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My 1st Cocktail Finished! (100%... finally)
system01:
Internals – The Bottom
I had three main things that I had to squeeze in the bottom of this cab: the speakers/sub, the PC, and the cooling fan. All of these gave me a bit of a challenge; even without a CRT there's not much real estate inside.
At step 1 (The Base), I already show the holes and everything in place. This was actually planned out later after I got the fan and speakers and could physically move some stuff around.
The fan I picked up at Radio Shack. No, I didn't get a new cell phone. It's a 4” Thermaltake 12V fan. With a wire grille and foam filter it all came to 14 bucks. Since heat rises and the LCD being at the top I decided to mount it pushing upwards. Toward the end of this project I purchased a vent (Rockler 32057 http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5228&filter=vent) and installed it in the back vertical panel just below the monitor. Its quiet, and I can feel a decent amount of heat coming out of the back. It still gets a bit toasty inside, but not enough to worry me.
The Klipsch sub I mounted so that I could get to the DIN and speaker connection – towards the rear - and with the speaker facing towards the center. I stuck some 1/8” foam tape to the perimeter of the underside of the sub and clamped it down to the base with two control panel latches (thx to divemaster).
The next problem was mounting the mobo… with cards. I bummed an old PC case from a friend and took my die grinder to it. I cut the entire back panel out to the same size as my mobo, and the rear I/O slotted piece to just what I needed to use. Unfortunately these were two separate pieces, so I just drilled some holes through them and screwed them together. Painted black, beauty! I glued some scrap oak strips to the inside of the cab, drilled and dimpled some holes in my sexy mobo-panel and mounted it (…yes, it was that sexy). The only way this would fit is with the I/O side sticking up, right against the speaker. But you'll see that later.
With the big stuff out of the way, I created an adequate coinbox out of scrap MDF. I also added a punchdown-flanged-plug-deal from L-com (http://www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=7139 , this one is straight-thru, when I bought mine is was punch-down style) and a regular PC power socket for the mains. I can now unplug power and network just by reaching under the bottom. I also installed 2 pushbuttons (Happ 49-0577-00 http://www.happcontrols.com/pushbuttons/49057700.htm, again, divemaster) into a little custom plate and screwed that into the bottom. Both are momentary, one being the ATX power-on, wired straight to the button header on the mobo, the other being the MAME service button (for <cough> cheats <cough>).
The pic doesn't show the sides glued up. I did some of this layout stuff before the cab came together. Theres also a little green thing in the 1st pic - just a random pot laying around. Things are also very dusty, not bad paint.
system01:
Internals – Upper & Misc.
I still needed a place to mount the HDD, so I cut up the same PC chassis and scored the 3-bay cage out of it. I ground off all of the flanging, drilled some holes in it and painted it the same black I’ve been using. I had to mount it in the corner, next to the coin door. This meant that I could only install the HDD on one side with two screws. Its pretty secure and doesn’t much room to move around.
For the power supply, I made three little L-brackets from aluminum. I drilled some smallish holes into the sides of the PS and attached the brackets with sheet metal screws. It was very tempting to turn it on with all the metal shavings in there, but good judgment prevailed and I blew everything out with my compressor. I then used short wood screws and attached it to the other corner, opposite the HDD cage.
The volume knob. This one drove me nuts for a while, mainly cos I couldn’t find parts. I took the Klipsch “pod” apart and took the PCB out. I dug up all of the rubber cement stuff they glopped on everything and desoldered the volume POT. I took the bass knob off as it was huge and I figured I wouldn’t have to mess with it after I set it where I liked. I knew where I wanted to mount the volume, but wasn’t sure how, and how to make a stealth installation. What I ended up doing was soldering ~8” of wire to extend the knob from the PCB. Then I made a small round flange that would mount with two screws. I used a forstner bit and drilled down about 1/16” (16 Ga.) and hollowed out the back of the wood a bit to make room for the POT. It took me aaaaages to hunt down an M7 panel nut to fit this POT. I finally found a fastener distributor that mailed me some samples. The actual knob also had me stuck for a while. I wanted something big, heavy, but not flashy. I finally came across an Alcoswitch #KN1251B1/4. This was hard to find as everyone wanted to sell me a lot of 500 or 1000. It was also expensive, but this was important to me as I didn’t want a hollow plastic knob or a bunch of bling. I made the flange the same size as the knob so that it hides the flange and screws. Then I simply screwed the PCB to the inside of the cab.
