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Author Topic: The King of Kong -- COMPLETED  (Read 30643 times)

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deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #40 on: September 21, 2008, 10:39:46 pm »
Week 7

Decided it was time to get the audio going on this project, so I took my old amp/sub unit and got to work on soldering the connections to my car speakers. For the audiophiles, I ran these in series (each channel goes from amp to speaker +/- and then from that first speaker to the +/- on speaker two) - my limited working knowledge of home audio tells me that home amps run at 8 Ohms, and running two speakers in series EDIT: parallel brings it down to 4 Ohms on each channel, which is the appropriate impedance level for car audio speakers. I soldered these and then glue gunned them for good measure:





I then mounted these in the arcade (make sure you've got some stubby screwdrivers and tough knuckles), and glue gunned the wires down so we've got no movement:




Meantime, we also got going on the keyboard/mouse drawer that will sit underneath the control panel. My friend had a great idea to make the drawer have a acrylic bottom. This made the drawer have less depth...and it looks awesome!







Oh, and we had a visitor that found a new use for the coin door hole while we were working:




Got some Formica on the drawer:






Also squeezed in some time with the coin door for some finishing touches, and had to remember how to reassemble the coin mech assembly!




Sprayed the coin door components to make them silver, and started to get the door back together:



« Last Edit: September 22, 2008, 10:05:42 pm by deepblue »

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #41 on: September 21, 2008, 11:02:25 pm »
Week 8

Big week - bottom of the arcade completed, and man does it look great...I'm seeing what this is going to look like as a finished product.

Hmmm what's this? Looks like some insane colored speaker fabric to perfectly match up with my joysticks!



More on this next time, we had some issues with getting the speaker covers the right size. We'll need to look for something smaller.


Helpful tip if you order coin release replacements for your coin door and the release shaft is too short for your door - glue guns are your friend! This did the trick.




My pride and joy - the coin door is done, fully restored, and mounted in the coin door:








Just to recap, here' the before and after:

BEFORE


AFTER



I ran into an issue where I had to find a way to mount this on the coin door and fill the outer holes with something that would match the original "bolts" you see on the inner part of the hardware. I went to the hardware store and found something called a "Chicago Bolt", that is made for the job:




This has a polished top, and is available in many different lengths - I got 3/4". You just pop it through the hole and screw the back in:




So, with that done, we decided to put the chrome T-molding on the bottom of the arcade. No pics as we both were working on it - one hot gluing, one pushing the T-molding in. A word of advice - the glue dries faster that you think, make sure you move fast...else you're going to be scraping it out and starting over like us. Anyway, got it done, and with the door on, the drawer completed and with handle, it looks GREAT:













Blanka

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #42 on: September 22, 2008, 01:21:42 am »
You're speaker setup is a mess. Speakers in series OMG!
Speakers can change in resistance depending on the music. So with one bass beat one can dive to 2ohm, where the other is at 16 ohm. That can give very strange results.
So never put speakers in series, and better, don't use them parallel either.
Is your setup 2-way, or did you just cram 4 full range ones into the top? Well better drive 2 full range ones properly, than 4 like you do know.
If they are both full range, use the 2nd room speaker out on the amp for those. If the amp is just stereo, than either use only 2 speakers, or use a filter and give them each a seperate part of the audio spectrum.
Ohm calculations are very misleading in speaker-land. Just put your 4 ohms on the home amp. There is no problem in that if the amp is good. As I said, big woofers in great speakers can duck to 2 ohm on the bass parts, and then a home-setup must handle that temporary 2 ohm situation as well, and a good amp can handle those situations.

Martijn

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #43 on: September 22, 2008, 02:26:30 am »
looking good ! the sound will be great on this thing i think, way overkill  ;D  :notworthy:

also like the zilver coin box , nicely done !

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #44 on: September 22, 2008, 05:22:53 pm »
You're speaker setup is a mess. Speakers in series OMG!

