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TimeSink - Dedicated Vertical Cab

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theCoder:
Well it's been a few months since completing my last project, so…

A few weeks ago I got a call from a local arcade machine guy.  He had a gutted ThunderBlade cab for sale, $35.  The wood was in good shape and included a coin door & a very beat up analog joystick.  I picked it up primarily because it is very short and narrow (5.5 ft tall by 22 inches wide.)  Relatively small, unlike my last monster project.  I've always wanted to make a dedicated vertical cab and this is what I'm starting out with. 

It is serial #2810 and had a lifetime play count of 16,011.  I'm not sure how much this thing cost back in 1987 when it came out, but for a machine to only take in around $4,000 in 20 years, no wonder it was gutted out and sold for scrap.  In cleaning it out I found 4 quarters, one dime, and one penny.

Project title:  TimeSink
Why?  A timesink according to dictionary.com is:  A project or activity that consumes unbounded amounts of time.  That pretty much sums it up.  It will be a timesink during construction, and possibly a timesink for years to come in play.

A few pictures to start things off…

1)  Stock photo from klov.com
2)  My 6' 2" son looking down on the cab
3)  Front panel in rough shape

theCoder:
Plexiglas Lighting Effect
One thing I want to do on this project is add green light accents in various places.  In a class I had in school, we studied fiber optics and played with side lighting Plexiglas with LEDs.  Today I built a prototype.  It’s pretty easy to do.

Steps involved:

1)   Pick up a scrap piece of 3/8” (or thicker) Plexiglas from your local glass shop.

2)   Route a straight 3/8” slot.  In my case, there were a few imperfections from the router jumping, but it will be taken care of later.

3)   Cut a piece of Plexiglas the length of the slot, and wide enough so that when it is flush with the front surface, approximately 1” sticks out the back.  In theory, you want the front surface rough, and all other surfaces very smooth.  Apparently the light reflects off the smooth surfaces, keeping more light inside until it hits the roughed up front surface, where it leaves the Plexiglas.  I didn’t polish the sides on my prototype.  The front surface is rough though.

4)   Apply liberal amounts of Bondo to the slot and insert the Plexiglas.

5)   Adjust the Plexiglas so that approximately 1/32” sticks out the front.  Make sure the Bondo completely fills the arc at the ends of the slot and where the Plexiglas touches the wood.

6)   Sand the front surface flat once the Bondo dries.

7)   Drill two slip fit holes for two LED’s.  You can experiment with the angle, but I seem to remember that something a little less than 90 degrees works best.  You get “hot spots” if you point the LED’s straight out the front.

8 )    Rough up the front lens of the LED’s with sandpaper.  This makes the light spread more, reducing hot spots.

9)   Wire up your LEDs.  In my case, I used 50 ohm resistors with a 5 vdc power supply.  My cab will likely have 12 vdc available, so the resistors will need to be different.  Long lead to positive.  If you forget the resistor, you get a very bright light for about 10 milliseconds, then the magic smoke escapes.  Make sure the lights work before moving to next step.

10)   Epoxy the LEDs in the holes.  It is important that you fill the holes completely with epoxy before inserting the LEDs.  Air pockets will impede the light transfer into the Plexiglas. <edit - not true, not that important to fill completely>

11)   Paint the surrounding surface and Plexiglas to shape the light.  If you mess up you can always wipe it off.  If you really mess up, you can sand it down again.

<edit>
Edits based on further experimentation.  Check out additional post below.  Much more learnings.  No polish required, don't side light, point led's straight at the face spaced fairly close (3/4") together.
<end of edit>

Enjoy…

theCoder

Zero_Hour:
Cool cab to work with, but I have to say the lighting should put it in a class of its own. Great write up of the how-to.  :cheers:

leapinlew:
ahhh, here we go again eh? Very nice write up on the lighting.

Sure building the cab is cool - but what games are in your future?

Havok:
Great idea - the only thing I would change is to perhaps use sockets for the LED's - I would want a way to replace them if they burn out. I can't wait to see how you incorporate this into your cab design...

 :applaud:

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