Pinky McJuke - Believe it or not, work continues =)

[Franco B]

Okay, lame name I know. We'll call it a working title for now  

I've been looking to do a juke or two for a while now. I want to do a jukebox for my girlfriend (suprise Xmas/b'day present) as well as a rotating bartop/jukebox for me. The only thing that has been holding me back is trying to find decent touchscreens over here. I was tempted to join in on the ELO group buy recently but I wasn't too keen on getting something that fragile shipped over from the US.

I have been watching eBay religiously for the last few months and all of the touchscreens seem to be going for crazy prices for what they are. I logged on the other day and found an auction for a 17" 3M ChassisTouch touch screen. I looked into the auction further and I was quite excited to see the seller had two 17" 2nd hand touchscreens at BIN for £100 each. That may seem expensive to some of you guys but most of the 15+" touchscreens I have been watching have been going for £100+. I wanted at least one 17" (for my bartop) and seeing as there were two at that price I couldn't resist. They are about £500 new so I thought aslong as there were no major flaws with them then that would be a good deal. The company I bought them from are a computer spares company and they come  with a 90 day warranty which was a major bonus. 17" may be a little big for her Juke but she will just have to deal with it  

Ok, so enough of the background. Onto the project.

I don't have much of a spec at the moment apart from it is going to be PINK! I have got a couple of designs in mind and I'm just thrashing the contruction out in my head and AutoCAD at the moment.

As for a PC I managed to get a 1GHZ Mini ITX board with 512MB RAM off eBay yesterday which should more than suffice for a juke. I got it for just over £40 delivered which I thought was a good buy.



(eBay pic I know, I'm still waiting for it to arrive).

The touchscreens connect to the PC via a serial cable and I was a bit dubious whether they would work or not, especially as they didn't come with serial cables but I had the 90 day warranty to back me up. Anyway, I hooked one up with a serial cable, installed the drivers I downloaded from 3Ms site and they work beautifully! I could quite happily play with the desktop opening and closing folders etc for ages!   (You know what they say, simple things..........)

The colour is crisp and bright and they are surprisingly responsive. I threw Mountain of Faith at it and it looked beautiful. I thought if it could handle that then anything else wouldn't be a problem.

I took a photo and some video but the picture corrupted so Im only left with the video:



The quality sucks due to the uploading compression but it does look awesome in the flesh so to speak

For the colour scheme I'm thinking pink laminate with white or silver accents or possibly both.

I think I'm going to use the Dell laptop speakers that mountain used as they seem to be pretty decent for there size. I know mike knows his audio stuff and if he is happy with them I'm sure they will be fine for casual listing. I'm also going to have an I/O port on the back for powered output, composite output and USB etc.

I think that's about it for now. Ill get some designs up once I have straightened out this swirly mess in my head!

[Paulson]

 Hi Franco, Good to see another project underway...I'll be very interested
 to see how this pans out as I'm interested in doing a juke myself @ a
 later date.

 Good luck....

 Paulson.

[javeryh]

Woo hoo!!! 

PINK!!!!

Ahem, sorry... I sort of have a thing for all pink projects...  I can't wait to see what you come up with!   

[Franco B]

 

I thought you would approve!   

Im planning on laminate at the moment but its causing a couple of problems at the moment. Hopefully nothing that will get in the way but if it does I will be following a certain painting process to the T, or should that be the P?! 

[thatitalian]

Ahhh, starting the juke you wanted to do! Good luck with that mate!!!

Need any help with art let me know!

[polaris]

Im planning on laminate at the moment but its causing a couple of problems at the moment.

pink laminate not too common then?

have a  look at this stuff
its sticky backed plastic basically, but high quality, you can order a free swatchbook at the bottom of the page, it wont be cheap to buy though.

[leapinlew]

Is that the Galaga sequel playing on the video?   

[javeryh]

I thought you would approve!   

Im planning on laminate at the moment but its causing a couple of problems at the moment. Hopefully nothing that will get in the way but if it does I will be following a certain painting process to the T, or should that be the P?! 

What kind of trouble?  Is pink laminate hard to come by?  I do know that I never want to paint another cab like that again (well, not for a long time anyway).  I was thinking of another pink cabinet some time in the future but I was planning to laminate like THIS ONE by sealslayer.  He even said that "Its laminated with "juicy pink" Formica, the cost is around £70 for a 10' x 4' sheet." 

 

[polaris]

javeryh
laminate is hard to come by 
uk laminate discussion

[thatitalian]

javeryh
laminate is hard to come by 
uk laminate discussion

Yeah, tell me about it! UK is pretty poor considering its approx 61 million population!

[Franco B]

Thanks for the input guys 

That site looks interesting polaris, Ill have a good look around there tomorrow at work.

No, buying the laminate in inself isn't the problem, its more of a mounting/positional problem at the moment. I'm just trying to weigh up the pro and cons of all the solutions for now. Laminate would be my ideal choice though.

I have actually managed to stumble across another UK laminate supplier (which claim to be the UKs leading distributor) which sell half/smaller sheets too!  Ill update the other thread once I get some pricing info.

 

[thatitalian]

Have you seen this?

http://www.formica.co.uk/publish/site/eu/uk/en/home/collection/plain_colors.psresults.html?search_term=F0232&search_atom=ProductID

[mountain]

Cool! Should be interesting to watch. I really enjoy working on the smaller bartop style machines. It is easier on the back. 

Good luck keeping this a secret from the GF.

[drawfull]

Hey Franco

I ordered a 15" ELO off eBay on Weds for a Juke I'm building for my partner for Xmas. I'm in the isle of man so suffer your price pain. Paid £100 shipped but it's used. I pick it up tomorrow.

Was hoping to interface to a AppleTV but not convinced it's within my skill set. Will be following this with interest, and might have a project of my own soon.... Found a cool sign shop  here that can print full colour to any 'board' type material. have seen what they can do for Microgaming who are based here - bloody good stuff and would make awesome cabinet sides

Good luck with your project

Df

[ex_directory]

Hey bud, good luck with this project - can recommend DWJukebox software which has a forum here, very customisable, I am planning on using this on my cab. Will be watching this with interest.

Ex (babe!)

[Paulson]

Hey bud, good luck with this project - can recommend DWJukebox software which has a forum here, very customisable, I am planning on using this on my cab. Will be watching this with interest.

Ex (babe!)

 Interesting...Is DW Jukebox easy to set up? Surely these days we expect
 most software to do the job with the least amount of hassle as possible.

[Franco B]

have a  look at this stuff
its sticky backed plastic basically, but high quality, you can order a free swatchbook at the bottom of the page, it wont be cheap to buy though.

I sent off for a sample swatch and after looking at it it seems it would mark too easily. Most of the samples are about 0.002" thick and it wouldn't take much to damage it.

Have you seen this?

http://www.formica.co.uk/publish/site/eu/uk/en/home/collection/plain_colors.psresults.html?search_term=F0232&search_atom=ProductID

Thanks for the link thatitalian (you too javeryh). I think that is the perfect pink. I going to shoot out a couple of emails to get some prices for some.

 

Good luck keeping this a secret from the GF.

I'm lucky that she kinda ignores me when I'm working on my cab as she's not really interested. Ill be ok up to the part where the pink laminate comes out, that when I'm going to have to go into stealth build mode 

Hey Franco

I ordered a 15" ELO off eBay on Weds for a Juke I'm building for my partner for Xmas. I'm in the isle of man so suffer your price pain. Paid £100 shipped but it's used. I pick it up tomorrow.

Was hoping to interface to a AppleTV but not convinced it's within my skill set. Will be following this with interest, and might have a project of my own soon.... Found a cool sign shop  here that can print full colour to any 'board' type material. have seen what they can do for Microgaming who are based here - bloody good stuff and would make awesome cabinet sides

Good luck with your project

Df

Yeah the prices over here seem crazy compared to what the guys in the US can pick them up for. Good luck with your project too, make sure you do a project announcement. Mine has to be finshed for crimbo too so we may be able to help each other along the way. 

Hey bud, good luck with this project - can recommend DWJukebox software which has a forum here, very customisable, I am planning on using this on my cab. Will be watching this with interest.

Ex (babe!)

Thanks for the heads up bud. There has been plenty of discussion about various software in [Kaytrims juke PA] too . I think ill try a few out and see what I think will work best.

Thanks for the input guys 

[Chris]

 Interesting...Is DW Jukebox easy to set up? Surely these days we expect
 most software to do the job with the least amount of hassle as possible.

Some find it easy, some less so.  It uses text-based configuration files for everything, no nice graphical setup program.

[Paulson]

 Hmmm...I think I would rather spend more time building it than
 programming it...if you catch my drift?


                                      P (UK)

[Chris]

Well, that's how I feel about writing setup programs, which is why it doesn't have one yet!   

[Franco B]

We have progress! 

Ive been busy obtaining materials and components as I couldn't get on with the CAD model until I knew what I had to play with. I have enough components now so its on with the show.

This is what I'm planning to make, ignore the colourscheme, Ive just coloured the parts so its easier to see and explain. The model isn't complete but I have managed to get enough data from it to start building.

Front View:





Side Profile:



I'm going for a table top juke with the screen set back at 15 degrees. I'm using a 17" so I wanted to keep the size of the juke down and have a relatively small foot print. The yellow section obv is the monitor, the green section is the Dell speaker bar (a la' mountain) and the blue sections are the end pieces/feet. The front and back of the juke are going to be faced with 5mm pink plexi and the rest will be pink polycarb overlay (CPO) or similar.

As far as colour scheme I'm going for pink with chrome t-moulding, some other chrome striping and a couple of stainless steel accents here and there. You can see an array of 32 pink dots around the screen. I'm planning on putting an LED Wiz in too to control some pink LEDs for fun.

I picked up a [300W Micro ATX Silent P4 PSU] for £14.53 from www.microdirect.co.uk. The same PSU is £40 in Maplins so I thought that was a pretty good deal.



Okay, on with the construction. The jukes profile is basically a big wedge with a large radius at the top and two smaller radii at the bottom. All of the radii are too small to be able to bend 3mm MDF comfortably so I came up with another solution to create the radii.

I picked up a section of 110mm OD soil pipe from B&Q:



I chopped a section out of it and took it to work. The first thing I did was to face it to length on a center lathe so it was the same length as the monitor (405mm):



(You will have to excuse me for some of these pics, I only had my camera phone on me and it doesn't always take the best pictures).

My screen will be set back at 15 degrees so the angle between the front section and the back of the juke is 165 degrees. I needed to cut a 165 degree section out of the pipe to form the top radius so I made a combined angle gauge, router template and drilling template:

I turned a ring to match the inside diameter of the soil pipe (102.7mm):



I then drilled and c/sunk holes for dowels and for fixing the template for routing (all will become clear later), I also spot marked out the 165 degree and using the CNC mill and a center drill:



Finally I hacksawed the part of I didn't need and filed the gauge/template to size:



I clamped the pipe to the m/c table and clocked it true. I used a 3mm cutter and carefully milled a groove just over half way through the wall thickness:



I then rotated the tube and used a engineers square along with the gauge template I made to set the machine so that the next cut would leave me with a 165 degree section. I milled just over half way again and removed the pipe from the m/c:



All I had to do then was hacksaw the remaining material in the groove and file the excess to meet the milled line.

Here is a photo of the finished section with the gauge/template in it and also with the 1/4" stainless tube in using for dowels:



I'm going to use the template/gauge to template route three or four pieces of MDF (the same shape as the template) and then use the holes to align the pillar drill to drill the dowel holes so it all lines up nicely. The MDF cut outs will support the tube and help to keep it nice and strong.

For the bottom to radii I was going to do something similar with some 50mm OD tube but I called into B&Q on the way to work today and they have some 21x21 pine quadrant (42mm OD) that I'm going to use instead. I will have a 15 degree gap to fill but that wont be a problem.

Ive got the day off tomorrow so I'm hoping to get as much of the construction done as possible.

[javeryh]

 

I feel like such a chump!  I cannot wait to see this thing unfold. 

I have a question about the sound bar - do you know if the speakers are up against the face or perpendicular to the bottom?  I guess I want to know if you mount the speaker bar with the sloped face flush with the front panel will the speakers be facing out or angled up (or down)?   

[thatitalian]

Alright alright. No need to make our projects look rubbish with your god like metal skills!