There's always an audiophile in every crowd ;)

The amp I'm using is actually a surround sound amp I've had for a while that I believe was just meant to be a mini-home unit. It has a L, R, C and a single "S" connection out the back that comes factory wired in series. That is, there's a single channel lead going out the back to rear speaker 1, and rear speaker one then has another lead that links it to speaker 2.

The amp also has a "multimedia" mode that I'm running it in now that simply runs sound through the L and R channel.

To be honest, I've been cranking the music on it for hours this way, and it sounds kicks ass - and my ears could tell if they were out of phase or sounding muddy. If the amp blows - I'll just buy another one that has a 4 channel setup. If the speakers blow, ditto...but so far so good.



deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #45 on: December 06, 2008, 04:04:23 pm »
Week 9

This was back in the middle of October, I've just been too busy to post the progress pictures unfortunately. Looks like we might have some winter weekends to keep picking away at it.

Worked on getting the control panel outside "formica'ed" during this session, in addition to getting the speaker covers done.

We managed to sand the control panel to be 99% flat on the top side, which should be fine as we'll be clamping it down (somehow - haven't figured that out yet). Next step was applying the formica to the outside, which proved a lot trickier than we expected.





Why so tricky? Well you can't use the router to edge it because of the freaky angles we've got going on, and because the adjoining sides will have formica on them that need to overlap a tad to cover the edge. Just trust me - this was actually a ---smurfette---, but after a mix of using a blade and a power planer, we got the desired result:



(if you see some jagged edges or what looks like saran wrap hanging off in some of these pictures, it's the protective coating on the formica that keeps the stainless steel top from scratching)

We're really happy with how the chrome and SS are matching up - and the coin door is just icing on the cake.

We got the speaker covers done too - this involved getting some car audio covers, cutting the felt and using hot glue to stretch and attach it to the covers. You've then got to mount the covers with nuts and bolts so you can tighten it from the back. I'm thrilled with the results here, and it is nice to touch :)



You may also note that there is another GGG Marquee LED light installed - I wasn't happy with the brightness that the single row of LED's was putting off, especially given the dark color that my Marquee will be (more on that later). We plugged another one in here and the brightness seems to be sufficient...if still a tad bit dim. I also covered the entire upper inside cavity with foil for good measure:



Pretty close to my original idea ;)


So at the end of week 9 - most of the exterior is now completed:



deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #46 on: December 06, 2008, 04:16:20 pm »
Week 10

This one got really ghetto - I forgot my camera, so I had to use the crappy one built in to my Blackberry.

Didn't do a whole lot this week other than putting the rest of the chrome T-molding on the upper part of the cabinet. Here's some crappy pics.







I then printed out a really shabby mock-up of how I envisioned the marquee looking - just a color printer at work and 8.5 x 11 paper taped together. The scale is way off, as is the color (note the contrast b/w the marquee and the speaker covers). You'll also see some Maximus Arcade goodness going on - I have the brain of this little operation mostly configured and ready to roll!



deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #47 on: December 06, 2008, 04:22:36 pm »
So I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel - and unfortunately the artwork (Marquee and CP) have really slowed me down. I've been really busy at work, my wife is 39 weeks pregnant, and I'm lucky if I have just 45 minutes in the evening to do anything at all. It's been a toss up between nit picking over the control panel artwork or playing Gears of War 2, and unfortunately Gears was winning until just recently.

So - I've finalized my artwork, and I posted a thread here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=87293.0

To solicit feedback. Here's a copy of what it says for the lazy, with images (sorry to duplicate):

-----------------------------------------------------------------

My project had been on hold for months now as I've been extremely busy with my non-arcade life (which is way less interesting). I've been chipping away at my control panel and marquee for a couple of months now and I believe I've finally got it to a point where it can be sent for printing.

