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Author Topic: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!  (Read 51421 times)

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vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #120 on: December 18, 2020, 11:57:46 pm »
Anyone have any idea how I might go about mounting this network pass thru jack in wood paneling?  I bought this from one of the arcade shops (forget which one) and expected it to be a little more mount friendly then this.  Seems like it was only meant for a 1/32 or less thick metal sheet to fit under the plastic black screw down face plate.  I'm going to have to improvise somehow, and I haven't come up with any great ideas yet.   :banghead:  Worst case I could wedge it in a tight hole and use glue to keep it in place but I'm hoping for something a little more elegant and serviceable.

Any thoughts?



« Last Edit: December 19, 2020, 02:16:29 pm by vertexguy »

Drnick

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #121 on: December 19, 2020, 10:35:00 am »
Small metal sheet :) Probably get away with a 2 inch by 2 inch or something.  If you have an old computer cut a piece from the side panel (As long as it is metal) Then Rout out and inset into wood, couple of small screws and should be good to go.  Or save a lot of hassle and get one of these https://www.thomann.de/gb/seetronic_se8fdyh_61_b_ns_rj45.htm



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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #122 on: December 19, 2020, 11:50:51 am »
Anyone have any idea how I might go about mounting this network pass thru jack in wood paneling?
As Drnick suggests, you can use a piece of sheet metal or you can 3d print something similar to an arcade button-hole plug, but larger and with the three mount holes.

Mounting hole pattern.  (click for full-size)


I bought this from one of the arcade shops (forget which one)
Probably Focus Attack.
https://focusattack.com/neutrik-ne8fdp-rj45-feed-through-black/

Here's a video showing how to mount this feedthru on a plastic panel. (2:15 - 5:25)




Scott

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #123 on: December 20, 2020, 08:23:37 am »
In my Magneto cab I mounted multiple Ethernet/USB/HMDI Neutrik passthroughs in 12mm (1/2") MDF.
Just drill a proper sized hole, and predrill for the two screws. As there is not a lot of clearance between these screws and the hole, you need to be precise/careful.
Anyway, I would suggest to try it out on a piece of scrap first.



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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #124 on: December 20, 2020, 10:21:34 pm »
I think that I am going to try a modular furniture faceplate. They are used for adding ports on desks. I don't have one in hand yet but as far as I understand, you just snap them into your cutout and attach your keystones. I thnk I am going with just hdmi and rj45 for any future updates.

https://www.amazon.com/Leviton-49910-SE2-QuickPort-Furniture-Faceplate/dp/B002FYOL2M/
« Last Edit: December 20, 2020, 11:12:41 pm by PL1 »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #125 on: December 21, 2020, 01:03:09 am »
Thanks for all the ideas and quick feedback!  As edekoning pointed out, he successfully mounted it in 1/2" mdf on his Magneto build, so this should be possible.  Upon closer examination of the part, I'm now wondering what the purpose of the PUSH metal tab / button really is on this pass thru.  As far as I can tell it doesn't do anything with the little plastic tabs on the cat 5 cable so if I don't need to worry about using the push tab I can mount it deeper in about a 1/4 or slightly thicker piece of ply and be fine.  If needed I can find some slightly longer screws so it threads enough into the base.  Unless I find critical purpose to the push tab I should be good.

I'm really hoping to make some massive progress this week before Christmas is here.  The weather looks decent all week.  I did a bunch more detail work in 3d leading up to this week that should help me too.  I still have a few things to figure out but nothing that should keep me from getting this thing upright.  I now have WAY too many hex bolts and threaded inserts of different sizes because I was originally planning on using a lot thicker framing and 3/4" ply everywhere.  Those plans changed over the past year or so, and uh... I guess maybe that confused me. ;D  It could easily have been me misreading something too but either way I ordered 100 bolts that were too long (1 1/2" instead of 1 1/4").  I just got the correct size bolts in today.  On the plus side I was able to find some small M5 hex bolts and threaded inserts that should be perfect for all my smaller service panel areas inside the cabinet and in my gun holster designs.  :)  I also picked up a gallon of satin black paint and Kilz #2 dark primer for all the non laminated surfaces.  Wish me luck...







« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 03:27:19 pm by vertexguy »

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #126 on: December 25, 2020, 03:42:32 pm »
Merry Christmas everyone!   :cheers:

My Uncle in law got me a really cool ornament this year that I thought everyone would get a kick out of.



It lights up the screen and marquee and plays a bunch of sounds from the game when you push the start button on the CP.

Turns out there's only a couple different collectable cabinets out there so far.   I might have to collect em all. :)


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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #127 on: December 29, 2020, 10:22:14 pm »
Time for an end of year update!

I can't believe how this past year flew by while at same time dragging on as if trapped in an endless loop of covid hell.  Another words no where near as productive as I had hoped. That said, I have managed to make some good progress in the past few weeks.  If I had maybe another day or so, I think I would have met my goal of having this thing standing up, but between Christmas and running into new challenges and required design changes, here we are.

I've ordered new parts in the last couple weeks, I've built a number of things in 3d, revised designs, and done a fair amount of wood working and assembly.  Let's start from the top...

I hadn't really fully fleshed out the back design yet to full detail.  I needed to figure out how I was going to mount my power inlet, momentary power switch, and (eventually) a network cable pass thru.  I also decided to play around with the visual style of the back a little bit.

Here's the power inlet area.  I decided to recess them so that it's less obvious and hides the cable end a bit more.  It should also be more versatile for maintenance because if the part or the wood it's mounted too ever has an issue, those are easier to replace than the full back panel.



Here you can see how it vertically mounts to the large board I have across the back of the base.



I also experimented a bit with an accent edge color for all my vents and inset areas on the back.  From straight on everything is black, but the more you angle your view the more you see edge color.  This would match the blue T-Molding I plan on using.  Thought this might add an interesting special touch.



Here you see the full back arrangement straight on, so it's all black.  I wanted to make sure I had plenty of vents to keep a good airflow going through the cabinet to not require any fans.  I also wanted to make sure you can't see into the cabinet, so each vent has a 3/4" spacer behind it with a piece of hardboard attached, so it's impossible to see in from any angle while still promoting good airflow.



Lastly, here's some of the new details worked out for the main electrical wall.  I plan on covering all the connection points with hardboard to keep young hands away and still need to design a cover for the back area of the mounted power supply.  I will probably be good with a standard outlet box to cover the back of the main power inlet.



On the right side of the above pic you can see the inner details of the inset side design I added to the front.  There's a long thin strip of hardboard over it in the back to cover the long channel of lights you will see in the front.  I also am playing around with turn locks that I think I may go with that keep the main lower front cabinet door closed.  You can access it through the coin door with the key.  That keeps the front looking more like a traditional arcade with no extra handles and gives me a way to seal it up if I don't want people accessing the inside.  I'm also toying around with a slide out coin catch drawer kinda similar to what Arroyo had in his designs.  Still working out details for that.  I also doubled up most of the wood on the front cabinet area to make it almost 1 inch thick just to reinforce the door areas and some otherwise rather thin long strips (1.5x30) that felt too flimsy and bowed to me if left at only 1/2 inch thick.



