Since I am waiting on things for EVERY other project in the works at the moment I figured what the hell...
I've had this bartop profile in my head for too long now.
I really needed to use up some smaller pieces of plywood that make building something bigger impossible at the moment.
I needed to clear up space in the shop by using up other parts I had on hand.
I needed an excuse to build something for a horizontal something since Aaron had fpga'd some fun stuff that I want to play again on the new BitKit2!
I can't help myself.
The activity is far enough away from the house that the missus usually doesn't notice this ridiculous activity so I don't get in trouble.
First off is how small can I make something that fits a 19" tube. I've been at it for a few years with the graph paper.
I figured this was realistically the smallest thing you could hope to cram a 19" tube and a JAMMA setup into and I wanted another cabinet with a really geometric vibe.
I have run out of space for full size uprights (until I win the lottery- which I don't/can't play) so I needed to rethink this train wreck of a hobby/obsession as it was anyway.
I HAD actually spent some time on it so that by the time I got around to dropping a monitor on it the whole thing actually appeared feasible and not simply a waste of a piece of plywood.
You can see where I am headed with this round of what the hell already.
I'm convinced the urban legend of the military guy in Hawaii with a dozen environmental DOTs is a fabrication of some bored maniac so I need to do something and I have all these parts now, so...
What is REALLY awful about the whole thing is the girlfriend of a buddy of mine is opening a second location for their rather eclectic vintage everything store and after hanging out at my house for a bit asked for a cabinet to put in there, ostensibly for sale (ha ha- all the girls who work there want something to do at work I think.)
I won't have anything but a legit CRT using thing in my universe and the ladies wanted real retro so it is a wonderful excuse to go down the "how small can I make this freakin thing anyway?!" path.
Giving 18" plus from screen apex to the back of the neckboard (and then considering the neckboard can be 1.5" above tube centerline)- and then leaving a little wiggle room after that, and then making it wide enough to accomodate the bracing to actually hold the tube securely (which I went with 21" inside panel width to not fight with it all) I arrived at this:
And holy crap it fits.
Even have enough room to get the neckboard off without having to remove the tube.
I also wanted enough room to sneak the whole chassis out through the front with the control panel out if need be.
It all works.
If you look you can see that I included a seperate access panel underneath the control panel so that you could pop that off to work on something without needing to pull the entire CP out.
There is also enough room above the screen for a Missile Command style marquee and speaker setup.
Plenty of airflow, room enough for a SMPS, isolation transformer, and monitor chassis on the bottom panel and a JAMMA board on one the interior walls and- Bob's your Uncle.
Of course it all gets worse than that.
If I'm making one for me, and one for the ladies, then why not... three?!
Conveniently, I caught a head cold on our flight back from the East Coast so I had the last two days to finally work on ripping CDs down to FLACs for the jukebox build (oh yes!) and to get going on this project.
I got some decent time on these today and yesterday, so-
Time for some spar varnish sanding sealer!