Author Topic: The Little Pink One...... (Read 9331 times)

icesurf3r · « **on:** October 23, 2006, 08:12:32 am »

Decided to build a minimame cab for my neice as a Christmas present using the plans from minimame.com. Obviously it's got to be a little bit girlie so i decided on a pink & purple colour scheme, mainly pink with purple T-moulding, purple CP with pink joystick and buttons.

This is my first cab building project and having not done any woodworking since leaving school a good few years ago things went alot smoother than i anticipated

Planning the design

When i started to draw out the side panel dimensions i soon realised that the minimame was going to be a little bit too mini for my neice (even though she's only 4), so i decided to keep the plans as a rough guide and just design my own panel. As you can see from the pic i laid the monitor out to help me make sure that the angles and depth of the cabinet were ok.

The First Cut

My first time using a circular saw! You can't see in the pics, but it was securely clamped.

Starting to Take Shape

One Complete Side Finished

Felt rather good when i got to this stage and i still had all my fingers intact which was a huge bonus. But I am very pleased with the overall dimensions and shape

Where I Finished

Managed to get the other side completed before the weather took a turn for the worse and rained me off. Hopefully next weekend if the weather holds out i should get all the panels cut and get the basic cab together.

shardian · « **Reply #1 on:** October 23, 2006, 08:50:28 am »

It is looking good. Kudos to you on diving right in on your first build

(+_+) · « **Reply #2 on:** October 23, 2006, 09:54:53 am »

What a fantastic Uncle you are!!

Have fun and I know she'll love it.

sealslayer · « **Reply #3 on:** October 24, 2006, 06:56:36 pm »

Nice colour scheme, if your in the UK you can get formica Laminate 10' x 4' called juicy pink for 54 quid + vat from a company called IDS much easier than painting and it has a great texture to it and boy is it pink !!

spacies · « **Reply #4 on:** October 24, 2006, 07:38:38 pm »

Yeah, nice work.

I am building a machine for my nephews as well. Mines a bit easier as I have a cabinet with a water damaged base so I am just going to chop a foot or two off the bottom.

Will post some pics when I get started.

All the best with your build 'unc'

MinerAl · « **Reply #5 on:** October 25, 2006, 01:34:06 pm »

I did a mini for my niece a couple of years ago. I couldn't bring myself to paint it pink though

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=28595

icesurf3r · « **Reply #6 on:** October 29, 2006, 11:46:33 am »

Well no photo's this week as all i managed to get done was the cutting out of the rest of the panels, and didn't think some photo's of lots of bits of wood would be interesting lol

Next week will be different however as i'll be starting to put the cab together so there will be plenty of pics..

icesurf3r · « **Reply #7 on:** November 05, 2006, 01:23:32 pm »

Well due to the weather i didn't get alot done today (typical bonfire night weather, pouring with rain, though it did improve later this evening).

So what i did while it was raining was rip some PC speakers apart ready to fit in the cab.

I started with two of these

Pulled the speaker front off, undid screws and pulled it apart to reveal

Luckily the board that has the power button and volume control came out in one peice so i'm going to mount this somewhere on the cab so the volume is easy to control externally.

So in the end i was left with

Well by this time the weather had impoved slighly, but it was getting dark so i made an effort to get at least a little something acheived.

So i put the base together

and get one of the sides attached (before no light stoped play lol)

It's a really good feeling to see it finally starting to take shape, rather than be a few peices of cut mdf in the shed... For attaching the sides etc i've decided to go with L-Brackets rather than using wooden battons - what are peoples views on this.

Aurich · « **Reply #8 on:** November 06, 2006, 12:50:14 am »

Quote from: icesurf3r on November 05, 2006, 01:23:32 pm

For attaching the sides etc i've decided to go with L-Brackets rather than using wooden battons - what are peoples views on this.