Now as far as wood working and assembly goes, I started by reviewing the base.  Turns out there were a few mistakes I needed to correct before I could move on.  The first was on the large board across the back.  I had intended there to be a nice tight joint where long cleets from the side panels would sit into this board.  I clearly was not careful enough on this section because my measurement was off and the cuts were kinda sloppy from the jigsaw.  Pretty sure I let my boys help with some of these cuts...so I'll just blame it on that. ;)  Either way, the holes on both sides needed shifting, so I broke out the chisel set I got a while back and did what I could to widen them out.  It's not that pretty, and is too wide now due to how it was originally cut, but it should be corrected and still has board in front on either side.  If I care enough I might try to pretty it up somehow later on with some covering.

Next up I took my time and carefully mapped out the bottom 4 holes for threaded inserts in my side panels.  These are meant to connect to the base.





These came out ok.  The only major setback was that I couldn't get the inserts to thread in enough to be completely flush with the board.  Not a big deal though because they compress into the pine boards on the base and become flush.  The first side I tested came out great.  Everything actually lined up well and with some subtle adjusting I was able to get the side to stick below the base by exactly 1/16th.  Then I went to test out the other side, and trouble struck hard.



I can't explain this misstep at all.  Clearly I have a line marked where the center of the holes SHOULD be....but this is no where near.  I thought maybe I marked the other side and flipped the board wrong when I attached it, but in looking back at my design, it was suppose to centered, so it wouldn't have made a difference.  Either way, I now had a problem to solve.  Since this was for a part never seen and I didn't want to attempt to rip off that piece of the base and lose a bunch of time redoing it, I decided to try altering the holes manually with a free hand drill approach.



Turning the small hole into a capsule shape wasn't too tough and that would get it where it needed to be.  The harder part was lowering the large inset circle on the other side that the washer and bolt rest on at a specific depth.



This wasn't pretty but through a bunch of side drilling / cutting with different bits I was able to get it just wide enough without messing up the depth much.  Finally I tried assembling it again and was able to get it in the correct position.



The next part is a ton of manual plotting.  This took a lot longer than I had hoped, but it's imperative that everything be as accurate as possible...especially with threaded inserts.  In retrospect I think I would approach this process different next time.  Given the shear number of things to position correctly and total number of inserts, it might be worth printing out a large black and white print and using that to align all the holes quickly.  A step further would be to do this on a piece of hardboard.  Then you would have a nice template to get perfect results on the actual wood you intend on using, and it makes it easier to reproduce the whole cabinet in the future if that's your goal.  Anyway.... in this process I discovered a few mistakes with the sides that I needed to adjust my designs to and roll with.

The first thing with the inserts was plotting out the main side cleats that run up the back of the side panels.  These hold on all of the back, add stability, and hopefully give the side panel a little more protection against warping.  When drilling these and putting in inserts, I discovered it was best if I clamped several boards together on all sides to help keep it from accidently splitting during the process.  This also provided a wider area to rest my drill guide on.






The screws are quick temporary holders while gluing on the side cleats.  I may leave them in or I might just pull em out and fill the holes.

This next section is all the fun and pain I've run into dealing with threaded inserts and accuracy. :)

First a little tip I learned from bperkins.  I used a standard toilet bowl wax ring and lightly rolled the insert on it prior to insertion.  It turns out a little bit goes a long ways, and it definitely helps it go in faster and easier.  It's even easy to remove and reinsert again if needed. ;)



It turns out there's a lot more to these than meets the eye.  Getting them to be the exact depth and perfectly straight is no easy task.  First I measured out where my fully inserted drill bit hit the ground surface I'm drilling into and mark that with the stopper on my drill guide.  Then I use a tiny measuring stick with mm on it and measure down from that point to the depth I need.  In this case I'm using 15mm 1/4-20 inserts.  On the first side panel, I got lucky and apparently went just deep enough to not run into an upcoming issue.  On the second side panel though, I quickly noticed that each insert I added was also adding a noticeable bulge on the other side of the panel.   The real breaking point was when I got to this section by the corner where the CP rests.



This is the repair shot.  It ended up pulling the plywood apart!  The crack wasn't very wide so I tried putting wood glue on some paper and was able to slide it in and try to wipe as much glue in there as possible, and then clamped it over night.  At that point I made the decision that something was clearly wrong and I needed to figure out how to fix all these bulges, so I pulled out all the inserts on the panel.


Here you can see the regular depth required of an insert sitting against 3/4" ply.



There's only about 1/8th left which happens to be the final bottom ply and perhaps a thin veneer coating.  This really doesn't leave much room for error, but it also doesn't explain the bulging and split wood just yet.

Next I used my scrap 3/4" ply to test more holes and try to understand what was really happening here.  With what I thought was the proper depth hole, here's the insert threaded in to sit flush.


Now you can see the resulting bulge I was talking about on the other side, along with lots of cracking between the ply layers.

Here I made it a little bit deeper of a hole first, and in a cleaner section of the wood, and again you can see the bulge and cracking.


Eventually I drilled deep enough where it started cutting thru the other side.


After putting in the insert, here's the result.



So... now we have a new set of problems.  This tiny hole shouldn't be an issue worth attempting to patch given that I'm laminating and it's the size of a pin head, but it's frustrating and if I were painting, this is not acceptable.  It's also not acceptable to be this close to the surface if I'm thinking about inserts on my CP.  I then backed it up by a hair and tested it again.




Finally.  This is more acceptable (although still way too close to the surface....any sanding and a hole would likely surface).

I might have a couple different options to help this situation out.  If I went with the next size down (10mm) threaded inserts that I got for 1/2" sections, and a shorter bolt, it would probably be fine with a shallower hole.  However, then what will I do for the 1/2" areas I need inserts on?



Turns out the drill bit selection I was using will definitely make a difference.  I caught this early on but still don't have the best possible drill bit for the situation.  Notice these 2 bits have different end points.  The left one would cut a good 1/8th away before it starts to get to the actual diameter of the bit.  The one on the right is what I used in all these examples.  Still not ideal.  What I really need is a flat ended bit so I can buy back 1/8th of depth.  After a quick search I found some steel bits that kinda look more like what I need, but I'm not sure how it will handle wood.



You also run into situations where you need to find ways to make level surfaces to drill on.  This wasn't even the worst one.  The top section had 2 holes right next to a cleat so I had to measure the thickness of the cleat plus the hole depth and get it just right where millimeters count.

After I found the depth that didn't make a hole all the way thru, I went back over every hole on the panel and drilled each one more time.  That was just enough and took out all the bulging, and left no holes (although it's still mighty thin).



So here we have 2 completed side panels with all the inserts in place.  There are quite a few...72 in all.  This is as far as I was able to get.  At this point I probably won't be able to get back to the project until the new year.  This feels like a lot of the complex parts though.  A lot of the remaining pieces are rectangles and attaching cleats to those with drill holes for the bolts to pass thru into the inserts on the side panels.  I already have all the primary panels cut to stand it up so it's really just attaching cleats.  Hand drawing all this detail out on the sides revealed some flaws in my measuring, flaws in my cutting, and even flaws in the digital design,  So it's been a back and forth process and I'm trying to roll with the punches as best I can to keep it moving forward.


