced the outlines from the 1:1 sheet onto the various sides/corners of this piece of wood and then cut using a jigsaw, followed by some routing off the straighter edges and sanding for the curves.  For the internal curves I wrapped a bit of sandpaper around a spray can lid I had lying around, to make it easier the sand the curves without destroying them in the process.  Apart from the bit on the right that I caught by going a little too far with the router this generally went okay.  A bit of filler mostly fixed up the routing mistake.

For the final cut onto the first side of 15mm MDF I traced around the 1:1 paper template and rough cut with the jigsaw.  It's been a long time since I used a jigsaw and my memory was me being pretty terrible with them, so I was pretty pleased to find this bit going well.  Once I had the rough cut I simply overlaid the MDF template onto the various curves/corners once at a time and used the router to clone the template.  Whilst doing that I somehow managed to get the router to gouge a hole into my wood around the control panel area, and thought I must have accidentally tilted the router or something.  You can see the rough repair in the image below.



This kind of damage is irritating, not just because of the damage but because it then delays things while I have to wait/sand/fill/wait/sand etc.  Anyway, once I'd repaired this latest setback I was able to get the completed side clamped onto the second MDF sheet ready to be traced, rough cut and then cloned.




More to follow when the image thread doesn't think I'm violating some kind of security...
« Last Edit: June 10, 2019, 10:46:53 am by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2019, 05:07:17 pm »
No idea what the security violation was, but I've resized the next images and then they seem to upload fine.

Patched up side section.



I'm using a lightweight filler for this and I might need to change that if I have more problems.  It's a bit TOO lightweight, so it's easily dented.

With the damage repaired and the second size roughly cut out I set about clamping and cloning the first side.





Things went fine for a while and then the router bit into the wood again.  This time I knew I'd been holding it straight so I stopped to figure out what was going on.  It turned out that the bearing on the router bit was able to move upwards, and so it was moving up above the piece I was cloning and so the bit could bite into my wood.  This meant that it actually damaged both bit of wood in the process.  This is obviously my inexperience with not having the router bit inserted high enough to prevent this.  This is only my second project with a router; we live and learn...  Fill/wait/sand etc.  At this rate this thing will be more filler than MDF, although I suppose it'll be lighter.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2019, 10:17:13 pm »
Looking good! 

The setbacks are frustrating, but as long as you can fix it as many times as you mess it up, it'll all be fine in the end.

jdbailey1206

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2019, 08:06:40 am »
and thought I must have accidentally tilted the router or something.  You can see the rough repair in the image below.

I did the same thing with my FFJR cab.  I had the luxury of doing it with my slot cutter and made the slot too large for about two feet.  Like Laythe said this is the time for mistakes.  Patch it and move on.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2019, 01:24:51 pm »
Thanks. 

Moving on, I needed to transfer the blocking markings from the 1:1 onto the wood.  Clamping it on top seemed like a good start.



Someone in another build had the great idea of making a couple of blocks to make it easy to accurately position the blocking based upon the MDF depth, with either single or double spacing.



But I couldn't think of a great way of transferring the marks from the 1:1, other than using tracing or copy paper, neither of which I had to hand. So for the large areas I just cut them out, and the cut-outs will come in handy later.



For the blocking I just cut small notches are the end of each blocking mark, and could then draw through the hole onto the wood.



UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2019, 06:02:19 pm »
Can anyone help with what the five marked holes are from Gaetan's plans?  My assumptions was that they were all related to mounting the monitor, but looking through various threads I can only see the top left two holes being used to secure a bar at the top of a monitor mount.  What are the other three for?  And do these all bolt right through from the outside of the cabinet for strength?



I'm a long way from deciding about monitor options, but I'd like to at least understand the mounting holes before I get too far down the road (especially since if I paint then I won't know where I made these marks!).

thanks

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2019, 08:15:45 am »
A word of warning for anyone else following the Gaetan plans for this.  Don't get me wrong.  The plans are fantastic and without efforts like this it would be impossible for people like me to even start a project like this.  But I'm finding inconsistencies between the 1:1 plan and the dimensions shown on some of the other sheets, which might be issues with the 1:1 plan or might have been introduced during the printing.  A good example is the base.  I've cut this to 730mm because that's what the dimensions show it should be.  But if I measure the 1:1 plan, which is what my entire side panel measurements are transferred from, then this distance is about 736mm.  So I'll end up with a 3mm gap between the front and back panels and the base.  I think most of this will get masked by blocking and the blocking is still deep enough to not cause any structural issues, but if you're going to build from the plans then it's worth
a) checking a few of the larger measurements when you have the 1:1 print and comparing with the dimensions shown on the other sheets.
b) if you find discrepancies then take your cut measurements manually from this 1:1 where possible rather than taking/calculating from the given dimensions.

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2019, 01:00:27 pm »
I'm pretty sure those holes in the sides of the cabinet are all for monitor support.  I can't remember exactly but I had to fill in a lot of them when I restored my DK+ because I preferred to support the monitor from inside (I just thought the bolts were ugly and unnecessary).

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2019, 06:07:45 pm »
Thanks.  I must admit I thought the same about the bolts from the outside, especially when you see that they're normally bolted through the side art.  I also can't quite understand the need for bolting at all.  Looking at the cabinet design the entire weight of the cabinet, which includes the monitor, is transferred through the sides of the cabinet onto the base piece.  The base is only attached to the sides with blocking.  So if the whole weight of the cabinet can be supported with blocking then I can't see why the monitor, as a fraction of the cabinet weight, can't be supported the same way.  I might be missing something, of course!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2019, 09:50:51 am »
Great build look forward to seeing the completed cabinet and if its going to be a standard or custom finish.

Mike A

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2019, 10:13:27 am »
Quote
(I just thought the bolts were ugly and unnecessary)

Blasphemy.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #13 on: July 01, 2019, 03:51:33 pm »
Great build look forward to seeing the completed cabinet and if its going to be a standard or custom finish.

Thanks, and looking forward to seeing that myself  ;D

The slow progress continues, along with the mistakes 8) I cut a 1/2" recess in the rear of the two sides to accommodate the door.  It's times like this that I find myself going back over notes I've made to try and figure out things like how deep the door is, and therefore how deep that recess needs to be.  Similarly, how wide is the door and so how much does it overlap at the sides?  I think I ended up at 1/4" X 1/2" for this recess in the end.  Some of the door width measurements I saw would have left the side panels cut really thin.



The recess doesn't run all the way from top to bottom.  It stops above and below where the top and bottom rear panels attach.  Or, at least, it's not SUPPOSED to run all the way.  I'd originally cut it correctly but with a 1/4" X 1/4" slot.  When I figured that it actually needed to be 1/2" deep and cut it deeper I completely missed my "stop" markings at one end. 



So out with the filler again to try and rebuild the missing section.



And after a fill/sand or two:



You'll also notice a load of masking tape already on these panels.  I might live to regret this, but I'm planning to paint the inside of the cabinet before assembly.  That seems a lot easier than trying to paint it later.  The downside is that I need to be able to attach the blocking to wood (not paint) and so I've had to carefully mask out where the blocking goes and hope that I can still see everything I need to when the tape gets removed.  I've also got to hope that I don't end up with loads of visible gaps in the paint where the tape is right on the edge of where the blocking will go.



I'm entirely expecting this all to fail horribly, but if it works then it will save me quite a bit of time painting around blocking later on.

I'm using an MDF primer, partly just to see if they're actually any good.  The last time I painted MDF I used normal white emulsion and was quite happy with that, plus I sealed the edges with a wood glue/water mix.  This time I'm just using the MDF primer. 



The key thing I've noticed so far is that the fibres raised a lot less than they did with the emulsion, which isn't entirely surprising but was good news.  I only needed a light sand before moving onto a second coat.  I'm using a microfibre cloth to wipe down after sanding.  I've never tried that before, but it seemed a reasonable way to shift the dust without it just flying into the air.



I'll never understand Nintendo's logic in only painting parts of the inside of the cabinet.  I mean, I understand why the black bits are black, but the seemingly random points at which the black stops make no apparent sense.  They also seem to be different on different cabinets.  So I've gone for something similar to some that I've seen and will probably spray the areas I've currently got masked with a matt black (that's "flat" black for US readers) because the area is small.  I've never sprayed anything before so this will be an interesting experiment.  I highly doubt I'll be spraying the outside. 

The other annoying thing about parts of the inside being unpainted is that I'll be left with exposed MDF faces and edges, whereas I'd far rather have things sealed to reduce potential water damage etc.

One paint question - where does the gloss black starts and stop?  In photos I've seen it seems to run along the front few inches of the cabinet, so I think that's all that's visible from the outside (but some gloss will be "inside", where you'd think there would be a risk of reflection).  I don't know what happens at the top of the cabinet where the "inside" of the sides are visible for about 15mm.  Does the gloss also cover this area, or does it transition from gloss to matt somewhere as it goes up past the front of the marquee?
« Last Edit: July 01, 2019, 05:45:23 pm by UnclearHermit »

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #14 on: July 07, 2019, 04:24:37 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:15:27 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #15 on: July 07, 2019, 04:47:13 pm »
Thanks.  I've read so many threads, including all of yours many times, and somehow never picked up on the fact that there was laminate on the INSIDE as well as the outside.  A couple of questions, if you don't mind.

In your photo here https://www.flickr.com/photos/chancekj/18583008985/in/album-72157649587158666/ (sorry, not sure how to get a direct image link from Flickr) is that the semi-gloss laminate that you can see extend back to an inch or so behind the bezel support?  I'm assuming that means it runs vertically and appears at the top of the cabinet at the point in the image that you linked.  Makes a lot more sense why there's a solid vertical line if it's a sheet of laminate!

Also, it might be the light but that picture you linked of the side panel "inside" appears to show the semi-gloss laminate, then a tiny groove a recessed bare wood, then nearly an inch of wood that appears to have grain running horizontally and then the rest of the exposed wood running with a horizontal grain.  Is there a reason for the two wood grains that or is it just a past repair or something?  I can't think of anything I've read that would explain it.  Thanks again, and also thanks for the massive amounts of posts you've made on these cabinets over the years  :applaud:

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #16 on: July 07, 2019, 04:49:43 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:15:03 am by ChanceKJ »

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #17 on: July 07, 2019, 05:03:01 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 03:07:35 am by ChanceKJ »

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #18 on: July 07, 2019, 05:05:14 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 03:06:51 am by ChanceKJ »

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2019, 05:16:36 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:12:29 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #20 on: July 07, 2019, 06:02:00 pm »
I was just wondering about how the depth of the laminate was accommodated on the inside! Routing of that section makes sense but would certainly have been tedious and time consuming.  It's surprising that was ever cheaper/faster than just laminating the whole panel, so not surprising that the US approach changed.  I know I'm only doing a repro here, and using MDF it's hardly authentic, but it's nice to understand the original cabinet detailing to try and get something that at least feels right.

Those photos are interesting (aside from being upside down and messing with my head), especially because they also show another detail that's rarely captured in photos.  That small piece of wood that goes between the speaker panel and the front door panel is show on the Gaetan(/your  :)) plans as sitting 5mm higher than the bottom of the speaker panel.  But in your photo of the Japanese cabinet it appears to be flush, and with an unfinished end to the ply meeting coloured wood, compared with the US one which also seems flush but with black wood.  So a colour detailing difference, but also neither of those cabinets matching the one you'd used for the Gaetan measurements, which I think is shown here:


I've spent so much time trying to understand areas like this, but every time I think I've got a handle on something I find that there are multiple variants anyway!

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #21 on: July 07, 2019, 06:05:57 pm »
While we’re on the topic of finish: The wood cross beam that locks in both the control panel top edge and the lower bezel bracket is actually always covered wood. Its a thin laminate in the Wood cabs, and a thicker black laminate in the US particle cabs.

Adding that to the list of things I didn't know.  Again, I don't remember ever reading that.  I assumed it was just painted.

Thanks for the bolt info as well.  That makes so much more sense now.  I couldn't understand why there were so many holes when the bracket didn't seem to require it in any photos I'd seen.

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #22 on: July 07, 2019, 06:23:19 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:12:15 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #23 on: July 07, 2019, 06:40:35 pm »
Thanks, I’ve been through all of those albums many times already to get me to this point  :D

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #24 on: July 12, 2019, 06:12:57 pm »
Spraying commences...

As I said, this is new to me.  The first things I found out are that the spray area is really small.  The second is that you can't point a can at any kind of decent angle towards a horizontal surface without it starting to splatter dots.  Luckily this wasn't a problem I couldn't deal with at this stage and a light sand got things back on track.  Having the panel vertical would probably make the spraying work better, especially because I see a lot of spray going outwards across the board and not doing much, but presumably puts me at more risk of runs.



After a few coats things are looking a lot better (yes, that's the other side panel, but they're both coming along okay).



Still a bit patchy with the primer underneath, and I also notice a bit of striping.  I do have to tell myself that this is the inside of a cabinet, but I'm also learning for if I decide to do the outside sprayed.  I'm also finding out that spraying is rather expensive.  I could have rolled on some matt black for a fraction of the cost, or even perhaps rolled on for a base coat and then finished in spray.  I've got some satin black for the front inches of the cabinet so I only really need to get the rear sections looking a bit better in the matt.

The edges soaked up a fair bit of paint, which isn't surprising for MDF but I'd hoped the MDF primer would do a better job there.  For any other edges I'll probably start with a glue coat.  I could put on more coats of the primer on the edges, but that just creates more work keeping the faces clean of any excess paint.

I'm still quite nervous about removing that tape and seeing if the blocking will be easy to locate still, and if I've left gaping gaps of wood between the blocking and the black areas.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #25 on: July 23, 2019, 05:48:39 am »
After finishing up with the matt black I moved onto a satin black (from Toolstation, UK-folk) for the front of the sides, leaving the top-rear matt.  This was going on really well until I was getting near the end of the second side when I realised a mistake.  Well, two.  Firstly, in a moment of insanity I seem to have place my "vertical line" in different places on the two sides, so my paint extends further back in the bottom area.  What I seem to have done here is to stick the masking tape on the wrong side of the line  :banghead: I've corrected that for the satin coat, but it means I'll have a random couple of cm of matt paint in the lower section on one side.  Whether I can sand that back to wood remains to be seen.

The other mistake is around the marquee support.  I'd originally taped off where the thin wood attaches to the side of the cabinet to support the marquee sides.  I'd then decided that I wasn't happy that the placement was accurate enough, because I can't quite be sure where things will end up when I assemble the various pieces.  So I removed that piece of tape, figuring that having the support attached to painted wood isn't the end of the world for something that's just there to stop the marquee sides sagging (and to block light leakage , I assume).  Unfortunately it seems that I only removed this piece of wood from ONE side  :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: 

On the plus side I've removed the tape from this area and it comes off beautifully, so I'm more confident when it comes to removing the tape from other areas later.  The downside is that I now have an area that I've got to bring up to level and then get black without creating masses of paint build-up around it.  Just hoping I can do the sanding and painting justice, and it's such an annoying waste of time.  This is the point where people will tell me I should have painted the sides later on  ;)



Closer image, where you can see it after a bit of primer etc.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #26 on: July 24, 2019, 03:29:05 am »
I love this build.  Your meticulous attention to detail is awesome.  Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #27 on: August 15, 2019, 01:26:36 pm »
Thanks, really appreciated, especially when I feel like I'm going backwards :)

I've been on holiday, so no real updates other than the sanding and filling of the "mistake".  This feels like a bit of an endless slog because I always seem to end up with a slight dent that's still not filled or a ridge of filler that stubbornly refuses to go anywhere.  After a lot of cycles I'm still not happy with things, and to make matters "worse" I ended up with a different texture on this bit of the panel because of the repeated sanding.  The rest of the panel has a slightly mottled feel that I was quite happy with and which I hadn't really thought much about.  The picture isn't great, but hopefully gives an idea.



After sanding the problem are I ended up with a much smoother finish, especially after I discovered the delights of wet & dry sanding at 600 grit.  Where this has left me is a situation where I couldn't really have the repaired area with a different texture, so I'm having to sand down the whole thing and then touch up the spray afterwards.  On the plus side this isn't a bad finish at all, but it's extra work.  Still not happy with those uneven areas that you can see on the right, but since most will be behind the marquee then I'm getting tempted to live with it.  My fear is the slight unknown of what will stand out when the cabinet is in more natural light than its current garage home.



Again, happy to be learning this stuff whilst working on stuff that'll mostly be on the inside and that's certainly a lot smaller area than when I come to do the outside.





« Last Edit: August 20, 2019, 05:52:46 pm by UnclearHermit »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #28 on: August 15, 2019, 04:52:29 pm »
I'm going down a similar road, but doing a partial assembly then take everything apart to paint individually. I made a big screw up and had already painted the base, after fixing that mess....it's "assembly and then paint!". I'll be taping everything off when I get down to paint time and probably labelling things, so I know which piece goes where. I remember that being the other problem with my first cab...I took everything apart for painting and then couldn't remember where some of the framing boards were attaching. :P

Looking good though, and I'm curious to see how it goes!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #29 on: August 16, 2019, 03:46:00 pm »
Posts like these make me want to try to build my own Nintendo cabinet.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #30 on: August 16, 2019, 04:56:12 pm »
I know that its far too late for this build but this is the way I drew out my side panels (or I should say a router jig for side panels)...

a) Designed the whole cabinet in SketchUp from plans.
b) Reduced side panel by 3mm (to suit router).
c) Added all dimentions to side panel plan inc. radiuses.
d) Printed layout of side panel on A4 paper showing all dimensions.
e) Used those dimensions to draw it out in pencil on wood template.
f) Cut out with a good jigsaw and a steady hand!

To draw out the plan I just used a steel ruler and some big calipers to get the radiuses. As I was drawing it all up in SketchUp it made more sense to do it this way. I've only ever seen people get plans printed big, then trace them. I hope this is helpful for other builders to know there's a different way to do it. Also, I don't like the idea of tracing from a print as a lot of printers, even used by professionals, are not calibrated correctly so you'll end up with a different size particularly in the roll feed direction.

I'm also in the UK doing this same build. I have recently had delivered from US, all the marquee and bezel retainers. I can take images and show dimensions of those parts if you were thinking of making your own? (getting them from US is super expensive but they're pretty important to the build).

« Last Edit: August 16, 2019, 05:18:33 pm by 1-UP »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #31 on: August 20, 2019, 04:53:14 pm »
You're not wrong about the 1:1 sizing.  I've already found that there are differences (only mm, but they can matter) between measurements that I take from the cad drawings versus what the 1:1 print shows me, and again between what the annotated drawing says that the measurements are.  The control panel 1:1 print ends up being wider than the actual control panel is supposed to be, so at some point I need to decide if I transpose the slightly larger measurements onto that piece of wood or whether that will cause me problems if I buy pre-made Perspex for the overlay.  I'm a way off that!

I can certainly see the benefit of having that 3D model.  I'm still wondering about the exact sizing of some pieces, to the extent that some bits I'll be cutting a bit long just so that I can then trim them down once I've more confidence in exactly how big they should be.

I'm guessing shipping and import from the US wasn't cheap?  I'm still figuring out how best to obtain the various retainers.

thanks

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #32 on: August 20, 2019, 06:08:36 pm »
Just a quick update to talk about masking tape 8)

I've removing the masking tape that's been hiding my paint-less areas for many weeks now.  The key part of this is the bits that cover where all the blocking will go (and hopefully fit).  I'd used a selection of "normal" masking tape that I had lying around plus some more decent masking tape (Frog Tape) that I'd bought in the hope that it would keep the lines that really NEEDED to be straight nice and need.  Taking away the tape was pretty nerve-wracking because I had images of all of the paint underneath pulling up, or the paint surrounding the tape doing the same, but so far so good.  What's interesting though is the difference between the cheap and the "quality" tape.

This is where the cheap tape was.  Note the bleeding of the white primer at the edges, but also the large amounts of sticky stuff left on the surface of the wood.



Now contrast this with the decent stuff.  Sharp edges, and no stickiness AT ALL on the wood.



I'm pretty pleased at this sharp line between the matt black and the satin at the front of the cabinet.  Okay, this line won't be visible at all from the outside, but it's still nice :)




I'm sure the masking tape experts around here are thinking, "Well, duh, the decent stuff is better" but hopefully this will make another newbie like me take notice that there really is a difference and not just a shiny box and brand name!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #33 on: August 21, 2019, 03:21:19 pm »
Notice taken! ;)

[Edit] I'll likely be using Scotch Blue tape, as that's what I've used in the past. Not sure if it would yield as clean of a line, but so far I don't have any plans for something quite as exact.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2019, 03:25:47 pm by gingecko »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #34 on: August 22, 2019, 03:49:58 pm »
I'm sure that'll be as good.  It's more about not using the cheapest masking tape you can get your hands on, which is my usual approach  ;)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #35 on: August 22, 2019, 04:09:30 pm »
And so to the other mistake, where I positioned the masking tape on the wrong side of my marked vertical line in the bottom half of the cabinet.  When I sprayed the satin part at the front I laid another piece of masking tape in the correct place, so that coat is fine, but I knew I was left with the matt black and primer underneath to try and sort out.  Again, this is the inside of the cabinet that nobody will see, but I really didn't want one side with the line in a different place to the other..

Having removed all of the tape and paper in the area I unmasked the offending line and lay a new strip of tape to protect the satin coat and to give me a line to clean up to.



I then scored down the edge of the tape with a knife to give me a clean cut to work up to.  Then I started off removing paint with a scraper.



I held a metal rule on top of the tape when I wanted a better edge to work against, or when I thought the tape was in particular danger.



Once I'd removed most of the black and was down to the primer I moved onto sandpaper, using paper wrapped in a wooden block for the most part and using the edge of the sandpaper along the ruler line.  I'm never going to get this perfect without creating other problems by taking the surface off the MDF too much, and I'm also conscious of time here.  But here's how the lower section looked after a bit of sanding.



Once I knew it was possible from the lower section I finished off the rest of it.



And removed the tape again...



Okay, not perfect, but I think this will do.  On to the other side next, which is mostly painted but on which I've started sanding down the visible parts of the satin so that they're smooth and not mottled.  Then I can start to think about attaching the blocking.




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #36 on: August 23, 2019, 11:52:19 am »
That paint finish looks really slick out in the light. You mentioned wet/dry sand at 600 grit? I've read so much conflicting information about painting MDF, that it's maddening. I'm planning to roll on oil primer and paint. I've heard you just need to 'scuff' the MDF faces beforehand. I'm curious what process you're using?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #37 on: August 23, 2019, 06:10:36 pm »
I think I might have run a sanding block over the MDF before painting, but if I did then it was for a couple of minutes over the surface.  I then rolled on an MDF primer, as much out of curiosity to see if "MDF primer" actually did anything special.  You can see that application (probably second coat), complete with the roller lines in the image here.



As I mentioned above, the primer seemed to make the MDF fibres raise a bit less than just an emulsion coat and so probably reduced sanding between coats a little.  Sanding between coats was just a few minutes with a sanding block to take those raised fibres down again, then brush down, then wipe down with a micro-fibre cloth (which wasn't happy at this stage because the surface is still quite "rough" even though it doesn't feel it to the hand) then a second coat of primer.  After the brief sand and cloth wipe (much easier on second coat) I moved on to the matt spray.  A few coats of that got me the coverage I needed, then I sprayed the satin on top of the areas that needed it.  The micro-fibre cloth gets better with each coat, and is now invaluable for just wiping off the layer of dust that always descends.

The wet & dry only really came in because I was working on that repair at the top of the cabinet where I'd put masking tape where it wasn't needed, and the smooth coat only came about because of the need to repeatedly fill & sand that repair job.  But now that I've had to extend that look to the rest of the visible satin areas I just relied on wet & dry with the 600 grit to remove the more mottled texture that I previously had.  With the second side of the cab I'm reducing time by only doing this on the areas that will actually be visible, leaving the mottled texture on bits that are truly inside or which will be covered by the cabinet front etc.  But it doesn't actually take much time with the 600 to take most of the mottling away and get down to a smoother coat, although my "repair" area is still a bit smoother I'd say.  All I'm doing is spraying the area lightly with water and then sanding over with the 600 grit wrapped around a block, then wiping off the paint that comes away.

I've not decided what I'm doing with the outside yet but there's a good chance I won't be able to get the right colour (/afford!) to spray-can the outside.  The only other piece of MDF I've painted in the past was done (with a foam roller) in white emulsion, and I ended up with the same mottled texture, which was fine for what I was doing there.  But I'm very tempted to test out that same approach and then use the wet & dry to see if I can get a flatter finish.  That's one to try on a smaller piece of test material before I commit to an entire cabinet exterior!  I've actually found the spray cans pretty good to work with despite my complete lack of experience, aside from losing time to some occasional splatter damage, but it's a lot more expensive than a tin of emulsion.  Another option would be a sub-coat in emulsion and then topped out with spray, but the colour match would have to be pretty near identical for that to work with any real savings.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #38 on: August 24, 2019, 03:15:35 am »
Looking good!

I've been doing a lot of wet sanding of foam-rolled latex paint and I'm getting good results.  It's worth a try on a scrap piece.

My process has been something like
  roll, wetsand, repeat until you've got no glossy pits remaining of residual orange peel
  then novus #2 polish on a rag if some gloss is desired.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #39 on: August 24, 2019, 02:27:14 pm »
Do you guys start with a different grit and work up to 600 or just stick with 600?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #40 on: August 24, 2019, 05:48:58 pm »
I was using 240 grit when I was working on that repair piece, but for removing the mottled texture it's just been the 600.  As you've probably picked up from this thread, I'm no expert, so the experts may have better advice to give!  Just adding water to anything made from MDF made me nervous enough.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #41 on: August 25, 2019, 12:34:54 am »
Well, you managed to get a good finish either way.

Yea, water and mdf are pretty scary. I’m not sure if I’ll brave wet sanding. Anyways, should let you get back to talking about the cab build! :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #42 on: August 25, 2019, 03:56:02 pm »
:) the thing I found is that just sanding with 600 did the sanding job but left light scratches in the finish, but a little bit of water (I'm just spraying a very small amount from a bottle) seems to stop that.  So it's not soaked or anything, and so far my MDF hasn't exploded into a sponge.  I think there's enough paint on the surface to keep things safe now. 

Cabinet-wise I finished the spray on the second side and just went through removing the tape from that side.  Minor issues aside I'm ready to move on to the blocking...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #43 on: September 01, 2019, 06:05:10 am »
Looking at the Gaetan plans for the blocking, which I'd used the 1:1 print of to transfer on their positions, it strikes me that a number of pieces of blocking aren't marked.  This means that I've couple of areas that are painted that ideally wouldn't be (nothing particularly structural) and a bunch of extra pieces of blocking that I need to cut in addition to the ones I knew about.  I've marked them on the picture.

The green line is the bezel support, which seems to be a thinner piece of support wood like the one that's used for the marquee support.

The red lines are all normal blocking:
- Support for the front of the upper and lower marquee area.  I need to figure out dimensions of these, or else just cut them short enough to give some support without risking them getting in the way of the marquee support pieces.
- The wood that takes the bottom of the bezel and the back of the control panel seems to need blocking behind it in order to allow it to be attached without screwing in from the outside of the cabinet.
- Similar story for the speaker panel - it would be adequately supported by the side keys, but that would then mean attaching through the front or else putting something like a pocket hole from the key.  Pictures I've seen seem to have blocking on top of the key.
- Underside of the key needs blocking in the recess to allow the small horizontal piece to attach.
- Something on one side only to support the area that holds the game PCB (same level as the coin bucket blocking but further back).

The blocking that holds the front door also looks like it should go higher than marked but I'll try it with the size shown and see how that goes. 
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 06:10:53 am by UnclearHermit »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #44 on: September 03, 2019, 01:52:44 pm »
Blocking.  Not the most exciting of topics.  I've only got as far as creating the ones that I needed according to the plans, and even then not QUITE all of those and none for the front etc. where others are probably needed.  I'm avoiding the monitor supports for now because I haven't really thought through monitors yet...

Cutting the wood to length wasn't a particular event, but I knew that drilling straight holes through the wood was going to challenge me and I wanted to make sure these things were sitting level.  So I invested in a cheap dowel jig for a few quid with the sole intention of using it to guide my holes nice and straight.  With the wood marked up to show the centre of each drilling hole it was then a case of diagonally placing the tool across the blocking so the that centre of the middle hole lined up with my hole mark.  There are plastic bits sticking out on either side, which keeps my hole position in the middle so long as those two bits of plastic are touching the top and bottom of the blocking.  This makes drilling straight holes trivially easy.





Output of this was a bunch of these.  The excessive countersinking comes from the decision to use plasterboard screws, which I keep reading are good for MDF.  I have plasterboard screws that are way too big and others that are too small, so recessing the holes allows me to use the smaller screws and still get a decent bite into the MDF.  Everyone says the strength is in the glue anyway...




UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #45 on: September 13, 2019, 06:15:10 pm »
Been working on a base as a bit of a distraction.  I used Chance's video as a great guide for this.

Grabbed some wood from B&Q for this, which wasn't in the best condition but I could get enough decent cuts out of.


Support pieces:


The base itself:


Four bits cut and laid out:


It was at this point that I found that the mitres weren't looking good.


You can see how the cut is off here:


My saw is fine enough but was a no-brand item that I picked up on eBay years ago.  I've tried to calibrate it better before and failed.  Some of that is me, I'm sure, and some of it is that it's not that adjustable.  In the end I just adjusted the angle of the cut up a degree and that seemed to make things better, if not perfect.


This wood is pretty rough, but a quick sand over got it a lot smoother.


The hardest part, not helped by my dodgy mitres, was getting the thing together and square.  I seemed to spend an eternity moving four pieces of wood around.  I ended up banging some nails in the corners along with the glue and ended up with something okay.


I then glued and screwed all the support pieces in.



The only thing I'm really doing differently from Chance's video is that I masked the top of the wood before spraying.  I figure this will give me a better bond for the glue when it gets attached to the cabinet.



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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #46 on: September 16, 2019, 12:15:48 pm »
That base is looking pretty nice. Will you be adding wheels and/or feet? I used wheels similar to what Chance used, and they were a little tricky to get situated.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #47 on: September 16, 2019, 01:06:02 pm »
I have never seen a mill tag like that in MM even,That lumber was grown really fast, you can tell by the wide ring spacing on the end grain (most likely a sustainable tree farm)...Anyway like what I  seeing, you actually give some thoughts to the build and know what you are capable of, (the water in the spray bottle comes to mind) keeping water localized and clean as opposed to dragging out the garden hose good job...When Jenn attempts difficult cuts I make multiple pieces 2 even 3 times as many as needed, and then use the best ones and recycle the leftovers into making assembly jigs...Again good job man. 8)
« Last Edit: September 16, 2019, 01:10:31 pm by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #48 on: September 16, 2019, 05:47:06 pm »
Gingecko - thanks.  There will be wheels once I've got something to attach wheels to and found relevant bolts to attach them with.  I think I've found a wheel that's pretty much what I need but I need to check measurements.