[Franco B]

Ha ha! Cheers guys! I wouldnt go that far tho thatitalian 

As regards to the speaker bar, the front face is not square to the top/bottom, it slopes back at about 10-15 degrees. Im just going to put it inside the case and then have an extra grill (a 'la mountain again) between the speaker bar and plexi to hide it.

[mountain]

Alright alright. No need to make our projects look rubbish with your god like metal skills!

Seconded!

I don't even know what that is in the last picture, but I am in awe of it!

[javeryh]

As regards to the speaker bar, the front face is not square to the top/bottom, it slopes back at about 10-15 degrees. Im just going to put it inside the case and then have an extra grill (a 'la mountain again) between the speaker bar and plexi to hide it.

OK, so you are going to have it sloped inside your juke (which makes sense since you juke is set back at an angle).  I guess what I'm asking is how does the sound come out of the thing?

Check out my awesome drawing - green is the profile, red is the speaker and the arrow represents sound coming out of it.  Real scientific!  Which picture more accurately describes what is going on inside?

[Franco B]

Mountain, I understand its quite hard to visualise. Ill get some pics up tomorrow once I have had a play, you will be able to see what Im on about.

jav, at the moment im planning on mounting the speaker horizontally (like your first picture) as thats the way it would have been mounted to the bottom of an LCD. They may have manufactured the speaker bar so that the speakers themselves are angled inside the casing already. If so the emitted sound will be directed more like your 2nd picture. I hope that makes sense.   

[Franco B]

This is the 21mm radius quarter section  got from B&Q:



I made a few circle/radius templates tonight that will give me some nice smooth corners when I'm routing the various radii on the project. I left the previous template I made for scale. (They are quick and dirty templates I made on our Russian lathe, hence the bad surface finish )



The small ones have a radius of 21mm to match the quarter section. The brass ones have a radius of 31mm to match the radius of the two bottom radii of the jukes feet and the larger one has an OD radius of 130mm for routing the radius at the top of the jukes feet. The feet are the same profile as the 'inner section' but have been externally offset 10mm, hence the 10mm size increase of the radius templates.

[Paulson]

 Great work...can't wait to see this take shape...now you've got the general
 CAD sorted...

 

[ratzz]

Looking good buddy ...

[Franco B]

Ok, template routing if officially my new favourite thing 

I used the template to mark out the pieces to go inside the pipe:



I roughly jigsawed the excess material and then template routed the pieces:



I used the template again to drill the holes for the dowels. I'm using 1/4" (6.35mm) stainless steel tubing so I drilled the MDF with a 6.5mm drill. The dowels slide nicely through the material but they are not overly tight or loose either:



This left me with four identical pieces:



I test fitted the pieces in position. A perfect fit if I do say so myself 



The dowels will eventually be cut to length also run through the 'inner side' pieces once I have them cut out.

[thatitalian]

That must have been a b***h to route! Your fingers must have been pretty close!

[Franco B]

It wasn't too bad to be honest. You soon get the feel of it. I used the same method to make the CP ends of my cocktail so I had some practice from that. You do have to be carefull tho, one slip and it would be bye bye fingers. 

Well Ive done a fair bit more since this mornings update. For a start I made a template to route the 'inner side' pieces:



I then used that to template route the two sides and drill the mating holes for the top radius skeleton:



I then test fitted the components and cut the dowels to length:



I also tried the plastic pipe and the 21mm rad pine section:





Perfect As you can see the pine section sticks out slightly (3mm and 5mm to be precise) .I offset the pine section as  I'm using 3mm pink acrylic on the back and 5mm pink acrylic on the front. As they are offset  they should marry up nicely with the acrylic.

[javeryh]

Wow Franco - you really have some skills.  All of your lines are very clean and your measurements are spot on.  Plus you are fast!  I can already envision the final product and I'm jealous.  A pink jukebox?  It's like a dream to me!   

[Kaytrim]

Alright alright. No need to make our projects look rubbish with your god like metal skills!

Seconded!

I don't even know what that is in the last picture, but I am in awe of it!

And this comes from the guy that started all this.    Don't sell yourself too short mountain, you have some serious skills too.

Keep it up Franco, I'll be keeping an eye on this one.  I think that after this weekend I'll be able to get back into the shop and get busy on my wife's juke.  And some other projects that I have in the works.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[Martijn]

Excellent work on Pinky ! Your skills are indeed fast and accurate

[Paulson]

 Looks like it's gonna be a good build...mind you I kinda expect quality from a top builder eh?

[Franco B]

Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm quite happy with the way things have gone so far but there is still plenty of time for things to go pear shaped!

I was hoping to carry on the other evening and get plenty more done but I couldn't find the brand new set of pattern trim bits that I had bought from the states. I have been using flush trim bits so far but I needed the pattern bits to route out the relief for the monitor rear casing. I spent about two hours looking for them but I couldn't find them so I ended up calling it a day.

In the mean time I got a 1/4" (inner race bore) x 3/4" (outer race OD) bearing from work to use with one of my 1/2" straight bits. The 3/4" bearing is obviously 1/4" bigger than my straight bit but its no biggie as I can just make the template 1/8" bigger all round.

Before I routed the relief I made the template for the side panels using the radii templates i made at work before flush trimming between the tangents of the circles with a straight edge:
 




Finished template:



I used the template to template route the two side panels before moving onto the monitor reliefs.

I made a 1/8" oversize template for the monitor reliefs and used my improvised straight bit/bearing combo to route the open pocket:



Pic of the routed pockets and also the end panels:



I sill need to route the lower radius on the bottom of the foot but I'm going to wait to do that until later. That's the beauty of using templates and you can modify your original template and then realign it using the same anchor points and take any necessary adjustments.

Finally I just test fitted the monitor and side panels:







All seems to be good so far

Ive also been able to persuade thatitallian to work on my artwork for me (thanks again bud ). We have bounced a couple of ideas backwards and forwards and he is working on it for me, ill post some pics to see what you guys think when we have got something solid.

[javeryh]

Wow Franco - I am in awe.  I really really love the shape you've come up with and the laid back angle of the monitor.  I can't wait to see it turn pink!

Those routing templates that you made for the curves are awesome.  A few months back I was looking for those exact things to make rounding corners more precise than just "sand to the line" but as far as I could tell they didn't exist.  Great minds think alike I guess... 

[NiN^_^NiN]

Looking smick franco i like the design and seeing the LCD installed really looks good can't wait to see the finished product 

[fivslt]

It is kind of a pity that those cool metal parts are only used as templates.  Are you planning to make a ton of these cabs in the future?

[Franco B]

Thanks. The templates do make things much easier, its a little more work to do before hand but its makes things much faster when you get to the routing.

Jav, I'm sure you could make some radius templates with your circle cutting jig could you not? IIRC you can get down to about 3" with it?

I'm sure there are plenty of things about that you could use for smaller (or even larger) radius templates. Tin cans come in loads of different sizes. You could carefully cut away most of the can so you are just left with the bottom and 10mm or so of the side of the can. Drill a couple of holes and you are done. Obviously you are limited to what can sizes you can find but you could base your design around the cans radius I suppose.

zupapa, I'm just planning on making this one for the moment. I do have another touchscreen the same as the one I am using but I was going to use that for a touchscreen bartop/juke. I think I'm now going to make a separate bartop and separate juke so I can use a really good LCD for the bartop. The responce time of these monitors is pretty good but if I'm building a bartop I want to have an awesome monitor in it, (plus it means I get to build a juke AND a bartop ) Seeing as that is the case I'm may use the templates to build an identical juke for me but I would rather make another design just for fun. Ill hang on to the radius templates tho, I'm sure they will come in handy again sometime.

For the artwork I think I'm going to go for a Pink Panther theme. Thatitalian has been working on the sideart for me and this is what we have come up with so far, what do you think?

[Kaytrim]

For the artwork I think I'm going to go for a Pink Panther theme. Thatitalian has been working on the sideart for me and this is what we have come up with so far, what do you think?

Cool art theme, go with it.

Kaytrim

[polaris]

yeah it looks ok i suppose, the juke is a bit sloppily built but still

franco i think its about time your account was deleted again , you're too good mate.

the artworks great as is the juke, looking forward to the finish which i suppose will be sometime later giving you time to fabricate some templates and crack a bartop out before bedtime.
i'm gonna be asking you for soooo much help when i start building

[thatitalian]

i'm gonna be asking you for soooo much help when i start building

Join the queue buddy! 

[Kaytrim]

i'm gonna be asking you for soooo much help when i start building

Join the queue buddy! 

Ditto Dude 

[Martijn]

Very nice color theme... for a girl 

Great work !! 

[Franco B]

Very nice color theme... for a girl 

Great work !! 

Don't let Jav here you say that, his dads bigger than yours!

Lol, thanks guys. If I can be of any help in anyway you only have to ask. I'm no expert but I'll help where I can.

Had a quick couple of hours this afternoon attaching the inner sides to the end pieces. I used some M6 t-nuts, M6 cap screws and large washers to join them together.  In essentially  it took two hours to drill six holes but I had to make sure everything lined up so that it bolted together correctly and so that (hopefully!) there will be no wobble when its assembled.





I bought 50 Pink LEDs and resistors off ebay today. Im going to order the LED WIZ tomorow along with GP Wiz40. Theres a virtual beer for anyone who guesses what the GP Wiz40 is for 

[Kaytrim]

I bought 50 Pink LEDs and resistors off ebay today. Im going to order the LED WIZ tomorow along with GP Wiz40. Theres a virtual beer for anyone who guesses what the GP Wiz40 is for 

You are going to build a controller to connect via USB  Talk about portability. 

[javeryh]

Very nice color theme... for a girl 

Great work !! 

Hey!  I resemble that remark!   

Great work Franco - you are flying through this build.   Lately I can't seem to get a night off from work to continue building.  I won't be making any progress tonight either - today is Bella's 4th birthday and we will be celebrating with some cake and some Frogger (her favorite right now) when I get home from work. 

[thatitalian]

Happy Birthday dude! To Bella I mean...

[Franco B]

Happy birthday to Bella!

I bought 50 Pink LEDs and resistors off ebay today. I'm going to order the LED WIZ tomorrow along with GP Wiz40. Theres a virtual beer for anyone who guesses what the GP Wiz40 is for 

You are going to build a controller to connect via USB  Talk about portability. 

Very close buddy, close enough anyway!

I'm going to make her a detachable CP but it will be connected by a d-sub. I would just put the GP Wiz in the CP but I need it in the juke for a couple of reasons.

1) I'm going to have another d-sub connection on the back of the juke so I can attach a CP for me to play on too.

Ive been trying to find some suitable pink multicored cable to wire to the CP/d-sub but suprise suprise there isn't much available. I think I'm going to double up a length of pink cat 5 cable which should give me 16 wires IIRC. I have thought of a nice way to attach the cables to each other which should fit with the colour scheme.



2) I'm planning on using some touch sensitive PCBs for 'admin' buttons:



Basically there is a 3 lead harness that connects to them. +5v power, switch output (to the GP Wiz, hence needing the GP Wiz inside the juke) and ground. I have tested the PCBs so far and they work though ~2mm plastic/glass. I'm hoping to route out the acrylic either side of the speakers and mount two of the switches on either side. Ill get some graphics printed to show/label the buttons.

Two of the buttons will control volume up/down. At least one of the buttons will cycle between the LED Blinky sequences (.lwax's). I should have one other button available, which I will probably use for mute. Are there any other buttons that I will need on the juke? (I'm going to have a power button on the back btw)

[drawfull]

This looks cool. I have a project to complete by xmas as we know. Where did you get the touch sensitive pcbs from? Just what I need!

Cheers

[Kaytrim]

2) I'm planning on using some touch sensitive PCBs for 'admin' buttons:



Basically there is a 3 lead harness that connects to them. +5v power, switch output (to the GP Wiz, hence needing the GP Wiz inside the juke) and ground. I have tested the PCBs so far and they work though ~2mm plastic/glass. I'm hoping to route out the acrylic either side of the speakers and mount two of the switches on either side. Ill get some graphics printed to show/label the buttons.

Two of the buttons will control volume up/down. At least one of the buttons will cycle between the LED Blinky sequences (.lwax's). I should have one other button available, which I will probably use for mute. Are there any other buttons that I will need on the juke? (I'm going to have a power button on the back btw)

Where did you get these little gems?  I might have a use for them in my juke.

TTFN

[thatitalian]

Another possible concept.

[polaris]

Im just putting it out there im not 100% convinced about the name and whether id have any text on the side as opposed to just the artwork

[somunny]

I totally missed this one!  Stellar work, as usual. 

