Insert Coffee - Circuit problems

[EightBySix]

Ok, so my sister in law wants rid of the beat up cocktail cabinet that I was storing in her shed.



When I started to plan it's restoration so I could bring it into the house I realised that although mock teak effect may be a design classic from the 80's it wouldn't look right in the house and was unlikely to get head office approval.
Fast forward a little bit, lots of homework reading the posts here, and I have decided to make a MAME machine built into a coffee table. One that would fit right in with the decor. I enjoy woodworking, so it's as much a traditional woodwork project as it is a MAME project.  The idea is to make it impossible to tell that its anything other than a coffee table until it's opened up.

Here's the concept, with one table leaf removed for clarity.

Now this is what I'm wrestling with. To close the table, the control panel needs to be out of the way. These are the options I have come up with, and I'm wondering if the venerable experts on this board have any ideas or suggestions.

1) The whole centre (control panels, screen, the lot) rises up and down into the carcass of the table. This would allow it to be flush with the table surface, and more comfortable to play.

2) Drawers in the side containing the control panel. Worried that might be too low for comfortable play. The drawer front would have to fold down too to get access.

3) The control panel is hinged to the screen panel, so it folds down horizontally. Would have to make sure it locks into the playing position firmly though.

I've got some interesting ideas for speakers and pc but the whole design needs to work around with whatever I decide for the control panel.

Oh, and please will someone talk me out of considering motorising the whole thing, so it opens up and is ready to play at the touch of a hidden button... I cant get the idea out of my head

[saleem]

you could try making the contol panels so they swivel.like up down,like a chute from an high rise tower (you know my meaning?)

i think thats the laundry chute to you americans.

[EightBySix]

Ahh, it's OK - I'm from the UK. Are we talking like a catflap that stays up for playing? That's what I was trying to get at with option 3.

[severdhed]

i think i would hinge the control panel so the front edge drops down into the table.  you could have pins that go in through holes in the sides that you could use to hold it in place when you want to play.

i'd be cautious with the LCD panel, they typically do not have great viewing angles, so i'd lay one down at roughly the position you want to view it from and make sure you can see it..that way you dont build a cab around it and then find out it sucks

[EightBySix]

That would certainly be easiest. Would have to live with the fact that the screen/controls arent flush with the table top though.

Good tip re LCD. I read here that the viewing angle is better from the sides, so was planning to turn it 90 degrees.

[EightBySix]

Kind of like this?


Come to think of it, I could use some kind of mechanism to attach it to the siding panels, so it rises up when you open the table... Hmmm

[drventure]

Awesome idea. I really like where youre going with it.

Couple notes.

I used sewing machine lifts to lift my CP. They work great for the lifting, but aren't terribly attractive and a largish, so I'm not sure you'd be able to camoflage them well with your table design. you might look into normal cabinet slides with a linear actuator. You can get those for <100$ (for a small throw, which is likely all you'd need).

I'd almost say you might be better off fixing  the screen and making the cp sides hinged/sliding so they drop down or slide out for storage somehow. You could easily use drop leaf table hinges for that sort of thing, assuming you could change your design a bit.

About the monitor, Severdhead is right. I've be VERY pleased with the dell 2407 and 2405 lcd's i've used.
Really good viewing angles even from the side or below.

But the newer dells use a different (and cheaper) panel and from what I hear, don't have NEAR the viewing angle of the old ones.

the good thing is, I can usually find the older dells on CL for pretty cheap now.

[EightBySix]

Oooo I knew it was worth reaching out. Mental note: Look out for dell 2407 and 2405 on ebay for spares/repairs 

[Chicken McNobody]

Kind of like this?


Come to think of it, I could use some kind of mechanism to attach it to the siding panels, so it rises up when you open the table... Hmmm

Love this idea!

I think this is what I would go with, I would personally love to have something built like this, but I lack the skill, and truely at this time, the need.  I already have 4 cabinets at this time, I think I have it all covered.

[Yvan256]

Are those images made with Sketchup? 

[EightBySix]

Are those images made with Sketchup? 

Yes they are. It's the first time I have really planned a woodwork project in advance. I'm drooling at some of the other software used for plans here though. Much better for layout and part lists etc it seems.

I'm also wondering if anyone has experience of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Impact-Stick-Speaker-SoundPad/dp/B0001HKVKQ

Obviously space (thickness) is an issue for me. I dismissed these as gimmicky, but read the review... This way the speakers could bethe table! (Or at least a thinner panel under the table surface - cups of coffee cant do much for acoustic properties, I reckon)

[severdhed]

i haven't personally used them, but a friend of mine said he had a set once, and they sounded pretty crappy

[orion]

i haven't personally used them, but a friend of mine said he had a set once, and they sounded pretty crappy

Those look really cool though, if they work. They do state in the description that the sound quality depends on the surface you mount them to. I like where this project is going by the way!

[EightBySix]

Ok, I've been spending more time thinking about this than is healthy. I think I found some ways to get the controls to rise up when the table slides open, but there are a couple of issues I just cant get around.

1) The surface has to be steady and strong. Any mechanism will be taking a beating.
2) It will get drinks spilled onto it sometimes. I need a way to keep all the workings safely away.

So I decided to have the CPs in a drawer like this:

(The handle will be flush, for comfort and I'll use magnetic catches to stop it folding when it shouldn't)

This way, I'll be able to cover the whole surface with glass which will give me better coffee proofing. Do you think it looks OK/would work?

Next problem.
I want to make it coin operated, rather than having a credit button. I have this theory with emulators. Games aren't so much fun unless you have something invested in it. In the home computer days, it was 30 mins waiting for a cassette to load, trying to keep noisy brothers out of the room because of some superstitious belief he would stop it loading. In the arcade it was my pocket/dinner money. Flipping between games is great - but for me, it detracts from the game play.
I thought it would be cool if I got a mechanism that gave you 1 credit for 10p, 5 for 50p and so on. I could use it like a piggy bank for the kids... or to fund the next project 
Saw this fancy mech on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250492166443&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123
The clever thing can recognise up to 5 coins and send signals appropriately. So far so good. But its a bit bulky to install in the drawer. Has anyone seen something like this, but top loading - or think of a workaround?

Hollow table leg maybe....


 

[leapinlew]

I've wanted to do things with my coffee table, but I keep coming back to the fact that there normally isn't power readily available in the middle of the room. Whats your plan to get power to this?

[EightBySix]

I'm going to embed something like this at the bottom of one leg


But your question relates to the problem of trailing wires across the floor. I'm lucky in that it wont be a problem for me, because the position of the table means the wire wont be in the way.

Really, I suppose there would be no reason why the innards couldnt be a laptop with detatched screen, and run from battery power. Phase II maybe. 

[emphatic]

Really, I suppose there would be no reason why the innards couldnt be a laptop with detatched screen, and run from battery power. Phase II maybe. 

That will perhaps be fun for some short sessions, but what if you have a friend over and you want to credit feed through Metal Slug 2, and the battery dies on you on the final stage. Interesting project, this.

[Yvan256]

Instead of drawers, I would go with vertically folding panels (hinge at the bottom). It would mean a thicker base (how much thicker, I'm not sure), but IMHO I think it would be more sturdy.

Also, good thinking about having the whole thing under a single pane of glass underneath the top table panels. To keep it clean-looking with hidden hardware, I would go with slides under/behind the side panels of the "arcade" part.

[EightBySix]

A good friend of mine who is a fellow arcade game enthusiast got me some components for my birthday.. How nice to have an audience where people understand about getting excited over a bag of buttons :-)

Here's a pic, from within my shed workshop.

I'm so envious of you guys over the pond who have a workshop as big as my living room! My progress on this project will be slow, as I have to get the thing free of lawn mowers and bikes before I can do any work...

Whilst that's been going on, I've had some ideas for the project.

Idea #1
I've been looking for some time for a suitable coin mech that will a)fit and b)recognise the value of the coin and credit accordingly. I stumbled across some youtube vids of people who had made coin sorters. This gave me the final inspiration:


Imagine some switches under where the coins fall, and some electronics to send pulses that mimic 'coin' keypresses and you'll see where I'm going... I have no real electronics experience, but I'm finding out that this hobby seems to be all about learning new skills :-)

Idea #2
The sheet of glass over the screen will have a blank area top and bottom.
+----------+
|   XXXX   |
+----------+
|          |
|          |
|   VDU    |
|          |
|          |
+----------+
|   XXXX   |
+----------+

I'm thinking it might be a good place for administrative buttons etc, but  need to keep it clear for cleaning/spills etc. Then it occured to me - why not have a touch panel behind the glass? There are a few sites that have DIY solutions. While I'm at it, why not make it into the 'front end' with an LED matrix like this:


You could have buttons to cycle the display through available games
It could even have touch sliders for volume etc, like in this example I found:

On a simpler level, I could have icons of my favourite games under the glass that I could just touch to play...

It would be a whole seperate project but possibly do-able.

[saleem]

so why have a coin mech?

you dont even need to have a coin/credit button as you can map a button to be coin/credit button.i am assuming you are going to run mame on this?

and when you say over the pond where are you in uk,as americans do tend to have garages bigger than my pad 

personaly i have gone a bit off the standard pushbuttons and now i tend to find myself drawn to sanwa type.

i mean its your cab but,its like having a caravan and wanting to stick just about every gadget into it as possible when you could get along just fine without.a door to get into the thing would be good but,you dont necessarily have to use a coin mech door.and when you think about it,who is gonna pay to use it,if you and yours will use it more,aint it better to use a credit button at most?

its like (dont get me wrong) you are taking your project way beyond something you wanted to have,you just wanted a coffee table that could open to a mame machine (whatever) now you want coin mehs,touch screen and god knows what else.

are you not going a little too over the top?

[EightBySix]

so why have a coin mech?

For some reason, I like the idea of needing a coin to play - it's as though I've got something invested in it and I get more out of the game. All the ones I can find to buy are the wrong dimensions to fit into a table top.

I take your point about being over the top with the touchscreen though. I'm fascinated by the electronics behind it, but it's something I can leave until the table is otherwise finished (like that's ever going to happen!)

Yes, I'll be running mame - classic games as I have an old toshiba libretto http://www.squit.co.uk/computers/libretto.html. I put a CF - IDE adaptor in it and it boots DOS in 2 seconds (literally!) from a CF card. It's silent now and needs no special cooling.
 The project isnt just for playing games though, I guess some of the fun is in the messing about / configuring etc too.

[saleem]

i can see a touch screen coming in handy for jukebox but,i got touch screen on my fbot mame coversion and trust me,unless you make the buttons big it is realy pretty tricky hitting the thing,i find i gotta keep touching the icon/button more than once to activate.

i got my touchscreen addon with the machine,its just an overlay one so i am lucky but,would have bought it for the project knowing how good/bad it is?no!

if you go touch screen i think a lot will say that you need something real good,i can go through windows without mouse,use gameex frontend without mouse and trust me,its iffy.
 

[EightBySix]

Thanks for the advice, saleem, esp since you have experience of them  . I think this idea needs to go in the save for later pile...

[drventure]

That multi coin acceptor is pretty cool. Any idea how you interface with it. They say pulses, so, i'm guessing, you set it for coin A to register 5 pulses, and coin b to register 10 pulses maybe?

Or am I way off?

[EightBySix]

That's how I understood it too. You can also adjust the delay between pulses.

[Yvan256]

I put a CF - IDE adaptor in it and it boots DOS in 2 seconds (literally!) from a CF card. It's silent now and needs no special cooling.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one using CF cards in IDE adapters and running the DOS version of MAME. 

[EightBySix]

I put a CF - IDE adaptor in it and it boots DOS in 2 seconds (literally!) from a CF card. It's silent now and needs no special cooling.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one using CF cards in IDE adapters and running the DOS version of MAME. 

Dont suppose you use a DOS front end too do you? I've not found many...

[Yvan256]

Dont suppose you use a DOS front end too do you? I've not found many...

I'm currently checking AdvanceMENU and AdvanceMAME... there's a LOT of options between the two. But given my low hardware specs and the lack of a good video connection or LCD resolution, it's that or practically nothing.