Shookie

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #128 on: December 30, 2020, 05:08:26 pm »
Good thread and congrats on your progress!  I'm just getting started on my own 4 player system.  Learned a few things from your thread that I want to do... and a few mistakes I want to avoid after reading your trial and error.  I think I might just go with some plastic vents instead of routing parallel slots in multiple places. 

I'll definitely do a cardboard CP layout.... have it drawn out on paper right now.  Mounting everything to cardboard or even thin plywood is a good idea.  Want to "try" and get all of the buttons and joysticks in the best locations.

Looking forward to following along wither progress.

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #129 on: January 03, 2021, 11:54:52 pm »
Thanks Shookie.  Its good to hear the thread actually is helping someone rather than just capturing all of my blunders for all time.    ;D. I saw the start of your thread and will be following along.  Prototyping definetly helps!

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #130 on: January 14, 2021, 08:43:10 pm »
Here's a little progress update!  There's lots more detail to share on this that will come in a later post.  For now, after a lot of challenges, it finally stands!





« Last Edit: January 14, 2021, 08:56:03 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #131 on: January 16, 2021, 10:45:30 pm »
Congrats on getting her standing.  When you haven’t done any wood working it’s hard to understand what an accomplishment this is.  I know this is your first foray into the hobby so kudos for sticking with it.  Keep going, I’m curious to see where this takes you

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #132 on: January 21, 2021, 01:46:03 pm »
@Arroyo  Thanks man!  It really does inspire to get it standing and be able to focus more on adding pieces to it.  Now that you're getting back to your build I have more inspiration to look forward to as well.  :cheers:


Here's a bit of a backtrack to cover everything leading up to my last update, and beyond.

Getting this thing upright meant I needed to get a LOT of cleats in place.  Rather than do all this precision drilling outside in my cold garage, I try to setup shop in my basement whenever possible.  Here you can see I used a few existing cleats to wedge the one I'm working on into the middle with some speed clamps.  I also had some scrap MDF underneath to drill into so the back of the hole didn't blow out as I drilled.



I got pretty good at being very precise with my hole making having to create so many of these.  The downside to this is that ultimately I learned you still need a little more flexibility in some places then planned.  In a few places I needed to widen these holes by up to 1/8th or so to achieve correct alignment.  Ultimately this is the best way to have that flexibility since the insert itself isn't going anywhere.

Of course this process made a lot of sawdust with each hole, so I made sure I had my old basement vacuum next to me to suck it all up after each hole.  This kept the basement clean and maintained a happy wife.  :)



Once I had all the cleats made, I attached them all to the sides to test them out.  Since I had plotted everything on the side panels, it was really easy to see where the cross sections should align to the cleets.



After all this I was excited to start piecing stuff together and see it stand.  Here's where I made a very simple but critical mistake...



I accidentally grabbed the wrong bolts box.  Originally I ordered bolts that were too long (1.5 inches) and what I really ended up needing for most of the cab was 1.25.  For some reason I though I still needed the longer bolts to attach my base to the sides.  This was unfortunately NOT the case....  I didn't realize this was happening until I was able to flip the base to attach the other size, so it was too little too late.  I quickly removed the bolts at this point and put clamps over the damaged area to smooth it back out.  This seemed to work OK, and given that I'm laminating, I'm hoping that addition will be enough to cover these flaws and keep the hole area flat.

After this mess, I moved those 1.5" bolts to a different location to help prevent me from accidentally grabbing them again, and labeled my 1.25 bolt boxes more distinctly.

I also did more work on the back panels before I could stand it up.  It turned out that my insert placement on one side was off and instead of checking first on the real deal, I went by the computer measurements.  This was another big mistake as I ended up drilling large holes around the edges of the panels that didn't align to anything.  My hope here is that I can patch these up with wood filler, marking where the holes really should be, and then re-drill them once the filler hardens, and sand it down to match the wood.

Somehow I also made a mistake on the placement of the vents on my top panel.  Instead of redoing everything over this mistake, I decided to modify my layout and keep those vents where they were.  There also seems to be some subtle alignment issues with the panels that I still need to address where it isn't completely square.  This is why the back middle section panel is still not attached.  I went to put it on and realized it wasn't fitting properly.  I also need some gap to be able to easily remove my service panels, but I don't like that it creates obvious cracks in back.  This will be an issue to contend with in several places of the cabinet, so I need to figure something out.  Right now my idea was to either use some thick felt, or perhaps hardboard and create a lip on the inside of the panels to cover the gaps.

Moving along I also added the holes for the "handles" on the back that several machines seemed to be adding as a convenience for moving them around.  The search for these things showed there were very limited options on where you can buy them.  I also had some strange naming results as the place I ended up getting them from on eBay was calling them "handle bars".



I found some really small hex bolts on amazon that I intend on using in several places around the cab.  I had to make the hole ever so slightly bigger to fit, but it worked well and keeps a consistent look.


I also went searching for black carriage bolts at local stores and that proved to be a wild goose chase.  I went out of my way to a far Home Depot that showed it had some in stock only to find out they really didn't.  At that point I decided to just grab regular bolts and spray paint them.



I will likely hit them with another coat to really get the edges better, but considering my coin door has wear and tear in places, this should blend right in.  My main concern is if it ends up scratching off easily.  Hopefully not... my only alternative seems to be ordering online in much higher quantities.

Along the way of working on stuff I started getting more familiar with the router and some techniques to help get perfectly straight edges.



Here I'm using the factory straight edges on each of the hardboard templates I had made to form the edges of the rectangle I wanted to cut out for the power inlet on the back panel.  With a flush trim bit this was dirt simple with the double stick tape and resulted in the rounded edge corner I was after to tie in with the capsule shaped vent holes.  Once I got comfortable with this I started using the router to make perfectly straight cuts along the edges of every board I was making.  This is time consuming to setup, but the end result is perfect.  I bought a few boards and even some cheap floor tiles to act as quick templates I can setup and use for faster setup and better edges.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2021, 02:01:18 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #133 on: January 21, 2021, 01:51:14 pm »
Next up I decided to take on the light box that holds the marquee up top.  I went out and bought some tin duct repair tape to line the inside to help bounce the light around.   I was hoping to find something even more reflective as this seems to be no better than aluminum wrap you would use in the kitchen.  For now I'm hoping it's sufficient and actually helps, as I plan on using it in several places on the cabinet to help diffuse the lighting.

My light box design required a few cuts with the router beyond just making nice straight edges. 



First I lined up where I needed to make my cut, which when finished will basically be a rabbet joint.  This channel is needed to make a space for my black metal corner molding pieces that hold the marquee in place.  It's only about 1/16th tall and I think roughly 3/4" deep.  I started by testing the depth of the router on some scrap wood.  I like this method vs just relying on a measurement alone.  It avoids unwelcome surprises!



Next I simply ran the router along my fence (just a factory cut board with a perfect edge) and made the start of the channel.  Since I'm using 1/2" bits, I then needed to move the board closer to the fence to finish the channel.



Just for fun once the cut was complete I then measured to verify my depth was correct again.



I then had to make another channel on the opposite side of the board to create the groove that will hold the plexi glass / marquee once the metal corner molding is attached.  This was a 3/16" square cut if memory serves.  Here you can see the end result with the finished edge for the bottom piece of the light box.