[javeryh]

Im just putting it out there im not 100% convinced about the name and whether id have any text on the side as opposed to just the artwork

I'll second this.  Just a suggestion - try seeing what it would look like without the name, without the Pink Panther and replacing the paw prints with random music notes (in the medium pink to match the circles) - also get rid of the white border so the whole thing is pink.  I think in the long run you will like it better with something subtle.   

[thatitalian]

Okey dokey, will do an update tonight and post it (that is tonight UK time).

[Martijn]

Another possible concept.

I like the first one better then this one.

[thatitalian]

Another 2 concepts as requested.

[javeryh]

Of course I like the top one 

Nice work!  I'll see if I can think of any refinements but you pretty much nailed what I pictured in my head.

[JackTucky]

This does look great.  I hate to be Chaddy, but will that thing fall over when you touch the screen?  Is there enough weight in the bottom?

[Donkey_Kong]

I hate to be Chaddy

Gold!

[Franco B]

Thanks for the input guys. Yeah I think you are right, in the long run a more subtle graphic will be better. I like the new designs, I'm leading towards the one with out the stave.

drawfull and Kaytrim. I got the PCBs off the masterful mountain. He managed to get hold of some discontinued prototypes and he kindly offered to trade me the last couple that he had.

JackChaddy (), I was concerned about the stability myself but when I test fitted the monitor in the assembly (with no other support etc) it was suprising stable. I gave it a good few pokes and it isn't going anywhere. There is still the speakers, PSU etc to go in the bottom so I'm not worried about the stability, thanks for your concern though.

I'm at work at the moment but it looks like its going to be a nice day so I think I'm going to leave at 10am and have a good days work on it.

[drawfull]

Shame about those PCBs; I think I'm going to use a mini PIR detector instead to turn it on / off - the one I have in mind is volt-free so should be perfect. Wave hand under front et voila - similar to the Bang and Olufsen stereo with sliding acrylic dust cover.

Also gonna use one on my SW bartop too to play samples as you pass the unit.

Cheers

[Franco B]

Do you have any more information about the mini PIR detector? Im looking for a place to mount the on off/button but it would be pretty sweet if you could wave your hand under the juke to turn it on

Ive been working on pinky from about 11am-5pm today and all I managed to do was to make a few brackets, cut the back and bottom panel out and mount the back panel with some of the brackets. So much for fast work, heh. 

[drawfull]

I used to work for the manufacturer of the PIR

I have a box (or 4, or 8 heh) of them. It's a two-part unit (detector and brain). The data sheet isn't great (and I wrote it  ) and the installation instructions aren't either. Yep I wrote those too. 

You can grab them from www.ex-or.com - here. You want the MSM2000A as it's the one with the volt-free output and DHx - x=White or Silver, but they'r easy to decase if you wanted the smallest hole possible. Also, this one has an analogue 1-10V output and inbuit (simple) scene setting meaning you can have funky lighting effects if you went with RGB lamps and enough 'brains'. Send me a PM if you need more info on what else they do. 

Cheers

edit: I was only the product manager...  , doesn't have a volt free out but the relay terminals are easy to hack oops

[Franco B]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking about putting one under the juke but there isn't quite enough room to get your hand/finger under. Ill definitely keep them in mind for another project tho.

Made a bit more progress with the juke.

Ive cut the back and bottom panel out of 12mm MDF and fastened them with some brackets I made from some aluminium section:



Ive also started to get the speakers mounted. I need to remake the bracket as the router grabbed when I was routing it. I was trying to cut corners by routing the piece with too much material on rather than removing the excess. That will teach me.



Here's a couple of shots with the monitor in too:





The whole of the monitor and speakers will be covered in pink acrylic and I'm going to put some mesh in to let the sound out.

As you know there is going to be pink 32 LEDs around the screen, I was going to mount them in a kind of 10mm wide bezel but I'm already using some chrome strip so I decided against it. I still wanted to have something to contrast with the LEDs so Ive made 32 stainless steel 'LEDs' to go in between each pink LED:



I started setting up the hardware last night. I'm going to use a 150GB drive for the moment, I should be able to get plenty of MP3s and games on that. I did a fresh XP install (Ill probably use tiny XP or something down the road) and then installed the motherboard drivers but I seem to have a graphics problem. When I originally tested the monitor on my other PC the image displayed at full screen and fit the monitor. I cant seem to get the image to fit the screen properly with the new setup. The image needs stretching and squashing slightly but there is no stretch feature o the monitors OSD. Any ideas how I can sort it?

[waveryder]

The image needs stretching and squashing slightly but there is no stretch feature o the monitors OSD. Any ideas how I can sort it?

If your GCard supports screen adjustments (ATI's are good for this) you can set it through the management software. Otherwise get powerstrip on there and adjust the screen layout through that. Dont forge to recalibrate the touch afterwards!
http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm

[Franco B]

Cheers waveryder, that app was just what I needed 

I decided I wanted an I/O panel on the back of Pinky to house a few components. I decided I would go for:

USBs: For maintenance, mass media transfer and also so she can connect her Ipod.

15 Pin D-subs: To connect the two CPs I'm going to make

Twin RCAs: for audio out

Start button: No prizes for guessing that one!

The motherboard came with a twin USB/firewire panel so I thought I would use the USBs from that. The ports connect directly to the motherboard so that will free up the motherboard USBs for the encoder/LED Wiz etc. I also had some 15 pin d-subs lying around and also a RCA coupler so I decided to use them. I'm using a Savage start button designed for a car. It has a blue 12v led in it but I have swapped it out for a pink LED.



I drew the componets to scale in AutoCAD and designed a panel to house them.



CAD is great for this type of thing as you get a real sense of how the finished product will look and its really handy as you can extract the coordinates from the datum to feed into the CNC mill.

Anywho's here is the finished panel:



I was going to glue the RCA coupler into position but I decided to make a holding bracket to hold the coupler more securely.





Pic of the panel with the LED on:



Ignore the finger prints and dirt  The LED is much more pink than that photo shows. Its closer to this picture but its still not quite accurate.



I'm going to have a access door on the back of the juke with a cam lock to close it. The mother board will also be mounted directly to it. I made a twin template by milling a profile with a 3mm endmill. I can use one piece of the template to cut the hole for the door and then use the other part to template route the door itself.



Ive been waiting until I had these parts made before continuing with the build. I'm planning on getting plenty more actual building done next week.

[javeryh]

SICK!!!  I absolutely love that I/O panel as well as the pink LED on the start button.  Amazing amazing work!   

[Franco B]

Thanks bud. I actually ran two off the machine whilst I was at it. I dont suppose the other one is of any use to you is it?

[Kaytrim]

Slick work Franco.  You have too much fun working metal.

[mountain]

Very nice! The Pink light on the start switch is a great touch. 

[Franco B]

Thanks Kaytrim. You are right tho, it is far too much fun

EDIT: Thanks too mountain, sorry, we posted at the same time.

[javeryh]

Thanks bud. I actually ran two off the machine whilst I was at it. I dont suppose the other one is of any use to you is it?

PM sent!

[Nvts]

nice work.     

I'm still working on the front of my juke, so I am not to the back yet.  I was wondering if you would you be interested in creating other IO panels if we had a similar plan?  I was thinking a door in the back as well, but nothing as grand as what you will likely end up with

[kizer]

Nice panel. The only thing I would of done differently was to mount the serial cables mouting tabs on the inside opposed to the outside so it gave a more cleaner look.

Otherwise I think its really clean work.

[Franco B]

nice work.     

I'm still working on the front of my juke, so I am not to the back yet.  I was wondering if you would you be interested in creating other IO panels if we had a similar plan?  I was thinking a door in the back as well, but nothing as grand as what you will likely end up with

Thanks Nvts. I would love to make a panel for you but they just take too long to mill on my CNC mill, it took me nearly a whole shift to mill those two panels out. What you really want is to have them laser/water jet cut. prOk offers such a service, check out  [this] thread. He will need a .dfx (AutoCAD file) to get a quote for you but I would be happy to create one for you. It would only take a couple of minutes to laser cut the panel out compared to 'x' hours on my CNC mill. Let me know if you need any help with the .dfx etc.

Nice panel. The only thing I would of done differently was to mount the serial cables mounting tabs on the inside opposed to the outside so it gave a more cleaner look.

Otherwise I think its really clean work.

Thanks kizer. In an ideal world I would have had the d-subs on the inside of the panel. The problem is that you would need a very thin panel so that the d-subs stick through far enough to allow the male d-subs to mate with them. Ideally I would have made the panel from ~1mm stainless but it would have been hard to mill some for the pockets as I had to use a 2mm slot drill to achieve the 1mm radii required for the corners for the USBs. It is possible to mill such pockets in 1mm stainless but the machine I used cannot reach the ~10,000rpm needed for the 2mm slot drill to cut stainless. I managed to cut the ally taking very small cuts at a lower speed to interpolate the pockets. I could have had the panel lasered but I like to make things myself and I just had to make do with the tooling and materials that I have available to me. 

[Jimbo]

Franco, you're a tart.  You know that, don't you?

[thatitalian]

Franco, why do you feel the need to constantly tease me! You know that I want an I/O panel, and then you go and make TWO!

This is progressing nicely, Christmas is approaching though, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock....

[Franco B]

Jimbo: Yes, yes I am, now go get on with your artwork

thatitalian: I know, i know, its getting closer    Ill need to get you to send me a proof of the artwork soon (outline etc at least) so I can get it proof printed to check the size etc.

Im going to pop to B&Q after work to see if they have some nice mesh for the speaker and ventaltion vents, I seem to remember they have quite a good selection. I may have a go at getting the back panel etc cut out this afternoon seeing as the weather is nice.

[thatitalian]

NICE? Are we in the same country!? It is flippin frezzing outside!

[Franco B]

Wuss 

By 'nice', read 'not raining' 

You know what its like over here, you have to get things done whilst you get the chance. Saying that, it will probably be raining by the time I get home. 

[Franco B]

Shock horror, its still sunny!! 

I was going to get the back panel cut out but I wanted to run something past you guys first.

Ive been playing around with the components inside the juke and I'm hoping to place the HDD directly on top of the PSU with some foam in between them to stop vibration. I'm a bit worried about mounting the HDD so close to the PSU so I had a dig around and found [this] thread. The general consensus is that it should be fine, I thought I would get you guys input too before I proceed.

This is a pic of where I'm intending to mount the PSU/HDD:



You can also see a large square on the LH side of the back panel, this is where I'm intending to place the back panel. The mother board will be fastened directly to it. There will be a intake fan next to the PSU to draw air directly over the CPU and I'm going to have an exhaust vent at the top of the cab. The smaller square just above the HDD is where I'm planning to mount the I/O plate. Any thoughts?

[leapinlew]

Shock horror, its still sunny!! 

I was going to get the back panel cut out but I wanted to run something past you guys first.

Ive been playing around with the components inside the juke and I'm hoping to place the HDD directly on top of the PSU with some foam in between them to stop vibration. I'm a bit worried about mounting the HDD so close to the PSU so I had a dig around and found [this] thread. The general consensus is that it should be fine, I thought I would get you guys input too before I proceed.

This is a pic of where I'm intending to mount the PSU/HDD:



You can also see a large square on the LH side of the back panel, this is where I'm intending to place the back panel. The mother board will be fastened directly to it. There will be a intake fan next to the PSU to draw air directly over the CPU and I'm going to have an exhaust vent at the top of the cab. The smaller square just above the HDD is where I'm planning to mount the I/O plate. Any thoughts?

I wouldn't do it. Possible if you could create a buffer. I would get a laptop hard drive instead of a full sized hard drive. Can't you mount it to the wall on the back?

[Franco B]

Funny you should say that, I was just talking to mountain and we thought of using a 2.5" drive. I could mount it on the left hand side of the base. That would also give me room to mount the LED Wiz and encoder above the PSU 

[javeryh]

Funny you should say that, I was just talking to mountain and we thought of using a 2.5" drive. I could mount it on the left hand side of the base. That would also give me room to mount the LED Wiz and encoder above the PSU 

This is what I would do.  I'm not a computer guy AT ALL but I wouldn't want the HDD that close to the power supply.  It just doesn't seem like a good idea...   

[leapinlew]

I'm sure you'll end up fabricating some glow in the dark metal space invader themed hard drive brackets, but I use 3/4" L brackets and mount screw them into the screw holes on the hard drive. Works good.

