Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: laggerific on May 24, 2010, 03:34:47 am
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I am working on an MDF/Plexi control panel that I've built in sketchup. Any thoughts on if I can easily turn that into a printable template to scale? How would you all recommend printing something up that I could lay my plexiglass over to make my initial holes? I'm wondering if Kinkos could do that, and if it's economical enough to replace measuring out manually on the wood. Plus, I could see how it looks in person to scale, as well.
Also, to clarify, this is a 4'x1'9" control panel, and am pondering if I should just print it out on normal paper and tape it together or something. But, I want to make a couple of copies for various reasons in my prep process.
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I have never used sketchup but did mine in visio and Kinko's was able to print it up for me. I don't remember the cost but I don't think is was too much
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Find a place with an image setter that can do you a positive film ie your holes print black and the rest is transparent. The just lay it on top of your mdf, tape down and drill away!
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I did it on the cheap and just printed it on many pages, 9 I think, on my own printer and taped them together. Some programs have good multipage print functions.
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I just did this last night. I made my cp overlay in Illustrator. In Illustrator, you can print multiple pages for a large image. Click Setup and under Tiling select, "Tile Full Pages."
You can choose an overlap amount so when you tile the pages after they are printed, it doesn't crop any of the image off.
Like syph007, I just taped it down directly on the mdf. Haven't drilled it yet, but it's definitely the cheapest option and you can print multiple copies without it breaking the bank.
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Good news! You can do it directly from Sketchup!
I printed a template for a two player CP with it. No need to tape a lot of loose pages together.
It's pretty difficult to get them straight. Just print each player's controls separately and leave all the
empty space out. I knew that the joystick hole for player one was 6 cm from the left side of the CP so
I drew a vertical guide line in Sketchup through the hole. The top buttons for the same player are 5 cm from the top.
So a horizontal guideline was drawn through them. Then after printing I lined the two guidelines up with pencil marks
that were the appropriate distance from the side and top of the CP.
Do this for all players and tape the templates to the CP then hammer a small hole with a nail all the places you want to drill later.
Remove the paper and then drill.
BTW. Here's how to print to scale in Sketchup:
http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36227 (http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36227)
Good luck!