[BobA]

Dont suppose you use a DOS front end too do you? I've not found many...

ArcadeOS and Gamelauncher were really good DOS based front ends.

[EightBySix]

Yes, I'm using GameLauncher myself, quite impressed with it. I might just get it to boot into the last run game though.

[emphatic]

I'm using AdvanceMenu with great results on my small MAME-rig running AdvanceMAME 0.104 or whatever the last stable one was. You can even do a skin for it and have .mng files instead of .png for your previews really makes everything look awesome. My configuration is setup for an arcade monitor and I select games with fire1, and if I press fire2 the menu rotates 90 degrees with each press so it's perfect for me as I have several cabs with both vertically and horizontally mounted screens.

[BobtheAddict]

Looks like a pretty cool concept! 

[ale8oneboy]

I'm going to embed something like this at the bottom of one leg


But your question relates to the problem of trailing wires across the floor. I'm lucky in that it wont be a problem for me, because the position of the table means the wire wont be in the way.

Really, I suppose there would be no reason why the innards couldnt be a laptop with detatched screen, and run from battery power. Phase II maybe. 

Hey where did you find these?

[Silas (son of Silas)]

£2.78 each from Maplin. I bought one for my arcade. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=218978

[EightBySix]

Rather than smoke/grey coloured glass, has anyone used white/frosted glass?

I'd be surprised if the screen would be visible, but thought I would ask. Would look odd in a cab of course, but I think it would look better in my project.

e.g.


I think you can get frosted glass spray - so I might try an experiment with my regular vdu. (on a sheet of glass - not the monitor  )

Progress wise.... none I'm afraid - unless you count my new baby daughter 
Also, I've decided I need to make a new workbench before I start this project. No point in spoiling it due to crappy tools!

[drventure]

First, about frosted glass. I'm guessing it'd fuzz the view too much. Now, a dark smoked glass would probably work ok. the screen would be dimmed a bit, but when off, the table top would look dark, and you could probably crank the brightness to compensate somewhat.

About the coin mech, touch screen etc. Do what you want man! It's a hobby, not some sprint-to-the-finish work project where you have bean counters and pointy haired bosses breathing down your neck to get something done fast, cheap, and just "good enough".

Personally, I can completely dig your concept of being "invested" in the game. Coin buttons take some of that away, no doubt.

I've had the most fun with my cab doing the (almost) completely useless side projects (building brass panel lamps from door stops?!, converting an antique steam pressure gauge to read CPU utilization!?). That's what makes it fun!

If what +YOU+ want is to just put something together to play games, so be it, but if you want to do more, I say go for it, whatever the hell it is.

Really looking forward to your progress on this one!

[emphatic]

There's a special glass that when a current runs through it, get frosted, then when you run a differnent current through it it turns clear. That would be kinda awesome for your project. I'm off to Google it now.

Edit:
http://innovativeglasscorp.com/default.htm
or
http://www.spd-systems.com/Main%20Page.html

[javeryh]

I'm drawing a blank on the name but there's a bar in the city I've been to a few times and the bathroom doors are made completely out of that stuff.  If no one is inside you see right in - toilet and all - but when you shut the door and turn on the light the glass frosts up - but you can still see out!  It's pretty funny taking a leak in front of several hundred people that you can see...

[Nacimroc]

That glass is called electro Chromatic glass! It used to be amazing expensive, but its come down in price and would easily be affordable for 1 piece! Once the power is flicked for a second it changes state and stays that way until the power is passed through again! So no need for a power cable to be constantly plugged in!

I'm going to embed something like this at the bottom of one leg


But your question relates to the problem of trailing wires across the floor. I'm lucky in that it wont be a problem for me, because the position of the table means the wire wont be in the way.

Really, I suppose there would be no reason why the innards couldnt be a laptop with detatched screen, and run from battery power. Phase II maybe. 

I dont trust these things not to pull out if the cord gets pulled from any angle but straight exposing live wires! I'd prefer the power supply entry things with 2 screws holding them!

Just my 2 cents!

[EightBySix]

I never noticed it didnt have any means of screwing it in - you're quite right.
I'll try to use something similar, but more secure looking.

[Silas (son of Silas)]

I dont trust these things not to pull out if the cord gets pulled from any angle but straight exposing live wires! I'd prefer the power supply entry things with 2 screws holding them! Just my 2 cents!

Interesting. IEC connectors have been the industry standard for literally thousands of appliances including PCs, workshop machinery and kitchen kettles. Short of cutting the lead with a knife there's no way that you can expose live wires. If you pull the lead out, the contacts are completely shrouded way up inside the plastic lead. (see pic below). The pins in the previous photo I posted are in the socket, not the lead, so when they are exposed they are not live.

The 90 degree leads like the one in the pic are also almost impossible to pull out without grasping the plug itself and pulling perfectly straight. Any lateral force has almost no effect unless you pull so hard you snap the cable, but then thats the same regardless of how the cable enters the machine.

[Nacimroc]

I meant the female part can pull out! That is the bit that lead fits into, the permanent piece in the cabinet! It has a lip to stop in going in but not pulling out! I bought one for my cab but I won't use it!

[polaris]

I meant the female part can pull out! That is the bit that lead fits into, the permanent piece in the cabinet! It has a lip to stop in going in but not pulling out! I bought one for my cab but I won't use it!

it looks like the one in that pic is for mounting on metal panels, it has clips that hold it in place, for wood you can get ones with screw attatchments i'm sure

[EightBySix]

Ok, so got a decent workbench now. I've started to get back on track. Been looking for a particular Dell monitor - E172 - same as one we have at home becuase I know it has a wide viewing angle and bright colours. One turned up on ebay that was scratched and had pressure marks - neither of which I particularly care about, esp since most classic games are on a black background, so they wont really show. Got it for £9.99 (ok - same for postage, but still...)

Could see no obvious way to get the case off, but a bit of Googling revealed some small slits to poke a flat blade screwdriver into and pop the cover off. See any scratches? 


It was thinner than I had hoped for - should leave me with a bit of room inside the table:



Now I have the monitor, I can work out a final design based on those dimensions, and that of the joystick (thanks for the advice there, by the way), so the table top will be as thin as I can make it.

[jmike]

Very cool project. Can't wait to see some progress pics.

Any chance you have the link for that touch sliders for volume control thingy? Never seen anything like that before.



 

[EightBySix]

Any chance you have the link for that touch sliders for volume control thingy? Never seen anything like that before.

I found this when googling capacitive touch sensors. It's a design example rather than a product you can buy I'm afraid. If you understand more than 10% of it, then let me know 

[EightBySix]

After more procrastination than is good for me, I think I have decided on my design.

I've tried to plan it out as well as I can, because I have to get the wood delivered, which means a cutting list. I can't just nip down to the local DIY store if I get it wrong. The control panel arrangement is going to be tricky though, so I'm going to prototype it in cheaper wood.

A prototype controller means it's time to buy an encoder, but I was a bit suprised at the cost of them. It looked like it might be the most expensive part of the project, which didnt seem right. I tried a keyboard hack, which turned out a mess, with no guarantee that it would work properly either. Whilst googling though, I came across a very helpful website by a guy who made his own. It involves an extra piece of kit to program the microcontrollers, but as I can pick one of those up for less than an encoder, I thought I would give it a try. I'll need one anyway for some of the other bits of electronics that are a gleam in my eye at the moment. So after a bit of online shopping, this arrived on my mat:

I think I have a steep learning curve ahead  especially after the mess I made soldering the keyboard hack - but that's whats fun about all this

So... I'll try and put it together, program the encoder and I'll let you know how it goes.

[jholman76]

That looks like all sorts of fun....

You could always go on deal extreme and get a cheap USB pad to hack. There is a thread out there that I posted in that details how to do it.

joe

[emphatic]

So, I don't understand where the wires will go from that controller box -> inside your cabinet. But I guess you've planned it somehow.

[EightBySix]

  ...wires? I knew there was something 

I'm either going to embed a ribbon cable in the hinge - like on a laptop screen, or send them through a hole in the side of the panel. The prototype will show me the way hopefully.

[leapinlew]

I love the idea of doing something cool with the coffee table, but the main problem I have is an elegant solution to get power to the middle of the room.

[emphatic]

Ribbon cable sounds like a nice plan. 

[rablack97]

http://www.lizardlickamusements.com/images/for_sale/electrical/power_entry.jpg



LizardLick.com

or

mouser.com ( this place has everything you can think of electrical)

both ship international
(This may be a bit late, i didnt see there was a page 2 when i posted this, oh well, hope it helps anyway...)

[Bender]

I love the idea of doing something cool with the coffee table, but the main problem I have is an elegant solution to get power to the middle of the room.

Base it on a laptop and run it off the battery (the newer ones have like 8 to 10 hours of runtime)  then you just need to plug it in one in a while to charge it. That way the power cable wouln't be there most of the time

or just drill a hole in the floor under one of the legs and feed the power cord through there (I'm only half joking, I might actually do something like that)

After more procrastination than is good for me, I think I have decided on my design.

Love the fold out CP design!

[EightBySix]

Good news first - I've been busy putting my microchip programming kit together, and ended up with this:

I really enjoyed doing it - real 'tongue in the corner of the mouth' concentration stuff. I made a much better job of the soldering since my attempred keyboard encoder hack. Thanks to some tutorials I googled.
Bad news - It doesn't work! I checked out the support forum, and it seems you have to be careful with the com ports on modern motherboards, as nowadays they dont use an actual RS232 chip, but emulate one, and not all work with the programmer. I put it on an older machine and stil no luck. To be honest I would have been amazed if it had have worked 1st time around without some assembly mistakes.
Turns out though, and this is where I failed to do my research properly, that the kit wont program the kind of chips I need for an encoder - I need one with more pins, unless I compromise on the number of inputs I can support.
I'm going to have to get another to allow me to make what I need. I'll still see if I can fix the one I got as a learning exercise, but mucking around with it is stopping me from getting on to build my CP prototype.

I had an idea whilst building out my sketchup model. I was making a bezel texture and thought why not use a veneer, to match the table panels. Only drawback would be the 16x2 matrix for the underglass display look a bit out of place. Then I remembered a clock I once saw on a gadget website:


So I thought I could do somthing similar with a differerent, brighter kind of LED, like this:

After a score on eBay, I'm on the way to a hidden 'frond end' / status display... Here's a sneak preview :-)

Its just a shame I got lost after potential dividers in electronics at school ;-) ... Onwards and upwards...

[abzman2000]

As far as the encoder goes, this is where I can chip in, try a combination of an arduino and some digital multiplexer chips.  The reason I say arduino is because it can emulate a pc keyboard already, well, kinda.  Someone wrote a library to interface the arduino to a pc and have it pretend to be a keyboard, and it's only a few bits of hardware.  Digital multiplexer chips allow communication of more inputs on a single pin, so you can expand the number of usable pins as much as you need.  Check this link for how to set up multiplexer chips.  The keyboard interface is easy too, this link documents it fairly well, so with a little bit of coding you could set up macros, shifted keys, turbo buttons, or anything else you might want, but it would be completely independent of the computer. 

[Blanka]

I don't get all the fuss about the costs. A basic encoder is like 25 euros, and a gamepad-hack (keyboard-hacks sucks) is maybe 5 euro/player. This prototyping board is way more complex.
With arduino, you can also use resistors to multiplex. Then convert the analog signal to the keys pressed. But Arduino is 25 bucks as well.

[EightBySix]

I don't get all the fuss about the costs.

It's not really the money - I'm going to need to get my head around this stuff for some of the other bits of the project I'm planning anyway. So when I get up to speed, the keyboard encoder should come along 'for free', plus if its my own I can get it to do some non-standard stuff too I think I'll be needing.

As far as the encoder goes, this is where I can chip in, try a combination of an arduino and some digital multiplexer chips.

Chipping in (ha - no pun intended  ) is very welcome. Thanks - reading up on multipexing now. When I was originally reading up on this stuff I looked at the arduino, but went the PIC route because I thought that I would need an arduino board for each little project. I didnt think I could just pop the chip our once I had finished the coding and solder it into something more permanent. As I learn more though, I guess there is no reason why that wouldn't be possible...

