Author Topic: Mars Invasion - Upright following Saints Book (Read 49193 times)

RaggedEdge · « **on:** August 06, 2005, 10:49:36 am »

OK, so I bought Saint's book back in April and have been working on this project since in my spare time. I have been taking photos all along and like his book says, I decided to contribute back to the community. So here is the beginning (back in April). I went to Home Depot here in Houston Tx and rented a table saw for $40.00/ day I did most all the cuts with it, except for the two side pieces. The second picture shows all my pieces cut out. I would have never attempted anything like this without the book and the community. Thanks.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #1 on:** August 06, 2005, 10:56:12 am »

Following the book, I put both side pieces together and concentrated on sanding down the differences. I had to go out and buy are router, but that was not too expensive. It was on sale for around $70.00. The 1/16" slot cutter bit I got from Home depot.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #2 on:** August 06, 2005, 11:04:42 am »

The base assembled. i decided to go with two rotating wheels on one end and fixed wheels on the other to make it easy to steer. It will be sitting on carpet so I don't think the wheels will come into play that much, but it did make moving it into the house easier. The second picture shows how I assembled the side panels onto the base. My garage was sloped toward the front, so to keep things level I stacked up some MDF scraps under the base end and used a level, while the saw horses were used to level the other side. BTW, it was damn hot the day I did this, 99 Deg. F That's why I was in the garage.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #3 on:** August 06, 2005, 11:44:09 am »

Now it is really starting to look like an arcade cabinet. Everything went as planned (by the book so to speak). I was happy with the 45 degree joints. They all lined up well. Those were cut with the table saw, and I contribute that to how well they lined up. That is one thing that I have learned working on this project. There are so many time when I wanted to take a shortcut, but I stuck to my guns and tell myself "There is no rush to get this done, it is on my timeline". One mistake that I made was to use the speaker panel for the top back panel (just below the 45 degree joint). I didn't realize this until I mounted what I thought was the speaker panel, but I thought about it and realized it should not cause me any problems. The access hole in the back will be a little bigger and the speaker panel will be a little longer (back into the monitor area. I have to pay more attention before I start gluing and screwing.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #4 on:** August 06, 2005, 11:52:27 am »

Now you can see that the speaker shelf is really too long and goes back farther than it needs to. That was from the mistake from the previous post. No harm done (I hope). I decided to use the Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 (going by the book again), so I used the provided templates and cut them out with a jig saw.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #5 on:** August 06, 2005, 11:57:58 am »

OK speaker holes are cut and the monitor shelf goes in.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #6 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:03:52 pm »

I decided to use a door on the front instead of mounting it permantly. This proved to be the hardest part so far. Not think well, I just sat the door on the base of the cabinet in place and penciled in the hinge screw holes. Big mistake. Once I got it mounted of coarse the door would drag on the base. DOH! OK, so I flipped the door around and put my metal square under the door to lift it off the base while I penciled in the new marks. That turned out better, but if I would do it again, I would raise the door even higher before penciling the hinge screw holes. The door just barely drags even with the screw slots adjusted all the way up. Oh well, live and learn.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #7 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:05:03 pm »

oops, I forgot to attach the two pictures to the above post.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #8 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:10:12 pm »

I put together the control panel and sat back and drank a few cold ones after this. Whew! Major milestone met.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #9 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:16:03 pm »

I realized it was time to go buy wood putty to fill the countersunk holes. I bought some but didn't like the consistency of it. I seemed like it never dried (maybe the humid Houston weather). So, I went back and bought wood filler. I read on the container that it could be sanded down after it dried. That seemed to work much better. I don't know if I bought the wrong kind of wood putty or what. Then the sanding began....What a boring time consuming process....but I remember my thoughts from above "There is no rush, this is on my timeline" :-)

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #10 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:24:29 pm »

Two coats of latex primer and three coats of latex gloss black. I got the best surface when I used the high density foam rollers from Home Depot. Don't come try to find them at that location because I think I bought them all :-) I thought about using semi gloss, but I just had to have some kind of a reflection. I thought about getting it painted at an auto body shop, but with a little one on the way in June, I would cringe thinking about the "terrible twos" and what abuse my cabinet will take during that time :-)

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #11 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:29:47 pm »

In the house and upstairs. I first tried to take it upstairs with only one other person. No way! I recruited 3 of my neighbors, inticing them with lots of free credits when it's done ;-) BTW, the wheels paid off when getting it in the house. I was able to roll it around all I wanted.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #12 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:33:17 pm »

OK, it was coin door cutout time. Nothing too special here, I used a hole saw the round the corners. All from the book as usual.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #13 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:36:42 pm »

OK, time for the control panel. I followed the book, but am now wondering if I should have hinged the top onto the control panel. I guess I can go back and do that if I need to.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #14 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:40:00 pm »

Control panel and front door mounted to cabinet, but they still need to be painted.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #15 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:47:08 pm »

