The Mame'ing of the Shrew (A novella)

[PacManess]

Hello,
I just thought I'd share (or vent) some of my experiences (re)building my Arcade controls.
This time, instead of the 4x2 beast, the dimensions of the panel are 36" x 16". Good times there. After driving about 30 miles to pick up the MDF and the Quick Discos and the wiring, I arrived home to find that my KeyWiz had arrived (THANKS RANDY!). Good times there. We hooked up the KeyWiz to the old board, and sure enough, worked like a Dream. Me was happy. So, we took everything off the old board...
Now, just for reference, the room we are doing this in has brown shaggish carpet. This is important? Why? Well, when I was removing the C-Clip from the bottom of one of my Happs, it sort of FLEW off. Since it is in an important piece, we started looking for it. First right next to the CP then farther and farther away.
After about an hour of searching, I said "You know, it's probably right in front of us..." and just at that time I look down, and my big toe is pointing right at it. Yay! C-Clip love for all.
So, next we design the CP layout. Well, we wanted to. See, out of the three people working on the project, only one of us has mad putting-my-ideas-from-the-graph-paper-onto-the-board-in-a-real-size-drilling- pattern-sort-of-way skills. We had agreed that he would be here at 3. Well, 3 came and went. So we got antsy, and decided to try and transfer it ourselves. That didn't work. What did work was the eraser on the pencil...and good thing too.
So, about 3 hours pass. I play XBox. I decide that my friend is really cheesing me off. Say he'll be here at 3 and then not be here. Finally about 6ish, he shows up. He sits here and eats his little McDonald's while I say, man, c'mon...
Finally, he's really. He works his magic, and presto digito we have a board that has some pencil markings that vaugely resemble something that looks like a drilling pattern. We grab the 1 and 1/8 inch bore and the drill and get ready to drill.
Problem: We clean ALL the wood from the bore bit before starting, thinking we were being good little BYOAC'ers. Nope. See, what happens is, when you get done drilling (and burning) the MDF, it leaves a little "wagon wheel". Well, the Wagon Wheel was wedged way down. How's the for alliteration? So, to get it out, we had to basically chisel it out. So, finally, after a few hours of this process and only having drilled a few holes (and after I made the comment that "Amish could build an arcade control panel faster than this..."), we figured out that we have to leave some wood IN the bore to keep the "wagon wheels" from going all the way in.
Oi vey.
So, around midnight, we finished with the drilling of the holes. It looks pretty ok so far...but we didn't get to the wiring. One of us had a funeral to go to, one of us had church, and me...well...I was just "done" for the night.
Long story short (too late!) CP #2...not going as well as CP #1. But at least we have the motivation of a better looking panel and the knowledge that it will indeed work once we get the hizzle fo shizzled. Or something.
Wires will be wired tomorrow (or later today I reckon) and then we might have some arcade love. Man, this hobby rocks my lame socks.

[mahuti]

I guess you're living up to the name "nosleepboy"

[Trenchbroom]

Helpful tip for all people drilling their first CP (ESPECIALLY if lexan or Plexi is involved).  Have a second drill and an ice pick handy.  That way you can drill a hole in  the "wagon wheel" that gets stuck down in the bottom of the bit and use the pick to pry/break the SOB out of there.

1st control panel took 3 hours.  2nd (same layout only accurate this time) took about 40 min.  Big difference.

[GroovyTuesdaY]

Helpful tip for all people drilling their first CP (ESPECIALLY if lexan or Plexi is involved).  Have a second drill and an ice pick handy.  That way you can drill a hole in  the "wagon wheel" that gets stuck down in the bottom of the bit and use the pick to pry/break the SOB out of there.

1st control panel took 3 hours.  2nd (same layout only accurate this time) took about 40 min.  Big difference.

I assume your using a  hole saw? lol.  My drilling experience using the hole saw was just as bitter. It seemed like after every  hole i had to pick and poke the fricken disc out of the hole saw.  It was not a fast process.  In the future, i will be trying something different.
groovY~

[mahuti]

I use a spade bit for wood. It works great. Come at it from both sides, and the wood will have a very nice edge on both sides, and no cracking (if you go all the way through, the wood will probably chip on the far side.