The top panel has a similar channeling but I opted not to channel out the top where the metal sits just to save a little time.  I think I'm OK with a subtle lip facing backwards on the top of the cabinet, and the laminate will end up adding height so that lip will be something like 1/32".  If when I get to that point I change my mind, it shouldn't be hard to route it out and make it flush.

Here it is all assembled on the cabinet.



Another cool thing was that my parents were visiting for the first time in about a year.  I was able to convince my dad to make a few cuts with the router.  He wasn't willing to try anything that wasn't a guided cut.  Still, now I can truly say he helped in building this cabinet.  :)  He used to make a lot of things when I was growing up, including building a giant workshop / shed in our back yard, and making me a massive tree house with a giant staircase.  He definitely has woodworking skills, but it's been so long he's forgotten a lot too.  He said he's never tried doing something this precise before.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2021, 02:45:52 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #134 on: January 21, 2021, 01:52:39 pm »
One new thing I had to get right to complete this was how to make precise angle cuts.  I'll have a bunch more of these all over the cab, especially in the CP side walls, so it's important I figure it out.  I also don't have a miter saw so I need a solution with the skill saw I have.  The other problem I ran into is that for whatever reason, I just can't get the protractor tool in 3d Studio Max to work correctly.  After spending way too much time wrestling with it, I opted to find these angles another way.  What I ended up doing was taking measurements of the 2 angled edges on the board, and the depth of the board.  Then I carefully measured that out and drew it on some scrap wood.

I then extended the angled line so I could make a nice wedge block from the wood.



I used the router to make the cut along the line so it would be as perfectly straight as possible.  I also needed to make sure I had a factory edge to square it up against on my scrap wood.



This created a nice jig that I can set right up against the bottom of the saw and move the angle of the blade until it rests perfectly against it.



I never did figure out what the exact degree was for this cut, but it wasn't anything that was easily set on the saw.  Maybe there's a better way to figure this out or force more standard angle cuts to be used, but this is where I landed.

Next I aligned the saw on the board I was cutting to put the top of the blade right on my cut line.  I then marked where the edge of the saw base / sled was at and made a fence for it to follow.  I measured and made sure both ends aligned perfectly.  I also noted that different angle cuts will have different distances to the fence.  I'm guessing this is just because of where the pivot point is on my saw.



After setting the saw against the fence, I did a short cut in to double check things looked ok before ruining my entire board.  All checked out, so away I went.



The result is a perfect match to the angle I needed.  This particular angle cut goes on the top back panel for the lightbox that will meet up with another angled panel with vents.  This was the panel I first tried making my vents on and messed up, so I still need to remake it.  This time, I'm going to do the angle cuts FIRST and make sure everything fits properly before I do the detailed vent cuts.  At least now with my templates, the vents come out consistent.

The next angle cut was a little more standard at 45 degrees.  My speaker panel needs these to line up correctly.  So again I used the same technique but didn't bother with a jig since the saw has a 45 degree line on it.



This panel required something a little more tricky beyond the 45 angle cuts though.  This next part didn't turn out quite the way I had hoped, so I will be revisiting it at a later point to try to fix it.  The bottom section of my speaker panel needs a specific angle cut in it at a specific depth to serve as the top notch to hold my bezel in place.  I wanted to make it serviceable and not have any visible screws.  The idea is that by opening the control panel top, it allows the bezel to slide out if desired.  With the control panel shut it can't move.  This way I can clean the inside of the glass on the bezel and / or the TV when needed.  I remembered reading older posts a long time ago where people had complained that they didn't make their bezel easily removed so cleaning was an issue.

Anyway, my idea for this channel kind of worked but had some problems to address.



I used the same method to find the angle and create a jig to go against the saw blade.  Then I made the first cut.  This was the first mistake.  I should have done this channel before making the edge 45 cuts.  Then maybe it would have faired a little better with more support?  As you can see, the top edge chipped away in several places along the cut.  This screws up the tiny channel to hold the bezel.  At least it's on the back side that isn't seen, so now I'm left with coming up with a way to fix it.  My current thought is to cut a strip of hardboard and glue it along the 45 edge to extend it up to the correct height.  That will at least create a tiny solid edge the bezel can rest against.  If anyone has better ideas, I'm always open to input!

Then I continued along making the same angle cut but at the other end.



This part seemed easy enough.  Then I would just offset my fence in 1/8th increments to remove the middle.  This part didn't work out as smoothly as I had hoped though.  Somehow I got off in a few places.  The top cut near the speaker hole edge now has a lumpy break in it that I need to fix.  Fortunately I caught it early on instead of going over the entire board.  I think I must have lifted the saw a little to make this happen.   



I cleaned up the channel with a chisel.  This worked fairly well and I wonder if I would have been better off just making a single cut down the middle and chiseling out the channel from there.  I am also debating taking a router to it given that it's exactly 1/4" wide.  I can't get the angles, but I can clean out the center area perfectly that way.  I'm hoping some wood filler will rebuild that upper edge and with the laminate over the top it will look fine.

Here's the speaker panel mounted.


All these cleat connections with threaded inserts add time to the process as well.  For each one I have to carefully map where it goes on the board it holds.  For this process,  rather than relying on the computer measurements, I'm using the real cabinet, holding the piece up where it should go, and making pencil marks to align the cleats.  This way I account for any mistakes I may have made along the way that would impact alignment.  Again I also find that I'm having to go back and adjust the holes on the cleats slightly to buy maybe 1/16th wiggle room to get things sitting exactly where they should be.  This is why having washers with these bolts is key to allow you some flexibility for adjustment.  I then have to glue and clamp them on and wait 24 hours before stressing the joint any based on everything I've read.  These are just weak butt joints, so I don't really want to risk them becoming any weaker by shortcutting.

As I go I'm trying to build out the front as much as possible.  Next areas of focus are below the CP, which has a ton of complexity.  I need to build the drawer which is probably my next piece, and then move on to the coin door, larger cabinet door, and side light panels.  I've already run into challenges with the front cabinet because of the hinges.  I didn't realize just how big and deep these things are and I'm not sure they will work well with a 1/4" cabinet door.  At the same time I haven't fully figured out how to mount them correctly and what door thickness the hinges require.  Apparently this is a factor I hadn't considered in my original designs.  The cup depth on the inset euro hinges is extremely close to 1/4".  Maybe even slightly over.  Thus the hinges are kind of dictating how thick the door panel must be.  It all seems to be pushing me back to 3/4", which I was originally avoiding to lighten the cab a bit. :(  Now that all my cleats are in place, I also have to work with where those sit.  So it's a bit of a design conundrum.  I'm not sure if I can only add depth to the door where the cup hole goes and still have it open correctly, or what to do yet...  Given my design I figured I needed inset face frame hinges, so that's what I have.  Given the weight of the door with the coin door attached and coin box full of coins, I need at least 3 hinges.  I have 4 so we're good there.  I've been digging through stuff on the Blum hinge site and looking at a few videos but so far no specific answers   :dunno 

Until I figure out the hinges, I'm stuck from moving forward on the front.  I can move on the drawer though, so I'll probably do that in the mean time.  I'm also nervous about the light panels because they are all glued to the front section.  If I mess that up it will be difficult to remove it and start again.  So I will probably have to cut those and get them perfect before I can actually complete the front section.  I was aiming for the light panels (plastic) being flush with the wood, so that means precision cutting the holes and the plexi that goes in them.  Not sure how I'm gonna do that yet...
« Last Edit: January 21, 2021, 01:58:07 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #135 on: January 26, 2021, 12:39:27 pm »
Got a smaller update today.  A while back I got a tip from someone about drawer slides that were push to open.  I decided to order some off amazon as this seemed like the best solution to avoid having handles on the front of the cabinet.