As a backgrounder - this is my project thread, and my arcade is called "The King of Kong" - named after the movie:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79019.0

I wanted to utilize the movie's poster/logo elements and color scheme, so after a lot of work in Vector magic, here's what I've got:

Marquee


Control Panel


A couple of things to note:
- All of my buttons are illuminated, P1 & P2 have Blue Novagems, P3 & P4 have Orange Novagems, Function buttons at top are white for P1-4 Start, and 2 Blue and 2 Orange for Pause, Exit, etc.
- Orange plate at top is for Spinner (TT2 from GGG)
- Donkey Kong will be "throwing" my illuminated trackball (Electric ICE-T from GGG) that will either be illuminated Orange or Blue (or maybe will cycle to both!)
- Joys are all ball tops (2 Ultrastiks & 2 Sanwa JLF's), blue tops for P1 & P2, orange tops for P3 & P4
- Marquee is 26" x 8", CP is 48" x 18"
- I'm going for "simple and clean", not elaborate with huge explosions and lightning bolts, etc.

Things I'm mulling over and would appreciate feedback on:
- I increased the opacity of the colored boxes on the CP because I think it looks nicer, if I matched the colors to the marquee exactly, it would look like this:

which I don't think I like as much

- The Marquee, due to the design of the cab and how the backlight is positioned, will only illuminate in the center 5 1/4 inches, such that the light will bleed through like this:


- The speaker covers I'm using are a florescent felt, and are sort of driving the color choice on the marquee, see here:


- I'm unsure if I should print the CP with the "ghost" circles for the cutouts, I'd prefer to in order to make it easier to get setup for the buttons and make cutting easier, but if this is a big no-no, please let me know.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone in this thread has feedback, please let me know here or in the alternate thread above.

Thanks.

leapinlew

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #48 on: December 06, 2008, 06:35:26 pm »
I love how Donkey Kong is holding the trackball.

Do you think it would make sense for all the lines that intersect in the middle of the CP to intersect at the trackball instead of to the middle of your CP?

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #49 on: December 07, 2008, 12:52:17 pm »
Thanks for the suggestion leapinlew - I think you're spot on...I adjusted the "star" to line up with the trackball. I also adjusted the colors slightly so they now are mid-way between the two previous extremes (decreased the opacity a bit). Considering that I've heard the printing results in a little bit of color washout, this might be a wise idea:



Here's another one I was toying with - just to punch up the marquee...a flaming barrel perhaps? Thoughts?


One other question for the experts - the joystick "holes" I've included here are the same size as the button holes - is that the correct size to cutout to accomodate the Ultrastiks & JLF's? I don't want the holes too big or too small - if someone could confirm, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #50 on: December 08, 2008, 04:02:27 pm »
I really like the artwork (including the newly added flaming barrel). As far as the joystick hole, I can only speak for the Happ Supers. If their throw is similar to the Ultrastiks and JLF's, the standard 1-1/8" button hole is plenty of room. I never come close to hitting the MDF and the dust washers easily cover the hole.
To game, or not to game...what kind of question is that!?

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #51 on: December 08, 2008, 04:12:17 pm »
Cool - thanks...isn't the standard hole 1 1/4"? I will double check what I have on the template, I have whatever the standard is for pushbuttons.

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #52 on: December 08, 2008, 06:08:14 pm »
Scratch that - you're right, it is 1 1/8". Thanks.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #53 on: December 10, 2008, 01:11:09 pm »
deepblue,
I am a producer and editor from the King of Kong.  Through the genius of Google Alerts I have been getting status updates on your project ever since April.  I feel honored that someone would put as much time as this in appreciation of a film that I worked on.  I would like to send you a free poster of our movie as a token of my gratitude for all of your hard work.  Please message me through the forum for more details.

Again, great work and I can't wait to see the finished product!

C

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #54 on: December 10, 2008, 01:48:20 pm »
twee21 - hilarious, I'm glad you got wind of the project...now I suppose I'll need to try extra hard to ensure it ends up looking great!