My view? A mistake. I've done both, and I can tell you that the brackets are a far worse solution. The ONLY advantage is that you can take it apart if you wish, but that's just not a concern for me.

sealslayer · « **Reply #9 on:** November 06, 2006, 01:09:21 pm »

I'd go with battons as well, unless you have some very strong fixings in the middle and the top I can see being a little weak at the bottom, a sudden fall or push on the sides and it will probably sway and bend to either side.
Mines got bolts and screws along the battons and it still felt a little wobbly until it was all put together.

icesurf3r · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2006, 01:56:57 pm »

Don't worry the bottom will be screwed to the 2x4 aswell. 3 screws in each corner.

There'll also be a support piece running parallel to the back diagonal for a bit of extra support as well as the monitor shelf, and a shelf slightly lower down that will act as the top for a vertical slide out shelf that the PC components will be attached too..

So hopefully with all that it should be rigid enough..

theCoder · « **Reply #11 on:** November 06, 2006, 11:50:12 pm »

Rather than trying to mount the speaker circuit so the knob sticks out, you can bypass the pot and wire in your own. If you look at the PCB, you should be able to find the leads that go into and out of the pot. You can solder wires around these points, leading to your own pot, then you can easily mount it anywhere you like. I'm sure my PCB was different than yours, but I wrote it up somewhere on the PartyBox thread listed below. I think it was on page 2. Another approach is to unsolder the pot from the board and run wires to it.

Looking good.

icesurf3r · « **Reply #12 on:** November 14, 2006, 03:07:10 pm »

Well managed to get a little more this weekend, only really did a couple of hours on Saturday and a couple of hours today, as i went to the remembrance sunday service and then pub, with my parents.

So i managed to get the framework together. With the help of some clamps

So after removing the clamps it was free standing and starting to look alot more like a mini cabinet

I then took it upon myself to install and test fit the monitor shelf. This was a little tricky as i was working on my own. What i had to do was actually lay the cabinet on it's side, marking where the top of the mdf shelf, and the batons should be on one side. I then fastened the mdf to the batons inserted it into the cab, taking care to line it up with the previous markings, checked with a level and square to make sure all was well and then screwed it into place. I then flipped the cabinet over, made sure that the shelf was level and square again and screwed in into place. Leaving me with something like this

And with the monitor in place

I then made a start on the speaker panel.. I decided that as the speakers were only small that i would use a thinner piece of mdf (about 1/8" ish) just cut out a rectangle slightly smaller than the speakers, fasten the speakers to the back of the mdf and that would be it. However that looked horrendous and i didn't like it one bit. So i shaped the holes that i had made making them slightly larger and oval-ish so that the speakers could be fitted from the front with the magnet and the cone protruding at the back.. After covering the speakers with some blue-lilac speaker cloth and test fitting them, i was very pleased with the result. Bearing in mind that the speaker panel will be pink i think the colour of the speaker cloth will look great..

Speaker shelf 2nd attempt

And with speakers and speaker cloth

I've just ordered the marquee from mamemarquees.com and the T-moulding from T-moulding.com.. The pink of the cabinet is going to be custom mixed so it matches the pink of the sanwa buttons and balltop exactly

On Thursday going to finish off the speaker panel, and make a start on the control panel!!!

javeryh · « **Reply #13 on:** November 14, 2006, 03:29:57 pm »

Looking good so far! I'm building something similar and I'm curious as to how tall and wide your cab is. I scaled mine to 80% of the original Ms. Pac-man dimensions and it's 53" tall and 20" wide (or 18.5" wide for the CP not counting the two 0.75" thick side pieces). I think it might be a little big for my daughter - she will probably need a crate or something to reach the controls!

icesurf3r · « **Reply #14 on:** November 14, 2006, 03:50:35 pm »

Mine is 17 1/2" wide including side panels, 16" internal width and is 48" tall. I was using the plans from minimame.com, but realised it was going to be way to small for my neice, so i just kinda threw caution to the wind and designed everything myself.

icesurf3r · « **Reply #15 on:** November 27, 2006, 05:00:09 pm »

mini-pac arrived on saturday. So will be mocking up my CP ready for routing out the recesses and cutting the button holes. I'm using pink sanwa snap-in buttons found here with a width of 29.5mm will a hole of 30mm be ok or is it better to cut it slightly smaller???