[mountain]

I'm sure you'll end up fabricating some glow in the dark metal space invader themed hard drive brackets, but I use 3/4" L brackets and mount screw them into the screw holes on the hard drive. Works good.

He is fresh out of glow in the dark stainless steel...

[javeryh]

I'm sure you'll end up fabricating some glow in the dark metal space invader themed hard drive brackets, but I use 3/4" L brackets and mount screw them into the screw holes on the hard drive. Works good.

He is fresh out of glow in the dark stainless steel...

You know he's thinking about doing it right now though - just for fun.   

[Franco B]

Lol, you guys.

If it was anything to do with my project hell yeah there would be spacies involved (it seems I am that obvious!) She will have to make do with a custom made dual platform to hold the LED Wiz and GP encoder.

Anyone would think that im making this juke for me rather than her

I can tell that leapinlew is going to hate the 'F-117a alevitas tractus pervasor scamnum' thats under constuction.

[kizer]

I'd personally mount the drive on the side wall so its away from the PSU and I'd probably mount an exahust fan up near the top opposed to a vent so it creates a vaccum so it would pull the heat up and out of the cabinet. As well maybe some small holes or another fan to pull air in low thats colder than the heat leaving.

2.5 inch fans are cheaper than they used to be. Worst case just use an adapter if there isn't an interface with the motherboard.

[Franco B]

Thanks for the concern kizer.

I cannot mount a drive to the side wall due to the slimness of the juke. I also cannot mount a exhaust fan near the top due to the same constraint. The CPU is only small and will only be running at stock speed so I cannot see any need for a push pull system. There will be a 120mm fan mounted into the base of the juke to supply cool air directly below the CPU which should provide quiet and adequate cooling.

[polaris]

franco, could you perhaps go solid state on the juke, could you put a usb hub and 4 usb sticks  for storage and a cf for the hard drive, bear in mind its for a chick so shes gonna have what abba gold and another seventies album on there at most
seriously , is it doable, don't reckon she'd need the storage you'd want  ive no idea if it would work but its an idea

 

im only using that smiley cos ive just seen it, i dont know what its for

[thatitalian]

It looks like the "burger king" guy!

 

[Franco B]

God knows whats going on with those smileys, I just want someone to build an 70s themed cab so I can over use this one 

polaris, good thinking on the solid state. It sure would be small enough but there wont be enough capacity even with a few 8+GB sticks. I'm going to have some MAME games as well as emulators etc as well as some films so I'm going to need plenty of space. Ive been having a play and I think I'm going to go for a 2.5" drive.

Made a little more progress today. I used the back panel templates to cut the back panel opening and door. I also got the relief vents cut for the PSU cooling.



I still need to pick up a cam lock to secure the panel.

Ive been having a play around with the components on the base of the juke. I think this is what I'm going to go for.



I'm going to have the PSU on the right, the CPUs fan will draw air up from the bottom of the juke and expel it straight out the back. Next to it I'm going to have a fan to draw air over the CPU/MB. I was going to use a 120mm fan and it will fit but I think some of the wiring will be too cramped. That is an 80mm fan there but I think I'm going to get a 100mm case fan. The MDF block on the right is the same size as a 2.5" drive which should fit nicely.

Ive also redone the speaker mount (3rd time lucky )



Ass bottom shot:



Back view:



The 3mm gap may seem a little large (it needs moving up a gnats cock too) but I had to have a 3mm gap as the piano hinge is 3mm wide and I wanted to have an equal distance around the edges, especially for clearance at the opening. I don't think it will be quite as noticeable when the acrylic is on the back. If it does bug be I may mask the gap.

I'm going to get the acrylic ordered tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to that part but at the same time I'm rather bricking it too. I bought a couple of 1/4" shaft + 1/4" OD trim bits today as well as a round over bit. I thought it would help to have some nice sharp bits for the acrylic. I think I'm going to have a go at flame polishing as well just for fun. If I don't post next week its because I've burnt my fingers off 

Edit: You can also see the rough placement of the I/O plate on that last pictue. I have removed the euro socket from the PSU and im going to relocate it to the right of that last shot so I can tap into the 240v mains for the monitor and speaker transformers. Im going to put some mesh between the plexi and the CPU vent relief. Im also going to cut a large mesh covered ~12"x2" vent at the top to allow the exhaust air to vent.

[thatitalian]

(it needs moving up a gnats cock too).

MUST BE A BIG GNAT!

[mountain]

(it needs moving up a gnats cock too).

MUST BE A BIG GNAT!

No, just a popular one 

Looking great Franco!

[javeryh]

Looking great!!  I really like the speaker mount.  I didn't take any speakers into consideration in my design and the Dell bar is a few inches longer than the opening I cut.  I'm hoping it doesn't affect the sound too much.  I also have some really small Bose from an old Gateway I could try to use except they are powered off of the subwoofer which I won't have room for... 

You are making really great progress...   

[Franco B]

Cheers guys.

Jav, that speaker mount is just to hold the speaker bar in place. In front of it wil be 5mm pink acrylic with some mesh behind it. The opening of the 'vent(s)' on mine will be smaller than the speaker bar too as I need to leave space either side for the touch controls. The opening will be about 40mm narrower than the speaker bar but I dont think it will affect the sound too much tho.

Ive been playing around with the speaker opening shape and have come up with a couple of ideas:

Long Oval:



Long with tapered sides (similar shape to the speaker bar):



Two short ovals:



Seven circles:



I keep changing my mind about which one I like. Any preferences guys? Or maybe a different shape(s)?

[mountain]

What about a long rectangle the same width as your monitor opening and finishing the corners to match the monitor's corners?

[Franco B]

I would have the shape the same width as the monitor opening but I need a little space to the left and the right to mount those touch PCBs.

I was talking to Jimbo this morning and he came up with this shape which I like:



I modified it slighty to this:



I think that is my favourite so far. I would probably make a stainless ring to match the 'ring' in the center of the opening. Hmmm.

[mountain]

I think that is my favourite so far. I would probably make a stainless ring to match the 'ring' in the center of the opening. Hmmm.

I agree, that looks great!

[thatitalian]

Agree, the bottom one of the second design set is the best looking! Afro man says: Nice job! 

[javeryh]

 

I agree.  Too cool.

[Franco B]

Thanks for the input guys, I've decided to go with that profile.

I've not made a lot of progress as I have been sourcing the acrylic etc and making a couple of templates to help route the monitor and speaker reliefs. I have the acrylic now and I made the templates last night so I was able to get on with the master template for the front piece.

I am not having a backing to the 5mm acrylic that is on the front of the juke but I still needed a template to mount the acrylic to whilst routing the reliefs. I cut out a piece of MDF to the size of the acrylic and routed out the hole for the monitor. I used a 1/2" bit to leave a 1/4" radius in the corners.

To route out the speaker relief I made three radius templates for the router to follow. You can see them in position here. The 10mm holes are just there so I can get the jigsaw in to remove the bulk of the material:



I jigsawed out the bulk and cut some aluminium to size for the router to follow for the straight edges of the cut out. I'm using a 1/2" bit again so I will get a 1/4" radius at the 'sharp' corners near the center piece.



This is the semi finished template:



I was having trouble finding some nice mesh for the relief but mountain kindly offered to send me a piece that he had left over from his Dads juke. (Thanks again buddy  ). I taped it into position just to see what it would look like



Obviously the mesh will be much closer to the front of the 5mm acrylic. I'm also going to bevel all of the speaker and monitor opening edges.

Everything didn't quite go according to plan though. I took the wrong measurement of the horizontal part of the screen and so the monitor opening is 10mm to wide. Its no big deal tho as I can easily use this template to make another template with the correct size opening.

Ive brought the template into work with me tonight as I need to drill 64 holes around the monitor for the alternating 32 pink LEDs and 32 stainless 'LEDs'. I'm going to drill 5mm holes 3/4 of the way through the MDF and then use the template as a drilling jig and clamp it to the acrylic to drill the holes. The holes will be approx 20mm apart.

I'm going to drill them on a CNC mill so I get the holes in the exact positions. I could do it by hand but if I even get one or two holes slightly out it will look crap.

Before I forget, this is the pink acrylic I'm using to cover the front and back of the juke:



Think that's it for now.

[javeryh]

Damn Franco - that is really really slick.  I love the speaker design and that pink acrylic looks fantastic!  I can't wait to see it all cut out.  Those router jigs are a great idea too.   

[Martijn]

nice work ! i love it when people use templates and then router like a madman 
Its so satisfying

are you going to laminate also the top? if so, can it make that angle?

btw, now i can finally see what the 3 metal stick trick was for the top angle of the juke.
you also could have used a wood round piece of pine or half a PVC pipe, maybe a little tip for people who also want to build this dont have access to metal construction recourses

[Franco B]

Thanks guys. Template routing is so satisfying 

Martijn, I have actually milled a 165 degree section of pipe to go round the top, I just didn't have it on in that picture. The 3 dowels/wood 'c' pieces are just to support the pipe. This is an earlier pic:



As for covering the top, I did think about pink laminate but I couldn't justify spending a load of £££ on a large piece of laminate for a small project. I was also concerned about the bending radius of the laminate although I believe laminate (especially the thinner grades) can go round quite tight bends, just like on kitchen worktops.

I'm going to ask thatitalian to do me some matching artwork to cover the top section as well as the bottom section.

[Martijn]

what an excellent support system then, that's what i call detail for something so simple

 

[mountain]

Looking mighty fine there Franco! 

Idea: Paint the grill material white with a piece of black grill cloth behind it for a nice contrast. 

[Franco B]

Cheers buddy

I think I'm going to keep the grill silver to match the other silver bits but I may have some white grill cloth behind it for some contrast 

Whilst I'm here, template is drilled 10mm deep leaving 2mm for the drill to start cutting before it drills the acrylic:

[mountain]

Cheers buddy

I think I'm going to keep the grill silver to match the other silver bits but I may have some white grill cloth behind it for some contrast 

Whilst I'm here, template is drilled 10mm deep leaving 2mm for the drill to start cutting before it drills the acrylic:

Doh! I forgot about the SS "LEDs" you are using. Should look really nice. ! 

[Franco B]

Yeah should look pretty good I hope. Im looking forward to programming the LED sequences

Im going to put a ~3mm bevel on the inner circle and two outer parts. The ring in the center is 10mm wide so putting those bevels on will leave a flat of 4mm between the outer parts and inner circle. Im going to turn a 4mm wide stainless low profile bevel ring to sit on the flat part.

[Jigenjuke]

Awsome work Franco! I wish that I could get that level of quality on the projects that I am making now. 

[Franco B]

Thanks Jigenjuke. Its just practice I guess, I couldn't do half the stuff I'm doing now a year ago.

Well Ive had a full morning and part of the afternoon but Ive managed to get a fair bit done. The first thing I had to do was to remake the plexi template so that the screen opening was 10mm narrower. Once I had done that I used the two templates to mark, cut, route and drill the plexi. It took a long time but I didn't want to rush it as it needs to look nice as its on the front of the juke. Its easy to mess up so I just went slowly.

This is how she is looking at the moment:







The protective film is still on the front face, the true colour is the bevel edge. I was tempted to remove the film but I want to get the bevels polished up first. I also need to mill a relief in the back of the plexi for the LED wires.

You can see the 4mm wide semi circular bezel that I made. I routed the openings so that they would match the profile of the ring.

[javeryh]

Holy !!!!!

I am seriously considering building something small for my daughter again just to have a chance to use that beautiful PINK acrylic.  I love it.  Damn Franco - you sure are raising the bar. 

[Nvts]

man, your raw router cuts look a whole lot smoother then mine did.  Are those raw cuts, or did you smooth it out a little?

[Franco B]

Lol, cheers Jav, hang on tho there is plenty of chance for me to fubar it yet! 

Nvts, the speaker openings had a quick rub over with some 150 grit, only about 20 seconds or so though. I used a 1/4" bit to finish the openings before beveling and that left an awesome finish. However the finish got worse when I beveled it, probably to do with the increased blade contact and change in cutting plane. I did find though if I did another pass and went super slow the finish improved no end. By the way I did all the routing with the router upside down in my router table I made, it makes it soo much easier to control and see what you are doing. If anyone doesn't have one I would suggest buying or making one.

[drawfull]

That really is great-looking Franco, I was a little skeptical about the metal LEDs but they fit really well with the theme.

I think after the juke for my partner (living room) is complete, there has to be a shiny pink one in the works for somewhere else in the house... Might even find a use for my Apple TV in that one.

fantastic!

