My biggest arcade project so far: The building of gameroom "Level 42"

[Level42]

You might wonder, but what you see here is the very first (physical) step of creating my Game Room:
Removing some plants/bushes that had become pretty tall and wild:




Well, let's call it a mess. We call these things "gardens" over here, but you might refer to it as a "back-yard". The thing is, I've been planning the Game Room for a long time and following we didn't do a lot of maintenance, which the weeds etc. clearly show....

Anyway, the plan is demolishing that small shack and replacing it with a big one (across the full width of the garden). It will be about 7 meters wide by 3 meters deep.

I've requested a permit for the construction with my local council, hope to get it within about 3 weeks.

I live in an area where the ground is very soft and there's a lot of water in the ground. For this reason, we need long piles to support the construction. Four of these piles will carry a concrete floor. The rest will be a wood construction with Keralit (www.keralit.nl) which are "plastic" panels that look like wood.

Of course some good isolation and ventilation and I have some pretty exciting plans for the inside.

[polaris]

so out of interest is the 7m by 3m gonna be full straight away, do i need to point your wife to this thread 
 

good stuff, hope the plans are approved soon for you

[Level42]

Haha, yeah, I know Bruno's game-palace ! Had the honour of visiting him a day and enjoyed it very much. However I haven't got half the number of machines that Bruno owns. It will be pretty full right away though. I will need to reserve a (small) section for our bicicles, all the wheeled toys of my son and some garden stuff, (basically the function of the old shack) so that is subtracted from the 7x3 regretfully....

Anyway, there's room for about 13 regular cabs, but of course I got the SW cockpit and the Konami GT cockpit too. We'll see how it goes, it should be able to house all games I currently own.

Here's a quick & dirty 3d and 2d idea (couldn't find any more game 3D models, that explains all the DK's and Galaga's)

[Level42]

Planning the SW cockpit on the backwall (where you see the guy standing). Looking into ordering the Atari SW poster on wall-paper to cover the entire end-wall. Planning on installing some glass-fiber over-head lighting which should represent space

I'm thinking of a deep red color for the long walls.

I've got plenty of neon stuff to include:

[Mauzy]

Where did those gameroom signs come from? I need one! (when I get money....and a game room...)

[Level42]

A German guy had these made in China on special order. My friend Luc has bought a part of the stock and I'm sure he has some left.

PatrickL was nice enough to pick up the "pac man" sign for me in Frankfurt (he was also getting one for himself and going out for the weekend there) and bring it to me.
The price was €100,-

The "pinball" version I got from my friend Luc as a "thank you" for working on his Star Wars cabs.

I'm sure he has some left. I'll ask him and get back to you. 

[ratzz]

Now this is one project announcement that I can't wait to see finish!!!

What's your budget for this?

[Level42]

Enough....

[polaris]

i'm liking the neon , if i ever did a room i'd go with neon rather than the blacklight so often chosen, i hate blacklight.
is the size your going for the limit that planning allows in your garden?
 

i cant see the afro smiley
 

[Level42]

Yes. We are allowed to build 75% max.

Also, I do still want to keep some garden, where else will I arrange my grand Game Room opening BBQ

[Level42]

Changed the thread title as nobody seems to object to it's section...

[Kevin Mullins]

What's your budget for this?

Enough....

Oh we all know it's never "enough".   

Looking forward to your progress.
Will have to make a trip across the pond one of these days maybe to check the Dutch scene out.
 

[SavannahLion]

Your shed looks like it's part of the shed your neighbor is using. How does your neighbor feel about you tearing down his shed?

[Level42]

No problem. Do you see the big shed that is behind mine ? There used to be a small one just like mine against my shed. Those sheds were placed there when the home's were built new (12 years ago). It's like one big shed with 4 sections.
So yes, I do need to carefully take away "my" parts and make a nice wall against his shed (we'll leave the original seperating "wall" in there), but that is not too big a deal.

Well spotted though !

Kevin (& my other friends here): If you ever visit the country, just let me know and you're always welcome here !

[Muerto]

weeeh!
congratulations!!! - just want to wish you the best of luck with your project!

i just finished my game room, so i know what work leys ahead!!!

you can see my gameroom progress here: http://spaceinvaders.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1032&start=0

[Level42]

Thanks ! Your room looks great, wish I had so much space !!! It's really fun to see how other people build their game-rooms. You put a lot of glass in there !


I'm going to try to capture the feel of an intimate "dark" arcade. Apart from the doors, there will be no windows. This will require to install "service" lighting and "play" lighting. For the "play" lighting I will make a test-set up how the neon's will look combined. They produce a lot of light really.

I'm full of plans, not sure if all will work out but first I need the freaking permit :S

[TOK]

Thanks ! Your room looks great, wish I had so much space !!! It's really fun to see how other people build their game-rooms. You put a lot of glass in there !

I'm going to try to capture the feel of an intimate "dark" arcade. Apart from the doors, there will be no windows. This will require to install "service" lighting and "play" lighting. For the "play" lighting I will make a test-set up how the neon's will look combined. They produce a lot of light really.

I'm full of plans, not sure if all will work out but first I need the freaking permit :S

I was wondering the same thing about the windows. My gameroom is being converted from a Florida (sun) room, and I'm having to pull windows out... Its just too hard to control the light and make it "feel" like an arcade, particularly in the summer months when its light here until 9pm.

[Ummon]

I'm full of plans, not sure if all will work out but first I need the freaking permit :S

You only need to request one, though? Here you also have to pay for one.

As for light, heavy curtains work. I use 'em every night when I go to sleep. Of course, having no windows means there are none to clean. Um, if you do windows, you know.

Nice multiple double-doors in Muerto's there.

And smashin idea to put that acoustic insulation on the ceiling in Nuno's. Interesting using carpet for the walls. Nice color. (Killer color scheme with that carpet, too.) But what was with all that for the floor? Why tile then cover it and all that? And I'm surprised you didn't cover that hole right off.

[Muerto]

You put a lot of glass in there !

Yep, put the plan is, like Ummon said, to put up heavy curtens, and the doubledoors a great when mooving arcademachines

[Level42]

I'm full of plans, not sure if all will work out but first I need the freaking permit :S

You only need to request one, though? Here you also have to pay for one.

Of course, I will have to pay for the permit too.

[Blanka]

Of course, I will have to pay for the permit too.

It's not totally "of course"! If you would have kept the gameroom 1 m from the edges of the plot, you don't even need a permit. With plenty of ground the government sees no money. But those bitches in The Hague knew that everyone needs the extensions to be on the edge of plots with all our crammed gardens, so that they would end up receiving those building fees anyway. A hidden widener of the wealth gap! People in small houses pay more on building permits!

My solution: Ask a permit for the outer one meter (permit goes as percentage of building costs) and build the area within for free.

A suggestion as alternative to Keralit:
http://www.platowood.nl/bouwproducten/oslosheet.htm
Real wood with the same maintenance characteristics.

[ChadTower]

Nice, Jim.  Real nice.

How much electrical capacity do you plan on?  How many circuits?  Cooling or just passive venting?

[SithMaster]

Nice, Jim.  Real nice.

How much electrical capacity do you plan on?  How many circuits?  Cooling or just passive venting?

Jim is all class.   

What about heating?  For passive cooling you could have your garden grow up the sides and roof of the shed.

For lighting you could always have sky lights with some sort of dimmer (hit a switch and the windows get covered a little).

[Level42]

Sith, not a bad idea about the sky lights !


Jim: Yes. We live with 16 million people on a very small piece of this world. The vast majority of the population lives in an even smaller area, so it's "worse" there.
So we don't all have lots of area's of ground and large houses. However, I've seen how people in other parts of this world live that are equally populated that look a LOT worse. I guess it's what you're used too really. I also live in the busiest part of that small country but I'm happy.
And yes we live like rats: we're intelligent, we're clean, we're socially involved, we know our neighbors and take care of each-other.

I could also sum up a number of (other) advantages of living in this country compared to yours, but the last thing I want to do is turn this into a political debate.

Not sure about the heating yet. I'm thinking of heating the floor so that it will heat up the room very evenly.  I've seen infrared-foil that you can put under your floor but it's pretty expensive and I'm worried about energy costs. My home has a central heating system with radiators, not sure if I could extend it to the shed. I'll ask my neighboor who has his own company in heating.

The last 15 years the winters are not very tough around here anymore but you never know. At least I need to keep the machines "comfortable". When playing, the warming of the cabs helps a lot in heating the room. It will be well isolated. I've mentioned I need excellent ventilation to the guy who will be basically building this all. This is also the reason why I didn't choose bricks. Lots of people overhere would use a single-brick wall (like the neighbor right behind me) but that will mean it'll be damp inside and very bad for the machines. I'd have to build a double-brick wall with isolation, but then I'd loose too much space.

Blanka: You're right on every word.

[Level42]

About electricity: I was planning to use two circuits ("groups" as we call them). Each group can handle 3600 watts. Should be enough (depending on the choice of heating).

I will make double contact power outlets "between" two cabs. Definitely want to make them remotely switchable per cab, think I'll go for a radio-controlled system. That's least expensive and easiest to install.
Think I will make fixed switches for the lights.

[HaRuMaN]

I could also sum up a number of (other) advantages of living in this country compared to yours, but the last thing I want to do is turn this into a political debate.

De Wallen?

[patrickl]

Hey that's cool. Finally creating the space for all your cabs. Maybe you should plan ahead and already ask for a permit for a second floor

Here's a quick & dirty 3d and 2d idea (couldn't find any more game 3D models, that explains all the DK's and Galaga's)

Good choice. You can never have too many Galaga cabs

[Matthew Fisher]

I could also sum up a number of (other) advantages of living in this country compared to yours, but the last thing I want to do is turn this into a political debate.

One of the greatest has to be that you can get Korenwolf  and we can't!     One of my sisters-in-law lives in Alkmaar and I've got to say that I love the place.  By the way, the game room plan looks pretty nice... 

[patrickl]

I could also sum up a number of (other) advantages of living in this country compared to yours, but the last thing I want to do is turn this into a political debate.

One of the greatest has to be that you can get Korenwolf  and we can't!     One of my sisters-in-law lives in Alkmaar and I've got to say that I love the place.  By the way, the game room plan looks pretty nice... 

With "Korenwolf", do you mean the little rat that's on the endangered species list? 



Well I guess you know the crature, IIRC it's displayed on the label of the beer.

Anyway, Level42 better hope he doesn't have one of those critters his backyard or the the permit is not going to happen 

[SavannahLion]

Anyway, Level42 better hope he doesn't have one of those critters his backyard or the the permit is not going to happen 

I knew someone who had a similar problem. Couldn't get a permit for his cattle. About a year later, a huge fire breaks out. Six months later, permit granted. Not that I'm saying there's any sort of connection between the two.

Back on topic. That's wild that shed is shared with two others (I only initially spotted the one). It's hard for me to live like that. I threw a fit when the neighbor decided to use our fence to support his fence. Too bad I have to put new posts in this year. 

So the way it works, you're going to be tearing down the neighboring walls of your neighbors sheds and putting new ones in? What do you do if the neighbor refuses to let you do so? That stops your project?

[Kevin Mullins]

So the way it works, you're going to be tearing down the neighboring walls of your neighbors sheds and putting new ones in? What do you do if the neighbor refuses to let you do so? That stops your project?

So yes, I do need to carefully take away "my" parts and make a nice wall against his shed (we'll leave the original seperating "wall" in there), but that is not too big a deal.

I picture it kinda like we do out here when there is what we call a "lean-to" built on the side of a barn or something. If you decide to tear down the lean-to you would not tear down the barn wall, just the attached lean-to portion.

[Level42]

Savannah: The sheds do have walls inside, it's not like I have to share an "open" shed with my neighbors.

The neighbor who already built the bigger shed left the original "wall" between his and my shed intact when he built his. Behind it, is his "outer" wall (also because his shed is taller now). So we will remove the old "wall" on that side. On the right side of the current shed, we will keep that current wall and put ours in front of it. It's indeed a bit like Kevin shows.

Korenwolfs are extremely rare and live only in a very small area in the very south of Holland. So that one won't stop my permit

Stupid council wants construction calculations !    I told them I was going to build a shed, not a ten story building.....jeeess...
I explained that I thought that they should be able to know if the construction is safe enough by looking at the wood construction, the diameters of the wood used etc. No dice. Also pointed out that if I would buy a pre-made shed, would I also need those calculations. Answer (I already expected that one, I know how people at governments "think"): But you're not building a pre-fab shed, are you ? !!!!! 

I have no clue how to calculate that stuff, the builder will have to come up with those ! 
At least they didn't stop the judgement process. They will give off the permit (_if_ they will) with the provision that I have to hand-over those calculations at least 3 weeks before I start building. Effectively that means the same, because as soon as I have the permit I want to start !

Governments, councils, you gotta love them.

[patrickl]

Yeah, I was wondering if you weren't taking this permit thing a bit too lightly. You might need a "constructeur" to make the calculations.

Did they ask you for a soil probing ("sondering") for the foundation/pillars?

[Ummon]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you even need to tell them if you bought a prefab? People here buy them all the time. Even if they're custom, and sometimes very large, since they don't have concrete foundations, they're clear of regulation. Far as I know anyways.

[patrickl]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you even need to tell them if you bought a prefab? People here buy them all the time. Even if they're custom, and sometimes very large, since they don't have concrete foundations, they're clear of regulation. Far as I know anyways.

In the Netherlands you need a building permit if you build a structure in your backyard within one meter from the perimeter.

[SavannahLion]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you even need to tell them if you bought a prefab? People here buy them all the time. Even if they're custom, and sometimes very large, since they don't have concrete foundations, they're clear of regulation.

Here is the key word.

Savannah: The sheds do have walls inside, it's not like I have to share an "open" shed with my neighbors.

No, I got that. I just didn't understand if there was a single wall between both sheds or if it's two walls facing each other.

[Level42]

Good news. A couple of weeks ago I got the permit.

However, there's been a change of plans. We will not be using piles. I got a price for piles and the hole lower concrete construction and was not amused. It nearly doubled the initial price.

So I asked around and I've now got another contractor and we will skip the piles. I know there's a risk, but I'll take it. We'll be using what this guy calls the "turned-over shoebox" technique. Basically we will dig out the size of the room and poor concrete in there and then also have a raised floor poored at once. So the whole floor and carrying parts will be one solid piece.

All else remains the same. Building will start nov. 24th !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will need to prepare some stuff first though (like moving cabs to a temporary location)....keep your eye on this thread, I am _SO_ exited

[Trebeck]

Dude.
I salute you.

 

[Blanka]

You can also build it like a houseboat or like roads in the "polder". Just use Styrofoam to compensate for the weight of the whole building, so it floats on the groundwater.

And above all: use enough iron in the concrete. If your gameroom sinks, it sinks at one piece at least.

[Level42]

You can also build it like a houseboat or like roads in the "polder". Just use Styrofoam to compensate for the weight of the whole building, so it floats on the groundwater.

And above all: use enough iron in the concrete. If your gameroom sinks, it sinks at one piece at least.

Yup, exactly the plan Blanka ! And Trebeck: thank you !

[Level42]

Well since it was my birthday today I decided it was a good day to start.

First things first: a shot of the situation this morning:


First jobs: removing more plants and removing the bricks....



Forgot to take a pic at the end of the day but it progressed OK.

Tomorrow's plans:
- empty current shed completely. That includes moving my Playscene Mame-cab, Puckman,Galaxian and Centipede to a temporary storage. O, and the Getaway Pinball, which I have no clue how to get it moved on my own......
- tear down the current shed (nicely, neighboors want parts  )
- Ruud (the guy who will build the whole thing) will come to set-out where I will have to dig.

Friday's plans:
- dig to make room for the foundation. This is where the fun starts, rented a small digging machine, and I wonder if it's going to be like playing Dig-Dug

http://www.digdug.nl   

Monday the "real work" starts, putting in the foundation. Check back for pics each day

O, and some more decoration for the SW corner:


Yes they are different scale and yes there's a reason...

[Level42]

Day 2:

The weather is windy and cloudy but (mostly) dry. Temp. 7 degr. Celsius.

This is how I left it yesterday:



Had to leave the bricks somewhere...


So...let's see what I have in that old shed  :


First got out the bikes and the other stuff. And there are the sleeping beauties:


Let's get them out:


First load:


...and the second:


How do you move a pinball on your own without a proper pinball lift ?:


Damn that's not easy and heavy to get "on board" on your own:


But.....the shed's empty !:


With the help of my neighboor removed the last parts of the plants and the fence:


Digging machine arrived and started demolishing the old shed....:


It's the beginning of the evening now and I'm behind scedule. The shed should have been down already. Will have to go on now....

[patrickl]

I'm amazed you did all that in one day. Bob de Bouwer in action. Does that little crane talk?

[Level42]

Haha...no it doesn't and damn it's hard to operate ! Driving it is a breeze, just like a tank (battlezone !) but actually digging etc. there's too many freaking joysticks !

I now have this brillant idea: power glove. You know in your head what you want the machine to do but there's no sense in the motions of the joysticks. F.I. tilting the shovel is left and right on the right joystick.....

It should have a power glove so that it will follow your arms motions

I'm sure people who work with one of those every day can dream the controls but for a beginner it's pretty hard.

