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Galaxian Mame Conversion
csa3d:
Rotating Monitor Mount
This weekend has been big, as the rotating monitor mount has come to fruition! Special thanks to all who helped me get to this point. Be sure to check out the following links to understand how I got to this point:
Psychotech's Axle Design
My fight with a Lazy Susan bearing
Creator of the Mala rotating plugin, and master rotator himself
And now here we go!
Parts
You'll need the Pizza Pan and VESA mounting holes from this thread first!
2x Bones Red skateboard bearings (from your local skate shop, get the highest rated ones you can afford, they come in 8 packs btw)
1x 2", 5/16" threaded bolt (Lowes.com, come in 2 packs)
2x 5/16" nuts with locks built into them (Lowes, come in 2 packs, I suppose you could get separate lock washers..)
1x 5/16" wing nuts (Lowes, came in 2 packs..)
2x m4 - .70 16mm screws (for vesa mount only, Lowes)
2x m4 - .70 20mm screws (for vesa mount and stoppers, Lowes)
4x 1/4" nylon spacers, must fit over m4 screws (Lowes)
4x small L-Brackets (Lowes)
8x small felt chair pads (Lowes)
2x skinny, long (2-3") bolts + lock washers + nuts. (for limits, Lowes)
a few 1 1/2" wood screws (Lowes)
many 1/2" wood screws (Lowes)
1x standard short, Ethernet cable (I had tons of these, they come with everything apparently)
2x coin return switches (Divemaster here on BYOAC forums)
6x Crimp Connectors to fit coin switches (Lowes)
1x Ethernet femal to Printer Port male connector (Online link from here on another thread I can't remember offhand)
many 1/4" nylon wire fasteners (Frys)
1x BYOAC Team Rotate motor kit
1x 12 Port Terminal Block (Radioshack)
2x Wide L-Brackets for support bar (Lowes)
1x 1x3x4" Piece of real wood (I used Aspen, MDF holds screws for %$&!)
1x pack of sandpaper
1x wood glue
Tools
Drill
various drill bits (1/2", 1/8", and a few others)
Wire cutters
Plyers
Adjustable Wrench
Screwdrivers
Utility Knife
Wire Crimpers
Dremmel tool + sanding disks
Soldering Kit
7/8" Fostner Bit
Process
1. Take your 1x3x4, cut it to cab width. Mark the center point. I drew an "x" from corner to corner, and also marked half way point, to be doubly sure.
2. Drill a small pilot hole down through the center of your X. If you have a drill press, now is the time to use it! This hole will determine the axle's position on both sides of the brace.
3. Take a 7/8" Fostner bit, and using your pilot hole, drill down just far enough to allow the skate bearing to lay flush with the top of the wood. Since I don't have a drill press, I stopped every so often, and tested it's level, making adjustments as I went further down. The result should be the bearing laying flush with the top of the wood. It will be a tad loose, but a 3/4" Fostner bit was too tight. Maybe a drill press would have made it more snug. You could always paint the inside.. anyways..
Repeat this step for the reverse side.
4. Now you need to drill out a hole to go the whole way through the holes we just drilled, so the axle can slide through. If you look at the bearing, there's an inside metal ring. You do not want this ring touching the wood. Therefore, I used a 1/2" drill bit to remove a doughnut from the center. If I had a drill press, it would have been better centered. As long as this hole is bigger then the interior metal ring of the bearing, you are good. This allows that ring to rotate freely which is what we want. The machined bearing is what the axle passes though, and that is exact.. meaning we don't necessarily have to be.
Now is a good time to clean up this hole with some sandpaper. Be sure to get it as dust free as possible before inserting your bearing. Don't worry, you've got 6 more if you goof!
You are now done with the axle's female mount!
5. Now we focus back on the Pizza Pan which we have drilled for our VESA Mount. It needs the male acceptor. Mark the center of your pan, if you have not all ready done so. Love that machined precision of the airflow holes!
7. Insert the bolt so that the bolt sticks out the bottom of the pizza pan. Lock it down tight with your locknut.
8. While we're drilling holes, you'll want to add bolts to catch the limit swich arms. Locate 1 quadrant of your pizza pan (on a clock, 12 to 3). You want to drill out 2 holes just large enough to accept your long, skinny bolts. From the top resting foot, choose the hole 1 to the top right, then down one. From the right resting foot, choose the hole 1 up, then 1 towards the center. The below image is of the 3 o'clock hole, only the image is rotate 90 degrees counter clockwise.. (sorry, for crappy pic, I drilled out like 6 holes till I got this right)
Your final product should be this:
Congrats! You've made the Male Axle Acceptor!
9. Now let's mount the plate onto the montor. Grab 4 spacers, place them over the VESA holes. Place the plate upside down over the spacers, so the plate's feet are facing you. Take your 2 small (16mm) vesa screws and mount them at 10 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the VESA holes you made previously. Now grab 4 of those small L-Brackets, and place 2 of them 90 degrees to one another as to make a right angle stopper. Cover the vertical mount with felt, which will bump against the wood as it swings around. Use the longer (20mm) VESA screws to secure them to the plate, while also attaching the plate to the monitor. Now you can also mount the wood female brace to the plate, the order goes like such:
Monitor -> spacers -> Pizza Plate -> 2" Bolt -> Locknut -> Bearing (red side down) -> wood cross brace -> Bearing (red side up) -> locknut (lock side up, not towards bearing) -> Wingnut
See image below for further clarification.