A drill press helps alot too.

[Nailz]

Yep, I used a spade bit on mine as well, although I wasn't smart enough to drill from both sides, just started on top and bore through.  The underside looks like complete ^%#$^%, but hey, who cares, no one can see it anyways.  Next time I will do it like Mahuti says though....

[NoOne=NBA=]

The trick to the "wagon wheel" syndrome is drilling BOTH ways, as mentioned above.
Start your hole by drilling a small pilot hole all the way through the board, and use that to guide your holesaw just over halfway through the board.
By that time, the arbor bit (center drill part) should have come out the back side of the board.
Flip the board over, and finish drilling from the other side.
When the "wagon wheel" pops out, it should be sticking out of the hole saw.

It may be really hot depending on how sharp your hole saw is, and how dense the wood is, so remove it with tools or gloves.
This method keeps you from having to pry it out of the bottom of the tool, and also results in a better looking hole because you aren't breaking out of the board on the last turns.
Another thing that may help is to slightly rock the hole saw as you drill.
That will make the wagon wheel part a little smaller than the inside diameter of the hole saw.

[Nightmare03]

Just a question, what is a spade bit ? Does it have a big point to it ? If so i used that and it worked cool

[Spaced Invader]

Yep...big pointy thing...

[Brad Lee]

^^^ NBA knows the drill (pun intended)

Drill through one side until the center/pilot bit is poking through, go ahead and do all your holes this way. Then flip it over and youll have a clean board with many 1/4" holes(thats the size of mine anyway) Line up the hole saw and it should be just a quick plunge to liberate the wagon wheel, which'll only be about 1/4 of the way into the hole saw- easy pickins


If you do go gung-ho and drill all the way thru and get it stuck, try loosening up the center bit or removing it completely. Then you can use a smaller bit or a screwdriver up through that hole and poke out the wheel

[DrewKaree]

The ABSOLUTE best way to get clean straight holes with no "tear-out" on the backside and not have to deal with "wagon wheels" or burnt wood is to use a drill press, FORSTNER BITS, and ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS use a scrap piece of wood to back up the piece you are drilling into.  Even if you don't have a drill press or forstner bits, you should ALWAYS (do you see a pattern on this point?) use a piece of scrap to back up the hole.  This will save you from having "gunshot" holes on the backside of your CP.  See attached pic as to one of the two kinds of forstner bits there are.  Forstners are more expensive, bu t produce a nicer cleaner hole with less effort.  That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

[PacManess]

Hiya everyone, glad you enjoyed my story of woe and misery.
I had to take a day or two off from the MAME project...just getting a little frustrated.
Day 2 went pretty a-ok. We wired the CP and it worked! Well, sort of. Player 1's Button 3 kept working/not working, and we had all sorts of QDs that just didn't have a very good connection...so after a few minutes of button pounding the copper would shake away from the metal on the QDs and break the connection, or they'd come off completely.
And I had another issue. For some reason, some games would just flat out crash back to Mamewah. Which is ok I guess, but it sucked in the middle of a heated Double Dragon game to have it go flying back to the FE. Then, you know, sometimes the KeyWiz seemed to "reprogram" itself and not work correctly. This was fairly easy solved by just resetting it to the normal mode, but it still sucked.
Drilling. That was good times. Last week we used the 1" Spade bit for the buttons...we'd just do the 1", then whittle out enough to squeeeeze the buttons in. I almost prefer this to the 1 and 1/8" holes because I hate it when there isn't enough button to cover ALL of the hole. That happened on a few buttons.
So...already plans are in the mind for the "really for real CP"...I think I'm going to go with 2 Omni-Stik Retros and just cut out the dedicated 4-way. I mean, you know, Leaf Switchy times are good and nice and all, but it's not THAT important.
Oi vey.
This is a crazy addiction. I told my friend while we were finishing the 2nd CP that I already had in mind how "Next Time" would be easier...and he just stared at me. Some people just don't understand.