Well it's 21.15 now and I just stopped.More than 13 hours almost straight (with only short drink and eating stops. I'm dead.....all my muscles hurt. I'm SO tired....ahh well...

I managed to get most of the roof of (all plates broke in the process, right through the middle. The bad thing is that one of the plates overlaps my shed and my neigboors' so that means I will have to cut it. That in turn meant that I couldn't remove the frames....will have to do that tomorrow.

Removed a lot of mess from the plants, removed some more bricks, removed half of the fence on the other side....I'm even further behind now but screw it. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I fear that I won't have done all the digging in time. I could use some help ! (Patrick, you're most welcome )...

I'm going to take a hot bath, and go to bed early. I wonder if I will be able to get up in the morning.... 

[Ummon]

Since the neighbor wanted the parts, you shoulda let them in and break it down while you were busy with something else. Also, I would've put a good piece of foam between the marquee box and the pin table.

[patrickl]

I could use some help ! (Patrick, you're most welcome )...

I'm away for the weekend   Besides, I actually have quite a lot of "klussing" to do myself 

[Level42]

Since the neighbor wanted the parts, you shoulda let them in and break it down while you were busy with something else. Also, I would've put a good piece of foam between the marquee box and the pin table.

He actually did get all the front side off. The blanket is enough protection. The temporary storage is at a friend who lives about 1 mile away and it's all 30 km (19 mph) zone driving up there so I drove up there nice and slow. I've transported the pinball from my brother-in-law's work to my home same way, no problem.

[Level42]

Day 3:

The weather is very very windy with occasionally hail (!) but (mostly) dry. Temp. 5 degr. Celsius.

Started with cutting through the roofplate that my neighbor and I shared. I was lucky to have a "slijper", I don't know the English word for it but it's this machine:



The plates are like some stone-stuff and break quite easily. Removed all the roof plates....

Then had to remove the top beams. Those were nailed and boy it's fun to remove them....

Next were the side supports, who were bolted to the other neigbhors sheds. Once everything was "loose" the fun began: the little digging machine loves to demolish ! It still took quite a number of sweeps with the shovel but all in all it came down pretty easy.



Still had to remove the inner wood of the former "wall" and the digging machine took care of that too.

I have to say I'm learning quick on the machine !

As you can see the "floor" consits of regular (at least here) street tiles which lays on a bed of sand. They're surrounded with REALLY heavy concrete beams to keep the tiles on their place.
So that meant some more nice " digging". The worst part is getting all the demolished stuff and tiles away from there.

All in all this is where I finished:


Also removed some plants that were in the way and some more terrace tiles (the big one's).

As you can see I didn't do anything on the real digging for the foundation. That will be done tomorrow by the guys who'll build the gameroom.

[Mauzy]

Day 3:


Started with cutting through the roofplate that my neighbor and I shared. I was lucky to have a "slijper", I don't know the English word for it but it's this machine:

I believe that is a good old fashion Angle Grinder. Useful for everything from removing vehicle exhausts to cutting drywall (don't ask).

You make pretty fast progress! I wish I could do the same with my basement/game room. We've been at it for a year and just got around to painting the drywall. Now flooring or ceiling yet.

5 degrees Celsius, eh? I helped build a shed once when it was about -9 Celsius when I lived in Wisconsin. That sucked. At least you get nice weather to do this thing...though the hail doesn't sound fun...

[Ummon]

The blanket is enough protection. The temporary storage is at a friend who lives about 1 mile away and it's all 30 km (19 mph) zone driving up there so I drove up there nice and slow. I've transported the pinball from my brother-in-law's work to my home same way, no problem.

Mm. I'm extra careful is all. I was moving cross country and had this electronic keyboard. My buddy said to put it on the desk/table I had. I said, yeah, when I get some foam underneath it. He said he thought it should be fine. Well, sure, it was cross-country but I didn't expect a hundred or so miles of Oklahoma road to be whoopdie-doos and such. (For some reason, they laid the road in 30ft sections.) Just never know. Most accidents occur a mile from home! Buckle-uhp!!  hheeheheheheh.

[Level42]

Day 4:

The weather is windy and cloudy with hail and snow. Temp. 2 degr. Celsius.

Proof of the hail falling....it was only the start....


The pro's start:


Day 5:
Digging is finished:




The digged out ground in 2 containers. In all honesty one was already half-full when it arrived. As you can see the weather really improved. Snow in November is rare overhere. But that's how it goes: if I plan to do a reconstruction inside the house (like f.i. in spring) it gets 34 degr. Celsius. I'm just always lucky like that 



I just hope the temperatures will be ok for pouring the concrete....to be continued tomorrow.

[patrickl]

Yeah really, the weather was nice huh? Geez, I went for a weekend safari in Beekse Bergen. Was lucky to see some animals on saturday still (in between hail storms).

Guess you'll have to wait for the concrete though? Or was it cement that doesn't harden in the cold?

[Level42]

Wikipedia (Dutch) tells me that it can't be used below 0 degr. celsius which makes sense because that's the freezing point of water (for those who are used to Fahrenheit). The curing does take longer at low temperatures. The mix of the concrete should be adjusted to the winter or summer conditions.

With the actual curing, heat is generated so that can be enough to keep it from problems.

I don't know, I'll let the "pro's" decide....the forecast is night temperatures around 0 degr. and day temps between 3 (monday) and 7 degrees....

[Singapura]

This weekend Sinterklaas came to Singapore. I pitied him in his heavy tabard and itchy beard. It's currently 32 degrees here 

[Level42]

This weekend Sinterklaas came to Singapore. I pitied him in his heavy tabard and itchy beard. It's currently 32 degrees here 

Impossible he's in Singapore. He arrived here more than a week ago....the steamboat isn't that fast you know.....

[Level42]

Day 5:

The weather: no more wind, now that's nice ! Snow has melted away already but you know what that means: LOTS of water everywhere. Especially in the trench..... Temp. 2 degr. Celsius.

The guys came up this morning. Put a pump in the trench to get rid of the water but I wonder how long it will take to empty.  Luckily it's dry now. The guys went to their workplace to start construction of the frames since they can't work on the foundation right now.

Foundation stuff was delivered this morning:



The forms for the foundation:


They also delivered the iron for the concrete.

[Ummon]

Hey, you're having much better fortune than Hirschberg did. Your guys show up regardless of weather.

[Level42]

Hey, you're having much better fortune than Hirschberg did. Your guys show up regardless of weather.

Well, overhere people who you make a deal with tend to keep their promisses. And they better...

Anyway, didn't update yesterday but here we go:

Day 6:
So, what wintery condition didn't we have before ? Ah yes: black ice
Anyway, it's nice and fair but pretty cold. First thing in the morning (7.15) the containers with ground get removed. (sorry about these two pics, taken from behind the window).



Look at the number on that truck. Can it really be coincidence ? 



The guys start placing the forms. The expanded polystyrene forms do not only function as a form but also as a nice isolation. (So yes, they stay under the concrete).


...and they're done at the end of the day. All the forms installed and wire-mesh-iron-stuff that enforces and holds the concrete. Also high-pressure polystyrene plates to isolate the floor.




Everything's ready for the pouring of the concrete.

Day 7:

It's dry and cloudy. Temperatures well above the 0 degr. so no problems for the conrete.

7.45 and the concrete truck has arrived:

It's a "pump-truck" with a pretty long arm:


Pouring it goes really fast:






And this is how it looks at this moment:




Of course, there was some cool bird around who wanted to leave behind his marks for eternity:


And now.....we wait. Until it's hard enough
Not really, the guys are constructing the wood frames at their workplace now....to be continued !

[patrickl]

Wow, that's cool.

Did you shoot the bird? Or is it only allowed to shoot animals when they might tip over a domino stone? 

So the foam is sticking out now? Why is that?

[Level42]

  I can only hope the bird could still fly with all the concrete on his feet....

Will be removed when the concrete is cured. Will serve as the "ridge" to mount the wooden frames on (at least as far as I understood)

[ChadTower]

I remember laying a small foundation like that with my grandfather and when we came back there was a squirrel in it.  He wasn't lucky enough to get out.  Grampy had to cut him out. 

As for moving a pin, you can do it alone, it's not that hard.  It is a little scary if you've never done it before.  Prop the player end up an inch off the ground and rest it on something like a pair of 2x4s just longer than the legs.  Take the legs off, lower it down gently, repeat on the other side.  Then just tilt it up onto its back and put it on a hand truck.  You have to be confident that you can hold one end up without dropping it, though.  The 2x4s are good because if you use two they will hold it pretty well and you can just lift it an inch and kick them out of the way.

[Ummon]

I couldn't see the number of the truck. What was it?

Foam showing: yeah, a nifty way to handle the containment of the concrete, rather than having to make forms out of wood and reebar.

You know, it looks like you had room for another few feet wide of building. Heheh.

[polaris]

So the foam is sticking out now? Why is that?

in the uk, i'd describe it as a damp course, building a moisture proof layer above the surrounding ground level.

I couldn't see the number of the truck. What was it?

42 

looking good Lev

[Level42]

Ummon: you need a new monitor (or a bigger one)

And yes, I probably could have done some extra feet, but I'm only allowed to build 75% of my property. Also, the wife and I too still want to have at least SOME space in the "garden"...

Indeed it was 42, right next to the door...

I'm not sure if that still visible piece of foam will stay actually. If all is well, the floor is at least 5cm. above ground level. That, plus some good drainage should keep out any water...

[Ummon]

Ah, I didn't even know where to look. But I did find it before I read your response. I'm familiar with such small coincidences.

[Kevin Mullins]

Ummon: you need a new monitor (or a bigger one)

Hehe ... I knew where to look and still couldn't see it on a 19" monitor. (dark)
But I worked around it.

Project is looking good so far.
And seems to be moving right along for ya which is always a good thing.... progress.

[Level42]

Indeed ! PROGRESS !!!!!   

This morning I left for work and it was still only the bare floor.....when I returned home tonight it looked like this:

[ChadTower]

Wow.  These dudes work fast. 

[Level42]

Yeah, they already said I'd be surprised when I'd come home.... The wood frames were all already prepared in their workplace so they "only" had to install them. Still very good progress IMHO, including hanging the doors and making the roof...I wonder how they will install the cladding on the right side because it will be hard to reach from the outside....

Yes yes, we Dutchies are not the cheapest workers but efficiency and productivity is high

[shardian]

Truthfully, I think they should have been a bit farther on in a day if everything was pre-fabbed. It's just a square shed-type building!

Why 2 doors? Double doors would have been more preferable to that. Then they could swing out and give you a huge opening to work with.

[kayoteq]

Why 2 doors? Double doors would have been more preferable to that. Then they could swing out and give you a huge opening to work with.
I was about to say that myself. Maybe consider some re-engineering of that area so you have the option long-term before the sheetrock goes  on.
Gotta have room to bring that cockpit star wars in there.

[shardian]

Maybe that 2nd door is getting an interior wall and will be split off for storage?

[Kevin Mullins]

Maybe that 2nd door is getting an interior wall and will be split off for storage?

That's kinda what I figured.
Gotta remember, he did pull other stuff out of the old storage and he's gotta have a place for the yard tools and such.

Or could be a workshop space. 

[Level42]

Glad you guys figured it out....

O and I put a plan of it in one of the first postings of this thread:



The doors swing the other way because it's easier that way to acces for both, but in general this is how it was planned. You can see the separating wall there.

Yes it will be a separated storage area for the bikes, the wheeled toys for my son and garden tools and stuff...as expected my wife immediately complained that it would become too small, but I'm sure it will be big enough (it's sad enough I need to "give up" the space for that already....let alone workshop space....sigh...)

I did think about a double door for the game room area, but there are some (obvious) reasons why I did not choose for them:

1) I will not be putting gigantic cabs in there like 2 seated race cabs etc. because obvsiously, the room will not offer enough space for them.

2) I have restricted myself to collecting the real classics only. All of them will fit through a single door. Yes, the SW cockpit will too, it's not wider than any regular cab.By the way, those doors are the widest "standard" doors you can get here (93 cm. (over 3 foot).

3) If I would have a double door, I would need to keep both clear, so I could not put a cab there.....

[FrizzleFried]

Do you guys get a ton of wind there?  12" between studs is WAY WAY WAY overkill for such a small structure I'd think.  You could have easily saved some $$ by going with 18" if not 24" gaps between studs.   Around here,  18" is common for house construction,  but even some "lower end" homes go with 24" spaces between studs...and that is for a 2 story home in Idaho with snow and quite a bit of wind.

That sucker is going to be quite sturdy...

[Level42]

Anyway, next step:



The cladding is Keralit. The base is recycled plastic. The top is a plastic, printed film. It's very durable and doesn't need any maintenance (a BIG plus for me). Just some cleaning now and then. 10 year guarantee on it. It is also lightweight. Most people would go with a brick wall here. But a single brick wall doesn't isolate and the inside will be very damp. Not good for my machines ! The alternative was real wood, but I prefer to have not too much maintenance The light weight is important to keep the whole structure as light as possible, since we didn't go with the piles, the less weight the better.

We first chose a "wood style" print, but figured with the really big "face" of the whole shed, it would become quite dark looking. Also, there's not a lot of texture in the prints, so it would become looking too artificial. Instead we chose Grayed Ceder:



We asked the neighbors what colors they prefer  (gotta keep friends with them) and both sides chose brown red ceder:



The colors don't show really well because of the flash though....

[shardian]

Do you guys get a ton of wind there?  12" between studs is WAY WAY WAY overkill for such a small structure I'd think.  You could have easily saved some $$ by going with 18" if not 24" gaps between studs.   Around here,  18" is common for house construction,  but even some "lower end" homes go with 24" spaces between studs...and that is for a 2 story home in Idaho with snow and quite a bit of wind.

That sucker is going to be quite sturdy...

Well frizz, here in the states we would also have built that shed on a 4x4 sled and just dropped it in place on the yard. Maybe a few blocks to level it out.

Obviously their building standards are much higher than what we have here for non-living structures.


And to make you real sick Level42, I can go buy an 18'x12' shed that looks like a house, have it delivered and leveled - all for about $3k. 

Oh, and no permits needed at all.

[FrizzleFried]

Do you guys get a ton of wind there?  12" between studs is WAY WAY WAY overkill for such a small structure I'd think.  You could have easily saved some $$ by going with 18" if not 24" gaps between studs.   Around here,  18" is common for house construction,  but even some "lower end" homes go with 24" spaces between studs...and that is for a 2 story home in Idaho with snow and quite a bit of wind.

That sucker is going to be quite sturdy...

Well frizz, here in the states we would also have built that shed on a 4x4 sled and just dropped it in place on the yard. Maybe a few blocks to level it out.

Obviously their building standards are much higher than what we have here for non-living structures.


And to make you real sick Level42, I can go buy an 18'x12' shed that looks like a house, have it delivered and leveled - all for about $3k. 

Oh, and no permits needed at all.

I've actually considered buying a large "Tuff-Shed"... insulating it and running electricty to it for a workshop.  I could then dedicate 100% of the garage to the gameroom.

After figuring it all out I came to about $7,000 total for the shed,  installation,  electrical installtion,  and insulation.

[ChadTower]

And to make you real sick Level42, I can go buy an 18'x12' shed that looks like a house, have it delivered and leveled - all for about $3k. 

You sure about that?  My shed is fully framed, vinyl sided, shingle roofed.  A couple windows.  It's 12x10 and was about $2800 three years ago.  Materials have gone up quite a bit since then and that didn't include leveling or any foundation.  It's on blocks.

[Level42]

Do you guys get a ton of wind there?  12" between studs is WAY WAY WAY overkill for such a small structure I'd think.  You could have easily saved some $$ by going with 18" if not 24" gaps between studs.   Around here,  18" is common for house construction,  but even some "lower end" homes go with 24" spaces between studs...and that is for a 2 story home in Idaho with snow and quite a bit of wind.

That sucker is going to be quite sturdy...

I know very little about constructing Frizz. I'm depending on the pro's here. Yes we do get some good storms overhere, we're relatively close to the sea (let's say 30 km.) and we have a flat little country. It's nothing like the hurricane's you have in some parts of the US though. Overhere, houses are almost never wood-constructed. Most (relatively modern) houses here are concrete based, and then the outside is covered with bricks.
F.I. my house was built in what they call "tunnel" forms. The conrete was poored here. But other homes can use concrete blocks etc.

[ChadTower]

It should also be noted that in at least my area of the US you can't build a house with 18 or 24 between studs.  It has to be 16 or less.

[Level42]

And to make you real sick Level42, I can go buy an 18'x12' shed that looks like a house, have it delivered and leveled - all for about $3k. 

Oh, and no permits needed at all.

I can get prefab sheds here for a lot cheaper as well. And also no permit needed. You also get a concrete floor for it ?
This is custom so it's more expensive. And the floor consists quite a bit too.

[shardian]

Ahh, I didn't know if you all were allowed those sheds or not there.

Chad, it depends on who you buy them from. you will get raped on a shed from Home Depot/Lowes, and the quality will be low. They use 24" O/C studs.

I got quotes from an independent shed builder locally. His prices were much better, and he used 16" OC walls.

[FrizzleFried]

It should also be noted that in at least my area of the US you can't build a house with 18 or 24 between studs.  It has to be 16 or less.

