Week 3 update (work completed last weekend). Had a good but frustrating day of work - frustrating largely because we made a critical error in our initial design that is coming back to haunt us in the control panel assembly...but more on that later. Here's the good things first:
Chrome T-molding arrived from T-Molding.com!
(This stuff is great, come covered with a protective plastic peel, and looks just like real chrome)
Started on painting the exterior that won't be covered by Stainless Steel, and the interior:
(We used Black Tremclad Rust Paint for this - great choice as it covers really well with one coat and no priming. Still have to pull that damn heavy TV out and do the interior around the monitor)
Made some decisions on sound/speakers - I found 4 high end car audio speakers in my shop that were from my old truck, which should find a great home in the King of Kong. We picked out the location for install:
and created a jig to route the holes:
(idea here is to mount them back in the marquis space, and then we're going to create a really cool custom grill front that will sit over them. I believe we've left enough room in the marquis up top for lighting, etc.)
One issue that came up here when we were originally placing the speakers was monitor distortion caused by the large magnets on the car audio speakers, which aren't shielded. I ordered some bucking magnets from
www.partsexpress.com that got here fast, and according to what I've read, should do a good enough job with offsetting the little bit of color bleed that was being caused. I'll post install and magnet pics on next update.
Which brings us to the frustrating part - the control panel issues. When we originally designed the jig for the front curve of the arcade, we didn't read closely enough in the Lucid plans to see that there is supposed to be a "flat", 90 degree notch at the bottom where the control panel sits. We instead curved the front edge right to the bottom (as you can see in this initial photo):
This has proved to be a MAJOR pain in the ass. When we originally realized that this mistake had been made, we simply thought we would create the control panel box with an angled back and just slide it in there flush. Well, it isn't that simple at ALL. Because the control panel top also needs its own angle, we found ourselves in a real pickle when we were putting the main box together. These pics should show you what I'm taking about...note how some pieces need mitered and angled cuts on the top and bottom:
It may look like we got it all figured out - but we didn't. Many of the configurations here had us tear pieces out and redo after the fact. There are just too many angles to factor in to get this exactly right...and not to mention that we want to build a keyboard/mouse drawer, hinged control panel top that opens and then to make the whole contraption fully removable from the arcade when needed.
We quit for the day due to our frustration, and my friend has a new idea to essentially finish the build and then run the entire unit through an industrial sander he has in the shop (on an angle) to essentially straighten it all out. Sounds odd, i know, but it is so crazy it just might work. We're also ditching the 5/8's top we started with as it has already started to warp a bit, and is junky wood. We're ordering a piece of Birch 5/8 ply as a replacement, which is some of the best and least likely to warp wood available.
That's all for this week - ordered an old coin door off of Ebay that we'll be grinding down and repainting, and integrating into the front. Still need to order the control panel buttons/joys etc. which has proven to be a very difficult decision...but I think we know what we want to do now.
If anyone has a good link that can best explain the IPAC / Control module thing to me - I'm pretty technical, I just need the Coles Notes on how many units I need for the number of buttons, joys, spinners, etc. I am putting in. Does anyone know if the LED-Wiz is an LED controller and IPAC unit in one?