Marquee Artwork:

Bezel Artwork:

Mamewah Screen:

T-moulding and slotcutter are on there way from t-moulding.com as i speak so hopefully couple more weeks and should all be done

Nannuu · « **Reply #16 on:** November 27, 2006, 05:06:48 pm »

That is really cute artwork.
You might want to think about rounding the corners a bit on the sides. The t-mold will wrap around a lot nice if you do, and it will look better. A block and sandpaper will do the trick no problem on MDF.

sealslayer · « **Reply #17 on:** November 27, 2006, 06:47:51 pm »

I was looking at those buttons from gremlin for another project but they dont look secure enough and theres no room for any movement if need be.
How many buttons do you need? I have a few of these left.

javeryh · « **Reply #18 on:** November 27, 2006, 10:43:14 pm »

Cool artwork! Where are you printing it? Now I'm thinking I might need a bezel to go with my CP. Hmmm....

I think a 30mm hole will be fine for 29.5mm buttons. As long as you can get the buttons in the holes you will be OK.

theCoder · « **Reply #19 on:** November 28, 2006, 12:05:52 am »

Now thats cotton candy, bubble gum sweet artwork. Looks great.

icesurf3r · « **Reply #20 on:** December 19, 2006, 04:12:31 pm »

Well i've been that busy with trying to get this finished and with getting everything organised for Christmas, that updates haven't been very forthcoming. SO this will be quite a long post with plenty of pictures (even though they are crappy phone ones), to remedy the situation.

Well the T-moulding and slot cutting bit finally arrived from the States, so i set about routing out the slots for my T-moulding... I measured the depth i needed to make the slot at the centre of the MDF, then practiced on a scrap piece; flipping the piece over to make sure the slot was dead centre, and what do you know it was. So i took the cabinet outside and laid it on it's side to cut the slots (rather then dismantling it)

I then decided to practice using the router bit i that would be used for recessing the joystick into the control panel. (bearing in mind i had never used a router before this day)

I couldn't find a bit with a bushing on it so i had to cut the recess freehand so it wasn't overly neat, but it did the job.

So now the cab looked something like this, all i needed to do was put the back on.

The back is fully hinged, to make access easy if i need to get at the insides at any point. Got the cab back from my parents (where i was building it) and it's now stood in my garage waiting to be painted. At this stage i have just used wood filler to cover over all the countersunk screws.

Rather than using primer for the mdf i've actually used white emulsion, as i've got absolutely tons of it. I've obviously given the bits i've sprayed more than one coat to make sure that it's been absorbed properly by the mdf and i won't be getting a blotchy finish.

Speaker Panel

Control Panel

When looking at the picture of the control panel the two holes at the top will be on the left of the cab. These are the 1P button (used to select the game from the mamewah list) and the other is the button that HazeMD recognises as the megadrive start button. The next hole is for the joystick shaft, followed by the three action buttons. The cluster of four buttons, when viewed in the correct orientation will be as follows
top left - turns everything on
top right - pause
bottom left - exits game
bottom right - exits mamewah and turns the computer off.

The computer when turned on is set up to boot straight into mameWah

Went to B & Q today and got the final pink colour specially mixed to match the colour of the sanwa buttons, unfortunately the pic with my phone doesn't do it justice.

Plans for wednesday night is to get the cabinet fully sprayed with undercoat and the speaker panel and control panel sprayed with colour, thursday i'll spray the cabinet with colour and start wiring up the speakers and control panel between coats, friday install marquee and monitor bezel, spray the cabinet with another coat of colour. On saturday i'll just be wiring everything together ready for the big switch on. All the computer side of things is ready to go, i just need to put the "hardware shelf" as i call it in the cab and connect the monitor, speakers and minipac and it should be ready to go.

javeryh · « **Reply #21 on:** December 19, 2006, 05:02:19 pm »

Nice progress! If I were you though I'd rethink the 4 admin button cluster you have on the right of your CP. If you put the "exit to front end" button so close to the action buttons I'm afraid you will accidentally hit it in the middle of a high score run in Donkey Kong or something!