Here's what I ended up getting.  32 bucks at the time.


Lately I've been relying more and more on my router to finish up edges and get them as flawless and 90 degrees as possible.  The trade off is it takes a lot of setup time for every cut.  I ruff cut everything out with the jig saw very quickly and that left a 16th or so of ruff edge on every cut to clean up with the router.



Here you can see I've got some of the drawer sides cut and am lining them up to create the rabbet joints to hold this all together.  I'm using double sided tape on both the piece I want to cut and on the straight edge piece the router will trace with the flush trim bit.



This is the result after adjusting my router depth with some scrap and making sure it was exactly 3/16 deep.



After all pieces were cut, I laid them out to check fittings.  Unfortunately here I found a mistake.  One of these pieces is not like the other....
Can you find it?  Second from the left.  Somehow I was off by almost 2/8ths at the top end, so it's not even close to square.  Guess I have to remake this in the morning.... doh!



Here's all the pieces with the mistake corrected, and a shot of the bottom of the drawer.


Next I hand fit each one and made sure they aligned properly.  For the most part it came together fairly well.  I did some sanding on a few joints to really get it flush.  I think part of my issue at this step was that the wood I was using has some decent warp / bow to it, and that was making this process a lot harder than it should be.  I was hoping that when it was all tightly together that would take most of the warp out.

Next up I had to figure out a way to assemble the box frame.  This was the most difficult part of everything and I quickly learned I suck at driving tiny nails in straight.



  I needed something to hold it together though since I don't have clamps big enough to get around the drawer on all sides to rely on glue alone.  I also didn't want to have to go buy another tool just for this one drawer.  The trade off however was that I've got some flaws now with alignment on the drawer due to the nails not being straight.  In a couple areas the nails broke through the sides.  I'm attempting to hide this / fix it by bashing the nail in sideways with the hammer more and relying on the drawer face board to cover it up.  I'd like to learn an easier way to assemble this reliably, but short of something like a pneumatic brad nail gun I'm not sure what else would work.  Certainly balancing the long drawer upwards like I did to hammer it in wasn't a great position.  I've seen some videos of guys laying it out on a table and using a nail gun to quickly assemble it.  Must be nice!  Another problem with fixing anything was that once the nail was in, I had no way of getting it back out to try to correct it.




Once I had everything fitting fairly well I added glue (a bit too much) everywhere and used my clamps as best I could to anchor things down.  I also used a heavy bucket and other odd things for additional weight on the bottom of the drawer to keep it down while gluing.

Here's where I wish I were a little more careful.  a couple of the pieces shifted slightly during the nailing process and / or there was a slight flaw in the joints. 



Either way in this photo you can see a few things.  The lower part of the front of the drawer (right side of the pic) is angled slightly, coming out about 1/16th at the bottom.  I'm now going to have to come up with a way to smooth this out before I attach the face of the drawer to it.  My current idea is to use my orbital sander to try to get it more flush.  It's not a big deal that this piece in the drawer is slightly off as long as the face of it can be corrected to line up flush with the front of the cab.

Outside of that flaw, and some bowed boards on the back face that was less important, I moved on and marked where the drawer slides should go.  This part was pretty challenging too.  As far as I can tell there's no fine tuning these things.  I get one shot to get them on in exactly the right spot.  I decided to give myself 2/8ths of space in the front for some wiggle room and to create a straight line to help line things up to. I also have some washers under the screw here as a test.  The screws are just a little too long for 1/2" ply.  Unfortunately there isn't enough clearance in the slide mechanism to use the washer without it getting stuck though.  So I ended up screwing it in without.  The screws poke through less than 1/16th on the other side.  I think this will still be OK.  I'll maybe try using a file on them if needed, but I intend on lining the interior with thin cardboard and felt that may be enough to make it a non issue.



Next up I needed to add some spacer blocks inside the cabinet for the drawer to mount to.  This was intentional so that I have gaps on either side of the cabinet walls for running wires and such.  The only down side here was that I realized after I got these in place that I needed just a tiny bit more space for the drawer.  Turns out the slides need .51" space on either side to move.  I had figured .5 with my measurements.  So next I broke out the orbital sander to attempt to thin out these blocks a little bit to make up the difference.  Turns out 80 grit eats through these pretty quick, and I also suck at keeping the sander level.  So my first block became more of a triangle wedge.  The blocks in back were too hard to hit with the sander, so I had to use a hand rasp to try to thin them down a bit.  After maybe 10 minutes or so of that, I finally got the drawer working properly.





One of the slides is stickier than the other without the drawer attached.  I may try to figure out how to make that smoother, but in general it does what it is suppose to do.  The drawer pops open with a push of about 1/8th in.  It opens up maybe 4 or so inches on it's own, which should be enough to enable grabbing the drawer front to pull it open the rest of the way.  Next steps are figuring out how to square up the front mistake and get the drawer face and outer frame lined up and as tightly positioned together as possible.  One thing I'm realizing is that all these little gaps for doors is creating potential for light leaks and seeing into the cab.  I'll need to go back once it's all assembled and try to figure out a way to prevent that.

After finishing up the drawer area I'm probably on to the lower cabinet door.  For that I'll do some tests with scrap wood first to try to help me understand exactly how it all works with the hinges.  I may end up needing to modify my designs again to accommodate the hinges.  Not sure...  They definitely aren't meant for 1/2" ply though given that the cup on the hinge is that deep.  I have some ideas on how I will achieve the light designs I want too.  As long as I can cut the laminate easily and precisely with a hobby knife I'll use that as a cover to make the exact shapes I need and eliminate having to perfectly fit cut plastic pieces into precision cut holes.

« Last Edit: January 26, 2021, 04:57:46 pm by vertexguy »

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #136 on: January 26, 2021, 03:47:17 pm »
Looks really good.  Very clean lines and fitting all of that together must have been a pain.  Rabbets make some nice joints.  Are you going to fill the little area between the speaker panel and the bottom of the marquee or is that just a shadow?  I can't tell.  Clever idea on cutting that angle. 

I think you can sand down your imperfections on the drawer or even shim the top slightly so the drawer sits perpendicular - no one will notice at all either way because the drawer face will cover everything.

 :cheers:

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #137 on: January 26, 2021, 06:54:02 pm »
Thanks Javeryh!

Are you going to fill the little area between the speaker panel and the bottom of the marquee or is that just a shadow?  I can't tell.

It's a combination of shadow and an intentional gap.  The gap should hold the bottom aluminum L bracket for the marquee.  Both the bottom and top brackets will be glued and only the top comes off along with the panel its glued to.  When I add the laminate, I'm hoping there isn't a gap anymore.  If there is it should hopefully be less than 1/16th.