[abzman2000]

As far as I know the only things you need for a really bare-bones arduino is a power source, a crystal, and a reset button.  you could use a usb ttl serial cable to program it, or you could just pop it in the arduino board, load the program and drop it into the project.  Here is the really bare-bones schematic, or you could just google for it to get some other people's ideas on it.  As far as programming the chips, I would burn the bootloader with the usbtinyisp, and upload the code with the usb-ttl serial converter cable (takes the place of the serial chip on the arduino board).  The arduino is just a micro-controller with a boot-loader so you can use simpler code to program it rather than learning the more difficult micro-controller code.  You can buy these micro-controllers (atmega 168, or 328) pre-programmed from this guy or over at sparkfun.  Or you could buy the blank ones from any electronics website that deals in them (digikey, mouser, etc...) and get the boot-loader burned with the usbtinyisp, but it's not much cheaper than buying them pre-programmed. 

[EightBySix]

I've been lurking around eBay for ages for a linear actuator that is quiet, and has the right stroke length. I finally snagged one of these:

It should open and close the table fine, but I'm concerned that it's a bit over powered (this is one of the less powerful ones) as it can push 600Kg! Does anyoe have any thoughts of some kind of safety device to stop it closing should little fingers / coffee mugs be in the way? I'm thinking an IR LED/Sensor pair, or maybe a pressure sensor on the inside edges of the table leaves....

[Rick]

This... ...is slick.  I love it.

[JustMichael]

Have you thought about using a 2way mirror for the top of the coffee table instead of the sliding wood panels?  While the monitor is off the top would just appear to be an ordinary mirrored top.  When the monitor is on it will shine through the mirror.  This would also protect the monitor from spills.  With the sliding wood top there is a gap in the middle for a spill to sneak through.

[drventure]

I love that "Led behind the veneer" idea!

Cool stuff! and an excellent way to do a coffee table cab.

[EightBySix]

Have you thought about using a 2way mirror for the top

Actually no, I hadn't thought of that. Wouldnt really fit in with the traditional look I'm going for though. Hopefully, I'm covered in terms of spillage with the design I chose.

I had a thought regarding a safety device. Some sort of sacrificial linkage with the actuator that would break relatively easily if all the electronics went wrong. Maybe a strain gauge on it to hopefully stop the motor before it came to that. This kind of actuator is used in hospital beds / door openers etc. They must have some sort of safety mechanism too right? Anyone know anything about it?

[EightBySix]

Reading Konky Dong's post inspired me to just get some tools out and get going. There is only so much you can plan for, and better to fix things on the way than never have an idea leave the drawing board.

Just beat the 1 year anniversary of my last post... Since then we have redecorated and the table will now have to fit in with oak decor. That blew the price of my table out of the water, so it was kind of on hold. Part of the redecorating though was to build a little computer desk, which I used oak laminated mdf for. There was some left so out came the jigsaw.

I've changed the design though. I couldn't see a way to make the joystick in a drawer idea strong enough, so I have gone with this instead:

The whole centre panel sinks into the body of the table when it closes.

Progress pics as soon as I manage to get them of an uncooperative phone...

[Yvan256]

What if you put just enough space for the buttons under the sliding panels and use The Link for the joysticks?

[Nephasth]

What if you put just enough space for the buttons under the sliding panels and use The Link for the joysticks?

That's good idea. Didn't even know about The Link before. Too bad preordering is over.

[Yvan256]

What if you put just enough space for the buttons under the sliding panels and use The Link for the joysticks?

That's good idea. Didn't even know about The Link before. Too bad preordering is over.

If you're in no rush, you could wait until they're available again in a few weeks/months. From what I understand this was a "test" run only, to see how many people wanted one, etc.

[EightBySix]

Hey - that looks perfect! It means I could go back to plan A and have a joystick in a drawer. Typical - just as I had decided to go ahead 

I'll press on with the centre panel and wait until he opens up for orders

[EightBySix]

So here are some contruction pics.

The offcut I'm using for the centre panel


Getting the edge straight - old school.


Plunge cut with the circular saw


Trimming to fit the monitor


At this point, I had to stop - before I could see it with the monitor. Good thing in hindsight, as the next job was cutting button holes, which I'm now gonna have in a drawer.

Back to sketchup for a bit now. Back in less than a year, hopefully.

[EightBySix]

After much fiddling, it fits. Nice and tight too. I'll put some turnbuckles underneath to make sure its secure though.

There will be a routed recess to hold the LED display, covered by a veneer sheet and then the glass. The veneer will also cover the silver bezel of the monitor.

Here is the way its going to work now. The joystick will lie flat and pull up with the action of the drawer.

I could also have the coin slot on the drawer surface, and use the drawer as the coin box. It has been bugging me where to put it without making a hole in the centre panel.
 

[Yvan256]

Here is the way its going to work now. The joystick will lie flat and pull up with the action of the drawer.

Can you elaborate a bit more on that joystick idea? You're not going to use The Link from Phreakmods?

[EightBySix]

Sure, it will fold in like this:


The mechanical action of the drawer opening will raise it up and down. In the up position, I'll have a microswitch to trigger the table opening actuator.

I love the concept of the PhreakMods link shaft, it made me realize that I could use the drawer concept after all. Then I realised that one of the main factors of the previous design was to make the table top as shallow as possible. With the new decor in the room, its no longer an issue - the furniture is 'chunkier' if that makes sense.
I watched a video of the stick and thought it wouldnt really work well with the kids and visitors. I can see me having to replace it often. Would be fantastic for some of the fold away bartops I've seen here though...

[Donkbaca]

I would ditch the coin box idea, I like using coins in coin doors, it adds a certain arcadey feeling, but its a pain to store the tokens.

THis might sound dumb, but where are you putting the PC and how are you running cables?

[EightBySix]

I would ditch the coin box idea, I like using coins in coin doors, it adds a certain arcadey feeling, but its a pain to store the tokens.

I'm going to use it as a money box - to fund future projects, and I kind of like the idea of making something to detect the coins. Phase II maybe 

THis might sound dumb, but where are you putting the PC and how are you running cables?

I have one of these:

Its about the size of a VHS cassette case, it's got a P166 in it, just about enough to run the classics.

As for wiring - with difficulty, especially since I'll have a linear actuator in there too. I think I have it figured out though. I'll post a pic of the internal layout later.

[surface tension]

Hey, this is coming on really well. Interesting to see all the ideas based around the control panel.

Great to see some more coffee table action... and in the UK!

[EightBySix]

Ok, so I know this is non standard, but I want the table to accept any coin, and give a credit for every 10p value inserted. So you could insert 1p + 2p + 2p + 5p and get 1 play, or 50p to get 5 plays, etc.
I'm going to use it as a kind of money box, or one of those places you keep loose change until there is enough to change into something bigger.

Here's how I've done it.

First, I took a chunk out of the side of a piece of wood:


Shaped it at an angle and put some slots in, to receive some brass contacts:


Cut and countersunk some lengths of brass. One for the coins to roll along, and several to go in the slots at various heights, to match the different coins.


Ended up with this:


Made a kind of wiring loom, so that I can detect when a circuit has been completed by the coin touching a brass contact. The contact then pushes the coin off the slope.


Here's a vid, to show how it works.

[drventure]

Nicely done! I like it

 

[Yvan256]

I sure hope those signals are debounced! 

What microcontroller are you using?

[Ond]

Nice woodworking, I like the LED idea also.

[EightBySix]

I sure hope those signals are debounced! 

What microcontroller are you using?

Hehe - yes, those contacts must bounce physically, never mind electronically! I took the schoolboy approach (it's been a sttep learning curve for me) and just introduce a short 25ms delay before polling again. That should sort it. If someone can shovel coins in faster than that they deserve the extra credits!

Its a pic 16f877a. I chose it because I found the website of a guy who made his own keyboard encoder, and it's what he used.

Nice woodworking, I like the LED idea also.

Thanks Ond. The LED display is up next (gulp), then when I work out how big the circuit board will be, I can cut a recess in the 'bezel' pictured in the last update.

Question for you guys. The LED matrices I bought have 7x5 LEDs and are about 1.5” x 0.9”. I’ll string them together and I worked out I can fit a row of 13 characters in the space I have. I’m worried that they are too big and it might look a bit ‘fairground’.
Smaller ones are available (0.9” high) and I wonder if I should go for them. It would also have the advantage of space for more characters.
At around £3 each though (x approx 20) they wouldn’t be cheap. I’ll be forced to go with what I have for now, and make sure I design it so I can change my mind later. Just reaching out for opinions.
Here’s a repeat of an earlier image to show you what I mean.

[Yvan256]

Question for you guys. The LED matrices I bought have 7x5 LEDs and are about 1.5” x 0.9”. I’m worried that they are too big and it might look a bit ‘fairground’. Smaller ones are available (0.9” high) and I wonder if I should go for them. Just reaching out for opinions.

The first thing I would try is make a mockup with the real materials and just light up a few LEDs on a single matrix (no scrolling) just to see how well you can see the individual pixels. I'm not sure if I understand but I think you plan on having the light go through wood? It's gonna need to be extra-super-thin if you ask me. 

[EightBySix]

I'm not sure if I understand but I think you plan on having the light go through wood? It's gonna need to be extra-super-thin if you ask me. 

Yep - that's right. I bought some veneer samples for just that purpose. Normally very thin veneers are a sign of poor quality, but the thinner the better for me. The ones I got are 0.6mm which is fairly standard, but almost opaque. I'm going to gently sand a portion of it to see if my plan will come together.

[Yvan256]

Yep - that's right. I bought some veneer samples for just that purpose. Normally very thin veneers are a sign of poor quality, but the thinner the better for me. The ones I got are 0.6mm which is fairly standard, but almost opaque. I'm going to gently sand a portion of it to see if my plan will come together.

Make sure the veneer is right on top of the LCD matrix and makes physical contact. Any space will just diffuse the light and won't give good results.

If that doesn't work, another idea would be to have a smoked/tainted film over at least both the LCD and LED matrixes areas, if not the whole surface. That way, it would be one continuous area for all the displays with no apparent break between them.

[drventure]

One thought about the LED matrix. You'll need the led's flush mounted into something (like holes drilled in a wood block or somesuch because if not, there won't be any support behind that veneer and it'll be really easy to punch a hole through it.

But I still love that idea. Don't abandon it yet!

[EightBySix]

I'm planning a veneer sandwich, with glass on the top, and the mdf sheet holding the screen on the bottom, so hopefully I'll be covered on both counts. if I get some shed time this weekend, Ill try a mockup and post some pics

[EightBySix]

The first thing I would try is make a mockup with the real materials and just light up a few LEDs on a single matrix (no scrolling) just to see how well you can see the individual pixels.

The results are in.

This picture is regular thickness veneer (0.6mm). Not really workable.


And this is with me having sanded it down so it's as thin as I dare make it

I think I can get away with this. Especially since the photo was taken in quite bright daylight. Any more sun, and you wont be able to see the LCD monitor anyway 
The LEDs will go brighter. LED scrolling signs like this use multiplexing. If the LED is only on briefly you can push it beyond the max rating without harm, and persistance of vision means that an LED at 150% of its normal brightness on a 10% duty cycle looks brighter than recommended voltages at 100% duty cycle. Apparantly.

Make sure the veneer is right on top of the LCD matrix and makes physical contact. Any space will just diffuse the light and won't give good results.

This makes a huge difference. The pictures were taken with a piece of acrylic on top of them.

I'm happy with the size of these too. Should look about right on the table itself.

[drventure]

That is going to be absolutely fantastic!

Can't wait to see how it turns out finished 

[Yvan256]

Very nice results on that second picture. I'm planning a similar thing for my next Neo-Geo cabinet. Not displaying LEDs under wood, but the scrolling idea. 

I have to say, it turned out a lot better than I expected.   

What's the thickness after sanding?

[emphatic]

Insanely cool. 

[BurgerKingDiamond]

for you controller PCB just go on ebay and get a generic Chinese gamepad for like $6 shipped and hack it.