I'll send you a PM - please contribute feedback and general comments as the build continues to progress, I'm sure you're as big an arcade fan as anyone here.

Thanks.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #55 on: December 11, 2008, 11:41:33 am »
deepblue,
I am a producer and editor from the King of Kong.  Through the genius of Google Alerts I have been getting status updates on your project ever since April.  I feel honored that someone would put as much time as this in appreciation of a film that I worked on.  I would like to send you a free poster of our movie as a token of my gratitude for all of your hard work.  Please message me through the forum for more details.

Again, great work and I can't wait to see the finished product!

C

Loved your movie.  Have it on DVD and seen it a couple of times already.  Any chance of seeing a picture of the poster?  Offering them for sale?  I know I would have some interest as I would think other as well.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #56 on: December 11, 2008, 05:22:30 pm »
That is shaping up to be a great looking cabinet. The one thing that seems important to mention is that you should be sure to plan on using either switchable sticks (mag-stick plus, t-stick plus, omni-stick prodigy) or an ultimarc u360 or a 49-way. With a title based on a movie based on a video game with a 4-way stick it would be a shame to have crappy 4-way game play.

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #57 on: December 11, 2008, 05:27:14 pm »
bfauska - thanks. We already bought the 4/8 way restrictor plates for the U360's, and we're in the process of engineering a way to open the panel in an elegant way to make the adjustments on the fly with minimal fuss.

Someone in here just posted a video using an actuated arm that opens/closes the lid - we've actually given it some serious consideration!

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #58 on: December 14, 2008, 10:29:47 pm »
Update - I've finally, finally ordered the marquee and control panel from Scott at Mamemarquees.com. We'll see which comes first - my newborn son (who is due in two days) or my artwork. Excited for both! :)

Anyone have some good links or ideas on created the monitor bezel? We're really stuck with this one - the cardboard/bristolboard thing just isn't going to cut it. We're considering taking a thin piece of plexi, cutting out a hole for the TV and spraying it black...then just laying that against the front of the tv. We'd then put another, thicker piece of plexi as the main front cover.

I'd also appreciate any hints/tips on drilling out the holes, etc. once you have the artwork on top of the control panel - I got mine with adhesive backing so it will stick tight to the wood...and I'm assuming I can then just take the forstner bit right on top of it without fear of it shredding/tearing the control panel material?


cmoses

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #59 on: February 05, 2009, 02:04:09 pm »
Just curious if there has been any progress made?

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #60 on: February 05, 2009, 02:22:01 pm »
Hey - sorry for no updates guys...if you see my comments above I was questioning whether or not my newborn baby OR my control panel/marquee printouts would arrive first.

Remarkably, they both arrived on the same day - my son was born on December 24th, and when I stopped by the house that day to grab some things, the artwork had arrived and was waiting for me.

I live in Canada - where we have 4 wonderful seasons...and Winter is here in full force. This, combined with my new duties as a dad have delayed any further progress on the build. My build partner and I are going to do some work this Sunday if the weather is reasonable (i.e., not -10), as I really want to get the control panel going.

At a minimum I'll post some pictures this weekend of my mamemarquees.com work I got from Scott (looks fantastic by the way, turnaround time was 20 days from placing the order to receiving the finished product up here in Canada), but hopefully I'll have more to share.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #61 on: February 05, 2009, 03:12:48 pm »
Quote
Hey - sorry for no updates guys...if you see my comments above I was questioning whether or not my newborn baby OR my control panel/marquee printouts would arrive first.

Remarkably, they both arrived on the same day - my son was born on December 24th, and when I stopped by the house that day to grab some things, the artwork had arrived and was waiting for me.

Congratz on the recent family addition! Wow, an x-mas eve baby...just make sure not to screw him over on the presents! People who are born in December get the unfortunate luck of getting their b-day and x-mas gifts combined.  Kinda sucks as a kid. 
:badmood:

Quote
At a minimum I'll post some pictures this weekend of my mamemarquees.com work I got from Scott (looks fantastic by the way, turnaround time was 20 days from placing the order to receiving the finished product up here in Canada), but hopefully I'll have more to share.