 

[Nvts]

I guess I went too fast when I did mine.  It sure cut through like butter, so I think I was thinking it would be smooth.  I paid for it in the sanding work, but its all good now.

[javeryh]

By the way I did all the routing with the router upside down in my router table I made, it makes it soo much easier to control and see what you are doing. If anyone doesn't have one I would suggest buying or making one.

I knew it!  I've been avoiding making one because I don't want to kill an afternoon not making progress.

[Kaytrim]

By the way I did all the routing with the router upside down in my router table I made, it makes it soo much easier to control and see what you are doing. If anyone doesn't have one I would suggest buying or making one.

I knew it!  I've been avoiding making one because I don't want to kill an afternoon not making progress.

Taking a little time now will save you a lot of time and frustration later.  Having a router table is well worth the effort to build.  I know I couldn't do some of the things I do now without one.

Kaytrim

[DaOld Man]

I agree about the router table. My wife bought me one for my BD, but it is really too small to do big jobs like trimming laminate on a juke (dont tell her I said that!).
The simple upside down router attached to a table or a piece of MDF worked real good on my first juke.

[Kaytrim]

Trimming laminate is better suited by a hand held router.

[Franco B]

By the way I did all the routing with the router upside down in my router table I made, it makes it soo much easier to control and see what you are doing. If anyone doesn't have one I would suggest buying or making one.

I knew it!  I've been avoiding making one because I don't want to kill an afternoon not making progress.

Taking a little time now will save you a lot of time and frustration later.  Having a router table is well worth the effort to build.  I know I couldn't do some of the things I do now without one.

Kaytrim

Couldn't have said it better myself

Well the weather has been awful this week, so I haven't had any chance to work until today. I seem to have spent a few hours working but with little progress, that's the way sometimes I suppose. Anyway, I have been working on the back panel some more.

I need a ventilation duct at the top of the juke to vent the air sucked in from the bottom. I used the two semi-circular templates (that I used to cut out the speaker section) to make a basic cut out:



The back of the juke is going to be covered in 3mm pink acrylic and the vent mesh will sit between the two. I then recessed the vent so that the acrylic and MDF will sit flush. I had to screw the back section to a larger piece of MDF and then screw some other pieces to the large piece so that I could screw a parallel in place to guide the router:



Finished recess:



Couple more pics with the mesh in situ:





The only other things I have to do to finish the back is mount the power socket and the I/O plate.

I've made a couple of templates to help me to route the acrylic/MDF to mount the I/O plate:



The one on the right is a negative I made of the I/O plate (the other I/O plate is sat in it in that picture). I will use that one to route out the acrylic so that the plate and acrylic sit flush. I will then mark out the position on the back panel and use the template on the left to route out the material for clearance for the mounted I/O components. I have left material in the four corners so the plates can be screwed to the back panel.

[thatitalian]

Very very nice!

[javeryh]

Wow.  Stunning as usual.  Your lines are so crisp.   

[Martijn]

Great work, you create these templates at work?

[Franco B]

Thanks guys. Its coming together slowly, Im hoping to get plenty done next week as i'm working the afternoon shift so I can get up early and try to get plenty done before I start at 2pm. I work earlies/lates alternate weeks and I get home about 3pm when im on earlies (like this week). My GF gets home about 5pm so it give me no time to work on it by the time I have got all the tools out etc.

Yeah I made the templates at work Martijn, one of the (very few) perks of being in engineering. 

[Martijn]

ooh! jalous !!  Thats a real plus for routing anything 

[drawfull]

My GF gets home about 5pm so it give me no time to work on it by the time I have got all the tools out etc.

You mean you put them AWAY?! In all seriousness it looks absolutely excellent as always - can't wait to see it pinked up!

[javeryh]

I do 90% of all my work in my unlit detached garage from 8pm to 10pm on nights that the wife wants to watch her girly shows.  It is painful.... and slow.

[Franco B]

My GF gets home about 5pm so it give me no time to work on it by the time I have got all the tools out etc.

You mean you put them AWAY?! In all seriousness it looks absolutely excellent as always - can't wait to see it pinked up!

Yeah I have to get them out and put them away. There's an hour gone already 

Plus I still with the 'rents so I have no propper work space, you can add on another 1/2 hour for looking for tools in plastic storage boxes. We're getting our own place in a couple of months, I can't wait to get a proper work area. I have already claimed the garage as my space 

[Franco B]

Well I royally FUBAR'd today 

I started by routing the relief for the fan vent mesh:



All was well.

I then started to work on the 3mm pink acrylic to cover the back. The first thing I had to do was to cut the large piece to size. I marked out the rough size and started to jigsaw the material. It started to cut ok but then CRACK, the jigsaw grabbed the material and cracked a small piece of the acrylic. I think it happened as the blade doesn't have enough TPI (teeth per inch).

It was no biggie though as I still had plenty of material to play with. I was wondering how I could cut the acrylic without it breaking again. I decided to stick a straight edge to the acrylic and then route a slot leaving 0.2mm of material to snap off:



You can see the cracked section where I started jigsawing.

I then proceeded to route the acrylic so size and all went well. I then needed to stick the acrylic to the MDF back piece and template route the openings. as I couldn't jigsaw the excess I thought I would drill a hole for the bit to fit over and then just route the thing in one go. I think it would have worked ok but I put the piece over the bit of the router table and turned it on, DOUBLE CRACK! The router grabbed and shattered one of the corners 

I didn't manage to get a photo of it as sods law the heavens opened up and I had to get all of the tools etc inside.

It just goes to show you what happens if you take short cuts. I going to get a finer jigsaw blade and try to remove the excess with that. If that fails ill use the router method I used before to trim the excess out of the vents etc.

[Martijn]

maybe use a router with hand. i used this for my plexi and lexan pieces. 1straight mdf piece on the bottom for router and put the plexi on top. clamp everything tight and then i use a handrouter with flush cutting bit to make a straight line.

but i love the pink snow

[javeryh]

Ugh.  Franco - I definitely feel your pain.  I also cracked some acrylic with the jigsaw trying to rough cut it to size.  I don't think it was made for that no matter how fine of a blade you use.  I have a 1/4" straight cutting bit which I use exclusively to cut acrylic now.  It goes through it like butter.  At least the worst case for you is that you can order another piece of acrylic and your mistake won't show up on the final product.

Keep your head up  - these projects are challenging which is why I think we are all drawn to them in the first place.  Overcoming these types of mistakes will make the finished jukebox that much sweeter!   

[Franco B]

Cheers guys.

Yeah I think the router route is the best idea, I think I have a 1/4" or so straight bit, ill give that a whirl.

I have another bit of acyrlic on the way so im hoping to get the back piece finished off then.

Your right, these projects wouldnt be the same if they were easy. You have to push yourself and learn new things, often by your mistakes.

[leapinlew]

Cheers guys.

Yeah I think the router route is the best idea, I think I have a 1/4" or so straight bit, ill give that a whirl.

I have another bit of acyrlic on the way so im hoping to get the back piece finished off then.

Your right, these projects wouldnt be the same if they were easy. You have to push yourself and learn new things, often by your mistakes.

Your lack of cussing, throwing things, and pouting is infuriating. 

[Franco B]

Well, I did throw the back MDF section/acrylic piece onto the gravel which broke the acrylic into a few more pieces! Luckily I can still scavenge some acrylic from it for another piece I need.

I don't usually see red but I was pissed off after losing three hours. A hangover didn't help either, maybe the previous nights indulgence was the problem!

[leapinlew]

Well, I did throw the back MDF section/acrylic piece onto the gravel which broke the acrylic into a few more pieces! Luckily I can still scavenge some acrylic from it for another piece I need.

I don't usually see red but I was pissed off after losing three hours. A hangover didn't help either, maybe the previous nights indulgence was the problem!

Thats the spirit!

[Franco B]

That was the spirit!

[Martijn]

sure is a beautifull pink gap 

[DaOld Man]

I feel your pain man.. my stupid mistake (properly defined) has set me back at least a day.

But this thing is looking real good! I like that back panel, i may have to duplicate that on mine.

[Franco B]

Cheers DaOld Man, duplicate away! 

Had a better day today, got a lot done in a couple of hours.

I made a template to cut out a relief for the power inlet and the used that to route the opening:





I then used some carpet tape to stick the new piece of 3mm acrylic to the MDF back panel and cut out the openings (no cracking this time ):



Once that was done I used one of the I/O plate templates to cut out the acrylic so that the plate will be flush with the acrylic:



I then marked the mounting hole positions and then used the other template to cut out the relief in the MDF for the components:





I recycled the FUBAR acrylic from my 1st attempt and used it to cover the back door and I  drilled a hole for the cam lock:



Couple of assembled pics:







I was soo tempted to remove the protective film but I still need to polish the routed sections. I have a novus kit on the way over from the states so I should be able to get it the back completely finished then.

I also got a new toy this week



Heavy duty 650w (0.87HP) single phase pillar/press bench drill. It has a 16mm cluck on a MT2 taper which is handy as ill be able to use taper shank drills as well as straight shank. It also has a rack and pinion crank table which it great. ---fudgesicle--- me the thing is heavy though! Its 86kg (13.5 stone)! I could barely lift the head on it own when assembling it.

I got it off ebay for an absolute bargain price of £142 I bought a smaller pillar drill from machine mart last week but it was crap, you could stop the spindle with your hand (not advisable ). This one is much more powerful and should hopefully last me forever.

This is it next to the one I had been borrowing off a friend:



That's it for today, I'm off to play some Call of Duty 5

[javeryh]

I love it.  Everything is well laid out and you have such clean lines where you routed away the material.  That acrylic is going to look sooooooooooo nice when you pull off the protective paper.   

[mountain]

Looking really good Franco! Looks like somebody got a little too curious and pulled the protective film from the bottom left corner for a peek

[Franco B]

Cheers guys, yeah I did get a little over excited and had a sneaky peak

I'm getting to the stage now where I'm going to need to get the artwork printed. I'm not sure whether to use mamemarquees or emdkay. I think Ill get a price from each and see what they come back with.

I got thatitallian to make me some artwork to cover the top black pipe section and bottom of the case. This is both section plus the sideart from before:







Any thoughts before I send it off for printing? I think I'm going to put "To Katie from Fran, Xmas '08" on the artwork on the top at the back somewhere.

I'm going to get some black and white prints from www.copycentre.org to check the sizes before the final prints just to make sure everything lines up ok.

I did a little work on the bottom panel today. I cut the relief for the fan and I also routed a channel towards the front and I drilled some 5mm holes along it. The plan is to put some pink LEDs in the to shine down to give a little under lighting.



Pic of the 2.5" 250GB SATA drive (with IDE adapter), 80mm fan and PSU in their locations:

[javeryh]

Franco - looks great.  One thing I noticed is that the vent on the bottom for the power supply was cut at a 90 degree angle compared to the vent on top.  I ended up doing this myself for the my speaker grill which is the only reason I noticed.  The top vent is the style I'd keep - it looks better, IMO.  I'd re-cut the bottom one if you have enough left over material.   

[Franco B]

I'm not sure I understand bud. Both vents are parallel to each other, the only difference is the top vent has a full width radii's where as the bottom one has 1/4" radii's in the corners.

[javeryh]

Look at the pattern of the holes of the mesh.  The top one has the little circles lined up in rows.  The bottom one has the little circles in columns.  Do you see it?  If not then I guess I'm the only one who will notice! 

[Franco B]

Ah, I get ya 

I only just managed to get the three pieces out of the piece that mountain kindly sent me. I agree it would look better if they were lined up the same but I'll just have to make do with what I have. Ill just have to hope everyone isn't as eagled eyed as you 

[Franco B]

I hope I'm not jinxing myself here but it looks like I should finish the juke before xmas. If so I'm hopefully going to make her a CP for it and eventually one for me too.

I'm just going to make a simple rectangular CP with a joystick (duh!) 6 buttons and a couple of admin buttons.

Ive been having a look through deviantart and I found this artwork which I quite like:



Ive sent the artist a message to see if I can get a higher resolution version.

I'm thinking of using a Sanwa JLF with a pink Seimitsu bubbletop like this:



I'm going to see if I can some SS button bezels water cut like the ones I made for my cocktail and ill make her a stainless dustwasher to match:



For the buttons I'm thinking of using the Seimitsu PS-14-GN-CP's which have translucent plungers that you can cut artwork out (from the CP art) to place inside the buttons. (Is that correct, Kaytrim?)