10. Did you notice there's switches attached all ready?? That's cuz I'm a bad photo journalist! You'll want to mount these now, unlike the pics. One of them mounts right side up, the other upside down. You'll need spacers for the upside down one, or else the trigger arm will catch on the wood. I used some green brick hanger insert (screw into bricks), and cut them to length. You could use a bic pen, or go buy some. I made this up on the fly, as did most of the rest of this process from here on. How far did I mount them from the center hole? Far enough so I heard the arm trigger the click JUST before hitting the felt. I figure that's enough room to bend the trigger arm to adjust for play.
Note: I had to bore the switch mounting holes a bit larger to accept wood screws.
11. Now you need to mount the hobby wheel, so it rests on the pizza pan, and will eventually spin the whole setup via software. Do do so, I cut 2 small sections from the remaining Aspen 1x3x4, to make an angled piece to stick out from the cross brace, which holds the motor. This was something I eyeballed up, making sure the wheel was parallel to one of the side feet of the pizza pan. When buying the parts from Solobarics, I bought the stupid motor mounting bracket.. which one would think is a good idea. Unfortunately, it's designed to be mounted on the same side as the wheel we want to use, which prevents the wheel from being able to be mounted. Not to fear, flip that bracket over to the other side of the motor, bore out to top corner pass through hole a bit deeper, and bolt it together tightly. You'll have to bore the metal bracket hole deeper to match also. Another on the fly adjustment, done out of sheer willpower to use this stupid part that I bought that didn't work out of the box. Fasten the driver mount securely to your cross brace with 1 1/2" wood screws and glue. You're completed setup should resemble something like such:
12. Now all that's left is to follow the wiring guide that weisshaupt documented in his Mala Plugin for Parallel Port Control This will take you quite a bit of time and frustration. Mine is wired up using the Advanced 2, Pulse Modulation Control instructions. It has not been tested just yet, but I've wired it to be separated into three sections: a.) Driver Board b.) Limit Switches c.) Parallel Port If something fails, I should be able to easily replace any one part of the setup without having to undo the whole she-bang. Here's where I'm leaving you for today:
That's where I'm at so far with this. Should be able to test this out very soon, I only need to hook up power from the PC and get Mala and said plug-ins working to let you know for sure. I can tell you, that the bearing is working great! Also, be sure your driver wheel is on the BOTTOM of the monitor position. You might also need to wedge some felt pads between the wooden cross brace and pizza plate on the side OPPOSITE of the motor, to force the plate to touch the rubber wheel. This also will give you the tiny bit of friction you need to control speed. I'm impressed personally, with the little amount of mounting height needed to make this work. I feel this setup could probably be slimmed down even further for another idea I have brewing. (LOL, gotta finish this project first!)
Hope this was helpful to someone. More info coming another weekend.
-csa
psychotech:
:notworthy:
That is just brilliant :applaud:
Great design and clean execution along with an excellent documentation make this a must read for anyone planning to build a rotating monitor mechanism.
Eagerly waiting for some moving pictures ;)
Great stuff :cheers:
DaOld Man:
I agree. Great work.
I am still working on rotating a 19" CRT. If you use an LCD, then I think you guys have the way to go.
I have been playing around with Weishaupts mala plugin and it seems to be working great for my setup.
I dont want to get all mushy here, but it is great to be able to share ideas and methods.
It would take forever to work this out if I had to start from square one.
Keep up the good work guys!
csa3d:
Bezel Cut
This weekend was pretty busy with family matters, so I didn't get too much done. I did manage to get the rotating monitor Bezel cut however. The top sheet is 1/4" MDF, and the disk which I'll adhere to the monitor is 1/8" hardboard. I managed to only screw up one piece of wood while cutting this, so not too shabby I'd say. When cutting circles, and accounting for the router bit in the diameter, note to self, that you'll need to account for offsets on BOTH sides of the final diameter. :dizzy:
If you're wondering what that white crap is on the corner.. well, I purchased a can of spray lacquer, and it had a black top.. and my stupid self assumed it meant it would be super shiny black. WRONG! Back to the store later this week.
-csa
Jdurg:
Awesome job on the coin door. I too just recently restored an old coin-door that I got off of E-Bay for $10.00. I found that letting everything soak in a rust remover for a while got rid of all the rust and most of the gold plating as well. :P Still, after much hard work it looks awesome.
I too used the hammered black paint and wasn't too happy with the results. It didn't have nearly the same texture as I expected it to. It also was much glossier than I would have liked. So I went and got a semi-gloss black paint and painted over it with that. It now looks perfect.
After finishing with the restoration, a friend of mine said "Why didn't you just use truck-bed liner? It's the same texture, and color, and it is super durable." After he said that, I smacked myself in the head for not thinking of that first. It is incredibly tough and chemically bonds with anything it touches making it almost impossible to remove. It has the texture, color and sheen that I would be looking for too. Since it will still be a while before I finish my cab, I may strip the black paint off and go with the bed liner route.