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Author Topic: >>BLACKOUT<< A Year in the life.  (Read 59644 times)

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #160 on: September 11, 2006, 11:53:15 pm »
Powercord Hole
The first order of business was putting in the monitor. Looking back on thing it should have been one of the latter things, but...oh well. Live and learn. I also realized early on that I forgot to drill a hole for my power cord. Doh'. So, Being very careful not to goof up all the paint, I strapped a board to the bottom of the cab and drilled my powercord hole. This was a painless procedure. Also, I ran the vacuum tube through the coin door hole. Anytime I had to drill, I would turn it on so all dust was immediately sucked up (except for the powercord hole). Then I put in the smart strip
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:33:17 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #161 on: September 11, 2006, 11:54:42 pm »
Aux Power Supply
I decided that I wanted car speakers and amp for a little stronger audio source. I also wanted to use cold cathode lighting. I did not want to run either off the computer PS, so I installed an axillary PS. Seeing as I would not be hooking this up to a computer, I did away with the molex adapters, then trimmed and sorted the wires. I capped each line with heatshrink that I was not using. This way the feeds would be there if I wanted them for future add ons, but 1. Would not be a safety concern in the mean time and 2. Would be neater wiring in the cab. You will notice that the 2 lead sets that ware coming off to go to the amp and the lighting also have a green and black pair. I soldered these together and heat shrinked it to the bundle. This way the PS is always on as long as there is power. I shortened the 2 PS powercords to about 1
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:34:04 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #162 on: September 11, 2006, 11:55:56 pm »
Securing the PS's
I did not want to make a custom bracket for the 2 power supplies. So, I took the PS appart and used the bottom to be my connector. I used a dremmil to cut tags on the PS. I bent them out flat and pre drilled holes in them. Then after I drilled pilot holes on the cab I attached the PS. Rock solid!!!
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:34:29 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #163 on: September 11, 2006, 11:56:33 pm »
Audio Amp
I attached the amp to the right side of the cabinet (inside left).


oooh ahhhh
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #164 on: September 11, 2006, 11:58:22 pm »
Coin Door.
In the evenings my kid likes to play outside. Duh, it is summer and kids play outside when it is nice out. So, I used that time to work on out door cab projects. I think I mentioned it before, but I got a over under coin door at a not so near by pinball dealer. When I went to get my backglass for my Black Knight, I was a sawed off dynamo being as a TV stand. I asked if he would sell the coin door out of it. He said I could have it for $15 if I pulled it. SOLD! So while my kid is playing outside, I took the coin door apart and took a wire wheel to it. Afterwards I sanded it. I got it nice and clean. I then opted for the Rust-o-lium Satin instead of the original hammered look. Everything is smooth on the cabinet, so I did not like the idea of hammered. Truth be told, I am do not much care for the hammered look anyway.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #165 on: September 11, 2006, 11:59:21 pm »
I do not know where this thing had been but if was covered in crap. The mechs had to be dremmeled clean with the wire brush. This stuff was stuck on. The mech holders had some mystery goop on it. I became almost OCD about cleaning my hands after dealing with it. I was fearing that I was handeling someones puke or worse. But hey $15 is $15 eh'.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:38:08 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #166 on: September 12, 2006, 12:00:09 am »
Motherboard
I had a computer that I had set asside for the project. When I went to set it all up the computer decided it would rather kill it's self instead. I was really bummed. But my partner in arcade crime Neal, had a Celery 1.8 GHZ that he was not using that he donated to the cause. Woo hoo! Nice case too, but the computer was destined to be unside the cab caseless.

When removing the mother board I took lots of pictures so I would remember where to put everything. I gotta tell you, having a camera on my phone is a wonderful tool in situations where I forgot my real camera. I also made a map of the screw holes so I would not forget any. 12 screws. I was not sure if I needed all of them, but it would seem that is I was adding or removing IDE lines or power or video cards, not having all the support might damage the board, so I decided to do all 12. The MB would not sit flat against the wall so I found some 1/4  in nylon stand offs at the Home Depot. I used these for my mother board. I will just say for the record that mounting a motherboard to the side of a cabinet, maintaining level, and getting little stand offs while balencing between the monitor and the floor of the cab was a major main in the posterier. (remember the comment about perhaps putting the monitor in later...) . So, I screwed one screw (with stand off) in the center top hole of  the motherboard. I leaned in the cab on one elbo (left) got the stand off in a pair of pliers in my right hand. I put the level on top of the motherboard, found maintained level with the left hand, put the stand off behind the motherboard with the right, then pushed down on it with the right while grabbing the screwdriver with the left, fidgeting to get a screw and placing it through the hole and finally tightening it down (which was the easiest part). 