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #138 on: January 28, 2021, 12:50:45 pm »
I figured I should post this 3d measurement consideration that can cause errors for accuracy.  I spoke a little on this in earlier posts but hadn't yet fully understood what was happening.  I now believe I fully understand it and can explain what traps to watch out for.

This must not be an issue in apps like sketchup or others have just been smarter about it than me to not run into this. :)

Basically 3d Studio Max will do all of its transform operations (move, scale, rotate, etc) in it's own generic units regardless what unit scale you have setup.  Or at least that's the best explanation I have at the moment.  When you create a 3d box and type in specific measurements, that part is accurate.  However if you use the arrows next to the text input to increment or decrement things, you can wind up with weird in between values that get rounded.  Similar issues arise when you're actually modeling and not just punching in numbers for everything.  If you grab a vertex and move it with the mouse, you're moving in max units.   I had never attempted to do something that translated to real world like this before so I guess my method of modeling never cared enough about this accuracy.  The only work around I've found so far is to setup a grid at increments that you want to keep everything fixed to (like 1/16th) and then snap to the grid.  That will ensure there can't be any odd in between values.  Without that approach, here's an illustration of just how quickly you can get things way off when translating to the real world.


In the below example, I have 4 boards stacked 2x2.  All report the same thickness of 7/16th, but visually you can tell right away there's a big difference.  The green boards should line up with the yellow.



If I were working in metric instead, or decimal imperial (which is just weird), this problem would have been easier to catch and understand.  Now I don't feel quite so bad that I've had to shift and correct some things in the real world. ;)


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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #139 on: January 28, 2021, 01:06:02 pm »
That was an issue for me as well in Inkscape.  When I was designing my CPO I would input specific sizes for shapes and spacing but then I noticed over time when I'd go back, the program rounded the numbers and things were off by just a bit.  I worked around this by only inputting round numbers to start with so the computer wouldn't have to guess.  It was driving me crazy until I figured it out.

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #140 on: January 31, 2021, 09:48:50 pm »
I wanted to post a quick update to reflect my progress this weekend.  It's amazing how much effort it can take just to produce some rectangles. :)

This weekend was also my daughters birthday.  She had a small party and it was fun to hear her as she took her friends into the basement and immediately showed them the cabinet in the corner and said "This is my arcade that my dad is building."  The excitement is brewing!  :applaud:

This weekend I focused on the lower front of the cab and this design mixed with the wood I bought calls for double pieces in many sections.  If I would have originally stayed with 3/4 inch, I think this could have been avoided.  The 1/2 inch just tends to bow too much on its own across 30 inch spans and doesn't feel strong enough to me.  That ultimately meant double the work. :(  I have plenty of detail pics in this process that I'll post another time.

Basically I plotted all this....



Then after coming up with as efficient a system as I could, I ruff cut it all out with the jigsaw and polish cut every single edge with the hand router to produce all these pieces.



I'm pretty sure this is everything I need to complete the lower front of the cabinet.  I also did some tests on scrap with my cabinet hinges and think I have a basic understanding of how to mount them correctly now. (at least I hope!).  I also learned that apparently Blum inset hinges don't naturally close at 90 degrees, so I needed to add some physical stops to my design to keep the door closed at the correct angle.

I'm now starting to glue some of it together.  That process will probably take a few days as I don't have enough clamps to cover it all.  We will see.  I may be able to use temporary screws for some of it.  Hoping to get the drawer front pieces on first and then work my way further down piece by piece so I can tightly control the seams where drawers and doors move. 

My other hesitation is where I want to put my LED light designs on the lower sides.  It's going to be really hard to work on it once I put this all in place, so I need to make some additional decisions now about how I'm going to go about it.  I'm pretty sure I'm just going to route a rectangle down the side panels and then a wider inset around them that is 1/8th deep.  That should hopefully give me plenty of thickness for the plexi that needs to sit inside of it.  I will then need to shim it and glue it in place so the plexi is perfectly flush with the wood.  Then I'm going to rely on cutting out my shape designs in the laminate to achieve the final look.  I'm hoping the laminate glue sticks well to plexi, or I may have to try super glue or some other type of adhesive.




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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #141 on: January 31, 2021, 10:03:41 pm »
I know how hard that is, you are me from 1.5 yrs ago.  I know it sounds like a lot of money but a track saw or the like will save you a TON of time on making those 90 deg cuts.  And they are more accurate. 

You are clearly committed I’m sure you will finish, which is more than a lot of folks in here. 

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #142 on: February 01, 2021, 01:43:46 pm »
I make rectangles the same way... it sucks.  I would also say to invest in a track saw but I haven't (yet) so what do I know.  You are making good progress - keep it up!   :cheers:

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #143 on: February 08, 2021, 08:27:55 pm »
When you experimented with p3 and p4 controls, did you angle the joystick to the player or keep it the at the same angle as p1 and p2?

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #144 on: February 08, 2021, 09:05:48 pm »
When you experimented with p3 and p4 controls, did you angle the joystick to the player or keep it the at the same angle as p1 and p2?
Since vertexguy is a cool dude and obviously not a heathen I’m going to guess he’s not angling the sticks.  Also, if you look at his mock-up pics, the mounting screws are in the correct position for straight sticks.

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #145 on: February 09, 2021, 08:40:53 am »
 Haha, thats what I figured, I'm wondering if it feels strange standing at an angle but using a joystick with a slightly different orientation. It's been a while since I've played a 4 player cab. I'm hoping to experiment with my own controls soon, just trying to get some insight. Thanks

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #146 on: February 09, 2021, 09:02:06 am »
Haha, thats what I figured, I'm wondering if it feels strange standing at an angle but using a joystick with a slightly different orientation. It's been a while since I've played a 4 player cab. I'm hoping to experiment with my own controls soon, just trying to get some insight. Thanks

The angle of your body doesn't matter at all.  The joystick should match the action on the screen.  If that were the case, you could just stand at a 45 degree angle and play Q*bert no problem, which is obviously ridiculous.

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #147 on: February 09, 2021, 09:53:32 am »
Haha, thats what I figured, I'm wondering if it feels strange standing at an angle but using a joystick with a slightly different orientation. It's been a while since I've played a 4 player cab. I'm hoping to experiment with my own controls soon, just trying to get some insight. Thanks

Quick test.
If your sat at your PC mouse in hand,it doesnt matter where the monitor is, your hand will always push the mouse vertical and the cursor moves vertical.
Try it with the mouse rotated under your hand,and you get an idea of the problem.

dragon36

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #148 on: February 09, 2021, 10:23:27 am »
Makes sense Thanks!

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #149 on: February 09, 2021, 12:48:58 pm »
@arroyo  & @javeryh Thanks guys.  I've no intention of quitting anything even if it takes a weekend to make a few rectangles.  I know there is expensive equipment that can make this work easier, but realistically that's just not in the cards for me right now.  If I end up doing a lot more outside of this arcade project, and I build a workshop in my backyard, then I might be able to make an argument for it one day. ;)

@dragon36 & @javeryh  Oh man.... I almost feel like this joystick mounting direction question is a setup for a classic war around these parts. ;)  Javeryh's observation is correct in that my current design calls for sticks oriented straight up, not angled.  Now, to be completely fair, no I haven't actually tried playing angled yet, per dragons question.  I simply mimicked playing with a game demo running.  To have a proper and thorough test, I probably will try playing angled for the experience.  I can already anticipate what will happen though, which is why they are oriented straight.  More on that in a bit.