Jennifer - I'd not noticed the wide rings until you mentioned them!
I've still got plenty of stuff left to do that I consider tricky (speaker holes come to mind) and they'll certainly be getting some practice on spare wood before I go anywhere near the more carefully cut bits.  Thanks for the encouragement :)

I have been working in odd moments at attaching some of the blocking, using the spacer pieces I made much earlier in the drawing stages to try and get the things in the right positions.  I'm moving slowly with this bit to try and make sure everything is going in the right place on the two side panels, and also to figure out the positioning of the stuff that comes NEXT and will actually be visible.






I've also had to cut a lot more blocking pieces for the bits I mentioned before.  I think it was about another 15.  More on that another time.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #49 on: September 16, 2019, 06:34:19 pm »
Cutting big holes is not that bad...Just do it slowly so if the hole cutter binds it doesn't hurt your wrist, That and clamp or weight it down so it doesn't move, And start the cut about halfway through, and then flip it over and using the pilot hole finish the cut that will minimize tearout, and leave any misgivings in the hole...And work on rags and blankets/clean plastic when you can during assembly  (I noticed you already are) that will help minimize surface damage to your workpiece and save you work on paint day.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #50 on: September 28, 2019, 02:32:05 pm »
Ah, actually I was meaning the speaker grille, which looks to be all kinds of fun.  But thanks for the hole drilling tips!

A quick couple of questions about t-moulding.  I need to acquire some at some point, but right now I just need to get the slot cut.  Is it likely that all t-moulding will use the same size of slot, or do I need to know which t-moulding I'm going to buy in order to get the right size of slot cutter?  Some of the sites that sell it don't seem to mention the width of the slot needed.  Secondly, I remember reading something in the past about the t-moudling on Nintendo cabinets starting at the top rear corner but finishing SOMEWHERE underneath the cabinet and not actually going all the way around to the back.  Does anyone happen to know how far back it's supposed to extend so that I don't end up cutting a slot that will have nothing in it?

I'll have some more photo updates soon, but a quick one on MDF sealant.  I think I mentioned earlier about the primer I've been using on painted surfaces to-date.  But for surfaces that will be unpainted (a lot of the interior) I don't really want to leave bare MDF because it's not the nicest material to leave exposed and it increases the chances of it getting marked etc.  So I've been trying out an MDF sealant, which goes on pretty much like water and which then leaves a light varnish-like finish that you can still paint over if you want.  I was also interested to know how well it painted over because it's SO quick and easy to apply.

So a quick test.  A bit of spare MDF with some of the sealant put roughly in the middle.  You can see how it dries and leaves it just looking a bit like it's varnished, which makes it much more resistant to marking.



And then a quick spray of black over it to see how it takes.  You can clearly see where the sealant stops the paint absorbing.



So this stuff will definitely get used for MDF surfaces that I don't paint, and I'll quite likely use it for areas that I DO paint, just because it's really fast to apply it.

Finally, I don't think I ever did a picture of the finished base.



UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #51 on: October 04, 2019, 04:05:15 am »
I've been having a look around at t-moulding and the flat nintendo stuff on t-molding.com says that the barb on 9/16" t-moulding (which I'm hoping will just cover my 15mm wood) is 7/64" (about 2.8mm) and that it requires a slot of 0.08" (2.0mm).  I can get some slot cutters in the UK that are 2mm but they're about £20, which is a lot to spend on a tool that probably won't get much further use.  I've found these
https://www.amazon.co.uk/perfk-Outstanding-Abrasion-Resistance-Strength/dp/B07MZNQSRK/ref=pd_sbs_60_4/259-5220629-6174547
which are a fraction of the price but they're 2.38mm.  That's still 0.4mm narrower than the barb, but 0.4mm wider than it's supposed to be. Is this likely to matter?  I don't want to save money just to create myself a problem down the line, but if the t-moulding will hold fine in the slightly wider slot then that would be ideal.

thanks

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #52 on: October 04, 2019, 09:10:02 am »
That T usually extends around 6in. Over onto the back, Personally Jenn likes to cut them slots a little wide and then glue them in... Then you don't have to fight it into a tight slot and it give a little wiggle room for alignment, if you try it don't fill the slot like one might think just about half full, and tape it into place until dry...a hot glue works good, but Slow drying epoxy gives a longer work time.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2019, 09:13:23 am by jennifer »

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« Reply #53 on: October 04, 2019, 09:59:36 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:12:01 am by ChanceKJ »

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« Reply #54 on: October 04, 2019, 10:03:44 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:11:50 am by ChanceKJ »

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #55 on: October 04, 2019, 10:35:01 am »
I have pics of t-molding installation in my DK+ thread.  1/16" slot cutter worked perfectly.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #56 on: October 04, 2019, 11:39:41 am »
Oh and Btw...There is no slot on the back, The spline is cut off and that 6in. is bent over the edge with a heat gun and stapled twice.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #57 on: October 04, 2019, 02:02:53 pm »
Also, a note on “flat” moulding. There are some purist in the Nintendo restoration community that swear by particular companies because their molding is “actually flatter”... its true...  just find a roll from whomever you like that’s considered “Nintendo flat t-moulding”, but also fits the wood width of the build. Remember, you can always get a trimmer and shorten the width as you install it.

Any recommendations for a good trimmer? I got a double sided one, and it's a pain. I read one suggestion to take the second set of blades off and trim one side at a time, so I might give that a go. I'm also thinking of attaching the t-molding to a slotted piece of scrap to do all the trimming first, and then attach to the actual painted sides.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #58 on: October 04, 2019, 06:35:07 pm »
Wow, lots of responses.  Thanks all.  Let's see...

That T usually extends around 6in. Over onto the back, Personally Jenn likes to cut them slots a little wide and then glue them in... Then you don't have to fight it into a tight slot and it give a little wiggle room for alignment, if you try it don't fill the slot like one might think just about half full, and tape it into place until dry...a hot glue works good, but Slow drying epoxy gives a longer work time.

Interesting, thanks.  Slightly concerned about how well I'd get on injecting hot glue into a 2mm gap.  I mean, the photos might be amusing for everyone :) But I hadn't thought of working with it more loose and keeping it taped to dry in that way.

I bought a Whiteside 6700A 1/16th bit and arbor from TMoulding.com when i started in this hobby and i’ve never needed anything else, ever.

Also, a note on “flat” moulding. There are some purist in the Nintendo restoration community that swear by particular companies because their molding is “actually flatter”... its true...  just find a roll from whomever you like that’s considered “Nintendo flat t-moulding”, but also fits the wood width of the build. Remember, you can always get a trimmer and shorten the width as you install it.

As for placement on a Nintendo cab: along the top it goes right to the back edge, but not around back. And along the front bottom it extends back 6-8” along side the base. Installing it before installing the base can make it a bit more easy but either way works. Its not like how you pretty much need to install the coin door first before the coinbox/coinbox tray.

Thanks Chance.  I can get a 1/16th bit from a few places (although usually as part of a set) so it's good to hear than a narrower slot isn't a big problem.  I'm comforted that I've now been told that I can use a narrower or a wider slot and it won't be a big deal!  The "width" is something I do need to think about though.  9/16" is only 1.42mm, assuming that's an accurate size, and I'm working with 15mm MDF and so it's a tiny bit too small.  The question is whether the half a mm each side will be noticeable enough for it to be a problem.  If I went for the larger size then what's the best tool to trim with?  Will a flush trim bit on a router work okay without damaging anything?

I actually came across one of your other photos that shows the bottom t-moulding earlier
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chancekj/16179712743/in/album-72157650487664889/
but not so clearly as the photo you linked.  Loving your "clamping" approach in the photo that you linked!

I've got to ask - what's the deal with the coin box/shelf after the coin door?

I have pics of t-molding installation in my DK+ thread.  1/16" slot cutter worked perfectly.

Another vote for 1/16" then, thanks!  I suppose one advantage of the smaller slot is that if it really doesn't work out then I can always widen it.

Oh and Btw...There is no slot on the back, The spline is cut off and that 6in. is bent over the edge with a heat gun and stapled twice.

Wait, hold on, do you mean the bit under the cabinet?  It's just stuck on with no slot in use at all?  I don't remember reading THAT before, although I've probably forgotten just about as much as I've read on the topic...  I wonder why they didn't just cut the slot for that section as well.  Good tip on the heat gun as well.  I've never worked with this stuff so I'm not really sure what I'm getting myself into, but it's good to have some tricks up my sleeve if certain bends get tricky etc.  I'll just have to re-read all of this when I get to that stage.

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« Reply #59 on: October 06, 2019, 11:25:06 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:11:38 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #60 on: October 07, 2019, 05:48:47 pm »

And finally here is the T-moulding trimmer I use. This thing has saved ---my bottom--- a few times.



Went looking for that Freud trimmer, but no luck. I'm going to try the more expensive "Quad Trimmer" I saw on Amazon, and see if it fares better than the first one I bought.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #61 on: October 07, 2019, 05:56:00 pm »
Thanks for all the info.  The coin shelf is actually one of the areas that I'd realised (too late) that the Gaetan plans aren't 100% accurate, because they show blocking running from top to bottom of the front panel rather than leaving a gap for the coin shelf.  That means I now need to either cut out a piece of blocking that's already glued in place or else to just cut out a square at the front of the coin shelf to allow it to be pushed fully forward.  The latter sounds easier.  I also notice that the coin shelf is a bit odd in that the blocking is attached to its underside (so it comes out of the cabinet with the shelf, rather than being fixed permanently to the sides) and that the blocking when in place seems to rest on a thin piece of wood that runs along the side of the cabinet.  Watching your video it does look like there are pieces of wood on the left, front and right but it's not immediately obvious to me what they're for.  They generally look like they're supporting the blocking, but I'd have thought that the blocking should be supporting what's above it!  The video is great though, because it gives a chance to catch little details as the camera moves that are hard to spot in individual photos.

I'm going to have to look out for a t-moulding trimmer now! I'd only ever considered buying the "right" size of t-moulding, but with 15mm wood I'd always wondered about how it would look if it didn't quite go to the edges.  The idea that I can buy a wider size and then trim it is appealing, assuming that it's easy enough to trim the stuff and doesn't end up looking far worse with dodgy cuts all over the place :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #62 on: October 07, 2019, 05:57:52 pm »

Went looking for that Freud trimmer, but no luck. I'm going to try the more expensive "Quad Trimmer" I saw on Amazon, and see if it fares better than the first one I bought.

Yes, similar story, I can't see that model in the UK.  There are various other makes and they get very mixed reviews, although the Freud trimmer itself doesn't get amazing reviews and yet we've clearly got a recommendation here from someone who knows what they're doing 8) If I end up buying something then I'll feed back how well it works, but it's definitely something I'll be testing on some offcuts first!

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« Reply #63 on: October 08, 2019, 02:17:02 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:11:27 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #64 on: October 08, 2019, 10:26:57 am »
Honestly if you guys are finding better reviews on another trimmer go with that one.  This one is the only one i’ve ever had so I can’t compare it to anything else that might be better.

I think we'd both buy the Freud trimmer, based on your experience, but neither of us can find it. I tried Freud's site, Amazon (US and Canada). I'll just get a unicorn instead! :D

I should be able to test the new trimmer I ordered off Amazon in the next few days. Will report back. I found even with the right dimension t-moulding, it still had a slight overhang. Though I'm thinking my slot cut might have ended up a tad off center. Hopefully the trimmer will resolve all that.

That coin box is an interesting design. I bough a coin door, but it didn't come with any support pieces to hold the plastic box you remove to get the coins. So I've been trying to think of ways to support it, like brackets, rails, etc. I will probably end up using some brackets, but the idea of a little wooden box or frame at the bottom that would support the plastic bin is also a good idea.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #65 on: October 09, 2019, 10:51:08 am »
Ok, the trimmer arrived in the mail and I tested it out on some scrap. Worked pretty smoothly. Feeling bold and nearing the "finish line", I decided to install the t-moulding and run it across the boards I had painted the other day. Went pretty smooth, but a few spots on the bottom, it scratched the paint a small bit. I'm guessing it was a combination of the paint not being fully adhered there and maybe the angle I was hitting it at. No paint damage on any of the other sides. These things won't really do curves, so keep that in mind.

The amazon listing didn't have a brand name in the listing, which seemed odd.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WUI0N2

The item itself says "FastCap" though. The main difference between this and the cheaper one I got earlier, was a spring attachment. The Fastcap doesn't have a spring in the middle, and seems to close in on the wood smoothly. Makes me wonder if the Freud is built similarly? As, in no spring? I also feel like the Fastcap has sharper blades than the cheaper model. With the cheap one, I had to really push it to cut, and it would get stuck in places. Fastcap just slid right along. Hope that helps!




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #66 on: October 21, 2019, 04:56:32 am »
Thanks for the trimmer info!  Makes me a bit nervous about trashing a painted finish, but one for me to consider down the line.

Meanwhile, I finally bought a slot cutter.  If I was planning to make a lot of cabinets then I'd have gone for a "decent" part, but instead I went for a set of 6 slot cutters of various sizes that cost the same (possibly less) than the one decent one.  I've not expecting them to be dazzling quality, but it does mean that I get to cut other size slots (up to 1/4") for other future projects.  Here's a link https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07V69Y3SK for anyone in the UK who is interested.

The smallest cutter is supposedly 1/16", but I was already dubious about this before ordering because I'd seen very similar sets on eBay which listed sizes in metric and showed the smallest cutter as 1.9mm (rather than 1.6mm).  I bought from Amazon, despite being a bit more expensive, because returns are obviously easier if I found major issues with them.  Having received them and checked the widest part of the cutter they measure at pretty much 2mm, so 1/16" is obviously the "wrong" size.  Given the discussion we've just had above I'm not too worried about this.

I positioned the router by eye and by pushing the edge of the cutter into an offcut until it looked about central, then measured to get this as good as possible because doing a test cut.



With that cut made I was able to check the above and below measurements to get them as good as possible.





That's as good as it's getting.  Trying to adjust a router by 0.1mm is inevitably going to make things worse, not better.

The slot size shows now as being 2.4mm.  It doesn't entirely surprise me, but it's now significantly bigger than the "1.6mm" that I would have been looking for based upon the ordered part.



The side panels enter daylight for the first time in a long time.  It's been raining a lot here lately.  It's also the first time I've seen the "outside" of these panels since I started painting and blocking the inside.  You can see a small amount of overspray but that's no problem because those sides have yet to had any primer or painting.



Routing these actually went really well.  A couple of clamps locked it in place and I just took my time.  Partly this was because the cutter seemed in no rush, but since the router doesn't get much surface overlap with the wood (especially when starting cuts) I was happy to move slowly and get the slot as central as possible.  Moving from inner to outer curve, in the area below the control panel, felt like the area where the router wanted the dip the most, but the resultant cut all seems pretty good.



Whilst I was all set up I got the other side panel and the control panel (which I know I haven't spoken about actually cutting out yet...) done at the same time.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #67 on: October 21, 2019, 12:01:19 pm »
Way more precise, than I was! I like the idea of cutting a small groove beforehand to check the slot alignment. My cut ended up a little off center, but wasn't too big of a deal, after I ran the edge trimmer over it.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #68 on: October 24, 2019, 01:44:53 pm »
Way more precise, than I was! I like the idea of cutting a small groove beforehand to check the slot alignment. My cut ended up a little off center, but wasn't too big of a deal, after I ran the edge trimmer over it.

To center my cuts I always test on scrap, flip the scrap over and see if the cutter will fit in the slot I just cut.  If not I adjust and try again.  Once you get the cutter to fit in the slot when the board is laying on either side you know you are dead center.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #69 on: October 27, 2019, 05:07:01 pm »
Nice tip.

This post feels a bit underwhelming, at least from a photo evidence perspective.  A pile of cut wood:



Seems a bit unfair, because cutting that lot took an eternity.  Lots of measuring, making sure lines were straight, cutting, trying not to cut to short etc.  I used the link http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,43568.0.html to make a sawboard a while back, so at least I had a way to cut straight lines.  But I was concerned about getting all of the pieces of the cabinet the same width and didn't have the confidence that I wasn't cutting too short.  So for just about every piece I cut a mm or two too wide and then used the router to trim all the pieces to the same size.  I'd say that figuring out ways of clamping wood to allow me to trim the various sized pieces whilst not having clamps get in the way of the router probably took longer than actually cutting and trimming.

Anyway, pile of wood.  Done.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #70 on: October 28, 2019, 11:10:36 am »
I know what you mean. I showed off the cabinet this weekend to some relatives. When I started talking to them about cutting all the wood, I figured they would be impressed, as that was quite the chore. I still have the feeling that they think I bought panels in various shapes and screwed it all together.

Figuring out how to clamp things down with the router was tricky sometimes for me too. I didn't use it to trim the pieces afterwards, but that's a great idea and probably would have helped me a lot in the long run.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #71 on: October 28, 2019, 04:05:19 pm »
Yup, I've discovered that absolutely nobody I know has any interest in discussing cutting up pieces of wood ;D  Or, as my daughter put it, "Just tell me when it's finished."

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #72 on: November 10, 2019, 05:41:23 pm »
I've been dreading the speaker panel since I started this build.  It's by far the most complicated piece, with a mitred top and then the evil speaker grillle.  I've read all the various posts on the best way to do it, so I've only got to where I have thanks to the work of those who have come before.  So a big "thanks" to them.  I spent a stack of time on the planning for this, and then a bunch more time setting things up.  If I've one piece of advice to give for this bit of the build it's DON'T RUSH, a mantra that I had to keep repeating to myself.  Ready to commence cutting, I started with this:



On top of my workbench I've a piece of chipboard (A), which is clamped along with the speaker panel (F) to the workbench below.  The clamps are out of shot at the top of the picture.  I've got scraps of MDF (same depth as the speaker panel) to the left and right of the panel (B), which allow the router to move across the speaker panel to make the cuts without dropping off the edges.  The slight gap between the speaker panel and the scrap on the left is because of the mitre on the top of the speaker panel.  Those MDF scraps are screwed into the chipboard to stop them from moving. 

To each side of the speaker panel are some thin MDF scraps (C) that act as the stop pieces for when moving the router left to right.  I've cut some rough slots in these and have bolts running through these slots, allowing me to move the pieces of wood in and out as appropriate for the various sized slots in the speaker panel.  So with each slot I loosen the nuts, measure and move the new position, the tighten the nuts again.  There's a piece of MDF (D) that acts as a fixed position to measure against when positioning piece (E).  (E) is used as the piece along which the flat edge of the router runs, so it gets repositioned for each of the 7 cuts.  Other people have achieved the same by starting with one piece in the correct position and then adding more pieces to move down the 16mm each time between each cut.  I considered this, but the closest I had was 15mm, which would have pushed my cuts off by around 7mm by the time I got to the bottom.  I also wasn't sure how I'd stick those pieces together effectively, so decided that moving (E) each time and just adding 16mm to the distance between (D) and (E) was a reasonable alternative.

Hopefully that's vaguely clear.  You can see the first (D) to (E) measurement here. 



In this position the router will cut the first of the seven slots in the grille.  Each subsequent positioning of (E) needs to be 16mm further away.



Below you can see the left sliding piece (C) in its position where it's correctly limited the left-most extent of that first slot.  I always did a very shallow cut into the panel at the start of each slot in order to check positions.  Small imperfections are easier to patch up.


And here's the full setup for that first slot cut with the router in position.


I took the depth stop on the router down about 3mm at a time so that I was never cutting too much out at once.  This is about half way down on the first slot.


And this is once I've hit chipboard at the bottom, which gives a nice visual point to aim for (rather than having another sheet of MDF, and not being able to clearly see when you've cut right through).


My "second" cut was the 7th slot.  This is easy because I'm just working in multiples of 16 for my block placement (hardest bit is positioning the block accurately).  I cut slots in pairs so that I don't have to move the side stops.  Get them correct for slot 1 (and square) and slot 7 will also be correct.  Same for 2 and 6, 3 and 5. 

You might notice that there's some white electrical tape attached to piece E.  I used this to correct if my placement of E was slightly off.  Adding a few layers allowed me to move downwards, so generally I placed E a little bit "up" if I had any doubts.  This second slot is still slightly too high, but I'd committed too much cut before I realised.


And with four cuts done, and lots of time elapsed!


And six.  You may notice the brad nails dotted around.  I was using these to attach piece E each time it moved.  I'd originally planned screws, but found that attaching the screws often pulled the wood slightly off-target.


Seven done!


It's safe to say that the pressure mounts with each slot cut, because of the impact of any mistake.  You can see a couple of places where the router has come a little bit too far down, usually at the point of entry on the left.  They're small imperfections, but I've got to consider how best to deal with them.  It's possible that a layer of paint will hide most of them.  A bit of filler would also do the trick, but I worry that filler will likely result in a different finish to all of the rest of the slot.  It's also going to be really fiddly to get filler into the slot and to work on it.  There's another similar "notch" at the far-right of the last (middle) slot.  That one was really frustrating because it was literally done at the last minute as I pulled the router out of the slot for the last time.  Probabaly just a bit of haste at that critical final moment.

You can also see some slight burning on the left at the entry points.  I'm not sure if that was me plunging too deep or my cheapo bit blunting.

This is the back of the panel.  The chipboard underneath has prevented any blow-out nicely.


Same piece after 10 seconds of sanding to clean off the edges.


And, finally, from the front after a very quick removal of the marking lines.


Pretty pleased with this.  It took ages but it's easily the most intricate thing I've ever had to cut and it's turned out better than I could have hoped.  Just those little imperfections to figure out now.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #73 on: November 11, 2019, 10:27:05 am »
Thanks for posting detailed pics.  My Fix-it-Felix needs a better speaker grill and you have given me some additional things to think about.  Using chipboard underneath is clever.   :cheers:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #74 on: November 11, 2019, 11:18:59 am »
Nice job dude!  That looks really good.  Isn't it funny how much work there is just to setup the cuts?  I often take pictures of the setups I have when making a cut because sometimes they are downright hilarious.  Good idea on the sliding boards and bolts, that explains how you were able to get very accurate cuts.  Again nice job.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #75 on: November 11, 2019, 01:14:46 pm »
Really really really nice job - this should be broken out into a separate guide because people struggle with this quite often.  I have an original Nintendo cabinet and I'm pretty sure even it has the "imperfections" you mention when the bit first cuts into the material so you did a fantastic job imitating the real thing!   :cheers:

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #76 on: November 11, 2019, 05:52:43 pm »
Thanks for all the positive comments  :D

this should be broken out into a separate guide because people struggle with this quite often

It sort of already is.  Chance's Nintendo cab build sticky has a link http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,148116.0.html to johnrt's "How to Route a Nintendo Speaker Grill", which heavily influenced my approach.  There were a couple of his bits that I couldn't quite follow, and I was also able to avoid screwing anything into my actual panel, but without his post I'd have made a lot more mistakes with mine.  That's what I love about this site though.  We all get to benefit from other people, and hopefully I can contribute something that will be useful to someone else in the future.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #77 on: November 12, 2019, 01:46:07 pm »
That is one really detailed and sweet looking speaker grille!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #78 on: November 12, 2019, 08:36:54 pm »
Good job man, that ain't as easy as it looks.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2019, 08:39:54 pm by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #79 on: November 23, 2019, 03:48:33 pm »
Thanks everyone  :)

Next bit of painting will be the inside of those slots, which looks fiddly because they're so narrow, plus being MDF every edge will soak up anything that goes near it.  I'm considering options for that one.  I'm also aware that when I paint the outside of that panel in its final colour that I'm either going to have to mask off every one of those slots OR I'll have to accept some paint getting in and then touch up the slots again at the end.

I'm not a million miles away from being finished with cutting wood.  I've got the coin box and shelf/container to do at some point.  The other thing outstanding is current the hole for the coin door, but I don't want to do that until I actually HAVE a coin door to check sizing with.

On which subject...  I need to source a bunch of parts such as the coin door, marquee bracket (upper/lower), bezel retainer, flat t-moulding etc.  I'm in the UK.  Is anyone aware of any way to source these without importing from the US?  I'm assuming the postage and import costs from the US are going to be pretty horrendous.  Any thoughts welcome, even if it's just a better indication of how much importing is going to cost me!

thanks

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #80 on: December 02, 2019, 01:11:21 pm »
I'm not sure of the proper way to paint the inside of the slots. I taped mine off and spray painted the inside before I started painting the panels. I think if I had sanded out the inside of the slots a bit better and maybe primed beforehand, it would have turned out better. They are certainly not an easy surface to paint though.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #81 on: December 02, 2019, 01:48:03 pm »
I don't think the insides of the slots got painted on the original Nintendo cabs.  I'm reasonably sure mine is bare wood but I'm not home so I can't check.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #82 on: December 02, 2019, 02:36:15 pm »
I don't think the insides of the slots got painted on the original Nintendo cabs.  I'm reasonably sure mine is bare wood but I'm not home so I can't check.

Mine is on my DK Junior.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #83 on: December 02, 2019, 05:33:42 pm »
I don't think the insides of the slots got painted on the original Nintendo cabs.  I'm reasonably sure mine is bare wood but I'm not home so I can't check.

Mine is on my DK Junior.

That's interesting - mine is not.  Just checked.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #84 on: December 03, 2019, 05:50:19 pm »
I don't think the insides of the slots got painted on the original Nintendo cabs.  I'm reasonably sure mine is bare wood but I'm not home so I can't check.

Yeah, I meant to post that earlier, but I checked a bunch of photos from other cabinets and it seemed like sometimes they were bare wood and sometimes painted.  I did wonder if the painted ones were where they've been repaired/repainted over the years and the slots got done at the time, but I decided to go down the paint route either way.

I haven't had much time over the last couple of weeks, but I've put a first coat inside the slots as a bit of a test, using a cotton bud as my "brush".  It's thin enough to get inside the slots, so just a case of dipping it in some paint and then moving it over the surface.  I can put it on a lot thicker than with spray, which helps with the soaking in on the MDF edges.  I'm planning to sand and put a second coat on before deciding what to do next.  I might finish off with one coat of spray depending on how it's looking.  The paint, incidentally, is just some pre-mixed kids paint that I found lying around in the house :)



After first coat:



UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #85 on: December 11, 2019, 01:17:03 pm »
I'm not sure what I'll get done over the winter months with it being generally cold and dark, but I need to start planning what this thing is going to BE other than a bunch of unpainted wood.

As I mentioned previously, I do need to get hold of coin door/marquee brackets etc. etc. so if anyone knows a UK source then PLEASE let me know.  For any other UK builders out there who have imported from the US, any hints or clues about postage and import pricing?

Beyond that I've got to think about:
- Theme/colour etc.
- Arcade monitor vs LCD panel
- Controls

Much as I'd love to build an arcade, in reality this is going to be a single machine and quiet possibly stored in a garage that's not exactly warm and welcoming.  So I need it to play more than one game (but not ALL of them  :) ) and I have to keep in mind I do actually want to use it and not spend all my time repairing it. So, initial thoughts:
- A vertical monitor, because more games that I care about are vertical.  I'm looking for the early 80s stuff that I grew up with (PacMan/Mr Do's Castle/Mappy/Bomb Jack).  Downside is that I miss horizontal stuff that I care about, like Popeye, which ironically is the only Nintendo game in the list I just mentioned.  Okay, so I'll probably play DK on it, but it's not my favourite game.  In reality I'm not going to get a correct model monitor for this in the UK, and I'm a bit nervous about the damage my garage would do to an arcade monitor anyway.  Plus I have to think about the weight, since I don't have monitor bolt holes in the cabinet yet (although, as I mentioned many months ago, I don't quite understand how battens can't support a monitor if battens are ultimately supporting the whole cabinet weight).  All in all an LCD is going to be MUCH easier and less long-term pain, but I do worry that it's going to look rubbish.
- Theme/colour is tricky because it feels a bit odd to make this look like a DK cabinet and then hardly DK, or to theme it as Popeye with a monitor that can't play it.  Any thoughts/inspiration here is welcome.  I did consider going down the Fixit Felix route since that's the right orientation, but I'm not a great lover of the cabinet artwork.
- I need something that can handle 4-way and 8-way, just given the small list of games above.  That rules out the Nintendo standard joystick for these cabinets, but I'd like to get as close as I can.  I could create a couple of control panels, and I'm considering doing that at some point anyway to allow two-player games.  But I don't want to be swapping panels every 5 minutes, so a switchable joystick like the Servostik is attractive.  Any thoughts on how this would look compared to a Nintendo joystick.  I mean, it's a shaft with a ball on the top, but any real-world experience?

I'd love some input here.  I'm at the stage when I can still consider all options, and I don't have any strong opinions yet.  Thanks!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #86 on: December 23, 2019, 12:22:51 pm »
This is a great thread. Lots of information and lots one can learn.

I am in a similar holding pattern to you. My cab is primed and awaiting paint. Has been for two years actually  :banghead:

The theme I agree is tough... You want it to be able to play the game it references. That makes sense. I think that kind of attention to detail is what takes a good project and makes it great. That said, it's like art... Everything is open to interpretation... Most laypeople won't be as anal as some of us here may be. That attention to detail is for us weirdos haha.

It's easy to overthink all of this. I had similar problems but I came up with art finally and realized I wanted to save it for a proper Nintendo shaped cab (mine is a lowboy). The main takeaway with a Nintendo cab IMO is the white T Mold with a contrasting colour that is "fun". If you look at existing Nintendo cabs and once like Chances, they are like big Easter Eggs. That's part of the visual appeal of Nintendo Cabs for me anyways.

As for the LCD/CRT debate... Depending on sources, you can probably find a SCART CRT and run a Pi2SCART or something... Not sure if I caught your source. I really enjoy my Pi on just composite doing 240p. Not as sharp, but it does lots right with a free TV. I don't think the weight is a major issue, and can be addressed still at this point. Recently discovered a few shaders for my Pi that look good on LCD tho, and if that works then it's not a crime against humanity... I just think the less sharp CRT gets me a bit more in regards to refresh etc. Again... being anal.

Having gone with vertical has left me wanting a horizontal cabinet next. It just seems logical to have one of each. In that respect, a swappable control panel isn't a bad idea at all. There are also servo sticks which can be switched between 4 and 8 way I believe. Given the quality of work and your commitment, it may be worth looking into the investment.

If also suggest that maybe a going with a generic Nintendo theme may get you part way there. The Punch Out and R Type cabs come to mind... But they lack the Easter egg aesthetic. Maybe the colours of the bright cabs with some "generic" Nintendo art? Could be cool.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #87 on: January 01, 2020, 03:54:05 pm »
Thanks :)

Two years!  I'm hoping to have theming plans before then ;).  Getting close now, so more to share on that soon.  But I completely agree that colour and the white t-moulding are critical for this.  The Nintendo cabinets that are dark-coloured just look wrong to me by comparison.  I think the LCD vs CRT may come down to where the cabinet will live.  If it's going to end up in a garage then I think CRT is pretty much ruled out, whereas an LCD is more likely to survive those conditions.  I think Servostick is pretty much inevitable since a multi-purpose control panel just increases usability of the cabinet, and there's no point building it if it doesn't get used.

Anyway, a quick update.  I've been building the piece where the control panel rear and the bottom of the bezel get supported.  It's a fiddly piece because of the angled cut for the control panel.  I also didn't have any wood the right dimensions and have used something a bit deeper, so will need to recess the rear slightly so that it hits the blocking at the right position.

