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Interesting pictures for today **UPDATED 06/18/09**

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Daviea:

Hey,

Here's my picture update for today.

I've been working hard on many of the ongoing projects at RAM Controls for the last few weeks and I decided to put a few hours into the Assault joystick controller today.  As you may already know, I own a heap of old Atari molds, dies and other various tooling.  Because of this, I have the ability to reproduce particular parts completely to original spec.  Since I was working on the Assault joystick project in particular, I took a few pics of some of the parts which have been finished and are ready to go.


Assault Joystick Right Hand Outer Grip Cover: (512pcs)

Interestingly, I have the original mold for both right and left sides (inner and outer grips halves).  However, the molds for left hand grips were stored improperly (during their time at Midway Games West, I assume) and damaged beyond repair.  Anyhow, I can make the right hand grips with ease by taking the molds to a local injection molding shop. :-)


Assault Joystick Red Triggers: (1008pcs)

Same here - I have the molds.  Matching the exact plastic was fun.  BTW, this picture is without the flash.  The plastic tends to react to the flash.


Assault Joystick Trigger Switch Mechanism: (1488pcs)

Same here - I have the stamp dies for all parts of this: two frame components, the lever and the small phenolic spacers.  All of these were made in-house.  The actual snap switches are Cherry, just like the originals used.


That's it for tonight.  As you can see, there's much more manufacturing processes involved than simple "machining" of components.  Above, we can see parts made through injection molding and stamping.  I don't currently have injection molding capability in-house, but definitely stamping.  I considered laser cutting the switch mechanism parts, but I decided that it was unnecessary.....why?  I have the OEM stamps!!

David Adams
RAM Controls

Ummon:

Well, the machines were there decades ago. You just had to hand-run 'em. Like in The Mechanic. However, in another twenty years - perhaps max - there may at least be the technological capacity to assemble them in your home from carbon fiber-fed 3D printers.

Kevin Mullins:


--- Quote from: Daviea on June 18, 2009, 09:35:04 pm ---It's kind of hard to grasp how this kind of work was done in the old days when CNC lathes, CNC mills and CNC routers weren't around.  Can you even imagine doing all of this by hand?  No thanks!  LOL

--- End quote ---

Aw...c'mon now.
Where's your drive, your passion, to crank and turn and measure fifty gazillion times per part.?!?
Manual machining was my forte'.
Needless to say I did a lot of one off parts.  "You need a what for a what?"  :laugh2:

Daviea:

Oh, I've done my time with manual machining.  In fact, I still manually turn parts from time to time - usually for one-off's since repeatability is insanely difficult to accomplish.

It's good for what it is, but running off a thousand pieces of a single part, I still can't imagine how people did it!!  We used to hire "mechanics" and "machinists" ... now we hire "button pushers"  LOL  Personally, I like where we are NOW.

David Adams
RAM Controls


--- Quote from: Kevin Mullins on June 19, 2009, 02:11:12 am ---Aw...c'mon now.
Where's your drive, your passion, to crank and turn and measure fifty gazillion times per part.?!?
Manual machining was my forte'.
Needless to say I did a lot of one off parts.  "You need a what for a what?"  :laugh2:

--- End quote ---


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