OK, all parts painted and the coin door installed. I wanted to have a working coin door so I got the one that actually credits the games.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #16 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:50:25 pm »

I put the base speaker in the cabinet just to get it out of the way. Also, I printed out a scaled drawing of all the templates for all the controls to get a feel for how things are arranged.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #17 on:** August 06, 2005, 12:55:09 pm »

I created a scaled model of the cabinet so I could see how my graphic would look on it with all the controls. I used Truespace by Caligari to model the cabinet and placed the CP overlay graphic on it. Then I modeled all the controls. The Mars background came from JPL's Mars Rover photos. They always have huge high resolution files on their website, so I was able to keep the 300 dpi that I wanted for the graphic.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #18 on:** August 06, 2005, 01:03:59 pm »

OK so now I have almost caught everyone up with what I have been doing. Last week, I worked on the Lexan for the control panel. I took my control panel file up to Kinkos and after failing to get them to understand what I wanted, I finally found a Kinko's that had someone there who really took and interest in what I was doing. His name is Bobby and he is at the Greenspoint Kinkos in Houston (in case someone is near there) He printed the CPO out on indoor vinyl for me. It looks pretty good, although I do see some banding from the inkjet cartridges. Probably it would look better if I had someone like Mamemarquees do it, but I am satisfied for now. I cut out the graphic and used a small drill bit to put pilot holes in the Lexan so I would know where to center all the holes. I used a 1 1/8 spade bit and clamped the Lexan on top of the control panel and got after it with the drill.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #19 on:** August 06, 2005, 01:08:45 pm »

After drilling the holes and using a 3" hole saw for the trackball hole, I couldn't wait to see how it looked. I probably shouldn't have taken the protective film off yet, but I plan to keep it well protected in the meantime. I mounted the Lexan with all the buttons that I currently have. I liked the results other than the banding that shows up on the graphics.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #20 on:** August 06, 2005, 01:18:06 pm »

So this is how the project looks today. I have been practicing with routing out an area on a scrap piece of wood (1/4" out of 5/8" MDF) for the underside of the control panel for the joystick. I am concerned about the strength of mounting the joystick with only about 1/4" of MDF left. I think I am going to also get some metal strips and mount then under the joystick and screw them into the full thickness of the wood. It seems like it will work. Also, I ordered one of the Oscar Controls Vortex Spinners that showed up on Ebay this week. I got it two days ago. Great product. I was impressed with the quality. If you are looking for the Vortex Spinner the ones on Ebay are the real deal. Last I looked there were 4 left. From Happ, I ordered the High Lipp trackball and special mounting plate. I'll pr active routing out a surface for the mounting plate on a scrap piece of MDF. Also on order is the Hagstrom ME4 optical encoder and now that Ultimarc has the Ball Top J-stik, I plan on making a large order this week for the ArcadeVGA, J-stik, and Ipac4. If anyone has any questions or wants to see some more photos that I took along the way, just let me know. Hopefully this will all be of some help to others.

Knievel · « **Reply #21 on:** August 06, 2005, 04:19:03 pm »

Looks real nice so far, quite a shine on there.

Good job documenting the build. It'll help a lot of people that are building that same cabinet.
Looks to me like Kinkos needs to replace a print cartridge/cartridges, I would get them to reprint that if I were you. You might get better results using paper as well, it's all I've ever used for mine. The CP graphics are great and they deserve to be printed right, that orange should POP.

As for your joystick mounting, I route all mine from the top. It will give you more stick length and leave more MDF for support.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #22 on:** August 06, 2005, 05:56:38 pm »

Thanks. Yes, the more I look at that graphic the more I want to do something about it. I actually used your idea with the areas around the controls having a darker color but the background shows through. Where did you get your CPO printed? I don't think I will try Kinkos again. I was just so excited to have someone actually appear to be interested in helping me get that graphic printed out that I just accepted it the way it was. That's a great idea about the joysticks. I guess you just cut a square hole large enough for the main part of the joystick to go down through and let the mounting lip rest on top of that square. It seems there will still only be about about 1/4" of material to screw into, 1/4" for the joystick and the rest for mounting. How do you handle the heads of the screws? Wouldn't they stick up into your Lexan/Plexi? I do like the idea of the longer stick length.

Bones · « **Reply #23 on:** August 06, 2005, 06:26:44 pm »

Looking really good. A very classy build!

AceTKK · « **Reply #24 on:** August 07, 2005, 01:20:29 am »

Nice cab and nice ride! Where in Houston do you live? I'm a bit east of downtown.

-Ace-

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #25 on:** August 07, 2005, 08:54:45 am »

I live on the northwest side (249 Louetta area). Thanks, I enjoy both the cab and the cobra

Knievel · « **Reply #26 on:** August 07, 2005, 10:12:29 pm »

Using a local place these days but Mamemarquees is great from what I hear. You don't need it laminated like they usually are if you're using plexi, so ask him for a price to print it on glossy paper. It should be cheaper than what's listed on the site.