I started off routing a section out for the control panel.  This section needs to be angled at around 15 degrees and so technically shouldn't even be a straight cut, but I figure that by having a straight cut that I can easily "lift" the control panel when I want to remove it.  Otherwise it'd need to be slid the whole way out, or possibly I'd need to remove the rear of the control panel underside.
 

I then angled a circular saw and used several passes to apply the 15 degree part to the cut.



Other have done this whole cut with a table saw, and if I owned one then I'd have done the same.  As it is, it's not the straightest thing I've ever cut (hard to keep the saw straight across the length with a guide supporting it) but I think I can patch it up okay. 



I finished off by cutting the slot for the bezel, which I'm hoping is wide/deep enough.  I don't have the bezel support metal piece to check.  Again, this was done with multiple passes of the circular saw (but straight cuts this time), each one offset by a blade width until the right slot size was reached.  I didn't have a router bit narrow enough to do this with the router.



Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!
« Last Edit: January 01, 2020, 03:57:20 pm by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #88 on: January 02, 2020, 06:27:40 am »
Another quick update.  I thought I'd get the base attached to the bottom panel of the cabinet ready for assembly.  I could do this bit later, but positioning the base is easy with things still in pieces.  I'd already decided to paint the underside of the bottom panel just to give it a little more protection in case it ends up sitting in the garage.  I didn't bother masking off where the base would go, but because I wanted decent adhesion for the glue I ran around with a chisel and scraped back to bare wood before applying glue.  A quick measure, clamp and screw and ended up with this.



Then I found a problem.  When I built the base it's one of the only times I didn't check the plans for measurements, apparently.  I watched Chance's video on building a base, where he used 3.5" wood, and ended up in a DIY store trying to find something a vaguely similar height.  I found some 3" wood, figured that was close enough, and it ended up at about 73mm once it had been sanded a bit.  I'd ordered wheels which were 2.5", and which say 65mm on the side.  2.5" is less than 3", 65mm is less than 73mm, so all was well.  Or so I thought until I actually put the wheel in place...



It turns out that a 2.5" wheel is 2.5", and then you add on some spacing for the retainer.  Duh.  My entire wheel assembly height is about 83mm, so I'm about 10mm too high.  The annoying thing is that if I'd checked the plans I'd have seen the height of the base as 85mm, and so long as I'd sourced wood of that height then I'd have been fine.  To be fair, every Nintendo original cabinet seems to have risers underneath the wheel, so the very last thing I ever thought is that my wheels would be too big.  So, I either rebuild the base or I buy some smaller wheels.  I'm really hoping I can find smaller wheels!  It does mean the cabinet height will be about 1cm less than it should be, but hopefully that won't matter much.

jennifer

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #89 on: January 02, 2020, 07:13:56 am »
I think, Jenni would take more of that wood and make a smaller riser, with a top (same height) that fits inside that one (clamp it down) and use a end mill bit on a router, and carefully shave it down to the right height...Shame that had to happen, but like they say nobody is perfect. ::)

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #90 on: January 02, 2020, 12:53:42 pm »
Hi.  Not sure I'm understanding what you mean.  Are you talking about extending the base in some way to add the missing 1cm of height?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #91 on: January 02, 2020, 01:05:58 pm »
No, I was thinking make another spacer a little smaller than that one (with a top on it) and use it as a router table jig...you know, like clamp it down and run the router  around the perimeter, the mill bit can then be adjusted to cut as much off your riser as needed.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2020, 01:09:36 pm by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #92 on: January 02, 2020, 01:17:31 pm »
Oh, you need to add, nevermind...you most likely will need to replace that one then.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #93 on: January 02, 2020, 02:15:16 pm »
Ahhh, yes, I need to add :)  But it's only 1cm, so I need to consider whether it's worth the effort of building another base right now.  Another alternative is to add leg levellers, which would give me that extra right, but I'm not sure I want the cabinet to look like it's flotaing!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #94 on: January 02, 2020, 05:14:44 pm »
Are you putting footers/adjustable feet under the corner blocks? If so, they will close the gap between the base and wheels, no? My plan was feet but now wonder if y'all be putting the bases directly on the floor?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #95 on: January 02, 2020, 06:00:10 pm »
I can, but I wasn't originally planning to.  It'd give me the height, as you say, but equally it looks like I can get a 2" wheel which will leave me 1cm under the base, so I can then adjust upwards as necessary with a riser.  So it all comes down to whether I'm bothered about it being 1cm short or not!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #96 on: January 02, 2020, 11:26:28 pm »
Route out the base of the castors?  Or is the base glued?

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #97 on: January 04, 2020, 06:49:15 pm »
Thanks, I thought about routing out under the caster but I’d need 10mm and the wood is only 15mm.  I’ve found some wheels that are suitable though, so I’m just going to switch to those.  If I miss the 10mm of height on the cabinet then I’ll add on some levellers to increase it a bit, or build a taller base in the future if it really annoys me.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build with undetermined theme
« Reply #98 on: January 29, 2020, 03:17:14 pm »
Long post alert…

The physical side of this build isn't really progressing at the moment.  I've been trying to obtain parts (bezel brackets etc.) in the UK but having no luck, so will likely need to order these from the US and just swallow the shipping and import costs.  I'm reluctant to put too much together until I've got these parts because I don't want to guess on sizing and end up attaching panels that need to be trimmed.  The time isn't being wasted though.  This build has needed a theme since it started, and that's where recent efforts have been.

I've said before that I do like the Popeye theming, but it's a landscape game and most games I want to play on this are portrait.  Fixit Felix is a nice alternative because it's portrait AND has a second button, but I'm not a bit fan of the artwork style on the cabinet itself.  I love the concept, and the fact that the whole design is so blatantly copied from DK, but I'd been put off by the art.

And then I had an idea.  Since I didn't like the artwork, could I change it?  Also, since the whole concept is based upon DK then why is the game Fixit Felix and not Wreck-it Ralph?  So, let's make a Wreck-it Ralph cabinet.

Some challenges:
- I'm not an artist, not even close.
- I've never used Photoshop or Illustrator.

I didn't want to use the in-game art on the cabinet, but I didn't want to use the style from the film either.  I remembered that years ago I'd seen the display of Wreck-it Ralph at Disney World and that there was an amount of concept art in that display.  I had a few photos of that display, but none of them were particularly great.  But other people, of course, have visited that exhibit and posted pictures online of various qualities.  My hope was that there was enough from sources like that to make this work.

First a reminder of what we're working with.  The original DK bezel:



And Fixit Felix bezel:



So it's a blatant copy with 1-1 substitutions in many places, but it still has differences from the original.  That gives me choices about whether I slavishly copy the FF design or whether I just take inspiration from DK and can make changes.  For instance, FF has the Niceland characters on the right-hand side because it has more characters to play with than DK.  But, oddly, they chose to feature Felix in the two bottom circles and not use Ralph at all.

The control panel is a similar story.  DK:



And FF:



Similar story here, with FF being pretty much different colours and some different images, but structurally it's the same.
 
The exhibit at Disney had a large selection of concept art from the film, but most of it is useless to me.  I’m determined to only use elements that appear in the game, not the film, so that rules out all of the characters and elements that feature in the wider film.  That's a shame because there are some great pieces to work with, but they wouldn't fit with the "game" theme.  Also, much of the concept art, especially for Ralph, is from before they’d even settled on a final form for the character.  Featuring a Ralph in this design that isn’t even human wouldn’t make a great deal of sense.  So I’ve got art to work with, but not much.
 
I’ve spent much of the last month working to try and obtain as many usable pieces of art as I can find and to get those into Illustrator.  This has meant a lot of time trawling Internet resources, and lots of slow progress as I got to grips with Illustrator.  I’m learning as I go here, so I’m already shaking my head at things I did to achieve certain tasks a couple of weeks ago. 
 
Being at the mercy of photos online I found that many of the things I was able to get into Illustrator suffered from dull colours.  Re-colouring by hand, especially with my near-zero Illustrator skills, didn’t look like it was going to go well.  After lots of searching I found a video that someone had taken of the exhibit, which was better lit than any of the photos that I’d found.  The stills from the video were too low quality to use directly, but I was able to use those stills to grab colours and correct my traced versions.  You can see this below, with the originally traced image, the still from the video, and the final coloured version.  I'm still not 100% happy with some of these, but they're a lot closer than they started out.


 
I’ve also been making the most of the limited Ralph and Felix art out there.  For instance, there’s a good Felix line drawing that I’ve been able to clean up and then colourise using colours from a different picture of the character.


 
I’ve located a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator files for a number of DK and FF pieces such as the bezels and control panels.  These are being used as a starting point for any work, but I don't have everything in every format.  Armed with this lot I’ve been putting together some drafts of the main cabinet pieces.
 
My control panel draft is a hybrid of DK and FF, using the layout of FF (two buttons) but returning much closer to the DK colours.  I didn’t have FF in Illustrator format so I had to start with a DK panel and then work in the second button.  The colours are slightly different from DK, using the palette of colours from the Ralph character where possible.  This probably also means that the cabinet itself will be red, although I haven’t finalised anything yet.  The game logo is a temporary copy/paste from a version of the logo that featured Ralph in the middle and which needed to be removed.  It’s temporary because I’m not sure what to do with it yet.  All WiR logos are the “two” words on top of each other, but FF and DK use the words NEXT to each other and so naturally fit in a longer box.  Squashing the logo allows it to be put in the same place as the originals, but it doesn’t look right and so I’m in two minds about whether to keep it at all.


 
For the bezel I’ve again started with a DK bezel, since that’s the basis for FF after all, and I’m in early stages deciding what to do with the various elements on the page.  My approach here would be to follow styles from the DK and FF bezels so I can influenced by both.  Very much a work in progress…
 


I’ve also played around with the idea of doing something very different with the bezel and using the apartment building featured in the game/film.  This has the advantage that I can take the Niceland characters and place them in the windows.  But I’m not sure it’s working out, I’m not sure what to do with the bottom section of the bezel, and it also creates a very dull looking image for a cabinet that really needs to be all about bright colours.


 
One irritation, which I really don’t understand, was that I found that the Illustrator file I’m using for the bezel is 2cm wider than it should be.  This is confusing.  I can’t understand why the file would exist but be wrong.  Anyone who had used it to print from would have found this, and yet I’ve got two original (and distinct) files that share this measurement.  If anyone knows why it's this size (59cm wide rather than 57cm) then I'd love to hear.  I’m hoping it’s easy enough to resize it down to the correct size.  I haven’t got to that part of my Illustrator learning yet 😊
 
I haven’t even thought about the marquee yet, other than to know that the logo layout will be a problem.  Side art is also not planned yet, but one simple option is to take the main logo and use that:
 

 
My plan is for the cabinet to boot into FF but then launch MAME if that game is exited.  But it doesn’t make much sense for me to have a cabinet branded as Wreck-it Ralph that launches the game Fixit Felix Jr.  I’d really hoped I could address that, and it turned out to be much easier than I’d hoped.  From this:
 

 
To this:
 


Quite happy with that.
 
Thoughts/comments etc. all appreciated at this stage.  I’m pretty much tied to this being a Wreck-it Ralph cabinet now, but other than time there’s nothing to stop me changing design elements.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2020, 01:13:43 pm by UnclearHermit »

wp34

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #99 on: January 29, 2020, 03:33:16 pm »
I like where you are going with this.  A red Wreck It Ralph cabinet could look very cool.   :cheers:

You may already have this on your radar since your artwork is in draft mode.  If not I would suggest all the characters be drawn in the same style.  On some of your examples Ralph is a more stylized version where the other characters look more like their animated versions. It is a bit jarring.

This is cool.  Did you hack the D1sney version to display a different title screen?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #100 on: January 29, 2020, 05:18:29 pm »
You may already have this on your radar since your artwork is in draft mode.  If not I would suggest all the characters be drawn in the same style.  On some of your examples Ralph is a more stylized version where the other characters look more like their animated versions. It is a bit jarring.

It's something I'm not entirely happy with but I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with it yet.  All of the images used are from concept art, so they're all flat/2D drawings rather than the 3D styling used in the film.  But some are more obviously rough or line-drawn.  It's a question of whether I can do anything to make the different styles gel, because I can only work with the images that are available.

This is cool.  Did you hack the D1sney version to display a different title screen?

Yes, although "hack" is probably overplaying it  :) I was expecting to have to look at the game binary and see if I could replace the relevant resource files, but it turns out that all images used within the game and held together in a single bmp file.  So replacing the logo turned out to be as simple as changing that part of the bitmap.  It took me far longer to locate a version of the logo that I could translate into a single-coloured pixellated version. 

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #101 on: January 29, 2020, 05:23:45 pm »
I was intrigued before...but now I'm excited! Kudos on something original!

I built my own full-size FFJr, and mini Coleco style Wreck It Ralph cabinet. I have vector version of all my custom Wreck It Ralph art (new sideart, new marquee) and would be happy to share if interested. I did a ton of searching for Wreck IT Ralph art I could use for my mini-cab and game. I found and vectored a bunch of it. Here's just some: http://sergiostuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Coleco-Handheld-WR-Decals_Finished_Page1-01.png

Honestly, I think you should go the full way and create a Wreck It Ralph game lol.  8) 8) 8)
Here is what I made: http://sergiostuff.com/2019/03/27/coleco-wreck-ralph-complete/

My game was made purposely made to be VFD style graphics, but maybe we could make a Wreck It Ralph game that's full-on 80's arcade graphics. I'd volunteer to help!

Anyway, do whatever you want, I think it's kick-butt
« Last Edit: January 29, 2020, 05:27:04 pm by meyer980 »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #102 on: January 30, 2020, 03:56:03 am »
Finally!!! I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting to see what your theme was going to be and I LOVE IT!!

I love the idea that you are doing a Wreck It Ralph Cabinet....which will be very different and unique.

Honestly, I love the direction you were thinking with making the bricks/windows the main design pattern for your artwork, I think it could look killer!  Especially mixed in with original concept art. Moving away from the DK composition would be awesome, and original for sure.

Good luck, look forward to the progress!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #103 on: January 30, 2020, 01:22:43 pm »
I was intrigued before...but now I'm excited! Kudos on something original!

Thanks!  I'm feeling a lot happier myself now that I have a vague idea where this is heading other than lots of assembled wood.

Honestly, I think you should go the full way and create a Wreck It Ralph game lol.  8) 8) 8)
Here is what I made: http://sergiostuff.com/2019/03/27/coleco-wreck-ralph-complete/

That is so amazing :)  I was pleased with doing an image substition!!


Finally!!! I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting to see what your theme was going to be and I LOVE IT!!

Thanks.  I did say that this build was going to take forever :)


Honestly, I love the direction you were thinking with making the bricks/windows the main design pattern for your artwork, I think it could look killer!  Especially mixed in with original concept art. Moving away from the DK composition would be awesome, and original for sure.

It's an interesting dilemma.  Using DK as a starting point makes a lot of sense given the origins of FF, but I had to try and explore the non-DK approach as well.  I'm not decided yet, but good to know that at least one other person doesn't think I'm heading down a complete dead-end with it.  If I do go with the different approach for the bezel then it means a re-work of the control panel as well.  Alternatively I find a way to try and bring the two designs together.  And then I've got the marquee to worry about...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #104 on: January 30, 2020, 03:43:25 pm »
Whatever you decide, I’m sure it’ll be great.

If you go with the brick/apartment theme....Im envisioning a bezel that basically mirrors the game screen kinda like you have up there....with Ralph on the top, and FIFJ interacting in different scenes on window sills along the sides.  The CPO would be pretty easy to match using bricks as the main pattern as well, and instead of using traditional DK rings for the character art, you can use the window frames.

For a marquee...maybe use the WIR logo in the middle, again with bricks maybe broken around the logo and then a couple characters on the edges.

Anyways, just some thoughts.  Good luck, it’s gonna be cool!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #105 on: January 30, 2020, 09:21:01 pm »
I like the brick marquee, creative and different form the usual Nintendo stuff, but also honoring the general layout.

Glad you are getting creative with the artwork, this will definitely set the cab apart from the usual Nintendo builds.

Whatever you decide, I’m sure it’ll be great.

You gonna post that Ghostbusters build for us BYOAC’ers?  These guys gotta see how incredible that thing is.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #106 on: January 30, 2020, 10:19:00 pm »
Maybe for the bezel, if you used brighter red bricks it might look less dull?

Here's what I did with my marquee (attached), and the bright red really stands out. But, I get it might not fit well with the stylized art / sketch look you've got going elsewhere. I'm sure you'll figure out what looks best for your build.


UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #107 on: January 31, 2020, 03:51:58 am »

The CPO would be pretty easy to match using bricks as the main pattern as well, and instead of using traditional DK rings for the character art, you can use the window frames.

For a marquee...maybe use the WIR logo in the middle, again with bricks maybe broken around the logo and then a couple characters on the edges.

Thanks for the ideas.  I'd actually considered window frames on the CPO but having Ralph (and even Felix) inside a window didn't feel quite right conceptually!  But style-wise I think it would look good.

Maybe for the bezel, if you used brighter red bricks it might look less dull?


Thanks.  That's one of the areas I've been looking at recently.  The colours in the image that I previously posted are based on the game, but I've revisited it using colours from the film (and very limited concept art) for the bricks/mortar/windows etc. and it certainly make it feel a lot warmer, if not bright.  But it might be enough to make it work with a slightly more muted palette than a typical Nintendo cabinet.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #108 on: February 03, 2020, 09:56:53 pm »
Hey UnclearHermit, sent you a PM with something possibly interesting. Check it when you've got a min.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #109 on: February 05, 2020, 04:13:20 am »
Replied, thanks  8)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #110 on: February 10, 2020, 10:58:45 am »
Would anyone who has an original bezel from DK or any of the other vertical Nintendo cabs mind giving me a few dimensions?  I've found that the DK Illustrator file is not only the wrong WIDTH, it's also the wrong aspect ratio.  That's made me look more closely at the bezel and how wide the artwork is at the edges, because I don't want to obscure the screen at top/bottom sides?  If you're able to then it would be great to know:
- Depth of artwork at top of bezel, and how much is obscured by the bezel bracket.
- Depth of artwork at bottom of bezel, and how much is obscured by the bezel bracket.
- Same question at side, although with DK the artwork is on a diagonal and so varies as it goes down.

Watching some videos it looks like there's probably LOADS of room at the sides and that extra width would just stop people watching from the sides, but it would be good to know rough sizes.  The top/bottom artwork, I imagine, would just get in the way if you were particularly tall or short!

thanks

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #111 on: February 14, 2020, 03:39:56 pm »
Does anyone have any clear photos of the control panel from the original FF?  I'm looking at the instructions on the left hand side.  I've got some assets from online that are a recreation of this area.



I know the typo that's at the bottom of this is a feature of original DK cabinets, but I'm not convinced they were a feature of the actual FF cabinet.  Look at this (terrible) screengrab from a video of the real cab:



I'm pretty sure that says "a certain amount of points" and not "a certian points", so if the wording isn't accurate then quite possibly the typo isn't either.  I don't want to add a typo in the mistaken impression that it's "authentic"!  You can also see that Felix is larger in the copy.  Fixing this isn't going to be trivial because I'd have to try and match the font in any corrections, but I'd rather try and be accurate.  I'll be changing the logo bit to Wreck It Ralph, but I can't see any reason to change the instructions beyond that.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #112 on: February 14, 2020, 05:20:26 pm »
Hey Unclear, I'll check my old graphics directories tonight and see what I can find.

If I remember correctly, RidickRick did a bunch of the artwork and purposely included the typo as sort of an "inside reference" to Donkey Kong which had a similar typo.

You can find info about that here: https://hyperspin-fe.com/forums/topic/684-wreck-it-ralph-fix-it-felix-jr-cab-project/page/11/?tab=comments#comment-30389
Look about halfway down, Rick mentions accidentally doing the typo but then leaving it in on purpose.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #113 on: February 14, 2020, 06:49:23 pm »
My daughter and I took a ton of pictures of the cabinet and artwork when we were at Disney back in 2014.  These seem to confirm what you have.








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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #114 on: February 14, 2020, 08:17:08 pm »
Here you go Unclear, I have a copy of one of the photoshop versions of the instruction card. Made the edit there. I'm happy to make other edits for you or send you the .psd

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #115 on: February 15, 2020, 06:12:33 pm »
My daughter and I took a ton of pictures of the cabinet and artwork when we were at Disney back in 2014.  These seem to confirm what you have.


That's brilliant, thanks so much!  I also notice looking at those photos that the instructions ABOVE the control panel aren't actually present on the full size cabinet, but they're present on the miniature scale model that Disney made of the cabinet.  Anyway, great to have the wording, so thanks again.  There's a missing full stop on the second bullet point, but I think I'll have that one "corrected"!

Here you go Unclear, I have a copy of one of the photoshop versions of the instruction card. Made the edit there. I'm happy to make other edits for you or send you the .psd


Wow, thanks for doing that :) I'd been wondering how easy it was going to be to add missing letters without a psd for these.  If you don't mind uploading the psd as well then it'll allow me to sort out the logo to match what I'm planning on the rest of the cabinet.  Updates on theming soon...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #116 on: February 16, 2020, 10:53:32 am »
No problem, happy to send you the file. The forum doesn't allow .psd file attachments though so uploaded to a google folder. Seems like the fonts are just Myriad Pro - common enough font which is nice.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aCtAiEK58rj2l9HFhFbOEUKOYvDGDZd6

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #117 on: February 16, 2020, 12:00:31 pm »
The forum doesn't allow .psd file attachments though so uploaded to a google folder.
You can put the .psd in a .zip, .rar, or .7z file to post it here.   ;)


Scott

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #118 on: February 16, 2020, 02:28:26 pm »
The forum doesn't allow .psd file attachments though so uploaded to a google folder.
You can put the .psd in a .zip, .rar, or .7z file to post it here.   ;)


Scott

Good to know! Thanks PL1, I've attached it here then - even easier to find.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #119 on: March 01, 2020, 03:55:10 pm »
Think I'm getting there....









Sorry if that last one doesn't look quite right.  The forum wouldn't let me upload the 162KB jpg because it failed security checks, for some reason, so I ended up having to take a screen snip of the image and save that.  No idea what the security issue was.

I've re-worked a lot from the previous uploads, keeping with the spirit of some of the original DK/Nintendo/FF heritage in places but changing things to allow me to stick with the plan to use the concept art without duplicating images.  Lots of minor updates as well, such as making all the arrows for the controller the same size/symmetrical around the centre.  Lots of adjustments to colours as well to try and keep colours from original artwork but also to bring the three separate pieces together.

Love/hate/areas for improvement etc.? 

One question - for the instruction card I see that the original plexis of the CPO have a transparent area where this goes and then the card was inserted as a separate printout.  Was that so the instructions could be region/language-specific but the control panel could be global.  Ultimately I'm trying to see if there's any reason why I couldn't just have the CPO with instructions printed as a single element.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2020, 03:57:01 pm by UnclearHermit »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #120 on: March 01, 2020, 06:43:14 pm »
Really like the CPO, with ralph sitting there.

My CPO had the instruction card printed right on it - seemed to work fine. If you don't plan on changing it, I don't see why you couldn't do the same.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #121 on: March 01, 2020, 11:48:00 pm »
Looks really awesome all around.  No comments here.  You going to do side art as well?

« Last Edit: March 26, 2020, 05:04:36 pm by Arroyo »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #122 on: March 02, 2020, 08:24:16 am »
Just one thing,  Don't you want to change the word Fix on the control panel to Wreck/Hit/Smash or something else?  Unless Ralph is actually fixing stuff :)

Actually, just ignore the above, for some reason I thought you were going to go with a rewrite of the game where you were playing as Ralph, Instead I see currently it's more of a re-skin so game still plays same as Fix It Felix.




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #123 on: March 02, 2020, 10:01:26 am »
Art looks great.  This thing is going to really pop once it is finished.  Not sure why the DK CPs had the clear section for a separate instruction card and I don't see any reason why you couldn't print it all at once.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #124 on: March 02, 2020, 10:03:36 am »
Your art is turning out great.  That bezel is making me want to build another one...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #125 on: March 02, 2020, 12:07:15 pm »
Just one thing,  Don't you want to change the word Fix on the control panel to Wreck/Hit/Smash or something else?  Unless Ralph is actually fixing stuff :)

Actually, just ignore the above, for some reason I thought you were going to go with a rewrite of the game where you were playing as Ralph, Instead I see currently it's more of a re-skin so game still plays same as Fix It Felix.

I've created a game like you're describing for Unclear to use here (if he wants!): http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,161917.0.html
I'm not sure if he's going to use it as his primary game though or stick with a logo-changed Felix. I think he's sort of building a Donkey Kong equivalent (cabinet/game named after bad guy but you play as the good guy).

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #126 on: March 02, 2020, 01:30:16 pm »
Thanks for all the comments.  I nearly gave up on the "building" bezel so I'm really glad I stuck with it now, especially given the amount of work and re-work it's now had.  It also made me re-think the CPO, which I think ultimately has worked out better.  Some of this was driven through the original concept art.  Finding three decent pictures to work with for the original DK CPO layout was impossible in the end without mixing styles.  Similarly, I'd managed to get a number of the Nicelander characters and really wanted to use those.

The marquee was an area that I hadn't really thought through, but once I got the logo font in place and looking so bold on its own I found that I didn't want to add much to it.  Simplicity won, in the end.  That simplicity ultimately then fed back into the CPO and solved my original artwork shortage when I was able to use the single image of "sitting Ralph", originally in greyscale but not too hard to tweak and colourise using other pictures as source for colours. 

I'm not 100% sure on the side art yet.  I've had in mind from early on that I might do something with the pixellated head of Ralph that featured on some of the posters.



Still to decide on that one.  One concern is that it's a red-heavy image and the current plan is a red cabinet.  Red on red won't work.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #127 on: March 08, 2020, 04:54:37 pm »
As the weather hopefully starts to improve, and with theme progressing, I'll hopefully get on with the actual build again soon.  I still need to buy all of the metalwork on the cab (coin door/bezel&marquee brackets).  I've asked before, but before I finally have to bite the bullet and import these things from the US can I just ask one more time if anyone is aware of any source of these bits in our nearer the UK?  Thanks.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #128 on: March 08, 2020, 05:28:10 pm »
Loving the new art!  This is going to be an amazing looking cabinet.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #129 on: March 26, 2020, 01:58:38 pm »
So, I rebuilt the base...

After months of winter building absence it seemed less of a task than it once did.  As a reminder, the previous base was about 1cm shorter than it should be, which in the grand scale of things wasn't a disaster.  But these cabs aren't the tallest in the world (although neither am I...) and, despite having bought smaller wheels in the meantime, it was still annoying me and now was the last real chance to do anything about it.  The new wood is a bit thinner but about 2cm taller, meaning that now the cabinet will technically be 1cm too tall.  I could reduce that, but I think I'm okay with this.

New base in all its glory.  It looks a lot like the old one, only taller.


The paint on the bottom (facing up) is completely pointless but might offer some tiny sliver of protection from any dampness coming up from the floor.  Plus it was easier to paint than to mask...

Wheels against the new base:


And against the old:


The worst part was that I'd already glued and screwed the base part to the bottom panel of the cabinet, so it needed a bit of "encouragement" to remove.


That damage isn't as bad as it looks because I'd previously removed some of the paint to give the glue a better surface to bond to.  But there's still damage visible, especially because of the thinner wood.  This doesn't REALLY matter because it's the UNDERSIDE of the BOTTOM OF THE CABINET.  But hey, a little bit of filler doesn't take long for a rough fill.



After a quick spray it looks better, although resulted in overspray on the base inside because I REALLY couldn't be bothered to mask that!

Anyway, onto more practical matters, the wheels now sit below the surface by a reasonable amount.  I assume the point here is for these to be as close to the surface as possible to that the slightest tip allows the wheels to hit the ground.  But how close do they need to be?  I know Nintendo cabinets have some risers under the wheels for this purpose.  If I pop a bit of 6mm MDF under them then I'll end up about 5mm off the surface.  Is that okay or too much?  I could always route a few mm off a deeper bit of MDF if needed.



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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #130 on: March 27, 2020, 08:41:57 am »
Any particular thoughts on buttons?  I think I've mentioned previously that I'm probably putting a Servostick in this cabinet so that I have 4/8-way choice, which immediately compromises the control panel from being "Nintendo".  It's TobiKomi, so maybe that's okay :)  But what about the buttons.  Repro Nintendo buttons, plus the assembly mounts and switches are seriously expensive.  I'd have to import to the UK, and just the parts work out at about $20 per button.  I could use the Nintendo red for my buttons 1 & 2, and that'd be a reasonable colour fit.  The blue buttons for P1/2 are a bit more of a reach since my cabinet doesn't really feature any blue, although I could just about link them to some of the colour on the instruction card.  That's $80 on 4 buttons  :-\  I could go for standard 1P/2P buttons and standard buttons for my button 1/2 and it'd cost me about $10.  Any thoughts?  If I go for non-standard buttons then are there any particular recommendation on "good" buttons?  Thanks.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #131 on: March 27, 2020, 10:03:56 am »
If you aren’t doing a Nintendo joystick, then it seems silly to pay all that money to be authentic with Nintendo buttons.  :dunno
« Last Edit: March 27, 2020, 06:35:35 pm by Arroyo »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #132 on: March 27, 2020, 10:05:26 am »
Agreed. Save the money for beer. Buy the cheaper buttons as long as they are quality.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #133 on: March 27, 2020, 10:13:28 am »
If you aren’t doing a Nintendo joystick, then it seems silly to pay all that money to be authentic with Nintendo buttons.  :dunno:

To be fair the Nintendo joystick is the worst.  My daughter made me install one on her FiF (she's a purist).  It looks great but I don't like how it plays on many of the games.

Back on topic--Arroya is right.  No need for authentic buttons.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #134 on: March 27, 2020, 11:09:59 am »
In my Felix cab, went with a magstik plus and standard microswitch buttons.

It never bothered me, but then again, I've never owned an original either. I wouldn't worry about using authentic buttons though.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #135 on: March 27, 2020, 12:47:43 pm »
That was conclusive, thanks all!  Standard buttons it is!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #136 on: March 29, 2020, 04:16:24 pm »
After many months of attempts I've managed to locate an old coin door, so that's one bit of the metalwork sorted.  Still need to get the three brackets (marquee + bezel), but reckon I'll have to import those from the US  :(

The coin door is in pretty good condition, although in need of a good clean before I can see if it needs any work.  You can see the result of a 30 second wipe with the paper towel in the bottom right.  I'm kind of hoping it doesn't need work, because then I'd need to decide how best to deal with it, but I can see some scratchs that suggest it could benefit with a bit of TLC.  Can I just sand it a bit and then give it a spray with something suitable for metal, or does it need more brutal treatment with wire brush/chemicals etc.?

The door doesn't shut flush in the top-left corner, which seems to be because the vertical strut on the rear of the door is making contact with the frame too early.  I've not figured out yet if that's a bend in the frame, a bend in the door, or the strut being not quite right.  The clamps are to hold it correctly closed for a little while to see if that's enough to fix the problem.