How did you find Scott's service/shipping/wait-time for up here in Canada?  I live in western Canada, and was wondering how long I'd have to wait for my marquee if I order it through mamemarquees.

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #62 on: February 05, 2009, 03:55:32 pm »
Thanks.

Re: Mamemarquees, I never even spoke to Scott, just purchased online and sent him links to my artwork...and 20 days later had both of them in my hot little hands. I've lurked on this board for nearly two years and can tell you Scott's work is widely regarded as the best - everything I've read shows he'll make it right if there is an issue (which there wasn't with my order).

So - I had a custom marquee and custom CP that was quite large, and that was 20 days total until I had it...and consider that was in prime time Christmas shipping season.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Scott's work to another builder here, and certainly to a fellow Canadian.

Make sure and be extra careful with the artwork when you receive it - I was a bone head and put it in my workroom with tools hanging overhead. As expected, I accidentally knocked a set of aviation snips off my wall that promptly landed shear side down on my control panel artwork and put a cut/gouge in a small (and thankfully inconspicuous) area of the panel. I'm pretty sure that when I stick it down to my panel I'll be able to smooth it out so it won't be visible at all.

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #63 on: February 08, 2009, 09:59:26 pm »
Week 11

Well we had to pull this guy out again:



Relatively balmy up here this weekend, but still around the freezing mark, so needed Mr. Heater to keep us from getting too cold. As a point of reference, we're nearly one year in on this project, having started last February 28th. Time flies - and this takes way longer than expected.

As promised, here's my artwork from Mamemarquees.com:

Control Panel:



Marquee:



As usual, the pictures don't do these justice - the control panel has a nice scratch coat on the top and appears to be pretty rugged. The Marquee (which I got printed on the "Premium" material) is a translucent material that looks great and really makes the colors pop.

First thing we did was to tape the panel overlay on to our plywood backing to trim everything flush. There was a bit of a discrepancy size wise (about 1/16") that we're just going to trim off. Once taped down and squared up, we cut the outer edges clean with a straight edge and chalked where we plan to trim the panel back.



With the overlay taped down, we center punched the button cutouts, joystick holes and spinner:



And then got to work on creating jigs for the joysticks and trackball mounts (the silver is the back of the control panel, which we laminate with SS formica):








And that's it...only a few hours work, and most of it was spent figuring out what to do first. One thing that did come up as an issue is the trackball height. I didn't think ahead enough to imagine how the trackball will mount with the plexi on top. I've seen a "high mount" kit for the trackball on GGG...I'm assuming that's what I need, as the existing standard GGG trackball doesn't come up high enough to clear the plexi sufficiently.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #64 on: April 16, 2009, 01:33:51 am »
Any updates on this? Looking great so far.  :applaud:
Long live Donkey Kong Jr.!!!!

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #65 on: April 16, 2009, 09:08:53 am »
I've got a few pics of some additional short sessions we've had over the last month and a bit that I need to post, but for the most part we've put this on hold until it warms up. My friend's shop isn't heated, and we're only just getting decent weather in the Toronto area in the last week or so.

We're targeting having this done by end of May - so fingers crossed! Hope to post some more progress soon.

Thanks.

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #66 on: April 12, 2010, 11:46:22 pm »
**tap tap**

Is this thing on?

I just read through my project thread here and realized that I haven't posted here in almost a year to the day. This is largely because the duties of being a dad and the time required to get this thing completed didn't match up.

I started this project exactly two years ago tomorrow - so I've decided it's time to get it completed. In the time since I last posted, I did get a good deal of work completed...and the machine has moved from the woodshop to my basement.