[EightBySix]

What's the thickness after sanding?

I don't have a micrometer, so I don't know. I only know it was .6 mm because that's how the samples were sold. I may need to get one to make sure I sand the actual piece evenly.

[Yvan256]

What's the thickness after sanding?

I don't have a micrometer, so I don't know. I only know it was .6 mm because that's how the samples were sold. I may need to get one to make sure I sand the actual piece evenly.

What I would do is stick two pieces of the desired thickness to both ends of a hand-held sander so that you get an exact sanding thickness on your veneer.

[AlienInferno]

LED's look awsome.  Wish I had the know-how to make that.

[JustMichael]

Hey EightBySix, got a question.  How does a lcd look behind your super thin wood?

[EightBySix]

Hey EightBySix, got a question.  How does a lcd look behind your super thin wood?

Rubbish. Cant make out an image at all I'm afraid. My laptop has a pretty bright screen too.

[nordemoniac]

Yeah, you'd might be able to get the light through, but you won't be able to get a picture through. you could use a mirror spray which only is visible when it's low light.

Griffin has that on some iPod cases. I have one on 3rd gen. reduces light with maybe 20%. Looks cool though!

[Dechene]

What's the thickness after sanding?

I don't have a micrometer, so I don't know. I only know it was .6 mm because that's how the samples were sold. I may need to get one to make sure I sand the actual piece evenly.

I bet you $50 if you got your local copy shop to take a high resolution scan of your veneer and then got a quality printout of it, that you could use it in place of the actual veneer.

I think it would look much more uniform, much clearer and just as real as wood under the plexi...

[Rick]

I bet you $50 if you got your local copy shop to take a high resolution scan of your veneer and then got a quality printout of it, that you could use it in place of the actual veneer.

Genius.

 

[EightBySix]

I bet you $50 if you got your local copy shop to take a high resolution scan of your veneer and then got a quality printout of it, that you could use it in place of the actual veneer.

I think it would look much more uniform, much clearer and just as real as wood under the plexi...

That is a good idea. I think I'll pass though, as the uniformity of it would reveal it to be fake. I want the 'wow, thats wood' factor. Also, I'll be cutting a hole for the monitor, and might see the White edge of the paper.

[Pixelhugger]

The first thing I would try is make a mockup with the real materials and just light up a few LEDs on a single matrix (no scrolling) just to see how well you can see the individual pixels.

The results are in.

This picture is regular thickness veneer (0.6mm). Not really workable.


And this is with me having sanded it down so it's as thin as I dare make it

I think I can get away with this. Especially since the photo was taken in quite bright daylight. Any more sun, and you wont be able to see the LCD monitor anyway 
The LEDs will go brighter. LED scrolling signs like this use multiplexing. If the LED is only on briefly you can push it beyond the max rating without harm, and persistance of vision means that an LED at 150% of its normal brightness on a 10% duty cycle looks brighter than recommended voltages at 100% duty cycle. Apparantly.

Make sure the veneer is right on top of the LCD matrix and makes physical contact. Any space will just diffuse the light and won't give good results.

This makes a huge difference. The pictures were taken with a piece of acrylic on top of them.

I'm happy with the size of these too. Should look about right on the table itself.

Too cool. What an awesome idea! Consider the envelope pushed. 

[drventure]

I want the 'wow, thats wood' factor

+1, although the "Printed vinyl" idea might work for other things. I'll definitely keep that in mind

[Dechene]

That is a good idea. I think I'll pass though, as the uniformity of it would reveal it to be fake. I want the 'wow, thats wood' factor. Also, I'll be cutting a hole for the monitor, and might see the White edge of the paper.

Not to keep flogging the idea but once its beneath the plexi I reckon you'll struggle to tell the difference between paper & veneer and so long as you use a sharp blade to slice it up you shouldn't see the white edge. Maybe.

[AlienInferno]

Are you going to stain the veneer or anything?  Just wondering if that would darken it up enough to make seeing the LED's a bit more difficult.

[EightBySix]

Are you going to stain the veneer or anything?  Just wondering if that would darken it up enough to make seeing the LED's a bit more difficult.

Good point. I'm going to either oil or wax it, so it shouldnt change the colour too much, but I'd better try the intended finish on the test piece. Maybe oil would make it more transparant, and I dont want to be able to see the electronics beneath.

Not to keep flogging the idea but once its beneath the plexi I reckon you'll struggle to tell the difference between paper & veneer and so long as you use a sharp blade to slice it up you shouldn't see the white edge. Maybe.

You're probably right, but I dont see the point in the extra step of getting a copy made if the wood is good enough. I can keep the idea in my back pocket in case the veneer is too tricky when it comes to the real thing.

[yaksplat]

It's possible that using some tung oil may make the veneer slightly translucent and increase transparency for the LEDs.

[Pixelhugger]

I've never veneered anything flat before, but on the curved pieces I've done, any gap in the adhesive has caused puckering or bubbling/blistering even with paper backed veneer. Is that a concern with flat pieces? I'm wondering if that'll be a problem where the substrate meets the LED panels....?

[EightBySix]

I guess I'm not actually veneering, but rather layering. I won't be glueing the veneer to the substrate and just relying on the glass to hold it in place, like this


This way, I can take it off and fiddle with the LEDs if I need to. I've also got a few extra things I want to put under the veneer at a later date, but I'm forcing myself not to think about them yet or I'll never make any progress 

[Pixelhugger]

Ah, got it.

[EightBySix]

Got myself some 'Surface Transducers' to use instead of speakers. Interesting things. I had to get some sacrificial PC speakers for £9 so I could rip out the amplifier circuit for them. I wired them up to my iPod and tried them on various surfaces. The best was some sealed unit double glazed windows on which they sounded suprisingly good. They seem to need to be on something hollow to get a decent sound. I toyed with putting them on the underside of the glass on my table so that the speaker would be literally 'in your face' but the glass will be resting on veneer and I think it will dampen them too much.

Best bet is to fix them to the inside of the bottom cavity in the table. They wont beat some high quality speakers, but It's the best bass response I can get in such a restricted space.

(also - just put down a £50 deposit on £170 worth of oak. No going back now!)

[EightBySix]

After working out my holidays for Christmas, I realised I had more than I thought. I can't carry it over into next year, so I'm on hols as of now  Since the kids dont finish school for a week, it's the perfect opportunity to make some progress.

The timber yard called to say the wood was ready, and I went to pick it up for £210  I could buy a table for less than that! Still, I'm in it for the experience, not a cheap table so off I went to pick it up.

Look at the size of that bandsaw! I got them to rip one of the table legs in half, so I could route a cable channel and I swear it took it a full 60 seconds to get up to speed.


Now I have to figure out how to transform the pile of timber I bought from this:


Into this:


First step was to chamfer the ends of the legs to make it look a bit less 'square'. x3 and being veeeery careful to triple check the compound angles were right 


The last leg needed a hole through the centre - hence the giant bandsaw. I planed the cut surfaces smooth and routed a channel in each


Couple of biscuits to align the pieces and glue them back together


They are glueing as I type. Tomorrow I'll chamfer it to match the other 3 legs and then onto the side frames. Been a while since I made mortice & tenon joints...

More tomorrow.

[EightBySix]

More sawdust and wood shavings porn after many hours in the shed.

Cutting a tenon:


And then cutting 16 more  Prototype control panel in the background.


First of 16 mortices:


And then it staggers into life for its first dry assembly, to check for size etc.


Now I have to do the lower rail, and then the panels (oak veneered 6mm ply) to fit between them.

On a side note, I got my LED matrix panels in the post. These will save me LOADS of work and £££, although I still have to interface them to a controller etc.

I'm deliberately not working on that yet so that I make the best of the time I have whilst I'm home alone in the shed.

[Yvan256]

From the photos, it looks like you're building your cabinet in the attic? Are you sure you'll be able to get it out of there once assembled?

[emphatic]

Awesome work. 

[EightBySix]

From the photos, it looks like you're building your cabinet in the attic? Are you sure you'll be able to get it out of there once assembled?

No my friend, not the attic, but the garden shed.   it's dark here around 4pm.
same potential problem of course, but I'll only dry assemble it until it's inside.

Awesome work. 

Thanks, it's great to have the time to get stuck in.

[yaksplat]

awesome work with what looks like no power tools.

i'm too attached to my 120VAC 

[Blux]

Any progress on this?  Very interested to see the finished product.

[EightBySix]

I've got a few more pics, but was saving them up until I had a bigger update, but since you asked....   

The table sides are made up from 2 pieces of wood, with a 6mm oak faced ply insert.
Here are the mortices for the second piece of wood.


Here is one of the sides assembled for a test fit. The side struts are slightly proud, so I can plane/sand them flush later.


I need to route a 6mm channel in the legs and wooden side struts to receive the ply panels. That way it should look neater and will also give me more glueing surface. I'm relying on them to add strength. I got the router out for this, I don't have a chisel narrow enough. I try to avoid it if I can, scares the bejesus out of me, both due to the fact that it could lop off some fingers, and also the slightest slip can destroy a workpiece. I cant afford to mess up when the wood was so expensive.


Here's the panel:


And this is how it looks now


I've been working on the long sides in the same way. These are a bit more involved because of the hole for the drawer containing the CP.

Progress is back to slow speed again for the moment. Work/family coming first - familiar story for us all.

[drventure]

Very nice! I'd forgotten about this build. Glad to see it's still coming together.

The timber yard called to say the wood was ready, and I went to pick it up for £210  I could buy a table for less than that! Still, I'm in it for the experience, not a cheap table so off I went to pick it up.

 

The old radio cabinet I'm converting to a jukebox right now. I swear, if I bought all the wood and veneers required to build that, it'd have cost 3-4 times what I paid for a completely assembled (albeit in bad need of refinishing) cabinet, not to mention the time.

[firedance]

  very nice woodworking skills

that bandsaw is a tiddler (small) compared to the ones i've seen/used 

[BobA]

Your woodworking skills are superior to most on this board.  I would have to say that most use power tools over hand tools.  I applaud your skill     The coffee table looks like it will be a work of art.

[Ond]

This is coming along well, these classy artistic furniture cabs are rare, the last impressive one I remember was by pixel..cuddle. somebody,  can't, quite recall his name 

[AlienInferno]

Very nice.  Beats anything I could make.   

[EightBySix]

Thanks for the nice comments guys. I think the soft lighting must have you fooled 

Hand tools are a more attractive option when:

• You have no power in the shed, without trailing an extention socket from the house
• Your work area is 8' x 6' with no proper ventillation
• You usually only get chance to work late when the kids are asleep

Also, I find them relaxing to use, which you can't really say about a table saw or router. Perfect antidote to a technical IT job where you dont really 'see' what you make.

Got chance to do one of the longer sides today. Looking forward to doing the top.

[Richard_Nixon]

Technical IT job? Looks like you should have been a carpenter!

[Green Giant]

If you keep up with this kind of quality, are you sure the wife will let you put an arcade inside it?

[EightBySix]

Update time

Really been trying to get time to work on this lately, we went away for a few days, so I booked a couple of extra days vacation so I could have some shed time sort out the packing. I ended up nursing the little one through a bout of chicken pox instead  . Still, looking on the bright side - if she had come down with them later it would have ruined the holiday. Here's an update of the work I managed to get done in the odd hour here and there since.

A leftover piece of oak veneered MDF from a desk I made was big enough to get the table top pieces I needed. Should tie in nicely with the desk too. Here's the mdf in question, complete with test holes, practice cuts from previous projects etc .


I was lucky - the test cuts nearly cost me dear in terms of what I had left, but the gods were with me and I just managed to get the cuts I needed from it with my jigsaw. 



The edges had to be nice and straight, to avoid any gaps when I put the edging on. The plane took care of that (although I'm finding that MDF is playing hell with my nice sharp blades)
Notice the 2 pieces in the vice at the same time - The plane takes care  of the straight edge along the length, but its too easy to rock in the other direction in you're not careful and make the edge out of true. Two together gives a wider surface and helps me keep it square.



Next I cut the edging to an approximate length.


