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BLACK'S MAGIC- 100% Structurally COMPLETE - PHOTO UPDATES 7-23-2010
rablack97:
Hello All,
Few updates to share, some good, some bad.
Start with the bad. If you've followed the thread you know how much effort I put into the paint job on this thing. Well I polished the last piece, and was ready to move the cab from the garage to my game room upstairs. I enlisted my cousin to help me move it. Now somehow I started with the intent of the cab being 34" wide, giving me enough room to get through my 35" doorway. I think my MDF bowed cause it had expanded to a little over 34 3/4, leaving less than a 1/4 of an inch for me to play with.
I'm sure your thinking I jacked up the paint job moving it upstairs right. Well it never made it out of the garage. My table saw was set up in the center of the garage and we wheeled the cab around it towards the open garage door, me being all excited pushed it too close to the saw, and disaster hit me like a brick. :banghead:
Yes, you are correct that is a permanent marker overlay that was done in my insanity. It was was either that or let it roll on down the driveway and let a car make some more pretty marks on it.
After I cooled down we made it up the stairs to the game room.
So now for the good updates.
I found a set of 4 120 mm fans for $15.00 which i mounted into the 3 cooling holes in the back of the cab, the fourth will be mounted behind my amp which i will show later..
I also bought a few filtered grill covers to keep the dust out and to dress it up a bit.
Inside shot
Here are the vents permanently mounted
Turned out interesting as to how i mounted the disks with the lumin rings. The speaker rings came with an assortment of springs. So I placed the larger ones behind the MDF, with the concept that the springs would push the MDF against the disk and the speaker rings without me having to over tighten the screwes. The springs also kept me from screwing in too far and through my cab, once the srings were compressed, I knew it was far enough. Ends result is a snug fit, no rattling no loose parts.
And here is the setup in action, the lumins really pick up all the treble and the speaker rings add that extra glow on the heavy pieces of the music. I chose techno as it has a little of both.
Gamester:
Looking good!
That really stinks about the scratch on the side. Unfortunately I can totally relate. I had a similar disaster with mine. I had balanced the CP box on the cab to take some measurements and instead of removing it when I was done, I left it there. Well, I then proceeded to brush up against it while walking past and it came crashing to the ground. Totally destroyed the paint job on one corner.
Question on the fans... do all of those fans act as intake or does the one at the top exhaust? I ask because you have filters on all three. A filter on an exhaust fan would be counter-productive (if not pointless). If they are all intake fans, you may consider flipping the top one to exhaust. You'll likely get better circulation inside the cab that way. Just my $0.02.
The speaker rings and lumindiscs look great. Have you tried leaving the lumindisc on full time and only having the speaker ring react to sound, just to see how it looks? That way there's still a light show even if there's no sound.
Coming along nicely...
rablack97:
They are all intake, mainly just to pull cool air from the outside in. I see your point only that each fan will be blocked off from the other. The fans are in 3 sections of the cab. In a prior post you will see that there will be a board in between fans 1& 2 from the bottom, and the TV shelf totally blocks off the ventilation to what could be a an exhaust fan. Also, these things don't blow super hard ($15.00 for 4) so the circulation effect wouldn't be as effective as I would like it to be. So a little cool air intake is what I went with with vents up top for some of the warm air to escape.
Good idea I will try that tonight with the disks.
Yeah one day i might sand it down and repaint it, for now I'm tired of painting. You were right, 15 cans of primer to do the cab. Roughly about 30 can total. I know you found your system, but fyi, Killz odorless spray primer covers really well, only thing is you dont get much in the can, hence 15 cans of primer.
Thanks for the ideas, I'm wiring the fans tonight....Wish me luck :blowup:
rablack97:
Hello All,
A few updates.
Mounted marquee retainer, marquee and backlighting.
I am no electrician, but this is my attempt at using a terminal to bring 12v from the PS to the marquee lighting, cooling fan and the neon speaker rings. Miraculously it works.
In order to get USB ports to the outside, I found these feed through adaptors.
Same concept for headphones, there are two as I decided to add a DJ feature to the cab as well, so you can cue music before playing it through the main speakers.
I couldn't get the whole photo to show but there is another port to the far right of the headphone jacks.
I hadn't planned on doing this part, but a brainstorm lead me to do it. I decide to add neon lighting to the hidden keyboard drawer beneath the CP. I found a flexible neon tube at the local autozone and routed out a with my dremel. I then superglued the tube inside of the groove. I will have a switch wired to the stop point of the drawer that will activate the light when its open and deactivate the light when its closed.
I attached a layer of plexiglass over it and the finished product looks like this, the keyboard will sit in the center.
I caught a great deal on this smart strip $20.00, there happened to be guy who was liquidating his inventory. He had about 20 of these and was selling via eBay. He so happened to live 20 mins from me, so i met up with him and he gave me 1 brand new for 20 bucks.
I mounted it inside the cab and cut the plug to wire it to a more appropriate arcade cab switch.
Finally decased my PC
More terminals to run 12v power to the rest of the fans and the neon lighting (more on that later.)
Here are the blue tubes that will light up the decased computer.
Here is another little gem I came across at a great deal. This bad boy will power my 600 watt amp. It's a cascade audio 600 watt 45 amp power supply, same used in car audio stores to demo products.. Retail $250. EBay $80.00
Finished the see through cover for the decased PC, turned out really nice.
I will post pics of the full installation at a later date.
Here is the back of the amplifier panel, yes more terminals this will power the fan (for amp cooling) and all the lighting around the crossovers and the amp. Which will be triggered upon opening the front door of the cab. The same trigger will also activate the neon tubes to light up the decase PC, when the door closes all lighting will shut down but the fan will remain on.
Got a chance to wire up the locking DC power plugs, these will bring ground, 12v, 5v into my control panel. The DB25 terminal will connect the admin buttons to the ipac, I'll post more on that when I get around to completing the CP.
That's all for now, comments, critiques are always welcome.
Kurt:
Nice job with the wiring, I wish we could get them smart power strips in australia.