Where do you live Chad?  I've heard of 18" or less (1.5') but never 16" or less...strange measurement.

Edit: nevermind...I am guessing when I say 18" I mean 16" because I've not accounted for the width of the stud itself...

[ChadTower]

Where do you live Chad?  I've heard of 18" or less (1.5') but never 16" or less...strange measurement.

Edit: nevermind...I am guessing when I say 18" I mean 16" because I've not accounted for the width of the stud itself...

Here they're built 16" on center, which is 16" from the center of one member to the center of the next. 

Shardian, I got mine from a custom shed builder, who had the walls prefabbed when they arrived but built the floor and roof on site.  Studs in there are 16" OC just like the house.  It's the 10x12 vinyl gambrel priced here from these guys.  Looking at this I'm actually a bit surprised, I'd have thought the price would be higher than $3k now based on the way inflation has been.  It's actually a little building you could live in if you insulated it.  Your quotes are pretty good if they're quoting you that big a shed at that price.

[patrickl]

I don't think there is any rule here about the center to center (we call it heart to heart) distance. Usually it's somewhere between 16" and 24" though.
They calculate the wood thickness according to how far you space the beams. Smaller distance means smaller beams.

[Level42]

I don't think there is any rule here about the center to center (we call it heart to heart) distance. Usually it's somewhere between 16" and 24" though.
They calculate the wood thickness according to how far you space the beams. Smaller distance means smaller beams.

Just talked about it with a friend who studies to become an architect and that was the very thing he mentioned, the distance depends on the thickness of the beams. Which sounds pretty logical.

Anyway, the sturdier, the better because it will house quite a value

[Neverending Project]

O and I put a plan of it in one of the first postings of this thread:
... pic removed ...

No pinballs? What about your Getaway?

[Level42]

Don't look at the "cabs" inside that drawing. Was just to get an idea about sizes etc.

Yes of course the Getaway will come in there.

[Ummon]

From what I've seen, it's usually 12 to 16" space, and the length of the cross section is the factor - so 2x10 or 12 or maybe 16. For main supports in areas, they'll pull out the 4-bys on up.

[Loafmeister]

Looks great but I can't have my wife see this, she'll want me to have one and move all my stuff from MY basement to outside in a shed!

Anyway, around here we don't often see a flat roof. Are these common over where you live? The idea behind our "pointy" alternative is because of all the #$%@%$@ snow we get 

[patrickl]

Looks great but I can't have my wife see this, she'll want me to have one and move all my stuff from MY basement to outside in a shed!

Anyway, around here we don't often see a flat roof. Are these common over where you live? The idea behind our "pointy" alternative is because of all the #$%@%$@ snow we get 

We don't get much snow in the Netherlands, but still that's also a reason why these constructions are designed a bit more sturdy than you would think it needs to be. It has to be able to carry a load of snow.

[Level42]

Looks great but I can't have my wife see this, she'll want me to have one and move all my stuff from MY basement to outside in a shed!

Anyway, around here we don't often see a flat roof. Are these common over where you live? The idea behind our "pointy" alternative is because of all the #$%@%$@ snow we get 

We don't get much snow in the Netherlands, but still that's also a reason why these constructions are designed a bit more sturdy than you would think it needs to be. It has to be able to carry a load of snow.

For sheds they're common but the prefab sheds often have pointy roofs. There are also plenty of houses that have flat roofs (my first house had a "flat" roof). There's always a slight slope because of letting run the water off of course.

My uncle and aunt live in Massachusetts and I've seen pictures of what amounts of snow they get sometimes. Believe me, we don't get those amounts ever. Still, you need some overdimensioning to be on the safe side. Maybe we build sturdier ? I've always wondered how a concrete constructed home would survive a hurricane like you have in some parts of the US.

[Blanka]

We calculate for a weather ballast of around 500 kg/m2. That should be sufficient for even the worst snow possible here. And in many regions in the Netherlands there's also a big wind force considered in the calculations. These can be negative too! Guess mr. Level42 will need most construction steel in the foundation  though

[Level42]

Talked with the guys this morning and they quickly solved the "mystery". The beams are only 30cm. apart because the Keralit requires to be mounted every 30 cm.

If it would have been a wooden cladding, they would have used a lot fewer beams and more space between them.

[ChadTower]

I've always wondered how a concrete constructed home would survive a hurricane like you have in some parts of the US.

They often don't.  With a hurricane the object is to have the superstructure remain intact but the roof/siding/etc aren't really designed to stay on.  It's more economical to let the superficial parts rip off and then replace them.  The real danger from hurricanes isn't always the wind, it's the flooding that often comes with them, as you saw in New Orleans and you see all the time in Florida.  No construction technique is going to save a house from 10' of water.

[Level42]

Was home early today.....and they're finished !





The roof is done as well:


The doors will be painted in the same color red as the doors of my home. That will give a nice "break" to the overall grey look...

I'm quite pleased with the color we chose. It looks nice and at least isn't "trying to be wood".

Now it's my turn. Need to install the electricity than they can finish the inside with isolation and inside walls.....

[Blanka]

Nice minimalist box! It looks more deep on the picture from above than on the plan. Did your back-neighbours build the same volume against yours?

[FrizzleFried]

Is the roof complete?  What is the materials being used?  While the photo above gives the appearance of a "canvas" type roof,  I am sure that isn't the case?   How does the rain/snow drain?  The prior building appeared to be a simple lean-to type building with an angled roof...this doesn't appear to be angled plus there seems to be about a 3" lip around the top of the roof.  I assume there is a drain?

[ChadTower]

I'm assuming the roof isn't done yet and he means the walls.

[Blanka]

That's just a normal bitumen-roof (sort of asphalt sheets). It is finished. The drain is the thing on the left, the pipe it should connect too is not there yet.

[Level42]

Nice minimalist box! It looks more deep on the picture from above than on the plan. Did your back-neighbours build the same volume against yours?

Yes indeed. They had built it before me.

[Level42]

That's just a normal bitumen-roof (sort of asphalt sheets). It is finished. The drain is the thing on the left, the pipe it should connect too is not there yet.

Yup ! The water runs of towards the frontside because the roof is slightly sloped. There's no need for a really big angle.

I'm amazed you guys don't know this type of roofing. The stuff comes in rolls. It's rolled out and they are overlapping. Then the bitumen is melted by using a torch. This is the most common way of roofing flat roofs overhere.

[Blanka]

Did you annexate the back alley with the sheds?

[Level42]

Is the roof complete?  What is the materials being used?  While the photo above gives the appearance of a "canvas" type roof,  I am sure that isn't the case?   How does the rain/snow drain?  The prior building appeared to be a simple lean-to type building with an angled roof...this doesn't appear to be angled plus there seems to be about a 3" lip around the top of the roof.  I assume there is a drain?

You can see the holes of the drains on my neighbors roof (he has two, left and right) in his "front lip"....

[Level42]

Did you annexate the back alley with the sheds?

Oh, no no, there's no back alley behind my property or my back neighbors. To the right of my new shed, that neighbor also does not have a back alley, actually the alley for the other homes ends at his garden/yard.

Even in het Nederlands: Het brandpad loopt dus tot en met de tuin van mijn buren aan de rechterkant van mijn huis. Zoals je hebt kunnen zien heb ik een hoekwoning en wij kunnen dus in de tuin komen langs het huis. Scheelt weer een paar meter   Dit soort brandgangen voorkomt doorloop en inbrekers zijn er ook niet gek op dat ze maar 1 kant uit kunnen vluchten....)

[shilmover]

Even in het Nederlands: Het brandpad loopt dus tot en met de tuin van mijn buren aan de rechterkant van mijn huis. Zoals je hebt kunnen zien heb ik een hoekwoning en wij kunnen dus in de tuin komen langs het huis. Scheelt weer een paar meter   Dit soort brandgangen voorkomt doorloop en inbrekers zijn er ook niet gek op dat ze maar 1 kant uit kunnen vluchten....)

Easy for you to say!   

[Kevin Mullins]

Hehe ... yeah them burglars would get back in there and be caught playing games....
 

[ChadTower]

That roof definitely would not work here in MA.  Our roofs have to bear a lot of weight and have steeper angles.  Gotta watch your step around the soffits in March or you could end up with a huge blob of melting snow on your head.

[Kevin Mullins]

I see that style roof mostly on commercial buildings and such.
Definitely check the seams periodically after winter and whatnot. The seams may lift if any water gets under there just a bit and then freezes. (the power of mother nature) Should be great for awhile, but will require some maintenance or better yet preventive measures like sealing the seams periodically. Not like every year or anything, but something to keep in mind maybe.

[Level42]

Don't worry, if a professional guy does the roofing, it's leak-free guaranteed for at least 10 years.
But indeed, it won't last for eternity. Then again, nothing does....

Did you Babelfish the Dutch Kevin ? I just did and it's always a good laugh what Engrish it comes up with 

[HaRuMaN]

Engrish, yes, but at least you can get the gist...

[Kevin Mullins]

Did you Babelfish the Dutch Kevin ? I just did and it's always a good laugh what Engrish it comes up with 

eh ... My lovely assistant  interpreted for me.

[Ummon]

There's actually a type of composite roofing of, I think, metal and rubber or something that isn't extraordinarily expensive that's guaranteed for 40 years and supposed to last a hundred. It comes in sheets that sort of lock together similar to siding, and are nailed in place, and locks out moisture. As well, I bet there are basic construction methods that would defy water and many things - but with anything it is still 'it has to break as no turnover would mean no generation of income for many', though this WILL change in the coming decades.

[orion]

It's been eight days and no updates!  A lot can happen in eight days.....

[Level42]

It's been eight days and no updates!  A lot can happen in eight days.....

I do apologize. It basically comes down to having no time for it

Tomorrow ! I got ALL day tomorrow ! I love ya' tomorrow, you're only a day away !....

Electricity is what we need !

I've been puzzling on how to do the wiring.  I first thought about using the wireless remote control things you stick into a wall-outlet. But they have too many drawbacks: - not 100% reliable, they stick out of the wall too much, need for remote controls that get lost and loose battery power. I also thought about a clever set-up with relays controlled by 24V that switch the mains (230VAC) power. But that would be too clumsy.
So, now I decided to get two (or three) of these:



They have Euro plugs on the backside:


The box can handle plenty of power (in total and per output) and it has a fuse to boot !

I will wire up three-conductor wire to each output and lead those through the roof and the walls. Install wall-outlet boxes:


and a wall-outlet inside:


So, every wall-outlet will have it's own switch. I will have 16 (or 24) switches/walloutlets. I can also wire up the neons and other lighting this way. Probably the most compact way to have so many mains switches together at one point.

[Neverending Project]

Why spare any expense now? Flush-mount a touch-screen in the wall connected to a very inexpensive computer (also hidden). Plug in a Pac-Drive or LED-Wiz and connect each of the outputs to a relay, which are in turn wired to the outlets for each arcade machine. Install a front-end on the PC with a custom game list and a nice marquee and snapshot of each of your games. And then instead of launching MAME, the front-end would simply tell the pac-drive to turn the game on.

Can't you see it? You just walk into your arcade, swipe your finger a couple of times, and your games come to life! Bonus points for having the touch-screen also control the sound system and HVAC. It's so simlpe, why haven't you done it already? 

[Level42]

 

I prefer to spend the money that would be required for a system like that on something like.......uhhhhmmmm, a Joust cab ? 

[orion]

I don't know if you have anything similar in Europe but I use this product.

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=70591-334-274W-SP-L&lpage=none

Of course it won't provide you a central location to turn off and on your games from, but it is simple and cheap. I do like your solution, it's rather clever. Oh and thanks for the updates! I have been a long time lurker and enjoying your posts for a few years now... you always provide so much detail, keep up the good work! 

[Level42]

Yeah we have similar set-ups here too (although not common), but I want to mount the wall-outlets pretty close to the floor. Also it would be hard to reach between the cabs (IF I have enough space to leave any room between them !) to flick the switch. Also, lots of machines have the power switch on the lower back so impossible to reach. So that's why I was looking for a way to centrally switch the cabs.

Thanks for your kind words. I sometimes feel I'm "over doing" it but I enjoy it as well and I always hope there are "lurkers" like you who follow the threads. I think the hit numbers indicate that quite a number of people enjoy reading it

[ChadTower]

I use the remote control outlets he mentioned and they are pretty good.  I haven't had any issues.  They allow you to turn games on with a remote 3 at a time.  For the most part you really don't want to turn more than that on at once to avoid a massive powerup spike that will cause your shed to accelerate to 88mph and come out of hyperspace looking at not a moon but a space station.

[orion]

Yeah we have similar set-ups here too (although not common), but I want to mount the wall-outlets pretty close to the floor. Also it would be hard to reach between the cabs (IF I have enough space to leave any room between them !) to flick the switch. Also, lots of machines have the power switch on the lower back so impossible to reach. So that's why I was looking for a way to centrally switch the cabs.

Thanks for your kind words. I sometimes feel I'm "over doing" it but I enjoy it as well and I always hope there are "lurkers" like you who follow the threads. I think the hit numbers indicate that quite a number of people enjoy reading it

I wish I had the dilemma of having so many cabs that I had to build a space for them and then find a way to centrally switch them on, because I didn't have the room to reach behind them to switch them on. I don't think you need to ever worry about overdoing it. The more information and the more detail you give, the easier time people have with their projects. You do a phenomenal job of documenting even the smallest details. I really have enjoyed following your Galaxian thread for instance. I do wonder though how do you find the time to do all the projects that you do and document them to the level of detail that you do. I mean you must be one of those people that just never sleeps!

[orion]

I use the remote control outlets he mentioned and they are pretty good.  I haven't had any issues.  They allow you to turn games on with a remote 3 at a time.  For the most part you really don't want to turn more than that on at once to avoid a massive powerup spike that will cause your shed to accelerate to 88mph and come out of hyperspace looking at not a moon but a space station.

That's a good point.

[Blanka]

Or combine a Bluetooth Arduino with an 220V relay shield and use your iPhone to browse and fire-up your cabs.

[Level42]

Yeah, well, I'll stick to good old fashioned copper wire. 100% reliable.

But holy f........: Today I've pulled 200 meters of it !!!  Man does that stuff add up if you have to lay it in "star" configuration !

Bought a 100 meter roll first and went through it in no-time (Started with the wall-outlets that are the furthest away from the switches). So had to go back and hope they had a second role, which they did.

€ 132,- just for the wire ! 

O well.....

I really want to turn on my games individually. Energy costs are a major factor here and I don't see the costs coming down in the long term (despite the current dip). I can only play one game at a time myself. If there's more people I can always turn all of them on, or a number.

[patrickl]

Don't these things have a switch on the top of the cab? Or use an extension cord with a switch that you lay on top?

[orion]

It always seems that everything is always twice as expensive as you think it is.  Copper is very pricey these days.

[Level42]

Patrick: Yes some cabs do but most of them have the switch on the lower bottom side on the back. There's no way to reach it if you put the cabs next to each-other. That extension cord idea could have worked, but I wanted to be able to switch them in a central place (right next to the entry).

Orion, you're right, that goes for about any project I think. But then I always calculate in overhead costs like this.

[Ummon]

Patrick: Yes some cabs do but most of them have the switch on the lower bottom side on the back. There's no way to reach it if you put the cabs next to each-other. That extension cord idea could have worked, but I wanted to be able to switch them in a central place (right next to the entry).

And have a professional-looking job.

[orion]

Patrick: Yes some cabs do but most of them have the switch on the lower bottom side on the back. There's no way to reach it if you put the cabs next to each-other. That extension cord idea could have worked, but I wanted to be able to switch them in a central place (right next to the entry).

Orion, you're right, that goes for about any project I think. But then I always calculate in overhead costs like this.

Well in that case it should only run you 25% more that originally thought.

[Luigi]

I always hope there are "lurkers" like you who follow the threads.

Here! 


We did the same central thing in our gameroom:




We wanted to have one switch per cab but meanwhile we have some cabs that power up together (not more than two)....especially in the middle of the room where the wires come from the ceiling.....and YES, copper is very expensive these days 

[Franco B]

There is something strangely satisfying about turning on a bank of switches, even more so in that case!

Loving the build by the way Level42, its gonna be awesome 

[andy p]

Fantastic work mate.

It's really starting to take shape.

[Level42]

Thanks guys ! I still have to install some wiring, for the fire and burglar alarm and for the "shed" section (fluorescent light and wall outlets.) but I hope to start isolating the walls tomorrow (still have one job before x-mas which I hope to finish in 1 day instead of the planned 2 days.....).

Franco, you're right about that, it will be a very nice feeling to switch them on one by one 

I think the company I ordered the switches is out of them, because normally they would deliver them within 2 days but I haven't received anything, and the site says they're now only available from 5-1-2009 
Maybe I got the last three they had in stock, I will give them a call....

[Blanka]

Order some switches like this (or any of the 700 other rocker switches):
http://nl.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=5287858#header
Way cheaper and smaller than outlet-size switches.
Use the money you save to have a nice aluminium front plate cnc-ed that houses all the illuminated rocker switches and shows the names of all the games with nice engraving.

[Level42]

I already payed for the 19" rack switchers..... 

The site showed they were in stock when I ordered, but I bet they didn't have three of them. I called today and the lady confirmed that they can be sent out on 5-1-2009 earliest.
Still in time, but I would have prefered to have them installed before installing the wall panels.