I've discovered that I cant cut a straight line with a hand saw  - I tend to wander off the line as I cut down. Some wordworking forums I've visited suggest it can happen if your saw teeth need adjusting. I'm more inclined to think it's because I cant stand square to the bench because of lack of room to stick my arse in the other direction. 
To the table saw then, to nibble the ends until they are true. Normally I wouldnt bother to be so accurate, but it would show here if I dont get it right. Heres the end result:



Time to break out the biscuit jointer. I love this thing. I used to use  dowells to joint stuff like this, but biscuits are much more accurate, and the little bit of side to side movement they give you is a lifesaver



Came across a problem when I test fitted the edging - they tended to sag. They are pretty thick pieces and quite weighty. The glue would have probably held them in place, but I think its good to have things mechanicaly strong in their own right. An extra biscuit through both the MDF and solid wood seems to sort it.



Time for a test assemble. Heres a pic of the carcass. The side panels are 6mm oak veneered ply - but the ply is only on one side. Makes sense I suppose - no point paying for the extra when its hidden. You can see the pale side here on the inside.



And another angle. The gaps at the top of the drawer hole sides will close up then I tap the top rail fully home. I hope! 



Got a bit snap-happy when I put the top panels on. Still - pics is pics  . This is just a test fit. There is no glue here, and I've not used any nails or screws yet in the entire thing. It seems pretty stable.



From the end:



And from the top



So next thing to deal with, are the holes in the side where a drawer should be, containing the control panel. Best joint to deal with that is a dovetail joint, so it naturally resists coming apart when pulled. Traditionally, half-blind dovetails are used so they dont show from the front. So that's my next challenge. I've never made any half blind ones before, so I'm practicing on scrap. Here's my 2nd attempt (the 1st was on softwood and wasnt pretty)



I'll have another couple of trys before I let myself loose on the actual wood I bought for the CP.

Thanks for reading. I'll be moving onto more buttons and joysticks type stuff soon!

[yotsuya]

Actually, I think I'm more excited to see more of your table making than the arcade-y stuff! Great job!

[Louis Tully]

.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Very nice work.  I'm a Normite woodworker (if it can't be done with a power tool it probably won't get done) but I recognize the hand tooled work as the higher art. 

[Santoro]

Wow.   Love the idea, love the craftsmanship.  Love the 'arts and crafts' feel. 

Watching this build for sure, nice work so far!

[EightBySix]

Couldn't resist popping the screen in to see what it will look like during play  



The bank of LEDs will be below the veneer of course, like I described earlier.

[AlienInferno]

Looks great man.  Definatly enjoying seeing more of this table come together.  It's going to look awesome when completed.

[wp34]

 

That looks beautiful.

[Green Giant]

Actually, I think I'm more excited to see more of your table making than the arcade-y stuff! Great job!

Seconded.

[kahlid74]

Actually, I think I'm more excited to see more of your table making than the arcade-y stuff! Great job!

Seconded.

I love the hand tool wood working.  Just classy all the way to the bank.  Keep up the great work!

[EightBySix]

Some more progress to report. I did a glue up quite a while ago, and while its an exciting step for me, it doesnt really make for good progress pics for you guys, so I waited till I had some more stuff to share

I did have a moment of drama when I was taking apart the dry assembly, when I was pulling a joint out. It kind of popped out whilst I was still pulling and I heard a crack on the opposite joint :-O Luckily it didnt break all the way through and with a dab of glue, all was well.


See that box on the right? Its a massage chair, and if you look carefully you can see it shaking. I got it out from on top of the wardrobe where it had been since Christmas to check it for useful motors and gears as suggested by (I think) Dr Venture. The moment the family saw it they were all 'hey - I'd forgotten about that - lets have a go!' so it was spared from dis-assembly. It's now back on top of the cupboard.

Since the glue dried the table has become useful in it's own right as a piece of furniture - its already been used for various other 'projects'. Could this be the woodwork equivalent of making a cab playable before it's finished?


thankfully - progress continued, in the shape of a hunt for a means of opening and closing the table. I previously bought a linear actuator, which is beautifully smooth and quiet, but also very slow. I timed it, and it would have been around 45 seconds to open fully. long time to wait with coin in hand. No, problem - I could use a lever to amplify the movement. I would also need a mechanism that I saw which would allow both table top pieces to move at the same time. Like this:



All getting a bit complicated though, especially with little room to play with. An idea struck. Why not just drive the gear from the table equalizer slide? Much easier, but hard to find the rack and pinion components at a sensible price, and I would also need some sort of housing for them to slide in.

After much pencil top biting, I thought I would use a threaded steel rod, with captive nuts to slide apart when the rod is rotated. It's possible to get threaded rods with one half left handed and the other with a right handed thread. They tend to be quite specialist though and therefore pricey. I looked into cutting my own threads on each end of a bar, but was told I would need both left and right handed dies which again were expensive. (Do you think they were laughing at me as I went - like when the apprentice is sent for a left handed screwdriver, or striped paint?)

Solution? Cut the threaded rod in half, and spin each in opposite directions using bevel gears, which would also allow me to mount the motor at right angles to the bar - a good space saver for me.

So - I bring you the Luxo-Slide. Here are the progress pics, starting off with a means of making sure the sliding components are perfectly square. This is a shooting board. You hold the workpiece against the stop and slide the plane on its side to trim a tiny sliver off the end.


Paused to sharpen my stuff - the blades were shot to ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- after working MDF. If you ever need to sharpen blades on the cheap, look up the 'Scary Sharp' method, which involves glueing various grades of wet and dry sanding paper onto glass.


Then I needed to drill two holes, one for the threaded bar and one for the captive nut.


Took me a while to work out how to hold a nut captive whilst the rod spins. Wandered the local DIY superstore for inpiration and saw these dowel nuts - you might have used them in flat pack furniture. Even better, I got them for 45p each in a local ironmongers instead of the £7 for a pack of five the superstore was asking.


Chopped the threaded rod in half with a Dremmel - also was chance to post a picture of me making sparks, which is surely a right of passage for manly projects.


Got a motor with the correct RPM to spin the bar, which fits nicely into the side of the Luxo-Slide. While testing though - the noise is way too loud. Lets face it, a motorised table slide is bling - there is no reason it couldn't be opened by hand, so if I'm doing it, it has to be classy. A table that sounds like a vacuum cleaner is just not cool. Pressing ahead though. I can always soundproof, or get a differernt motor.


Heres the finished mechanism.


Closer up


And as it will fit in the table



Need to add the electronics, limit switches etc. Turns out this is the same kind of problem as a rotating monitor, only linear instead of circular. the info in the MRotate section was just what I needed. Thanks to DaOldMan!


Video anyone?


 

[Santoro]

whoa.

[drventure]

I was wondering how this was progressing, You did not disappoint!

Awesome

when I was pulling a joint out

Totally, thought you were going somewhere else with this 

About the motor. Yeah, I had the same noise issue with my jukebox mechanism. I ended up buying a real Linear actuator that solved all my issues. Noise seems to be generally inverse proportional to speed. You might see if you can find an even slower motor or a speed control for the motor you have.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Man that brings back memories:


The worm drive luxo slide version looks awesome.  Adds sweet automation to your top notch woodwork.   

[Ond]

Beautiful work!  Noisy motors are pain, unfortunately the timber would act as a bit of sounding board as well, I'll be interested to see what you come up with.  Isolate the motor mount with rubber bushings maybe?  You can now claim full membership as a "manly maker of sparks".  I claimed this for myself waaaay back.    

[emphatic]

Whoah. 

[Le Chuck]

You da
This is wonderful to watch. 

What LA were you using that takes that long to open?  I know you can buy variable speed actuators but that does raise the price quite a bit. 

[kahlid74]

Wonderful!  I love the design and it's use.  I'm excited to see it move the monitor back and forth.

[EightBySix]

I'll be interested to see what you come up with.  Isolate the motor mount with rubber bushings maybe?

I've got a 3 point noise reduction programme.
1. Replace motor. I butchered the LA and got a nice one to use instead. Not so convenient in terms of mounting, but thats for another post
2. As you suggested. Also, where the assembly fits into the table. going to get somy nylon washers where the retaining bolts on each end of the rod meet the wood.
3. Grease! I reckon if the rod is greased it will absorb some rattling and vibration. I'm a bit concerned about the effect it will have on the oak though. Any suggestions anyone?

What LA were you using that takes that long to open?  I know you can buy variable speed actuators but that does raise the price quite a bit. 

It was made by Linak - an LA31
I watched ebay for ages to find one that was quicker, and still have the extention i needed, but plumpled for that one in the end.

Wonderful!  I love the design and it's use.  I'm excited to see it move the monitor back and forth.

Thanks. You may have misunderstood though, the monitor stays where it is - the mechanism opens and closes each half of the table top that cover it.

I've attached some linear actuator butchery pics, for you sickos that get a kick off that kind of thing 

[GregD]

This is beyond impressive?  Great woodworking skills.  Were those half blinds cut by hand?

[EightBySix]

yessir. They dont connect without gaps though, but I need to practice more. Especially before I have a go on the CP

[GIZMOGAMES]

Almost a month since your last post not that i was waiting in anticipation MUCH lol
And WoW awsome woodworking skills yes i find im limited with a no power 8/6 shed too but im willing to run the extension way across the garden when the weather permits me and i empty the thing lmao

i have a few ideas regarding yr draw/controls also so your initial idea of the draw front closind to create the flat palm rest is ok but why not create a drop down control as you have said ill post some sketches for what i mean its not that difficult really as youve demonstrated the open/close of the top surface so well making a drop down control panel will be childs play

goes to sketch ideas two mins ......

tum te tum te tum Aha here we go
i know i think yr kids could of drawn better but i HOPE it gives you an idea of what my idea would entail :S

so below is my 1/2 rate paint idea its just a matter of creating a slider to do the same direction as the way yr going possoblity to do with draw sliders or a similar idea like yr motorised opener see what ya think and HI im GIZMO DrNicks brother lol yes ive joined the newbie section of the forums he MADE me do it honest guvner lol

[EightBySix]

Wow - what a detailed update, thankyou. And I get where you are coming from with the pictures. I did consider a design similar to that, but couldn't get over an issue with the joystick sticking out when in the closed position (the 3rd picture down in your diagram). I could recess it by the length of the joystick, but then I would need to make the fold down section longer, so that it didnt hit the table underside. That would have made the table twice as thick, which is something I wanted to avoid. (I added to your pick to explain)


Your idea works if I had the joystick built into the table top, but I've moved back to having it in the drawer. (hmm, just reviewed my thread and I dont think I mentioned that  )

this is the plan now. I'm kind of committed to it.


Update wise - I've been busy frying motor driver chips. Kind of fed up with that for now, so have moved on to getting the LED matrix to work. I'll post another update soon, when I have something more visible to show.

[swaffar]

This is a great build... as far as frying chips, sounds like you need some diodes.

[GIZMOGAMES]

HaHaHa i like it and yes i see your point about joy height to depth adding to have to make a deeper draw its still a masterpiece of craftmanship tho non the less and thanks I TRY ya know lol remind me to QUOTTE that in my signature when i design it 

[EightBySix]

Heres my documentation of my attempts to make the table sliding mechanism quieter.

The motor that I took from the linear actuator runs almost silently. The catch was that the shaft was the wrong diameter (I deliberately chose the previous one to match the gears).
A friend gave me the idea of putting epoxy resin on the shaft to build it up to a little thicker than I needed, and then apply some sandpaper to it whilst spinning - like a lathe. It worked a treat, with a really good push fit and perfectly centred.


Next up was to mount it. I had a nice neat little hole for the last motor, but this is much more hefty. I glued a platform to the slider and tried to chisel out a hollow to match the motor case. Much more difficult than I anticipated - especially since it needs to align the gears - there isnt much room for error.
BYOAC to the rescue - Whilst reading Ond's bondo bible thread - I adapted the use of the plastic film to make a mould out of silicone sealant.


 It took a while to dry, but after a couple of days I had a perfectly fitting motor mount, it grips really well and its rubbery, which should absorb some vibration.