The coin mech plates on the front are mostly complete although have the expected level of scratching.  Unfortunately the coin mechs themselves are only partial and hence unusable.





I've got a couple of Coin Controls mechs that are similar (and I've seen that style on plenty of other Nintendo cabinets, even if not original) and which I'll probably use instead, although they're untested so I need to look at them at some point.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #137 on: March 29, 2020, 05:25:39 pm »
Those replacement mechs work pretty well in my experience. I got a coin door in similar shape to yours, wasn't that hard to restore.

I used citrustrip to get the paint off, did some light sanding to get the rust off, and then painted it with Rustoleum black. Turned out fantastic.

You can see before/after here:
http://sergiostuff.com/2013/07/01/fif-jr-week-1/
http://sergiostuff.com/2013/08/08/fif-jr-week-6/
« Last Edit: March 29, 2020, 05:28:51 pm by meyer980 »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #138 on: March 29, 2020, 05:57:32 pm »
Thanks, yours looks great in those photos.  I'm not sure yet if I need to take the paint off or it sanding will be enough.  I spent about 10 minutes earlier giving it a quick wash and can see a bit more what I'm dealing with now.  The plates actually cleaned up really easily and look a lot better.  The door itself has some light scratching plus a couple of small dents that I probably won't be able to make any better (and could easily make worse if I try).  I'm tempted to key the surface a little and try a spray, because if it all goes badly then I can always strip the paint at that point.  The hinge is fixed though, so spraying effectively around the door edges and frame is going to be interesting.



And I've got this terrible photo that I tried to take to show how the door doesn't close properly, which from holding the frame on a flat surface seems to be because of a slight twist in the frame.  It's possible that just bolting it to the cabinet might sort this out.  Not sure if you can make anything out from the photo, but I was holding the door in one corner and the camera in the other hand, struggling to take the picture :)


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #139 on: March 30, 2020, 10:57:32 am »
I can't tell how bad of a twist you've got. Mine had a couple little dents that I straightened out with a hammer and some flat soft wood. But the hinge/frame itselft wasn't twisted, so not sure if that's helpful or not  :-\

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #140 on: March 30, 2020, 06:26:46 pm »
It’s not bad. I’ll get the mechs removed, get the hole cut in the front panel, then see how it looks when pulled straight by bolting it in place. Need to order some bolts...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #141 on: April 01, 2020, 03:52:19 pm »
Not sure if the door has been re-welded on one hinge at some point, but the left and right ones are clearly different.  This isn't helping the door closure issue - one hinge is slightly higher than the other.



The frame is actually straight, which is annoying.  It would have been easier to bend the frame a little rather than the door!  I've got the coin mechs removed now and I've re-clamped the door to see if that will pull it straight.  I doubt it.  I suspect it'll just spring back when the clamps are removed, and then I'll have to think of something else.  I might get away with some blocks under the other three corners to hold them off the surface and then clamp the bad corner to try and bend it a bit.  New territory for me.



I've given the surface a very quick going over with a sanding block.  The existing coating comes off easily, removing the surface scratches, leaving the dents, and uncovering a few small rust spots and some bits that flaked back to the bare metal.  I might be able to just spray the whole door after a bit more sanding.  Any tips?  How am I supposed to effectively spray hinges or the edges of the door on the hinged side?  Should I just leave most of it alone and try to just spray the door and frame front face, or is there a better way I'm not thinking of?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #142 on: April 02, 2020, 12:20:03 am »
That dent you got circled won't sand out, that will need a touch of fill, the paint flaking off is adhesion issue, I would remove it with paint stripper and start over...The tweaked hinge, that is spot welded, run a 1/8 bit  halfway though the weld (but not all the way through) and then carefully follow it up halfway through with a bit as big as the weld, It will fall off...A good weld shop will realign it.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #143 on: April 02, 2020, 04:37:41 am »
Thanks, I'll have a look into those options!  If I end up stripping back to metal then I do have the challenge of painting the door and frame edges where they meet.  Is my best option there, if I'm removing one hinge anyway, to just bite the bullet and remove both hinges, then paint before reassembly?  I'm conscious of overcomplicating here!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #144 on: April 02, 2020, 06:23:36 am »
It will have to be welded before it is painted, best to have that done first,( both hinges if you have too) then strip it with cheap stripper, and  neutralize it with mineral spirits, (wash the hinges out good with the spirits) and a scrub the whole thing everywhere with a gray scratch pad, that dent could be filled with lead but that takes a bit of old world skill, polyester body filler is the modern equivalent...That grey scotch pad will leave fine scratches on your new steel, that is necessary for adhesion, (red or green pads are too coarse) the paint won't fill them use a grey one (or 400grit paper)...Paint on that was a spatter finish, (clean it with alcohol, and hang it with a clean wire) It was not a super shine, and as such you can hide a problem a bit by pre spattering the area before painting the whole thing ...Bomber cans work well, but put it on in 3 light coats doing the edges first, then faces...It is not in bad condition, and should clean up nice.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2020, 06:25:17 am by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #145 on: April 06, 2020, 04:09:20 pm »
Thanks, that's really useful.  Not sure how easy it's going to be to get near a welder right now, so we'll see how things go as time goes on!

In the meantime, I thought I'd cut a hole for it.  I've had the panel ready for ages, so I marked it up and was a bit surprised quite how close to the top of the panel the hole goes.  I'd cut this panel slightly long to make sure it didn't end up not fitting (easier to cut than lengthen!) but I'm now leaving it as that slightly long length in order to give a bit more strength to that top edge.  The excess isn't much and will fit fine in the space.  It's made me realise that I need to look at how this panel is supported internally.  On the edges there's the blocking, but that relatively thin bit of remaining MDF will need some suppport in case it takes any knocks.

One other (kind of obvious) thing that's worth mentioning is that there's also not a huge amount of space between the edge of the frame and the fixing holes, so I needed to get the door hole size tight but without creating loads of pain widening it repeatedly.  I measured carefully for the door, and made sure to cut as far as my pencil lines rather than inside them. 

I've seen a few coin door holes in other cabinets and it looks like a common approach is to drill a hole in each corner that actually extends out past the required size, then use that hole to get the jigsaw in for cutting.  That leaves you with a rectangle for the coin door but with the excess of each initial drill hole in each corner.  I wanted to drill those initial holes so they'd be cut out completely with the bigger cut, but that meant dealing with the curve in each corner.  The door frame is a right angle, so there's no way to absorb the curve there.  In the end I cut a very small hole as far into each corner as I could in order to remove as much of that corner as I could, then a larger hole further in for the jigsaw cut.  Hopefully a picture makes that easier to understand.



I then use a jigsaw to remove the main piece of wood, following up with the router + pattern bit to tidy up the cut. 



I'd considered some kind of jig to get the corners as close as possible, but ended up just eyeballing into each corner.  Mistakes here won't be visible when the door is fitted, but as it was the routing went well.  A few seconds with sandpaper around the edge and I had a hole.  I'd then planned to take a file to the remaining wood in each corner, which wasn't much anyway, but as it was I couldn't find my file  :censored: so I resorted to a sanding block.  Luckily that was still quick work.



Even better - door fit first time, and nicely snug.



UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #146 on: April 07, 2020, 03:40:24 pm »
Since getting to a welder or even getting out to buy paint stripper is a bit tricky at the moment I thought I'd take a look at the sanding approach to stripping off the old paint from the door.  It didn't take too much work with an oscillating sander to take the paint from the door face.



I want to make sure I can actually get to any areas that I strip in order to paint them, so I've only taken the left side of the door off so far.



There are parts of the frame that will be hard to sand and even to spray, such as bits on the inside of the door.  I think I'll leave the inside as is because it's not in a bad state, with just a few bits like this might-be-rust-or-might-be-dirt that I can probably clean up a little.



I'm justifying this because it seems to have been done in the past.  The inside of the door and the frame is a fairly smooth finish, whereas the door and outer frame is more hammered.  There's a small amount of paint damage inside, some of which might be the door catching the frame slightly, but it's going to be shut 99% of the time!  Having looked it over I think I can get to all the sides of the door to re-spray, so they'll be getting sanded down.





UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #147 on: April 07, 2020, 05:46:06 pm »
Mocking up some cabinet colours...  The hardest thing here is that whatever colours I find online are pretty much guaranteed to look nothing like the online images in real time.  I don't want to waste money on loads of cans trying to find a good colour...


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #148 on: April 07, 2020, 08:10:03 pm »
That will work and looks good.. Those dents will need to be filled with putty, and primed, (available in bomber can) or you will see the work area through the paint. That hammer finish is going to be quite forgiving in terms of hiding blemishes, 😉
« Last Edit: April 07, 2020, 08:13:25 pm by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #149 on: April 08, 2020, 07:10:29 am »
Thanks.  I like the sound of forgiving!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #150 on: April 08, 2020, 09:15:05 am »
I think the red on the furthest left picture looks real nice - the whole thing looks terrific.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #151 on: April 10, 2020, 10:20:04 am »
Thanks.  The chances of any paint actually matching any of those colours is, of course, zero.  But it's something to aim for.  The artwork colours are generally taken from the Disney artwork colours, but there's nothing to stop me tweaking them a little if it helps match up with the cabinet colour.

On another topic, I'll probably have a PC in this because of flexibility and because I'm most familiar with PCs and Windows.  I'm thinking of a simple amp for the speaker like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amplifier-TPA3116D2-Subwoofer-Solicitation-Speakers/dp/B07QF93WWL/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=TPA3116&qid=1586513973&sr=8-7

I could adjust the volume in software, or I could just use the potentiometer on this board and mount it near the coin door on the inside for easy access, or I could present the volume knob externally somewhere to make it user-friendly.  If I go for the external option then any recommendations on where to source some kind of external knob and whether it will attach through in some way or whether I need to cobble something together?

Also, having read lots about ground loops and separate power supplies then is the recommendation to have a separate power supply for this amp?

Thanks!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #152 on: April 10, 2020, 10:32:40 am »
Agreed on the one on the left.  This is all coming together very nicely.  Good job on making this your own but keeping with the Nintendo layout. :applaud:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #153 on: April 10, 2020, 10:47:26 pm »
If your machine is going to play the leaked Disney FiFJr arcade software - Windows PC is pretty much the only option. PCs run MAME fantastically and are easy to configure so I think you're making the right choice.

For the few cabs I've built, I've put volume control inside the coin door. Using the volume knob right on the amp pcb. I find I rarely need to adjust it so no need to make it external, imo. As for the ground loop issue, it's only ever been a problem for me when my amp is ALSO getting power from the computer itself (in my case, powering the amb through a spliced USB cable). If your plan to power the cabinet is having a small surge protector inside the cabinet, and you'll be plugging the amp into that, I don't think you'll have a problem. At least, I haven't.

Edit: If ground loop noise IS a problem, I've fixed it with this little piece of magic: https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Ground-Isolator-Stereo-System/dp/B019393MV2/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2YMFCWT8K86CF&dchild=1&keywords=ground+loop+hum+eliminator&qid=1586573339&sprefix=ground+loop+el%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-7
« Last Edit: April 10, 2020, 10:50:06 pm by meyer980 »

Mike A

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #154 on: April 11, 2020, 01:25:41 pm »
Quote
I've put volume control inside the coin door. Using the volume knob right on the amp pcb. I find I rarely need to adjust it so no need to make it external, imo.

This should be carved on stone tablets.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #155 on: April 12, 2020, 04:38:21 pm »

For the few cabs I've built, I've put volume control inside the coin door. Using the volume knob right on the amp pcb. I find I rarely need to adjust it so no need to make it external, imo. As for the ground loop issue, it's only ever been a problem for me when my amp is ALSO getting power from the computer itself (in my case, powering the amb through a spliced USB cable). If your plan to power the cabinet is having a small surge protector inside the cabinet, and you'll be plugging the amp into that, I don't think you'll have a problem. At least, I haven't.

Edit: If ground loop noise IS a problem, I've fixed it with this little piece of magic: https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Ground-Isolator-Stereo-System/dp/B019393MV2/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2YMFCWT8K86CF&dchild=1&keywords=ground+loop+hum+eliminator&qid=1586573339&sprefix=ground+loop+el%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-7

Great stuff, thanks.  I've no desire to put random knobs and buttons on the outside where I can avoid it in some other way.  I'm working through the various service functions at the moment to try and figure out what I need.  Volume can go inside then, so that's one down.  I'm going to need a power button of some kind somewhere, that's pretty much unavoidable.  And I'll probably have a "back" button for exiting games etc.  The machine will boot into Fixit, but will also play a selection of the best vertical games.  I could use shift functions instead of dedicated buttons, but I'm weighing up ease of use, accidental usage etc.  Any buttons will probably go on the underside of the horizontal panel above the coin door, so they'll be pretty much out of view.  Need to find a power button that can't be accidentally nudged during play.  I could put all of these buttons on the inside, but opening up the coin door just to turn the thing on seems inconvenient.  I'd put power on the back of the cabinet but I can't be sure that the back of the cabinet will always be accessible enough.

Any servicing of the machine that requires keyboard etc. will involve connecting to USB ports inside, but I might extend one up so that it's accessible from the coin door.  I'm toying with that one because, depending on monitor choice, any operation of Windows is going to be pretty limited and might require a secondary monitor connection anyway.  Generally I'm hoping that once everything is up and running that I'll just clone the disk and "fix" anything that way. 

In other news, I've started filling those dents in the coin door.  Having never worked with any kind of metal filler before I opted for what looked like something aimed at newbies.



This is a tube of stuff where you cut off as much as you want, "knead" it together, then it hardens with 10 minutes and is fully set in an hour.  "Knead" to me called to mind "hands", but the packaging is careful to note that you shouldn't be touching this stuff, which led to an entertaining attempt to hand-knead the relatively stiff compound whilst wearing the type of plastic gloves that you find at petrol stations for when filling up the car.  That went as well as expected, after which I resorted to mixing it with the filling knife that I was going to be using.  All went fine from there.

I went for a slight over-fill...


and then sanded down...


The smaller dent at the top went well on first attempt.  I'm on attempt three on the larger one.  The first fill had a slight unfilled ridge.  Second brought that ridge up fine, but I then noticed that the dented area extended a bit further to the right, so third fill has hopefully sorted that.  At the moment it's hard to tell how good a job this is.  The levels feel about right, but you can clearly feel the texture difference when moving from metal to filler.  Jen suggests above that priming will be necessary, so hopefully after I tackle that then I'll have a better feel for the final finish.  At the moment I'm fearing that this whole exercise will be a load of time to move from a couple of small dents to a couple of blindingly obvious repair patches  :)
« Last Edit: April 13, 2020, 01:14:12 pm by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #156 on: April 16, 2020, 05:44:51 pm »
Did a final clean of the coin door and then masked off the door ready to paint the frame.



I had a plastic sheet down and gave the frame its first coat.  The spray goes on really nicely with a nice finish.  I left it for 15 minutes and then returned to give it a second coat, only to find that the wind had got up outside and blown into the garage, which I'd left open to help fumes escape.  It was completely calm when I left it.  That breeze was enough to pull up one of the sheet's edges and deposit it onto the wet frame  :hissy:
 :banghead:
So, thoughts of getting the remaining coats on the frame tonight are now out of the window, and next time I have free time I'll probably have to sand the whole frame back to bare metal again. :'(

After a lot of grumbling I forced myself to move on and cracked on with getting the riser plates for the wheels drilled and into place.  I clamped some offcuts underneath when drilling just to stop blow outs.  I'll finish off the wheels next time, after which I'll have the base of a cabinet, if nothing else!


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #157 on: April 16, 2020, 05:46:10 pm »
It also strikes me that I'm now four pages into this build, and about a year, but it still feels like I have a long way to go!  Onwards...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #158 on: April 16, 2020, 05:51:50 pm »
It also strikes me that I'm now four pages into this build, and about a year, but it still feels like I have a long way to go! Onwards...

Don't let this depress you. The building is the best part! Seriously. My first full size build took just over a year (with some finishing touches done several years later) and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Heck, I gave the machine away.  :P

Playing the games is easy, anyone can do that. But only us BYOACers understand the love of building what we play.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #159 on: April 16, 2020, 09:49:42 pm »
Whoa, You are getting a little ahead of yourself...Let's go backwards a minute, That putty you are using is for patching oil pan leaks or something, But you got it flat so let's just leave it there and hope for the best, We need to bury that with a glaze putty, At the car store they sell a cheap laquer based stuff in a toothpaste tube, cheap, and shrink, but fine for that...Level it off, lightly sand, permatex rust kill actually acts like a sealer, spray the area, primer would be optimal but in the interest of saving some money, paint the area (just the spots) 3 light coats let dry, lightly sand...And hang it on a wire, frame door open and all, wipe it down with alcohol, and paint it all at once...This way you don't have to tape it off to do it in stages, tape on fresh paint should be avoided, especially with a cheaper, slow drying hammer finish bomber can, since it will leave tape marks...Paint it all at once, no paper, no tape, just really clean and door open so you get everywhere...It is frustrating I know, but once you understand flat and compatible, there ain't much you can't do.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #160 on: April 17, 2020, 01:36:12 pm »
Thanks, I'll have to experiment with hanging the door because I'm pretty sure that with the door open there are some bits that aren't visible and so couldn't be painted, which is why I opted for masking.  Obviously if I can get away with hanging (and find a contact place for the hanger that doesn't need paint itself...) then that would be a lot easier.

For the other stuff I seem to be getting caught between your obvious expertise and believing what manufacturers tell me.  The putty, for instance, says it can be used for filling metal and that it can be painted directly.  The Hammerite tells me I can use it on bare metal, no primer needed.  For the glaze putty I'm struggling to search without just finding glazing putty, as in putty for use when installing windows  :)  Is this kind of filling putty the sort of thing you had in mind?
https://www.halfords.com/motoring/paints-and-body-repair/fillers-and-preparation/holts-cataloy-knifing-putty-100g-154211.html

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #162 on: April 20, 2020, 02:39:18 pm »
I did a quick print of the control panel overlay to see how it looked at the right size and also to have a look at colour fit with the likely cabinet colour.  The print is only on plain paper so the colours aren't standing out like I want them too.  The red looks a bit muted and the darker colours on the instruction card are almost unreadable.  I'll do a glossy print at some point to make sure things look better, otherwise the colours will need to be tweaked.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #163 on: April 20, 2020, 02:47:46 pm »
Oh, a little tip for printing these things.  I produced a pdf of the file, but then struggled to print it because it's wider than A4 and so it only wanted to print the first page.  It turns out that this is one of those (fortunately rare) times that you actually need something like Adobe Reader rather than just the native pdf handling of the browser.  With Reader installed you can print across multiple pages, which I'll be testing more with the bezel at some point.  With a set of the artwork on paper I can try them out for size and spot any sizing issues etc. before I get them printed properly in the future.  I'm considering widening the 1P/2P holes a fraction, for instance, so they accommodate the buttons without going outside the frame.

On that subject, when it comes to the CPO do people usually cut the holes in their control panel using a test print like this as a template?  I'm trying to figure out the best order.  When I have a real perspex CPO I'm assuming I'll have to cut holes in it, and if I can cut through the control panel wood to make those cuts then that sounds like a good approach.  Otherwise I could cut the control panel wood by drilling through the perspex/plexi/whatever but trying to cut that without guides sounds like something that's bound to go wrong.  But I don't want to use the test print as a template and then find that the final perspex ends up being a slightly different size.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #164 on: April 20, 2020, 03:02:37 pm »
On that subject, when it comes to the CPO do people usually cut the holes in their control panel using a test print like this as a template?  I'm trying to figure out the best order.  When I have a real perspex CPO I'm assuming I'll have to cut holes in it, and if I can cut through the control panel wood to make those cuts then that sounds like a good approach.  Otherwise I could cut the control panel wood by drilling through the perspex/plexi/whatever but trying to cut that without guides sounds like something that's bound to go wrong.  But I don't want to use the test print as a template and then find that the final perspex ends up being a slightly different size.

Lots of ways to skin this cat but here's what I did. I had the CPO printed with the button holes pre-cut. I lined that up onto my piece of wood, then dropped my drill press down (with a forstner bit in it) to lightly indent the center of the holes onto the wood. Removed artwork, drilled holes, put artwork back in place; this time with the buttons in place to hold everything together. Removed backing on half without buttons, stuck that down. Removed buttons, removed remaining backing, stuck it down.

I have less experience that most of the people here but i would NOT recommend drilling through the artwork and the wood at the same time. I don't think drilling through artwork is a good idea in general. I've used exact knives or other blades on them - but can only imagine what a drill might do!

The test print looks nice, imo

Edit: Realize now you were thinking of using your test print, sacrificing that, to drill your holds. I suppose that could work - as long as your test print and final artwork don't have any variations.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 03:05:36 pm by meyer980 »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #165 on: April 20, 2020, 03:07:21 pm »
Thanks, yes, if I can get the CPO cut with the holes done for me then that would make things easier.  Of course, if they don't get drilled in quite the right place then that's going to really annoy me though  ;)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #166 on: April 20, 2020, 03:12:37 pm »
Thanks, yes, if I can get the CPO cut with the holes done for me then that would make things easier.  Of course, if they don't get drilled in quite the right place then that's going to really annoy me though  ;)

True enough! I've been fortunate though, at least with my custom artwork, I've been sent proofs with the cut lines added so I can confirm it's what I want. And with the type of equipment printers have access to today, they can get pretty damn exact. SlammedNess here on the forums, for example, printed my miniature build artwork. And the cuts were like right on the money.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #167 on: April 21, 2020, 03:12:15 am »
First of all, include the center of the holes in your art (x marks the spot), so that you can lay the art on the CP and know exactly where to drill.

You can use a piece of scrap wood to do a sandwich. It has to be big enough to cover the holes, it doesn't have to have the exact shape of the CP.

- do a test print of the art, align it on the CP

- use a nail to punch holes at the center of the holes (that's why x should mark the spot)

- clamp the CP and the scrap wood together, the CP goes on top

- drill pilot holes through the marked spots

- apply the art to the CP, using the pilot holes as reference

- flip the CP over, put nails into the holes so that they stick out a bit if you put the scrap wood on top

- put the scrap wood on top of the CP using the nails as a guide

- clamp CP and scrap wood together

- remove the nails and drill the final holes (drill through the scrap wood and about halfway through the CP, then flip the thing over and drill through the rest to avoid blowout)

OR you can use an exacto knife/router. Take a look at this: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,130690.msg1425323.html#msg1425323. Scroll down a bit, skip the part about the t-molding and the joysticks.
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #168 on: April 21, 2020, 06:08:16 am »
First of all, include the center of the holes in your art (x marks the spot), so that you can lay the art on the CP and know exactly where to drill.


Thanks for this, and the rest of your info.  I like the idea of marking centres.  Now I just need to figure out a good way to position circles like this on the artwork accurately, but I stand a lot better chance of doing that then finding four circle holes manually afterwards!

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #169 on: April 21, 2020, 06:17:04 am »
A print onto photo paper didn't really lift the colour much, if at all (see below). 

I changed the SCORING VALUE/POWER-UP and the "Extra Felix" text to be the same colour as the logo in order to bring them together and lift the colours, but the colour still looked too dark, so I ended up brightening the all-caps items to use the same font colour as "Extra Felix".  Oddly those colours still look different, but a think the brightness is better now.  I'll do a print when I have a minute.

 

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #170 on: April 21, 2020, 06:51:54 am »
I like the idea of marking centres.  Now I just need to figure out a good way to position circles like this on the artwork accurately, but I stand a lot better chance of doing that then finding four circle holes manually afterwards!

That's easy. Say your buttons (including the ring around them) are 35 mm wide. Make a circle in your graphics program that has a diameter of 35 mm, place it perfectly in the player 1 button shape. Draw a horizontal line through the center point of the circle to the FIX shape. Draw vertical lines through the middle of the 2-Player, JUMP and FIX shapes. Now you have the center points of the three other circles. Place the three circles, put an X on each center point, remove the help lines.



I don't know if it's just the perspective of the photo, but it looks like if you would lower that button down, it would blot out the black line of the JUMP shape. You might need to make the shapes bigger. 
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #171 on: April 21, 2020, 04:28:36 pm »
I like your thinking, thanks.  I should be able to figure out how to find the mid-point so I can draw those verticals.

I think it's perspective and that the button JUST fits.  If you look at a number of DK CPO photos then the buttons seem to overlap the shape and spill outside, but that's one thing I don't see a need to faithfully emulate.  I'm planning to test fit the button into my paper cut-out, but given what you've just said about drawing circles then it also dawns on me that I can test this there as well.   I think I'll end up stretching all those shapes a little bit.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #172 on: April 21, 2020, 05:05:38 pm »
I'm going to be fitting a couple of service buttons on the horizontal panel that sits beneath the control panel area, as others before me have done.  I've settled on just a power button and a back/escape button, both of which seem pretty vital.  I know I could shift-key access to "back", but I want something more accessible to people.  That said, I don't want either of these buttons to be in your face or easy to accidentally press. 

Neither button has a place on the 80s-themed cabinet in terms of look and feel, which is another reason to tuck them away.  But I also want a clear distinction between original/non-original features.  So whilst the visible cabinet won't feature anything modern like LED buttons and the like, I feel like these buttons almost ask to be treated differently.  Like a modern extension on a period house  :)

I've found some recessed buttons that are about half the diameter of a standard arcade button.  The power one features a power icon and is lit green for both the icon and the surrounding ring.  The  "escape" one is lit white and has the ring but no icon.  Both are momentary switches.  They do latched versions, but I don't need them.  The idea is that the power button will glow gently green to help anyone who is LOOKING for it, but it's on the underside of the panel and so won't be advertising itself too much.  A momentary press will turn on the PC inside the cabinet using the PC's standard power header extended up to this switch.  Once the PC turns on I'll take the 12V from the PC to switch a relay which will extinguish the power button light and light the escape button instead.  Again, this helps make the escape button more discoverable.  The power button won't do anything beyond this point to prevent it being accidentally pressed by people looking for the escape button.  Shutdown will only be possible by exiting the launcher.

The only challenge here is that a PCs power supply doesn't give out 12V until the PC is turned on.  The switch LEDs are 12V but they glow fine at 5V, so to solve the problem I'm taking 5V from USB, thanks to USB charging support.  I've tested this tonight and it's just about worked as planned.  I'm taking 12V from the power supply to power to relay and the USB 5V for the LED.  When I turn the PC on it flips the relay.  The only thing that's NOT working is the 5V USB when the machine is first connected to power.  If I turn on the PC then I get 5V as expected, and if I then force the PC off again then the 5V remains.  If I can't find a solution then it's not the end of the world and simply means that the power light won't come on when the machine is first connected to power (or after a power cut).  If I absolutely can't live with that then I can always put a small USB-powered battery in there and have it acting as my 5V source, constantly re-charged when the PC is turned on.

« Last Edit: April 21, 2020, 05:08:36 pm by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #173 on: April 24, 2020, 06:32:17 am »
I've sort of settled on this for the cabinet colour.


It has a fancy trigger mechanism that I think it supposed to be better, but I'd opt for a normal spray nozzle any day.  Firstly I really struggled, mad as this sounds, to get any paint to actually come out.  There's a little piece of plastic that you have to remove before you can squeeze the trigger, but even after that squeezing the trigger (gently, then gradually more firmly) failed to actually produce any paint.  I tried a second can with the same results, consulted online in case I was missing anything (video shows smiling model gently squeezing trigger), tried again, shook the can a bunch more, tried agin, turned upside down, tried again, suddenly there's paint.  So I'm not quite sure what actually made it work in the end, but I've more cans to try and figure this out.  Really, getting paint out of a spray can shouldn't be hard.

Anyway, once the can is working the spray is relatively low pressure, so it's easy to work with but as I use it I seem to have to apply more and more pressure to the trigger to get paint to keep flowing.  Also, every time you START spraying it splutters ineffectively for a couple of seconds, so you have to watch out for that.  But overall it goes on okay, or at least it DID.  I got to this point.



Then, after a light sand I added another coat, but now the can has started spitting during use.  The can feels like there's a decent amount in it still, and either way it shouldn't just spatter paint.  The lighting isn't good, but you can make it out in this picture:



Obviously this is really frustrating because I'll now need to sand that back and respray, but I'm nervous about other cans now doing the same.  I'd deliberately picked the coin door for a test because it's big enough but not massive, and because I can paint it before assembly without any massive downsides.  The thought of an entire side panel getting messed up on later coats with dodgy spray is a bit worrying.

Whilst spraying this panel I noticed that the MDF in one corner had become a bit spongy.  I'm not sure if it got damp over winter or something else, but I clamped it back to size and then spread the edges with some wood glue.  That seems to have firmed it up nicely.  I was slightly worried about glueing the clamp to the top surface of the wood and so destroying it when I removed the clamp, but luckily I got away with that one.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #174 on: April 24, 2020, 03:47:19 pm »
Seems like you shouldn't have that kind of trouble with pressure on an aerosol.  I don't recall that kind of issue amongst the 5+ cans I've used across different brands.  They all were top spray triggers, not sure if that makes a difference.   :dunno

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #175 on: April 26, 2020, 04:48:48 pm »
It's odd, I decided I'd use the can for first coats on other pieces of wood and it's behaved almost perfectly since, so I've no idea what the earlier problem was.  Now I've just got to figure out how to stop random bits of crap and insects falling in my paint when it's drying.  Losing count of the sand/resprays now...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #176 on: April 26, 2020, 05:43:37 pm »
Obviously a clean booth would be best, But if you spray 2 cans of yard guard upwind before you paint that will give you enough time for 3 coats before it wears off and the bugs figger out they been tricked,  Painting while it is raining outside really helps too as it gets everything wet...If you can spray water on the floor of your paint area (nothing above what your painting) and it will stay wet long enough for your 3 coats.. And lastly, if anyone non essential to the project is hanging around, don't paint till you get rid of them, curiosity is one thing, but kicking up dirt, is another.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #177 on: April 27, 2020, 04:26:37 pm »
Great tips, thanks.  It's been pretty dry here lately so there's certainly a lot flying around in the air, both alive and not.  Rain starting tomorrow so hopefully that will help!

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - now with possible theme!
« Reply #178 on: April 27, 2020, 04:49:39 pm »
A few random updates.

Some may recall that I painted the inside of the side panels some time ago, and left taped-off areas where various bits needed to be glued later to ensure good adhesion.  One mistake I'd made when doing that was to tape off the area where the monitor bezel/control panel support goes.  This doesn't need to be left unpainted because it's not attached to the side panels, but is instead screwed to the blocking that goes behind it.  The downside of this is that there are a couple of areas where the paint doesn't extend as far as it needs to.  One is the little recess in which the bezel sits (no idea yet how I'm going to paint that without needing to spray a much larger area) and one is the area in front of this support.  This, typically, is a very visible area.  I'm not quite sure where the inaccuracy lies.  I've got about 1-2mm of visible wood in front of where the piece will mount, but I can't bring the piece forward by 2mm because it's in contact with the "key" piece on the side of the panel.  So the key could be 2mm too far back, or 2mm too deep etc.  There's an error somewhere and it could be in the plans or, most likely, something I've done. 

