Bish's Oak Bartop Touchscreen

[bishmasterb]

This is my attempt at a touchscreen bartop. It's made of red oak with a matching control panel for MAME and Windows games which will have an I-PAC built in and attach to the screen via USB. The touchscreen is a capacitive Planar 17" open-frame model which works amazingly well and looks beautiful.

It will be finished with Minwax Jacobean stain (very dark) and a few coats of satin poly.

The computer is a Dell Dimension P4 and will not be built into the case, but rather will be located in a utility room behind my gameroom in the basement. The AV cables will be passed through an outlet box in the wall.

I'm using Lave Laar's excellent touchscreen front end called SimpleTouch.

The bottom pic is the prototype I built for testing and software configuration.

[bishmasterb]

Shot with the back panel on.

[ChadTower]

That looks pretty good.

[javeryh]

Looks cool - original too.  Will that wood putty/filler stain and blend in to the final product?  I hope so because I've got to do some repairs on something and I'm hoping the stain comes out evenly...   

[bishmasterb]

Just put some stain on it.

[ChadTower]

I dig your counters and cabinets.  Good stuff.

[IG-88]

Looks great  Nice choice of stain color.

Are you doing that right in the kitchen?  I love it!

[bishmasterb]

Are you doing that right in the kitchen?  I love it!

Let's just say I have a very understanding wife!   

I usually prefer to do all this stuff outside, but it's too humid outside to do the finishing.

[RoboG2]

That looks very nice.    Especially with the stain.

[pinballwizard79]

Bish if its too hot & humid in your area you can send the Mario quilt to me, my girl gets cold in the basement 

Anyway man that looks great & this project has  been added to my "to do" list.

You might as well make 2 cuts of everything while you are at it

[bishmasterb]

Bish if its too hot & humid in your area you can send the Mario quilt to me, my girl gets cold in the basement 

It does get cold in the basement! We put ceiling fans in the basement last Spring thinking we'd need them for summer, but it's always freezing down there.

The finish is done on the main case so I was able to put the screen in and do some "testing." I've still got a lot of work to do...speakers, cables, controls...

[bishmasterb]

Few more pics... I worked on the speakers and wiring today:

[pinballwizard79]

How did you fish the wire to the PC, I don't see it anywhere?

[bishmasterb]

How did you fish the wire to the PC, I don't see it anywhere?

I'll take a pic when I get it all done and in place, but essentially the monitor/audio/USB cables just go through a hole in a regular wall face plate. The PC is on a shelf on the other side of the wall.

[bishmasterb]

Okay, a couple more pics. My Mag-Stik plus came in today so I managed to get it mounted with some Happs buttons; not wired up yet though.

[dweebs0r]

I really like this project.  Looks awesome.

 

[mameotron]

Very nice work.  I like how compact it is!

[Neilyboy]

I love it man!! very nice work. I need to get working on my touch screen project!!!

Neil

[bishmasterb]

Thanks guys.

I finished the hardware today, but still have a little ways to go tweaking the software.

[Cameronj]

Very cool! Love the craftmanship!

[Lave Laar]

I really like how this turned out.  Nice work. 
In fact it made me change my own plans to do something similar to this.  I originally planned to make a box with a frame and then hang it on the wall.  This way it's easier to place and I don't have to worry about my plaster walls being strong enough for the weight of the touchscreen.

Where did you get the cover plate with the VGA and minijack connections?

[bishmasterb]

Where did you get the cover plate with the VGA and minijack connections?

Thanks for your kind words.

The cover plate for the connectors is simply the back from one of these project boxes from Radio Shack (a electronics/components retailer here in the States; link below). I had to modify it by cutting some of the plastic a little bit, but it turned out nice.

http://www.radioshack.com/sm-project-boxes--fi-2032276_cp-2032058.2032230.html

The other connectors either came from Radio Shack, or I stripped them from other components (the VGA connector is simply the metal DSub connector ripped out of a VGA cable, and the USB connector I ripped out of an old non-working system. The AC receptacle came out of a dead power supply.

Again, let me say thanks for your great front end. That was the one component of this project that I didn't know how I was going to handle, and your front end was EXACTLY what was needed and works wonderfully. Thanks!