Next up was the points at which the threaded rod meets the wood. I wanted some sort of bushing to reduce the friction inside the drilled holes through the wood. I lucked out here. The kids were having a drink with a straw and it turns out they were a perfect push fit (the straws - not the kids). Then I got a box of assorted rubber washers which I paired with matching metal ones where the nuts met the wooden blocks.





The result? Not much difference actually. It felt more sturdy but I think most of the noise is coming from the gears.

A friend of mine recently restored a space harrier cab - the sit in kind that moves with the game. He had some special grease for the mechanism there and he gave me a tub.
Unfortunately, the speed of the gears just meant it became an effective grease spray. Still, you dont often get to schedule a lunchtime meeting with a work collegue to secretly hand over a tub of marine grease. It was a special moment.

It was a bit of a hassle swapping the motor lead polarity back and forth whilst I tried to pin down the source of the noise, so I started work on the electronics to do it via a switch, which I'll need later anyway. That brings me back to my last post about frying chips. The IC is supposed to have internal diodes to protect it, but I guess they werent manly enough. I'll try again with some external ones.

And then my veneer arrived, which will cover the LED matrix, so I've moved onto that for a while.
Update soon!

[drventure]

And then my veneer arrived, which will cover the LED matrix, so I've moved onto that for a while.
Update soon!

Now that post is one I'm looking forward too!

Yeah, I tried some of that on my home built "linear actuator" too. Nothing worked very well.
I suspect the only true way to quiet it down is to slow the motor down significantly.

[darthpaul]

I love this stuff, the concealed controls are genius, really great work. 

Yeah, I tried some of that on my home built "linear actuator" too. Nothing worked very well.
I suspect the only true way to quiet it down is to slow the motor down significantly.

Mine are loud as well but the coolness factor overrides the noise.

[EightBySix]

This has been the culmination of lots of work. Still not quite there, but enough to post.

Bit of background on the veneer. When I came to order I realised that you cant get single sheets of veneer as big as I wanted. You have to get 'matched' sheets and glue them down carefully. That wasnt going to work for me, as I'm not gluing anything. You can buy, however - larger flexible sheets of paper backed veneer. I bought some and the smell of the oak when I opened it was wonderful!

For some reason I had assumed the paper would be white, and therefore not cause any problems for me with lightt transmission, but it was brown, which I guess is a more appropriate colour for most uses.

The sheet I got was enough for 3 'bezels' - so I figure that gives me three goes to get it right.

I set off by getting a sheet of thin, but large paper from a flipchart, and cut out a template. My pencil followed a little ridge in the steel monitor surround, so that worked OK. I want a little strip of this silver to show. I think it looks better framed that way. You can also see the drawer slides I'm using in this pic to attach the table tops.


When I was happy with that, I taped it to the veneer and cut it out with a sharp hobby knife. You can use scissors for this stuff too... this is veneer side down.


Then I had to sand a portion of it so that it would let the LED lights through. I had to get rid of that brown paper, so I sanded it from the back. It didnt take too long, and the paper helped because I could see the wood emerge as I got close.
Here's a pic of the sanded portion.


And holding it up to the light to check as I went. Got a bit close for comfort in places.



Here is the LED matrix hardware, fitted into a recess in the back of the monitor panel.

Took me a while to think of a way to hold each of the 3 boards that comprise the matrix. Because I had to route out a stepped recess to hold them, I reckoned there wasnt enough MDF left to hold a screw. I remember my Dad making picture frames, pushing nails into the side of the frame to hold the glass and thought a similar approach would work. Its a tricky business though, with a pair of pliers and a pin hammer. One slip here means I scuff up the circuit boards.
I ended up with a low tech approach. If you look carefully, you'll see the drawing pins (US translation - thumb tacks) that I used. Pushed in at a slight angle gives a really tight fit.


And here is the circuit I built up to control them. I ended up using PicBasic to write the code to drive them, leaning heavilly on some stuff I googled. I had to make the connector on the right, to allow me to interface the connector for the LED matrix boards.


Here is a pic of it all put together. Ignore the line in the glass - its actually 2 glass shelves I borrowed from a bookcase that make a nice fit... Who's betting it will stay that way... When I replace them, I might look into non reflective glass. I'll see how it looks when the monitor is on.


Now here's the rub. It's not bright enough to see well in the daylight. I dont think the LEDs are as bright as when I did a proof of concept earlier. Not a disaster though. The datasheet for the boards recommends a supplimental 5V 1.5A power supply. Mine are powered from the same circuit that sends the signals, so hopefully it will improve. Here are some night shots though, to give you an idea at what it will be like.



And with the lights off too...



So I'm off to Google a little power supply, and see where that leaves me.

[drventure]

Bright or not, that is one of the slickest looking led assemblies I've seen 

Undoubtedly, you can find some brighter leds, but that's fantastic looking.

[CoryBee]

Holy snap, good work on this, I really like that idea for a coffee table arcade. I though of one before but this takes the cake! 

[Santoro]

Damn that's clever!

[RetroRik]

Hi EightBySix.

Always liked the arcade in a table idea. I was looking at doing this myself until i talked myself out of it.

Why not do what i was going to do. ( if its not too late.? )

As you pull out the control panel, the glass covered screen angles towards you 30 degrees giving you a more natural viewing position.

You won't need to lean so far forward then.

Im sure a simple modified pulley/gear setup inside could achieve this. With your motor  it can all happen at a push of a button at the same time.  

Lovely work so far mate.

RIK

[Player 3]

Excuse me as a I retrieve my jaw from somewhere. Must've dropped it after seeing the LED matrix working.

[P-chan]

Really outstanding.  The LEDs, the moving table top, everything looks great.

Honestly, I wouldn't spend another second on noise reduction, believe me, the noise will be drowned out by people OOhing and AAHing over the screen and LEDs.

[Mental]

Really impressed by your woodworking skill. Can't wait to see how this turns out!

As far as controls go, I always thought the drawer mechanism for the Surface Tension table was pretty slick...

[EightBySix]

Thanks for the nice comments, it's good to think that there are other people out there following along.

As far as controls go, I always thought the drawer mechanism for the Surface Tension table was pretty slick...

Isn't it just! I studied it for a while actually when designing mine (shhh! - dont tell, I want to keep them sweet because I might be buying myself some of their coasters when I'm done). I couldnt use that kind of mechanism though because I set myself the design goal of keeping it as traditional as I could, and that type of drawer needs to be quite deep. Looks good on their table, but wouldnt fit mine.

Why not do what i was going to do. ( if its not too late.? )
As you pull out the control panel, the glass covered screen angles towards you 30 degrees giving you a more natural viewing position.

Good idea. Reminds me of some pop-up tables I saw like this. I'm wanting to keep as close as I can to a  classic cocktail though, with 2 players opposite each other.

I'm plodding on with the LEDs at the moment. It was no coincidence that the display said 'Test' 3 times. I've discovered that I need to write code to select each board in turn as the pixels overflow from one display to the next. I'm also writing code to have a proportional font. There are loads of these displays that use 8x8 fonts, or 8x5, but each letter takes up the same number of columns (I've been studying train departure boards, and shop signs like some sort of obsessive crazy person). I want an 'i' for example to be narrower. Makes better use of the limited space, and reads better imo.

If I get some shed time, I'll try and make a prototype CP drawer from cheaper wood (norm style  ). I've had enough of the sketchup procrastination and I think it will be better to man up and try out some ideas.

[Ond]

This is coming along very nicely, the LED display looks great with that veneer, I'll be getting some "shed time" this weekend so you better get busy fella!

[EightBySix]

Hmmm interesting. It's all in the timing. Announcing an update when Ond has progress to report is like arranging a picnic on superbowl sunday.
 

[EightBySix]

Bingo!

After much fiddling with wires and pouring over data sheets, I got each display to work independantly, and sorted the code to flow pixels from one display to the next


Also - check out the proportional font 

[AlienInferno]

I like that.  Looks really good.  Makes me want to make something electronical.  Hmmm.  What to make?  What to make?

[emphatic]

That stuff's the bomb! 

[EightBySix]

I've been busy thinking how the CP is going to work and decided to build a prototype in cheaper wood, to iron out any kinks before I commit to a design.

Picked up a 'cup pull' from a local ironmongers for £2.95. It was a good find - they are solid brass - the others I've seen cost more for brass plating. I like the traditional look of these, and they force you to hold the drawer in a way that supports it when it folds down.

Heres a pic with the drawer


And here is a pic with the drawer removed to show the internal support.

The back piece supports the drawer inside the table and is attached to the drawer via a continuous hinge. I'll be using a different type of hinge in the actual design, that will support it along the edges, leaving the top of the CP free so I can make it modular later.

This is how it looks folded out. It wont stay there by itself because I haven't built any drawer runners, but I secured it with a drawing pin and it was really solid. I'm relieved about that because its could have been wobbly which would have ruined the whole concept.


Here's another pic, with me messing about with player start buttons. They'll need to be set back a little to avoid hitting them with knuckles. Ultimately, I want  P1 & P2 to be capacitive buttons under the table glass - but thats a way off yet.


Oh and before you say anything - I know the stick and buttons are the wrong way around 
Thats the whole point of a prototype 

[Nephasth]

Bump for progress?

[EightBySix]

thanks for checking in... You're right, it has been a while.

When work is busy it can sap the creativity from you, don't you think?

Bits and bobs of progress, not much that's pic worthy though. I got some 6mm acrylic for the top and attached drawer slides to the top so it moves smoothly. Been concentrating on the drawer runners for the cp. I'm now busy putting off the dovetails for the cp front. 

I'm also trying to figure out what to do with the base of the table. I want to permanently fix it, to make a good sounding board for the surface inducing speakers, but then I'll have poor access to the internals. Currently trying out industrial Velcro on the top, so it's removable.

[drventure]

Nice. So the flat slab in back is what you'll have mounted to rails?

I like it! At first, I was wondering how you'd get the clearance to tilt it out, but that makesmuch more sense now.

The only other ? I have is how will you be routing the wiring? I don't see any obvious way to handle it. Just an exposed cable out the top of the CP? Surely not.

[PL1]

I'm also trying to figure out what to do with the base of the table. I want to permanently fix it, to make a good sounding board for the surface inducing speakers, but then I'll have poor access to the internals.

Would L-brackets and clip-on nutplates work?



Bottom view




Scott

[EightBySix]

Would L-brackets and clip-on nutplates

Yes, I think that would work well. You also reminded me that I shouldn't permanently fix the bottom to avoid cracks due to the wood shrinking and expanding!

[EightBySix]

So I've been putting this off for ages. 

I'm getting to the end of the wood I bought and a mistake might be costly.

After a few practice attempts on scrap I bit the bullet and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Here's some pics

First - I learned that its important to get the pieces all square and matched up, mainly so the marking up is accurate. Best way to do that is a plane and shooting board


All done


Measuring up and making the lines to cut to


Cutting the pins


Pins done. Did these angles by eye more or less. I think it adds to the hand made element if they are not perfect, factory looking joints.


Cutting the tails


Tails done


Fits nicely 


Repeated on the other side. Had a small breakout on one of the pins, but turned it around so it will be on the inside and no one will ever know 

Glad to have got this done. I wanted to fit the internals around the drawer rather than vice-versa, so I can make better progress now. I'll post soon with the internal construction and support for the monitor etc.

[drventure]

Nice job with the dovetails!

[emphatic]

Amazing!

[EightBySix]

Now I got the hard bit done with the CP, I can start to assemble the inside of the table.

Here is an animation of the process.

[drventure]

Nice animation.

That's going to be a sweet table.

[Yvan256]

Very nice progress on your arcade coffee table! 

Have you thought about using the LED display for pinball games? It's probably not high-resolution enough, I'm just throwing the idea out there.

[EightBySix]

Have you thought about using the LED display for pinball games? It's probably not high-resolution enough, I'm just throwing the idea out there.

That's an interesting idea - I suspect the computer I'm putting inside wont have the legs for pinball though.

I did think it might be cool to draw a chess board on the screen, and use real pieces on it, using the LED to display the computer's moves....