Also, for future routing tips (without a template or straightedge clamped to the workpiece) you could use a razor and straight-edge to score the lines where you are going to remove the material. Then if you are careful you can run the bit close to the edge and the wood will pop out and you will get a clean line. You have to route about 1/8" deep at a time but the results are worth it if you are anal like me (even though no one will ever see it).

I can't wait to see the paint job - I'm thinking about using the EXACT color on mine but I'm a little nervous.

icesurf3r · « **Reply #22 on:** December 20, 2006, 04:16:55 pm »

Well guess i'm just like a bus - No updates for ages then two come along at once.

Managed to get my spray booth set up tonight.

And also managed to get a couple of coats of the undercoat on... This is a pic after the first coat.

Will sand coats tomorrow when they are dry to make sure they are nice and flat/even then i'm going to colour

can't wait

Thamks for the tip JaveryH, will remember that when i attampt my own full size cab next year....

flashiv · « **Reply #23 on:** December 22, 2006, 02:51:48 pm »

I MAMED for about $500.00 (no side art or CP art yet).

theCoder · « **Reply #24 on:** December 22, 2006, 10:19:11 pm »

Nice paint booth. That would address a cold/humidity problem I'm faced with. How big is it? Did you cover the ceiling as well?

icesurf3r · « **Reply #25 on:** December 27, 2006, 11:36:57 am »

I'm not sure how big it is TBH, i just cordened off about 1/3 of my garage using some plastic dust sheets i bought from a local hardware store. I didn't cover the roof, just the sides. Think it was something like 12' x 9'.

Well what can i say..... In the final week, if something could go wrong, it did go wrong. I was right on schedule uptil saturday, and thats when i hit the first of my setbacks....

The painting had gone exactly to plan - the pink colour looked superb and i got it painted in good time. It contrasted well with the purple of the control panel, which matches the purple of the T-Moulding.

I even added a touch of silver glitter spray which loked great on the purple..

Finished Control Panel

Close Up of Glitter Effect

The picture looks a little dark, as i had to take the picture without a flash to capture the glitter effect.

I then had the great job of wiring it all up, so underneath looked like this to begin with.

Then i started wiring the controls. As it's only a small CP i decided that i would actually snip and solder the wires from the minipac as otherwise they were WAY to long.

Start Of The Wiring Procedure

I also sorted out the motherboard components and fixed them onto the drawer that would fit inside the cabinet.

Fully Wired CP & Component Shelf

Now this is where i hit my first snag......

I connected the CP up to my laptop to program all the buttons i needed like so

Programmed all the buttons which was easy, started up Mamewah on my laptop, tested the joystick and buttons everything worked great... Turned the laptop off, re-started it, loaded up mamewah and............ Nothing:mad:

Thought it may be my soldering skills that were in question, so i unsoldered everything then proceeded to solder each button and joystick microswitch one by one testing it using the winipac programming utility making sure each one worked. By now a half hour job had taken well over and hour and i was still in the testing phase. The newly soldered CP worked great, until i turned the laptop off then i encountered exactly the same problem. Everytime i re-started the laptop i had to re-program the minipac.

By now i was starting to panic... Was it a faulty board, was i doing something wrong, was my soldering naff.. I'd even tried programming it direct to the EEPROM using CTRL+ALT+P and that didn't work either!!!

"I know, i thought. I'll try it on my desktop PC" so i plugged the CP in and away i went and had exactly the same problem. At this time, I'm not afraid to admit that i was almost close to tears

Thinking my neice wasn't going to have a Christmas present. So i was posting on the mamewah forum, and hoping to get some help to remedy the situation. Anyhow, just on the off chance i unplugged the CP from the front USB port and plugged it into one of the ports on the back directly connected to the motherboard. Low & Behold after programming and re-starting the computerit had kept the settings:D!! By now i had wasted well over 5 hours trying to get this sorted and decided that i needed a break and would finish everything else up on christmas eve..

CHRISTMAS EVE

Well i got up early to make a good start on the cabinet. Went to test fit the control panel back in the cab and i hit my first snag of the day. The control panel didn't fit! The minipac interface was catching on the monitor shelf. This was an easy fix, i just routed out a space in the front of the monitor shelf so the minipac would fit...