(updated 9-15)
« Last Edit: October 07, 2006, 08:13:08 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #167 on: September 12, 2006, 12:01:57 am »
Hard drive mounting.
What I noticed when taking the PC appart, was... Wow, look at all this usable metal. I used the metal from the PC case for many parts of my cab. I dremmiled off the hard drive cage and modified it to be screwable to the cab. It was originally welded to the PC case. I put some holes in it, bent it, painted it, installed it, added the HDs, screwed them in and done. I also used other bits for the DVDr Drive.

One scare I had was when I got the DVDr installed, I realized that the lip of the door stop was right in front of the DVDr. I decided to open the tray. I did and the tray misses the door stop lip by about 2 or 3 mm. Whew.

(updated 9-15)
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:26:06 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #168 on: September 12, 2006, 12:02:47 am »
Menacing little blue light.
I have always liked how macs have this power light that slowly just fades on and fades off. So I decided that I needed a similar thing on the cab. So I pulled out the ol radioshack project books and started looking for a schematic. I did not find exactly what I was looking for so I set out to create my own recipe. After about a day of experimenting, I finally had a good balance of  fade in, pause, fade out, pause. The circuit had to be run off a little power supply (as I did not want to spend a brazillion dollars in batteries). I The following day I pulled out an old piece of circuit board and began constructing. About 3 hours later I had a working pulser. I put the circuit near the coin door as my main power button is mounted near by here too. I ran the little wall wart PS to the always hot outlet on the smartstrip.

I love it, it sort of gently taunts you....come here...play me....

The buttons switch was then wired to the motherboard power on. I used the connector that was originally attached to the mobo switch and snipped it and connected it to the button line. Easy and works great.

P.S. Again, this was not intentional, but it does sort of have an Illuminati sort of look to the pyramid doesn't it.

(updated 9-15)
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:39:51 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #169 on: September 12, 2006, 12:05:35 am »
CP Wiring
This seemed to be one of the most time consuming parts of the entire build. I had 32 channels of LED lighting, 2 - 49 way Joysticks 20 buttons (5 using RGB LEDs all the rest used Blues), a track ball, track ball buttons, USB for all the interfaces, plus wiring an adapter that would feed the cabinet (coin door switches, LEDS...).  I started with the LEDs. After all the PBs, Joys, TB, +Interfaces were in, I realized that there was a significant shortage of real estate available for clean wiring. But I set out to do just that. I decided to use wire looms. I found a good supply at Fry's. I bought a roll of 1/4 in and got a package of various sizes. Everytime there was any distance between source and destination, I would loom it. This way all wires would be both secure and tightly bound together.  I did the player 1 LEDs first. I tested each LED Before and after I added them because I did not want to get to the end of all the looming, heat shrinking, and soldering to find out that I had a problem somewhere. I build a little LED tester a few years ago which helped.  I put heat shrinking at every solder point so there would be no shorts at some point because something shifted. I decided to put all the resisters be the LEDWiz so I had only clean wire in the tight spaces. This seemed like a good idea, but as I learned soon, it also got very tight around the LEDWiz. The RGB LEDs were set up with RG&B wires for easy tracing. I did all the LED and PB wiring in my living room while watching TV at nights. I have to say my family was very supportive in this trying time. (I sort of made a big mess). Little snippets of red, yellow, blue, green, black, and yellow wires everywhere. After Player 1, I did players 2 then the utility buttons (coin up, P1, P2, Esc, and Pause). This took several nights and mornings (before work).

Then I moved onto the push buttons. After the LEDs, the PBs were a piece of cake. Side note, but I talked to RandyT and asked if he saw any problem with me making the mouse buttons also connect to the GPWiz49s shift key. He did not see a problem. So, once in MAME, being that I would not be using the mouse buttons, the shift keys come into play. Buttons 1-5 on both P1 and P2  can all be shifted. This has been great so far as my Tab and Volume up and down. BTW all PBs were wired with yellow wire to totally stand appart from the LED lines.