All stuff for Phase II 

[Arturius]

Just read the whole thread, awesome work you have done there mate! - Cant let SWMBO see this or I will loose planning permission for the upright I want to build!

[EightBySix]

Cant let SWMBO see this or I will loose planning permission for the upright I want to build!

Yes, the Wife acceptance factor was a big design consideration 

Thanks for reading... I've got some more updates to post this weekend

[EightBySix]

Spent some time on the CP today. The prototype had a piano hinge along the entire length. Can't do that on the real thing as I want the top to be free, so I can swap it out for different configurations (I have a thing for robotron).

Spent ages looking for some brass backflap hinges (shorter along the hinged side) to give the CP good support.

Spent £25 on 4 of these 


Then very carefully chopped out a recess for them


Fitted the hinges and then attached the part that slides along the bottom drawer runner. This shows the CP drawer upside down. The batons stop the drawer when its being pulled out at the right place to fold down. The brass catch stops it from lifting off the bottom drawer runner


The removable top panel fits on like this


Finished


Been asked a couple of times how the wiring will work. I use a 6mm piece of ply on the back piece of the assembly, and rebated a thin channel:


I then thread some ribbon cable through it to hook up to the controls. More wires than I need, but thought I would have some 'reserved for future use


Time to start wiring up...

[emphatic]

Awesome! 

[EightBySix]

I've given myself a deadline to try and finish this by Christmas. Now most of the woodworking is done, I can progress this in the house, so its not so disruptive to family time.
I decided to buy myself an iPac. I originally wanted to make one, but I'd rather just get moving on the build.

So whilst I was wating for delivery, I had time to put a base into the table - just 6mm oak veneered ply. The idea of that is to act as a decent surface for my 'transducer' speakers.

But now there is a base I can start filling it up with the internals, so progress has jumped ahead. Couldnt resist a little trial wire up to see how it comes together, and I'm really pleased. The screen is lovely and bright at this viewing angle angle, and the controls are just right for the hight they are used whilst sitting on a sofa.

Here are some pics of me having a go putting it together before the components settle into their final places.

Testing the iPac


Testing the monitor after it has been bumped around and in and out of a cold damp shed. Still works - phew!


Putting things back together to see how it will look


Still far from ready - but I had a chance to play it, such a good feeling after all the preparation!

[rablack97]

 

[Drnick]

That looks beautiful. A solid fully functional table that converts into arcade goodness.    Is the round mark on the left hand panel in the wood itself?  It looks like a paint can or something was stood on it.

[EightBySix]

Its a watermark from the bottom of a plate. Fairly superficial. I'm hoping it will dissappear when the table is sanded / varnished

[TopJimmyCooks]

Use the watermark removal product on it before you sand and finish or it will ghost through - ask how I know . . . . .

[EightBySix]

What watermark removal product? And..... How do you know? 

[GibsonRiddler]

One way to remove white water stains from wood is to use a hot iron on a smoothly-textured, lint-free cloth placed over the stain, iron very briefly (seconds), lift the cloth, and repeat until stain is gone.

[dextercf]

This here has GOT to win an award for build 2012. Atleast for the incredible woodwork and WAF!

[TopJimmyCooks]

I can't remember the product and I expect it would be different (US v/s UK) but I bought it in a home improvement store and it was specifically for pulling out the white material (salts?) that make the stain. 

I had previously done a tabletop that got some water marks on it, sanded and planed about a 1/16" off the top, thought I was ok, but I could still (barely) detect the drip marks after stain and poly. 

I've heard versions of the iron trick too-  I would check on some of the WW forums and see what the old timers recommend.  It's a wonderful project, I would hate to see it diminished by a fixable issue. 

[EightBySix]

I wasn't too worried about it, as I've yet to sand it down, but you guys have got me worried 

I've had a dig around some of my old haunt woodworking forums, and various  suggestions exist, from the iron and paper/cloth method, to pouring meths on it and setting it alight! I think my issue will be that the top panels are veneered mdf, so there isn't much to sand away. I think I'll recreate the problem on a piece of scrap and see if I an get it off that first.

On a better note, it was thoroughly play tested this weekend. It was my daughters birthday and we had family round. The fold down cp withstood 8yr olds and their high styling joystick flourishes after clearing levels on pac man. ( but I keep their coke glasses off it now, until I have finished the top at least  )

[dextercf]

Coke stains, pun intended! 😜

[rCadeGaming]

Wow, just read through this after talking to you in that other thread.  Amazing.

This one of the most interesting cabs I've seen in quite a while.  I like the little custom details like the coin mech and the LED's and the motorized table pieces.  Amazingly, it looks super practical too; and of course the woodwork is outstanding, looked forward to seeing it finished.

I'll be looking for you on the BYOAC awards ballot.

[EightBySix]

thank you for reading! Thanks also for the electronics advice. This forum is great, we have such a breadth of knowledge between us.

[EightBySix]

Good news - I got the water mark out. Got a piece of scrap and reproduced the mark on it. I managed to remove it with careful sanding. Have to be careful though - i suspect the veneer on the mdf as as thin as it possibly can be.

Repeated the process on the table top and it came out really nicely:


While I was there, I took the sharp corners and edges off - it suddenly feels nice to the touch and looks less factory fresh. I'm also mindful that I need to get a move on protecting the surface to avoid any more staining - it'll need to be sanded and prepared first.

Also - now I'm getting some 'testing' time in, the loud clicking of the buttons, amplified by the wooden box they are in, was starting to annoy me. I like buttons that have a click so I dont want to swap them out. I bought some acoustic foam whilst I was building the motor mechanism, and happened to buy extra whilst I was at it - so I cut some up to fit the cavity in the drawer.

Like this:


It's normally hidden with a piece of veneered ply:


It makes a huge difference! There is still an obvious click, but sounds muted - it gives the impression of a much better quality build - like the  difference in a car door between an expensive and cheap car - if that makes any sense at all 

Not cheap for what it is - but highly recommended.

[rCadeGaming]

Nice on the stain.

That's a JLF you're using right?  (Nice choice btw).  I think you can get some quieter microswitches than the stock ones to swap in pretty easily.  Probably the same with the buttons.

Also I noticed you've got the stick mounted pretty low in the panel, have you tried it a little higher?.  24mm from the top of the panel to the bottom of the ball is standard.  I figured that was your preference, or you need it clear something when folding away the panel, but I thought I'd ask.

[EightBySix]

Good spot - it is a JLF. The height was a trade off. I have limited vertical space for it - To mount it any higher I would have had to make the table base deeper to avoid rubbing my knuckles on the wood above. As it happens I tend to play with my finger tips anyway, so it's all good.

I think I'm happy with the microswitch sound levels now - I quite like the noise, but it's more 'classy' now 

[EightBySix]

Whilst I'm sanding parts and wating for various layers of oil to cure, my mind has turned to the admin buttons.

I'm aiming to embed capacative touch buttons below the veneer and acrylic top - in the bezel. This obviously wont work for buttons used during play, for the same reason iMame sucks without a proper controller.

For infrequently used buttons though, it should be a nice convenient way of accessing functions without cluttering up the control panel.

The idea is to have a grid of metal areas to represent the buttons, with some sort of visual but non functional panel on top.

The metal functions as a capacitor, that is charged/discharged frequently and the average charge time is measured. When your finger is nearby - it changes the capacitance and therefore the charge time, which is detected and counts as a button press.

Thats the concept. In practice, I'll be ordering a microcontroller this weekend (probably in the PIC 18 family) that has a CTMU (charge time measurement unit) built in.

The metal plates will be either an etched pcb, and the button images above could be marquetry icons in the veneer, or possibly I could etch some brass (laser cut would be nice - but cant find anwhere that would be cheap enough) in the shape of the icons and put them on top of the veneer, but under the acrylic top.

With a bit of coding on the microcontroller, I should be able to get a button press to send a signal to the iPac to represent a keypress.

I'd like to incorporate some feedback if possible. I've already ordered a small electro luminescent sheet to see if it will show through the veneer in the same way I did the LED matrix, so the button could light up on a press. Not sure if it would introduce electrical noise and screw up the capacitance etc though. I'll have a play and see. Alternatively, I could embed one of the tiny vibrator motors like those in phones.

Trying to post my thoughts in detail (and any progress I make) - in case any of you guys with CP art could make use of the idea - some kind of subtle indication on the image to indicate the button location might be fun to try and incorporate. If it's on the CP you would have to have some kind of shifted setup though I guess.

[CoryBee]

I like this idea and will keep a close eye on this part of your build. I have messed with building simple touch circuits before. If you go that route many props to you, but here are two things you might want to take a look at.

The "Makey Makey" - http://www.makeymakey.com/

They are about $30 - $40 bucks though

Or a super cheap one made from a simple 555 timer - Touch Sensitive OnOff Using 555 timer

By the way I absolutely love this design
 

[Kaytrim]

I am just getting back into the scene and spotted your build.  I have to say I love your taste in tools and woodworking.  Those half blind dovetails were very well done for a first timer.  The LED Matrix is a stroke of genius and I like the other touches you have developed along the way.  Keep it up, you are in the home stretch. 

Kaytrim

[EightBySix]

So much for my Christmas deadline! 

I've fitted in a bit of shed time here and there, so thought it was about time I recorded some progress

Power connector


I got this connector and shaved off the flanges on the edge to make it look a bit more discreet.


I went too far though and it became too small for the gap!
I had to revert back to plan a to cover my mistake. 

Coin-o-matic 3000

I re-did the softwood prototype of the coin counter I made, this time more compact and made of oak. Works a treat although the entry slot isnt big enough for a 50p coin (the biggest) but that's just a bit of filing.

I made a brass slot cover with a dremmel and some needle files. Turned out OK, but tarnished quickly. I painted it with some clear nail varnish but that went off before I could finish painting it. I tried thinning it with some nail varnish remover, but I think that must have some skin friendly additives in it that made the mix lumpy. I wonder if acetone is the thing to use? Anyone?

Boot PC on drawer opening.
This was an epic cockup. I sucessfully wired up an external connection to the power button. So far so good

I made a little brass contact that pressed a microswitch as the drawer slides past, which worked to a point, but it was possible to open the drawer too quickly.

The switch has to be closed for around half a second for it to boot.
So I thought why not have a bit of delay code in the microcontroller that I use for the Coin-O-Matic, with a relay to close the PC switch wire briefly.

All went well, until I realised that the circuit uses the same power/ground as the keyboard encoder, which - wait for it - is only powered on when the PC boots! Doh!

I then decided to use a seperately powered circuit, using a 555 timer and the relay. It was when I was getting my head round the fact that I needed the indefinate 'pulse' of the drawer contact opening to produce a brief output pulse to fire the switch that a thought occured to me.
I went to the PC, pressed the power button and held it. It booted without powering back down after a few seconds as I had assumed it would.

So after all that - I now have a microswitch as a drawer stop, with the PC power switch wired to the normally closed contact. Works a treat and much more simple.

Still - at least I've learned lots of new stuff


With the new microcontroller I bought, I now have more space to hold font bitmaps, so I'm going to double duty the coin-o-matic with the display of the LED data, so thats what I'm working on now. Initially as feedback for the coins inserted, and later as a 'front end' to choose games etc.

[DaOld Man]

Nice work.
All this talk about switches has me interested.

[EightBySix]

Some more progress to report - I *will* finish this thing!

I got around to making the player 2 control panel, and I also took the opportunity to re-do the original. After having had some play time, I realised I didn't want 3 buttons, and the curved layout from slagcoin didnt seem to be needed for 2, so I did them both for 2 buttons and added player 1 & 2 start too, now I had the room.

Here is a picture of them both installed, from above, to show how they both slide in under the monitor.



The black dust washers came with the joystics, and don't look right. I had a go at making some out of wood by partially drilling a hole:



And then taking slices from it:


Trouble is, it looks like crap:


So I'll shop for some white ones to match the buttons. I did consider brass to match the drawer handles, but I think it would look odd.

Now I had my final button setup finished it was time to figure out the capacitive admin buttons - and I DID IT! - I'll post some stuff up about it tomorrow, with a couple of vids.