Speaking of that:
Worked REALLY hard today (Not, mostly waiting on the installlers to re-route fire-alarm cables). Did the programming and testing for about 70 smoke detectors and slow-whoops and was done for monday and tuesday, so I'm free to work on my gameroom tomorrow:

My dad will come over to help me. First thing we'll need to get the isolation and plasterboards for the walls and install them...

[polaris]

andre i hope i don't seem rude, i think you mean insulation for the walls , or when you say isolate are you talking about the electrics?
 

[Level42]

andre i hope i don't seem rude, i think you mean insulation for the walls , or when you say isolate are you talking about the electrics?
 

Not rude at all, but you're absolutely right. In Dutch, the word for both isolation and insulation is "isolatie" so that caused my mix-up. Yes, insulation it is (rockwool)


Blanka, I PMed you about RS. Can you order there ? Looks like you need to be a company to order there...

[polaris]

it was a while ago but a friend just made up a business name and registered it with RS and they were happy with that, call it Andreco or something, he called his DanCo and just used his personal bank account to pay , hmm or maybe it was cash in person, but he definitely just made a company name up to open an account

[Level42]

I'd need a chamber of commerce number, and you can bet they'll check it.


Anyway, the insulation went pretty well today. Lost a lot of time getting the stuff from the DIY center. Had to rent a mini van to move all the stuff. Glad my dad helped out today. We're almost ready but we ran out of insulation plates. That is to say, three packs of them serve as the "table" for the plasterboards so I can't reach them. No problem, I will first install a lot of the plasterboards tomorrow.

Pics:
Insulation (and three more packs inside the gameroom). Expensive stuff, but will earn itself back easily and make it comfy:


Thought I had found a smart way to keep the plasterboards off the ground.....heheh :S:


Dad cutting the rockwool. I hate this stuff, I'm itchy all over....:


Done:


Need to get some moisture-resisting foil tomorrow to put over the isolation, before I install the plaster boards.

To keep me motivated, I played a couple of games on my new Joust cab. Today I received Jrok's multi-Williams PCB and it rocks ! Check out the Joust thread under Restorations....

[polaris]

nice, its coming along well.
you may be over the rs thing, but i've been looking over their uk site. i reckon if you had a friendly boss you could just use his business name but pay with your credit card, id try this in person if they had a nearby trade counter.
just say yeah i work for these guys but i pay and claim my expenses back etc.

[ChadTower]

Awesome.  And just the other day my wife said to me "someday we are going to the Netherlands."

 

[orion]

I'm impressed with how much you have gotten done in just a little over a month... you guys work quick!

[Level42]

Awesome.  And just the other day my wife said to me "someday we are going to the Netherlands."

 

Well, if that really happens, you know you're most welcome !

Thanks Orion. Well the professional guys had two weeks time for the construction (but finished two days early). I'm doing the inside stuff myself because that's relatively easy and it also is nice to have the feeling to have build at least some of it myself. I'm going a bit slower than a pro would because it's all a first time for me and I tend to look at least twice before I do something (so it's right straight away). It's a great feeling to see the progress and I can't wait to get the neon's that I've stored for so long and install them and also of course to gather all my cabs back and roll them in.....goal is to be finished half January.

[Level42]

Polaris (and Blanka), I found this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSAA:US:11&Item=290264121439

5 pounds for 10 of those connectors. OK they're not angled, but I can live with that. Since the pound is almost equal to the euro now, this is one sweet deal. Incl. shipping about 25 euro's for 30 plugs = 0,83 cents per plug. That's a much better price than the over 4 euro _per plug_ I've seen at other places (f.i. Conrad: http://www.conrad.nl/goto.php?artikel=612596

Even RS prices are much higher, although already a lot cheaper than Conrad.

[Level42]

Picked up a roll of the foil this morning.  Also bought me a nice air-pressure tacker. I was planning on getting a hand-tacker just for the foil and would be using screws to fix the plasterboard but the air pressure tacker was about as expensive as a good hand tacker, and since I bought the compressor some time ago already....so now I could also tack the plasterboards.

Didn't regret it for a second, works very quickly !

The moisture-resistant foil installed:


Plasterboards installed one two walls:




Still have to install the plasterboard on the longest wall. Also will need to insulate the wall between the gameroom and the shed and the shed itself.

Think it's coming along pretty quickly, not, it's time for X-mas !

[polaris]

haha  i didnt even realise what you wanted from rs, i thought you just wanted to buy from them in general.
i'm pretty sure i can (cough) 'find' you angled iec plugs from work , ill look into it.

[Level42]

Ha, yeah, I didn't actually mention that. Well I figured I'd look at their site since I needed a cheaper source for those connectors. I wasn't planning on paying over 100 euro on a handfull (24) of connectors

That would be great, but in all honesty I just ordered them Sometimes I'm too impatient !

[polaris]

you can always upgrade, i dont plan on paying a lot for them if i get them  , ill wrap them in your t shirt if my mate ever ---smurfing--- remembers it.

[orion]

Awesome.  And just the other day my wife said to me "someday we are going to the Netherlands."

 

Well, if that really happens, you know you're most welcome !

Thanks Orion. Well the professional guys had two weeks time for the construction (but finished two days early). I'm doing the inside stuff myself because that's relatively easy and it also is nice to have the feeling to have build at least some of it myself. I'm going a bit slower than a pro would because it's all a first time for me and I tend to look at least twice before I do something (so it's right straight away). It's a great feeling to see the progress and I can't wait to get the neon's that I've stored for so long and install them and also of course to gather all my cabs back and roll them in.....goal is to be finished half January.

I don't know, judging by your last pics at the rate your going you might be done by next week!  The only thing that might give you headaches as a newbie is mudding your drywall (plasterboard as you call it  ) It's really hard to make it look flawless. Its all technique....unfortunately I totally lack at it myself.

[Level42]

Haha, well plasterboard was what Babelfish come up with when I translated the Dutch word (Gipsplaat) for them.

So what's mudding ? I think it means what we call "stucen", but I'm _not_ going to do that. That is pro's stuff.

Actually, it doesn't have to be _that_ perfect. I'm planning on just painting it. My brother in law (who is a boss in the construction business) painfully pointed me out that I had chosen the wrong kind of drywall for the walls. These are the one's that you use when you want to put "stucwerk" on it (that is the concrete kind of stuff). That's why the are a bit shallower near the ends. Hey, those are the mistakes you make when you're a no-no at construction work. Anyway, I will simply paint the walls and live with the "edges". The games will cover the walls for 80% so I can definitly live with it

[patrickl]

Finishing the edges should be doable. You can scrape it straight along the plates on either side.

[Level42]

Googled around a bit and found out what mudding means.

Stucen = plaster:


I'm not going to plaster, I've tried it once. Not for me.

[RobinHolland]

Looks Great !!! 

[orion]

Over here in the US when we do drywall work, what we do is simply tape and mud the seems and the screw holes.  Thats why they have the indentations in them on the edges. What they are doing in the video is skim coating the entire wall. Sounds like what you got was a product just for that. I remember reading your friend Darth Nuno's (is that how you spell it) post over on Dragons lair, about the building of his game room and if I am remembering this correctly, he was using some sort of membrane on the walls. I remember thinking that it was different as we don't have anything quite like that over here. Perhaps you could just put a little mud along the seems and then apply that membrane to the walls. Just a thought.

[Level42]

OK we're maybe mixing up a couple of things here.

First MUDDING: yes, sometimes (maybe most of the times) people here do that too. However, if you choose drywall with rounded edges, people sometimes choose to leave the seems as they are. They just mud the screw holes (or as in my case, tack holes). This is mostly used on ceilings. In small(er) rooms, you can use one drywall panel for the entire width. If not, you can round of the "top and bottom" edges to get a seem there too.

Like this (but of course the screw holes are still unmudded here):


If you choose to mud the seems it looks like this:


To accomplish that you need to put some glassfiber "tape" on the seems to enforce them and then mud.

It's a matter of taste and/or laziness.

However, if you choose for that, you need to select the drywall with the rounded edges. They don't get flatter at the ends, like the one's I accidently bought.

Those one's are meant for PLASTERING. So, after you finished the drywall, the _entire_  wall gets plastered like that guy is doing on that youtube video.. Don't really see a reason to do that, but I bet there are good reasons.

Then there's the "membrame" you mention that DarhNuno used. This stuff is glassfiber "wallpaper". Wish you could read the text here, but the pictures also tell something about it:

http://www.behangenschilderwerk.nl/glasvezelbehang.htm

This is (was) originally often used on rather poorly finished walls. The glassfiber hides and enforces cracks etc.
The stuff is colorless, but has a pattern, usually a mesh pattern, but as the link shows there's many more. After putting it up the walls it can be painted with any color. The pattren gives a more "warm" feeling compared to a wall that's been directly painted. It's also strong and durable.

Here's a pic of DarthNuno's finished wall:


As you can see here (http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=32.msg325#msg325) Darh first mudded the seems and then applied the glassfiber "wallpaper". I don't think you would get away with applying it directly over the seems.

This glassfiber "wallpaper" has become very very popular here the last couple of years because it's pretty easy to do and gives a very tight looking result.

Ahhh, hope that's all clear, it's not often that I experience a language barrier in English, but this thread is pretty hard on that. Tried my best !

[orion]

OK I understand, and I didn't mean to cause any confusion, please forgive me!  That's interesting that people sometimes leave the seems unfinished in the Netherlands, you will never see that over here.


"To accomplish that you need to put some glassfiber "tape" on the seems to enforce them and then mud."

Yep, same technique over here.


"Darh first mudded the seems and then applied the glassfiber "wallpaper". I don't think you would get away with applying it directly over the seems."

Yes that's what I was suggesting, I really liked the effect that provided him... it looks really nice, and it looks very easy to do! I really like that product!


As far as plastering the entire wall, the reason people do is sometimes simply aesthetics. It's a more finished higher end look and the wall just feels more solid. Sometimes people do it if their entire wall is totally shot, but it's a lot easier to simply slap up another sheet of drywall. In some older buildings over here, they used what they called a plaster and lath and the skim coating mimics that to a degree. For this reason, it's necessary to skim coat the walls in older homes so that new work matches the old.

[Kevin Mullins]

And then there's "popcorn".   

(ok, just ignore me)

Looking good Level42 !! 

[Level42]

OK I understand, and I didn't mean to cause any confusion, please forgive me! 

Don't worry my friend, I was just trying to sort things out so we all understand what we meant I too got confused, hey construction isn't my every day job so it's fun to discover some new territory

I must admit that I really enjoy(ed) working on it because you see it "growing" to the finished result. Today is second x-mas day here (yes we celebrate two of them ) so I won't be doing anything. We're going to see Madagascar 2 today and the in-laws will be having dinner here.
But my company is closed until jan 5 so I have plenty of days to work on it. There's another good thing: Lot's of stores start sales here on 2nd x-mas day and the days after it. So tomorrow we'll be looking for a nice floor with a good rebate. I much regret that I won't be getting any of that great black-light carpet, but I simply can't justify the cost. Also carpet wouldn't be very practical since I will be walking through the yard and stepping right inside so I'd get lots of dirty feet in there with guests etc. (can't expect them to take off their shoes all the time).
I'm looking for some nice vinyl that still has a flashy look that would fit the arcade theme. Already seen one but want to see if there are more options.

To be continued......and thanks Kevin !

[patrickl]

To accomplish that you need to put some glassfiber "tape" on the seems to enforce them and then mud.

You cannot put glassfiber tape on the rounded plasterboards if you don't plaster the whole wall/ceiling (or put something like thick wallpaper on top). If you do then the tape will show through. Instead you simply fill it with "seem filler" (like Knauf Uniflott). This is enforced with fibers to prevent cracking.

The plates you bought are not meant specifically for plastering the whole wall. Those plates (called "stucplaten") are brown and they have a special paper cover that is ready for plastering. Regular A plates (like you have) need primer before you can put plaster on them.

The regular A plates come in different edge types. I guess you either have rounded angled edges (HRAK) or straight angled edges (AK). If they are rounded you can simply fill them with seem filler, if not then indeed you would need to use glassfiber tape to enforce the seem if you want to fill it up. Either way you don't need to plaster the whole wall and only filling the seems it's not difficult at all. On the other hand, just painting it is a lot less work 

[ChadTower]

I love the word gipsplaat.  That is so You Can't Do That On Television.     

[Ummon]

Hey, that was a show wasn't it?  Wow, distant memory.

[Kevin Mullins]

Today is second x-mas day here (yes we celebrate two of them ) so I won't be doing anything. We're going to see Madagascar 2 today and the in-laws will be having dinner here.
But my company is closed until jan 5 so I have plenty of days to work on it. There's another good thing: Lot's of stores start sales here on 2nd x-mas day and the days after it.

Bit off topic -
My girlfriend and I were just talking about all of that and I must say I'm envious.
There's alot of traditions and such overseas I wish the US would pick up on.
Should see lots of good progress on your gameroom with all that extra time. 

[Level42]

Yeah Kev, but remember, we live like rats here.......

Did I already mention I dropped the idea of the SW photowallpaper ? I figured that there were too many drawbacks:
- the machine(s) would cover most part of it
- it will draw away the attention from the cockpit itself too much, which obviously is the "star" here....

I will be painting the wall darkish blue and install the blue neon there plus the great SW-Atari poster that I already had printed.

So now I'm planning on getting the DK blik wall vinyl art for the other "short wall". I found blik has a distributor in the UK which is a good thing for us EU people. Saves on shipping and more important on custom duties and VAT. With the great Euro-UKP rate at this moment it's cheaper for me to buy from them.

http://www.supernice.co.uk/product.php/216/96/donkey-kong

Nice:


Think I will wait with the order until the machines are in the room, that way I can see how many packages I need. The paint has to dry very well (3 weeks) before I can intall the decals anyway so that's no problem.

Well, off to the stores. Found a chain-store for floors offering 40% off today


Patrick: Thanks for setting that straight. As you can see I'm a no-no at this stuff. Knowing myself I probably will be ending up going for the perfect finish anyway.....

[patrickl]

Patrick: Thanks for setting that straight. As you can see I'm a no-no at this stuff. Knowing myself I probably will be ending up going for the perfect finish anyway.....

Well since I'm still fixing my new house I'm knee deep in this kind of mess too   I only used the water proof (green) plasterboards in the batroom though. For the rest I went with Ytong blocks and glass blocks. Just put one of these Ytong walls up and I'm now facing the daunting task of putting plaster on it

BTW you might know this (but it was new to me when they told me) you need to put primer (voorstrijk) on these plasterboards before you put any finish on them (painting, wallpaper, plaster, tiles).

[Level42]

BTW you might know this (but it was new to me when they told me) you need to put primer (voorstrijk) on these plasterboards before you put any finish on them (painting, wallpaper, plaster, tiles).

Yup, actually it's "Diepgrond", just picked up a bucket full of it

We also have a winner on the vinyl. Not bought at any of the stores with lots of discounts, but I saw this at Hornbach when I was getting all the wall materials there and instantly liked it:



Sorry about the poor GSM picture, it's actually really black with white stripes. Not as colorful as I wished for, but it fits the arcade theme IMHO.

[patrickl]

BTW you might know this (but it was new to me when they told me) you need to put primer (voorstrijk) on these plasterboards before you put any finish on them (painting, wallpaper, plaster, tiles).

Yup, actually it's "Diepgrond", just picked up a bucket full of it

Actually, "Diepgrond" is for fixing walls that are loose (caulk or dust comes off). It glues the material of the wall together. "Voorstrijk" is for countering the water absorption. That should have been good enough for plasterboards. but then I guess diepgrond would work fine too. Just sounds more expensive. Plasterboard is not as bad (aborbant) as regular plaster anyway.

I guess you also need something different for whatever you want to put on.

We also have a winner on the vinyl.

Look arcady yes. Although I think the arcades I went to had some sort of "muddy tiles with cigarette bun motif" on the floor    What's with the price though? Is that 40 euro per m2?

[Level42]

So why is it I keep buying the wrong stuff. Yes "diepgrond" is pretty expensive. I read somewhere that that was what would be needed......ahhh well, will swap it ASAP.

No, no not 40 per m2 but per "strekkende meter" so per 4 meter wide. I needed 5,5 m so you can do the calculation.....

O, and they were out of muddy tiles with cigarette burn motif   

[patrickl]

So why is it I keep buying the wrong stuff. Yes "diepgrond" is pretty expensive. I read somewhere that that was what would be needed......ahhh well, will swap it ASAP.

Well you need another primer for every application. It might be that you have the right product. I just thought that diepgrond was for loose plaster walls. The primer you use has to fit with the material you put it on (gipsplaten are not very absorbant) and with the material you want to put on it.  In my bathroom we used some pinkish primer, for the toilet I think it was blueish and on the (plastered) walls I used latex primer. It's astonishing how many different options they have for everything. My "father in law" helped, but he's from Bulgaria so he knew what he needed, but not which brand/type. So we had to go through all the available options to figure out if it was what he was looking for.

If you simply paint it you might get actually away with painting a layer with diluted paint that first. In my case I calculated that voorstrijk as actually cheaper than thinning the paint, but then I wanted it white. In your case you want it dark blue so using a thinned paint might actually be cheaper than buying a spedial primer (it might save you an extra layer). Some paints claim they don't even need primer at all, but I don't trust that. If it dries quicker in some spots than in others you can tell and then you have to put on an extra layer.