Any thoughts? 

[javeryh]

I like the art, I think.  It's a little busy but since it is going to be a separate part of the juke I think you can get away with it.  If you can't get a higher res version, just do what I'm doing for my marquee and run it through a vectorization program - you can blow it up to any size you want and it distorts the image just enough to give it a more cartoony look which might tie into the juke art a little better.

[Franco B]

Thanks for the tip buddy. I thought about running it through vector magic but I wasn't sure how it would turn out, I quite like the look of that, it looks a little softer. 

I know what you mean about it being a little busy, but like you said as it wont be part of the actual juke I think I can get away with it.

I think I will give her the CP first before the juke at xmas and see what her reaction is. She will probably think I'm giving her a present a'la Homers bowling ball gift to Marge 

[Timoe]

Seimitsu now makes a button like the one pictured above but it has a white bezel and a clear plunger with a pink piece inside the plunger. 

The white bezel might offer a nice contrast to the pink.

[thatitalian]

Wouldn't be hard to match it either with the artwork. Just add in a few notes purple and white for a bit of contrast.

[Franco B]

Thanks Timoe. I may get three of each and mix it up a bit.

@thatitalian: Good idea, I wonder who would be doing that for me 

The author is going to send me a higher resolution image so all is good on that front.

The b&w artwork came this morning and I applied it to the juke to check the dimensions/profiles.





Woof!! lol

Looks pretty good to me, even in black and white 

I do need to change the dimensions of the artwork slightly but that was expected. I didnt want to order the colour artwork and find out that it didn't fit 100%. Ill ask my good buddy thatitalian (nudge, nudge) to make the changes to the artwork and ill get another set of prints done to check the changes. I would rather spend another £15 for the b&w prints than waste a load of £££ on the colour prints.

[thatitalian]

I will pass on the message.......... 

[drawfull]

It looks absolutely superb Franco, it really does. The overall shape works so well and the whole thing screams shop-bought. Kudos

[DaOld Man]

I agree.
I like the dalmation look.

[Franco B]

Thanks drawfull, that means a lot coming from you! If I end up developing a quarter of you and your dads skills I will be more then happy! 

Got a fair bit more done yesterday.

I'm using those touch sensitive PCBs on the front of the cab for volume up, volume down, LED sequence change and exit. I tested the PCBs with +5v from a PSU and a multimeter. I found that the PCBs will work through around 1.5mm of acrylic. Obviously my front panel is 5mm thick so they wont work through that. I was going to route some of the front of so It was only 1.5mm think but I didn't want to risk scrapping the whole thing without having a 1/4" pattern bit.

Instead I have decided to route out a relief for the buttons completely and then mount them to lozenge shape pieces of 1.5mm acrylic that is larger than the relief. Ill get some stickers made to stick to the acrylic to denote what they are and match the panels with the cab.

With that in mind I made a template to route out the reliefs for the buttons:





You can see the PCBs are not central to speaker vent, this is because the touch sensor part is at the top of the PCB so I cut the reliefs so that the touch sensor part is central to the speaker vent. The lozenge shaped acrylic will be almost twice the size of the PCBs so the touch part will be in the center of the button. Hope that makes sense 

The buttons should look something like this shape wise, excuse the paint edit:



I had to do some further work to the bezel to aid the LED mounting. I decided to make a inner bezel to mount on the back of the front piece. I needed to do this to give some room for the LEDs and wiring.

This is the spacer bezel I made:



I used some contract adhesive to stick it to the front section, I don't think it will move under this lot



I only gave it about 30 mins to stick but it turned out pretty well. This is a picture of the back:



I used some 120 grit to bland the two pieces, it looks like I may have a slight white line where the adhesive is but its no big deal, it will give a little contrast on the bezel. It may come out when i polish the bezel but I'm not fussed if It doest. You can see the white line here.



You can also see where I polished the speaker vents a couple of days ago. I used P320, P600, P800 and P1200 grades before using the Novus polishing kit I got from the states, it works so well! 

Final shot of the bezel/front piece on the monitor:



I also started wiring up some of the LEDs, I think I may have to turn the intensity's down a little in LEDBlinky!







 

 

[thatitalian]

Awesome!

[DaOld Man]

Wow Franco!
This is very good.

[OTTOgd]

Your uncomprimising attention to detail and patience is inspirational, Franco. This and the concktail are fantastic design solutions; can't wait to see the final pics and videos.

[javeryh]

Amazing work.

[Jimbo]

You make me sick!   

Seriously, though... awesome work, dude.

[Franco B]

Thanks guys

Thatittallian sent my GP-Wiz, LED Wiz and a few other goodies through today so Ive been able to test the touch PCBs. I was a bit apprehensive about how well they would work but I'm pleased to say they work brilliantly! 

There are three wires coming from the touch PCBs, one goes to the GP-Wiz ground, one goes to the GP-Wiz input terminal and the other requires 5v. Luckily the GP-Wiz has a 5v tap so I hooked the wires up that.

When the switch is open the PCBs give out 5v. When you touch the sensor it drops the voltage to nearly 0v. The GP-Wiz then reads this as the circuit being completed (i.e. pressing a normal button) and then sends out the appropriate joystick command.

I'm using a program called [Volume Tray] as you can configure it to use any keyboard key/combo to use as a hotkey to control the system volume. As the GP-Wiz is a gamepad interface I used [JoyToKey] to change the gamepad commands into keystokes.

I configured all of the keys etc and ghetto mounted the PCBs to the inside of a CD case to test them, here is the result:



Each touch of the PCB raises/lowers the volume by 5% (also configurable with Volume Tray)

Its only a little update but I wanted to share

[javeryh]

That is so cool!

[mountain]

Glad to see them working. You will really enjoy it once they are mounted and you have to touch the plexi for it to work. Are you going to apply a Vol + and Vol – sticker on there?

+ and – etching would be cool too.

[Franco B]

Thatitallian is going to design me some artwork to go on each button. I'm thinking a large clef for volume up, a small one for volume down (to match the clefs on the other artwork), a picture of an LED or something for the LED sequence change button and probably one that just says exit. Any thoughts?

[mountain]

Any thoughts?

Yes...send me the juke and I will sort it out for you. 

[Franco B]

Oi greedy! Go steal your dads

[DaOld Man]

This is looking really good Franco.
I like the touch sensors.

Ive got a unrelated question, maybe I just havent search the right area of this board yet, but how do you make your videos?

[Franco B]

Ive got a unrelated question, maybe I just havent search the right area of this board yet, but how do you make your videos?

I just shot mine with my camera phone (hense the bad quality), register if needs be and upload it to youtube and then just paste the URL in your reply and it will appear

[NIVO]

Im disgusted by this project!








Disgusted that it isnt mine! Outstanding job Franco, im very impressed by the craftsmanship put into this one. 

[Franco B]

Cheers NIVO 

Ive been working on a platform to mount the LED Wiz, GP Wiz and a piece of acrylic to mount some d-subs in. I wanted to do this as once I have the bezel all wired up and I attach it to the cab, there will be very little room to screw the wires into the Wiz's terminals. Using this method, all I have to do is plug the mating d-subs from the bezels LEDs and I/O panel into the platform. If an LED ever goes or I have other problems it will be much easier to remove and troubleshoot/fix.

I made a platform out of some sheet metal to hold the LED Wiz, GP Wiz and the acrylic mount:





I soldered all the d-subs up to connect to the boards. There are four 15 pin dubs for the LED Wiz (using 8 pins each), two for the GP Wiz (using 13 pins each, U,D,L,R, eight action/admin buttons and one ground) and one 9 pin d-sub for the touch sensitive buttons (using 6 pins, four button outputs, +5v and ground)



I forgot to take my 3rd hands to work so I improvised with some plasticine 



The d-subs were mounted in a piece of routed pink 5mm acrylic I had spare and the wires were cut to the approx lengths:



I'm using one of the new LED Wiz's with the voltage bank selects. After reading the [documentation] I took it that I needed to daisy chain the banks to the USB 5v output but after reading one of Randy's comments in another thread I'm not sure if this is correct and/or necessary.



Anyone have any ideas about this? I may PM/email Randy if not.

The last step was to terminate the wire into the boards. Damn it was fiddly! I JUST had enough slack in the wires to get it all in. I didn't want to have really long wires and have it look too messy.

Final money shot:



Ive tested the continuity from the d-subs to the top of each screw terminal and all seem good! Phew!

You can see some nylon standoffs I made that screw onto the bottom machine screws, this will allow it to straddle the HDD in the bottom on the case.

[Kaytrim]

That is some slick work there Franco.  Very neat, clean and compact.  You keep amazing me with your skills.

 
Michael

[javeryh]

Just unbelievable.   

Does it get any better than this?  No, it can't.

[drawfull]

Jaw=floor

Absolutely awesone Franco, attention-to-detail gone mad!

 

[mountain]

Now you're just showin' off! 

Fantastic job Franco. You are a true craftsman.

[Kaytrim]

You are a true craftsman.

That goes without saying.  btw he has a nice little care package on the way to me for my juke and some special tools for my joystick business.  Franco's metal working skills out weigh my wood working skills.  Speaking of which I have got to start the build on my wife's juke and my MAME machine.

TTFN
Michael

[Franco B]

Thanks. It means a lot coming from you guys and what you do.

I brought the bezel in to work this evening to finish blending the inner bezel and polish the rest of the cut outs. I only have my camera phone but you get the idea:





You can still see a slight whitish line where the two pieces meet but at least its uniform and doesn't look too bad.

I'm hoping to get the rest of the LEDs wired up tomorrow and pretty much have the thing finished bar the artwork by the end of the week. Things always seem to take about four times longer than they should though so I'm not going to hold my breath! 

[Bender]

SICK!

Damn you make me sick!

Nice F%$#*$ng work
that is some of the nicest wiring I seen plus everything else, just sick!!!

[Franco B]

True craftsman you say, attention to detail was that?

Well apparently this 'craftsman' can't count.

I had a dream last night that I had ---fouled up beyond all recognition--- the bezel up and its kinda come true 

I had a nice early start this morning and started to wire up the LEDs for the bezel. I have been doing them in groups of 8 for the d subs. I got round to the last set of 'eight' and noticed that there are two extra LED positions! 

This is a bit of a problem as the LED only has 32 outputs yet I have 34 LED positions 

If you take a look at this picture you can see the LED positions ringed in red and blue:



Count em, 34 

I thought about connecting each pair of blue ringed LEDs together to bring the count down but the whole point of having the LED Wiz is to have some nice sequences and bridging the two will just make the sequences look ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

I have a Pac Drive laying about somewhere and I thought about using that but you cannot vary the LED intensity with the Pac Drive and I plan on varying the intensity's for sweeping fades etc so once again it would look crap.

My only real option is to use another (sob) LED Wiz to control the extra two LEDs.

There is no way I can get another LED Wiz from the US in time for Xmas but I do have a Device No 2 Led Wiz from my cocktail build, it just means I'm going to have to strip it out of one of these and then wire a replacement back in 



This is the only real solution I can think of so that it looks as I intended, I don't want to have put all this time, effort and £££ to scrimp out at the last minute.

At least the upside (if there is one) to this is that I can use the 2nd LED Wiz to control the eight down lighting LEDs in the bottom of the case for some Knightrider-esque effects.

As you can imagine, I'm fairly pissed off but hey, these things happen. I just cant believe I managed to make such a stupid mistake.

[Kaytrim]

Hey buddy, look at it this way.  With the second LEDWiz you now have more outputs for even more bling.

Michael

[drawfull]

Ouch! I know the feeling when overlooking something so simple. It's like you're so involved sometimes the obvious slips right by. I figure once you use the extra wiz you won't even notice it's not symettrical with the patterns you're planning. I can't wait to see that bit of the build particularly.

Cheers

[Franco B]

Cheers guys.

It will still be symmetrical once I have the other LED Wiz in thank god.

I'm just wiring up the LEDs at the moment and all seems to be going well. I have the day off tomorrow and I was going to get a load done but I think I'm going to take a break for a day. I have been working 24/7 on it in one way or another for the past couple of months and I need a break other wise I'm going to get hacked off with it.

I 'may' not get it 100% done for Xmas (mainly as I dont think ill get the artwork printed in time) but I would rather give it to her a week or two late and have it as perfect as I can rather than rush it and end up regretting not taking the extra time. I'm sure she would prefer it that way too.