(by the way - my 3 year old asked me why I had put 'toilet buttons' on. Took me a while to work out she was referring to the sign you get on the door of the gents toilet! Now that's all I see when I look at them  )

[emphatic]

You should get transparent washers, they blend in well and you won't need to colour match.   

[Yvan256]

You should get transparent washers, they blend in well and you won't need to colour match.   

I second the idea. Transparent washers won't detract from the "wooden furniture" look, it would probably also look better than white washers.

[drventure]

I saw "brass" and my ears perked up.  I'd say transparent would look good, but I'm a sucker for brass.

There are some VERY nice brass examples of "knob backplates" on various hardware sites that might work very well too.

black plastic mounted "underneath" would also look very clean

[Yvan256]

Black plastic mounted "underneath" would also look very clean.

Ok I take back what I said and I'm changing my vote to "black washers mounted underneath".

[Nephasth]

Black plastic mounted "underneath" would also look very clean.

Ok I take back what I said and I'm changing my vote to "black washers mounted underneath".

+1... and a little light!

[EightBySix]

Black plastic mounted "underneath" would also look very clean.

Ok I take back what I said and I'm changing my vote to "black washers mounted underneath".

+1... and a little light!

Trouble with that is the thickness of the wood the joystick is mounted on, it would just be a hole in the wood with a dust washer at the bottom. I cant recess the joystick because of knuckle space above.  I'll try white and brass and see how I feel about it.

Little light? I might have a strip of electro luminescent film in the drawer hole to light up the control panel area, but I think that's as far as the bling will go. I did put an led underneath the drawer handles, to give a clue you were supposed to open the drawer when its switched on, but you couldn't really see it. I think it was because there was nothing to shine onto.

Anyway - onto the update. I got a test circuit working with touch areas below the acrylic and took a video. I needed to do this to make sure the electrical noise from the monitor/speakers/etc didn't interfere with it.

Here is a video of it working:

I realised later that iPaq signals need to go low to register a key press  and I'll have to prevent multitouch, which will cause all sorts of issues.

Next I had to decide how to indicate where the touch areas were under the bezel. Two trains of thought here:

• Darker coloured wood icons
• Cut through the veneer to reveal the brass touch pad below

I saw "brass" and my ears perked up.

(this one's for you Doc!  )

Here is a picture of both options:


I think I'm going to go with the brass, but as that's a one way decision I did a mockup of the buttons in darker wood, to play around with the layout. Here is what I'm thinking (sorry about the reflections):


The icons are (from the bottom) Pause/Unpause, Volume on/off, The slider moves the volume up and down, or you'll be able to use the joystick, and exit to menu where you can zip through the list of games with the slider, or use the joystick.

Does that sound logical? Any alternative icon/layout ideas? They have to  be simple enough to cut out easily.

So to implement the touch pads, I made this:


The 'leg' goes through a hole drilled in the bezel to connect to the touch circuit below the monitor.

Here is a vid of it working - just the pause button so far.



The sensitivity needs to be turned down a bit, which is a parameter tweak in the firmware. It's actually quite cool as at the moment you dont actually have to touch it. You can pause the game by just passing your hand over it. Not so useful when the other buttons (exit!) are implemented though 

[Le Chuck]

That's sic man, love the touch.  Gotta do the brass, supa sharp!

[drventure]

That brass looks awesome, but the dark inlay is pretty damn nice too.

I'll throw another idea on your fire.

Etch the symbols into the glass. Use that liquid etch or sandblast technique.

Then, no mods to your wood at all, you just press the etched areas.

Finally, etch it on the BOTTOM of the glass and the top stays completely smooth for your cleaning pleasure!

[EightBySix]

That brass looks awesome, but the dark inlay is pretty damn nice too.

I'll throw another idea on your fire.

Etch the symbols into the glass. Use that liquid etch or sandblast technique.

Then, no mods to your wood at all, you just press the etched areas.

Finally, etch it on the BOTTOM of the glass and the top stays completely smooth for your cleaning pleasure!

I had a go at that. It gives the option of side lighting it too. I masked off an image on a piece of scrap plastic and went at it with sandpaper. The results werent fantastic... I'll look out for that liquid etch on google. I'm also looking at laser etching the veneer which could give me the option of quite fine detal or text like this

[SnaXen]

Very nice!!! 
I love it!   

 

[Rick]

As it would seem that with my own return to building my cab, I am also revisiting all of the cabinets that were in progress when I first left. As such, I have only HOLY CRAP!!! to offer. This is quite amazing, and looks better every new update!!!

[EightBySix]

Thanks for the nice words Rick  although they are a reminder of how long this is taking!

There are some updates, but they are under the hood at the moment...

Just got back from hols, and took my netbook for reading. Learned all about makefiles, c compilation, linking, etc and  downloaded the MAME 0.36 source (being on a data plan in another country focusses the mind) and finally managed to get myself a DOS compiled no-nag version using DOSBOX.

I'm also tweaking it to run the last played game if no parameters are supplied (I have a batch file hack to do that currently) so that it boots straight into a game (I dont have a front end - I have a back end.... you exit mame to choose a new game, which then become the default start up) and also to output to the serial port for displaying info on the LED matrix.

[nordemoniac]

I love this project!

I work in IT myself, and agree on the usage of hand tools etc. It's so nice for a difference to actually "see" what you are making.
However though, I don't have the time, and I have a huge table saw available at work, so for me it's power all the way.

I admire your sense of detail throughout the project, it really looks nice. I would have skipped the handles on the controllers, and rather have them automated like you did with the screen.

Can't wait to see your updates!

The touch-buttons is awesome. Please add some details on how they actually work. I'm thinking of doing something similar at work.

[EightBySix]

Cars have red lights at the back because that colour is more visible through spray and fog. I thought if I swapped green LEDs for red, they might shine through better. The LEDs that arrived seemed brighter than the old ones in the first place and they shine straight through the veneer, even when its not sanded thin. So that problem is solved, and I have some spare LEDs for another project one day.

Here's a video of me testing them out - check out the shine from the lights on the table:


Next I had to get them working so that I can send any string to be displayed. It turns out the chip I had cant address enough memory in one chunk to hold the font data, so I got the next model up. It's taken me forever to get it working, but I'm in a better place with it now. I can even program it whilst its still in the circuit, so I can write new firmware without taking the chip out, which is saving loads of time.



I needed to build a new circuit board. Seperate ones to manage the coin detector, the LEDs and the other stuff coing on was getting crowded, so I decided to put it all on one chip, on one board.

Heres the old one


And heres the new


It currently controls the coin detector, joystick inputs for menu selections, the outputs from the cap touch sensor and in the near future, a motor driver and RS232 port for comms with the PC.

I have to have the cap touch sensor code on a seperate chip because it has to be close to the sensor buttons.

The touch-buttons is awesome. Please add some details on how they actually work. I'm thinking of doing something similar at work.

Here is the chip that detects capacitance changes. The connectors to the left connect to the sensors (previous post) and the wires on the right go to the iPac (or in my case, another chip)

It works by measuring the time it takes to charge and discharge any capacitors (the hidden 'buttons') connected. When your finger gets near, you become part of the capacitor and that alters the charge time. It can have around 16 channels - but I only need 4: Pause, volume, exit and one more for 'future use'. They send a pulse which I pass to the main controller. It needs some tuning up, it's very sensitive to the size of the sensor and the length of the wires. PM me if you want the details, or I'll maybe start a seperate thread if anyone wants to make their own.

The pause and exit could have been connected directly to the iPac, but I wanted to intercept them to display some feedback to the user.

When you press pause - I display 'Paused' on the LEDs until you press it again.
When you press exit, it displays a countdown from 3 - you have to hold it so I avoid any accidental touches. On zero I send an exit keypress to the iPac which returns you back to choose another game.

Volume control is done by moving left and right on the joystick. It does nothing at the moment - I need a digital potentiometer to hook up to the existing manual control on the amplifier.

Here is a video of those controls in action.


The fade in/out took a while to work out, but I think it adds to the effect. The LEDs have 16 levels of brightness, and the lowest is just visible, so it looks like the image fades into the wood.
 
Almost there now. I'm going to move onto the motorised top next...
 

[markc74]

 

Amazing. That's it.

[emphatic]

OMG, that's frickin' cool! 

[drventure]

OMG, that's frickin' cool! 

Second that sentiment. Nicely done! 

[TopJimmyCooks]

Much respect.
 

[blueznl]

 

 

I just love that invisible dot matrix, incredible!

[ppv]

My shoes are soaked from all the drool on the floor. Very very well done sir!

[yotsuya]

Are you sure that's drool?

[Rick]

Amazing work. A-MAZING WORK.

[ppv]

Are you sure that's drool?

Well since  I am wearing a diap, errrr, Look! A duck!

[EightBySix]

Due to lots of counterfeit £1 coins here in the UK, they are designing a new one. I was annoyed because I might have to redesign my coin mech. Then I read that the new coin is due 2017, a long way off - but with current progress - who knows....

I had lots of holidays over Xmas and was hoping to get time to finish it. Ended up busier than expected and the free time didn't materialize. The work I did manage to get done was on my main circuit board - trying to add in the motor driver. Somehow I managed to screw it up - there is a short circuit on it somewhere and what with having packed it away over Xmas - I haven't found the determination to get back in the saddle.

So this is really a post to say I'm still here, and to kick myself into action. Lets see if I get done before I have to design for that new coin 

[drventure]

I SOOOO want to restore an old radio cab and embed leds like that all up and down the sides, sort of like an old style rockola jukebox, but where the side column lights are completely invisible (until they're not)!

Very nicely done! 

[AlienInferno]

Really glad you bumped your own thread.  Other then it being a very nice looking build I am planning to build a small bar to go in the corner of (what I hope to be) my game room/man cave.  Planning it to have a LED lit top that's interactive with people as well as the ability to play generic 8-bit type animations.  I was thinking your inlay controls would be great for it but your LED under the wood might work as well.  Lots of things to think about.

[jongunz]

Wow... All I can say.   

[rockyrocket]

Wow... All I can say.   

I agree, and how the hell did I miss this build?.

[EightBySix]

Probably because of the lack of progress since November 

I've been thinking about a way to fix my screwed up circuit board, and decide to cit off the new bit I was working on. This should help me diagnose where the short circuit is. I'm also thinking I should really keep the motor circuitry on a different board anyway, due to back emf and the 12V required etc.

So next task it to get the knife out and snap off the problem bit.

On a side note, I  came across a shop recently that 'engraves' wood with a laser, for personalised wine boxes and such. They said they would be able to cut oak veneer if I could supply a pattern in Corel Draw, which I happen to use at work. I think I'll get a more professional bezel done with the remaining veneer I have. Should also be able to get the cutouts  for the capacitive buttons done too, to let the brass show through.

No need to sand it thinner with my 'new' LED matrix either, they are bright enough without and gives a more diffused look.

[EightBySix]

I took the plunge and cut off the motor circuit. No luck, the shot circuit is still there, or at least I get no resistance between + and - which seems like a bad thing.



No difference! I must have screwed something else up.

So I'm asking for help. How would you go about tracking this down? Any tips?

[PL1]

Got pics of the underside and a schematic?


Scott

[nordemoniac]

Hey! Come back!
What happened?

[EightBySix]

Still here 

Got pics of the underside and a schematic?
Scott

When I was at university, we did a coding project to create a phone book database app, using Pascal and linked lists would you believe. The kicker was that when we had finished, part B* was to swap code with someone else and add a field.

The lesson was that it's really hard to modify code unless it's well documented and structured. I hit that problem with my circuit and code. Because I was learning as I went, and it started off simple enough to keep it all in my head, that sort of thing went by the wayside. When I came back to it months later - I cant remember what was where, and why.

So no - I don't have a schematic, but that's got to be the way forward. I'll make one and either etch or get a PCB printed and continue where I left off.

The shed project has taken my free time too, but at least I'll now have a better setup for projects, rather than making a mess in the house. The table actually helped with the shed too - a place to paint and glaze the windows - with suitable protection of course 

*(by the way - my code project used a config file to describe the fields - the next guy had an easy time of part B  )