Anyway, easiest solution - I've trimmed a couple of mm off the front of the support, which isn't visible anyway because it's underneath the control panel.  This should do the job.  One side-effect is that it affects the position at which the control panel enters the support, so I've taken a bit more wood away so that the control panel can still make the angle that it needs to.



Next, the little horizontal piece that bridges between the coin door/front panel and the speaker panel.  This is where my service buttons are going.  I'd cut this piece last year but left it deliberately a load deeper than it needed to be.  I couldn't trust that the various panels would all meet and leave exactly the right gap.  Now that the blocking is in place I can make a more accurate cut, so I've measured with some offcuts in place and now cut it down to what's hopefully the right size.  I'm now about 3mm less than what the plans call for, so hopefully this isn't wrong.  Unless you're a toddler you're never going to see anyway.  I rough-cut this down with the jigsaw and then finished off with the router.



After that I drilled holes for the service buttons.  These have ended up not 100% level with each other, which is a bit annoying.  I had the centres marked accurately, but I noticed on the second hole that the drill bit has a slight wobble to it, so I think that's what's taken the holes out of alignment.



Taping the speaker grille ready for spray.  This wasn't fun, and I'm sure plenty of spray will be leaking its way into the gaps.  I'm bound to have to clean up the black paint a bit.



And, finally, a bit of colour on those two pieces.  This is them looking pretty nice, some time before the insect population descended upon them and left me with the marks that I'm now trying to clean up...





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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #179 on: April 27, 2020, 06:15:53 pm »
Thought it was about time that I sorted out the thread title...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #180 on: April 28, 2020, 06:14:47 am »
:banghead: close to screaming at this paint now.  I moved onto a second can to put a final coat or two on those pieces after recovering them from bug damage.  Same problems getting paint to come out, finally coerced it into spraying after several minutes of twisting the cap/manipulating the trigger etc., gave it a quick test to make sure it was spraying evenly, then moved on to spray my final coats and it happily splattered all over them in full raindrop-style.  So frustrating, and reading reviews for the product it seems that plenty of other people have the same issue.  I'm wondering if I can get the fancy cap off it and replace with a standard nozzle.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #181 on: April 28, 2020, 09:01:44 am »
I wonder if this could explain the problem with getting paint out initially.  I removed the fancy trigger and cap into order to try out a regular nozzle and found rust.  It's quite possible that the rust is preventing the nozzle from depressing until it works loose.

Also, with a standard nozzle attached the paint comes out fine, from a quick test.  Pressure is higher as well.  I'll be honest and say that the fancy nozzle and its lower pressure does make it easier to work with, but I'll be interested to try a normal nozzle on a decent-sized piece and see what the finish is like.  First I need to wait for the current damage to set so I can sand it back.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #182 on: May 02, 2020, 09:24:38 am »
One of the big items I'd been deliberating over since the start was the choice of monitor.  An arcade monitor would be great, but I had to GET one from somewhere, I had to hope that whatever I bought would actually fit, and then there's the many short and long term challenges that comes with using an arcade monitor compared a nice, easy, safe LCD panel.  LCD wins on every front apart from picture which, of course, is what it's really all about.

Some time back I took a punt on a Jamma cabinet with the thinking that it would be an interesting side-project at some point to do something with and, most importantly, might give me an arcade monitor for my Ralph cabinet.  The Jamma has sat in my garage over winter, and the garage is a fairly damp place although I've periodically run a dehumidifier.  I did test the arcade monitor before winter but only re-tested it in the last couple of weeks when the weather warmed up.  It works, although I haven't spent much time looking at the picture in detail, and there's a scratch on the glass that I probably can't do much about.



I'd taken some measurements from the monitor frame whilst it was in the old cabinet, which was imprecise because the metal bracket is angled etc., and come to the sad conclusion that it wouldn't fit.  I was convinced enough that I'd started to de-case an old LCD panel with a view to using that.  But I kept wondering about the arcade monitor and knew I wouldn't be able to rule it out until I'd given it a proper go.

Getting it out of the cabinet turned out to be a lot easier than I'd thought.  I wasn't quite sure what kind of weight I was expecting (memories of lifting old, large, CRT TVs in the past) but it's not THAT big and the frame is mounted onto a sheet of MDF with nice grab handles on each side.



There's quite a bit of bend on the side of the MDF, but I'd need to re-make it anyway to fit the Nintendo cabinet, which is a couple of inches wider than the Jamma.



To try and figure out if it had a chance of fitting in the cabinet I grabbed the paper 1:1 plans and held the monitor on top.  First the front got aligned with blocking of the shelf that would end up supporting it. 



I could probably bring this forward a little bit if necessary.  I also need to think about height, because I don't know how high the original monitor actually sits; there's danger of it being obscured by the bezel support.  Best case the MDF would hang over the front of the shelf and the metal frame would sit ON the shelf, but I suspect it would need to sit a little bit higher.  I'd also need something to secure the bottom of the frame so that the couldn't simply fall forwards if the cabinet tilted.

Anyway, signs weren't good.  It's hard to be accurate with this because it involves standing the monitor upright, and it doesn't naturally stand in this position.  But even balancing the monitor in one hand whilst eyeballing the frame it was clear that it didn't fit.   


I pretty much gave up at this point, and then it dawned on me that the frame shape is different at the top at the bottom of the monitor.  Sure enough, turning the monitor the other way up looked a lot more positive.


I can work with that, even if it ends up needing a tiny bit of movement inside the cabinet.  This is great news, and if anything terrible happens in the future then it wouldn't be a massive amount of work to downgrade to an LCD.

I think the MDF frame attached to the metal monitor frame is probably the easiest approach for mounting.  At the bottom I've already got the shelf, as mentioned.  I just need to think about what to do at the top for support.  This is where an original cabinet would have bolts from the outside holding a bracket which takes a metal support bar, but if most of the weight is being held by the bottom shelf then the top support becomes more about just making sure the monitor is at right angles to the shelf (I ASSUME that's the correct angle) and so I'm thinking that an L-bracket at either side would do that and also let me secure the monitor in place.  Thoughts welcome on that one if I've missed something.

That brings me onto the cabling side of things.  I've got an isolation transformer in the original cabinet along with some frankly dubious wiring that I'd replace.  I'm also amazed quite how thin the power wires going into the monitor are, but I can only hope that someone in the past knew what they were doing on that front.  So I'll steal the necessary parts from the Jamma cab (I'll downgrade that to LCD and other modern innards at some point, and feel fairly guilt-free because it's already far from original) and sort out the wiring where it needs it.  I just need to think about connecting the monitor to a PC.  I'd rather not use a J-PAC here if I can avoid it because I'll be using a U-HID for controls and so the J-PAC would be just be for the monitor connection.  I've got an old AMD 5450 1GB card.  Is this a situation where I can use ATOM-15 to flash the card to protect the monitor during boot, and then use GroovyMAME with CRT Emudriver beyond that?  If I can, then is it just a case of taking a VGA output from the card and figuring out the approrpriate wiring at the other end to connect to the monitor?  If not, any pointers here would be appreciated. 

 

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #183 on: May 02, 2020, 11:27:51 pm »
Your work is outstanding.  :applaud:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #184 on: May 03, 2020, 11:21:13 am »
Appreciated, thanks, especially coming from someone who has produced such amazing cabs :notworthy:

Just wasted a merry few hours hooking up a mini amp and speaker to test out sound.  I got a cheap mini amp from Amazon that had pretty good reviews and I THINK I may have already mentioned that I picked up a 6.5" speaker off eBay a while ago.  The speaker, if I didn't mention, is about 1/2" bigger than the original and so it's had a brutal little grind down to bring it down to size.  The amp can take voltage up to 24V but will run off a lot less, so I've got it running on an old mini-PC 12V power brick.  The annoying thing is that once it was all connected I had a hum from the speaker that was much too loud to be ignored, although the intensity of it dropped when sound was playing.

The time was then spent checking cables, trying different speaker wire, looking into possible offenders and reading lots about ground loops and the like.  Since I'm already using a separate power supply and running it and the PC from a shared 4-bar then I was running out of ideas.  And then I moved one cable and the hum stopped for a second, but the cable was just a USB lead that wasn't even connected to anything.  On further investigation I noticed that the USB cable was in contact with the sound wire, and I finally tracked down the problem to the 3.5mm jack socket.  If I lift up the 3.5mm jack then the hum stops, let it drop and it hums again.  It's great to have found the cause, but now I've got to figure out how to deal with it.  The socket is one of a bank of 6 of them on the back of the motherboard, and since I've already tried multiple plugs then I know it's the socket that's at fault.  I need to see if it's possible to crack it open and then maybe I can wire directly onto the terminals rather than use the socket.  It's amazing how time can get eaten up on the stuff that should be straightforward!
« Last Edit: May 03, 2020, 11:30:57 am by UnclearHermit »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #185 on: May 03, 2020, 06:26:06 pm »
Managed to work around the audio issue.  I had a look at the ports on the motherboard but they're clearly not designed to be serviceable.  So I turned to software, and it turns out that the Realtek ports can be remapped so you can effectively map any port to any other port.  Took me a few goes to get the relevant registry entry right, but now I'm able to get line out from one of the other ports, nicely buzz-free  ;D

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #186 on: May 03, 2020, 06:59:18 pm »
Managed to work around the audio issue.  I had a look at the ports on the motherboard but they're clearly not designed to be serviceable.  So I turned to software, and it turns out that the Realtek ports can be remapped so you can effectively map any port to any other port.  Took me a few goes to get the relevant registry entry right, but now I'm able to get line out from one of the other ports, nicely buzz-free  ;D

Glad to hear you got it figured out. Some motherboards have terrible shielding or use very cheap analog audio ports, a tough problem to deal with.

Sounds like you're good to go but one solution I've heard people do is buy a cheap USB sound card and use that instead. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Adapter-Windows-AU-MMSA/dp/B00IRVQ0F8/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1JQQ1O9FY8248&dchild=1&keywords=usb+sound+card&qid=1588546721&sprefix=usb+sound%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-3

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #187 on: May 04, 2020, 03:58:39 pm »
That's really good to know, thanks.  I hadn't realised I could get something like that so cheap.  If anything else goes wrong then that's definitely the way forward!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #188 on: May 06, 2020, 01:39:24 pm »
Sometimes things go as well as you could hope.

If you remember, I'd bought a coin door which needed a little work.



Aside from the dirt there was some scratching and a couple of dents.



So I'd taken it back to metal and then used a metal filler on it, but then Jen mentioned that I really needed something on top of that.



In the absence of product knowledge I bought some of this:



It's not the easiest thing in the world to work with because you have to use a tiny bit of hardener with a load of filler.  The ratio is a pot of filler to a small tube of hardener, which would be fine if making up large quantities but it means that when making SMALL quantities (which you have to, because it sets fast) then you've absolutely no idea how much hardener to use.  The tiny dot of hardener just doesn't seem like it'll actually mix around and make any kind of difference and so there's the temptation to add more, but then it all sets so fast that you get some time to spread it before it suddenly won't spread any more.

Anyway, when it goes on well then it's great stuff and it's incredibly smooth when sanded.  I did a few rounds of filling and sanding to work out the ridges and ended up with a much wider area than the original metal filler BUT it felt nice and smooth and gave me confidence for the paint stage.



I'm using the Hammerite spray, hammered finish, which says it doesn't need a primer and so I didn't give it one.  I abandoned my original masking job and just hung it to spray (that was fun, figuring out how to suspend in various ways so I could reach all the edges) but after a few coats I ended up with this, which I have to say I'm really happy with.



It's blacker than that in normal light, just reflecting the sun in that photo.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #189 on: May 07, 2020, 02:37:58 pm »
This mess of wiring is a test for the coin door wiring.  Since I'm having coin mechs then I HAD to have a coin counter, so I picked up one for not a lot off eBay and then had to figure out how to wire it so that it would increment for either coin entry and also send the relevant coin entry code down to the U-HID.  I read various sources for this and took away lots of good stuff but couldn't find anything that described how to wire it for both coin mechs.  I thought I had it figured out on paper and this was my chance to test it before a proper wiring job later, running the whole thing off a 9V battery (complicated by the fact I didn't have a connector for the battery to-hand).

I had it set up so that the first mech would send key "a" and the second would send "b", and both microswitches were pulsing the coin counter fine.  When I pressed down switch 1 I'd get an "a" and when I pressed down switch 2 I got a "b", but then it started spewing out endless "a"s on repeat until I pressed switch 1 again.  I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring and so I stripped it back to simpler and simpler setup but it was still doing it even when I just had each switch cable directly to the U-HID.  I then swapped out the "bad" microswitch for a different one and the problem went away, at which point I thought I must have a bad switch.  But I then put the original switch back and the problem remains "fixed".  So I'm a bit confused, but it's working fine now.  The only thing missing is a service button that will give a credit, but that's just a simple switch in parallel with either of the existing switches.

Now just need to figure out how to wire this all neatly with all the diodes etc.  Some soldering and cable sleeving coming up, I think.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #190 on: May 07, 2020, 06:35:36 pm »
Anyone know the angle that the monitor screen is supposed to be in relation to the monitor shelf? I’d assumed it would be 90 degrees because I see in pictures the frame gets attached to the shelf at that angle. But that would mean the monitor frame must itself be angled, because Gaetan’s plans show the bolt holes for the top monitor bracket much further back than they would be to form a 90 degree angle.

https://www.classicarcadecabinets.com/uploads/4/9/8/2/49822065/donkey_kong_cab_-_gaetan_-_coupe__1.1_.pdf

I found a mention of the screen being at 35 degrees in the cabinet itself but I need to check the angle of the shelf to see if that makes sense.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2020, 06:48:14 pm by UnclearHermit »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #191 on: May 08, 2020, 06:33:03 pm »
Checking the diagrams it looks like the monitor shelf would put the monitor screen, if placed at 90 degrees to it, at about 47 degrees.  The rear door support, on the other hand, is at about 36 degrees.  The back of the monitor sits just in front of this, so if I assume that the monitor front sits parallel to this then it would be at the same 36 degrees.  I don't really understand why the monitor shelf and this rear support aren't at 90 degrees to each other, but I assume it must be something to do with the shape of the original monitor frame. 

If I hang my MDF frame over the front of the monitor shelf then the screen will probably be slightly further forward than it's supposed to be, but in the absence of information I'll probably go with that. If I then put an L-bracket in the original place for the monitor upper support and lean the top of my MDF frame against that then the angle of the monitor shouldn't be million miles off what it's supposed to be.  But I'd need to change the angle of the L-bracket to sit at 90 degrees to whatever angle gets created between the MDF frame and the monitor shelf, and I'll need a support piece (ideally angled) attached to the underside of the monitor shelf to screw the MDF frame to.  This would all be a lot easier the the monitor shelf just sat at 90 degrees to the monitor screen!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #192 on: May 09, 2020, 09:21:41 am »
A picture might help.  This is the angle at which the monitor will hit the monitor shelf, and you can see how the metal frame will hit the shelf at a point rather than lying flat on it.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #193 on: May 09, 2020, 12:45:40 pm »
Coin door looks great after all your hard work, keep it up  :applaud: :D

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #194 on: May 20, 2020, 12:54:55 pm »
Thanks  :cheers:

Finally bit the bullet today and ordered the metalwork and other bits that I need from Mikes Arcade.  I'd really been hoping I'd find a cheaper way of doing this, because the shipping and import duties to the UK are a killer.  But I can't ever finish this thing without the bits, so I'll just have to swallow the cost and get on with it!  I'm just lucky that there are sites even creating and selling this stuff, otherwise it wouldn't even be possible.  But if one of them decided to set up shop in the UK then that's fine too :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #195 on: May 20, 2020, 03:30:06 pm »
I needed something to go behind the speaker panel to act as a grille, so after much eBay (hard to shop around in the real world at the moment) I found a sheet of perforated metal that I was able to order in a size that would meet my needs.  This arrived last week and I was able to set to work on it over the weekend.



I'd decided that I could use the same material to, with luck, create something to go inside the rear handle opening, so I ordered a bit to meet both purposes.

The speaker bit was a simple piece to cut, but for the handle inserts I needed to make sure it would cover the opening comfortably, allow room inside to "grab" the handle, and have a folded edge to allow it to be screwed to the wood.



First step was to measure and mark.


Tin snips then got the unneeded pieces out of the way without too much trouble.  What I HAD found by this point is that I'd made a little bit of a mistake with the order.  The eBay seller had a choice of metals available, so I opted for the cheapest without REALLY thinking that through.  Cheapest was mild steel, but I was expecting a very thin piece of metal that I'd have no trouble cutting and bending.  Steel, of course, is pretty tough even when it's thin...



It wasn't hard to cut this with the snips, but to get the stuff to bend I had a bit more work on my hands.  Obviously I was wishing I'd bought the aluminium for a couple more quid at this point. 

I don't own a vice, which would have been the easiest way to do the bends, so I had to get creative.  I settled on using the metal of a clamp as a line to bend against, and then clamp my mesh sheet to that.  I then scored along the marked lines to make the bends favour those lines, starting off with a screwdriver to score the metal and later resorting to an oscillating tool.  The screwdriver does generally work fine, but it's easy to get pushed off the scoring line because of the holes in the sheet material.  I did the bends by starting to apply pressure from the furthest point, to give the most leverage, but following up pushing more with the palm close to the folding edge in order to try and keep the fold tight.



For the bit where the metal will screw to the wood I just flipped the metal over and scored the other side, but I clamped down on the small edge because trying to bend such a small bit would be practically impossible.



As I progressed with the "box" shape I couldn't keep the bar to fold against so I had to resort to wood offcuts clamped against the fold lines.  I also used additional clamps to actually apply the pressure to fold in the metal.





Ended up with one of these, which won't win me any metalwork awards but which will certainly do the job for the inside of the cabinet.



Even unpainted this looks quite nice behind the handle hole.



To paint everything I used the same spray that I used on the coin door because it doesn't require a primer and I hoped it would give a nice finish.  I'd already cleaned the whole sheet with meths when it arrived.  I needed to suspend them somehow so that they didn't just stick to the surface, so I popped a bunch of nails through the back of some cardboard.



With a little bit of positioning I was then able to balance the pieces on the end of those nails.  The end of the nails, which isn't a perfect point, means that the actual contact area with the pieces is really minimal.



A couple of coats of paint (both sides, for good measure) and I ended up with these.



I think it's a decent solution to the problem that doesn't require much in the way of DIY skills.  Thanks has to go to Chance for his DK Ulitmate build thread, which gave photos and some inspiration for this!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #196 on: May 29, 2020, 03:11:49 pm »
A few random updates of recent bits.

Inspired by success with the rear handles I thought I'd try another bit to hold the service button.  Not perfect, and I've got the 3D printed version on order from Mike's Arcade, so I can still swap it out if I want to.


Here it is in place on the coin door, along with a little wooden mount I've made for the coin counter.  The counter I have isn't original and so I needed a way to attach it.  This seemed like the easiest solution.


Used a few offcuts to add support pieces to the rear panels.  These aren't mentioned much in build threads, but seem important for supporting the rear door.  The recesses on the wood are because I cut these back pieces from 15mm well before I realised the rear door was thinner, so I had to trim the edges to match the door's smaller depth.





Fitted the rear handles.


And the speaker plus grille.


Looks nice in place.


And, ending with a really dull one, found some brackets I can use to support the monitor, so gave them a quick spray because, well, why not?








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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #197 on: June 01, 2020, 06:00:49 pm »
A few odds this weekend and then actually started putting the thing together!

First thing was to get a support bracket in at the correct angle (hopefully) for the monitor.  For this I printed out the angle onto paper, cut it out, then used a straight edge to get the bracket in the right position.  The angle had to take into account the shelf that the monitor will rest on, so I used an offcut above the blocking to simulate that for now.  My own photo had me confused for a while.  Where the square meets the wood that's not an angled piece of wood, but the offcut of MDF standing vertically.



Next was the marquee light.  I've got one from eBay that was recommended elsewhere.  It's LED, which is fine, and mains voltage, which is irritating.  I'd prefer to have run this off a 5V or 12V supply from the PC, but it's not the end of the world.  I DO need to think about powering on the cabinet at some point.  I'm going to have the PC PSU, 12V power supply for amp, a 240V plug for the LED and the 240V for the monitor.  I can't see myself pulling the cabinet out every time just to power it on, so ideally I'd have it plugged in but not burning money on running the amp permanently etc.  One of those smart strips seem like a plan here, but I need to find somewhere that still sells them.  Searching for them these days just brings up loads of Alexa-controlled stuff...  Alternatively I could use a 240V relay to swtch on a separate 4-bar of devices once the PC is powered on.  I wouldn't mind having the marquee light switched separately as well (so I can have it lit as feature lighting even when the cabinet is off), but that might be more hassle than it's worth.

Anyway, marquee light, with the world's shortest power lead, in place:



Any thoughts on how thin wire I can get away with for this?  Since it's just LEDs it's going to be a tiny power draw at 240V.

Gaetan's plans are brilliant, but be aware that they mainly highlight blocking that's on the SIDES of the cabinets.  For front and back you're on your own.  I've attached some pieces as I've thought on them, using photos for reference where possible.  For others, like the top handle panel, I forgot until now and added some blocking to allow the panel to be attached to the top of the cabinet.



And so to assembly!  Since everything is attached from the inside it can be pretty fiddly to access the screws.  It's not helped by the fact I've currently misplaced my angle driver bit.  The tighest area so far, which I've seen mentioned in other threads, is inside the marquee area, where I've resorted to a socket set to get access.



Anyway, I've got a few bits in place, glue and screwed.  Next step is to get the other side panel on top, hoping everything is in the right position and square.



One problem I'm noticing is that the matt panels are marking really easily.  "Paint it last, not first" would be a suggestion, but it's going to get brushed against/dusted/whatever in the future and so I need to find some way to make it more resilient.  Any suggestions for a protective layer on top of the matt spray?


ChanceKJ

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« Reply #198 on: June 02, 2020, 05:26:15 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:56 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #199 on: June 02, 2020, 05:57:15 am »
Thanks.  That looks like what I need.  So do you apply the matt(e) version to your matt finishes and the semi-gloss to semi-gloss?  Or do you find the semi-gloss is okay without this top coat?

I can't get exactly the same stuff in the UK by the looks of it, but they do a Rust-oleum "Crystal Clear" in the same finishes.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=rustoleum+clear&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
« Last Edit: June 02, 2020, 06:05:35 am by UnclearHermit »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #200 on: June 03, 2020, 04:11:42 pm »
Some excitement today...

Firstly, a quick bit on assembly.  Having got the first side and a few pieces attached to it I had to get the other side attached.  Moving this into place as a dry fit it became apparent that it didn't fit together as well as it should, although the good news is that all the pieces seemed to be in the right place.  I eventually figured out that the second side had become a bit bent, probably because it's been leaning for a while.  Some clamping and weighting down over night sorted most of that.  I still can't get everything everywhere 100% square, so I've done what I can and we'll see how things look as things move on.



Getting from the dry fit to the glue stage is fiddly.  There are several pieces of blocking that need to be glued at the same time.  By the time I got from one end of the cabinet to the other, adjusting/clamping/screwing as I went, I knew that the glue at the other end would either start drying without being properly in contact or just dry in the wrong place.  I couldn't see a good way around this, so I just had to do some extra glue as I reached the other end by bending things around to get access to the blocking.  Seems okay all done, but I'd rather have had access to give everything a decent amount of glue.  My fear here is that the screws are having to do too much work and I won't know that until down the line when it falls apart  ;)

Anyway, onto more exciting news.  Arrival from Mikes Arcade  :)



This travelled, beautifully packaged, all the way from the US to the UK.  Cost me an absolute fortune in shipping and import costs, which I'm trying to forget.  But I now have all the metalwork pieces, plus some of the flat t-moulding.  There are plenty of discussion threads about who sells proper flat t-moulding.  Here it is in profile, and I'll update the thread once it's in place so you can see the final outcome.



And, finally, with the cabinet glue set and having sat in various clamps overnight, it stands for the first time.  Finally, something resembling an arcade cabinet  ;D




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #201 on: June 03, 2020, 04:14:54 pm »
:applaud:  you are doing good work.  Keep it up.  Feels like it’s never gonna end right?

ChanceKJ

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« Reply #202 on: June 03, 2020, 04:41:12 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:48 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #203 on: June 03, 2020, 05:42:33 pm »
:applaud:  you are doing good work.  Keep it up.  Feels like it’s never gonna end right?

Thanks.  And yes!  It's nice to actually see some bits coming together finally.  There are so many more details and things to consider than I thought possible at the start of this.  I've got upright spraying to look forward to soon.  I've taken the easier route so far by doing all the spray horizontally.  Hopefully I've learned enough with the spray so far to get the vertical stuff right.

I’ve never tried changing the finish with say a matte clear coat on a gloss base.  I mean, you could always by a can and test your paint process on a scrap of wood. Thats what I always do if I’m not sure.
Thanks, I wasn't planning the change finish.  For the matt coats I can use a matt clear coat.  It was more whether you'd found it necessary to put a semi gloss clear coat on a semi gloss paint, or if you'd found the semi gloss durable enough on its own.  I don't remember seeing you do clear coat on your DK Ultimate, for example.

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« Reply #204 on: June 04, 2020, 07:07:47 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:39 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #205 on: June 09, 2020, 04:23:05 pm »
First issue with metal parts vs plans.  The slot for the bottom bezel bracket is shown as 6mm on the Gaetan plans, but the bracket from Mike's Arcade is at least 1mm wider than that, so I needed to widen the slot and also make it deeper.  I'd never been particularly happy with this slot anyway, having struggled to keep the router in a straight line whilst getting across the narrow surface, so it was a good chance to try something different.

A couple of years ago I bought an old (1/2") router off eBay for about £10, but in the end I bought myself a new 1/4" router because it was easier dealing with a router for the first time with luxuries like instructions.  The old router isn't in great condition, but I thought it was worth trying to construct a very crude temporary router table.  I cut a hole in a lower section of my workbench and made holes to allow the router to be attached to the underside.  I then clamped a guide piece of wood at one end loosely enough to be pivoted to give me the distance from the router bit to cut my slot.  If I made this more permanent I could put a bolt through to allow this piece to be adjusted, but for the very rare use I've planned for it this worked fine.  Once the guide piece was in the correct place I clamped both ends tight.



This allowed me to run my wood along the improvised fence, which worked pretty well.  I had to route twice with the small router bit to give me the slot size that I needed, and I had to patch up one bit where things went off-target, but I now have a bigger slot and it's a lot neater than the original.

The photo below show the bezel support in place, albeit the wrong way around; I think the higher vertical peiece faces OUTWARDS, but I can't be 100% sure because the piece doesn't match the profile of the original.  The original, shown at https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=BZLRETNLWR matches the image on the left, whereas the one I've received has the profile of the one on the right.  I think I actually prefer it this way; I can't see why the original would "stick out" from the bezel.



I'm slightly curious how the bezel sits in what appears to be a vertical support and yet holds a bezel in it that's not itself positioned vertically.  Something has to give somewhere...  It might be that the bezel just pulls the bracket slightly off-angle, but if so then I need to make sure there's enough play in the slot for that to be possible.

There's a slight imperfection in the metal on the surface at the far left that you can see in the photo.  I could probably file it down but then I'd have to paint, so I might just have to live with it, or maybe just put a dot of paint or marker pen over it to make it less obvious

Any ideas what the hole is for?  The only possible thing I can think would be to screw the bracket into the bezel, but I can't think why that would needed or even a good idea.



ChanceKJ

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« Reply #206 on: June 09, 2020, 11:59:44 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:28 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #207 on: June 10, 2020, 07:28:59 am »
Ah, okay, thanks.  At least I'm not supposed to be screwing it to anything then!

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« Reply #208 on: June 11, 2020, 04:29:08 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:19 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #209 on: June 12, 2020, 09:39:27 am »
Following this thread.  Great project - love the theme!  Can't wait to see the finished product.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #210 on: June 25, 2020, 06:14:26 pm »
thanks  :)

The problem with infrequent posting is forgetting where you've got up to...

So I got the top and bottom pieces on the back.



The problem I found with all of this is getting the cabinet square in all dimensions.  I'd hoped that once I got the two sides together that things would mostly sort themselves out, but there's little at this stage to just stop the thing swaying from left to right.  Angles seem to be off all over the place, and correcting one angle just seems to send another one off.  By getting these two little pieces in place on the back in all helps in starting to hold the cabinet more square and rigid, at least in one dimension.  I attached the front door panel for similar reasons.



This piece attaches to blocking on both sides and the base, so is held well in position, but at the top where it meets the little horizontal piece there's not much holding it in place across the front of the cabinet.  I added a bit of glue to keep those two pieces together, but since it might not hold well on the painted wood I added a few brads in from the rear whilst keeping it clamped.



I hadn't cut the back panel up until this point because I knew its size would very much depend on everything that surrounds it.  The rear door is only 12mm rather than the 15mm of the rest of the cabinet.  Once I'd cut it to size I used the router to cut half of the depth away on the lower short edge, where the panel slots in to a similar groove cut in the lower back panel. 



The panel is currently too tight a fit and I have pull the cabinet slightly to one side to make the recess square enough for it to fit.  I'm not sure if I can find a way to more permanently brace it in this correct, square position.  At the moment if I trim the door to make it a slightly looser fit then the cabinet will simply stay in the "wrong" position, leaving the rear door panel sitting wonky in the frame.  I'm coming back to that once I get a few other bits done.

Speaking of which, I made the container and shelf for the coin box to sit inside.  I'd cut some pieces of this, and/or possibly of the coin box itself, from the parts list CAD file dimensions some time last year.  Looking at them now I'm not quite sure which bits they're supposed to be, because they refer to the coin box shelf and the coin box sides, so I don't know if it's the sides of the actual coin box or of the frame that holds the coin box (which sits on the coin box shelf).  There are also a fair few parts not mentioned, such as tops/backs etc.  The dimensions also don't seem to match other information.

DonkeyKong did a great thread and SketchUp models of the coin box here http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=75187.0.  If you look at the dimensions in the first post they show the coin box "container" sides as 7 3/4" high, which matches the size shown at https://www.classicarcadecabinets.com/donkey-kong.html.  But later in the thread (8 YEARS later) he added the SketchUp, which has the side half an inch taller.  Based upon the original sizes the CAD file is actually describing the coin box "frame" and not the coin box itself for the parts, despite the labels.  None of this really matters an enormous amount so long as the pieces all fit and are aligned with the coin mechs, but it's worth remembering if you're copying dimensions for making any of this stuff.  I'd recommend just working from the DonkeyKong files, because you have a nice 3D model with dimensions to make it entirely clear which piece is which.

The fiddly part of making this component are the two holes that the coins drop into. 

I'm sure there's a good way of doing this with various jigs or whatever to get router cuts in the right place, but I couldn't think of any easy one.  I ended up drilling out pretty close to the corners of each hole, taking the bulk out with the jigsaw, then using the flush trim bit along a clamped bit of wood to tidy up each line, cutting very carefully into the corners.  It worked, so that's what really matters, but I'd love to see how others do this in a better way.

With that done it was just a bunch of glue and clamps to get the various pieces together.