The initial tests I did were more focused on position, orientation, screen viewing angles, distance from screen, general comfort, and distance from other players with all input movements considered.  As I noted earlier in the cardboard tests, I didn't have an easy way to actually hook things up to do play testing with that setup (other than the trackball).  I don't think I had even attempted a QD crimp yet at that point.  Now I probably have enough spare wire and possibly enough quick disconnects where I could hook up one stick and test it.  The easiest way would be to use the little portable wooden test CP I made earlier to try out a lighting idea.  I might just do that for a laugh.  I think people will benefit and learn best when they can really grasp the WHY behind it.  Here's my attempt at explaining it cleanly in a simple visual.

(Click on it to see it full size)



So hopefully this explains the why behind it Dragon36.  This also reminds me, I need to catch up on details for my thread!


javeryh

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #150 on: February 09, 2021, 01:07:53 pm »
That's a great explanation.  There is a video on YouTube by MAMEFAN where he provides a walkthrough of his commercial 4P cabinet.  He goes over everything (it's 3 hours) and his one complaint/regret was that P3 and P4 sticks came installed at an angle from the manufacturer.  He demos the problem showing how his hand/joystick movement is at odds with the action on the screen.  He spent a few thousand dollars on the cabinet so you would expect for that much it would be built properly.

@vetexguy, it's probably not even worth demoing since you know what the answer is...  Now back to the project!   :cheers:

dragon36

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #151 on: February 09, 2021, 03:43:04 pm »
wow, very nice explanation. Thanks  :applaud:

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #152 on: February 09, 2021, 04:17:26 pm »
Ok, so backtracking a bit, here's the details on what I previously did, and a few progress points.

Here was my process for ruff cutting out all the rectangle pieces mentioned previously.  After having plotted them out, and ruff cutting the large sheet into 2 smaller sections, I anchored the section down, sticking out just a bit more than half way from my table.



Then I rotate the board around 180 degrees and overlap it slightly more than half again.  This time I used another board as a top anchor to clamp down on everything.
I left maybe an inch connecting each board.  Then I started in the middle and cut one, and moved outward so the clamps would help keep things in place as I separated them.



Then we move on to the lengthy process of making all the ruff cut edges perfectly 90 degrees and perfectly straight.  Despite having some decent results with the track I bought for my skill saw earlier, there were still some noted issues
and I noted that after having the saw sit around for weeks and then attempting to use it again, things were getting further out of alignment.  This caused me to abandon attempting to use it for these kind of cuts and rely on the router.
I might try it again if there are any major cuts left.  If it worked flawlessly and was faster to setup, it probably would be a better choice than this method.

First I add double stick carpet tape to the ends and middle of the board.


Then I stick it underneath my table, lining up the pencil line perfectly with the edge of the 3/4" table factory cut board.



Important note here... to help prevent tape failure and speed up the process, I threw 3 speed clamps over the taped spots and let it sit 10+ seconds.  Friction is required to get it to stick well.  I also put pencil lines on the top of the table so I could easily see where the tape was going to remain on the table for future pieces.

Then I adjusted the bit on the router to make sure the bearing is cleanly riding my table / template board.




Then with a steady smooth run over the board with the router, we have a perfect edge.


Rinse and repeat this for every edge on the boards.  For the shorter edge, I added pieces of tape down the middle of the table and at a later point added clamps to the front to hold the front in place better due to a screw up on a complex piece.






The tape can be reused a few times if reheated with a head gun, but what I learned is that it gets risky because you don't know exactly when it will fail.



This made me sad... as it had to happen on one of the most complex pieces I made.  On the plus side I hadn't made the rabbet joint on it yet.

For a few smaller pieces I needed angle cuts.  These were too small to work with and use a power saw, so I pulled out a handy plastic cutting template and a hand saw to make these.

Sanity tip... the plastic squeaks like crazy and is annoying, so add WD-40 to the saw blade and it magically goes away!



This worked really well with clean results.


Next up I had some issues with my drawer that I needed to address.



The front didn't get aligned perfectly for some reason, and as you can see angles out by about 1/16h.  To fix this, I opted to use a hand sand block instead of the orbital sander.
I find it rather hard to use the orbital sander and get a nice flat surface without overdoing it at an angle somewhere.  With a hand block, I took long even strokes and checked things after a few.

This took maybe 5 to 10 minutes of sanding with 80 grit paper, but I got it pretty smooth and flat.



Since I was sanding I also went back over everything on the drawer to eliminate glue bumps and really get all the edges flush.

Then I moved on to the drawer face.  It took me a while to decide on a process to mount the face.  I figured I only got one shot.


I decided to do a bunch of measuring and calculated what should stick out on each side and marked it.  Then I used double stick carpet tape to temporarily hold it in place.
Then I mounted it back in my cabinet to make sure the alignment was correct before fully commiting.  Once I verified this, I marked out an even distribution of screws, and added more in the middle to help combat some of the warp between the box front and the drawer face.



Here's the result by itself.



... snd mounted back in the cabinet.



It came out pretty good.  What you can't see is that there are still some tweaks to be made.  The pieces above and below the drawer are just pressure fitted there in this pic.  The result is that they bow a little from being squished.
I also discovered that by removing just a tiny bit more off my drawer slide blocks in the back I could eliminate more of the stickyness and it improved the overall alignment of the front face.  That was just more sanding with a hand block.

Then I got antsy and raced out to make the cabinet door.  Here's where not having plans printed out in front of me caused a mistake.  Somehow in the measuring process I screwed up and I guess assumed my coin door was a square when in reality, it isn't.


I made pilot holes and cut it out with a jigsaw figuring that would be good enough for this application.  In retrospect, I needed to slow down a bit.  I can make straighter cuts than I ended up doing with the jigsaw if I'm careful, and I shouldn't have plotted the bolt holes before hand.  Because my measuring of the entire door was wrong, so are most of the bolt holes.

Next up I assembled the frame for the lower cabinet door.  This was way more complicated than desired, mainly due to wanting it to be more solid and not bending at all when you push on it.



I used a square to make sure everything was aligned proper, glued and clamped it for 24 hours, then came back to assemble.

Here you can see more of the front being assembled.  These are all just sitting in place with pressure at the moment.


Once I reached this point, I found several small things I needed to fix.  This has envolved a lot of remeasuring and sanding of areas to try to get things as perfectly aligned as possible.

For now I'm not going to completely disassemble the cabinet for a fix but I need to sand down the sides of my base a tiny bit more to buy back about 1/16th in some areas.

The door also doesn't sit 100% perfect.  There's about 1/8th of variance between the top and bottom.  I think I have most of the kinks worked out now, but in the process of screwing up the door, I also realized I screwed up the length of the main side panels that will hold my lights.
I blame my eyes on this one as its really hard to read the super small fonts in 3d studio max sometimes.  Instead of 15/16ths I wrote down 5/16ths, so that screwed up the length alignment.