[Kevin Mullins]

Yeah Kev, but remember, we live like rats here.......

Oh please .... I know better than that.

BTW - That flooring you chose should look pretty sweet. I like the more simplistic black/white color scheme. For the amount space you're covering it will work well and not distract from the actual machines.

[Level42]

Hehe, thanks for the photo-shopping Kev....

[ChadTower]

Most of the flooring is going to be covered in games, anyway, and it will be dark in there.

[polaris]

Most of the flooring is going to be covered in games,

and cigarette butts when i visit, but dont worry i wont just drop them on the floor, i'll rest them on the control panels when i play the games

[Level42]

Most of the flooring is going to be covered in games,

and cigarette butts when i visit, but dont worry i wont just drop them on the floor, i'll rest them on the control panels when i play the games

If you bring that 24" iMac for me I'll allow you to smoke in the gameroom . And you'll be the one and only ever

[Level42]

Last update for 2008:

Yesterday was a BAD day. Everything that could go wrong went wrong and at the end of the day it felt we had done just about nothing.....then to top it all, I missed the deal of the century (20 classic cabs amongst them a LOT of Nintendo's in one deal for less than €2000, I just don't have the space for a lot like that, what a shame.....)

Anyway this is how it is now. walls are done except for the separating wall. The ceiling is done, but three drywall plates still have to be installed. Got special plans with two of them which require a lot of patient work.....

Insulation is almost complete, also in the shed part.

Pics:

Had to get and install a lot of extra wood for the ceiling as the logs that carry the roof were not exactly spaced for the drywall. Also they need support every 30 cm so that was lots of work extra.





HV supply for the blue neon on the "Star Wars" wall (bought from the US, cheap AND 230V, also completely electronic so energy efficient and constant brightness):


The other HV supply for the red noen on the "Donkey Kong" wall. Also wires for the main (halogene) lighting. Will be used only for working on the cabs etc. More wires for fire alarm (red) and lots of power....

[FrizzleFried]

Not sure if you mentioned this,  but I don't think so.

What are you doing for cooling/heat?  Portable AC/Heater?

[Level42]

Good question, I had some ideas but wasn't sure until a week or two ago. A neighbor couple of doors away is a plumber and central heating installer, and I asked him about the best way to do it. (And he will install it)

Electrical heating would be way too expensive in energy costs. Heating air is always a poor idea compared to radiated heating. Over here in the Netherlands the vast majority of homes have gas powered heating, connected to the gas distribution lines across the country. (there was a really large natural gas supply discovered in the 50's and since then this kind of heating has become "standard" here.) The system has a central heater that heats water which is pumped through the radiators throughout the house. (Sorry if this is obvious, just wanted to explain it).

There will be a radiator installed in the gameroom part and connected to the main central heating in my home. The pipes will run 60 cm. deep in the ground of the yard to prevent them from freezing in wintertime. The pipes will be the modern flexible ("plastic") kind that is fully insulated, apparently there are special pipes for this.

The radiator will have it's own thermostat so I can regulate the heat there. There's only one drawback:
The central clock-thermostat decides if the heater will be fired. That means the gameroom can only be at full heat when the home is also heated, so whenever we're not working etc. Since that will be the case in 99% of the time, it's really no problem. The central thermostat is always at a minimum temperature of 16 degr. celcius so the there will always be a temperature in the gameroom (just like in my home) that is comfortable for the machines, so no damp air etc.

Hope that explains it.

About AC: usually summers are not that hot here. Temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius are exceptions (although the last years we had some pretty hot summers). I hope the roof insulation (which is on the top, so preventing heat from the roof) and the wall insulation will keep temperatures reasonable.

[Blanka]

I visited Bruno's gameroom, and he heats it with.... well.... cabinets 
Pretty comfy even with -5 outside.

[ChadTower]

About AC: usually summers are not that hot here.

Running 20 cabs in a small enclosed space has a way of changing that.

[Level42]

Yep. But 20 won't fit in there. My guess is 15-16 max.(Remember I have two cockpits and one pinball too.....) Apart from that, won't be running all of them at once all of the time.

On the other side, when it's over the 30's, playing the games/working on them is not on top of my list

[FrizzleFried]

Consider a portable A/C for those hot times...you can roll it around as necessary and keep it in storage aside from the days you use it.

[Level42]

Yeah, that's what I thought, I can always buy one of those. Or install a small fixed unit.

Today I will be creating the "star light roof"....wish me luck, this will be tedious...

[patrickl]

Yeah, that's what I thought, I can always buy one of those. Or install a small fixed unit.

Today I will be creating the "star light roof"....wish me luck, this will be tedious...

Oh cool, the ceiling with little lights you mean? My GF will be so jealous. She likes to go through the carwash with me just because it has a star ceiling at the end

[Level42]

Yup. Thought it would be cool to see it from the SW cockpit

Of course she's always welcome here to see the "star-light" effect (And you too of course  )

[Level42]

First almost completed the separating wall today. Couldn't finish it completely because I'm still waiting for the switch boxes. Damn Conrad said it would be delivered within 2 days and I ordered them dec. 13 !!!! Not a single mail or call from then about the status. Site now says delivery from jan 7 !! 

DO NOT BUY AT WWW.CONRAD.NL ! 

Mailed them today that I want my money back NOW and guess what, NO reply....wow, surprising. 
So far for German "grundlichkeit"......

O well, also worked on the star-lights....

First painted two drywall plates black (remind me to clean my camera lense !):



Carefully layed out the exact pattern of the stars as seen from Alderaan (when it still existed):


Let's see if I got it right:


Drill the holes at the right places:


Install the LED's from the back. At this point I didn't think about the center of the board, where the middle support will be........that meant some changing of LED places and "digging" some slots to get the wire and LEDs out of the way of the center. Else the board would not be tight against the middle support.......O well, we keep learning all the time right ?


So how to fix the LED's ? Well Glue gun of course !


Hard to get a good picture....it looks great in real-life.


I gave it a second layer of paint after this. I installed the LED's so they were still _inside_ the board and not sticking out. This way the paint was not going over the LED's. Some holes did get filled a bit, but actually that's a nice effect as it made some "stars" look smaller/further away than others.

I had to cut the wire to be able to spread the LEDs over two boards. There would be NO way to mount the two boards at once....Will add some extra wire to bridge.

Will mount the boards tomorrow.

[Level42]

My dad helped again today to mount the starlight boards....

The first one went without any problems. I had made a support to keep the board up. I had cut the wiring so we could install the two boards individually and made a bridging wiring to re-connect them once installed.

We held up the second board and I was reconnecting the bridging wire when disaster struck.....somehow the support came loose and we dropped the board....it broke across. I guess you could have learned a couple of nice bad Dutch words from me when that happened. Luckily not all of the paper went through.

I didn't feel much like preparing another board like this one so we decided to take our chances and still install the board. It actually went surprisingly well. The break fitted like a jig-saw puzzle and I could reconnect the wiring and install the boards without much trouble. Of course there were some cracks in the paper top layer. We glued them and will mud and sand them. Will have to mud the tacks anyway so that's not a big thing. I'm pretty sure it will turn out fine in the end.

Tested the lights and to my relief, they still worked !

And of course it will require one more layer of black paint.



It's freaking hard to get a good picture of it, it looks much more impressive in real life



All the tack holes in the walls are mudded, I applied the glassfiber tape so I'm ready to do the mudding of the seams on the walls. The ceiling will keep the seams, I don't mind them at all. Got all unnecessary stuff out of the room and cleaned up all the tools and stuff so we have plenty of room to do the mudding and sanding.

[patrickl]

That's quite cool 

BTW Indeed swear words tend to fly when I'm DIY-ing too. When my "father in law" was here and he heard me say "kut" a lot, he thought I was expressing that I was impressed with my work (he speaks some German and though I said "gut").

[Darth Nuno]

Looks nice 

I've visited the Atarimania game room in the past, and he has done a similar work.

Too bad I only have two pictures (very poor quality) of his game room but you can see a part of the thing 



I don't remember exactly, but I would say he didn't use plaster boards like you, but a kind of 'tight' or 'taut' ceiling ?
Anyway, I remember it was very impressive !

He also used lights inserted in the floor, like in the theaters ->



Good job so far André   

[Level42]

Thanks Bruno. It's weird. When the starlights are off, the black is really "coming at you" and gives a feeling like the ceiling is very low. However when the stars are on it gives a really roomy feel   (Or should I say "spacey")

Closed all the seams in the walls today. Yes, I'd decided to do it properly while I'm at it now. No way to "fix" it later. Also filled a couple of thousand (?) tack-holes, which is especially fun overhead....

I never minded painting, but the long and tedious process of preparing the subject takes away all the fun....

Sorry no pics today. The lamp that I had lend from my dad burned out and I thought it was a good time to quit for the day.
So, getting a new bulb will be the first thing tomorrow. That plus some dustmasks since sanding is next on the list ....... hooray !!!   

[orion]

Closed all the seams in the walls today. Yes, I'd decided to do it properly while I'm at it now. No way to "fix" it later. Also filled a couple of thousand (?) tack-holes, which is especially fun overhead....

I kinda had a feeling you would do just that!  That star field is really cool! 

[Level42]

Thanks, yeah I figured I'd do it now or never.
Seams in the ceiling stay though....

So today was a lot of fun. Sanding, sanding and some more sanding. I looked like one of those guys from Home Alone after a while.

So how did the starlight sky look after mudding and sanding ? Like a POS:



However, it already looks a lot better now, gave it another layer of black paint and it came out nice. Bad thing was that my son walked up there and asked why I left some of the staples in there......those are the extremely rare times that you want to kick a six year old's butt, bet then again, he _was_ right. Due to the blackness I missed quite a few of the tackholes on the black part while mudding.....ahhhhh...Why don't they make black mudding-stuff........anyway I didn't take a picture of how it looks now, but it's close to perfect.

Walls after mudding and sanding...





Now, I am in doubt. I don't think I did the mudding nice enough to paint the dryboards directly. There are some holes and "slots" in the mudding that are going to be irritating I think when it's painted. So I guess I will go with the glassfiber-wallpaper thing. Will make it look tight, classy and will hide those little bad parts in the mudding. Also it will enforce the wall which is always a good thing.

I just applied a kind of primer on the dryboards so they won't suck up all the glue.

Got a SMS from the store that my vinyl is ready to be picked up (although I have no clue how I'm going to get a 4x5.5 m piece of vinyl in my car....... :S

Also, I'm not ready for it yet.

Mains plugs for the 19" switchboards arrived from the UK.

Ordered one set of Donkey Kong wall-art from Supernice in the UK.

Now if only I'd get those damn switchboxes.....

[FrizzleFried]

I'd simply texture the walls and go from there.

[Level42]

Texture ? Like something like this:



or

this:

[Neverending Project]

Here in the US, walls are typically textured using either an "Orange Peel" texture, or one called "Knockdown". Orange Peel tends to look like the skin of an orange, and knockdown has larger areas of flattened texture. Both are very common on interior walls here.

Orange peel can be done by a novice (e.g. me) relatively easily with a sprayer from a hardware store, but I believe knockdown requires a little bit more experience to get it looking good.

[Blanka]

My 2 cents: just paint it white. No glassfiber wallpaper, no structure, just white paint. That still looks the best!

[patrickl]

Weren't you going to paint the walls dark blue? If you sanded the spots smooth enough it shouldn't be visible after painting. Shine a light along the wall and you'll quickly see any imperfections that need to be sanded or filled.

I simply painted my (plastered) walls too and I think it looks fine. Took us days of sanding and filling and sanding again etc etc. Sure, spachtelputz or something like that is prettier, but that costs a fortune and there is no way you can get that done yourself. Most of the walls will be covered anyway (either with cabs or posters).

[Level42]

White ? It's not going to be a dentists room......

Yes blue(ish) and red will be the colors. One wall will be black to host the DK art.

I'm sick and tired of sanding and filling and mudding and stuff so I figured the glassfiber would be a good option. Cheap, quick but still tight looking.

Spachtelputz etc. are absolutely out of the question, waste of money as 3/4 of the walls will be covered by cabs anyway (guess mostly I'll only see the top 1/4).


I haven't made up my mind about the color for the rest of the ceiling. How about Pac Man yellow

[FrizzleFried]

Yes..."orange peel" is the way to go.  You can buy cans of it from the local hardware store and it's pretty easy to apply...

[patrickl]

Low light levels and dark paint are going to hide a whole lot of imperfections.

[Blanka]

Blue, sure, I wanted to suggest that, only I saw Jan des Bouvrie passing by so I wrote White 
I can give you the number of the best blue in the market. It's from Praxis, and it covers on gypsum in 1 layer perfectly, even when its not smoother than smooth. Its close to RAL 5017, but I'll post the Praxis number soon.

[Level42]

Frizz how is "orange peel" applied, I guess using a foam roller ?

If so, I think we call it structuurverf (structure paint).

[orion]

"Now, I am in doubt. I don't think I did the mudding nice enough to paint the dryboards directly. There are some holes and "slots" in the mudding that are going to be irritating I think when it's painted. So I guess I will go with the glassfiber-wallpaper thing. Will make it look tight, classy and will hide those little bad parts in the mudding. Also it will enforce the wall which is always a good thing."

Hehe.... you are definitely learning all about the joys of construction... see what I mean about making that stuff look good. I can't do it myself, lucky for me though my father in law used to hang drywall for a living and is always willing to help me with that when I need it done.

"I'm sick and tired of sanding and filling and mudding and stuff so I figured the glassfiber would be a good option. Cheap, quick but still tight looking."

You know where I stand on that issue.... the way to go for sure!!!!!! You could do the "orange peel" technique, but its still not as easy to apply, nor will it look as nice as that glassfiber wallpaper... plus it can be kind of messy. You also have to rent the sprayer, mix the junk up and then clean the sprayer out before returning it to the hardware store... I say just slap that wallpaper stuff up there and be done with it and then treat yourself to a few brewskies for a job well done!

[orion]

Another thing you could try is to apply the primer with a very thick nap roller, and then use a flat paint as your final coat. This will give the wall a bit of a texture and hide a lot of the imperfections in the wall. I do this myself sometimes.... by far the cheapest and easiest thing you could try, and you will have more time and money left over for brewskies.

[Darth Nuno]

Orange & Dark Blue 



...the DK Jr & Tron colors 

 

[Kevin Mullins]

You could do the "orange peel" technique, but its still not as easy to apply,

The paint that was mentioned for the orange peel effect does it by design.
In other words...... all you have to do is "paint". (like with a roller)
The peel effect happens on it's own.

But it's still just a matter of choice.
It definitely can be a pain to get drywall prepped enough for just straight paint.

[Level42]

Just picked up the glassfiber and paints.  Blue (purplish ) and deep red. Super Mario World sky-blue for the rest of the ceiling   and the blackest black for the "DK" wall.

The paints are semi-gloss (except the ceiling and DK wall.

I'll be forced to do the "DK" wall without the glassfiber though.....I asked about the vinyl decals and they said it wouldn't hold on the glassfiber structure.

[orion]

"The paint that was mentioned for the orange peel effect does it by design"

I was thinking of something else then, I didn't think they were referring to a type of paint.

[Ummon]

Thanks Bruno. It's weird. When the starlights are off, the black is really "coming at you" and gives a feeling like the ceiling is very low. However when the stars are on it gives a really roomy feel   (Or should I say "spacey")

It's interesting....most people I've talked with have said dark colors seem bordering, enclosing to them, whereas white or light colors are the opposite. I feel quite the reverse, as light colors are boundary defining, and dark colors provide a depth I can sink into.


Plaster: um, couldn't you just wet sand it to smooth it out?

DK wall and decals: um, glue. Maybe even better, try that gummy stuff they use for temporarily sealing laminated advertisements that come in the mail. That ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is great.

[FrizzleFried]

Frizz how is "orange peel" applied, I guess using a foam roller ?

If so, I think we call it structuurverf (structure paint).

It's sprayed on usually. 

[Level42]

Frizz how is "orange peel" applied, I guess using a foam roller ?

If so, I think we call it structuurverf (structure paint).

It's sprayed on usually. 

I see, yeah we know that stuff overhere.

Anyway, I had some second thoughts about the colors and returned them and traded them in for PAC MAN YELLOW !!!!



Must say the damn stuff doesn't cover very well.

[polaris]

excellent, that yellow will be a nice backdrop for the cabs and neons, looking sweet, when's the opening party?

[patrickl]

Lol, you even added the dots and powerpills to complete the "pacman" theme 

[Kevin Mullins]

Frizz how is "orange peel" applied, I guess using a foam roller ?

If so, I think we call it structuurverf (structure paint).

It's sprayed on usually. 

I see, yeah we know that stuff overhere.

Ah... I must be thinking of something else and mis-read the earlier information given.
Sorry bout' the confusion.

Level42.... guess you'll just have to tear it all down and start over.
(kidding of course)
The yellow will look good, but I am surprised it didn't cover better than that even for a first coat.

[patrickl]

The yellow will look good, but I am surprised it didn't cover better than that even for a first coat.

I was assuming it's the primer.