Once that was done, i fitted the speaker panel and the marquee and lights, so at this stage it was looking something like this

You can also see the space i routed for the minipac.

Anyway to cut a long story short. I think that because the cabinet had been moved about so much that it had twisted slightly so things weren't fitting as they should, but i stuck to my guns and just made small modifications where necessary to get everything to fit but all these took time, and time was now something i didn't have alot of. Eventually i had a fully working cab i jsut needed to fit the T-moulding, which didn't quite fit in a couple of places as the slot was slightly to wide and the barbs weren't gripping properly. Unfortunately i didn't rectilfy this until later on Christmas day (super glue is a wonderful invention).

I just tweaked the cab so it booted straight into mamewah and when pressing the designated on/off button it shut the cab down and the monitor went into stand by mode. Which was good as everything is powered from the computer PSU so when "on" is pressed the monitor, marquee lights and computer all come on together and all turn off together too.

The Fully Finished Cab

These next pictures are what made the whole process worthwhile.

Holly's Arcade

It's not exactly perfect, but i don't think it's too bad for my first attempt, and my neice loves it!!!!!

javeryh · « **Reply #26 on:** December 27, 2006, 12:04:13 pm »

Wow! Very nice job - everything seems like it came together and I'm sure your niece loved it! How many coats of paint did you put on there? Did you put a clear coat or something over it? I'm trying to decide how to go about painting mine (in the 40 degree cold $:-\$ ). The glitter is a really cool idea... hmmm... you've got me thinking now...

Also, what types of pink buttons did you use? The admin buttons look like the Dream Arcade ones that I have but the action buttons seem to be a slightly different shade of pink (which I actually might like better than the ones I have). Where did you get them?

leapinlew · « **Reply #27 on:** December 27, 2006, 12:09:43 pm »

Awesome job Uncle! Good luck trying to top that next christmas!

theCoder · « **Reply #28 on:** December 27, 2006, 12:23:06 pm »

You just scored a lifetime of points with your niece. Regarding your USB and fit problems...It always seems that when you are on a deadline, Murphy's law kicks in to increase the stress level.

How late did you work on it on Christmas Eve? This is an extreme case of "some assembly required". Great job !

Stobe · « **Reply #29 on:** December 27, 2006, 01:00:17 pm »

Looks great. I really like the marquee and bezel.

I also had a Christmas deadline for my little pink one, and finished things up around 1:30 AM. I also hit a few small snags at the final hour, but overcame them. Glad to hear you were able to do the same.

Hope you only have one neice

-Stobe

icesurf3r · « **Reply #30 on:** December 27, 2006, 03:35:22 pm »

Quote from: javeryh on December 27, 2006, 12:04:13 pm

Also, what types of pink buttons did you use? The admin buttons look like the Dream Arcade ones that I have but the action buttons seem to be a slightly different shade of pink (which I actually might like better than the ones I have). Where did you get them?

I used the Sanwa Snap in buttons for the action buttons, which are the lighter pink (which the paint matches). I got them from Gremlin Solutions. The admin buttons are also Sanwa, but i got them from Sealslayer on here so not sure exactly which type they are.

I used 3 coats of the general white emultion as undercoat and it only needed 2 coats of the colour. I didn't use a clear coat as the spray glitter also adds a clear coat. It was a case of killing two birds with one stone. I have loads of the pink colour left, using a spray gun to paint it was one of my better ideas. Quick, easy, great finish and you hardly use any paint for the surface you cover.

Quote from: theCoder on December 27, 2006, 12:23:06 pm

How late did you work on it on Christmas Eve? This is an extreme case of "some assembly required". Great job !

Wasn't too late managed to get it all done by 8pm!! But i was starting to worry slightly.. lol

Donkey_Kong · « **Reply #31 on:** December 27, 2006, 07:50:51 pm »

Quote from: icesurf3r on December 27, 2006, 11:36:57 am

It's not exactly perfect, but i don't think it's too bad for my first attempt, and my neice loves it!!!!!

Icesurfer...I'm sure that in her mind it is better than perfect.

PS: Off topic. What kind of icesurfing are you talking about? We do alot of icesurfing as well, with kites.


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