Another fun thing about those messed up boards is that I noticed there are giant channels of missing plywood running through them.  I figure this will cause problems when I go to route my light channels, so maybe it's for the best that I remake them.  This is an annoying part of working with plywood.  Voids can be an issue.  Short of buying a syringe and attempting to fill it all up with wood filler, I'm not sure what else I can do to fix those.

This week is crazy cold as well so it's keeping me out of the garage.  Hoping to sneak in some time to get these parts remade though.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2022, 04:25:54 pm by vertexguy »

Katana Man

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #153 on: February 10, 2021, 01:15:18 am »
vertexguy, don't listen to anyone when it comes to the angle direction of joystick #3 and #4.  There are a loud few here that have made it their agenda to convince you their way is right.

My advice?  Use UltraStik 360 joysticks and the problem is solved permanently because you can change the "up" orientation to anything you want.   On the fly.

javeryh

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #154 on: February 10, 2021, 09:07:11 am »
Cab is coming along nicely.  I also use double sided tape to route straight lines but I buy the cheap stuff so one use only.  Your drawer looks tight.  How are you going to open it?  If there is a way to press in to release it that would be cool - this way no hardware on the drawer face.

It's also funny you cut a rectangle for your coin door - I did the exact same thing the first time I cut a hole for one.  I couldn't save the panel, unfrtunately so I cut a new one.  You only make that mistake once!

Are you painting soon?  It's also super cold by me and I have so much snow on the ground I can't even get to my garage where my tools are.   :angry:

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #155 on: February 11, 2021, 05:23:49 pm »
Your drawer looks tight.  How are you going to open it?  If there is a way to press in to release it that would be cool - this way no hardware on the drawer face.

Yep.  It's using a push to open drawer slide.  Takes about 1/8th push inward to release it.  The cabinet door will not have any handles either.  Per MikeA's thought, that will open from opening the coin door and turning latches hidden on the inside.  That gives me the option of keeping it unlocked where the spring loaded door hinges alone will probably hold it shut fairly well, while grabbing part of the coin door and pulling should open it.  I can also lock it from the inside if I don't want anyone in there.


@Katana Man  Thanks, but did you miss what I just posted above your comment?  I guess I'd like to hear your counter argument to the explanation / rationale I posted.


Katana Man

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #156 on: February 11, 2021, 06:04:50 pm »
@Katana Man  Thanks, but did you miss what I just posted above your comment?  I guess I'd like to hear your counter argument to the explanation / rationale I posted.

My point is, you don't have to worry if you get an Ultra 360 joystick for player #3 and #4.  Plenty of time to decide later your default "up" direction and additionally, you can set up options to switch on the fly if someone has a different preference than your default. The loud few here on this forum that have an agenda to convince you ad nauseam that if you don't do it their way, that it's a sin, are wrong to push so hard for a few reasons.  Many times they don't ask how close the monitor is (if someone is building a pedestal for example), they have zero tolerance for personal preference, and they don't seem to know that the Ultra 360 solves the issue. Permanently.

In my experience, when configuring it straight (like your option #2), I've noticed that players 3 and 4 will turn their bodies more (towards player #1 and #2) making for less room between the players. So on my 4 player machines, my default "up" direction is angled which gives people more room, but I can easily change the direction on the fly for any game so I don't have to worry.  Oddly, I think the human mind adapts to the angled setup easier than the straight setup. I can't explain why so many people shift their bodies with the straight setup.

javeryh

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #157 on: February 11, 2021, 07:28:01 pm »
My point is, you don't have to worry if you get an Ultra 360 joystick for player #3 and #4.  Plenty of time to decide later your default "up" direction and additionally, you can set up options to switch on the fly if someone has a different preference than your default. The loud few here on this forum that have an agenda to convince you ad nauseam that if you don't do it their way, that it's a sin, are wrong to push so hard for a few reasons.  Many times they don't ask how close the monitor is (if someone is building a pedestal for example), they have zero tolerance for personal preference, and they don't seem to know that the Ultra 360 solves the issue. Permanently.

In my experience, when configuring it straight (like your option #2), I've noticed that players 3 and 4 will turn their bodies more (towards player #1 and #2) making for less room between the players. So on my 4 player machines, my default "up" direction is angled which gives people more room, but I can easily change the direction on the fly for any game so I don't have to worry.  Oddly, I think the human mind adapts to the angled setup easier than the straight setup. I can't explain why so many people shift their bodies with the straight setup.

I'm not going to knock the U360 - I have a couple of them and they are fine joysticks.  They feel slightly off even with a restrictor plate installed (to me).  No tactile feel at all.  It is certainly a viable solution though.  But angling the joysticks is incorrect - it's not an "agenda", which is ridiculous.  Everyone here is trying to help and drawing on years and years of experience in order to provide advice.  I don't care at all if vertexguy or anyone else installs their joysticks at a 90 degree angle or a 24.8 degree angle or upside-down.  But if he wants it to be generally playable for guests and family members, etc. then up should be towards the screen.  There are tons of examples in this thread alone explaining why.  I'm sure people can get used to all sorts of configurations but that's the right way to do it.

Katana Man

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #158 on: February 11, 2021, 07:58:54 pm »
With 3D printing services so readily available, it's easy to have custom restrictor plates made for the U360. I made some custom ones for myself.

vertexguy

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Re: The Kline's Arcade - 4 player - first build, help needed!
« Reply #159 on: February 28, 2021, 10:15:28 pm »
It's been a while and there are a number of small things I can update on, but I've hit a snag with my front cabinet door design and wanted to get the communities thoughts.   :banghead:

First the good news.  I rebuilt my cabinet door after my first failed attempt due to a bad measurement on the coin door.  It now fits pressure tight and the door has all of its framing in the back, which was mostly needed due to the required depth of the cups on the blum hinges I bought, but it also adds a little more stability and will hopefully help combat any sag over time.

The door weighs in at about 14 pounds with the coin door on.  I figure once I add the quarter box and plan for around 20 bucks in quarters, it will push me over 15 pounds.  That would put it at or over the recommended weight for 2 hinges by the documentation, so I upped it to 3. (I bought 4)




Now the bad news.  After I got the hinges installed and went to put on the door, I realized my design had a flaw in it. 

I was struggling to characterize the type of hinge I would need for this.  I think my door is a mix of an inset and an overlay.  I ultimately went with inset euro hinges.  The problem is that there isn't enough room for the lower hinge to allow the door to open fully.  I haven't yet added the bottom cleets to anchor the door frame down to the base, so you can really see how much room is needed in these pics.





So far the options I can think of are:

1. I cut off the bottom of the door just above the base so the entire door becomes "inset" and thus should allow enough room to open properly.  I then add back the bottom door piece to the lower front of the base.
2. I cut about a 1/2 inch notch into the base below the lower hinge so the door has the room it needs to turn into the base area and fully open.
3. Burn the entire thing to the ground and start over by purchasing a 1up arcade and calling it good. ;)

I've messed with the adjustments on the hinges but don't think that's part of the answer for this.  Even if I push the door out away from the cab with the hinge adjustments, it can't go far enough out, and it isn't the desired look as it would then be extruded instead of flush with the frame.

Any suggestions on how best to fix it?  :dizzy:
« Last Edit: March 01, 2021, 12:55:42 pm by vertexguy »