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A Mame machine in an antique buffet - USB probs solved (I think!)
drventure:
Hey BillyGoatfeet
Thanks! Yeah it's supposed to look a little "worn around the edges", but not too much so.
I'm trying for a "Built in an alternative 1850's" looks when the 1850's was about 10 years back, so I'm shooting for worn, but not completely worn out, rusted up and beat to hell.
And decently maintained. That's why I'm actually polishing most of the brass and copper to some degree (though it won't be "fresh off the showroom floor" shining.
I'm with you on the CP. I had thought about putting a little more design work on it, and had actually played with it a bit, but it just ended up seeming "too much" so I wiped all that back off.
Hopefully, all this clear enamel will end up just chipping off. It's going that way so far anyways.
Billy_Goatfeet:
Yep, I agree, clean design is nice. The enamel wearing off would be cool too! Awesome project dude!!
drventure:
Yikes....
I finally got a chance to setup Future Pinball on the buffet tonight and, well, it's not looking good.
Mame runs perfectly fine with the onboard video (essentially nVidia GForce 8200 with 512mg ram), but FP just chokes.
Full detail runs at 10fps (yes, 10 :'( )
That sucks.
And minimal detail mode only runs at 16fps. I'd always heard MAME doesn't take advantage of the graphics card power, but I'm guessing FP takes as much advantage of it as possible :-\
Guess I'm going to have to pick up a higher end video card card now. Grrr. Well, I suppose it was inevitable anyway, if I was going to hook up the external Touchscreen for a jukebox eventually.
And yuck. I forgot just how much of a pain it is to setup a table in ArcadeRender mode for FP. And you gotta do EACH TABLE! Ack!
And, seriously, Scroll lock, plus 8-4-6-2, plus DEL to speed up the movement!?!?!
Mr. Leathley definitely knows his 3-D, but that UI? Ugh.
Oh, well, enough bitchin'.
Back to scraping all this clearcoat off the CP now....
drventure:
Got a few new pics to share
Way back when, Dash Rendar suggested a Spark Adjuster as something that might look interesting.
Well, I found the balls for it ;) . Here's a shot with one half of one ball still not polished (They were pretty bad off, originally were drawer pulls from a huge armoire)
Get a few more brass bits, and maybe some carbon fiber tubing or something similar, and I'll have my own spark adjuster. Not sure I I can actually make em spark though :)
Since I hooked up the polishing wheel to my drillpress, I've been able to polish a lot more stuff, a lot quicker. So I started working in earnest on the gas lamp that'll go on.
I picked up a box load of old (I mean OLD) gas lamp parts off ebay from some guy in NY. They were totally crusted, burnt, tarnished, etc.
I disassembled them, started polishing the parts up and then drilled out the gas lines so I can run power cord to a little 10watt flicker bulb I'll mount in it.
What's funny is that all the threads on the gas lamp mate perfectly with modern mounting flanges and light sockets I'll use to convert it. No rethreading necessary (at least not yet).
And finally, the sad part. I debated even posting this pic, cause I'm afraid it's going to end up on crap mame, but, I'll post anyway in hopes that it serves as a warning for any future cab builders that get the bright idea to spray clean enamel on formica to protect it.
Yeah, it's bad, though the flash makes it look even worse.
See the finger prints? Everywhere where me or my daughter touched the surface has hazed to this chalky white. And what's worse, those spots didn't just discolor. The clear has actually separated from the surface so in those spots, it'll just flake right off.
You can see where I've started scraping it off. Of course doing that shoots flakes of clear coat everywhere, and even with a vacuum running, it's HIGHLY staticy, so it sticks to everything and won't vacuum up.
In short, a big friggin mess, but, so far, one that I think I can correct without completely redoing the CP.
Epyx:
Do you have the parts laying around to do another CP? IE spare formica offcuts and MDF? It shouldn't take you too long to redo it. Im thinking the re-stamping would be the hardest?
Or maybe this time do the stamping over paint then enamel. Another option...paint, stamp and then very think plexi.
Then again...it does have a certain "dusty" charm to it hehe...almost like you pulled it out of an attic rather than off the assembly line! ;)
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