Here it is in place in the cabinet, but not screwed in yet:



And a quick test with the coin door in place, belatedly checking and hoping that the holes were where they were supposed to be!



Next up, the coin box...

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #211 on: June 25, 2020, 09:58:40 pm »
Looks great.  Love the details on the inside that not many will even see!

Cutting rectangles out of a panel is super easy using your method (drill the corners, jigsaw the rest) but instead of using clamps, you can use strips of (straight) wood held down with double sided tape to guide your router and flush bit.  You can set up any size rectangle this way in minutes and not have to worry about wonky clamp setups.  You can also do the entire rectangle at once instead of one edge at a time. 

The tape is really really strong and if you are worried about the surface, put down painters tape and then the double sided tape on top.  The large sticky surface area is plenty strong to make things stay in place.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #212 on: June 26, 2020, 12:08:15 pm »
Finally coming together, and it’s looking real nice.  I can relate to the challenge of lining everything up.  Don’t see too many people taking about that but yeah, getting the blocking just right is a ---smurfette---.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #213 on: June 26, 2020, 12:54:59 pm »
Finally coming together, and it’s looking real nice.  I can relate to the challenge of lining everything up.  Don’t see too many people taking about that but yeah, getting the blocking just right is a ---smurfette---.
100% agree.  Getting everything lined up and square is really difficult and stressful especially if you have already applied the glue.  Everyone just glosses over it because, well... it’s really boring and also because everyone knows how to do it in theory but in practice it’s a lot tougher.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #214 on: June 30, 2020, 05:06:18 pm »
Looks great.  Love the details on the inside that not many will even see!

Cutting rectangles out of a panel is super easy using your method (drill the corners, jigsaw the rest) but instead of using clamps, you can use strips of (straight) wood held down with double sided tape to guide your router and flush bit.

Thanks :) I think my wife thinks I'm over-obsessing over the inside of a cabinet...

I've read the tape tip before but for some reason haven't given it a go.  It's probably slight fear about getting tape that will actually hold.  I must try though, because it really would make things (that I've already done..) easier!

Finally coming together, and it’s looking real nice.  I can relate to the challenge of lining everything up.  Don’t see too many people taking about that but yeah, getting the blocking just right is a ---smurfette---.

Thanks, but less of the "finally"  ;D 

So, the coin box.  I'll probably say it many times in this post, but I'm really loving my improvised router table.  The front panel of the coin box is made of thicker wood than the other pieces (from memory it's 3/4" vs 1/2", but I've been using 15mm for the thicker piece since it's what I have to hand) and is recessed on the bottom and the two sides to take the bottom and side panels.  I COULD have cut those out with the router normally but I'd have to have clamped it several times to get the three separate edges.  Instead I just adjusted my under-bench router and was able to do this more easily.



With that done it was a case of cutting the other pieces and assembling, which always takes me an eternity in trying to make sure that pieces are all exactly the right size.  As before I used the router to do the last couple of mm on each to get the sizes and straightness right.  I just don't trust anything else that I have to make the cuts.

Again, just glue holding this together, and the corner clamps were actually useful for once in holding everything.



I drilled a couple of holes in the front panel before assembly so that I could attach the handle.  I could have just glued it, but it's the one thing that will actually be pulled and so a couple of screws can't hurt.



Again with the router table, I was able to take a piece of blocking to use as the front handle, and add a profile similar to what I see on other Nintendo cabinets.  Without the table I'd find this practically impossible, whereas with the table it's just a case of trying to not lose fingers in the process. The hardest bit was adjusting the wood on the right (improvised fence) so that the router bit hit the middle of the blocking.



Came out okay.



I made a couple of mistakes with the router when cutting out the the panels, one with me tilting the router accidentally and another with a clamp slipping, and then made a third when I used one of the damaged edges as my straight line for the pattern bit to follow. ::)  Since they're all on the underside of the box I was tempted to just leave them alone, since the box isn't painted and so I didn't immediately see an easy way to repair.  But I then realised theat the one on the bottom of the front panel was visible.  So as a long-shot I thought I'd try mixing some MDF dust with some wood glue to make a paste and then using that to roughly fill the holes.



After sanding these are not too bad.  A bit darker, but it's far less apparent now when looking from the front.



And after applying a coat of MDF sealant it all looked good.



I had a few brief moments celebrating the success, went to put the box into the cabinet, and then found that the box stuck out of the front of the frame on the coin shelf. :banghead: I thought at first that something was catching somewhere or that I had something behind the box that was in the way.  But ultimately, in total frustration, I found that the box was just too deep.  Having examined the problem it looks like I'd measured the side panel depth correctly but somehow forgotten to subtract the depth of the front panel from those pieces.  I think I may even have had them right at some point and then confused the orientation of the side panels (they're close to square) and cut the wrong length.  Whatever the reason, my newly assembled box didn't fit, and I was faced with destroying it and starting again.

Router table to the rescue.

I used the router table to carefully shave off the rear of the box on all sides, slowly adjusting both the depth and width of the router cut until there was very little holding the rear panel in place and the remaining sides were the correct depth.  This was a nervous time, constantly checking and double-checking that I had the box the right way around when routing each edge.



I could have cut slightly further into the back panel, but if it had come loose whilst in contact with the router bit then I figured it would do far more damage to the panel.  So at this stage I just took a knife and cut the final piece of wood/glue that was holding the back panel in place.  I was then able to clean up the edges and then re-attach the back panel in its new position.

Job done, crisis averted, only a couple of hours lost, and box now in place in the cabinet.



Think I might paint the sides next.





UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #215 on: July 16, 2020, 06:42:00 pm »
I've been working on the sides.  Started with an MDF primer, which annoyingly it white and so had to be careful not to get any on to the edges.  I used a foam roller for this rather that invest in spray primer.  After a couple of coats of the primer and then a sand smooth I moved on to the red spray.  A few coats later and I'm burning through spray cans at an alarming rate but not really happy with the finish.  This is clearly my lack of experience with spraying, especially large vertical panels.  I've put a picture below.  I've already wet sanded to 600 grit before the latest coat, but I'm still getting visible lines when I spray.

I can try to overlap more but it's hard to maintain that will such a fine spray pattern over the whole cabinet.  Too close/too much overlap and I'll get runs.  Too slow and I'll get runs.  Too fast and I won't get any coverage and just sent even more red dust into the air  :)

Any tips.  I'm loathed to keep spraying more coats and forking out more money on extra cans if each coat just looks stripy as the last.  The photo below is after the last coat was just sprayed, so it's wet and perhaps will look a bit better when dry.  Will wet sanding with a higher grit help even this out?  Any tips appreciated.  Thanks.

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #216 on: July 17, 2020, 10:36:12 am »
Are you spraying from a a rattlecan?  I would not do that for a surface that large. 

If I were you I would lay the cabinet on its side to avoid runs.  I find it MUCH easier to paint on a horizontal surface than a vertical one when I am trying to make it look good.  YMMV but I use a 3/8" nap roller on all of my cabs now if I am going to paint.  Three light coats sanding in between (after priming and sanding with Kilz or some sealant).  It comes out perfectly fine.  There is some texture, which is unavoidable, but the color is completely consistent and after a few days of the finished cabinet in your house you will never ever think about it... and I'm as anal as they come with this stuff.

Mike A

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #217 on: July 17, 2020, 10:37:36 am »
Quote
and I'm as anal as they come with this stuff.

You should put that on your porn star business card.

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #218 on: July 17, 2020, 11:01:07 am »
Quote
and I'm as anal as they come with this stuff.

You should put that on your porn star business card.

If only I could get work.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #219 on: July 17, 2020, 03:51:24 pm »
Are you spraying from a a rattlecan?  I would not do that for a surface that large. 


I am.  I've seen others do it with success, but clearly they're better than I am  :) I did paint a panel a similar size a couple of years ago using nothing fancier than white emulsion and a foam roller and it came out absolutely fine. No lines etc. So I am questioning myself a bit at this point about why I didn't do the same here!

Lying it down is an option, although I worry about damaging the sides in trying to get the thing on its side and back. Maybe it would help, because runs would be less of a worry, but they've not been an actual PROBLEM yet. 

The other side, which has been done for about a week, is currently looking a bit better.  But that might be because it's facing away from any kind of light currently.  In the dark it looks fine  8)

So, given that I am where I am, is it worth trying another coat?  Will a fine wet sand help even things out and should I do that before or after another coat?

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #220 on: July 17, 2020, 05:07:29 pm »
Taken from the 'Are there "How to Videos" on arcade building?' sticky in the main forum:
You probably won't get better advice than that.

                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #221 on: July 17, 2020, 07:30:41 pm »

Thanks. I’ve watched this several times before, but maybe now is a good time to give it another watch.

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #222 on: July 18, 2020, 12:44:02 am »
I agree with javeryh though. I'd put the cab on the side, tape the edges and put on a coat of primer with a roller. Wet sand with 400 grit sandpaper, put on a coat of paint, wet sand lightly 400 grit, coat of paint, wet sand 400 grit, rinse and repeat until satisfied. Then I'd put a coat of colorless scratch resistant stuff on top, wet sand with 400 grit. I went slightly out of my way by wet sanding the last coat 400, 600, 1200 and 1500 grit. Very smooth surface, but very labor intensive. Looking back, not really worth it, a bit of texture is fine.

To sum it up, you can work much faster with a roller, you don't have to worry about runs and it will be much cheaper, too.
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #223 on: July 25, 2020, 04:53:05 pm »
Thanks all.  I'm taking the advice and moving on from the spray.  The finish was getting better but still needed work, and I can't keep buying spray in the hope I finally get there.



Cab is now laid down again, has had another sand back.



I've rollered on one coat.  The hard bit was getting coverage before the paint started to dry enough that it became hard to get rid of lines from the painted edges.  I tried to move quickly to get a coverage over the whole side and then roller off top to bottom in long strokes.  But my the time I got to the top to bottom strokes I found that I had to give some areas a good going over to move paint that was already forming edges.  Maybe it's a bit warm today.

Biggest problem is that after an amount of rolling I noticed little lumps all over the place.  I'm hoping that this is grit/dust that's somehow got into the surface during painting (it was thoroughly wiped over before painting) and not any of the paint layers lifting.  The foam roller leaves little bubbles all of the place that get better as I roll over, but these area are hard little lumps and they're not over the whole cab side.  W



Once it's dry I'll sand this back and see what I'm dealing with.  Hopefully it's dry enough to do that tomorrow, but I don't want to sand if it's not ready for it.  Obviously I'm hoping it's some kind of grit that's come from somewhere.

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #224 on: July 26, 2020, 02:38:33 am »
What I did was painting small areas.

- roll the roller in the paint until you get a good amount of paint on it, shy of dripping paint

- start on top of the cab, left side, make an area a third of the cab's width, do one 'lane', do the second lane lightly overlapping the first lane, repeat until the roller gets 'dry'

- dip the roller into the paint again, make the area bigger, until the roller gets dry

- use the dry roller to distribute the paint evenly on the area, going left/right and up/down

- paint the next area, adjacent to the first one, overlapping the first area a bit

- this time, when distributing the paint, roll over the first area too, so that you get one smooth big area

Rinse and repeat until the cab is painted. Make sure that you use a good amount of paint on the areas so that they don't dry immediately. Using the dry roller to distribute the paint evenly shoud get rid of most of the bubbles, the rest will vanish when the paint dries. You will have to wet sand to get a smoother finish, of course.

I suggest using a sacrificial board of fair size to practice on a bit, because it's way better to redo a smaller board than the whole cab (like I did) (multiple times). Once you get the feel for using how much paint/how to distribute it, painting the cab will go fast and easy.
Practicing wet sanding on that board is a good idea too, because you can mess up the paint real good if you overdo it.

                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #225 on: July 27, 2020, 04:33:14 pm »
Thanks.  Did you not find that by the time you got to the 6th step and went back to the first area that it was already setting enough to prevent it from being smoothed out?  When I was trying some bits and I went back within minutes and moved the roller across existing areas I found that it created areas of paint that then didn't want to move unless they were really pushed to do so.  But that meant more pressure on the roller than I'd normally think of using, and still left areas that looked well painted and "shiny" and others where it looked far less painted.  Do I just need to use far more paint?  I got through half a 750ml can in no time at all on one single cab side.

I also found that I can go over bubbles as much as possible, but when I return to the cab when dry that there are still loads of bubbles.  A wet sand removes them, but that's going to make getting a final coat right tricky. 

Sorry for the questions, just feeling a bit at the moment like I just create a new set of issues with every coat of paint I add.  At this rate the cab will be half its weight in paint  ;D

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #226 on: July 28, 2020, 07:11:05 am »
Hm, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding. I don't smooth out every area, just the current and the previous one. So if I paint area six, I go over area six and area five again, not over all of them. Also, I don't use much pressure at all on the roller, just enough to get the roller rolling. When smoothing the paint, I use multiple fast and light strokes.

Example:



Paint area 1, smooth it by going over it multiple times lightly from left to right and if needed, up and down too.



Paint area 2, do a small overlap to area 1. Smooth area 2, when done go a few times lightly over area 1 and area 2 to eliminate some bubbles. Area 1 is now finished.



Paint area 3, do a small overlap to area 2. Smooth area 3, when done go a few times lightly over area 3 and area 2 to eliminate some bubbles. If area 1 is still wet, you can do long strokes from the left edge to the right edge of the cab to further smooth areas 1-3. Areas 1-3 are now finished.



From now on it's the same process as like painting areas 1-3, except that when painting areas 4-6, you do a small overlap on the areas above so that you get a smooth transition.

Again, I suggest practising this on a sacrifical board until you get the hang of it, otherwise you will probably end up having to sand down the cab and paint it again.
You can also mess up the paint by sanding it, so practising that would be a good idea, too.
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #227 on: July 29, 2020, 01:51:58 pm »
 :applaud: Thanks so much for taking the time to do that explanation.  My attempts so far, which I might detail at some point, involved attempts to cover larger vertical areas and I've had various issues.

Trying your approach, admittedly using just 9 panels (3 X 3) in total to try and reduce the number of potential problem areas with overlaps, is definitely the best yet.





I did roll out the bubbles as I went, although inevitably there were SOME left, but it does seem that some bubbles appear AFTER I've left it alone for a few minutes.  I've already learned from previous errors not to try and mess with paint when it's drying, in a mis-guided attempt to make things better.  AND I've learned that sanding takes these air bubbles away quite nicely.



The big question now is how this will look after it's dry and had a light wet-sand.  The finish is high-gloss (feels really nice, almost plastic, in the areas where it's "right") but I'd happily dull it a little with a light sand, if that's the worst thing I have to deal with.  But any little patches where it's too dull will likely mean the whole thing will need another coat, and that has the potential to go horribly wrong again  :)

Lessons learned coming at the end of this...

jennifer

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #228 on: July 29, 2020, 02:47:15 pm »
It is going to look sanded...However you did it correctly and it will turn out beautiful with that plastic look if you so desire...Thin the paint a little more for your last coats, now you are just trying to get an even fill over your flat scratches...3 light wet coats.

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #229 on: July 30, 2020, 02:38:12 am »
Don't worry about the paint looking dull after sanding. You have to do at least one or two more thin coats to fill the gaps anyway. If you want to get a really smooth finish, lightly wet sand the final coat using progressively finer grits. I went 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500, which is a bit excessive. If you want to make it REALLY shiny, polish it with car polish. I used a 3 component polish, the first one is to remove scratches, the second one is for removing scratches that you made while removing scratches, the last one makes the paint really shine. It makes a huge difference.

Do you use a sander to do the sanding? If so, my advice is to do it by hand. I tried using an orbital sander, some bits of paint got stuck on the sanding disc and cut nice circular grooves inot the paint.
                  

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #230 on: July 30, 2020, 06:46:48 am »
Don't worry about the paint looking dull after sanding. You have to do at least one or two more thin coats to fill the gaps anyway. If you want to get a really smooth finish, lightly wet sand the final coat using progressively finer grits. I went 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500, which is a bit excessive. If you want to make it REALLY shiny, polish it with car polish. I used a 3 component polish, the first one is to remove scratches, the second one is for removing scratches that you made while removing scratches, the last one makes the paint really shine. It makes a huge difference.

Do you use a sander to do the sanding? If so, my advice is to do it by hand. I tried using an orbital sander, some bits of paint got stuck on the sanding disc and cut nice circular grooves inot the paint.
I did the same thing... and I will never do it again LOL.  I googled “piano finish” and followed the instructions.  Ended with the 3 step Novus polish and everything.  15 years later it still looks great - like plastic and I can see my reflection in it if the light hits just right.  Doing it by hand was the only way I could get the sandpaper to not gum up and I went all the way to 2000 grit.  Hours and hours and hours of work. 

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #231 on: July 30, 2020, 07:32:07 am »
Thanks all.  My goal here was never to get a super shiny finish, just to have it painted so it looked even :)

I'm wet sanding by hand, always have since the start of this.  That side of thing is going really well.  With any dry sanding I found the same problem that bits of paint would quickly build up on the paper and just lead to scratches.  Wet sanding is satisfying by comparison.

One question though.  If I sand back after every coat of paint, but that then dulls the paint in a way that makes the finish look uneven again, then how do I deal with the bubbles in the final coat?  Is the idea that the thinned paint is less likely to leave the bubbles in the first place?  Or do I need to do something like polishing to that final coat?

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #232 on: July 30, 2020, 09:34:27 am »
The idea of multiple coats is that you apply a coat, remove the 'spikes' by sanding, apply a second coat that fills the pits of the previous coat a bit, remove the spikes, repeat until you have an even surface without any pits. You may end up getting a dull looking finish, but it should be looking uniform and be smooth and even. If it's too dull for you, you can apply a surcoat of clear gloss paint which will make the red dull paint look shiny.

Personally, I wouldn't even want to give it a high gloss look, because high gloss reflects the objects near it, so if you look at it, you will never see just the red color, but a mix of reflections.
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #233 on: July 30, 2020, 10:04:42 am »
Thanks.  I feel the same about the gloss finish.  The spray, although in theory also gloss, didn't look or feel anything like the texture that the roller is giving (which also gives me a slight dilemma for the pieces aready sprayed...).  I also know that a gloss coat is going to show every little tiny perfection!  My only fear at this stage is that the gloss looks red, but as soon as lightly sanded it looks more pink.  Hopefully when it's more even the colour when sanded will look better.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #234 on: July 30, 2020, 11:57:08 am »
One thing I found that helps between the sanding and painting is running a microfiber cloth (no cleaner) over the sanded areas.  It helps removing the dust and helps the paint adhere better.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #235 on: July 30, 2020, 03:58:06 pm »
Yes, thanks, they're great.  Much better at removing and keeping bits of dust off the surfaces.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #236 on: August 07, 2020, 09:42:55 am »
Moving slowly ahead with this.  Had to wait for some new paint so I didn't risk running out half-way through a coat, and have to wait 18 hours between coats plus time to sand etc.  So it takes a while, but I'm not in a rush.

After another coat...


And after sanding


You can see the dents left by previous bubbles after sanding.  I'm trying my best not to get bubbles in new coats, but a bunch of them are there regardless.


And another coat.  You can see a patch in the middle in the light that's not taken the paint as well, so maybe didn't get as much paint in a previous coat or something.  I've got a couple of patches like that that are my focus for the next coat.  Hoping I'm near the end now, but I need a more even finish when sanded before I can call it a day.  It looks great when it's wet, but when dry the finish still isn't consistent. 




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #237 on: August 08, 2020, 12:13:19 am »
Looking good!

The process is slow, but your detailed pic of the state of the pitting left by bubbles makes me think you are doing it right.  Keep building up and sanding down, and the paint in the bottom of those holes will build up a layer at a time each coat. 

At some point, your gradually improving surface will meet your gradually sinking standards, and it will be done!   :D  Hold out as long as you care to.

It's already looking good enough to authentically be in any arcade back in the day... but you can do better with the next coat.   :cheers:

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #238 on: September 04, 2020, 01:51:05 pm »
Painting painting bla.

On more exciting news, I got around to assembling most of the coin door and doing the wiring. I think (it's been so long...) I mentioned the wiring of this before, but I've wired it so that (hopefully) the two coin mechs both send a credit pulse and increment the coin counter, whereas pressing the button just does the credit pulse.





I want the coin door wiring to be detachable, so I've been looking for ages for a way to do this.  Loads of molex and other connectors for this kind of thing, but buying all the correct bits for both ends and the correct crimpers (at a decent price) makes it all quite complicated and I can never seen to find just the bits that I need!  Anyway, in a quest for something better I found aviation connectors, which seem pretty perfect.  No crimping, just soldering.  Only downside was that the only ones I could find on places like Amazon/eBay were ones for panel mounting rather than connecting two cables.  So in the end I did use eBay but had to wait for something from China to arrive.  That was supposed to be 6 weeks but they arrived in about 2.

The two halves of the connector push together and then lock using a screw thread.



You can see the two ends when separated here.  These are six-pin ones, but you can buy in other variations.



The end bits then screw off to reveal the solder points.  These look perfect, so one end should be getting added to that coin door wiring this weekend.

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #239 on: September 10, 2020, 03:18:24 pm »
Any tips on the last bit of bringing out some shine on the paint?  The paint has been sanded to the point where, yes, there are still some little holes from burst bubbles, but otherwise is very smooth to the touch and is just showing surface swirl/scratches that I can't "feel".  But if I put a bit of polish on an area then I end up with a patchy look to the shine, so in the right light it looks great but in the wrong light it looks terrible.  I don't understand how it can FEEL the same but some bits look lovely and glossy red and some look like shiny matt. :hissy:

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #240 on: September 10, 2020, 05:12:38 pm »
If the paint looks ok and you just want to get it shiny, try adding a clear glossy coat. You can polish the crap out of that coat without messing with the red coat.
                  

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #241 on: September 10, 2020, 05:37:36 pm »
It’s more that I want the paint to look EVEN. When sanded it has a matt finish that is “pink”, when wet it looks rich red and even, when dry and then polished I get some bits shiny red and some bits more like shiny pink!

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #242 on: September 11, 2020, 12:38:10 am »
That's the point. I'm assuming that it looks even and matt when it's dry and NOT polished. On top of that you can then add the glossy clear coat which can be polished to become even more shiny.
                  

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #243 on: September 11, 2020, 03:19:07 am »
what grit sandpaper are you sanding with?  wet or dry?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #244 on: September 11, 2020, 03:51:17 am »
Sanding wet, have worked up from 320 to 1500, with one last pass at 2000.

So I'm hoping now that clear coat is what I'm looking at to consistently turn my matt pink to red  :) So would something like this be what I'm after?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rustins-POGC250-250ml-Gloss-Varnish/dp/B001GU4BLW

I keep pinning hopes on the "next" thing because the one that will finally give me a finish I can live with!

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #245 on: September 11, 2020, 04:17:58 am »
The clear coat will most likely turn your matt pink to glossy pink. Perhaps you will have to bite the bullet and use a coat of darker red first.
                  

Jimbo

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #246 on: September 11, 2020, 07:13:36 am »
Sanding wet, have worked up from 320 to 1500, with one last pass at 2000.

Sounds good then!  I used some Maguire's Ultimate Compound after I'd wet sanded my bartop.  Came out lovely!

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #247 on: September 11, 2020, 09:53:30 am »
The clear coat will most likely turn your matt pink to glossy pink. Perhaps you will have to bite the bullet and use a coat of darker red first.

I'm hoping that because it looks red when wet that clear coat would do the same, but I'd have to test on something that's not the cabinet to be sure!


Sounds good then!  I used some Maguire's Ultimate Compound after I'd wet sanded my bartop.  Came out lovely!

I'd wondered about that having read it in other threads.  I did try with standard T-cut on a test piece and it just ate the paint, made it soft and destroyed the finish.  Perhaps the Maguire's stuff is less brutal...
« Last Edit: September 11, 2020, 10:11:21 am by UnclearHermit »

Jimbo

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #248 on: September 11, 2020, 10:05:58 am »
I'd wondered about that having read it in other threads.  I did try with standard T-cut on a test piece and it just ate the paint, made it soft and destroyed the finish.  Perhaps the Maquire's stuff is less brutal...

Always do a test area!  >:D

javeryh

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Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #249 on: September 11, 2020, 12:18:56 pm »
I have a description in one of my project threads on how I got a piano finish on my cabinet.  I used pink paint over MDF (with primer) and sanded the crap out of the clear coat - I put on at least 25 clear coats (rattlecan) and sanded to 2000 and then used Novus 3 step polish to finish it.  If I recall correctly, the paint changing color was not a concern or something that I had to even think about.  I did this 15 years ago and it still looks brand new.

Let me see if I can find the direct link to when I started. 

EDIT: OK try HERE.

This is the last post but if you read backwards I go through it step-by-step.

Here is a pic I took 30 seconds ago.  I’ve done nothing but occasional dusting and the finish has held up great.





Still as pink as the day I finished!
« Last Edit: September 11, 2020, 12:36:45 pm by javeryh »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #250 on: September 14, 2020, 05:56:14 pm »
Thanks, yours is one of the threads that I've read many times on this.  Again, you seemed to use a rubbing compound to clean up the finish before moving on to your lacquer coats.  I tried t-cut and it basically melted the paint so I'm guessing that's too harsh.  Anyone have any recommendations of products I can try?  I'm a bit nervous attacking the paintwork again, but since I last posted I decided that the base finish still wasn't great and so I went right back to 240 grit again and have come up through the grades.  It's now very smooth again but it's not even.  I took the picture below in the worst light to illustrate.  This was last sanded with 2000 grit, but even with that I'm INTRODUCING new surface markings.  Some kind of rubbing compound that's not harsh does seem to be what I need here.

As before, when it's wet it looks wonderful  :)

yamatetsu

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #251 on: September 15, 2020, 07:01:22 am »
That looks nasty. When wet sanding, make sure that the sandpaper is wet enough (like dripping wet), clean it often to make sure that no paint is stuck on it that will cause scratches and don't use much pressure.

I used Meguiar's for polishing. I don't know if the stuff is still around as I bought it like 6 years ago.

Step 1: Meguiar's Ultimate compound - Color & clarity restorer

Step 2: Meguiar's Swirl remover

Step 3: Meguiar's Deep crystal carnauba wax
                  

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #252 on: September 15, 2020, 03:25:29 pm »
I do all of those!  Very wet paper, constantly removing ANY grit or pain accumulation so that they don't cause new scratches, and working very lightly!  The surface FEELS really smooth, it just LOOKS terrible!

I ordered Meguiar's swirl remover earlier today, so really hoping that does its stuff.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #253 on: September 16, 2020, 11:48:45 am »
I can't imagine why you are having such a hard time with this... you are doing everything right.  Maybe you are expecting too much?  My finish isn't *perfect" by any stretch.  It looks perfect from regular viewing distances though.  If you get up super close you can see some pits here and there but you have to look for them.

It seems like you are expecting 100% perfection, which may not be achievable.  I bet if you finished one side completely - top coat, rubbing compound, etc. and let it sit for a few days you the surface would start to blend into the rest of the room. 

Part of the reason why I will never finish a cab like that again is because it doesn't make that much of a difference.  It is "pink" in the same way that my DK is "blue" - it's just in the room and you only notice the color out of the corner of your eye.  The DK was an afternoon of painting with a roller.  The other one was pure hell.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #254 on: September 17, 2020, 02:20:43 am »
 Yeah, dude....if you want a perfect finish you’re gonna have to go the route that JaveryH is suggesting, with the clear coat.

It’s going to be dang near impossible to have a perfect finish with a rattle can out of the bottle...especially considering the HUGE surface area.  And rattle can colors alone cannot easily be wetsanded without dulling the color and buffed back like an automotive single stage can.

What you are attempting to do is VERY difficult....painting barn door sized panels with a tiny rattle can fan pattern and have it turn out without a lot of issues.  It can be done, but it’s freaking hard (for me) especially with Metallics!

You may need to Base the cabinet again with your color (or you may not if you didn’t damage the paint or color you put down) and then like JaveryH suggests....if you clear coat it....like a lot of clear (a lot), you can then wetsand a lot of those imperfections you don’t like (like orange peel) out and then buff them it all out.  The great thing about adding clearcoat too is....you can bury a lot of those nibs and imperfections you’ve been fighting, and when you wetsand the clear you can level everything out, again, assuming you put enough material (clear) on there.  I wetsand my cabs 1000, 1500, 2000,2500,3000 then machine polish with Polishing compound on a wool pad and then again with glaze on a foam pad.  Starting 1000 may be to aggressive, but it does most of the cutting work and then the subsequent grits just remove each predecessors sand scratches...by the time you’re at 3000, the shine is almost back.  I use automotive products and systems which puts down a lot of material..., but the effect can be replicated with rattlecan as JaveryH has shown.   I always use a minimum of 4 wet coats of clear (HVLP, rattle can would be different) so I have enough material to work with in my cutting/polishing process.

Random fact: Two part Automotive basecoats are always dull when dry after they have been applied to the substrate, it’s the clear coat that gives the finish it’s gloss.

Anyways, this may be more work than you want to do but considering your perfectionism, it’ll give you the look you’re after I’d imagine.   Again, this is all really difficult with rattle can on such a large surface area...but it can be done, especially if you do one side at a time.  :cheers:

« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 02:41:19 am by Wyo »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #255 on: September 17, 2020, 02:29:45 am »
On and the reason it looks wonderful when it’s wet...is because the water is acting like a clear coat would.   :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #256 on: September 17, 2020, 02:26:21 pm »
Thanks all  :notworthy:.  I've said before and I'll say again that I never set out for a perfect (let alone "glossy" finish), but you're all right that the size of the panels meant that, for a complete novice like me, getting it even with spray cans just wasn't working out.  I'd hoped that by moving to a roller that it'd get a lot easier, but with this gloss paint it's ended up just changing the problem.  I painted something in the house a few years ago (that was a similar size) using just emulsion.  It was done in a couple of coats and a few hours.  THIS is a different beast entirely.

Starting again I'd just find a good emulsion colour match and go with that.  I don't mind the texture rollered on emulsion.  I quite like it.  But with where I am I've had to go for the smooth finish to try and get something that looks half decent. I just want a single colour, not a patchwork of shades :)

And so to the swirl remover.  A promising start, with a couple of minutes in one corner it's lifting the colour and not in as patchy way as when I tried polish (and without melting the paint like t-cut). 



Repeating that over the whole cabinet was less successful, with different areas looking very different.  The swirl remover doesn't seem to work like the bottle instruction say, which says you should rub in for a minute or two and then wipe off with a cloth when still not fully dry.  If I try that then the stuff dries out WAY before two minutes and just wiping it leaves a mess on the surface.  I have to rub away with the original applicator until it finally reveals the shine, after which there's not much for the wipe-off cloth to do.

For the second going over I concentrated on areas that look dull and had to give attention to bits where either the finish isn't right or possibly the swirl remover compound itself is hanging around on the surface.  It takes about an hour to cover the panel and it's heavy on the elbow grease.  BUT it's looking not bad.



The photo is deceptive and doesn't show (other than in the light reflection) that the entire surface is covered in micro-scratches that can't be felt but which can definitely be seen, at least in the right (wrong?) light.



So "swirl" remover doesn't go anywhere near these, or maybe it would if I kept going at it!