The coindoor is a standard Happ 2-player side-by-side. Nothing fancy here. Although I would like to change the coin return button text, I just haven’t thought of something clever enough to put in there. The coin switches are on the same key as the coin buttons on the CPs.
I took a tip from Project Arcade and mounted the Klipsch satellites with some longer screws through the sides of the cab, replacing the original screws that held the clamshell case together.
Since I didn’t have room for USB cables (the plugs are too long) cos I squished the mobo into the side speaker, I got some of those traveler USB extension things. The kind that you unspool like a measuring tape. I have two for the U360s and one is zip-tied to just inside of the coindoor for a maintenance mouse.
I have an iPac2 mounted above the coindoor and everything is hooked up as usual there. I got the PS2 version since I have a lot of those keyboards. Mounting above the door lets me easily plug in a maintenance keyboard.
To power everything up I used a 7-socket SmartStrip from bitslimited. I wired a bottom button (see previous) to the power button pins on the mobo. I have the power supply plugged into the ‘Control’ on the SmartStrip, and monitor and speakers in to the slave outlets. This basically makes you cab into a giant PC case with everything turning on/off automatically. If something hangs, you can hold the button down for 3s to shut everything off. The SmartStrip was mounted to the back-lid piece (I’ll show you later), and I cut the cord and crimped some heavy-duty spade connectors for the power socket in the base.
One pic shows blue tape covering the hole where the POT lives. This was to test-fit the LED strips.
How to Fix a Klipsch Cable
Klipsch uses some crappy-ass mini-DIN cables for their older Promedia 2.1 system (the squarish black one). The DIN connector will actually separate and/or fall apart. There are many complaints about this, but Klipsch will only sell an entire new “pod”, not just the cable.
The information here was taken from several different posts on the Klipsch forum, from both staff and users. I am only sharing what I found and that it worked for me.
After cutting many mouse and keyboard cables off and finding that not all of the pins are populated, I finally found that Radio Shack #26-149 will fix you up. You need to cut an end off, or the whole thing in half. You can solder/shrinkwrap the (now) cut Klipsch wires to the Radio Shack wires, or you can get Molex 87369-0900 & 50212 and build a new PCB connector. I purchased the parts to rebuild a connector, but after seeing how small they were I said “Screw it” and just soldered the wires together. See the image below for the pinouts & colors.
Jetson:
Nice work....I love the choice of finish color on the wood, it gives more of a modern look while still paying tribute to the old school look of wood grain.
system01:
I am very glad you said that. That was a big deal to me and exactly what I was going for.
Thanks.
system01:
The Top & Monitor
I already showed the making of the top-surface piece. I more-or-less followed the Lindstrom plans here. I took the back piece and mounted it to a cleat, and the attached the top to the same cleat. I used large wood screws and glue since there’s a lot of stress on this joint.
I got some shelf brackets that were on sale at Ace Hardware for like $5. Ive seen the same brackets at Lowes and HD, but they cost a lot more. I also used these where the top and back meet to keep things square. Everything was measured beforehand so that the monitor, monitor brackets, and shelf brackets all fit snug within the cab opening.
The monitor was decased and the controls carefully removed. The monitor fits snugly into the recess in the bottom of the top (eh?). I made four z-brackets that were spaced to hold the monitor up in the recess. Before mounting, I stuck some foam tape on the monitor-side of the brackets to minimize rattles and to not damage the monitor. I also needed to use the delicate controls that I removed from the case. Once removed, it’s essentially a narrow PCB with a parts-tree looking set of flimsy buttons and a thin little cable. The case is molded to hold these pieces together and in place. So I decided to make a small square button holder out of wood. I made a top piece and drilled/c’sunk holes in it, spaced and sized to fit the buttons. I then glued some spacers and a bottom blank piece together to make a trough for the PCB. Lastly, I drilled holes through the whole thing and screwed it to the back cab wall. Of course, I had to paint it sexy black.
I covered the bottom of the top with wide painter’s tape and measured out a pattern for all of the glass clips and piloted the holes
With the entire top was assembled, I reattached the hinge and buttoned it up. I used the same CP latches that I used to hold the subwoofer down.
You may be asking, “But system, what about the slots for the Plexi behind the control panels?” Well, I forgot about that. So I had to strip everything back down and cut some 1/8” slots with a spiral upcut bit. Reassemble.
The pic with the brackets: The 2 on the top and the two on the right are the monitor brackets. The round on on the left is the volume bracket, and the two lower ones are the CP mounting brackets.
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