[Level42]

It is

Not sure primer is the correct word. This is the el-cheapo thin stuff you roll on a surface that is still "open" and thus would suck in all the expensive paint if you'd apply the first layer directly on it. In this case, not the paint but the "glassfiber wallpaper glue".

Even if I wanted, you can't return any specially mixed paints.

Haha, I didn't even think about the dots and pills 

Polaris, opening....soon ! The "official" opening will be in spring-time I guess though. Can't handle that much people in the room so we need to get the rest of the shed and the yard/garden in a decent state as well (so we can do some beer drinking there).

I have to get my Meteor and Konami GT cockpit out of it's current storage place before jan 15 since they're going to tear the flats and the little storage places that belong to them down. The other cabs that I brought from the old shed to a friend's garage will have to return before jan 30 because they will start reconstruction works on their house and garage. It was/is actually good to have a dead-line like that. Keeps you going....

Still to do:
- glassfiber wallpaper
- paint everything
- install all wall sockets, mount the connectors for the switchboxes and install those.
- Install fire and burglar alarm detectors and neons
- clear the floor completely
- put a top layer on the floor that makes it a nice finished and flat floor (can't walk over it for at least a day IIRC)
- pick up and install the vinyl on the floor (that worries me most, never done that before ! How the hell do you handle a 4x5.5 m piece of vinyl. I'm already worried if it'll fit in my car.....

Took days off from work next week and I'll work on it tonight and tomorrow night too. Guess that should be plenty of time to get all it all done, including getting all the cabs inside. I need to plan how I will arrange the cabs in there....

Heating also still has to be installed but that's not that much work inside the room itself.(just mounting the radiator, very short pipe work) and my neighbor will do it. Trouble is that we are currently in a freezing cold period like we haven't seen for 10 years and so digging 60cm. deep is out of the question.....of course this would happen to me because it also is always extremely hot when I do these kind of jobs around the house in the summer-time. Note to myself: next gameroom construction => Plan in spring !

[Kevin Mullins]

Anyway, I had some second thoughts about the colors and returned them and traded them in for PAC MAN YELLOW !!!!

Must say the damn stuff doesn't cover very well.

Phew.... glad to hear that's just a primer. (was a bit concerned)
And over that will go some of the glassfiber wallpaper ? After glue....

Gonna be sharp I'm sure.

[Level42]

Yep, you roll the glue directly on the walls and then roll down the glassfiber, cut it off on the bottom and press it (with a rubber roller) to the wall. It's adviced to do a second layer of glue over the wallpaper after the first one has dried. Then paint.

About the vinyl: guess this is how it'll look:




That's Darth Nuno picking up the carpet for his gameroom Can't believe you drove 76 km like that and not get a fine my friend (Hope I'll be OK, it's only a couple of KM's to the Hornbach for me).

[Level42]

Ahhhhh.......finaly I've got the power switch boxes !

Not from the bloody www.conrad.nl company though !

I had sent them an angry e-mail three days ago and no reply. So I checked the site again and the delivery date for the boxes was now jan 27 !!!! (it had gone from being on stock when ordered, to delivery jan 5, jan 7 and now jan 27 !)

I had enough of it all so I grabbed the phone and called them (at 10 €cent per minute  ) did my complaint about getting not a single e-mail about the delay of the order, no reply to my complaint mail etc. This is a pretty big company in Germany and Holland and they've existed for years (post-order before the internet) and I can't imagine they have a lousy ordering system like that....

Anyway, I said I canceled the order and wanted my money back and I was relieved that the guy said he would actually do that....

Next it was hunting the internet again for the boxes. After some long searching (those boxes are one of those products that are sold under a lot of brand names, while still being the same product) and nobody having 3 of them in stock, I finally ended at Correct, a consumer audio/video etc. store that is quite close to me. They had them listed on their site but I wanted them NOW, so I called, yes they had 3 on stock, order placed and half an hour later picked them up..........why hadn't I thought of them in the first place 

Did 3/4 of the glassfiber "wallpaper" tonight. It is quite easy to work on this indeed !

My little helper tonight, rolling the glue

[Level42]

Scanned the color samples...

[Ummon]

Oooooooo. Violet.

[Level42]

Yeah.......that's the problem choosing colors at night in a fluorescent lit DIY store...........it was meant to be a bit more blue really.....I wanted blue with a hint of purple....

Ah, what the hell, it's going to be my little arcade, it HAS to be tacky
I'd never dream of coloring a ceiling but it's fun to go a bit nuts now

Finished the glassfiber today and put a second layer of glue on top. Bit strange, the woman in the store said I didn't have enough glue so I picked up another bucket of 10 liters, but I haven't even used half of the first bucket !?!?! I guess the primer did it's work of sealing the boards well.... ?

Since I had the switchboxes now I was able to make the wood construction for that part of the wall that was still unfinished:



The lower wood board will carry all the electrical connection boxes and stuff, will be installed and reachable from the shed part.



Looking at it now, I should have put a second support to the right of the boxes and shift the whole thing left a bit so it would have been in the middle of the board. Could have cut out the hole for the switches and install one full board. Ah well, it's a done thing now and through mudding and glassfiber, you're not going to see it anyway

[Blanka]

Ah! Rocker switches. Can you post a close-up of the panel?

[Level42]

Yeah, I'll take a close-up today. Will put some edging around them to hide the drywall imperfections.

About them, or more precisely about the connectors I got from the UK:

They suck.

Big time.

Your typical Chinese peace of crap.

They don't have ANY approval on them and I soon discovered why. They are SO poorly constructed, it's impossible to connect the wires ! I won't use them because I'm not looking for a fire.....and I'll e-mail the seller. I can't imagine that it's even allowed to sell these things without the regular European signs of approval (Kema, VDS, you name them).

Well, that's what you get when you want to go the cheapest way possible. Another lesson learned....

[fixedpigs]

Well, that's what you get when you want to go the cheapest way possible. Another lesson learned....

you haven't ever learned that lesson earlier in life...

[Level42]

Well, that's what you get when you want to go the cheapest way possible. Another lesson learned....

you haven't ever learned that lesson earlier in life...

Probably did but I still find it hard to understand that I have to pay €97,50 for the three boxes and €80,- for the (25) connectors.....Remember that there are 24 female connectors inside those boxes plus 24 switches and the boxes themselves and a cable and a fuse......and the boxes _are_ approved quality...

But you're right, I should have known better....

Anyway. Did the last mudding (the boards around the switchboxes) and completely cleared the room of tools, stuff and dust and dirt. First applied one layer of the light blue stuff on the ceiling. It covered very nicely but will need a 2nd layer.
Don't have the time to wait for that so I did the two walls with the blue/purple/violet color. It really paints very easily on that glassfiber stuff. However, some parts were apparantly not glued well enough and came loose a bit  Especially near the edges. And I _did_ a last check for those spots yesterday. The problem with the glue is that it's white colored but it looses it's color when you start rolling it, so you can easily miss spots.

I hope it's possible to add some glue at those spots after the paint has dried....

Blanka asked for a close up of the switch boxes:


Nice to be able to get all the materials and tools out, ready for painting !:


Believe me, it looks better in real life. (Especially in dark-arcade "lighting"). Camera had a hard time focusing.





Ceiling. More blue in real life, but again, in darker conditions, color gets less clear to see.


Everything was only the first layer and still not completely dried.

[Level42]

I ordered the connectors at RS online. Blanka, do they send the bill to the shipping address or to the company address ?

It amazes me they deliver on bill right away !

[Level42]

Just received a full refund for those cheap connectors (incl. shipping) from the seller plus an e-mail explaining that they source these connectors from a large company with distribution all over the EC and asked if they could forward my e-mail to them. I hope they discontinue carrying those connectors as they can easily lead to shorts or maybe even fire.

At least, a very decent seller there.

[Blanka]

I don't know what they do with the bill, in my case both addresses are the same. RS really amazes me. Even 10 resistors for 31 cents arrive next day without starting fee Guess they better start demanding a minimum order for free delivery. Its so different then Farnell. One component could only be ordered with them if I ordered 15000 items of it. RS sells most by the single piece. Really amazing service.

[Ummon]

Hey, I love violet. Purple, and it's range of hue, is one of my favorites.

[richms]

Are the connectors supposed to be for direct wire attachment? I had some that were just screws so no way to connect a wire to it, but they were supposed to have a spade or ring terminal crimped onto the wire and then that attach into the terminal. Seemed a waste to me since they could have just made the pins crimpable but that's electrical designers for you...

[Level42]

I don't think any "designer" was around when these were "created". I'll taks some pics of them to show how bad they are, they made me think about the Chinese Wico-copy joystick.

But yes, you're probably right, the only way to mount any wires to them would be using spades (very small one's). But I'm not going to.

[Neverending Project]

Still looking great here. And I just wanted to say that I am really enjoying following this thread. Thanks! 

[Level42]

Thanks Neverending Project (how appropriate ) ! I guess the hit-number on this thread says a lot but it's always nice to get a compliment like that

I re-glued the parts of the glassfiber that came loose. The "good" thing about when there are loose parts is that the paint won't fill the holes in the woven pattern. So, I simply took some glue in my hand and smeared it over the entire spots, rubbing it in really well so that it got "behind" the fibers.

Let it dry and what I expected happened, the glue was invisible after drying. Applied a 2nd layer of latex and it looks TIGHT now. All in all I'm actually really pleased with this color.

Got an e-mail from Supernice in London and they told me that the Blik DK decals will work fine on the glassfiber (but of course it would show the structure a bit). Sounded like they had experience with it so I decided to apply glassfiber to the "DK wall" too (the one with the switchboxes).

Incidentally the DK decals were just delivered a couple hours earlier The look GREAT.

Instructions tell me to wait 2 weeks before applying them on fresh paint though so it'll take some time. No problem, want to see how I arrange the cabs so I can make a nice arrangement.

I picked up the vinyl today and instead of the equalizing concrete I picked up two sets of "underlayment floor", those green tiles. The concrete is quite flat and these will level it enough for the vinyl. Saves a lot of hassle, and it's also insulating.

Also bought the edging and stuff.....pics later.....

Now off the paint the last wall (red-first layer).

[Level42]

1st layer black applied on the "DK" wall. Not enough paint, needs a 2nd layer and will be looking great then.

2nd layer of red applied and I can still see through the mudding spots etc........and I have a feeling a 3rd layer won't improve it much. 

No time for that though.

Painted the top edges (MDF, covered them with some glassfiber too, sort of born out of the fact that I didn't feel like going to the DIY store to get some primer for them.....but turned out to be a good idea).

Instead of using the equalizing concrete I had bought two packs of those green tiles you can put on the floor. They equalize the floor good enough as the concrete was pretty flat already.

I dragged the vinyl inside but there's no way I can install it on my own (damaged the paint on one wall a bit trying to) so I'll have to find someone who can help.

However, I had to pick up the Meteor and the Konami GT cockpit. The whole area of buildings where they were stored will be torn down very soon and my young friend had to leave the house before jan 15.

All in all, I guess those two cabs have had the poorest storing conditions of all my cabs. The last couple of weeks it has been freezing here but the last couple of days it's above 0 again. When I stepped into the little shed I was shocked to see that the tiles, walls and indeed the cabs were VERY humid. So I was glad to be able to get them out of there. The Konami GT already is not in the best of conditions.

The Meteor is now safe in my kitchen (wife loves me) and it looks like it survived very well. Glad I didn't leave the game PCB in there though....

Glad I had some help (look at the nice scenery):



Don't have a pic of the GT loaded. I thought the thing had wheels like the SW cockpit, but it didn't. Luckily it's not that heavy and the guys simply carried it from the shed to the car. It's good to have some young muscle to help Because I had them around now, I figured it was a good idea to pick up another cab at another storag at another friend.....





Safe in their new home, beauty...:


...and the beast

[orion]

I just have to say that those cabs look great in their new home!  You are really doing a great job, as I said before, I'm really impressed!

"2nd layer of red applied and I can still see through the mudding spots etc........and I have a feeling a 3rd layer won't improve it much"

I don't know anything about that glass fiber product than what you have said about it, but it sounds like it needs a coat of primer. Tint the primer red and then you should only need one coat of paint (two max) on top of that.... I'm sure you know this, just trying to offer a helpful suggestion.

[xar256]

I did a red wall in my bedroom.  After using tinted primer, it took about 5-6 coats to look good.  Red is apparently one of the worst colors for covering.  Using a good quality paint will help, but even that will only get you so far.   

[Level42]

Yeah, they already told me at the store red is a "difficult" color.....

Orion: Normally the glasfiber & latex should cover very well. The blue/purple wall took only 2 coatings to cover perfectly.


So............let me tell you where this project is right now.

Yesterday I decided to bring away a lot of the "debris" that I created during the project (since I still had borrowed the cart & car with "hook" (how do you guys call that, the thing to hook up the cart to)). Brought back the cart to my brother-in-law and by the time I got home I felt like a fever coming up. I guess the stress of the "deadline" and the fatigue of all the hard work the past weeks all came out at once. I slept a part of the afternoon, slept a part of the evening, took a hot bath and fell asleep like I hadn't slept all day, thinking a flue was getting hold on me.

However, this morning I felt great and no flue or tiredness. So, my dad had come to help on putting the vinyl in.

Well, I guess every project has it's little disasters/bad decisions, and boy was this a mistake.

We put in the vinyl pretty easy, it just takes two to make it doable. Cut the whole thing to fit and then it was time to roll the SW cockpit back inside and to it's spot. During doing this we discovered that the vinyl was really curling up everywhere. That wasn't so bad, we could pull it straight. However I felt that this was not going to work. If I'd ever have to take her out (to work on her) it would be a disaster. Even worse, something on the bottom of the cab had torn two cuts in the vinyl ! Not too big, but still 

All in all, the combination of the green soft foam like boards and the soft vinyl was a BAD mistake.
After cursing everything but mostly myself I decided to go for a rigorous different route:

Tiles.

I'd concluded that what I would need was something as hard and rigid as possible. Laminate is hard but still vulnerable. Tiles are pretty tough (although these also can get scratched of course.)

So, tomorrow it's out with the vinyl and the green boards. Costly mistake, and it _really_ sucked that this happened at the time I thought I was doing the last bits on the project....... 

I'm looking if the guys who built the room can maybe do the job of tiling. Gotta go back to work (hardly remember I had a job.....). I'm too sick and tired of it and we got the 2nd deadline of end of january for the Centi, Puck, Playscene, Galaxian and Getaway........

Also have to put the SW cockpit on the side to check what's wrong on the bottom side that cut the vinyl....

[Level42]

Well, put the lady on her side and soon discovered the cause of the tearing of the vinyl. As not everyone here has a SW cockpit: the machine has 4 wheels that can turn 360 degr. However, for fixed installation, it has 4 feet that should be extended before playing it. All feet were gone (or removed, except for one, that was broken off, so there was just the pin there. No wonder....

The bottom side looked surprisingly good by the way.

Bought some nice new black tiles and removed the vinyl and green tiles under it. Installed 8 of the IEC connectors. Didn't have much time today.

On a negtive side: the Meteor seems to have not survived transport. That is..... I had removed the board-set and stored it in an anti-static bag in my home to keep it safe.  I wanted to see if it was still OK so installed the set, checked all wires etc. and fired up the cab. The monitor and marquee light come up without a problem, but there's no game

As per Andy's suggestion (who masterfully repaired the board-set) I'd been replacing some sockets and caps on it while the cab was still in storage and maybe something went wrong. Gotta check that out....later.


Don't think I mentioned it, but the SW is working fine. I couldn't help but playing it for some time, cab in it's planned position. It was awesome to play at her new home

[Ummon]

Don't think I mentioned it, but the SW is working fine. I couldn't help but playing it for some time, cab in it's planned position. It was awesome to play at her new home

Hell, yeah.

[Blanka]

A working Star Wars cockpit 
I never learned to like the Star Wars movies (I'm a Trekkie), but I played the cockpit at Bruno in Belgium, and the game I have to say is fantastic. Best vector game ever I guess. Have fun with it! 

[Level42]

You haven't played it, until you played it on the real hardware my friend

Bruno did an amazing job on his cockpit, which he bought completely empty. I'm sure running it with a VGA monitor and that new vector optimized MAME will make the experience very close........but nothing beats playing it on the full 25 inches of Amplifone beauty.

I wonder how many of these are now working in Europe. I know there's at least one completely original (so with Amplifone) in the UK. My friend Luc's will be running again pretty soon (if I get the WG6100 converged).  Andreas in Germany has one completely disassembled but he now has all the parts (including a brand new mid-res CRT) to get it running which he plans doing this summer.

I wonder how many still have all the original boards (with matching serial numbers) and Amplifone PCBs and CRT in the world.......

P.S. Flue struck two days ago, getting better now.

[FrizzleFried]

Yes....authentic hardware + 25" Amplifone FTW!

[Level42]

Well. Since I had the flu this week (still not great) I figured to do something simple and not requiring much effort.

I had received the very nice Blik set of DK decals.


However, I thought it wouldn't be too handy to arrange the real decals on the wall without a plan.

So I printed this picture as large as possible on a A4 sheet:


and took some scissors:


Next, I needed to have a sheet the size of the wall. I measured the width of DK and compared it with the width of the real decal. That allowed me to calculate the right scale and thus how large the sheet needed to be. Had to tape two pieces of A4 together and fold one end back.

