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

[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