The background shows through on the darkened areas around my controls, I think it looks great like that. If it's not dark enough for you just increase the Fill Opacity some more. I set mine at about 65%. And I can't tell if you did it already but a Drop Shadow will put a dark border around your glowing outline.

Yes that's how I mount my joysticks. I use 3/4" MDF so after routing out the 5/16" required for the base I've still got 7/16" left, which is plenty.
Using the 5/8" MDF would leave you with 5/16" to support it. I think it should still be fine but you might want to put some metal under there.

Get the screws with the countersink heads(triangle-shaped) and tighten them down until they sink into the mounting plate just enough to be below the surface. I recommend #8-32x1 machine screws.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #27 on:** August 10, 2005, 11:38:43 pm »

Finally, tonight I had some time to work on the cabinet. I received my Golden Tee trackball mounting plate. This thing is larger than I thought. I had to cut a little bit of the top edge so it would not interfere with my three trackball buttons. The first picture shows how much it overlaps with the two lower buttons. It's not a big deal and once the overlay is over the mounting plate, no one will know. I routed out the huge area for the mounting plate in the second picture. As you can see it was dark outside, but I was determined to get something done today :-)

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #28 on:** August 10, 2005, 11:45:03 pm »

Also, in following along with Knievel, I decided I wanted to mount the joysticks on the top of the control panel, instead of underneath. I practied on a test piece of MDF. I routed down only 1/4" and then cut out a square hole for the joystick base to fit in. After screwing the base down with countersunk screws, I realized I still need to go 1/16" more to get the screw heads flush with the top of the control panel. Not a big deal, and I will do that on the control panel. It feels like the amount of MDF below will be plenty to support any radical game playing. I will especially like the height of the joysticks. This is a good way to mount them. Thanks Knievel.

Knievel · « **Reply #29 on:** August 11, 2005, 12:49:11 am »

I see where you get your nickname from.

Seriously though, nice job with the routing.

You'll save yourself some work and get a stronger mount if you use those machine screws I mentioned. Drill the holes right through the CP, slip a washer + lockwasher nut on the end and tighten it down till the head sinks into the plastic.

madhatter349 · « **Reply #30 on:** August 11, 2005, 10:31:54 am »

where did u get that control overlay from

thanks

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #31 on:** August 12, 2005, 12:13:18 am »

Madhatter,

I made the control panel graphic myself. I grabbed one of the high resolution mars rover photos from JPL's website, and tinted it a little red orange color in Photoshop. Then I used CorelDraw to add some other lines and transparencies. Took it to Kinkos and had them print it on indoor vinyl (probably not the best quality).

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #32 on:** August 12, 2005, 12:18:54 am »

Well, thanks to Knievel again, I went to Home Depot and picked up the proper machine screws and routed out the joystick holes in my control panel. Mounting them from the top is definitely the way to go to get the full length of the sticks. To route out the proper size square holes, I created a square pattern that I could lay on top of the control panel and run my router against and not have to worry about making any "ragged edges"

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #33 on:** August 12, 2005, 12:23:21 am »

Once I tightened the machine screws down the heads pulled down in the hole a little bit. I later laid my graphic and Lexan over the control panel and everything looked really good. Nothing sticking up under the Lexan at all. I like it.....and yes, that is a real drop of sweat you see there on the control panel....or is it tears

wintermute · « **Reply #34 on:** August 12, 2005, 10:57:29 pm »

How did you cut the holes out in your CP overlay? I know someone "skilled" could probably do a nice job with an Xacto knife, but I'm kind of afraid that I'll make a mess of my overlay.

thanks!

wm

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #35 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:28:53 pm »

Wintermute,

I bought a brand new exacto knife and laid the Lexan (with the holes already cut out) on top of the graphic, which was on top of the control panel (with it's holes already cut out) and lined everything up. Then I used the fact that the holes were already cut out and carefully moved the exacto knife up and down as I went around the edge of the hole. It really wasn't too hard, I just took it slow. My graphic overlay was indoor vinyl, which is a little thick, but I think it would be just as easy as with a paper overlay.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #36 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:35:28 pm »

I got all my controls mounted now. The joysticks on top worked out just fine. No screws sticking up, nothing causing any distortion of the graphic what so ever.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #37 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:37:56 pm »

Here are some more closeups of the underneath side.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #38 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:43:38 pm »

The Vortex Spinner....great product!! Also, I ran into a problem when I tried to put the control panel top down on my control panel base. As it turns out the big disk that is used to create the pulses for the spinner would rub the back fo the control panel base. Also, since I used the Golden Tee trackball mounting plate and it is bigger than a normal one, it's front mounting screws also conflicted with the front of the panel. I had to take it all outside and get the router out and route out some areas of the front and back of the control panel base. I didn't like having to do this, but I am too far down the road to rebuild the control panel top, or the base. I'll live with it. See the following pics to see what I had to do.

RaggedEdge · « **Reply #39 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:45:20 pm »

Oh joy, what fun!


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