I unfortunately lost some of my pictures, and only have a random collage of images from my crappy Blackberry camera to share the WIP shots from the last year, which are:



























As it stands now - I have the control panel completely assembled:


And the cabinet is done with only ONE thing left to do:


...the damn bezel. I've been dreading it because I don't have an elegant solution outside of some black cardboard paper and spray paint.

Anyway - I'm back...and this is now on my "to do" list to get completed ASAP.

Oh - and twee21, if you still check google trends ... I never heard back from you, but I would still love a poster!!
« Last Edit: April 15, 2010, 09:58:38 pm by deepblue »

javeryh

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #67 on: April 13, 2010, 09:31:22 am »
...the damn bezel. I've been dreading it because I don't have an elegant solution outside of some black cardboard paper and spray paint.

Glad to see you picking this up again.  As for the bezel, get a 1/4" black acrylic sheet from TAP Plastics and cut out the center.  Put a bevel or round over the inside edge and treat it with high grit sandpaper and Novus polish.  It will come out great... at least I'm hoping it does.  I'll let you know when I get around to doing it myself!  I have worked with the stuff before though and it is nice (I just haven't made a bezel out of it).   :cheers:

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #68 on: April 13, 2010, 10:17:19 am »
javeryh - thanks.

My issue with getting this bezel done is probably related to how we built this thing. I'll grab a couple of pics to demonstrate, but essentially I have a TV that is recessed and tilted, and a plexi shield that will ultimately sit in front (as is pictured with the protective paper still on).

The issue is the space/angles around the TV that I need to cover up (so it doesn't look awful) with a black material is very tough to measure and work with.

What I was planning to do was cut and tape/glue some black bristol board pieces around the TV to make everything clean, and was then toying with the idea of painting the inside of the plexi to have a open 'box' where you look in to see the TV. Idea being that the paint will hide most of the crappy bristol board job and focus your attention on the screen itself.

I'll take pics to better explain.

In the interim - for fun, here's a video I made for my friends as a "teaser" for the King of Kong...love LED Blinky!



« Last Edit: April 13, 2010, 10:19:27 am by deepblue »

saleem

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #69 on: April 13, 2010, 11:10:39 am »
love the queen track,love the lights with the track.
 :applaud:

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #70 on: April 13, 2010, 11:14:32 am »
Thanks - who doesn't love Queen right? I might release another teaser and put Radio Ga-Ga as the soundtrack :)

MaximRecoil

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #71 on: April 13, 2010, 01:12:41 pm »
Week 7

Decided it was time to get the audio going on this project, so I took my old amp/sub unit and got to work on soldering the connections to my car speakers. For the audiophiles, I ran these in series (each channel goes from amp to speaker +/- and then from that first speaker to the +/- on speaker two) - my limited working knowledge of home audio tells me that home amps run at 8 Ohms, and running two speakers in series EDIT: parallel brings it down to 4 Ohms on each channel, which is the appropriate impedance level for car audio speakers. I soldered these and then glue gunned them for good measure:

You most likely had it right the first time, assuming your car speakers are typical (4 ohms) and your home amplifier is typical (rated stable at 8 ohms). In this case, you would wire a pair of 4 ohm speakers in series (for 8 ohms) for each channel, so each channel of your amplifier will see a nominal 8 ohm load, which is what it is happy with.

With each pair wired in parallel, your amp is seeing a nominal 2 ohm load on each channel, which is not really good for it; though your amp may have built-in protection circuitry to prevent excessive current flow in the event of someone connecting a load that is too low. Also, your volume control can counteract the problem as well (i.e., don't turn it up too loud; your volume control adjusts output voltage to your amplifier).

You're speaker setup is a mess. Speakers in series OMG!

There is nothing wrong with speakers wired in series; in and of itself.

Quote
Speakers can change in resistance depending on the music. So with one bass beat one can dive to 2ohm, where the other is at 16 ohm.

This is true, but irrelevant.

Quote
That can give very strange results.

No.