Then it was puzzling time. It will also depend on how I will put the machines of course. There will also be a heating radiator on this wall, but the size and shape is not decided yet.

Came up with these two "designs". The first is rather narrow and tries to get as many "levels" of girders.


Pretty easy to shift this design left or right. Main advantage is that the oil-barrel is there, I like it

These are the "left overs" with this design. There are some examples where more Mario's are put in on Blik's site, but somehow that feels wrong.



2nd option:

Tried to stick to the original as much as possible here. Put the oil-barrel in there, but I guess I wouldn't do that for real. Just leave the ladders hanging from the lower girder and that's it.
Really depends on the machines. I am thinking of putting the pinball alongside to this wall so it won't be so bad that the lower part is "empty". I also have to think about the switchboxes which are also on this wall  (to the right).

I also left a bit of room on the top as there wil be the red neon installed there.

Left overs:

I wonder why they put the umbrella and purse in this set, as those are not in the girder level...

The Blick decals are so that they can be re-arranged time and time again, but I doubt I will do that a lot.

This also gives an idea what you can do with a single set. If you want more, you'll need more sets.

[Level42]

By the way, the guy who built the structure will do the tiling next friday (30th). I can get the cabs here on sunday 1st from their current storage place.

In the mean time (when I get a bit better) I can work on finishing the wall-outlets and connectors on the switchboxes, all the other electrical stuff and put an extra layer of black and red on two walls.

[polaris]

should be all done by the 8th of march then?

[Level42]

O yeah, sure, the gameroom will be finished by then. Still will have to redo the yard at that time but that wouldn't stop a visit, as I presume you don't mention that date "just like that" ?

[polaris]

i think i'm in the Ahoy for two days from the 8th , close yes?

i found a neon sign thing today where you just buy letters/ numbers to make up a sign, could make a level42's gameroom sign

i'll find the link

EDIT found the link

[Level42]

i think i'm in the Ahoy for two days from the 8th , close yes?

i found a neon sign thing today where you just buy letters/ numbers to make up a sign, could make a level42's gameroom sign

i'll find the link

Close ? Talk about close ! The Ahoy' is "around the corner" from where I live (ok, let's say a 15 minute drive). Bring the SI mat plus the Mac 24", I'll arange all the beer !!

Who's gigging there that date ? Closest I see is Il Divo (march 11).

[polaris]

yeah i had a quick look on a map i can almost feel the yoke in my hands
i was gonna say i might as well just bring the mat with me, save the postage, im not bringing you the mac i'll just smoke outside the gameroom are you serious about the mac?

it is indeed il divo i obviously got the dates mixed up

[Spyridon]

Came up with these two "designs". The first is rather narrow and tries to get as many "levels" of girders.




2nd option:

Tried to stick to the original as much as possible here. Put the oil-barrel in there, but I guess I wouldn't do that for real. Just leave the ladders hanging from the lower girder and that's it.

I like the first option better as it gives you a sense of the whole board.  I think it depends on how much free wall space you have.  The second option will work best if you are just doing the top wall and will have games below it.

Either option you go with should look pretty cool.

[Level42]

Yeah, we'll see how the cabs turn out first. Did a 2nd layer of black on the wall and it looks tight !

Installed the blue neon tube, but I'm not entirely happy with it... Need a better way to mount it. But it's nice to be able to switch the star-lights and neon on and off with the switch box.

And the Star Wars.

[Level42]

Grumble.....tomorrow I will have to clear the floor of the gameroom so I will have to move the SW into the home for 24 hours, Mrs. Level 42 not happy with that, but I'm NOT going to leave it outside for that time.

Friday: Tiling

Saturday morning: move in the cabs !!!!


@Polaris, yes I'm serious, but gotta have a "go" from the Mrs..........

[Level42]

"DK" wall:



Almost there. Imagine black tiles on the floor, the top of the neon covered, the SW poster on the wall, and you get the picture....



Cleared the floor, the SW cockpit is in the living room now. Will move out the Konami GT cockpit early tomorrow.

Let the tiling begin !!!

[patrickl]

Nice progress. It's starting to look better and better.

[Level42]

Thanks Patrick.....yes the end is near

Or should I say, the beginning is near

Tiles:





Will need to clean the floor tomorrow. Have to keep the heater on all the time until tomorrow or else it will be too cold to dry well.....

[shilmover]

Nice work, my friend.  I am totally jealous!   

[Blanka]

Good busy! (loose translation from the Lullo's)
You even did one "plintje" yet. Those nasty pieces of wood are always delayed in construction projects.

[Level42]

Didn't do this myself...this was a professional tiler. He was ready in about half a day !

Wouldn't have been able to do that in that time, plus not as tight looking.....

Blanka, yeah that "plintje" was already there when I had the vinyl in place, and since I tacked it.... it's still there.

Bad thing is that the Konami GT cockpit is going to have to stay out for the night....and it's going to be freezing....o well, that cab wasn't much of a looker anyway....poor thing.....

[Blanka]

Maybe you can put him in a sleeping bag. And keep it out of the socket for 48 hours when you put it back inside. The cold machine will attract a lot of waterdamp back inside.

[Level42]

Haha, wel it's properly covered.

Actually, I have not ever plugged this one in yet !
It looks too scary inside

I did clean the PCB set (which works) before....but the monitor looks uhm.......

I wouldn't be surprised if it would work though.

[Level42]

Can't start young enough to teach the young padawans....

[youtube]http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=T2nluqIwhzw[/youtube]

[polaris]

amazing , you've taught them to speak ewok too

[Level42]

amazing , you've taught them to speak ewok too

Bwaahhhh, if we would have held on a little longer to New-Amsterdam, the whole world would talk Dutch now

Anyway, succesfully picked up the Puckman, Centi, Playscene, Galaxian and Getaway and they're inside now. Fired up the Galaxian, runs fine. Fired up the Centi, everything fine but monitor/tv not starting, seems like it doesn't get any mains power....will have to check that.
Didn't test the Playscene and the Puckman is as dead as it was before.

I didn't take any pictures because I was in an extreme rush to get it all done since I had another important thing to do in the afternoon, barely made it in time.

Star Wars lost left-right control, just after I heard a "tock" sound inside. Turns out the small gear had come loose, I hope I have the right imbus key to lock it again.

Anyway, plenty of work to do. Still need to get the red wall painted one more time, fix the mains sockets, get the edging installed around the floor/walls and put up the neon's and main lighting.

[Level42]

 

Ok, every project has it's ups and downs and this one hasn't been any different. I could live with me messing up with the wrong type of floor  and blowing some good money on it.

However. I was just installing my Neon game-room signs. I was pretty excited to finally get these down from the attick where they had been carefully stored for all the time I got them, patiently waiting to show them off.

I was in the flow (had just installed the remaining wall-outlets) and installed the pinball neon when my parents came around to see how the gameroom was coming along. Very nice, but it did break my flow.

So after some chatting and looking they left and I went on with the "Pac Man" neon sign. I was carefully handling it, but made a mistake and grabbed it at a wrong spot. I heart a dull snap and pop of the gas coming free. Bye bye neon !

 

100 euro's out the window. And not just that, but Patrick had been so kind to pick it up for me in Frankfurt and bring it to my home so many months ago......I'm sorry man. I feel totally sick by it.

I know compared to other things it might be just something minor, but I really could have slapped myself for ---smurfing--- up light that.

Damn !


On the positive side: I'm sure Luc still has some left......

[Mauzy]

Star Wars lost left-right control, just after I heard a "tock" sound inside. Turns out the small gear had come loose, I hope I have the right imbus key to lock it again.

Wow that confused me. Last night I read about this on your Star Wars cocktail thread, then today I saw this here. I had forgotten it was your machine I read about last night and thought something was very  weird about two different people's yokes falling apart at the same time in the same manner. Thought maybe a rip had occurred in the space/time continuum somewhere. 

[patrickl]

100 euro's out the window. And not just that, but Patrick had been so kind to pick it up for me in Frankfurt and bring it to my home so many months ago......I'm sorry man. I feel totally sick by it.

Holy cow! That's a shame. You're not getting mine

[Level42]

The good news is that Luc will bring (if he can find one) a new one to this fair which I will visit tomorrow:

http://www.collector-fantasies.com/en.html

 

So what does it look like now.....well like this:



"Main" lighting. Doesn't give as much light as I expected but it looks very nice. Might have these off or on during game play, we'll see...



Cabs are still in a random order. I think I will move the pinball to the left side of the SW cockpit (with the back against the short blue wall. That way the great SW marquee will still be visible and it will get my two biggest cabinets in the back of the room, which is nice for moving around cabs.

I do think it's safe to say now that I won't be able to fit all my cabs inside the room. Means I will have to let go of one or two......we'll see about that....


Finally time to install the brand new perspex canopy. It looks TIGHT ! (Check out my SW cockpit restoration thread):

[patrickl]

Oh wow, that's almost finished?

[Level42]

Oh wow, that's almost finished?

Yes sir, the room itself is almost finished. Need to install one set of wall outlets still because apparently I bought too few of them.... still need to install the red neon tube, smoke detector, DK decals and some nice finish around the power switches. Will roll in the MB and Meteor tomorrow. And the Joust of course !

Seeing al lthe things still needed to be done on the cabs themselves did make me feel a bit overwhelmed really. A good number is up and running but all but the Galaxian and Centipede still need some work in any way....

At least I will have the room and the cabs around to work on them

Question for people with game rooms: How do you pull a cab from a row ? Normally I put a cart at the back of the cab but can't do it when they're all next to eachother.

I think I've seen some kind of furniture movers that you can slide under a cabinet and the roll it away. I'd prefer that much compared to sliding the cabs (with often metal feet)......any suggestions ?

[Mauzy]

Question for people with game rooms: How do you pull a cab from a row ? Normally I put a cart at the back of the cab but can't do it when they're all next to eachother.

I think I've seen some kind of furniture movers that you can slide under a cabinet and the roll it away. I'd prefer that much compared to sliding the cabs (with often metal feet)......any suggestions ?

+1 for furniture sliders. Now that we have carpet, these things are a life saver. I actually have to take out the front two because the cab moves too easily while playing.

[Level42]

Do you have a pic of the one's you use ?

[Level42]

These are the one's I was thinking off.



Probably will need to equip all my cabs with feet to make it work though, some are on some wood strips..

[orion]

These are the type I see the most over here, they are really cheap and work great on the bottoms of leg levelers.

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=283822&cm_mmc=Froogle-_-Shopping%20Comp-_-Datafeed-_-Furniture

[Level42]

Cheap ? Well the problem with those is that I would have to equip each game with a set.....I'd need at least thirteen sets which makes over 200 bucks.....

I'm sure they are a good solution though. Thanks for the suggestion and thinking with me !

That set of movers I showed are €5.99 next saturday at Aldi...and I only need one set

[Kevin Mullins]

That set of movers I showed are €5.99 next saturday at Aldi...and I only need one set

So do those like slide under a cabinet and then raise it up a bit in order to move it ?
How much clearance is needed under a cabinet in order for those to fit?

[patrickl]

I wonder how those Aldi things will hold up. I see they are rated for 250kg, but that's "Aldi specs". Still for 6 euro you can give it a try.

[Level42]

Well, the worst thing that could happen is that they would "collapse" and make the cab "fall" a couple of centimeters. Usually Aldi stuff is not that bad.

A regular upright is about 100-120 kg. I think only my Playscene is reaching towards the 180 kg's.

[Level42]

Well, thanks to the unbelievable kindness of my friend Luc, I now have the proud "Pac Man" neon installed and working:





 

[patrickl]

Ha, cool. It's a shame they put so many metal parts on it though.

[Blanka]

Are the smurfs playing the Centipede? I won't fit behind the CP of that machine 

[Level42]

Ha, cool. It's a shame they put so many metal parts on it though.

Yeah, they're there to protect the neon tubes eh.... almost all of these kinds of neons have them. And it's not so noticeable in real circumstances, the flash brings it out much more than reality.

Blanka: The Centi's monitor (actually TV) is dead after it's time in storage. In the meantime (couple of months ago), I had found a G07 PCB set in Germany which I got for free (!) (OK, had to pick it up somewhere in the Ruhrgebiet, but I was very near the border for work anyway so could make a slight detour to pick it up )

Anyway, plan is to re-fit the G07 monitor. I couldn't adjust the TV as good as I liked and I tested the "new" PCB-set and it works...at least it gave a bright white screen (which I turned down quickly). Haven't connected the video signal itself yet, will have to change the wiring a bit again, since it was now on a SCART connector. Anyway, that's the reason why it's backwards, and it's probably not going to stay on that spot anyway......

[orion]

Cheap ? Well the problem with those is that I would have to equip each game with a set.....I'd need at least thirteen sets which makes over 200 bucks.....

I'm sure they are a good solution though. Thanks for the suggestion and thinking with me !

That set of movers I showed are €5.99 next saturday at Aldi...and I only need one set

Well yea I suppose that would be rather costly. Forgive me, for some reason I thought you were going to put those sliders you posted on all your cabs.... and to quote a line from Nacho Libre..... "They look...... expensive!"  (at 6 euros though I guess not so bad for a set) I still can't get over how someone who claims to have such a hard time finding cabs in your country can have so many! Your game room has turned out GREAT!!!! I love it dude!!! Good choice with the tile floor, that ought to hold up for years to come.

[Luigi]

Congrats André....your gameroom turned out very well 

What about some blacklight? I just installed 4x2 tubes in our room. At first I installed them horizontal....the light was good but it looked boring. So I decided to hang them with an angle and it's far better

[richms]

I had a similar one and it had a ugly piece of plexi on the front that attracted dust and smoke like a TVscreen so was always grotty - would be reluctant to modify it too much but I am sure come of that metal could be lost with no loss in its ability to hold the tubes.

[Level42]

Congrats André....your gameroom turned out very well 

What about some blacklight? I just installed 4x2 tubes in our room. At first I installed them horizontal....the light was good but it looked boring. So I decided to hang them with an angle and it's far better

Looks great Thorsten ! I thought about blacklight but I think I will have enough lighting with the 4 neon's, star-lights and halogen spots.  But you never know, might add it later !

Orion, yeah sorry, I wasn't clear about that the sliders can be used for all cabs. About finding cabs: well,  compared to the US it's a lot harder here, but sometimes it also has it's advantages. There are different cabs here and some are simply cheaper because there is less demand (like my SW cockpit ).

I'm _really_ happy with the tiles, espcecially now. There is still a lot of sand/dirt near the entry of the gameroom (will have to use the sand when we're going to work on the yard in spring) and it doesn't really matter now if I walk some sand in there. Simply brush it away are use some folding mob with a bit of soapy water. Even when it rains hard it's no problem to go in with wet shoes etc. When the DK stickers and neon are up there all (most) of the machines inside I will shoot a video and upload it. Thanks for the kind words and if you're ever in the area.....drop a message

[orion]

Orion, yeah sorry, I wasn't clear about that the sliders can be used for all cabs. About finding cabs: well,  compared to the US it's a lot harder here, but sometimes it also has it's advantages. There are different cabs here and some are simply cheaper because there is less demand (like my SW cockpit ).

I'm _really_ happy with the tiles, espcecially now. There is still a lot of sand/dirt near the entry of the gameroom (will have to use the sand when we're going to work on the yard in spring) and it doesn't really matter now if I walk some sand in there. Simply brush it away are use some folding mob with a bit of soapy water. Even when it rains hard it's no problem to go in with wet shoes etc. When the DK stickers and neon are up there all (most) of the machines inside I will shoot a video and upload it. Thanks for the kind words and if you're ever in the area.....drop a message

You know I wish I had the money to tile my entire house. Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate that.  If I ever get the funds and the time and over my fear of flying I might just look you up. My wife lived in Germany for several years and she has informed me that she's going to get me on a plane one day and were going (guess I'll just have to turn to ye ol liquid courage when that day comes! ) My great grandfather was an Italian immigrant, and I think it would be fun to one day go to the town he was from and see if I can track down relatives that I have never met or even heard of. I look forward to seeing the video of your finished product.

Edit: Forgive my rudeness... if your ever in the Charlotte NC area feel free to drop me a line as well (I know where you can find a Discs of Tron environmental in my area... like to see how you would get that home from here! )

[Luigi]

No updates since nine days....André, I hope you're ok?? 

[Level42]

I'm fine Thorsten, just swamped in work. Was on stand-by duty last weekend (and week) and I actually had to go out and work friday night and a good part of the sunday. That's normally very rare to happen. Didn't feel much like working on the gameroom either this week...don't know. Small motivation dip I guess.....

Ah well, the weekend is coming up and I really must get going on....

[Kevin Mullins]

Yeah, yeah.... we all know it's just like building a cabinet... once it's playable you can almost forget about finishing it because you're too busy playing it.

Seriously, things look like you have it all about ready to tidy up and finish it off.
Now get to work.... 

[Level42]

 

OK did some usefull work. Moved the Joust outside of the "shed" area. Cleaned it a bit, drilled out the lock of the coin door, removed and examined the monitor and tried another Hantarex in it, but that one seems to be completely dead.

Did some investigation on the monitors look here if interested:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=89744.msg942048#msg942048

Anyway, the Joust is in the gameroom now so I could move some bikes into the shed part (wife happy).