One of the things I wanted to do was try and do a Knievel'esk wireing job. Did I succeed? Well, I think I did ok, but it was not a Knievel job. He's still is the master of the perfect wiring job. He raised the bar on wiring it is a good bar to try to reach for.   :cheers:

BTW, If you are someone who does a lot of soldering and feel that helping hands do not really help as much as one could hope for should check out the Panavise sets. I got one on e-bay for like $15. They can be like $85 at a store. But you can clamp a circuit board or LED or anything up to 9 inches and rotate it in just about any position. GREAT TOOL!!!
« Last Edit: September 15, 2006, 08:31:29 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #170 on: September 12, 2006, 12:06:47 am »
.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #171 on: September 12, 2006, 12:07:19 am »
Track Ball
I hooked up the LEDs for the Track Ball. This was not a difficult thing. Wire, wire, snip, snip, solder, solder, heatgun, know, what I mean nudge, nudge, wink, wink, snap, click, know what I mean...He asked him knowingly. Sorry, Monty Python flashback.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #172 on: September 12, 2006, 12:07:56 am »
Cable Tracks
I wanted the inside of the cabinet to be absolutly clean once it was finished, so, I installed cable tracks all the way around the bottom of the cab. I also have one track going up the left (inside right) front pannel (coin door pannel). All wires and cables travel through these tracks. This way there are no loose wires wandering aimlessly around the cabinet. This has helpped in being able to climb in there to work on stuff. Oh yeah, there is one track running up the back right inside of the cabinet (near the door) This takes all wires up to the speakerboard area.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #173 on: September 12, 2006, 12:09:06 am »
Speaker Board Wiring
I wired up the Speakerboard via DB9connectors. This seperates from the back of the cab for easy repairs (if needed). Also if I have to remove the monitor ever, the wireing needs to be disconnected in order to get the monitor frame out. The DB9 connector went to +12 and Ground (From Aux power supply), Speaker L & R, and lastly line 32 from the LEDWiz and a LEDWiz Ground. In each notch below the speaker holes, I placed a red LED. My speakers have a metalic silver grey color. This makes them light really nicely. The cool thing is that they are not so bright that they are distracting, but just subtle. I like it.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #174 on: September 12, 2006, 12:09:40 am »
LEDWiz
At this point I could no longer stand it. I had to fire it up and try out the LEDWiz. I played with it for several hours. I programmed many sets of animations and started to get the hang of it.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #175 on: September 12, 2006, 12:11:39 am »
Light Board
I used a piece of hard board for my light board. First I measured out where I wanted my hangers. I drilled out holes on the hardboard. I put the L brackets on and attached them through the hardboard. Then I put the hardboard in the monitor hole and marked where I needed to place my pilot holes (I had to take my speakerboard down first). I drilled my pilot holes. On the hardboard I used Foil Tape to coat the surface. This way as much of the light as possible would go out the marquee, not get absorbed by the light board. I drilled wires for cold cathode to reach the the inverters. May sound stupid, but I did not even want the inverters sucking up light, so I put them on the back of the lightboard with velcro. I wired the inverters to the PS feed and then the cold cathod tubes to the inverters. One thing to mention. I snipped the on off switches off of the inverters. I always wanted the mights on if the cab was on. Plus I could not see unscrewing the entire sound board / light board set to turn off the CC tubes. 

The morning after I put the CCs on the light board I noticed that the cheap POS foam tabs used to stick the CCs onto the lightboard with had fallen of in several places. I decided that this would not do, so I replaced all pads with the same heavy duty velcro that I used for the CP top.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #176 on: September 12, 2006, 12:12:55 am »
.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2006, 12:15:13 am by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #177 on: September 12, 2006, 12:14:41 am »
Marquee
I had used MAMEMarquees for a few marquees in the past. Scott always did a bang up job. My only gripe is that when lit, the marquees look a little washed out. Plus you can see the paper texture through the print. Now, read this clearly, I am not saying that his products are bad. Actually quite the opposite. I used him for my CP which I think totally friggin ROCKS! But I decided to go a little further for my Marquee. So I found a company (Megabytes Digital) which makes the translites lor movies and stuff. Acutally they are the company that does all the translites for all the Chick Fil A resturaunts. Anyway, it is not printed on paper, but on a filmtype material using a milky substrate. Basically is is plastic, white on the back and lit like film, so it is made to take light. So the colors are rich and very detailed when lit. I LOVE the way it turned out.