Quote
So never put speakers in series, and better, don't use them parallel either.

I don't know where you got that idea, but you're wrong.

Quote
Is your setup 2-way, or did you just cram 4 full range ones into the top? Well better drive 2 full range ones properly, than 4 like you do know.

It doesn't make a difference; in and of itself. You're not using the word "properly" properly; since what you are suggesting is not necessarily the "proper" way of doing things (it is one of various "proper" ways of doing things).

Quote
Ohm calculations are very misleading in speaker-land.

No they're not. Ideally you want to match the speaker's nominal impedance to the nominal impedance that the amplifier is rated to be stable at.

opt2not

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #72 on: April 13, 2010, 03:20:04 pm »
Hey welcome back deepblue! Looking forward to seeing this one finished!

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #73 on: April 13, 2010, 05:23:16 pm »

You most likely had it right the first time, assuming your car speakers are typical (4 ohms) and your home amplifier is typical (rated stable at 8 ohms). In this case, you would wire a pair of 4 ohm speakers in series (for 8 ohms) for each channel, so each channel of your amplifier will see a nominal 8 ohm load, which is what it is happy with.

With each pair wired in parallel, your amp is seeing a nominal 2 ohm load on each channel, which is not really good for it; though your amp may have built-in protection circuitry to prevent excessive current flow in the event of someone connecting a load that is too low. Also, your volume control can counteract the problem as well (i.e., don't turn it up too loud; your volume control adjusts output voltage to your amplifier).


Thanks for the feedback - I figured I had it right at some stage. If I noticed problems I'll adjust it to run in parallel. I also love how audio people often have so much misinformation that is carried on from someone, somewhere. I'll admit I'm pretty useless with home audio, but I was pretty into car audio and actually tried to read up on the topics :)

The real question is - can I mount the two 10" subs (currently gathering dust in my crawlspace) in this thing somewhere? :D

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #74 on: April 15, 2010, 10:09:08 pm »
Just for posterity (and so people know that I am making good on my word to finish this thing) - I managed to get the Maximus Arcade / MAME / LED Blinky configuration entirely finished to my liking. Well, almost - I am trying to compile MAME 134 with the hiscore diff and simply CANNOT FRACKING GET IT TO WORK. I'm not a slouch at this stuff - I know my way around a compiler, I just get very strange, non specific errors from Mame Compiler 64 and the Mr. Do's instruction set is too dated to work anymore.

Back on what is working - LED Blinky is setup to not only strobe to Queen, but to light up the appropriate buttons for the game you select, do some fun animations in between, etc. What an amazing app - Arzoo deserves huge praise for making it.

So - my procrastinating on the bezel is coming to an end...and is one of the last major things to complete. Will try to tackle it (and finish it?) this weekend.

Blanka

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #75 on: April 19, 2010, 08:02:13 am »
No they're not. Ideally you want to match the speaker's nominal impedance to the nominal impedance that the amplifier is rated to be stable at.
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/228-a-secrets-technical-article.html

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #76 on: April 27, 2010, 12:17:22 am »
Loved the movie... Considered taking the trip to New Hampshire to see the cade and museum from the film.

Regardless... this build is top notch.  I know how family thing can be.  Cannot wait to see this thing in action.  Artwork is also really sophisticated for this build.


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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #77 on: April 27, 2010, 06:18:31 am »
Did you ever get that poster?  I'm sure its just lost in the mail.  :lol

deepblue

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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #78 on: April 27, 2010, 10:35:44 am »
Thanks Dynasty.

No, unfortunately our friend who worked on the King of Kong didn't come back to the forum to check the PM I sent him. If by chance he reads this - I would still love a poster!

I have the cabinet nearly completed - I'm in the final agonizing stages of crafting a custom bezel and will then adorn it with plexi. Just taking forever.


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Re: The King of Kong
« Reply #79 on: July 27, 2010, 10:25:41 am »
Bump and Jump.
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