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Paul Olson:
My cabinet guy has a laser in his shop, so he cut it in house. I gave him an asteroids screen shot for the asteroids and ships and told him I wanted one big player ship at the bottom. The ship that is used was his rough sketch in. I thought it looked pretty good as it was so i told him to just use it. I think it cost $175 for the laser etching. It would probably be a lot more for an intricate pattern. I chose Asteroids over a few other choices just because it is pretty lite on the cutting needed.

bfauska:
Just found this and wow, how this thread with such attention to accurate controls has been so seldom replied to boggles my mind.
I also really like the edgelit plex. I don't really have any call for it on my cab but I should figure some out since I could cnc it.

Paul Olson:

--- Quote from: bfauska on March 03, 2015, 08:06:02 pm ---Just found this and wow, how this thread with such attention to accurate controls has been so seldom replied to boggles my mind.
I also really like the edgelit plex. I don't really have any call for it on my cab but I should figure some out since I could cnc it.

--- End quote ---

I like the plex, but I honestly usually forget to turn on the LEDs.

This has been a great project. So far, the highlight for me is playing Space Harrier with the real controller. Other games are great on here, but it literally took me 10 years to piece that controller together. lol

datafry:
hows the new mounting look?

Paul Olson:

--- Quote from: datafry on March 16, 2015, 05:05:20 pm ---hows the new mounting look?

--- End quote ---

There were a few things I was worried about with the design. This really requires very low tolerances to work right. I built my original design to those types of tolerances, so it worked as expected. This one works...pretty well. The cabinet guy was not anywhere near as precise as was. This turned into a year long cabinet project due to his schedule, and some things were definitely rushed. The wood that gets clamped into the cabinet needed to be exact, and he was pretty careless on that. The height of the router was not set the same. I made him redo the really bad ones (basically the ones that were upside down), but it was starting to get a little strained at that point. It works. There are a couple of panels that I have had to pad that a little because they were loose when the clamps were tightened. It would have worked great on all of them with a little more attention to detail on his part. I should mention that I don't blame him too much. I think these were a lot more work for him than he thought, and his normal projects bring in a lot more money per hour than these did. There are a few that I will probably redo someday, but for the most part, they work fine. It is a very simple locking mechanism, and I think it will do the job fine.

My biggest gripe is the T-molding on the panels. I told him that it would be hard to get the vinyl to match up to it right. I had tried it in my original design, and the edge of the vinyl tended to loosen (almost like bubbling) when the tmolding is pounded into place. He assured me that he could do it right, and I relented. I was right. It annoys me, but most of the panels are actually ok.

I think my original design is better (as in more of a secure mount), but this is definitely a bit easier to swap.

All in all, I am happy with the upgrade. I will try to take a video of a panel swap one of these days. It is pretty quick to swap them out. I am working on the software setup now, so hopefully that will be done soon. I have been concentrating on pinball for quite a while now, and I am ready to start playing some games on this again.

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