Marquee Intsalation
I bought a piece of
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #178 on: September 12, 2006, 12:16:38 am »
At this point I had to make the leap and take the plastic off the plexi. I decided to try an experiment. When you work with electronics, sometimes you have to wear an anti static strap. This is to disapate a static charge so you don't fry the circuits. I tried this in reverse. I strapped the marquee plexi to the strap then to me. My hopes is that I would absorb the charge. I do not know if it worked or not, but it was not covered after I removed the plastic. I placed the marquee down, put the plastic over the top, trimmed the marquee, put the back plexi on and mounted it. Turned on the cab and WooHoo! It looks great (except for all the saw dust that was unleashed n my cabinet because of this.)
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #179 on: September 12, 2006, 02:21:33 am »
It seems to be a fad on the board to use your Air Hockey table as a staging area for anything and everything that gets done in the game room. Well the same is true here.
I can relate.  I've got one of those cheap rotating pool table/air hockey tables.  Sometimes the background of my images are green and sometimes they are white with small black poka-dots.

Menacing little blue light....After about a day of experimenting, I finally had a good balance of  fade in, pause, fade out, pause.
Could you draw up the schematic of what you came up with.  No fancy cad required, a scan of a crayon drawing is fine.  I'd love to do something like this for my coin slot lights.  Very cool!

Hang in there, you're on the final leg.  I've found you need a multiplier to accurately guesstimate the remaining time on a build.  It's kinda like the remaining time for a football game.  The game clock says 14 minutes, that really means 30-45 actual minutes.  Or was it more like dog years?  I forget the actual multiplier.  Your milage may vary.

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #180 on: September 12, 2006, 08:00:50 am »
Could you draw up the schematic of what you came up with.  No fancy cad required, a scan of a crayon drawing is fine.  I'd love to do something like this for my coin slot lights.  Very cool!
Yikes, I knew someone would ask that. I built it on a breadboard and once the experimentation started the original schematic went right out the window. I will look at it and try to remember what it was. It is by no means a hard curcuit. It is based of a simple 555 timer circuit using resisted caps to slow the charge and discharge of the LED. I also put a transister driver in there. The resistance was too high to light the LED after the cap stage so I used the line meant for the LED and used it to drive a transister (NPN).

Hang in there, you're on the final leg.  I've found you need a multiplier to accurately guesstimate the remaining time on a build.  It's kinda like the remaining time for a football game.  The game clock says 14 minutes, that really means 30-45 actual minutes.  Or was it more like dog years?  I forget the actual multiplier.  Your milage may vary.

Yeah, this has been my experience the whole way through. I wish it was...Objects in mirror are closer than they seem.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #181 on: September 12, 2006, 08:15:41 am »
Holy S.  That truly is a mega-update.    That's first-rate work right there. Nice!

DrewKaree

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<<
« Reply #182 on: September 12, 2006, 08:16:39 am »

I will just say for the record that mounting a motherboard to the side of a cabinet, maintaining level, and getting little stand offs while balencing between the monitor and the floor of the cab was a major main in the posterier. (remember the comment about perhaps putting the monitor in later...) . So, I screwed one screw (with stand off) in the center top hole of  the motherboard. I leaned in the cab on one elbo (left) got the stand off in a pair of pliers in my right hand. I put the level on top of the motherboard, found maintained level with the left hand


You DO realize that if you don't level your cab when it's in its "final" resting spot, all that leveling was for naught, right?

Unless you've got OCD about it, a good eyeballin' woulda sufficed for that task, no?  I haven't noticed a mention about water cooling, which would seem to be the only reason to level the motherboard like that.  Any other reasons, somebody please chime in, because there are many who will (and have) attach their mobo to the sides of their cab.
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #183 on: September 12, 2006, 08:45:07 am »
You DO realize that if you don't level your cab when it's in its "final" resting spot, all that leveling was for naught, right?