[Epyx]

FrancoB, I LOVE so many aspects of your project.  The cases for the Wiz units...the clean fabrication for the DB panels...man. Great job! Can't wait to see the finished product and certainly won't look at my printer hack metal the same lol.

[thatitalian]

If you are desperate you can have mine?

I can get it up to you in 2 days!

I think it is a device number 1 though!

Still haven't got that piece you sent!

[Franco B]

Thanks for the offer buddy but I need a device ID 2.

Hmmm, fooking Royal Mail  Ill send you another sample out tomorrow.

[Bender]

Update Please....

[koolmoecraig]

Very nice work man.

[mccoy178]

Franco this is wonderful work!  I can truly respect all the routing work.  Also wanted to take a second to commend you on your attention to detail.  Very impressive indeed!

[Franco B]

Cheers guys!

No pics I'm afraid due to no progress. I kinda had to let the cat out of the bag and told my girlfriend that she would have to wait until after Xmas for her present. I did buy her some earrings so that she had something to open

I have sent thatitallian a sample of the acrylic so he can check the colour and make any changes if necessary. I also got thatitallian to make the changes to the artwork profile and I had them plotted again and I checked the sizes. The new profile is much closer but is still a couple of mm out in places. I think what I'm going to do is get the new artwork printed out and then make two new side panels to suit the artwork. The change of size of profile wont affect the build but the artwork needs to fit the side panels 100% for it to look right.

I'm going to get the artwork sent off this week to get the ball rolling. I also need to buy another LED Wiz for the remaining LEDs (doh!!), Ill get that on route this week too.

Ive nearly wired up all the LEDs for the bezel now, I just need to terminate them in the d-subs. I've also received some white speaker cloth to go behind the mesh.

More progress/pics soon I promise! 

[Kaytrim]

I don't know if I want to be creepy  or concerned.    No updates in a month  What's happening Franco?

TTFN
Michael

[Franco B]

No need to send out a search party, I'm still here!  Thanks for the concern tho.

There has been little progress I'm afraid. We have found a house and we're moving in at the end of the month so my little work space I had before has been reduced to nothing as its now full of things we have bought for the house. My GF has been quite understanding and doesn't mind waiting until we have moved in.

I have received the second LED Wiz to light the other two LEDs. After shipping and import taxes etc its cost me about £50 just two light the extra LEDs (and under juke lighting). Talk about and expensive ---fudgesicle--- up, oh well.

I'm just making another metal/acrylic d-sub enclosure to hold the second LED Wiz at the moment. One thing I'm going to have to do is add a 2.5mm DC socket to the rear of the case. Now that I have the extra LED Wiz in I'm not going to have room to house the LCD PSU inside the case so I'm going to wire the inlet to the LCD and then plug the PSU in to the back of the juke. It's not ideal but its not the end of the world either.

I should have something to post in a couple of weeks once we are moved in and I have the garage/workshop set up. 

[parag0n]

i'd personally have taken out the center-top and center-bottom LEDs, then either mounted a bigger SS/Ally decoration, or a constantly-on white led in their place.

Or gone the hacker way and wired the two extras directly to the PC's Parallel port 

[Franco B]

I did think about removing the center top and bottom LEDs or two at the diagonals of the screen but I have some nice LEDBlinky sequences planned and removing the LEDs would have messed with the planned effects. I've already sunk a fair bit of money into this project so I figured a little more wouldnt hurt. I wouldn't want to look back at the project and wished I had spent the extra time and effort.

[javeryh]

Franco - are you done with this thing or what???   

 

[Franco B]

I wish 

I've been busy with about 1,000,000 things as usual and I'm trying to get my workshop set up so I can continue with it properly. I've been painting the workshop floor but I ran out of paint but I'm having some more delivered tomorrow so I can get that done this week and then crack on and get it finished.

Updates soon I promise (if not she'll have my balls for breakfast!) 

[Jimbo]

Updates soon I promise (if not she'll have my balls for breakfast!) 

That doesn't sound so bad.... 

[Franco B]

The longer it takes, the more the jaw clenches 

I need to get my dual router table finished first so I can template route the new sides to match the artwork. I'm using some 12mm polycarb inserts I made to fit the routers. I've made quite a lot of progress over the last week or so, I hope to have it semi functional over next week or os (will still need to add the rear fence and front mitre fence at a later date)

Little progress pic:



I have both router mounted flush now, I just need to finish the rest of the table.

[Hewskie]

Hmm? Over 3 months now and no updates? did you fall off the face of the planet? Is this now a gift for Christmas '09?

Gotta say Franco that this is the coolest project I've seen in a while. I browse byoac a ton, however, as you can see I don't post very often. I'm breaking my pattern to congratulate you on an amazing Juke! Your level of detail is almost unmatched.

Please tell me that you're finished and merely forgot to inform us all....

Thanks

[Franco B]

Thanks for the kind words

Heh, it wil most likely be an Xmas gift 09 now, I've bought my first three cabs recently and they are getting the attention at the moment. My GF is cool with that though as long as she gets it this Xmas. She knows I'm making something but doesnt know what but she is happy for me to work on the cabs as she wants some gaming action too.

I haven't had any kind of mame setup for about three years  and I'm dying to get something up and running.

I've been working on my [Naomaming] the last few days and will update that later.

Thanks for the interest

[Kaytrim]

Time for a necro bump.  Come on buddy let's see this get finished.

Michael

[Franco B]

Damn you and your encouragement 

I've just come back to work today after two weeks on the sick with some severe dental pain but all is good now

Okies, update for this one. NOTHING lol.

My GF actually said I could have it finished for Xmas 10 if I wanted as we are not meant to be spending much this year but I'm determined to get it done.

I'm just finishing a control panel for a forum member and then I have to make someone else some acrylic parts for there candy cab and then I'm going to concentrate on this as its my only real project with a deadline.

There will be some more progress in the next couple of weeks I PROMISE!

[Kaytrim]

Damn you and your encouragement 
Damn you and your encouragement (x2)
Damn you and your encouragement (x3)

I've just come back to work today after two weeks on the sick with some severe dental pain but all is good now

Okies, update for this one. NOTHING lol.

My GF actually said I could have it finished for Xmas 10 if I wanted as we are not meant to be spending much this year but I'm determined to get it done.

I'm just finishing a control panel for a forum member and then I have to make someone else some acrylic parts for there candy cab and then I'm going to concentrate on this as its my only real project with a deadline.

There will be some more progress in the next couple of weeks I PROMISE!

OUCH!!!, sorry to hear about the dental problems.    You are more than welcome to try and find one or two of my threads to necro if you want revenge.  It doesn't mean that I'll get anything done on them but you can try. 

Michael 

[Franco B]

It has probably been the worse two weeks of my life 

Basically I needed to have a tooth urgently out but my dentist couldn't fit me in for six weeks!

I managed to get in at another dentist but even they couldn't get me in for a week and a half. I had two courses of antibiotics and I was on ten Co-codamol and eight Ibuprofen but none of those seemed to ease the pain. The only thing that seemed to help was using mouth wash when the pain hit which was every twenty minutes or so. I was averaging about a bottle of mouthwash a day and I was using Corsodyl for a start which ended up essentially pickling my tongue which hurt like hell too.

Yes the NHS really is ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- 

I had two weeks of which I could have used to get loads of project work done but I couldn't bear to bring myself to do anything with the constant pain.

Anyway, /rant. All is well now and I'm looking forward to getting lots done.

[Franco B]

As of today I can officially say that this project is back on course again!

I have finished up my backlog of work for other people and I'm not taking anything else on so I can concentrate on some of my projects and actually get some work done for myself.

This project takes priority as its 10 months late as it it as I definitely want it done for this xmas. I have two and a half months so that should give me plenty of time. However Modern Warefare 2 is out in less than a month now so I would like to get as much done before then as I know that will be a huge drain of productiveness.  

I have just given my shop a damn good clean which was well overdue and I now have a nice clean space to work in. Its amazing what difference an organised, clean space makes to your enthusiasm and work.

I think one of the first things I am going to do is to make a new bezel for Pinky to sort out my issue with the array of holes and the one LED too many. It will be a fair amount of work to put it right but I still have my templates to work from so it shouldn't be too bad as long as I get as good finish as the first one I made. Looking back I'm amazed how well that one turned out (minus the hole count fubar) considering my limited plastic working experience at the time and the lack of any real working area and tooling.

I did actually go ahead and order a 2nd LED-Wiz device #2 to light the extra LED (and LEDs underneath) but space inside is a premium as it is so I thought I would remake the bezel as originally planned and use the one LED-Wiz. I will have to miss out on controlling the LEDs underneath but I think I may just wire them so that they turn on and stay on when the start/power button is pressed. I'm sure the spare LED-Wiz will get used somewhere along the line although I seemed to have amassed eight so far somehow

I may also swap out the MicroATX for something a little faster. I have been having lots of problems with the video etc and I thought I may put something in that will give it a little more 'life span'. Any recommendations would be great.

I have also ha a couple of ideas for neatening up a couple of other parts too and had some general ideas how to improve a few other things (well, I have had 10 months to think about it!  )

In regards to the artwork I was originally going to get Scott at Mame Marquess to print it but I emailed him a few times with no responce so I am going to look elsewhere. I have heard a lot of good things about arcadestickers.co.uk recently so I think I am going to give them a go. From what I have seen their artwork looks excellent and the prices seem pretty good too. Now that the £ is so crap compared to the $ it will probably work out cheaper anyway and It will be much faster and easier to get the items to me since I'm in the UK. I'm going to get some prices and them hopefully get some B&W prints to check profiles/sizes again before I get it printed.

Apologies for the rubbish Text:Pictures ratio but I'm just excited to get back to work on it and thought I would share it with your guys 
 

[Bender]

Damn has it really been a year?
can't wait to see this thing hummin'

[Franco B]

Yeah it's amazing how fast a year go's doesn't it!

I have plenty planned for the coming year and want to clear this one up before I get started 

[Franco B]

Well I got all of the juke components unpacked today and amazingly I found pretty much everything. I have moved house since last year and all of my things have been boxed up. The only major thing I cant find is the plastic tube that forms the radius at the top of the juke. I'm hoping I can find it but If not I do have some more pipe that I can make another from if needs be.

I hooked all of the PC components back up and I was even more amazed to find that everything still boots up ok. I'm still having some video issues but I'm hopefully going to get them sorted. I have been looking at other Micro ATX boards but they all seem quite big compared to the one I have and mine fits the back door nicely. I may see if I can pick up a faster processor for it. Its quite an old MB so I'm not sure what it will support. It has 512MB of RAM and IIRC that's the biggest it will take.

The monitor and the speakers both have a power adapter for them. Here is a pic of the power info on the back of them:



As you can see the speaker bar needs 12v DC at 1A. Can I power this from one of the 12v molex leads?

The monitor transformer says it is an AC adapter. Does this also mean it is putting out AC? If not and it is putting out DC could I also power this from the PC PSU? It says it needs 12v at 5A but at 60w MAX. Is this possible?

If its not possible I am going to have to install a DC jack on the back of the juke and have the monitor transformer on the outside as there isn't really enough room inside. I would like to get rid of it altogether if possible as it it quite noisy and give of a high pitched whine.

Any ideas on the power issues guys?

[Kaytrim]

As you can see the speaker bar needs 12v DC at 1A. Can I power this from one of the 12v molex leads?

The monitor transformer says it is an AC adapter. Does this also mean it is putting out AC? If not and it is putting out DC could I also power this from the PC PSU? It says it needs 12v at 5A but at 60w MAX. Is this possible?

If its not possible I am going to have to install a DC jack on the back of the juke and have the monitor transformer on the outside as there isn't really enough room inside. I would like to get rid of it altogether if possible as it it quite noisy and give of a high pitched whine.

Any ideas on the power issues guys?

You should be able to power the speakers from your PSU.  Check the info on your PSU to be sure.  The monitor is another issue.  The adapter is AC in and DC out.  However you may not be able to draw enough 12V power from the PSU to drive it.  Five amps and sixty watts is a serious amount of power for a standard PSU.  If the transformer is noisy it should be replaced.  Contact Dell and see if you can get a new or refurbished replacement.

Michael

[Franco B]

Thanks for the help bud. 

I figured the speakers would be ok. I can't actually find the PSU for the speakers but the speaker bar says 12v DC at 1A. so I guess thats what the adapter would say too. I may just suck it and see.

I do only have a small PSU in the juke so powering the monitor may be out of the question then. I may have to go with the DC jack on the outside. It just means having two plugs and cables coming from it.