The question is now if I can live with the scratches, which is hard because I don't know what the light will be like in the room where this thing ends up.  If I live with it then it's just going to be one more going over to pick off any remaining problem areas.  There are some bits that simply won't take a shine, mostly around the edges, but I don't see what else I can do there.  And maybe I give it a coat of polish, if that's something worth doing to protect it...?

If I decide I'm NOT happy then I'd be looking at a repeat sanding exercise to try and remove some of those scratches and then I repeat with the swirl remover.  I'd love to be moving on though; I've got the other side to do yet  :-\
 
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 02:47:29 pm by UnclearHermit »

Wyo

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #257 on: September 17, 2020, 02:31:21 pm »
Dude, that looks nice!!!  Way to persevere through your problem!  Congrats man, looking sharp!  :D

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #258 on: September 17, 2020, 05:22:15 pm »


So "swirl" remover doesn't go anywhere near these, or maybe it would if I kept going at it!

Since you are now a believer (praise Meguiar's!), you might try Meguiar's Ultimate compound - Color & clarity restorer to get rid of or at least reduce those scratches. The swirl remover is step 2 in a 3-step process, Ultimate compound is used to get rid of scratches, the swirl remover is for removing the swirls and light scratches you might get using the compound. After that, you can polish using the carnauba wax, which will make it even shinier.

Oh, and congrats on that finish, it took me 6 months of painting, sanding, sanding everything down, painting again, etc. to get a finish that looks good, but not as good as yours.
                  

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #259 on: September 18, 2020, 07:47:29 am »
Thanks  ;D.  It's the change I've been waiting for, from terrible finish to something half-decent!  I am VERY torn on the Ultimate Compound, and nearly bought that initially (had no idea which to choose, and Ond's paint tutorial mentions the swirl remover) only I couldn't get hold of it as quickly as the swirl remover.  My fear, now that I've got something approaching a finish, is if the Ultimate Compound destroys it in any way. 

What I'm thinking is that I might move on to paint the other side, which should be a lot faster with all the things I've learned to NOT do, and then use Ultimate Compound on that side.  If I damage that side then it's annoying but not horrendous, but if it works a treat then I can always go back and repeat on the first side once the cabinet is upright again.  I'm conscious anyway that I could easily end up with a scratch or two when I lie the cabinet on the finished side and then spend the next weeks pushing down on it to sand the second side.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #260 on: September 18, 2020, 09:13:22 am »
WOW what a difference.  Looks incredible.  If I were you I'd try getting rid of those scratches - they are going to drive you crazy considering all the effort that has gone into this.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #261 on: September 21, 2020, 04:32:04 am »
That is looking great.   :applaud:

I've been thinking a lot about scratches like this, and my conclusion has been... this cabinet is going to last for many years.  It is going to acquire wear.  Somebody is going to bump into it, somebody is going to scuff a shoe against it. 

If you make it perfect, that first real scuff is going to just be gutting.  If you merely make it "really good", like what you've got above, that's still great, and the two paint jobs are probably indistinguishable after it's first year in your house.  You'll be lucky to even get it out of the paint booth and on final location without putting some minor marks on it.  It's still worthwhile to do a good job, but I'm not sure that it's worthwhile to do a -perfect- job. 

That said - chase it as far as you are having fun chasing it.  When you decide it's good, it's good. 




Wyo

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #262 on: September 22, 2020, 03:43:34 am »
That is looking great.   :applaud:

I've been thinking a lot about scratches like this, and my conclusion has been... this cabinet is going to last for many years.  It is going to acquire wear.  Somebody is going to bump into it, somebody is going to scuff a shoe against it. 

If you make it perfect, that first real scuff is going to just be gutting.  If you merely make it "really good", like what you've got above, that's still great, and the two paint jobs are probably indistinguishable after it's first year in your house.  You'll be lucky to even get it out of the paint booth and on final location without putting some minor marks on it.  It's still worthwhile to do a good job, but I'm not sure that it's worthwhile to do a -perfect- job. 

That said - chase it as far as you are having fun chasing it.  When you decide it's good, it's good.

This man knows what he’s talking about. I put a game I made in bubble wrap for storage (which kinda defeats the purpose of making it? Haha) and I moved it the other day and put a chip in the paint...bummer, nothing I can’t fix.  Still though, keeping these giant, heavy pieces of furniture absolutely perfect really is impossible....unless you plan to wrap it in bubble wrap, never look at it, and never play it.  :laugh2:  :)
« Last Edit: September 22, 2020, 03:45:08 am by Wyo »

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #263 on: September 22, 2020, 11:11:31 am »
Wait... you guys play your cabs???   :lol

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #264 on: October 18, 2020, 06:34:36 pm »
A month on, another side painted, in stolen moments and hours. For "side 2", which was faster than side 1 because I didn't have quite so many first-time mistakes to make, I thought I'd give an overview of the steps in case it helps others in the future.

I started with a light sand, 240 grit, over the spray surface that I already had.  Just a quick sand before I got going with the roller for a first coat.  Don't worry like I did about the state of this first coat.  Lines are fine, bubbles are annoying but unavoidable unless you lay off with a brush.  You're going to be sanding all the surface away anyway.  I'd PROBABLY lay off with a brush to get rid of the hassles that bubbles create (pits, that you'll spend an eternity trying to fill and still end up with a billion of them) but the paint dries too fast for me to do this effectively.  Don't bother trying to roller over your finished coat trying to get a better finish with less lines.  This just seems to result in more bubbles, presumably because the ones made when the paint is wettest have the greatest chance of collapsing.  Re-rollering paint that's dried even slightly (like ten minutes later) gives more bubbles.  I tested this "scientifically" by doing a second roll on one half of the cabinet.  It looked better until it dried, after which it had loads more bubbles than the side I left alone.  You can just about make this out in this picture - top-right diagonal area didn't have the extra roller attention.



After this coat I went over with 240 grit, always wet sand, but this is mainly just about taking the top off any bubbles, so don't spent too long.  Then another coat of paint, after which it looks like this.



This the the bubble-ridden glossy coat that you're then going to destroy again.  After a bunch of sanding with 240 it looks like the below.  I tend to work down the cabinet with a sanding block in lines, using circular motion in areas no more than twice the height of the block and just slowly working down the cabinet, then returning to the top for another vertical pass until I've been over the whole cabinet.  This just helps me keep track of where I've covered and to make sure all the cabinet is getting the same attention.



At this point the cabinet has had its initial spray coats and then two coats with a roller.  Without the roller coats I'd have needed at least an extra coat I reckon to get to this point.  You can see there are still loads of low points in the paint from roller texture and bubbles, but the matt/flat areas are starting to get there.



The trouble with wet sanding is that it's usually hard to see what you're working with when wet.  As you can see here, when wet it already looks pretty good, but in the dry areas you can see it still need a load of work.



After a decent about of work with the 240 it lookes like this.  You can see it's now flat in more places, with the remaining low spots still shiny and obvious. 



It's really tempting to drop to a higher grit, and I've made this mistake loads of times, but you have to get the surface right before moving on.  Otherwise you'll spend an eternity and not achieve anything.  Also, don't forget to change sandpaper. This sounds like the most obvious thing. But you can spend hours breaking your back and arms sanding, and seeing the paint come off and make the water red so you feel you're making a decent impression, only to then change the sandpaper for a fresh sheet and see what a massive difference it makes straight away.  This would all be faster with an even lower grit, but then you have more scratches to deal with.  It's a balancing act.

At this point I hit a problem.  I'd planned to put two or three extra coats on, slightly thinned to help the paint reach those dips, but I was running out of paint fast and everywhere had sold out of the stuff. I made a decision to continue in a less than optimal way, just in case the paint never came back into stock.  In order to conserve paint I opted to focus my extra paint on the areas that demonstrably needed an extra coat - all the areas where the coverage wasn't even or where there were large clusters of bubble remnants.  This is risky.  It means that I'm more at risk of sanding right through the paint where it's not thick enough, plus it means more work sanding away "patches" and still getting the overall surface even.  I wouldn't have done this if I could have got hold of more paint.



After sanding this lot back I then repeated this technique a second time.



The good news is that I was able to get the surface even still.  After a load more sanding, still at 240, it looks like this.  Note the left edge still has a bit of work needed.



But it's looking quite nice when wet now.



Unfortunately, my fears were realised and there was a spot of white coming through on one edge, typically in a very visible spot.



I touched this up with a drop of paint.  This kind of touch-up is tedious because you pretty much have to wait a day for the paint to dry.



Unfortunately it didn't work either.  Once I'd sanded away the "blob" that I'd created I ended up with the white coming back through again, so I had to roller on an area about a foot wide to allow me room to blend down the raised surface, then a second roller coat about half a foot on top of that to give the edge two coats.  I saw "two coats" but I was literally working with what I had left on the roller at this point.  Paint tin was completely empty and I was having to keep the roller wet overnight by wrapping in plastic.  Luckily I just about got away with the repair.  There's one new white dot that's appeared about an inch from the edge, but I think that might actually be something that got in the paint that I've now exposed in sanding rather than the actual wood/undercoat surface.

After this it's a case of lots more sanding working up through the grits.  I used 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000 (maybe...), 1200, 1500 and finally 2000 on this.  For the lower grits I was maybe going over the cabinet once or twice, with only once over once I reached the higher grits, except where I could see scratches etc. that needed a bit more work.  In close-up the corner looks like this after all that sanding.  This is better than the other side looked, or at least it's more even over the whole surface. 



I picked up some Meguiar's Ultimate Compound this time to see if it does anything to help with those really fine surface scratches.  This is the same corner after applying it.  There are still plenty of scratches to be seen, so I'm not sure how much difference it's making.  It's taking plenty of red off onto the applicator sponges, so it's doing SOMETHING.



It doesn't wipe off well though and I feel like it started to make the paint perhaps a bit softer or sticky, but not so much as when I tried with t-cut.  I certainly found that even a microfibre cloth wiping over it would leave a slight mark on the surface. 

After Swirl Remover it looks like this:




Nice and shiny, but you can really see that edge scratching and you can see all the tiny bubble dots.  This is as good as it's getting though! 

So I'm undecided on the Ultimate Compound, but gave the whole cabinet a going-over anyway.



You can see here the striping from just wiping it off with a clean applicator sponge.  I decided this was better than what I was getting when trying to rub it off with any kind of circular motion, leaving the Swirl Remover to sort out the final surface.  This shot is with the Swirl Remover well underway, but you can see the duller areas on the left where it still needs to be properly finished.



And, finally, partially unwrapped and back on its feet.



Celebration, unfortunately, was short-lived, because lifting it back up uncovered that the finished side it's been lying on for a month has now been damaged :( 



Currently deciding whether it's going to be possible to sand that out, but it's quite a deep textured mark that it's left.  The visible top one is the worst, but there are about 4 others.  The only good news is that the paint is now back in stock, so if I have to re-paint then I can.  But it's a bit soul-destroying to think the painting is finally finished and then get a setback. 


UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #265 on: November 02, 2020, 01:46:27 pm »
The damage to the first side cost me a couple of weeks of sanding to try and get it better.  Fortunately there's a fair depth of paint on that side, but I was nervous about sanding too much where the damage was and creating "dips" instead.  The other problem I had was that I was sanding until I couldn't SEE the damage any more, only to polish it up and find it was still there when viewed in the right light.  Plus I was now having to work with the cabinet standing up, which makes for a load of extra fun with all the red water running down the cabinet side.

I eventually reached the point where I'd simply had enough of this whole painting phase.  It looks fine where it is, but I haven't braved it in daylight yet.  It is what it is, at this stage.  I need to move on.

On the second side I found that once exposed to the right light that there are still a million little bubble holes.  Extra paint layers would have reduced these enormously but, as I said before, I ran out of paint.  This is it with light shining across the surface.



From the other side you can't see them at all.  So ultimately it'll depend upon having the cabinet where the light is favourable  :)



It's nice to see the thing finally unwrapped and painted.



Finally moving on, I attached the t-moulding, which actually went well given that I've never done it before.



On tight inner curves there's some bumping.  Not sure if this is because I didn't make enough cuts, or because the remaining barbs aren't grabbing the surface as much.



 At the rear of the cabinet you can see that the t-moulding is sitting slightly proud of the surface so it's not quite as "flat" as it's supposed to be.  This seems to be because the slot is slightly too wide, but I had no narrower slot cutter.  You don't noticed this on the rest of the cabinet other than with the t-moulding being slightly "not flat".  It seems secure enough, so unless it starts coming loose then I don't see a need to do anything with it.



Next step, monitor mount.



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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #266 on: November 03, 2020, 04:28:18 pm »
Looks great - your paint job is better than 99% of paint jobs on these things.  No one is going to notice imperfections and after a while you won't notice them either.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #267 on: November 03, 2020, 10:24:53 pm »
 :applaud: :applaud:  Perseverance pays off!  I've been watching you through this process trying to decide if I should try paint.  Your results look really good!  Having anything high gloss tends to show the smallest flaws but for as glossy as you've got it, that's impressive to me.  I think you achieved your piano finish as best as anyone could hope for.  My feeble painting skills can't keep up so I'm going with laminate. :)  Really looking forward to seeing your cab finished.  I absolutely love the look!

Regarding the t-molding, I'm guessing the little bulges are because it's not grabbing as tightly as it should.  Hopefully someone more experienced chimes in.  I'd think you could feel if there was room to push it down though with your thumb?  Did you only slice the spine about every inch where you see those bumps? If a bump goes away with your thumb I'd say it's just needing more grab.  You could try a light adhesive in there as a simple test to see if that makes the difference.  If so, maybe that's enough, otherwise try a stronger adhesive to make sure it stays put.  I am a little surprised you decided to cut it all the way to the edge in the back leaving the T molding spine exposed.  I'd cut an 8th off the spine and add black filler wood / bondo, but that's just me. :)

Keep up the great work!  :cheers:
 
« Last Edit: November 03, 2020, 11:03:14 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #268 on: November 04, 2020, 06:00:24 am »
I generally shave the spline off on those inside corners just leaving a 1/16" stump for centering, heat it up good and warm with heat gun, and stick it down with hot glue in the groove, That top (and bottom) corner I will cut a V and shave the splines off, fold it onto the back about 4" and staple it, That effectively creates bumpers on the corners ...That cab came out nice man, The next one will be so much easier,  8)
« Last Edit: November 04, 2020, 06:12:15 am by jennifer »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #269 on: November 05, 2020, 02:02:16 pm »
I've been watching you through this process trying to decide if I should try paint  ...   My feeble painting skills can't keep up so I'm going with laminate. :) 

:) I completely understand that, and there's a lot to be said for laminate.  I've never worked with it (I can say the same about most stuff in this build...) but seen the great results that others have managed.  I didn't really look into availability because things like the speaker grille looked like they could get complicated.  Not sure how I'd have managed that.  All that said, there are no "painting skills" at work here.  I've tried, failed, tried, failed and generally experienced all of the things that don't work to get to the point where I finally found something that did.  At the start I was looking for a perfect paint finish from the original spray or roller and worried when I couldn't get that.  Turned out I didn't need to CARE about any of that so long as I was happy to lose the sprayed or rolled look and simply sand the hell out of the thing.  I've wasted weeks and weeks in recovering things time and again to get to a point that allows me to move forward again.  So, with all those lessons learned, it comes down to painting it in a number of coats, then being prepared to wet sand until you simply can't go on  8)  It's patience, at the end of the day.  I have more than I thought I did.  But I also had to temper "perfection" with a need to ever finish this thing.  Running out of paint was a blessing and a curse.

The t-moulding was all done pretty quickly and I haven't had a chance to go back to it yet to look at whether I can push it with a thumb or anything.  It LOOKS pretty tight on the surface, just not 100% level as you can see on those curves.  It was cut a lot more than every inch though.  Probably about 5 cuts per inch, I'd guess.

I am a little surprised you decided to cut it all the way to the edge in the back leaving the T molding spine exposed.   I'd cut an 8th off the spine and add black filler wood / bondo, but that's just me.

I'd have done the same, except that it seems to be done this way on Nintendo cabinets, so it was about being accurate rathen than anything else.  I've got a load of photos of Nintendo cabinets and they all seem to be finished the same way.

I generally shave the spline off on those inside corners just leaving a 1/16" stump for centering, heat it up good and warm with heat gun, and stick it down with hot glue in the groove, That top (and bottom) corner I will cut a V and shave the splines off, fold it onto the back about 4" and staple it, That effectively creates bumpers on the corners ...That cab came out nice man, The next one will be so much easier,  8)

Ah, thanks, I remember reading now about people warming it up.  Typically I got around to this when the weather got cold rather than when it was insanely hot in the summer :)  I might give it a little heat and a tap on those curves to see if it does anything, although if it's already pulled around those curves then there might not be any "slack" to work with now.

And thanks, for the "next one" I've certainly learned a lot of what not to do!

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« Reply #270 on: November 06, 2020, 06:00:24 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:10:05 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #271 on: November 29, 2020, 03:58:33 pm »
A few catch-up posts incoming...

First, I think I forgot to mention the coin door bolts, but if I'm repeating myself then just skip this post.  It's been a while.

When I came to attach the coin mechs to the coin door I found that the holes in the mech plate were round, but the bolt head undersides were square.



I had a good shop around and couldn't find any smooth-headed bolts without square undersides.  This makes some sense, since with no slot in the head and without a square underside/hole they might just spin in the hole rather than tighten.  So my only options were to either square-off the holes in the plate or round off the bolts.  I chose the latter.  I did check the bolts for the coin door itself to see if they would help at all.  They're the same thread size, but the square underside is actually larger.



I attached a couple of nuts to allow me to grab the bolt whilst filing it. 



Then I used a little file, from a set I picked up from eBay, to file down the undersides. 



Once done I was able to attach the bolts, and because they're still very snug in the holes then I was still able to tighten the bolts without any problems.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #272 on: November 29, 2020, 06:36:57 pm »
Nice solution for those bolts.

That coin door looks great.   :cheers:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #273 on: November 30, 2020, 02:53:54 am »
Thanks  :)  It also dawns on me that those photos of the bolt are in the wrong order - the one with the two nuts attached is a partialled filed bolt.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #274 on: November 30, 2020, 03:23:06 am »
The rear door is also complete.  I thought I had more photos of this, but if I do then I can't find them.  There's not a great deal to say anyway.  It's cut to size, then a rabbet cut at one end where it slots into the bottom panel of the cabinet.  There's also a hole for ventilation, cut and routed in the usual way.  I then primed, then painted with emulsion using a foam roller in the same way as the monitor mount, given the size of the panel.  I did a couple of coats of emulsion, then a good sand to remove a load of the texture, then topped it off with a couple of coats of black matt spray to match.  I finish off the matt with a clear spray to help protect the surface, since otherwise it shows every single mark.



For the lock I drilled a hole in the relevant place, but then had to cut out some of the rear since the lock isn't deep enough to allow the nut to reach the thread if it has to go through the full 12mm of the wood.  When I do extra holes like that I've started adding a bit of MDF primer or sealer to the cut edges, just to try and protect any exposed edges from moisture etc.

Anyway, it all turned out pretty well.  It's a little bit tight, but taking the edges down now will mean re-painting them, so it's staying a bit tight.  The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is that the gap on the top right is slightly larger than the gap top left.  This isn't actually because the door or the cabinet isn't square, it's because the top panel is mounted a tiny bit too high thanks to the blocking on that piece being the same.  This error knocks out the top panel, which then means the rear top piece (where the "handles" are) is aso slightly high.  So the only way to fix this is to remove the side of the cabinet, lower the blocking etc. etc. and I'm not doing that! 



Looking at that photo the back of the top panel looks like it's hardly painted.  It doesn't look like that in real life but the flash is obviously picking up SOMETHING so I'll have to look at that...

The only real deviation from Nintendo here is the vent cover.  Standard Nintendo here is a piece of wood that covers the vent but is held off the surface by a piece of wood at each side.  It's not particularly elegant.  In one of Chance's threads he covers the vent with metal mesh, so I'd already allocated enough of the same mesh I'd used for the speaker grille and handles.  I didn't have any hammered metal paint left (I DID, but the can has given up) and so I sprayed it with black and am just hoping it doesn't flake off or anything.  You can see it in place below (and also get a sneak peak at the start of the wiring with the power inlet...).  I've also got a few watery paint runs to clean up!



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« Reply #275 on: November 30, 2020, 06:40:05 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:09:16 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #276 on: December 01, 2020, 02:37:13 pm »
Ah, thanks, missed those when I placed my order with Mike's Arcade, and another international shipping order for a few bolts isn't on the cards!  I ordered all the bolts for the coin door, so could so easily have added these to the order.

I did look into getting the proper Asahi mechs when I was first researching all of this but lack of availability (and a desire to not take out of the market the "genuine" ones from people with real cabinet) led me to finding some old Coin Control mechs that seem to have the same profile.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #277 on: December 02, 2020, 12:14:47 pm »
Keep up the high standards, this thing is looking great!

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« Reply #278 on: December 03, 2020, 04:28:24 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:08:59 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #279 on: December 08, 2020, 03:17:35 pm »
Good to know, thanks.  I thought I'd read that they were no longer made.

Going back to the topic of artwork, those with long memories might recall that this is a re-imagining of Fix-it Felix, which in itself was based off Donkey Kong.  As such there are elements of the artwork with origins in both, plus some bits totally new.  This leads to a button layout that looks like this:



There are a couple of problems with this.  Firstly, the spaces aren't quite large enough to accommodate the button INSIDE the black lines.  This is never going to be a completely precise thing because even my "jump" button and my 1P/2P buttons are about 1mm different in diameter, but I can try to make this better.  Secondly, because DK only had a single button it meant that button spacing was never an issue.  The triangular shape means that a second button placed to its right ends up quite far away, and this only gets worse when I try to accommodate the button inside the black line.  I end up with button centres just over 2" apart, which doesn't feel comfortable.

So I'm considering a redesign.  If I make the styling of all four buttons the same I can bring "jump" and "fix" closer together.  But by doing so I squash the button area so I'm not sure.  Thoughts?  I'm tempted to shrink the jump/fix lettering a bit.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #280 on: December 08, 2020, 04:50:54 pm »
Think the smaller font looks better...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #281 on: December 08, 2020, 05:33:11 pm »
And here it is with the button holes marked, so you can see I've got a few mm around to take the button surround.  Worst case it overlaps the black slightly, which is fine, but doesn't go outside it.  I might just have got away with this if I was using the Nintendo buttons, since they're just that little bit smaller, but I think this is looking okay.  Thoughts welcome!


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #282 on: December 09, 2020, 12:24:01 am »
And here it is with the button holes marked, so you can see I've got a few mm around to take the button surround.  Worst case it overlaps the black slightly, which is fine, but doesn't go outside it.  I might just have got away with this if I was using the Nintendo buttons, since they're just that little bit smaller, but I think this is looking okay.  Thoughts welcome!

I like this one a lot better!  Looks more consistent and not forced in place.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #283 on: December 09, 2020, 04:06:38 pm »
I like the new version.  The font looks weird in a vacuum at 2 different sizes but I'm staring at my DK right now and that is exactly how it should be.  I wonder if it is missing a third color?  The Jump button on the DK has an orange/yellow background.

Also, maybe it is compression but the lettering looks a little different between 1-Player and 2-Player (the dash looks like it is a different size ad the lettering doesn't look 100% level to me).  Could be my monitor though.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #284 on: December 10, 2020, 07:53:10 am »
Thanks all.

The "third colour" - jump/fix have a cream background rather than the white that's on P1/P2.  The cream/brown theme replaces orange where it appears in the button background and the vertical lines at the bottom of the DK control panel, and matches in with the building/window colours used on the bezel. 

Good spot on the P1/P2 font, that dash definitely looks different!  I know the font is the same because I checked it when I was working on the new jump/fix button layout, but I'll check out why that dash is looking different.  I'm trying to go over all of the artwork now for final checks ready to get them printed.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #285 on: December 10, 2020, 08:17:05 am »
Dynamic fonts (which most computer fonts are nowadays) often adjust the length of the dash based on the letters around it. Probably what's happening to you. If it bothers you, you could try using an em-dash instead of the dash next to 0, or just leave a space and draw the dash in yourself.

That's a pretty keen eye javeryh has!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #286 on: December 10, 2020, 10:49:38 am »
That's a pretty keen eye javeryh has!

Ha!  I think I'm just super anal... and I love iterating on designs.  There are always small improvements that can be made - the hard part for me is figuring out when it is "good enough".

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #287 on: December 10, 2020, 02:00:39 pm »
No, really glad you noticed because it would REALLY annoy me when I finally spotted it on the final product  :)

I've no idea what I was looking at before because when I look more closely it's clearly not the same font.  It's been 8 months since I touched this so I can't remember all the details, but some of the bits came from the work others in the form of DK panels and some bits I had to create because they were unique to what I was doing here.  Spending two minutes looking at it you can immediately see the font differences (the P, for instance, is more curved and joins the vertical in a different place).  So I'm going to have to adopt a consistent font and change the P1/P2.  Differences below for comparison.  Middle is original, top is matching font with default spacing, bottom is with spacing adjusted to roughly match original width.  Trouble is if I reduce spacing then it's inconsistent with jump/fix.  I'm going to try with various consistent settings to see how it looks best.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #288 on: December 10, 2020, 02:21:09 pm »
Right, here we go, fonts now consistent, which obviously looks a bit different.  First pic is how it was, second is same font but with default spacing, third is with spacing to match the "Controller" area that already existed, which slightly reduces spacing on P1/P2/Jump/Fix.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #289 on: December 10, 2020, 02:23:44 pm »
Sorry for the different size images, which just makes comparisons hard.  I was just screen grabbing for ease.

I'm trying to decide if I'm 100% happy.  I'm so used to how P1/2 USED to look that I might just be not liking "that it's changed" rather than not liking the change!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #290 on: December 10, 2020, 02:36:22 pm »
Can you make the 1-Player and 2-Player bold?  Might approximate the look of the first picture better.  I do think the design is improving with these new changes.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #291 on: December 10, 2020, 02:59:24 pm »
Can do (and thanks), just not sure if I'm then doing it to match how it was or because it looks better.  It also makes things inconsistent again, of course, although they're already different sizes.  As a test, this is with P1 bolder and, for good measure, the same boldness applied to "Fix".

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #292 on: December 10, 2020, 03:11:59 pm »
Hmmm... I know exactly what you mean.  I think the bold looks slightly better but it is further from the original design.  Here’s a shot of my DK for reference.



The P1 and P2 fonts are tiny and JUMP is huge in comparison.  Maybe it's the JUMP that needs to be bigger/bold?  Also, the border is a completely different thickness (plus the triangular border but I get why you would eliminate that).  Hmmm... if it makes you feel any better, there's no wrong choice.  I don't notice any of this stuff when I'm playing or when I'm just hanging out in the basement.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2020, 03:14:07 pm by javeryh »

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« Reply #293 on: December 14, 2020, 04:36:52 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:07:57 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #294 on: December 16, 2020, 08:43:15 am »
Thanks.  That's actually what I've been doing over the last couple of weeks, albeit with slightly less elegant sheets of A4 stuck together.  A key thing I needed to see was whether my bezel obscured the screen at all at the bottom, since the screen mount isn't original.  It's fine, but it's raised another question.  According to information online the bezel should be 514mm high.  But the Gaetan plans show a gap of 524mm from wood to wood, and the actual gap is even larger because the lower bezel retainer gives about 8mm more, so I'd need 532mm.  Now I know the bezel has some space above it where it's clamped into place from above, and the top retainer covers about 15mm maximum.  But that still means I'd need 532-15mm MINIMUM (so 517mm) and that would only just graze the top retainer.

Am I missing something here?  I can only think that I need to order the bezel slightly higher because otherwise it's just not going to fit, but it must mean there's a measurement off somewhere.

Also, how does the marquee bracket hold the marquee?  Gaetan's plans show the marquee shelf (the bottom of the marquee) has an angle on it, so I'd assumed the marquee would sit in line with that angle IN FRONT of the shelf.  But the marquee bracket I have from Mike's Arcade only has a very small angle on it.  If I fit the bracket so that it's pushed tight against the shelf then it'd leave a gap that might just take the bottom edge of the marquee, but it'd be tight and only hold about the first mm of the marquee.  Does the bracket get pushed back this far (looks like it in photos) or does it sit slightly forward so that the whole of the marquee base can sit inside it?  The picture hopefully illustrates - black is the marquee shelf with the angle at the front, red shows how the marquee bracket creates an angle between it and the shelf.  I don't know whether the bracket is supposed to be taller so that the marquee sits ON the shelf or if it's supposed to create a gap that lets me put the marquee IN FRONT of the shelf.  Thanks!

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« Reply #295 on: December 16, 2020, 02:12:22 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:06:49 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #296 on: December 16, 2020, 04:59:41 pm »
Sort of!  It's those pictures I'd used to try and figure this out already.  The confusing bit is that this https://flic.kr/p/rPWrci picture, taken from underneath, seems to show that the bracket is pushed back so it's flush with the shelf.
 But in https://flic.kr/p/qT9jrZ there's a gap on the top that the marquee can fit into, and it looks wide enough that the marquee will sink into it quite a way down.  If I do the same with the part I have then the gap might just take the very bottom marquee, but the gap would narrow and prevent it from sinking in more than about a mm.  I can only think that I need to pull the bracket out a bit and that maybe the repro part isn't quite the same as an original.

Thanks for the offer to measure.  It would really help if you could confirm the distance between the top of the wood that holds the lower bezel bracket and the underside of the marquee shelf.  If it's really 524mm then I don't understand why a 514mm bezel doesn't just just fall out when it sinks into the recess in the lower bracket  :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #297 on: December 17, 2020, 03:27:33 am »
There also seem to be differences between original cabinets, which just makes it fun for hapless people like me who are trying to copy them  :)  Looking at Chance's photo at http://www.arcadecab.fr/Donkey%20Kong/Photos/ChanceKJ/035.jpg you can see the diagonal batten meets the top of the marquee shelf about 7mm from its front.  So that might suggest that the marquee itself sits flush against the batten, which you'd think would be the idea, but that would leave the marquee sitting on the shelf whereas I THINK it goes IN FRONT of the shelf into the bracket.

But if you look at http://www.arcadecab.fr/Donkey%20Kong/Photos/Buick455/IMG_2364%20(Medium).JPG then the batten isn't set back and meets the front of the marquee shelf.  So in that photo it's more obvious that there's no way the marquee could sit ON the shelf.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #298 on: December 17, 2020, 03:27:56 pm »
Thought I'd just get on with it - I've placed the side pieces in alignment with the shelf :) 

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« Reply #299 on: December 18, 2020, 01:00:10 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:06:37 am by ChanceKJ »

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« Reply #300 on: December 18, 2020, 01:43:17 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:06:27 am by ChanceKJ »

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« Reply #301 on: December 18, 2020, 01:58:26 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:06:17 am by ChanceKJ »

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« Reply #302 on: December 18, 2020, 02:58:10 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:06:07 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #303 on: December 18, 2020, 03:51:01 pm »
Thanks.  I've looked at so many photos of all of this at various point, and even went over the bezel lock arm stuff when you detailed it in one of your threads.  So this bit I understand in terms of how the bezel is supposed to fit, but when there's a gap of 524mm between the wood surfaces and the bezel is only 514mm then obviously that leaves me a 10mm gap to fill.  The upper bezel bracket seems to give me maximum of overlap, so I'd be overlapping by 5mm.  That would be fine, but the BOTTOM bezel bracket was about 8-9mm of depth in it.  So if the bezel drops 8mm into the lower bezel bracket then the bezel won't each REACH the upper bracket.  I coud pack out the lower bezel bracket or I could order a taller bezel, but if either of these is needed then I'm guessing the measurements I have must be out by a few mm somewhere.