Also re-installed the G07 in the Centipede and it looks nice. Was great to be able to play a couple of games on Centi again.

[Lecithin]

 

Woah, thats awesome. I just started collecting and I can already see myself drifting towards having a dedicated room/structure like that. Simply amazing!

[Level42]

Thanks !




Ta-da !

[Ginsu Victim]

Reminds me of my addition to the gameroom.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=89006.msg937845#msg937845

Did you use photo paper? It looks like it.

[Level42]

Actually I ordered them from an on-line photo printing company (from a drugstore chain overhere). I used them before with the SW poster and I really liked the quality. It's Kodak paper. The Meteor is the best looking since I kindly received the full size scan from the guy who submitted it to the Arcade flyer archive.

My printer at home is an oldie by now (HP930) and not capable of producing this quality, plus I guess it would cost more in ink costs.

[patrickl]

Wow that's cool. Invasion of the mini arcade posters 

[cmoses]

Nice posters

Your son looks like "David" from "David after the dentist" youtube fame.

[mrclean]

"Is this real life" - David

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs[/youtube]

[Ginsu Victim]

Other than the moment when he gets up and screams, I'm not a big fan of this video. The kid's just putting on a show for the camera.

[Level42]

The kid's just putting on a show for the camera.

I don't think so. I've seen my son coming out of anaesthesia after surgery and I'm telling you it was _much_ worse than that.

I expected him to be sleepy and slowly waking. Instead he was full awake when we walked into the room and extremely angry at everything and everyone, I had to physically restrain him to keep him from throwing out his infusion and hurting himself. It was scary to see since he's normally a very steady and friendly little guy. It went away in about an hour but I hated to see him like that. He remembered nothing about it.

To get back on-topic: Today was the first day I had all the cabs that are now inside my room (and that work) powered up at once. Until now I had only one wall-out installed temporarely on the ground cable. Now installed a junction box and a 4-way wall-outlet so I could hook up all three power switches. It felt great to see and hear all the machines running at once

Already discovered that all the separate switches also have one disadvantage: it takes a while to switch them all on/off Maybe I should have one master switch .....naaahhh don't think so, I can live with it.

Didn't have much time today (nice to have a kid who started to play soccer, but it costs half the saturday....)
Weather reports are great for tomorrow (finally spring knocking at the door) so I hope to do some good work !

[Level42]

It's on like Donkey Kong !





Still had a number of decals left and I thought it was a shame to put these away:


Think I won't keep them on the red wall, doesn't really work. Will probably move to the blue wall.

The stuff really works easy. It feels sticky but you can get it off and on and off and on and....

One thing to not do: drop the decals on a dirty floor. Trust me.

The decals also sticked much better to the black wall (because it's a wall-paint) than on the red wall (which is latex-paint).

[patrickl]

Ha, that's cool. I like it on the red wall too. Maybe it doesn't stand out as much as on the black wall, but still.

[Level42]

Yeah...it's really sweet. Think I will move Mario a bit to the right. I had really wanted to use the jumping Mario, but he's jumping from left to right and that would look silly on the set-up I made. The switches are really a bit of a pain this time. I also wanted to keep the art up as much as possible because I'm planning to put some machines there of course....

The wall looks really grey because of the flash but it's much blacker in reality.

[cmoses]

Have you given any thought to putting a tinted piece of plexiglass over the switches with a hinge so that you can lift it to turn them on and off.  With it down it would help it blend into the wall better.

[Level42]

Hey that's a pretty good idea....got plenty of (used) tinted plexi around.....let's see if it's possible. Only problem is that it will require one extra hand to turn everything on/off.

I did think about painting black the fronts of the switches (the blue part). Still need to make a nice edge around it anyway...let's see what I can come up with.... thanks for the tip !

[Luigi]

I don't know how many fuses you installed but if your power all cabs on at the same time they drag a lot of current and the fuses might blow. We installed 60 separate switches in our gameroom to be able to turn every cab on and off if it's needed (or not). I really enjoy switching them on when we have a party....I then feel like I'm preparing a huuuge weapon to be used 

Maybe you can install a nice poster in a frame in front of the switches...with hinges so you can easily have access to the switches....so they would also be safe from unwanted fingers

[Level42]

I don't know how many fuses you installed but if your power all cabs on at the same time they drag a lot of current and the fuses might blow. We installed 60 separate switches in our gameroom to be able to turn every cab on and off if it's needed (or not). I really enjoy switching them on when we have a party....I then feel like I'm preparing a huuuge weapon to be used 

Maybe you can install a nice poster in a frame in front of the switches...with hinges so you can easily have access to the switches....so they would also be safe from unwanted fingers

Yeah it's like powering up the canon of the Death Star
(Actually, switching on the SW cockpit has the best surge sound effect, including the starting of the fans.)

Won't be switching them all on/off at once, the power surge was one of the reasons to go with so many switches. I calculated that if I'd run ALL my games in the room at once, it's still only about 1800 watts, which is well below the allowed 3200 watts per group. The lighting is all very power friendly, neons and led's don't use much only the halogenes will consume a little more, but those will be mostly off.

I have installed a dedicated group for the gameroom that has it's own separate power cable running to it. And no need for fuses, got a switch with automatic circuit breaker (or whatever those are called) incl. ground-fault.

To prevent unwanted fingers I installed the switches up high enough for only adults to reach. Putting a poster right there would look a bit funny now since the DK artwork is now "around" it. Guess I'll look at the plexi option first.

[Level42]

Officialy DONE !

Installed the red neon tube yesterday, and that was the last thing to do really.

Apart from installing heating and hanging the "flyers" that is, but there's time for that later.

Currently working to get as many machines running as possible.

Exchanged the monitor on the Joust and that looks MUCH better now, although still have to adjust colors and degauss it manually.

So far the up and running machines are:
SW, Joust (Muti-Williams),MB,MC,Centi,Galaxian. Most of them still require some work, mostly cosmetic.

Not working are the Getaway pinball (completely dead now, except for some LED's on the backpanel), Meteor, Puckman and Playscene Mame.

I will try to hook up an Asterloids board that I know is working to the Meteor.

The Puckman will be 48-in-1'ed. Monitor needs to be replaced. Can't get the CP open because of the totally rusted bolts. Will have to dremel the tops off.

The Mame cab....well......I can't find the damn keys !  But I know there was a software problem when I last turned it on (which is VERY long ago).

The Power Drift and SI are still in Belgium and the Konami GT cockpit......well......I think I will have to get rid of that one.......it will take too much space 

Tonight Polaris will be having a sneak-preview at the gameroom, as he's in the country for his work (doing the lighting for Il Divo concerts) so I'm really looking forward to meeting him ! If all is well he'll also have the Space Invaders doormat with him  

It's a good thing he's coming over, since I will have to clean-up the room and make it presentable. There's lots of tools, spare parts etc. all over now. I will make a "walk-through" video when everything is in a presentable shape

[patrickl]

Ha, nice work. That went quite quickly. Can't wait for the "Gameroom warming" party

[Kevin Mullins]

Officialy DONE !

Ha, it'll never be "done" .... who you trying to kid?

 

[Level42]

Damn, got me !

Red light district:



Without flash, represents the atmosphere better:




Polaris couldn't make it yesterday but I hope to meet him this afternoon.

[Level42]

Picked up Polaris at the Ahoy' Rotterdam where he was working on the lighting of the Il Divo gigs. Great guy, we had some great arcade talk (hope I didn't bore you James !).....

Spent some time at my home and of course the gameroom and there was enough time to have a couple of goes on all the working cabs....

Polaris also brought the Space Invaders doormat and he generously donated it as an extra decoration for the game room. Gotta find some batteries that fit for it....   Thank you very much James, as mentioned, you earned yourself a life-time of free-play

Couple of pics:

First play.....what else Taught James all about The Force


James having a go at Robotron and learning how much wacky Zaccaria joysticks suck for that game !




Again, it was very nice meeting you, glad we could both find some free time to meet and enjoy ! Hope to see you at InserCoin '09 !

[polaris]

hey andre
thanks for the visit, you certainly didn't bore me, it was cool to hear someone with far greater knowledge than me talking about his projects, particularly as i followed them on the boards.
playing the grail really took me back and obviously i want one now
really great to meet you and sorry if you missed a nice dinner at your wifes sisters house , my colleagues were very jealous when they saw the star wars pics.
 hope i come through rotterdam again soon
 

[Level42]

Hah, don't worry about the "dinner".....nothing special at all

My son turned 7 the other day and of course he wanted to throw his "kids" party at the freshly built gameroom.

It was a good test-case for the machines, all went through it without any issue.

I instructed the guys very well (hit a machine and out you go ). There were no troubles at all.

It was extremely nice weather and very bright, which shows that I need some curtain before my entry door window.....

We held a small competition at the end, playing best scores for SW.

The least favorite game was Missile Command, which in a strange way would also be the one game of this selection that I would let go off IF I really needed to.

The most favorite game was......you guessed it, SW.

Funny trivia: the little fellows soon decided to play Robotron in co-op: one was running, the other shooting....

Regretfully I didn't get the Puckman 48in1 working in time (didn't start a game, I think it's a loose ground wire on the start buttons....duh !)

Meteor and Getaway not working yet either. Playscene (=Mame cab) ....lost keys....

I still have a number of games not in the room:
Power Drift (working) and SI (terrible state) are waiting to be picked up from storage in Belgium. I've got an Atari Dominos and a Pleiads cocktail in my attic. I think the SI and Power Drift will make it into the room, and then there's no more space

Here's some videos:

[orion]

Looks like everyone was having a great time at the Bday party! Were having my son's 7th Bday party this weekend and I DARE NOT show him this. Congrats on the game room, I know you are feeling a great since of accomplishment with it... as well you should be 

[cmoses]

Very nice looking, but it looks full, so how are you planning to put more games in there?

[Ginsu Victim]

Awesome vid.

The least favorite game was Missile Command, which in a strange way would also be the one game of this selection that I would let go off IF I really needed to.

I feel the same way. Over the decades, this game, for me, has lost a lot of its original appeal.

[Level42]

The thing is, there's not much to relate to. It's just a bunch of lines. Maybe it's because the everyday thread of "thermonuclear war" has long been gone since the 80's ?
But the "worst" thing is that it gets too hard too quickly IMHO. But don't get me wrong I still like it and my brother has had a look at it on how to install the new "formica" on the front. He will come over with his router to make this a very lovely little machine.

About the room for more games: Look at the video again, there's lots of room around the Joust. I can still move that towards the SW cockpit and shift all the other cabs towards it. There's also some space between all those cabs, and when you look to the right of the Meteor there is already space for one cab. I can also put one machine on the DK wall (although it will make the entry a bit tight). Anyway, I want at least the Power Drift in there and hopefully the SI too. Both are pretty big machines though....

[Ummon]

Looks good. Not dark enough, yeah curtain. Granted, the nuke theme isn't the same...although one wonders why it shouldn't be, actually, knowing certain things.....but I didn't really like the game play back then because it was just hard - and then it was too hard too quick. Still is, but I like to play it now and then.

[Level42]

Will make a vid at night time, much better

MC: I played it only on the Atari 8 bit version, which is almost 100% identical except that you have only 1 firing tower. This makes things a _LOT_ easier in the higher levels, as you only have to defend 2 spots: 1 city, firing tower.
The arcade version requires you to defend 4 spots.....

Just played MC on my son's DS and it's reasonably funny to play with the touch screen, but the overall progress and randomness of the incoming missiles seems wrong. It's also stupid to not be able to do anything against them when they're still on the top screen.

[BobA]

Looks great.  Must be nice to be finally finished.... Who are we kidding?   Take a deep breath, enjoy the fruits of your labour and CARRY ON. 

[Luigi]

Great video André


Just saw the empty marquee space on the Joust.....I will go and get the marquee out of our cab this noon and run a scan tomorrow evening 


Is it you playing the base guitar on one of the videos? Great slapping

[Level42]

A-ha, no if only that would be me ! (

Guess you mean this one:


Now _that_ is Level 42, I mean the band, and so the bass is played by Mark King, the best slapper in the world 

He sings too.

Great song, "Tell me why you are leaving".

If you like slap bass:

[Ginsu Victim]

Wow, thanks for introducing me to a bassist I'd never heard before. That guy is badass.

[Ummon]

Interesting bass. Not only headless, but led-lit. Didn't expect the band's music to sound all groovy and soul-like.

I notice on the galaxian that his convergence seems off. Anything purple has a blue mirror above and to the right of it. My multisync is that way, actually, but I haven't gotten round to fixing it.

[Level42]

Yes, jazz-funk it was called in the beginning, and what they play on the video is a really early instrumental called "Mr.Pink"  from around 1980. When they broke through with "Love Games" over here in 1981, I remembered being _SO_ surprised to see a couple of those young, pale English guys playing this great funky music....I thought it would be a black band for sure. (In a way, this prevented a breakthrough in the US).

Later the band evolved towards a more commercial sound, but still maintaing great songs.
It's a fabulous live band.

They never got on really in the US. Biggest hit they had over there was Something About You. They were the openers on a Madonna US tour around 1987 or something.

Mark's basses are specially built form him and gets them endorsed (like his amps). He has made Trace Elliott  a big name in the bass amp business as he used to use them in the 80's but now is using Ashdown.

Indeed, that Galaxian video was shot to show the convergence problems. I can't believe how my look at things have changed because now I would try to have a go at converging it, and at LEAST would have kept the chassis as it looks like that was working fine 

[Santoro]

Just found this thread.  AMAZING work, I am wildly envious.

[Level42]

Thanks !!

[shilmover]

Where is the project at?

[Kevin Mullins]

Holland 

[shilmover]

Holland 

LOL

[Level42]

Where is the project at?

Funny you'd ask right now. Actually the past week been doing "circumstantial" work for the Gameroom. It kinda looked like this:

I had actually already removed the worst mess and a number of the tiles in that picture, so it was worse before that....

Had to remove a good part of earth to get the sand in there on which the tiles are laid. No "green" parts anymore, it's full terrace now. We'lll add some pots with plants etc. It was a good thing I had rented the little machine again.
We had to dig two deep slots, one for the rain pipes (had to run from the gameroom to my house because that's connected on the sewer) and one to put the pipes for the heating in. To prevent that one from frost it had to be 60 cm. deep. It was a breeze with the machine....


It rendered much more ground and plant waste than we expected, but in all honesty this also contains the earth on the front yard as we want that to be completely tiled as well. Truck driver that picked it up feared it would be too have to get it on the truck, but he could lift it, much to me relief....


Tiling in progress...




I suggested to leave a quarter out of the circle to create a big Pac Man, but the plan didn't gain much enthusiasm with the wife.....

And done. Just have to remove the small extra's. Note that all the original (old) tiles were used, we simply turned  them upside down since mother nature really nicely cleans tiles on the bottom side. Regretfully that couldn't be done with the circles because they have a "good" side and a "bad" side. Will clean them later....


Still have to get rid of this mess....:


Naturally, no work was done on the games or the room in this time......I was completely exhausted after the last weekend....but it's now nice and tidy to have a real opening party (Even bought a new Weber BBQ ).....

[shilmover]

Cool.

Am I invited to the opening party?  (wonder if I can talk the wife into that trip...  )

[Spyridon]

I suggested to leave a quarter out of the circle to create a big Pac Man, but the plan didn't gain much enthusiasm with the wife.....

You should have pushed harder for approval on that one.  It would have looked really cool!

[Level42]

Shil, if anyone deserves to be invited it has to be you ! Can't count the times you helped me out with paying stuff in the US which I'm still very grateful for ! It would be totally cool and of course your family is more than welcome here.

I'm not sure about a date yet. I'd like to have some of the cabs a bit more up and running like the Puckman  and the Meteor.

Spyri: sometimes you have to know when to put some water in the wine...... 

[Ummon]

Spyri: sometimes you have to know when to put some water in the wine...... 

Well, in any case, what would you've put in that space? You could perhaps still ape the effect by staining either area.

[Level42]

Spyri: sometimes you have to know when to put some water in the wine...... 

Well, in any case, what would you've put in that space? You could perhaps still ape the effect by staining either area.

Simply more of the tiles/bricks...

[ckong]

Here's a quick & dirty 3d and 2d idea (couldn't find any more game 3D models, that explains all the DK's and Galaga's)

http://3darcade.mameworld.info/

Models, models and more models, even of SW cockpit

[patrickl]

Here's a quick & dirty 3d and 2d idea (couldn't find any more game 3D models, that explains all the DK's and Galaga's)

http://3darcade.mameworld.info/

Models, models and more models, even of SW cockpit

I wouldn't count on those being very accurate.

[ckong]

Could be, but still great to use in a Mame frontend.

[MonoTekETeA]

Hardcore and congrats. Turned out really nice.

-Jeremy

[Level42]

Some people thought the construction of the flat roof wouldn't be up to a load of snow.

Well, the last days we've had more snow than I've ever seen in my life in this country.

I think it's about 40 cm. lying there on top now.

And of course, not the slightest problem

It's freaking cold in there though....still have to heat it !!!

[Kevin Mullins]

We've been watching the reports of the snow out your way..... amazing.
Glad things are holding up well. 

[Level42]

Hey Kev,

Yeah, it's pretty rare here...

However, it's still not like the 1 meter snow that is hitting MA area ....