It's actually the monitor PSU that is noisy. I do have a spare as I bought two of the touchscreens at the same time so I may try the other to see what thats like.

[orion]

If your motherboard can only support 512MB of ram, I would say that that won't run much these days. Instead of looking at Micro ATX boards, have you considered looking at a Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo? The following is a list of components and links to what I have running in my jukebox, and I find them perfect for this kind of application in that they
#1) Are the smallest components you will find
#2) Are so quiet the notebook harddrive will be the loudest component you will have to deal with
#3) Are powerful enough to run just about any jukebox app and win XP, Win 7
#4) Are pretty darn cheap.

The motherboard does have one drawback in that the stock fan is pretty noisy, but I replaced it with a Mini Kaze 40mm fan and I can't hear it at all now. It still runs cool enough to not be an issue. I bought the recommended 2 gigs or ram for it and it runs great. The Pico powersupply is the worlds smallest, this thing is crazy small and has no fans in it period. Check out the links below, I hope you find this bit of info helpful.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121342

http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-90-60W-power-kit?sc=8&category=1097

[Franco B]

Thanks for the suggestion orion! 

That does seem to be pretty good value, I can get that for about £45 over here. I found out that my board will support 1GB of RAM and I was complating getting a 1GB stick for it but that would be £30.

I'm having some serious problems with the video on my current board. It was manufactured pre-XP and I cant get the display to fill the screen correctly. I have downloaded the XP drivers and updated the BIOS but it still isnt right. I may just bite the bullet and get a new board.

My current board is 1Ghz and that one you linked to is 1.6Ghz so it should be a little faster + it will support more RAM.

The only thing I am concerned about is if I will be able to connect the header from the I/O panel to a new motherboard. The connector is about 1"x1/4". Do all MBs have this type of connection for external USB ports?

[Franco B]

The only thing I am concerned about is if I will be able to connect the header from the I/O panel to a new motherboard. The connector is about 1"x1/4". Do all MBs have this type of connection for external USB ports?

Judging by this pic I found of the MB, yes it will (its the yellow parts)
 

[orion]

Thanks for the suggestion orion! 

That does seem to be pretty good value, I can get that for about £45 over here. I found out that my board will support 1GB of RAM and I was complating getting a 1GB stick for it but that would be £30.

I'm having some serious problems with the video on my current board. It was manufactured pre-XP and I cant get the display to fill the screen correctly. I have downloaded the XP drivers and updated the BIOS but it still isnt right. I may just bite the bullet and get a new board.

My current board is 1Ghz and that one you linked to is 1.6Ghz so it should be a little faster + it will support more RAM.

The only thing I am concerned about is if I will be able to connect the header from the I/O panel to a new motherboard. The connector is about 1"x1/4". Do all MBs have this type of connection for external USB ports?

It does have 2 onboard USB headers, and I can tell you it's the newer style that has all the cables connected to one connector as apposed to the really old (perhaps only usb 1.0 did this) USB connectors that had a separate connector for each individual wire... the kind that looks like the power, reset, speaker headers.  If you get this board make sure you get the correct ram for it. 1×240pin DDR2 667 2GB. It's not like the ram for a laptop and it's not the same as for a desktop. It should look like a little mini version of desktop ram, and make sure you get the 2gb stick as the motherboard only has one slot for ram. Total I spent for the motherboard/processor and memory was like $80.00. This board also only measures 6inx 6in, so keep that in mind when you are thinking about sticking power supplies outside the case.

[orion]

The only thing I am concerned about is if I will be able to connect the header from the I/O panel to a new motherboard. The connector is about 1"x1/4". Do all MBs have this type of connection for external USB ports?

Judging by this pic I found of the MB, yes it will (its the yellow parts)
 

Yep! You posted that right as I was posting my reply.....

[orion]

Actually that's the wrong pic of the motherboard, (at least not my version of it) but nonetheless it does have two USB headers.

[Franco B]

Thanks again!

Yeah I had a look for ram and I can get a 240pin DDR2 667 2GB stick for it for £24 so thats pretty good.

This board is actually the same form factor as my current one. I must have got my mini/micro mixed up earlier.

I think I may order it tomorrow for delivery on friday

[Franco B]

Oh, one other question.

My old board is 1Ghz and this one is 1.6Ghz. Does that this one will be 60% faster or will it be faster than that as its newer technology? (You can tell I know nothing about this type of thing!

[orion]

Oh, one other question.

My old board is 1Ghz and this one is 1.6Ghz. Does that this one will be 60% faster or will it be faster than that as its newer technology? (You can tell I know nothing about this type of thing!

Well there's more to it than just factoring in processor speed. You have to look at bus speed, ram speed ect... ect... and when you figure in these factors ( the ect... ect... being the important one) you get an increase in performance of say... "a crap load more%"  Yeh, this is modern technology here and it should smoke that old jalopy you were planning on putting in there! Mind you it's not dual core, but for running a jukebox it's more than sufficient.

[BobA]

Take a look at the Asus mini ITX.   I just picked one up and it has no problems with jukebox software and displays video very well.    It is a few dollars more but it was just released.  Uses the atom 330 dual core.   Intel has a very similar model as well.

Link

[Franco B]

Thanks for the input BobA. I had a look at that board but its about £75 + shipping over here. I can get the D945GCLF board orion suggested + 2GB RAM for £72 delivered.

I was going to order the board today but there seems to be three versions of it and I'm not sure what the differences are apart from that one of the boards has video out.

Any ideas what the other differences are?

[Intel BOXD945GCLF]

[Intel BOXD945GCLF2]

[Intel BOXD945GCLF2D]

Also, I presume [this] RAM will fit ok?

[mountain]

Franco, the "CLF" is a single core, the CLF2 is the dual core, and I think the CLF2D is the CLF2 with out a video plug on the board (S-video I think). Its been a while since I researched these boards, but i did buy the CLF2 the other day for an upcoming juke. They are kick ass boards.

[Franco B]

Thanks buddy. That's a great help. 

I may as well get the dual core version for an extra £10. I won't really use the video out but It may be worth buying that version for the extra £3 on top of that.

[orion]

As Mountain said, option #2  is dual core. http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=912 you want to go with option #2!    It looks like the ram is what all three boards take. Oh and did you look at the power supply I linked to in my previous post... it's small and it uses no fan!

[Franco B]

Cheers orion. I'm glad I didn't place my order this morning now! 

Yeah I did take a look at that PSU. That really is small! Fanless would be a bonus too. I already have a small PSU for the juke though and I have already cut in the intake and exhaust vents. Everything should just about fit as it is.

Cheers guys 

I'm going to pick the replacement acrylic up for the front and inner bezel first thing tomorrow morning and I'm planning on making a start on the replacement.

[orion]

Cool! I'm looking forward to seeing you complete it! 

[Franco B]

  Your not the only one! 

[orion]

Your not the only one! 

In that spirit, I took the liberty, and began the process of making up a little something for your juke! I don't think you have said what software you will be using... if you have already decided on something cool... if not, should I keep going with this?







http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=93382.0

[Franco B]

Wow!! Thats fantastic!!!     

I am actually using Xlobby  too

I was hoping to get some kind of pink skin made for it but I hadn't even started to look into how I would do it.

Thanks for all of your help. Can I interest you in a free pair or two of dustwashers?

[BobA]

Glad you went for a dual core.   It will probably last you a while longer before needing upgrade.

[orion]

Wow!! Thats fantastic!!!     

I am actually using Xlobby  too

I was hoping to get some kind of pink skin made for it but I hadn't even started to look into how I would do it.

Thanks for all of your help. Can I interest you in a free pair or two of dustwashers?

Wow, I wasn't expecting an offer for a pair of one of your famous custom dustwashers! I'm flattered!  I'm planning on eventually (meaning in the next couple of years when my one year old little boy is a bit older and less rambunctious, and I have a little more time for projects) making a stand up control panel to plug into my Home theater PC based loosely on an X arcade tankstick. However, I wouldn't want you to go though any trouble. Now as far as the skin goes, I'm glad you like what I've come up with so far! I am giving some contemplation on changing up most, if not all the buttons to a shade of red, however I'm kinda of digging the pink and blue combo.... it gives it some pop, that red on pink just wouldn't do. Do you have any preferences on that?

[Franco B]

Glad you went for a dual core.   It will probably last you a while longer before needing upgrade.

Yeah for the extra £10 its definitely worth it. I want to be able to play a few games on it too so the extra power should help there too.

Wow, I wasn't expecting an offer for a pair of one of your famous custom dustwashers! I'm flattered!  I'm planning on eventually (meaning in the next couple of years when my one year old little boy is a bit older and less rambunctious, and I have a little more time for projects) making a stand up control panel to plug into my Home theater PC based loosely on an X arcade tankstick. However, I wouldn't want you to go though any trouble. Now as far as the skin goes, I'm glad you like what I've come up with so far! I am giving some contemplation on changing up most, if not all the buttons to a shade of red, however I'm kinda of digging the pink and blue combo.... it gives it some pop, that red on pink just wouldn't do. Do you have any preferences on that?

Your more than welcome, it's not trouble at all. You have really helped me here and by PM. Just give me a shout when you want them or if you want any other help with your build. 

I do really like the pink/blue, it does pop nicely. Lets go with that

[orion]

Your more than welcome, it's not trouble at all. You have really helped me here and by PM. Just give me a shout when you want them or if you want any other help with your build. 

I do really like the pink/blue, it does pop nicely. Lets go with that

Thanks Franco B, look for me to ask for help in a year or two then! Pink/blue it is! When I'm done, I'll post a download link for you in this thread along with some screen shots of the final product.

[Franco B]

Awesome, can't wait to see it! 

I'm really excited about getting the new MB etc and having a play with it. I think this is becoming more of a present for me than her 

Thanks again, just give me a shout whenever and I will help out in anyway I can. 

I picked up the replacement acrylic this morning and cut the new front piece. It only took about an hour and came out just as well as the last one. Its amazing what difference the right tooling and setup makes to a job.

I still need to put the bevel on the screen cut out but I cant do that until I have the inner bezel cut out and fixed/routed and I can't cut that out until I have the new (hopefully right this time!) drilling template made which I should get done on Monday/Tuesday. I also need to cut out the touch PCB reliefs too but that should only take a few minutes.



I found the touch sensors work best though <1mm of material. They worked great though a CD case so I am going to to to route out some pieces of that to mount them to.

[orion]

Well you've gotten a lot done today! Your not the only one who's been busy today however, I'm done with your Xlobby skin! Everything you need is included, except for Winamp. I have included instructions as well and if your album art is located in folders, follow the further instructions in this thread.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=96557.0  Also, make sure you use the version of Xlobby I have included as well as the plugins.... Well that's all the details I can think of, however if you run into any problems with it let me know!

Here is your Xlobby skin sir! http://www.mediafire.com/file/ehmjymmo0dm/PinkOrion.zip

I wound up putting all the screen shots in my thread... it seemed more appropriate as I didn't want to "gum up" your thread!  Let me know what you think!
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=93382.0

[Franco B]

Wow. It looks awesome

The controls look much better placed than the vanilla Xlobby setup too.

Don't worry about gumming up the thread, it's all good! I'll post the screenies here.






















Thanks for all of your help with the software too. I'll download it when I get home and have a play 

[orion]

I'm glad you like the look of it, let me know what you think of it after you play around with it for a while. I tried to lay it out to be intuitive and as easy to use as possible. It should really zip along on that new dual core processor and board your getting too! I think you will be more than pleased as to how it should all work together! Have fun with it! 

[orion]

Bump! Hey Franco, I was just curious to see if you have made any progress on this and if your PC came in yet.

[Franco B]

Hey bud, thanks for the interest.

I've had to put it on hold whilst I refurb/convert one of my Naomi's. I need to get it done asap so I can get it on location to start earning me some money back.

I should have it done in about two weeks max so I'l be back on Pinky after that 

[orion]

OK cool! 

[thatitalian]

If you want I can send you the fonts and art shapes to incorporate into the skin if you like?

I can even whip up a few buttons if it makes thing a 'lil easier?

[orion]

If you want I can send you the fonts and art shapes to incorporate into the skin if you like?

I can even whip up a few buttons if it makes thing a 'lil easier?

Oh did you you guys change up the artwork since previously shown in this thread? That's where I got the shade of Pink from to use in the skin anyway. If you have a custom logo or buttons or something I wouldn't mind adding it to the skin.