If you wouldn't mind measuring between the lower bezel wood surface and either the underside of the marquee shelf (or the bottom of the upper bezel bracket, which is probably easier) then that would be really useful.  On paper the wood to wood distance is 524mm, so wood to bracket would be about 509mm in theory.  I'm guessing it's slightly less in reality.


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« Reply #304 on: December 18, 2020, 04:26:04 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:05:56 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #305 on: December 19, 2020, 08:01:34 am »
This is all really useful, thanks, and apologies for asking again - I'd somehow completely missed that you'd posted three times in a row  :-[

The pictures are all really useful though.  I've gone through a lot of your photos previously looking for details, but there are still a couple of little things I'd not seen before.  The 524mm measurement seems to be exactly as described on the plans, but it's great to see it "in the flesh".  That said, you've then confused me because your first picture with the fixed ruler shows it at 524, but your later one between the red and green dots seems to put it at 520!  But your rules one is where I've been measuring anyway, so seems to be the confirmation that I needed.  That aside, my missing few mm could easily come from your picture showing the lower bracket sitting a couple of mm above the wood, and the fact that your upper bracket comes down 18mm whereas mine seems to only come down 15mm.  Any one of these would give me the extra few mm I need to have the bezel make contact with the upper bracket.  So I can potentially just pack out the upper bracket mounting holes to give me a mm or two, or pack out the lower bracket to do the same.  I think I can just about make a standard size bezel fit with those minor adjustments.

For the horizontal upper support piece of the marquee, yes, that was a bit I'd gone over ages ago to make sure I understood what needed to go where.  I've had the piece of wood sitting around all year waiting until I had the two side pieces in place that would give me its final position.  With those in place, that finally got attached last night (below).  For the equivalent support pieces for the bezel I need to decide if I can figure out their positions accurately enough now or whether I'll wait until I have the bezel so I can attach them in exactly the right place.

Other than the painting saga, the thing that's taken forever in this build is understanding all of the little details about positioning or how x connects to y.  With an original cabinet to-hand I could have saved days of pouring over Internet photos trying to find the information.

Thanks again for taking the time to get those measurements and photos.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #306 on: January 08, 2021, 03:29:59 pm »
Somehow back on 29th November I uploaded a bunch of images about my monitor mount and then never posted them.  I really thought I'd written this stuff, so maybe I wrote it and forgot to post.  Or maybe it's posted and I can't see it, in which case you'll be reading this twice :)

I needed a way to mount the monitor that I have, so I took a bunch of measurements around the monitor to try and get a mount that wasn't too much of a cutout from the monitor, to keep as much strength as possible since it's taking the weight and it likely to bow.



The whole thing then got roughly cut out with the jigsaw and then tidied with the router.  The side holes are handles, obviously...




After painting and then bolting on to the monitor...



Then mounted into the cab (the paper is temporary, just to stop the mount scratching the cabinet sides as it's slid into position. I should probably have made it a bit narrower...




The top of the monitor frame bolts through to the L brackets that I attached to the cabinet sides in the past.  The bottom is held happily in place by gravity, but just in case anyone decides to tip the cabinet forward I wanted to secure the bottom in place.  So I secured a piece of wood to the rear of the frame on each side, then I screwed upwards into that block from through the shelf that the monitor is sitting on.  The monitor and the shelf aren't at 90 degrees to each other, so getting that piece of wood into place in the right place was a bit fiddly, but it seems nice and solid now it's all done. 






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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #307 on: January 08, 2021, 04:01:37 pm »
Wow, that's one clean looking CRT. Is it brand new?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #308 on: January 08, 2021, 06:36:43 pm »
No, not new, and unfortunately I didn't realise it was quite grubby until it was mounted in the cabinet.  It wasn't like some you see, and hasn't been through any brutal clean - the thought of tipping water all over a monitor just messes with my head.  I gave it a bit of a wipe over to get to stuff I could get to easily, but there will be plenty of out of reach areas where it's still pretty grubby  ;)

Apart from a scratch on the screen it's looking pretty decent, although I'm still finding dirt.  That ribbon cable, for instance, looked okay until I happened to wipe it and realised it was actually covered in black grime.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #309 on: January 09, 2021, 08:56:36 am »
I've been spending odd moments over the last month or so on wiring.

The two service buttons, which are mounted out of sight on the wood below the control panel, will act as power and a "back" button.  They're LED buttons, so although out of sight they will light to indicate when they're relevant.  When the cabinet has mains power applied the power button will light, so there's at least a clue how to turn it on.  Once the power button is pressed (and the PC inside powers up) then its light will extinguish and the "back/esc" button will light instead.  There are probably ways I could have done this using the uhid, but it's easy enough (in theory, although I spent time in advance testing theory with batteries etc.) to do with a relay. 



I'm using a length of cat5 for these buttons, since it was an easy way to get a number of wires through the cabinet and saved money on extra wire (I have cat5 lying around).  The power to the LEDs is supplied from the permanent 5V line on the ATX power suply, which I spliced into for ease.  This means that the 5V is present when the PC is turned off, and it's only when the PC gets power that I then take 12V from the PC to switch the relay, which then switches the 5V over to the other LED.



I've also wired the other end of the aviation connector that's attached to the coin door wiring, and attached a more than adequate length of wire to it all that I can trim back once I terminate it all to the uhid etc.



More immediately exciting, and a simpler bit of wiring - the marquee light is powered!



For the power input for the cabinet I'm attaching a socket to a piece of wood that is mounting where the switch would be on a normal Nintendo cabinet.  A Nintendo cabinet power wire would come as a captive wire through the middle bottom of the rear door, but I'd rather have a removable cable run separately since all the cabinet innards are non-standard anyway.  Because the socket is getting sandwiched between two pieces of wood I've had to recess the mount to accommodate it.



For the PC itself I'm using an old one that I've decased and will be mounting it on a piece of MDF that will sit roughly where the cabinet PCB would go.  I've attached standoffs to this and also cut a hole for the rear of the CPU/fan mount to allow it to breathe.  I'm not planning any ventilation at this stage because I'm hoping there's enough space inside the cabinet to stop it getting too hot.  If I need to do something then I'll have to vent somehow through the rear panel.





In place, with lots of wiring still to do.  There's plenty of soldering being done, but I'm using connector blocks in many places so that it's easier if I ever need to change the PC.




UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #310 on: January 15, 2021, 02:45:33 pm »
Don't think I ever posted this photo with a paper print of marquee and bezel in place to test...


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #311 on: January 15, 2021, 02:47:23 pm »
Observant people will have noticed the absence of the bezel in that last post  :-[


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #312 on: January 15, 2021, 03:32:58 pm »
A few other updates.

Made a mounting board for the isolation transformer and got wiring in place.



Attached the speaker panel, which is looking pretty nice I think.



I have most of the wiring in place now, run in the right places and mostly tidied up.  A little more to do here, but I've also got final testing to do before I finalise everything.  I think I mentioned before that it's using a smart strip which, all being well, will power up everything when the PC powers up.



In bigger news, the cabinet is now inside, finally.  It's been so cold/damp here that it wasn't going to be doing the cabinet or the monitor any good, so hopefully it's survived.  It's going to be inside for about a week before I even think of powering it up.



The bad news is that the "towel damage" (inflicted when it was lying down having the second side painted) isn't gone.  I couldn't see it at all when it was in the poor lighting of the garage, but as soon as it was in daylight it was obvious.  On the plus side it's just one of the strips that remains, and that one isn't surprising because it was the deepest of the lot.  It's disappointing, but I accepted this risk months ago when I finally stopped the painting saga.  Any more sanding risked going all the way back to wood, and anything else would have meant more painting/sanding etc. and I couldn't even risk lying it down to do that.  So maybe I'll position that side out of daylight, maybe I'll just see how much I notice it in real life.  I captured this photo with a monitor light in reflection so that the damage can be seen. 



Finally, the power inlet, painted and mounted in place.






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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #313 on: January 17, 2021, 07:20:27 pm »
Looks so good!!!!!   :applaud:

I love this project! (I think I say this to much, haha)

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« Reply #314 on: January 18, 2021, 03:57:00 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:05:22 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #315 on: January 21, 2021, 02:58:48 pm »
Thanks  :)

A quick marquee question. 

The lower shelf for the marquee has a slight angle on it that's in line with the whole angle that the marquee sits at.  The bracket that holds the marquee is actually angled in the opposite direction, so where the two piece meet it creates a V shape.  The very top of this V is JUST bit enough to accommodate the marquee, but it's barely going to hold in place.  Is the bracket supposed to be pulled forward slightly so that the marquee can drop down and be supported by the horizontal surface of the bracket (so it's level with the UNDERSIDE of the marquee shelf) or is the bracket supposed to be pushed all the way against the shelf so that the marquee is JUST held by the bracket and it's effectively level with the TOP of the marquee shelf?  Downside of having it in the bottom position seems to be that there will end up being a bit of a gap between the top of the bracket and the marquee (thanks to the V the gap gets wider).  I don't quite understand why the bracket angle doesn't match the shelf/marquee angle!

Short version - does the bottom of the marquee sit at red or green?!  ;)



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« Reply #316 on: January 22, 2021, 04:11:55 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 02:05:08 am by ChanceKJ »

javeryh

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #317 on: January 22, 2021, 09:15:26 am »
Green for sure but if you are using the right bracket the bottom part also holds the top of the bezel in place like this:



As you can see there are no gaps and everything fits nice and snug.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #318 on: January 25, 2021, 06:57:22 am »
Thanks both!  Just wanted to be sure, since the angle of the bracket doesn't make it completely obvious.

In bigger news, WE HAVE POWER!



Ignore the colours, it's just bad room lighting (and photography).

It's a big moment.  All the major electronics are working, so I press the magic power button, PC starts up, and a couple of seconds later the monitor and marquee light fire up.  So the smart switch thing seems to be doing its job, although I had ONE time where the machine had been running for about a minute and it powered off the light and monitor again, so it must have thought the PC wasn't busy or something.  Really hoping that was a one-off, because the whole approach to cabinet power fails (no point having a power switch for the PC if the monitor and marquee are always on!).

I'd done some work early last year on setting up CRT emudriver and so some bits came together quite quickly.  I've got groovymame and attractmode in place but only vaguely tested, but at least it meant I could fire up a game and get a picture and judge results.  I came a bit more unstuck with Wreck It Ralph (formerly Fixit Felix  :D) because it sent the monitor out of range and I hadn't immediately realised the cause. 



Even after closing the game my monitor remained out of play until I reduced the H size on the monitor (resulting in "double desktop" but at least I could see).  It turned out that my desktop resolution had been happily running at 640 X 480 interlaced from my work last year, but the Fixit game seems to switch resolution (assuming to 640 X 480 progressive, although I could have this wrong) and then leaves me in that state.  ArcadeOSD to the rescue got my desktop back as it was, once I figured out the problem, leaving me with the problem that my Wreck It Ralph cabinet might not be able to run Wreck It Ralph.  Luckily I found that by changing the settings of the game to NOT run full screen that it still can run "full screen" but doesn't mess with the resolution.  So things are looking good.  8)

In slightly worse news, it appears that monitor (not Sanyo, it's a Wells Gardner 19K7689) isn't in perfect health.  There's a vertical band on the left side of the screen (in vertical orientation) where the colour is off and where the image is compressed.  You can see it on the left three digits of WiR here:



The colour band is more noticeable in other games - here's AttractMode:



And Bomb Jack's calibration grid clearly shows the distortion:



I suspect that someone knowledgeable is going to tell me that I need a cap kit (or worse).  Can't say I'm particularly looking forward to that as an option.  I'm looking at the circuit board and trying to figure how practical that is to remove without removing the monitor from the cabinet, and I'm wondering at my skill at replacing what looks like quite a LOT of capacitors!  I've done a couple on a boiler PCB in the past, but if you change TWO and something doesn't work afterwards then you have limited places to look.  But the biggest challenges is probably even GETTING such a kit in the UK.  It's pretty expensive to ship stuff in, and thanks to some new customs laws a load of companies outside of the UK have now stopped shipping here completely.  How practical is it to identify and source the capacitors manually?

Of course, if someone points out that the issue has some much easier solution then that's even better  ;D  I'm also tempted to come back to this particular problem later since it'd be nice to finish this project and then tinker later rathen that add a load of delay and risk at this point.  Obviously I don't want to create worse issues by leaving it though, if that's possible.

Still, it's still a big moment for this project.  The end is in sight.  Now, need some controls....


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #319 on: January 25, 2021, 09:46:14 am »
Looking great man, really nice work!

I can't help you on sourcing the parts, but there are lots of good videos on YouTube showing how to do a cap kit. I'm especially a fan of John's Arcade. He often shows the full process, making some videos 1+ hours long but good for learning.

You're getting awfully close to a finished cab!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #320 on: January 25, 2021, 12:39:56 pm »
Looks GREAT.  The monitor issue stinks and I have no idea how to fix it but everyone says doing a cap kit is easy so maybe it won't be so bad. 

I'm sure you've said it before but how is Wreck-It-Ralph/Fix-It-Felix running?  Is there a ROM that runs in MAME or is it still a .exe file like it was a bunch of years ago?

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #321 on: January 25, 2021, 02:05:31 pm »
Looks GREAT.  The monitor issue stinks and I have no idea how to fix it but everyone says doing a cap kit is easy so maybe it won't be so bad. 

I'm sure you've said it before but how is Wreck-It-Ralph/Fix-It-Felix running?  Is there a ROM that runs in MAME or is it still a .exe file like it was a bunch of years ago?

Not to speak for UnclearHermit but the most common method is still running the leaked Disney copy of Fix It Felix which is a Windows .exe, often using the wrapper that Howard/The Dragon King made which lets you customize controls and other stuff. The game uses a plain old image sprite sheet so he edited one of the images to essentially "change" the title.

Unless someone codes a Z80/Assembly version of Felix I don't think it'll ever run in MAME   :D OR I guess if MAME starts emulating x86 Windows PCs!
There are some weird homebrew versions though, like one that runs on Genesis emulators. Not as good in my opinion.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #322 on: January 26, 2021, 06:48:39 pm »
I can't help you on sourcing the parts, but there are lots of good videos on YouTube showing how to do a cap kit. I'm especially a fan of John's Arcade. He often shows the full process, making some videos 1+ hours long but good for learning.

Thanks.  That's pretty much my plan, if I can source the parts.  I'm tempted to drop an email to some of the US-based sites selling the kits to see if I can buy the part list/instructions so they don't have to actually ship anything and I can then just try to order the individual caps locally.  Like I said though, I imagine this'll end up being a "later" thing.


Not to speak for UnclearHermit but the most common method is still running the leaked Disney copy of Fix It Felix which is a Windows .exe, often using the wrapper that Howard/The Dragon King made which lets you customize controls and other stuff. The game uses a plain old image sprite sheet so he edited one of the images to essentially "change" the title.


Yup, exactly that!  The cabinet will boot into that game, but allow exit to get to a selection of vertical games in MAME.  That's the plan, anyway.

I've been doing a bit of work on the control panel and come to realise that I have a small problem with the dust washer for the Servostik.  A DK control panel has a clear washer on top, black washer under the plexi, so nothing obscures the artwork and the hole is hidden by the black washer.  Because I'm not going down the original joystick route then things are a bit different.  The Servostik has a black dust washer that would cover the joystick hole, but it's so large (about 52mm) that it would cover the directional arrows that are part of the CPO art.  So I either need a smaller washer, or I need to mount it routed below the plexi (a bit worried about any potential damage to the reverse-printed art if it lifts at all) with a clear washer on top.  Obviously the EASIER route here is a smaller black washer, if I can source one.  I'm hoping that a plastic circle can't be that hard to find in some form.  I can find a few, but nothing so far that mentions dimensions.  My fallback is a joystick that I can pick up from eBay for under a tenner that looks to have a much smaller washer - an expensive way to just get a washer though!  That said, other places just selling the washers aren't actually that far off this price once I add in postage.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zippyy-Ball-Top-Short-Shaft-Arcade-Joystick-2-4-8-Way-Red-MAME-JAMMA/182485256588?epid=625059223&hash=item2a7cf8098c:g:Or4AAOSw~qxaufhC



UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #323 on: January 27, 2021, 07:07:34 pm »
Think I’ve sourced my dust washer...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #324 on: January 27, 2021, 11:31:43 pm »
Think I’ve sourced my dust washer...
Focus Attack sells 38mm clear dust washers for $1.  Hit it with some black paint on the bottom and you are good to go.  That’s what I did and it came out looking great.

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« Reply #325 on: January 28, 2021, 01:37:16 am »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:49:33 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #326 on: January 28, 2021, 11:46:44 am »
Yeah, I was worried about scratching.  I remember reading something from someone on here about putting a thin layer of felt on the underside of the washer.

So is your black washer between the plexi and the wood?  I take it that means the top of the wood is routed out slightly to take it?  I should stress my joystick is not original and is under-mounted, so right now there'd be a big hole visible without a washer covering it somewhere  :)

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« Reply #327 on: January 29, 2021, 12:58:27 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:49:18 am by ChanceKJ »

UnclearHermit

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #328 on: January 29, 2021, 01:13:41 pm »
Thanks, yes, I'd seen that but got confused by the mention of metal washers!

I could easily route and put a washer under the plexi, and it is tempting so long as I don't get a mountain of dust that then manages to get down there during normal use and gather where it's harder to clean!

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« Reply #329 on: January 29, 2021, 01:43:00 pm »
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« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:49:07 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #330 on: February 04, 2021, 10:44:17 am »
Saw this sideart image today and thought of your build. Very much a play on Donkey Kong Jr. sideart. I love how fun it is.

I know it doesn't fit your theme/style at all but just thought it would be fun to share.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #331 on: February 14, 2021, 06:00:47 pm »
Nice, where was that from? Another project?

Meanwhile, I've been having fun in software-land.  The plan, which I've probably mentioned before, is to have the cabinet boot into Wreck-It Ralph, then drop back into Attract Mode for a bunch of vertical titles with MAME.  This requires a bit of jiggling around to get Windows shell out of the way and have as clean an experience as possible.  The easiest way to do this is to replace Explorer as the shell, but I decided that the best replacement would be a little executable that did all the bits that I need.  After a bit of (very bad) coding I now have a tiny program that I can run as shell that does the following:
- Fires up WiR
- When that closes, terminate some of the WiR executables that sometimes seem to linger.  I found that sometimes I'd be in Attract Mode but WiR was still running in the background, stealing about half the CPU.
- Launch Attract Mode.
- When that closes (Attract Mode does confirm exit first) then shut down Windows and hence the cab.

This means that the "hidden" button now powers up the PC, which in turn triggers the smart strip to light the marquee and power the monitor.  When Windows shuts down, the smart strip kills the power to the monitor and marquee.  So far, so good.

I've also been testing the ServoStik and making sure I can switch between 4-way and 8-way when I switch between games.  There's a plug-in for Attract Mode that does this, so that bit was easy enough, but at some point I found that the switching wasn't happening any more and had to look into it.  I first assumed I had a loose wire or even the the control board or motor had died, but eventually I found that the joytray executable that does the switching was no longer switching.  After some more messing around I figured out that this was because the Explorer shell wasn't running.  If I put Explorer back in place of my launcher then it worked fine.

It seems that joytray.exe does switching, but that it also puts a little icon in the system tray (hence the name, I suppose).  I can only think that it's trying to do this even when called with a command line parameter that's explicit in telling it just to switch, but it's failing to register in systray (because it's not running) and so just fails.  This was a concern.  If I could only have the rotation switching working with Explorer then it screwed up the whole custom shell approach, leaving me to fight with Windows and the desktop etc. all the time.  I had a quick Google around, including this site, and found someone who had hit something a couple of years ago but no resolution.

The only approach I could think of was to write my own switching utility, but I had no idea how to interact with the control board.  A bit more Google uncovered that people had written things for Linux, but I couldn't find anything for Windows other than mention of native integration with other launchers.  The fact that other people had written such integration at least meant it must be possible, so I went back to the Ultimarc site and then kicked myself when I found that there was an API on the site.  Armed with that it didn't take me long to knock up "joytraylite", which now just switches to 4-way or 8-way and doesn't go near systray.  A quick test with my shell showed it works a treat  :applaud:

So I'm getting there.  I need to look and see if I can hide some of the quick windows that pop up when the WiR wrappers fire up, and I need to trigger joytraylite to 4-way at start-up (otherwise it could be in 8-way from the previous machine boot) but that's pretty much it on the software side.  The only other thing that this has raised for me is that it's a pain getting to the back of the machine to plug in keyboard/USB storage when doing any updates or troubleshooting, so I've just spent a few pounds on eBay for a little USB hub.  I'll route that so that it's permanently connected and mount the ports somewhere accessible from the coin door. 

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #332 on: February 14, 2021, 06:17:58 pm »
I just stumbled upon it! I was doing some research for a Donkey Kong 3 style game I'm working on and saw it on Pinterest.

A few google searches later, and looking closer. It appears to be made by this guy: https://cargocollective.com/dcay
And at least at one point sold it: https://twitter.com/slashfilm/status/929857462412263424

Can't find it for sale now though. Which is too bad, it'd be a great hanging piece in a game room.

You should consider sharing your joytraylite app. If it helped you, it may help others!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #333 on: February 15, 2021, 05:35:38 am »
Happy to share joytraylite with anyone who needs it, although I'll warn that it has absolutely zero error checking etc. and so isn't going to be popping up friendly error messages if anything goes wrong  :)

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #334 on: February 22, 2021, 04:15:41 pm »
A few updates incoming.

I've been keeping quiet about this, but the artwork for the cabinet was finalised around Christmas and I've been working with Olly over at https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ since on getting it into its physical form.  In January I had an exciting moment when this lot arrived. 



Unfortunately there were a couple of issues, one with the marquee (position/scale got a bit corrupted somewhere along the way) and one with the bezel, which was suffering with some kind of marking on the surface, which is apparently grease that's hardened under UV light:



It also wasn't helped by the fact that, in cleaning up the Illustrator file for printing, I'd managed to remove the colour from behind the lower part of the building.  You can see the window surround has the "correct" colour in the upper window but it's missing from the lower one.



Given the problem with the marking Olly kindly offered to re-print.  I took the opportunity to fix the building colour issue, and also to brighten up a few of the bezel graphics since they were looking a little dark when printed on the tinted plexi.  Olly also said he'd print an extra layer of white on the next run to try and help lift the colours.

In better news, the CPO was perfect and allowed me to get on with drilling the control panel.  I had this cut from ages ago, and had done an initial bit of priming/painting, but I'd been unable to go any further until I could get exact hole positions from the overlay.  I used the overlay to mark the hole positions, then took exact centres by aligning a paper print of the CPO with hole centres marked.



I've had the control panel retainer piece since I got the order from Mike's Arcade, but finally got around to routing out the back of the control panel and figuring out the position on the front panel.  I stuck it in place temporarily so that I could get the position/depth right, the screwed it on when I was happy.





Once I was happy with the position I drilled and fixed it into place, and was then able to test putting the control panel into place and making sure the retainer worked as expected.  Needless to say, my routed hole ended up being slightly too far forward so I had to widen it a couple of times until I got the panel moving into place cleanly.




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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #335 on: February 23, 2021, 01:56:10 pm »
I just had to try quickly assembling it at this point...



On the rear side, I marked for the joystick and drilled/inserted the blind hole mounts.



So then I just had to actually add some controls to this thing and put in in place :)  My original paper print is above.



No wiring in place at this stage, so it's just a temporary showcase.

Meanwhile, the replacement bezel arrived.  Opening the package I was instantly a bit worried when I noticed some kind of tear in the top-left.



Upon closer inspection, the paper has been sliced by a break in the corner.



So it seems somewhere in delivery somebody dropped it hard or, more likely, actually trod on it :(



Again, Olly at https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ was fantastic and got to work on another replacement.  Meanwhile, I was at least able to use the bezel to figure out positioning of the bezel supports and the retainer bar.



I used little spacers to allow me to hold the side supports in place in the right place as I let the glue dry.


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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #336 on: February 23, 2021, 02:49:00 pm »
Seeing artwork for the first time might be the BEST part of a build. And yours (the stuff that survived) looks excellent.

Super minor, but with all the red, I think a black ball-top on the joystick would look a little better. IMO

Anyway, great stuff.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #337 on: February 23, 2021, 03:08:05 pm »
I know, it's a great moment  :)

Black joystick ball is a very likely alteration.  It's in keeping with the cabinet's DK and FF roots, but being a Nintendo joystick the ball is slightly smaller.  I've been on the lookout for a smaller, black ball to replace the red one that came with the Servostik.  So far I can only find 35mm ones.  Worst case I'll grab one of those at some point down the line if I can't get hold of a smaller one that'll fit on the same thread.  I just haven't jumped at it yet because I didn't want to waste money if I could find something better.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #338 on: February 23, 2021, 04:13:25 pm »
Looking a second time, did you get your CPO printed directly on plexi/glass? Cause if so wow! It looks slick. I didn't know you could essentially get remade DK CPO's with custom artwork like that.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #339 on: February 23, 2021, 04:41:16 pm »
Yes, it's reverse printed directly onto the plexi.  Looks REALLY good.  Just going to keep saying https://www.arcadeartshop.com/ for those in the UK!

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« Reply #340 on: February 24, 2021, 08:57:32 am »
.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 01:45:28 am by ChanceKJ »

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #341 on: March 05, 2021, 07:56:28 am »
It’s nice to see you keeping the build quality and materials really high.  There is a tendency  to try to go cheap when building these cabs and I think a lot of people regret it afterwards.  Those graphic prints look top notch. :applaud:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #342 on: March 14, 2021, 05:31:26 pm »
 :D

Moving on, some miscellaneous updates.

Controls all wired.  This part is slightly extravagant (but really not, given the overall cost...) but I'm using a U-HID mounted onto the control panel to keep all the wiring local.  It allows me to easily disconnect by removing the USB leads that go to the U-HID and the Servostik control board.  It didn't seem worth looking at other connectors when USB did the job perfectly.



I can't find photos of this bit, but I ended up routing out the MDF on the top of the control panel to allow the dust washer to sit underneath the plexi.  So there's nothing on top of the plexi now, and you just see the washer directly underneath.  I'd already painted the top side when I made that decision, so ended up marking the surface enough that it needed to be repainted.  It's not a big piece so it wasn't a major disaster.  The surface of the MDF is just primed, rollered in cheap black and finally sprayed, with the roller texture sanded level before the spray coat.  The spray coats were high-grit sanded to give a nice finish.



Changing topics, whilst testing the cabinet I've had keyboard and mouse and USB storage plugged into the PC that's mounted where the PCB would normally be.  I figured I didn't want to be pulling the cabinet out and removing the back every time I needed to tweak for whatever reason, so I bought a cheap USB hub from eBay, de-cased and mounted it inside the coin door.  Terrible photo, but you get the idea.



Next, the now obligatory serial plate.  There's plenty written about these elsewhere, but in summary this is printed on a clear label and then mounted on thin aluminium sheet.  The aluminium is just thin enough to make it possible to cut with repeated passes from the knife coupled with a bit of bending.



Mounted it looks like this, which is plenty good enough for something that only the wall is ever going to see  :)



For the monitor surround I used thin paper to help template the curve of the monitor. 


Once I had a decent enough template I cut the card version.  I did the mullet at the same time, which is more more straightforward.  I tried mounting the mullet with little glue dots (like double-side tape but thicker, and in dot shape) but a few started to lose grip relatively quickly so I resorted to staples.  I was hoping to avoid the permanence of staples.





The monitor surround looks a bit bumpy in this photo but it's settled flat into place now.

The only think I don't like about this setup is that the monitor gives off a fair amount of heat and this heat now has nowhere to go.  Previously it could have escaped out of the rear handles, but now it's totally enclosed with the mullet behind and the marquee shelf above (and the bezel in front, obviously not pictured!).  Still, this is how it must have been with the originals, so hopefully it's fine.

Pretty much there now.  I few final photos and, inevitably tweaks aside, I think this is game over  :o

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #343 on: March 14, 2021, 09:51:17 pm »
Hey Unclear, check your PM's, I have something you may enjoy for your cab.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #344 on: March 15, 2021, 07:35:36 am »
This is such high quality work.  Lots and lots of details that not many people will ever see or notice but it all adds up into something special.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #345 on: March 15, 2021, 02:47:00 pm »
It looks very professional,i hope to have the skills one day. :applaud:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #346 on: March 15, 2021, 03:21:54 pm »
Unclear Hermint:  Thanks for posting those pics of your serial plate.  That's one thing I was still trying to figure out and now you've given me clues on how to do it.  Did you use a laser printer or inkjet with Avery clear stickers?  Also I'm thinking maybe another layer of some clear laminate spray or thin sheet over the top of it might be needed to keep the ink from fading over time?  Look fantastic!   :cheers:

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #347 on: March 15, 2021, 04:07:55 pm »
Unclear Hermint:  Thanks for posting those pics of your serial plate.  That's one thing I was still trying to figure out and now you've given me clues on how to do it.  Did you use a laser printer or inkjet with Avery clear stickers?  Also I'm thinking maybe another layer of some clear laminate spray or thin sheet over the top of it might be needed to keep the ink from fading over time?  Look fantastic!   :cheers:

Hey Vertex, I did a write up on using this method (or very similar) on my website. https://sergiostuff.com/2018/07/22/custom-arcade-serial-plate/
I also include some design files people can use if they don't want to make their own. I used an inkjet printer and Krylon Triple-Thick (a light coat) on mine.

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #348 on: March 19, 2022, 05:36:36 pm »
Resurrecting this thread cause I'm super curious if this got finished up. Would love to see some beauty shots - it was looking to be one of the cleanest Nintendo style builds ever

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #349 on: July 22, 2022, 06:32:37 pm »
Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #350 on: July 23, 2022, 06:27:48 pm »
Love the progress, excited to see the finished product!

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #351 on: January 22, 2023, 05:15:19 pm »
Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

Ahem...

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Re: Nintendo cabinet build - Wreck-It Ralph
« Reply #352 on: February 02, 2023, 02:37:40 pm »
Well now, don’t I feel like an idiot.  It’s absolutely finished and has been for ages. I was SURE that I had updated this thread with final pics. I even remember taking them. But they’re certainly not here, so I must have forgotten to ever post them. I’ll rectify that when I have photos to hand!

Ahem...

Unfortunately July 22, 2022, 06:32:37 pm was the last time UnclearHermit was active here. Hope all is well with him and he is enjoying his Wreck-It Ralph cabinet.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2023, 08:57:56 pm by SpaceAce83 »