Unless you've got OCD about it, a good eyeballin' woulda sufficed for that task, no?  I haven't noticed a mention about water cooling, which would seem to be the only reason to level the motherboard like that.  Any other reasons, somebody please chime in, because there are many who will (and have) attach their mobo to the sides of their cab.

I did check the level on the cab walls and base before starting. Drew, you are seeing OCD. From the get go, I have been trying to make everything an 11. I have not actually achieved that in several places, but half a$$ed was not an option. So Level it was. Liquid cooled...Naw, man I am so far passed that. I am using cryogenics on a molecular scale using a helical scaner strapped to a flux copacitance device in line with a BiNostril scent injection system prevortexed with orange juice. Works great! Hey do you wanna buy a moose?
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BLACKOUT  - Finally rewritten - http://blog.myxdigital.com/
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #184 on: September 12, 2006, 08:55:54 am »
I'm not sure levelling the mobo indicates OCD.  Years ago we would have called that 'exacting.'

DrewKaree

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #185 on: September 12, 2006, 09:51:15 am »
I'm not sure levelling the mobo indicates OCD.  Years ago we would have called that 'exacting.'

...and if anyone's an expert on "years ago".... :laugh2:


MYX, what I mean is, unless you level the cab in its final resting place, leveling the mobo within the cab doesn't serve a useful purpose that I know of.  Making it parallel to an edge/seam would work just as well (while still looking like an 11), and if you accidentally had something underneath the cab (like a carpet), your mobo wouldn't be level anyhoo.

See what I'm saying?
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #186 on: September 12, 2006, 10:27:56 am »
...and if anyone's an expert on "years ago".... :laugh2:

Bite me.   :angry:
Can I say that here?



edit:  ;)

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #187 on: September 12, 2006, 10:56:59 am »
I am using cryogenics on a molecular scale using a helical scaner strapped to a flux copacitance device in line with a BiNostril scent injection system prevortexed with orange juice. Works great! Hey do you wanna buy a moose?
I was bidding on that system on eBay for my driving cab project.  So it was you that outbid me!  I guess I'll have to wait for another one to come up for bid again.

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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #188 on: September 12, 2006, 01:48:44 pm »
MYX, what I mean is, unless you level the cab in its final resting place, leveling the mobo within the cab doesn't serve a useful purpose that I know of.  Making it parallel to an edge/seam would work just as well (while still looking like an 11), and if you accidentally had something underneath the cab (like a carpet), your mobo wouldn't be level anyhoo.

See what I'm saying?


I was going to say no I can not "see " what your saying because you hear when people say stuff, but you did type it, so I guess I do see what you were saying.
My side is this... Stupidity says I gotta make the thing level. I understand that I could have put it at a 45 degree diagonal and it still woulda worked fine. Even worse is that once the thing is against the wall, no one is going to see the innerds at all anyway. It is more of me taking pride in my work.
Over the top stupid? Yes. Silly? yes. Am I happy with it? Yes. Pride is an odd sort of animal. I am not a chest thumper, do not feel like I need to be a people pleaser, but I do like to please myself (ok, that came out all wrong). I like to look at something I have done and say, Man, I like that. It might be over compensation for my younger life where I would have done just about anything to cut corners and just get by.

...and if anyone's an expert on "years ago".... :laugh2:

Bite me.   :angry:
Can I say that here?

edit:  ;)

If it is directed at the Honerable Brother, Drew Karee, yes... yes you may. ;)

So...Drew do you like the cab or not?
Not done yet, I have other OCD stupidity I am working on. :p
« Last Edit: September 12, 2006, 01:50:58 pm by MYX »
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Re: >>BLACKOUT<< Updated 9-11 Super Massive Mega Update
« Reply #189 on: September 12, 2006, 01:53:19 pm »
I am using cryogenics on a molecular scale using a helical scaner strapped to a flux copacitance device in line with a BiNostril scent injection system prevortexed with orange juice. Works great! Hey do you wanna buy a moose?
I was bidding on that system on eBay for my driving cab project.  So it was you that outbid me!  I guess I'll have to wait for another one to come up for bid again.

Dude, it was like eleventy brazillion. And it is usually only sold to private militaries in third world nations, but, I managed to sneak it by the folks at the post office.
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BLACKOUT  - Finally rewritten - http://blog.myxdigital.com/
Original BLACKOUT thread - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48239.0